Prayer as Intercession
In Luke 11:9-10, we have Jesus saying, “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; Seek and you will find; Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
I believe that the words ASK, SEEK and KNOCK represent three kinds of prayer.
1. Ask – is petition praying. It is coming to God with our needs.
2 Seek – is devotion praying. It is seeking the LORD for who He is. It is wanting to be with Him.
3. Knock – is intercession praying. The Bible says that right now, Jesus is seated “at the right hand of the Father, where He ever lives to make intercession for us.” Jesus is praying for us. Intercession praying is learning what is on the heart of Jesus and joining Him in praying for that matter.
In Romans 8:26-27, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express and He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”
Do you know the issues that weigh heavily on the heart of your LORD? In intercession the Holy Spirit reveals the issues that Jesus wrestles with and we join Him in interceding for those matters.
Someone prayed “Father, break my heart over the things that break the heart of my LORD.”
Listen to what Paul expressed in Philippians 3:10-11, “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death and so somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
The apostle wanted to identify with Jesus at the deepest level possible.
· How well do you know your LORD?
· Do you have any idea what breaks his heart?
· Do those issues break your heart?
In Matthew 26:36-46, we have Jesus in Gethsemane. In verses 37-39, we read “He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with Him, and He began to be sorrowful and troubled. There He said to them ‘My soul is over-whelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.’ Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.”
Jesus was totally surrendered to the will of His Father in heaven. He wants us to be thus surrendered as well.
In Matthew 6:9-13, we have what is known as the “Lord’s Prayer”. In that prayer, Jesus taught us “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In intercession praying we join with Jesus in praying that God’s will would come to pass in the earth just as it is in heaven.
Intercession praying is intense praying. It is costly. Jesus taught, it is this kind of praying that will be required to get doors to open.
“Knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Luke 11:9) I don’t know if you are paying attention to what is happening in our beloved United States of America, but many of our freedoms are being taken away. Franklin Graham recently said that he believes we have gone too far as a nation to turn back to God in revival. If the door isn’t closed, it is certainly closing fast. Closed doors are frequently mentioned in the Bible.
In 2 Corinthians 2:12-13, the Apostle Paul wrote “Furthermore when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had not rest in my spirit.”
The Apostle John, when writing to the church in Philadelphia said, “I know thy works; behold I have set before thee an open door and no man shut it”.
Doors represent opportunities — to preach the gospel of Christ in a region. It can also be an opportunity for an individual. In Revelation 3:20, we have our Lord saying, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me.”
There are nations and ethnic groups where the doors are presently closed, but through intercessory prayer, those doors can be opened, the gospel preached, and many lives changed. In Acts 14:27 we read:
“And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how He opened the door of faith unto the gentiles.”
Do you have family members, friends and people you work with whose hearts’ doors are presently closed? God would like to open those doors, but He may be waiting to see how much we care. Are we willing to prevail in prayer? Are we desperate in our desire to see these loved ones come to Christ?
Only the LORD JESUS can open a door that has been closed to the gospel. In 2 Corinthians 2:12, Paul wrote “Furthermore when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord …”
Satan and his host of evil ones have successfully seen to it that some doors have been closed a long time. Only intercessory prayer can see those doors opened. In Colossians 4:3-4, the Apostle Paul wrote — “Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I also am in bonds: that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.” (KJV)
The Scriptures indicate there are different kinds of doors that need to be opened and that only God can open them.
1. He wants to open doors of opportunity for the advancement of the gospel.
2. There are also doors of revelation where God wants to reveal Himself to us.
3. There are doors of understanding.
In Acts 8:30, we have Philip asking the Ethiopian Eunuch, “Do you understand what you are reading?” It is the only way we can understand and embrace spiritual truth and then allow it to have its perfect work in our lives.
I pray that all who read these words will commit themselves to meditation and intercession and have the joy of seeing many doors opened to them.
God bless you,
Pastor Leonard
