ICS Daily Devotions
Interceding in Prayer
The gift of intercession is the special ability that God gives to certain members of the Body of Christ to pray for extended periods of time on a regular basis and see frequent and specific answers to their prayers, to a degree much greater than that which is expected of the average Christian.
While intercession is not written in any part of the Bible as a gift of the Holy Spirit but it can play a part for church growth. Since we do have the grace to pray through an extended period of time or at times be woken up by the Holy Spirit to pray for someone whom He has placed a burden in our heart to pray.
Every believer is supposed to intercede for people and the church.
The word “intercede” means to act between 2 parties therefore we are interceding for someone before God.
Ezekiel 22:30 “So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.
Intercession is standing in the gap, breakdown or open and the prayer is specifically for another person, city etc. God needed someone to intercede in order for Him to act especially in intervention.
Acts 12:5,7 Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the prison; and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, “Arise quickly!” And his chains fell off his hands.
Intercessory prayer involves very specific things one would like to see happen, therefore it has a clear objective. There is a persistent tenacity in this form of prayer because we will pray until there is a breakthrough and this kind of prayer will take time. The likelihood of praying both in the understanding and praying in the spirit are required especially when we know that we are interceding for someone or an event. The intercessors were standing in the gap to ask God to intervene on the situation or the person. It was very clear that they were praying for Peter to be released from prison in the case of Peter’s imprisonment. The whole church was interceding!
We should also be spending time to intercede for one another in the cell group so that we are able to support each other. When we spend time to intercede then we will pray through for the person and enable him to come out of the situation.
Sermon Series: CG Campaign – Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church Grow
