Intercessory prayer

“ Even though intercessory prayer did nothing more than put us who pray in a desirable frame of mind toward those for whom we pray, it would be an exercise of great value. However, as a matter of fact, it accomplishes much more than this. Besides making our feeling of fellowship stronger, it really brings something to those for whom we offer our petitions. Human life is as closely bound up on the spiritual as on any other side of our being. ”

“ And if such was the spirit and power of intercession before Christ came, and before the spirit of sonship was poured out, how much more ought we, the body of Christ, to be characterised by the spirit and power of intercessory prayer. Intercession is the distinguishing mark of the Christian. The penitent, the inquirer, pray for their own personal safety. The accepted believer prays for others as well as for himself; he prays for the Church and for the world. Nearly all the exhortations given in the Epistles are to intercessory prayer, for all saints and for the spread of the gospel ”

“ A final word may be said with regard to a theoretical difficulty which many people feel in connexion with the intercessory and petitionary sides of prayer. Since GOD'S will, it may be argued, is presumably going to be done in any case, and since He knows the real needs both of ourselves and of our friends better than we do, what is the point of praying for them? To many people it may be a sufficient practical answer to refer to the example and precept of Christ, who both taught and practised intercessory prayer. ”

“ This applies to all our petitions, and perhaps in an especial measure to intercessory prayer, those touching requests which we send up for our dear ones in sickness, peril, sorrow, need, or any other adversity. Of course, all such intercessions ought to be mentally qualified by the assurance that God will do what is best, even though we may be unable to understand His decrees; but there is nothing unreasonable in the belief that our prayers for others may be, and frequently are, directly effective, setting energies in motion which might otherwise have remained latent and inoperative. ”

“ How can our intercourse with the Father, in continual prayer and intercession, become what it ought to be, if we and the world around us are to be blessed? As it appears to me, we must begin by going back to God’s Word, to study what the place is God means prayer to have in the life of His child and His Church. A fresh sight of what prayer is according to the will of God, of what our prayers can be, through the grace of God, will free us from those feeble defective views, in regard to the absolute necessity of continual prayer, which lie at the root of our failure. ”

“ But have we understood that in the Holy Trinity all the Three Persons have an equal place in prayer, and that the faith in the Holy Spirit of intercession as praying in us is as indispensable as the faith in the Father and the Son? How clearly we have this in the words, “Through Christ we have access by one Spirit to the Father.” As much as prayer must be to the Father, and through the Son, it must be by the Spirit. ”

“ How humbly, O my God, must salvation be estimated, when time is wanted to entreat of thy mercy to save us! And how much are we to be deplored, to find so many moments for the world, and to be unable to find a single one for eternity! Second cause of the disgusts and of the wanderings of your prayers — the little use of prayer itself. ”

“ You have accepted of Christ Jesus to make you whole, and give you strength to walk in newness of life; you have claimed the Holy Spirit to be in you the Spirit of Supplication and Intercession; but do not wonder if your feelings are not all at once changed, or if your power of prayer does not come in the way you would like. It is a life of faith. By faith we receive the Holy Spirit and all His workings. Faith regards neither sight nor feeling, but rests, even when there appears to be no power to pray, in the assurance that the Spirit is praying in us as we bow quietly before God. ”

“ If we apply this to the prayer for the power of faithful intercession, the grace to pray earnestly and perseveringly for souls around us, let us learn to hold fast the Divine assurance that, as surely as we believe we receive, and that faith therefore, apart from all failing, may rejoice in the certainty of an answered prayer. The more we praise God for it, the sooner will the experience come. We may begin at once to pray for others, in the confidence that grace will be given us to pray more [p114] perseveringly and more believingly than we have done before. ”

“ Without unction or heart, they fall like a killing frost on all the graces of worship. Death-dealing prayers they are. Every vestige of devotion has perished under their breath. The more dead they are the longer they grow. A plea for short praying, live praying, real heart praying, praying by the Holy Spirit—direct, specific, ardent, simple, unctuous in the pulpit—is in order. A school to teach preachers how to pray, as God counts praying, would be more beneficial to true piety, true worship, and true preaching than all theological schools. ”

“ For our prayers for the kingdom are not uttered on the housetops; and the kingdom itself cometh not with observation.
But if it were not too delicate a subject I could recite instances, to me the most remarkable answers to prayer in my experience, of changed character and enlarged Christian life, resulting from definite intercession. It is an experiment which any loving and humble soul can easily make. Take your friends, or better still the members of the church to which you belong, and set yourself systematically to pray for them. ”

“ He will live and pray, and claim the Father’s promises, even as Christ did, only for God’s glory in the salvation of men. He will use his boldness in prayer only with a view to power in intercession, and getting men blessed. The unlimited devotion of the branch-life to fruitbearing, and the unlimited access to the treasures of the Vine life, are inseparable. It is the life abiding wholly in Christ that can pray the effectual prayer in the name of Christ. ”

“ I have humbly besought God to give me what I may give them—Divine light and help truly to forsake the life of failure in prayer, and to enter, even now, and at once, upon the life of intercession which the Holy Spirit can enable them to lead. It can be done by a simple act of faith, claiming the fulness of the Spirit, that is, the full measure of the Spirit which you are capable in God’s sight of receiving, and He is therefore willing to bestow. ”

“ We have had Himself praying on earth, and being heard. And we have Him in heaven now, sitting at the right hand of God and making intercession for us. God hears prayer—God delights to hear prayer. He has allowed His people a thousand times over to be tried, that they might be compelled to cry to Him, and learn to know Him as the Hearer of Prayer. ”

“ The daughters of Jerusalem followed our Redeemer to Calvary: a sort of filial sentiment holds me in Rome. I cannot go away.... Let us pray! The power of prayer obtains all things.”
Let us pray! This had been the lifelong burthen of her song, and the cry grew louder and more intense as she drew near the close. It was not the shrill cry of those who say, Lord! Lord! but the irrepressible voice of a soul whom the spirit of prayer possessed in the fulness of its availing power, and side by side with whose growth grew the spirit of sacrifice, the thirst for self-immolation. ”

“ It is the power of the heavenly life, the power of God’s own Spirit, the power of Omnipotence, that waits for prayer to bring it down.
In all this prayer there was little thought of personal need or happiness. It was the desire to witness for Christ and bring Him and His salvation to others, it was the thought of God’s kingdom and glory, that possessed these disciples. If we [p33] would be delivered from the sin of restraining prayer, we must enlarge our hearts for the work of intercession. The attempt to pray constantly for ourselves must be a failure ”

“ The most powerful instrumentality which God has delegated to man, and around which cluster all his glorious promises, is prayer. All past prejudices and animosities on this subject must be laid aside, and the whole church unite as one man in earnest, fervent prayer. Have we forgotten the promise of the Holy Ghost? Have we forgotten that He was to abide with us forever? Have we forgotten that it is He who is to convince the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment? ”

“ Thy redemption, O believer, is a redemption wrought out by prayer and intercession: thy Christ is a praying Christ: the life He lived for thee, the life He lives in thee, is a praying life, that delights to wait on God and receive all from Him. To pray in His Name is to pray as He prayed. Christ is only our example because He is our Head, our Saviour, and our Life. In virtue of His Deity and of His Spirit He can live in us: we can pray in His Name, because we abide in Him and He in us. ”

“ Everybody deems it proper to ask a pious friend for his prayers. St. Paul the Apostle recommended himself to the prayers of the faithful (Rom. xv. 30) , and God Himself commanded the friends of Job to ask Him for His intercession that their sin might not be imputed to them (Job xlii. 8) . How, then, can it be wrong or superfluous to invoke the intercession of the saints in heaven? The saints are willing to invoke God's bounty in our favor, for they love us. They are able to obtain it for us, because God always accepts their prayer with complacency. ”

“ If we are to enter upon a life of intercession, in which there is to be joy and power and blessing, if we are to have our prayer for the grace of prayer answered, we must learn anew what faith is, and begin to live and pray in faith as never before. ”

“ We lay stress on true praying, which engages and sets on fire every high element of the preacher's being—prayer which is born of vital oneness with Christ and the fullness of the Holy Ghost, which springs from the deep, overflowing fountains of tender compassion, deathless solicitude for man's eternal good ”

“ And such humble yet ardent contact with the spiritual world—opening up to its suggestions our impulses, our reveries, our feelings, our most secret dispositions as well as our mere thoughts-is the essence of prayer, understood in its widest sense. No more than surrender or love can prayer be reduced to "one act." Those who seek to sublimate it into "pure" contemplation are as limited at one end of the scale, as those who reduce it to articulate petition are at the other. ”

“ She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that after the damsel had repeated the words of that Holy Tradition the doctor cried, "Thou hast replied aright: now say me, what is prayer?" "Prayer is communion between the slave and his lord, and in it are ten virtues: (1) it illumineth the heart; (2) it maketh the face shine ”

“ I desire above all things to learn to pray. We want to sound the reveille for the Christian warriors. We desire to find truth of the lack of real praying. What is it? Why is it? Why so little time spent in prayer when Christ, who had command of His time, chose to spend great part of it in INTERCESSION? “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” We believe the answer to be the desire is in the heart, but the will is undisciplined, the motive is present, but the affections have not melted under hours of heavenly meditation; the intellect is keen, yet not for hours of tireless research. ”

“ God ever thinks of a man doubly: first for his own self, and then for his possible use in reaching others. Communion and petition fix and continue one's relation to God, and so prepare for the great outreaching form of prayer—intercession. Prayer must begin in the first two but reaches its climax in the third. Communion and petition are of necessity self-wide. Intercession is world-wide in its reach. And all true rounded prayer will ever have all three elements in it. There must be the touch with God. One's constant needs make constant petition. ”

“ If we want to learn Paul’s art of intercession, we must ask nothing less for believers in our days.
Look at the prayer in Philippians (i. 9–11) . There, too, it is first for spiritual knowledge; then comes a blameless life, and then a fruitful life to the glory of God. So also in the beautiful prayer in Colossians (i. 9–11) . First, spiritual knowledge [p162] and understanding of God’s will, then the strengthening with all might to all patience and joy. ”

“ The power for such prayer was a higher gift than preaching—the work of the men who had been in closest contact with the Lord in glory, the work that was essential to the perfection of the life that preaching and baptism, faith and conversion had only begun. Surely of all the gifts of the early Church for which we should long there is none more needed than the gift of prayer—prayer that brings down the Holy Ghost on believers. This power is given to the [p26] men who say: “We will give ourselves to prayer.” ”

“ Yet if we have only once or twice experienced what unpremeditated prayer may be, when it is offered in the true priestly spirit, in deep sympathy with the needs and longings of those present, diverse though they be, and in close harmony with the peculiar demands of the time and place, we know how such prayer can, as nothing else, gather up our hidden desires and bring our whole souls with it into the sense of communion with the source of the strength and help that we need, towards which our arms stretch out as we listen, and are not stretched in vain. ”

“ It is the very first lesson we need on the way to pray the effectual prayer that availeth much. Let us persevere, taking each subject boldly to the throne of grace. As we pray we shall learn to pray, and to believe, and to expect with increasing boldness. Hold fast your assurance: it is at God’s command you come as an intercessor. Christ will give you grace to pray aright.
SPECIAL PETITIONS [p222] Seventeenth Day WHAT TO PRAY.—
“I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgiving, be made for all men ”