Lord, Teach Me To Pray: Intercessory Prayer
Intercession is a type of prayer where we intimately yield to God to work with Him on behalf of someone or something else. It is like being His partner in furthering the kingdom of God on earth. A spirit-to-spirit connection takes place as one discovers the things that are on God’s heart. Some call intercession being a “gap stander,” taken from Ezekiel 22: 30. This is where God says, “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.”
There are many examples in Scripture where men or women stood in the gap for someone. We read that Abraham stood in intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18: 17-33. Abraham said he had taken upon himself to speak to the Lord on behalf of others. Moses interceded for Israel (Exodus 32: 31-35). In II Samuel 12: 13-23 David prayed for his son and Daniel interceded for the nation of Israel (Daniel 9: 1-19).
Each one carried a burden for the people to the Lord and spoke on their behalf. In each situation, God had brought the need for prayer to their attention. Motivated by what they heard or saw, their prayers produced results, bringing deliverance and healing to many.
Today Jesus is interceding for us.
Hebrews 7: 25 (NKJV) Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Hebrews 8: 1 (NKJV) Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.
Romans 8: 34 (NKJV) Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
These verses tell us that Jesus is our priest and He is able to save us as He continually makes intercession for us at the right hand of God.
I can tell you from personal experience that those early years in prayer and years following were where I came to know the Father’s heart, learned His ways, and found myself renewed and refreshed. Why? Through prayer I knew lives were being touched and changed.
Jeremiah 33 used to be such a puzzle to me. Why would God lead me to read that chapter every day at the end of my prayer time? This went on for one and a half years! I asked pastors and leaders to explain Jeremiah 33 to me. I read books, commentaries, and anything I could find but nothing satisfied my hunger nor seemed to explain the chapter to me. Finally after six years passed, I gave up my investigation and concluded that I would never know why I had prayed that chapter so often.
Then in 1985 my pastor asked me to go to India with her on a mission trip. Through some extenuating circumstances she was unable to go so my husband came along with me instead. As part of our itinerary, we went to visit a Christian school started by Dr. Chacko Varghese in Cochin, India, called Peniel Bible College. Peniel means “encounter with God” as found in Genesis 32: 30. Every day I would hear the students in the college come out of their rooms singing, worshipping God, and sounding so happy. There were sounds of joy and gladness everywhere on the campus. Even as they worked they sang.
About four days after being on campus, my husband and I were asked to speak at the student graduation service and to testify of the Lord’s blessings. Sitting on the stage and listening to the president of the Assemblies of God in India, someone decided to interpret his message for us. As the interpretation was given of the stages of building the college, I recognized that Peniel Bible College was my Jeremiah 33!
Overwhelmed by this realization, I began to understand that God had made a way for me to come to India. Then, like a Father handing his child a gift, God Himself was unveiling before my eyes my life of prayer and what had happened as a result of it. Those eighteen months of intercessory prayer in my Minnesota bedroom had birthed Peniel Bible College in India! As Jeremiah 33 said, it was a desolate place, a place that had sinned and had been inhabited by demons, but God had come and cleansed the land. It was now a place of great singing and joy.
There are no words to explain the feelings I experienced that day as I realized that God did not just want to tell me about my Jeremiah 33, but He wanted to show me. My heart was so overwhelmed by these experiences that I could not talk. Sometimes our experiences with the Lord can be so awesome and intimate that we do not know what to say.
Today Peniel is a powerful Bible school that raises up men and women who are sent into the northern parts of India to start churches and ministries. Who would have thought that a little housewife in St. Cloud, Minnesota, would be prompted by the Holy Spirit to help birth an Indian Bible school to existence? Dr. Chacko Varghese and I have been friends for many years, and I continue to pray and support Peniel Bible College as it impacts the nation of India.
Dr. Sharon Predovich
