Identification with God is the key to Intercession
Ephesians 6:18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
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IDENTIFICATION WITH GOD OR SELF?
.. The danger is that [when] we begin to intercede we’re doing it in
sympathy or even in emotions, and at that point God – who answers [only] the prayer of faith sadly has to move back .. we’ve allowed the mind-intellect to get in the way. You no longer are identified with God at that point which is the key to intercession.
Whenever we step back from our identification with God – His interests and His concerns for others .. we step into emotional sympathy and the vital connection .. is hindered .. that is why we can’t break through, that is why we’re not touching God.
.. Intercession is a form of prayer where eventually you touch God, and that is an experience in the Spirit. You become .. identified [with God] when you are being led by the Holy Spirit [so] that you know that you know God has heard .. So our identification with Him should be something that we are experiencing – looking for, believing for, pressing in for.
This is why if you’re a believer you give yourself time before God, [you] can’t always come .. into His presence and switch it on, it doesn’t work that way. Sometimes when we’re moving into intercession we’re waiting on God or we’re inquiring of God. We’re waiting on God to show us how to pray in that situation.
‘Lord, I don’t know how to pray unless you reveal it to me. I don’t know how to pray for this brother or this sister unless you enlighten – unless the Holy Spirit reveals to me your perfect will for that situation or that person or whatever it is.’
We don’t know how to pray, and that’s the humbling fact [for] a believer. So many believers at times come arrogantly into Gods presence [as if] they know how to pray. We don’t know how to pray, the disciples even asked ‘Lord, teach us how to pray’. They were .. beginning to learn that prayer was the key to His ministry. Many believers only pray when they go to church on Sunday – that’s their prayer life, but it’s so much more than that ... Coming into the presence of almighty God in our closet .. we wait on Him .. so that we might be led by the Holy Spirit how to pray the perfect will of God .. we are not always going to get it straight away.
.. We have to put our concerns emotions feelings sympathy .. away because if we don’t – what we think is prayer will in effect [be] rebuking God and saying to Him ‘I know better in this situation how to pray’.. We’ve allowed fear anxiety worry feelings sympathy emotions to get in the way .. That’s why we have to spend time in God’s presence so He deals with us – so that we’re still, we can then begin to hear from God.
‘BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD’
That is what a person who is learning how to pray will do and will cultivate. That stillness, being still before God’s presence and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead and guide, it’s absolutely vital.
It’s impossible .. to intercede unless we are completely sure of God and our preconceived ideas of what we think is right [are] all put to one side. We need to be sure how God is leading us. .. allowing the Holy Spirit to change and deliver the mind.
We know only too well where Satan attacks, he attacks mans mind .. because he doesn’t want why he will try to hold us in fear and anxiety and a carnal discernment .. We need to be very very sensitive .. we’re just telling God ‘I know better that you’.. Sympathy emotions will say
‘I’m coming in prayer and am going to stand in the gap and I’m not going to let that happen to my brother or sister – Lord don’t let them go through that trial – don’t let them believe that’
It’s the flesh getting in the way. So often we need to ask
‘how do I pray for my brother, how do I pray for my sister?’.
.. So often we’re praying with what we see with our eyes or what maybe somebody tells us about somebody else. This is why we need to guard our tongues with each other, because we can so influence a brother or sister by something that we .. gossip so that brother or sister ‘intercede[s]’ about what .. isn’t the will of God. That .. hinders .. brings you out of identification with God. If you don’t check that, if you don’t repent of that and deal with that you’re going to find eventually that you’ll get so fed up and frustrated with prayer that you’ll just not bother any more.
.. Intercession and praying for .. the saints is not about yourself your needs or what you want, .. delivered from anxiety and fear you just know that God will provide. He .. is freeing you up so that you can start to pray for the real things, and above all pray for others.
The sacrifice of intercession – identification with God is praying not for yourself but on behalf of someone else .. pressing in, not bothering about yourself but consumed and concerned about your brother, your sister – their welfare, their stand, their walk with God, that they may be right with God – that is intercession.
True intercession keeps you identified with Gods interests and concerns for others. Again, that’s vital, are you in tune tonight with God – that you know God’s concerns and interests for others and also with those in the Body of Christ? Are you so sensitive to that? Are you attuned to that tonight? We should be, if we’re not this tells us why we’re not going on, why we’re not growing in true unity and oneness and fellowship – because we’re all still consumed in self – my needs, my wants.
This is why He gives us discernment in the lives of others – to intercede. It’s not to find fault with them – to be critical, but He opens our ears and our eyes and hearts – He gives us that discernment so that we can intercede effectively. Most things that God reveals to us in intercessions is a personal thing, and it’s between you and God and very often is not even to be discussed amongst others.
Now there is a place of course in prayer where sometimes one has to agree, but allot of intercession is where God has revealed it to you personally. Why? Because you’re the right person to stand in the gap and intercede. If you start mentioning this to somebody else they will not have that same understanding, sensitivity or praying that you have.
.. When one is praying and interceding we need to watch our confession .. Make sure that when you’re praying for someone – for their healing, deliverance – your confession is lining up .. How can you get up off your knees and start speaking contrary – the opposite to what you have just been praying led and inspired by the Holy Spirit – what a contradiction.
COMING TO THE END OF OURSELVES
.. None of these things will happen unless you ask God to do it in your life. The challenges of our teachings week after week is that we are brought to the end of ourselves where we realisethat it doesn’t lie in us .. it lies in God as we call upon Him to change us and work these godly affections, that’s the purpose of teaching.
The purpose of teaching and the challenge of God’s Word is always to bring us to the end of ourselves where we may still be holding on or trying to do it in the flesh or whatever it would be . . Turning to God as we hear the Word [we say]
‘Father I cannot do this but please work this through me for your glory.’
When you approach the Word like that you are well on the way for change and breakthrough spiritually.
Nobody can keep God’s Word, nobody can keep the principles of discipleship – it’s cost and everything. God knows that, even the disciples saw that – ‘who can be saved?’. This is where it comes back to faith .. asking God to do it in us and through us. He says ‘you have not because you ask not’ or ‘you ask amiss’, in other words we’re asking for the wrong things.
God doesn’t get it wrong. God’s Word is true, prayer is true – He says ‘ask and you shall receive’, but He’s teaching us how to really ask. Most of us yet do not know how to properly ask. But if we stay with this and if we listen tonight not just with our heads but with our hearts we’re going to learn something pretty great tonight through this teaching – you mark my words.
MEETING SPECIFIC NEEDS
James 5:13-18
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
.. If you are interceding, [if] you know you’re identified with God in your prayer, [and] if you know there’s sin in your brother, your sister, intercede that they will see it. Intercede that they will see that sin or that weakness because if they don’t see it they won’t get healed – they won’t get raised up, they won’t get delivered .. That is primarily what James is on about.
‘Father I am praying that my brother will see the sin that is hindering there – that’s hindering his life or causing sickness or causing him not to break through and be blessed as he could. I’m standing in the gap here now and interceding .. that you will be glorified in delivering him by opening his eyes’.
When your eyes and your heart are opened to sin – if you truly see it – what comes next? Confession – bringing that sin before the throne of grace that the blood of Christ can cleanse and deal with that sin. So much of intercession and prayer [concerns] the nature of sin, weakness, that is why Christ has taken His place at the right hand of the Father as intercessor, because He’s dealing primarily with sin, rebellion, disobedience, flesh – those things that hinder our heavenly Father from blessing us. He’s ever working day and night – never stops for one second in His ministry – supplicating, interceding on behalf of us.
So we likewise do what He does, we emulate Christ, we copy Him. We walk like Him, we pray like Him, we believe like Him, we love like Him, we minister like him. He is our role model, we are united – identified with Him. We can do nothing without him, we know nothing unless He reveals, so our praying is also exactly the same.
..We get before God in our closet
‘Father, I desire to be sensitive this day to what is on your heart – what is your will, what you are saying. Please reveal this to me so that I can pray this through, so that you will be glorified, so that my brother will be raised up, my brother will be healed, my brother will be blessed. Whatever is maybe hindering him or whatever it is.’
Many many times what God is revealing to you is between you and almighty God, it is not to be .. gossiped .. It’s you standing in the gap, it’s you saying
‘Father this could be me whose trapped in this way. But you set me free because somebody took the time to intercede and stand in the gap for me, and that’s why I’m blessed with a relationship with you, hearing with you and walking with you. How much more then do I want to do likewise.’
It’s when we begin to appreciate what God has done for us – how He saved us (He didn’t have to) but somebody somewhere went in their closet and identified with the great High Priest on your behalf. If you truly know that and are touched by that, how much more then do we have the desire and heart and spirit to do likewise.
CONCLUSION – THE KEY TO INTERCESSION
‘[Lord] am I today identified with You, am I one with You?’
If you’re not – you’re not in that place – you’re not qualified to pray. If we’re meeting those conditions [above] then we will be [qualified], and we’re going to know that every time we have prayed and interceded that our heavenly Father has heard us. True intercession is
praying it through until you know that you have touched the throne of grace, you know without a shadow of a doubt that that prayer is answered in Jesus name and you’re simply waiting to see the manifestation of it.
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Identification with God is the key to Intercession | Prayer of Intercession
