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Click the links below for a list of apprentice, journeyman and master intercession activities.
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Have you ever felt that your prayers were bouncing off the ceiling? Ever felt too sinful to pray, like your lifestyle was preventing God from hearing your petitions? Have you ever felt like you didn’t know the right words to say in prayer. This focus on intercession may be just what you need. What is intercession?To intercede is to plead to God for the needs of others. Jesus interceded for the disciples. In Luke’s gospel, we read Jesus’ words to Simon about how He had pleaded with God on his behalf:
Jesus pleaded in prayer for his disciples. This is what Paul is urging Timothy, and by extension each of us, to do. We are to plead like a lawyer pleads a case before a jury or a judge; like a parent pleads for help for her child at school; like a spouse pleads with a doctor for the best care for their husband or wife. In this way, intercession is different from simply making requests, although pleading is certainly making requests. And intercession is different from simply prayer, which is a more general conversation with God. Intercession is a unique type of request and unique posture in prayer where we plead with God to intervene in another person’s life based upon the work of Jesus Christ on their behalf. In Hebrews, we read of Jesus’ work: He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. ~Hebrews 7:25 (NASB) Jesus is able to “save forever” by His shed blood, spilled on the cross. And when we come to intercede for others, we are to plead for them according to the work accomplished through the blood of Jesus Christ. When we intercede, we are asking that all that the blood of Jesus Christ accomplished be applied to their lives. That would include salvation—as it is through Jesus’ shed blood that we are saved from our sins. That would include healing—as it is by His wounds, suffered on the cross, that we are healed. That would include deliverance from evil—as it is by His blood we are purchased, ransomed from sin and death. In this way, our prayers of intercession are always, and only, an extension of Jesus’ work of intercession. This means that our intercessory prayer is an extension of the ministry of Jesus, which explains why Paul felt it so urgent that we intercede. To help us identify steps for growth as intercessors, we have broken the activity into three different maturity levels. Click on the links to the different maturity levels to the right to see a list of the corresponding activities of intercession, and ask God to help you identify the activities that will best help you grow. In Christ, Kelly Brady, Senior Pastor listen to pastor kelly brady's introduction to growing in prayer through intercession:
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