Intercession

We tend to think that if God wants us to have something he will give it, yet the Word says we have not in some cases because we ask not.  How often is it that there is more we would enter into of our calling if we had a revelation of intercession.

EMBRACING WHAT MEN CALL FOOLISH

Intercession means embracing what men call foolish and what men call weak. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, “God has chosen the foolish things” —now you need to add the phrase to get his meaning, “The so- called foolish things.” They’re not foolish in reality or to Paul in context, and they’re not foolish to God. They are foolish in the esteem of men. He has called the foolish things to put to shame the wise.

He has called the weak things. They aren’t really weak; from God’s point of view, they are wise, and that is where His power releases. The weak and the foolish things are humility, fasting, prayer, serving, obeying, giving, telling God what He tells us to tell Him, and agreeing with who God is. Declaring those simple things and agreeing with God is what releases power into the created order.

“God has chosen” —  the so-called foolish things, like prayer, fasting, obedience, and meekness, and these kinds of things He has chosen utterly to put to shame the world system.

It’s like Paul was telling them, “Guys, don’t be tripped up by the apparent weakness of fasting and prayer. It’s not weak before God.”

We offer our prayers in weakness, but because of who Jesus is, and who the Father is, our prayers ascend before the Father in strength and in power. They live forever. I don’t know if it’s forever, but it’s for a really, really long time, enough to where the prayers from history are still in the bowl around the throne.

I don’t know how long they live, but they live for a really long time.

“MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU”

Jesus is speaking to Paul the apostle, and He tells Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you,” because “My strength” —or “My power,” one translation says—“is made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

What an interesting verse. Jesus is speaking directly to Paul, face to face. Paul is complaining about the thorn in the flesh. Three times he says, “Lord, take it and move it, this messenger of Satan.”

The Lord stands in front of him. “Paul…” “Yes, finally! The thorn!”
“No, no, I’m not taking it away.”
“What, what are You doing here?”

“I am here to give you revelation. I want you to know, Paul, that in weakness” —this isn’t moral weakness He’s talking about; how if we sin more, the power of God is in us to free us from sin. That’s not the context that He’s talking about. I’ve actually heard people read this, and they read it as moral weakness.

THE VOLUNTARY WEAKNESS OF INTERCESSION

No, it’s voluntary weakness, fasting and prayer and enduring persecution instead of fleeing and quitting; voluntarily standing in the place of weakness because of the cause of Christ, and the power of God is perfected in that place.

It is the weakness of 1 Corinthians 1. That’s the kind of weakness he’s talking about. Fasting is weak; prayer is weak; prayer is taking our time and talking to God.

“Come on! I mean, I have better things to do.” The Lord says, “Do you? Do you really?”  Only weak people pray. Only people who see their weakness bother with prayer.

Strong people don’t need to pray because they think it’s going to be OK without prayer. “I want to pray, I went to the prayer conference, I don’t actually do it, I know I’m weak but I’m not weak enough to be desperate enough to change my schedule. I’m not that weak!”

Only really weak people pray enter in. Prayer is weakness because we’re taking our time and our energy and we’re investing it in telling an invisible God what He tells us to tell Him. I mean, how weak is that? We have to believe that God is listening, and that it matters, or we lose heart.

What Jesus told Paul is, “My strength will be perfected and made perfect in you if you stay in this place of voluntary weakness.”

 

THE WISDOM OF INTERCESSION

The very fact that God chose intercession in its weakness and its wisdom, the very fact that He chose it, is a statement that He wants relationship with us. It’s like God says, “OK, here’s the bar. It’s only one inch off the ground. Whoever can get over the one-inch bar makes it.” The bar is so low, it’s so low that everyone can do it, but it’s so low that very few want to do it. It’s called intercession.

God says to all of the human race, “If you want to rule in power with Me, you have to get ready to jump over the bar. It’s one inch.”

“That’s it?” The Lord made the bar so low that everyone can get over it, but it’s so low that almost no one wants it.

He has such a desire to relate to you and me and to share His government with us that He created a way for it to work for everyone. It’s not just for the rich and the famous and the highly-skilled; it’s for everyone if they can groan and say, “Jesus.” If the prisoner can groan and say Jesus, the thing works.

 

INTERNALIZE

Intercession causes us to internalize the Word of God. We say it back to Him millions of times in this age and the age to come. Each time we say what God says, it actually marks our spirit and marks our mind. It marks us.

I compare the process to a computer programmer who’s rewriting lines of code—thousands or millions of lines of code, a team of them. You rewrite a line of code one line at a team. One line of code of your inner man is rewritten every time you say, “You are good; I love You. I am Yours. Move in our city; stop murder; change the laws.”

Every single thing that you say in agreement with Him, thousands and millions of them, is like one line of code being rewritten in your spirit, and it’s marking your inner man, even though you can’t measure it. Like peeling an onion. You can’t see any change when you take one layer off the onion, but it’s truly changing. It marks our spirits. It renews our inner man. We can’t measure it with days or weeks, but over the years the change is profound.

Jesus gave us the key to how this works. He said in John 6, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (Jn. 6:63). In other words, when we speak God’s words, there is an impartation of the Spirit that touches our inner man. That’s not just now, but forever.

 

THE TENDERIZING OF THE SPIRIT

Every time we say what God says, it marks our spirit and renews us and strengthens us and gives us more from God. It’s incremental, but it goes on and on. Our heart is tenderized by it. It tenderizes and internalizes the word and marks your spirit and tenderizes you.

THE WORD ABIDING IN US

Jesus talked about the Word abiding in us. It’s so critical. I know so many believers who don’t have time or interest in the Word. I say, “Oh, I beg you, have time and interest in it. The Word is spirit and life. You don’t have to be a profound theologian. Fill your mind with the Word. Study it, say it back to God, and say it back to people, and say it back to God, and say it to yourself, and it marks your spirit every time you say it.”

THE MULTIPLICATION OF BLESSINGS

Intercession for others multiplies blessings back to you. Did you know that you can never outgive God? If you pray for the spirit of revelation upon the guy on the other end of town, did you know that you and your family will become the recipient of that prayer, and that it will come back on you?

Someone says, “I don’t have any heart to pray for this, that, and the other.”

I say, “I will pray for anyone, for anything, anywhere. I don’t care. You pick the most remote place, and I will agree in prayer with you, because every prayer that you pray, by the law of the kingdom, is returned back on you.”

You can pray for your enemies, and not only will you have a tenderized heart for your enemies, and your enemies might really be touched, but the prayer comes back on your family as well. All of the prayers are multiplied back. When you’re in the prayer room, it doesn’t matter whom you’re praying for—you will never outgive God. The measure that you give in prayer, it will be measured back to you (Lk. 6:38).

INVESTING IN OTHERS’ INHERITANCE THROUGH INTERCESSION

This will make sense if you’ve studied pre-millennial theology but intercession gives us an inheritance in the people and the places we pray for. There are a number of individuals whom I pray for, and I have an inheritance in God’s blessing in them. There are cities and nations I pray, and I’m talking about 500 years from now in the Millennium, and 5,000 years from now in the age to come, I will have an inheritance, and I will have part of a blessing that is personalized in my life that will be dynamically-related to whomever or whatever I labored for in prayer.

It’s an amazing reality. I could prove it in a number of verses where Paul labored for churches, and they will stand together at the second coming in the age to come. There are many passages that make that clear.

The prayers that I’m praying and you’re praying for your city and other cities, and I pray for many other cities, those prayers will be powerful hundreds of years from now.

LEARNING TO RECEIVE FREELY

Intercession positions us to receive freely. We’re not earning anything by intercession. Some people think we’re going to pray, and then we earn. No, there’s no form of earning; we’re simply positioning ourselves to receive.

LEARNING TO HEAR FROM GOD

Intercession positions us to hear from God. Beloved, when we hear from God with power on it, then we are far more prone to obey. There is such a blessing in hearing clearly and then obeying promptly. In the place of prayer we hear clearly and we have energy to obey promptly. That brings us into indescribable blessing in our lives. It comes through prayer as it does in no other way.

 

There is no other activity that brings us into the dynamic of hearing clearly, and then having the motivation to obey promptly.