The Ministry of Intercession

What do you think is the greatest privilege we enjoy as human beings? I’m still pondering that, although my first choice so far is loving and being loved by God. Some say we’re created to worship, so that’s our highest calling. According to the Westminster Catechism, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” I know we were created for God’s glory (Isaiah 43:7), so I love this response.

However, I was intrigued and challenged the other day by reading that our greatest privilege is interceding for others. We know from Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25 that Jesus is at the right hand of God and “ever liveth to make intercession” for those of us who are His. We also learn from Romans 8:26-27 that the Holy Spirit, who indwells all Christian believers, “makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” So, both Jesus and the Holy Spirit are unceasingly involved in intercession. Obviously a high calling!!

We are also exhorted by the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 2:1 “that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:1-4). God wants all men to be saved, and we are instructed to pray for that! Therefore, if not our highest calling, then certainly carrying on the ministry of intercession with Jesus and Holy Spirit before the throne of God has to be one of our greatest responsibilities and privileges as human beings.

I believe animals can bring glory to God—and even the rocks can cry out in praise of God—but only human beings are offered an audience with the King of the Universe. We are told to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). This is a shocking statement! Imagine being summoned by the King . . . being ushered into the throne room . . . bowing down before a greater sovereign than exists anywhere on the face of the earth—and One who could have you destroyed in an instant. Doesn’t this sound like an awe-inspiring—but terrifying—event?

Instead, once we become children of God through faith in Christ, our Father opens his arms to us and says we can come any time we want, day or night, and pour out our hearts to him like a small child with complete access to his loving Father’s care. That’s better than any human father can offer! We can “obtain mercy” for ourselves and for those we love. We can ask for the grace we need to meet the challenges facing us . . . and facing those we love. What a privilege!

Perhaps the greatest honor is to be loved by God and to love, adore, and worship God, but the greatest privilege is to have free access to Him as part of a nation of “kings and priests” (Revelation 1:6, KJV) intended to join in the communion and counsel of the Trinity in interceding for those we love until “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). Have you grasped the fact that we are already seated “together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6) and invited to participate in the ministry of intercession? Can you fathom this reality? God welcomes us to join with Him—to become one with Him in fellowship with the Trinity and all the saints of earth—to finish this project of bringing the Kingdom of God to earth. What a high calling!

If you feel a nudge by the Holy Spirit to become more involved in intercessory prayer, may I encourage you to start interceding in prayer on behalf of yourself and others? You don’t have to pray with anyone else, but praying with others can also be a very encouraging way to grow your prayer life. I’m involved in several prayer meetings, and I love it! Can you think of anyone with whom you’d like to pray on a regular basis? Through my son Jonathan’s Aqueduct Prayer Center, you can join others via Zoom to pray, even if you’re not able to meet with your friends in person (either because of COVID concerns or distance). If you’d like more information, contact me via my email or the comment section below. Thanks! I hope to hear from you, and if you don’t know anybody else to pray with, I invite you to join me in a group!

Can you imagine the difference it would make if each of us genuinely began to love others as we love ourselves and then used the golden key God has placed in our hands—the ministry of intercessory prayer—to unlock the energies of heaven on behalf of our wounded world?! Let’s do this! What a transformation we will see in our own lives! What a flood of grace will pour down from heaven to heal and redeem our dying world. Oh, Lord, help us to become passionate intercessors!

“Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us” (Romans 8:34).

“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

Our Father, To Whom We Should Pray

Have you considered that Jesus always and only prayed to his Father? Also, he taught us to pray—not to Moses or Mary, not to the Holy Spirit or even Jesus. . . in fact—not to any saint or even any other member of the trinity! Jesus points us to the one and only God who is our Father. OUR Father. When we need something, Jesus tells us to go straight to the top! No need to ask our boss to ask his boss to ask her boss to ask their boss. God’s Son—our “boss” (in that He’s our Lord/Master and Savior)— instructs us to go straight to His Father when we pray. No detours needed! “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). We have been given direct access to the one and only, all-powerful, all-loving, all-wise Father. Can you believe it?!

We are taught in 1 Timothy 2:5 that there is only “one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” This Jesus is our one and only mediator (there are no others), and he “is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Jesus is able to save all who come to God by him, and he makes intercession for us, but he teaches us to pray directly to God, not to any other mediator or intercessor, not even himself!

The Holy Spirit intercedes for us too: “Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27). The Holy Spirit, which dwells within the heart of every believer, takes our prayers and translates them into requests that perfectly mirror the will of God, so that even if we don’t know what to ask—or how to ask it—the longings of our heart are heard, blended and purified by the Holy Spirit like incense burning on the altar of our hearts, and ascend heavenward as a sweet aroma pleasing to God (see Leviticus 3:5).

Therefore, we have no need for any other help. As a parent, I would feel hurt if one of my children asked one of my other children to approach me for a favor. Wouldn’t you? Years ago, two of my sons were both pre-med students at the same time. One day, the younger of them came to me rather tentatively and said, “Mom, X (his older brother) doesn’t want to become a doctor like Dad.”

“That’s okay!” I reassured him. “He can be whatever he wants to be. He doesn’t have to become a doctor if he’d rather be something else.”

My son was quiet for a few seconds, considering my response. “Mom?”

I looked again.

“I don’t want to be a doctor either.”

They were afraid of disappointing their father, and so they came to me, but I knew Alan would be more pleased by his sons pursuing their God-given passions than becoming clones of him! They didn’t need me to mediate for them!

Why do some people pray to Mary or some other saint? Are they afraid God doesn’t love them enough to answer their prayers? How sad, because God loves them more than Mary or Saint Patrick . . . or any saint who’s ever lived! Do people pray to saints because they feel they aren’t worthy of God’s ear? What a heartbreak that must be for God! Jesus died to make us worthy; isn’t that enough? When Jesus died on the cross, the veil in the temple was torn open—from the top to the bottom (Matthew 27:51). God tore that curtain, opening the way for all who believe to enjoy complete access to intimacy and communion with God, our Father!

There is no one—human or divine—who loves us as completely and passionately as our Father loves us! It must grieve His heart to see us believing He could be persuaded to answer the same prayer asked by some more meritorious personage. Either a prayer is good, or it is not. If it is good, then won’t our good Father give us what we request? Remember Jesus’s admonition in Matthew 7:1-11? He tells us to ask our Father expectantly, because “if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”

Finally, Jesus tells us to ask in His name, not in the name of any other. Jesus is the perfect Son of God. No one else compares. No one else is as worthy. We are saved by Jesus and come to the Father in the name of Jesus. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). There is no other name by which we can be saved. There is no saint or demigod who can answer our prayers and deliver us, and there is no human being in whose name we can pray to earn merit, except the precious name of Jesus, who is God incarnate. Let God be God alone.

Daniel in the Lions Den by Briton Riviere, Public Domain

Why was Daniel cast into the den of lions? Because he refused to pray to anyone but God! Shouldn’t we do the same?

“Whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which alters not. Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime” (Daniel 6:7-10).