BY WALT ALBRITTON
OPINION —
The evidence of what God does in response to intercessory prayer is undeniable and awe-inspiring. I remember a holy moment riding down Palafox Street in Pensacola when a friend said to me, “I owe my life in Christ to my wife; she prayed for me for 28 years until I finally surrendered to Jesus.”
Intercessory prayer is involved in the conversion of many, if not all believers. This was the conviction of Andrew Murray: “Oh, when will Christians learn the great truth, that what God in heaven desires to do needs prayer on earth as its indispensable condition. It is as we realize this that we shall see that intercession is the chief element in the conversion of souls.”
As was the case with my friend, God does not always answer our prayer requests immediately. Thankfully, my friend’s wife refused for 28 years to consider her prayers for her husband would be unanswered.
Oswald Chambers said, “Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer. He had the unlimited certainty of knowing that prayer is always answered.” So we shall be wise to believe with Chambers that “God answers prayer in the best way — not just sometimes, but every time.” Because Jesus said, “everyone who asks receives,” we can expect God to answer our prayers.
Chambers insisted that “as a saved soul, the real business of your life is intercessory prayer.” So every day we should pray for our family members, asking the Lord to guard and guide each one. We should pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ, not just when they are sick or struggling with hardships, but daily asking the Lord to protect them and fill them with the joy of His presence. And we should pray for the conversion of our friends and neighbors who have not yet surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus.
Satan is pleased when our prayers are focused only on our own needs. Chambers asks a piercing question: “How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves?” He reminds us that we need to get “so sick to death of ourselves” that we can “pour out our lives for all we are worth” in prayer for others — what Chambers calls “the ministry of the inner life.”
Genuine intercession, Chambers says, “leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own sad and pitiful self.” You can become so devoted to God that He keeps thoughts of yourself out of your mind and permit you to be “entirely identified with God’s interests” in other lives. That’s when God gives us “discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so we may find fault with them.”
Many believers have not yet embraced the truth that intercession is the primary business of followers of Jesus. Andrew Murray calls prayer for others a high honor: “All that God wants to do for the world, He chooses to do through men and women whom He has taken up into His counsels. These persons have yielded themselves fully to His will…. Such have the high honor to understand that God, at their request, will direct the working of His Holy Spirit and send Him to go where and to do what they have asked in prayer.”
Thomas Payne reminds us that prayer was “the chief employment” of the apostles: “They gave themselves to prayer, and as a result they succeeded; and, God be praised, the same privileges and possibilities in the prayer-life are placed at our disposal.”
Charles Spurgeon boldly wrote: “There is nothing that intercessory prayer cannot do. Believer, you have a mighty engine in your hand — use it well, use it constantly, use it now with faith and you shall surely prevail.”
Spurgeon urged believers to pray for “the spiritually dead” because they are still within the reach of grace. God, he said, can take them out of the horrible pit and the miry clay and set their feet upon His living rock. So we should never give up for the spiritually dead “until they are lain out for dead naturally.”
Every pastor, every believer, every church should take seriously the words of John R. Mott:
“The Church has not yet touched the fringe of the possibilities of intercessory prayer. Her largest victories will be witnessed when individual Christians everywhere come to recognize their priesthood unto God and day by day give themselves to prayer.”
Our Lord Jesus was the ultimate intercessor. As the Holy Spirit shapes us into the likeness of Jesus, we will be guided and inspired to make intercessory prayer a priority. It is a ministry like no other. God works miracles when we pray for others.
Lord Jesus, teach us to pray — for others — in your name.
