By Jade Angelo Gascon
Executive Assistant, On Eagle’s Wings Foundation
Intercession is the last thing I would imagine myself writing about.
Prayer’s fine with me. You know, asking providence for today’s breakfast, lunch, and supper; for courage when deadlines draw nigh; for supernatural strength in times of siesta while I’m at work; and for many other needs critical to my growth and survival as a human being.
Interceding for other people (or creatures) is not easy.
But intercessory prayer has always been something too hard for me to act upon and, honestly, to believe in.
For starters, intercessory prayer (or intercession) is a kind of prayer in which one continuously lifts up the lives (the needs and predicaments) of other people to God. It involves pleading on behalf of others, for others.
It’s hard to do. My family and I have enough trouble to consume much of my precious prayer time already. So why bother praying for a classmate who is heartbroken or a workmate who doesn’t know Christ yet?
It’s also hard to believe in. If God were sovereign, what’s the sense of continuously praying for people? Can’t I just pray once for them, and rest assured that God has it on record already?
At the 20th National Prayer Gathering (NPG) of the Intercessors For the Philippines (IFP) in Cebu on Nov. 17 to 19, all my antiquated misconceptions about intercessory prayer were phased out.
I learned that God calls every Christian to be an intercessor. Peter describes us as a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). He alludes here to the role of priests as those who present prayers, thanksgiving and praise to God on behalf of people. Thus, praying for needs that are beyond one’s own benefit should be a habit every Christian must desire to develop as “royal priests.”
An Israelite high priest intercedes to God on behalf of the people
This intercessory duty cannot be performed by hearts that are not transformed. It’s easy to be compelled to pray for friends and family because they are people we care for. But interceding for strangers, enemies, and nations requires compassion of epic proportions.
Indian preacher Sadhu Sundar Selvaraj stressed during the NPG that the key element for intercession is a heart of compassion. Christians will always find excuses to not find time to intercede if there’s no single trace of compassion in their hearts that motivates them to intercede.
Compassion drives the believer’s heart to sacrifice time in prayer for people and nations in need. It fuels our spirit to de-emphasize self-benefitting prayers (these are not unnecessary, though), and move into a prayer attitude that spends more time on other’s needs. Selvaraj also pointed out that, “The act of intercession is the act of meeting with God by falling before him for pleading on behalf of another… You can’t stop praying until the burden is lifted from you.”
The only way to have this kind of compassion that leads to intercession is to sync our heartbeat with God’s. And His heartbeat echoes loudly throughout the Bible. It resonates with Good News to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind and freedom to the oppressed (Luke 4:18). This is Jesus’ anointing. This is the character of intercessory prayer. Centrifugal. Sympathetic. Salvational.
I can’t believe I’ve just written about intercession.
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