The Love of Intercessors
Some of you are thinking "I hardly have time to pray for myself, never mind others!" I hear you. The truth is, praying for others is costly - it's going to take sacrifice and effort.
What often happens is people pray for others because they think it is their religious duty. And so they pray but they don't really want to. They speed through their prayers and check off the names on their list. Then they can breathe a sigh of relief - "that was not fun but at least I’ve done it."
This is a tragic and wrong approach to intercession. Intercession is an act that must be rooted in deep, deep love.
Love That Sacrifices for Others
In Jesus' parable, the main character shows us this! Andrew Murray writes: "The friend took his weary, hungry friend into his house and into his heart too. He did not excuse himself by saying he had no bread; he gave himself at midnight to seek it for him. He sacrificed his night's rest, his comfort, to find the needed bread. Love seeks not its own. It is the very nature of love to give up and forget itself for the sake of others."
For the Christian, it is a great joy to intercede. Not to say it will be easy. It will be hard, it will take sacrifice. But we make sacrifices for the ones we love! We make sacrifices for those in need!
One of the great verses that is a favourite of many is when Jesus said "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13). We know it to refer to His own sacrifice on the cross, laying down His life for us. But perhaps there is an application here to our call to intercede. Perhaps the greatest love we might show somebody as Christ-followers is to sacrifice part of our lives, part our time, our busy schedule, our sleep even, to intercede for them.
Following Jesus' Example of Love
AW Tozer once wrote: "we are not only going to be judged for what we have done, but for what we could have done." Ouch! The sacrifices we could have made, the bread that could have been made available to those in need if we had prayed!
Jesus prayed for people because He loved them. We all love to know Jesus as the lover of our souls don't we. He prays for us constantly because He looks at us and loves us.
How we would pray, if we had the love of Jesus pulsing through our veins! The great commandment is to love God with all heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is why intercession is such a great ministry - it is a mingling of those two loves!
Each and every one of us is called to the ministry of intercession – because we are called to love God and love others. Let your prayer be a time of loving God and a time of loving others as you bring them to the Father.
