The Son of God knew everything that would happen to Him (see John 18:4). But He knew more than that. He also knew Simon Peter’s future. He is the “God of knowledge” Who knows everything (see 1 Sam. 2:3)—yet He lived in dependence and prayed for His disciple. Certainly the Lord had already been praying earnestly for Peter and the other disciples the night before He chose His twelve apostles (see Luke 6:12). How many times in the three years when He was with them daily, would He have prayed for them! In John 17, just before His crucifixion, He brings them before His Father again in prayer. He doesn’t stop interceding for us as well, until, despite our frequent failures (see James 3:2), we safely reach our destination (see Heb. 7:25; Mt. 14:22–23; Ps. 107:30).

  

Through prayer, the enemy’s purposes are destroyed! Therefore, we need not only prayer, but also to fight in prayer! Paul writes in connection with the armor of God, “Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18). Today, brothers and sisters are needed who wrestle and strive for other believers in prayer (see Col. 4:12; Rom. 15:30). This is true for those with whom we have regular fellowship, but also especially for those who have lost their way in the world.

 

  

The power of intercession is particularly evident in the example of Paul. After four years of captivity, he was still convinced that through the prayers of the Philippians he would be given the grace not to give up in prison, but to continue to honor God through trust (see Phil. 1:18–19)!

 

Samuel was a prayer-warrior who pleaded much for others. He said to the people of God, who failed again and again, “Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you” (1 Sam. 12:23). Once he cried out to the Lord all night because Saul had sinned (1 Sam. 15:11). That such prayers are also blessed is made clear by the example of Job. He was given the task of praying for his friends because they had spoken inappropriately of God. God wonderfully acknowledged this, for it subsequently says, “The Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends” (Job 42:10).

  

How great the decline is among the people of God today! How should we be acting in light of this? God wants us to step into the breach before Him with Daniel’s attitude, or rather to mediate before Him by confessing sins and making intercession (see Dan 9). Moses often did this with great zeal; “Therefore he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them” (Ps. 106:23). “Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also” (Deut. 9:18–19).

  

Later God had to say, “I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none” (Ezek. 22:30). Isaiah writes similarly, “He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede” (Isa. 59:16). Do these verses still speak to you, or have you already given up?

How important is the ministry of intercession! Prayerful intercessors will one day receive a great reward at the judgment seat of Christ—perhaps in some cases much more than those who have served in public. Many today rightly regret the decline of Christianity, but where are those who not only mourn but also devote themselves to the ministry of intercession? God is still searching today for those who humble themselves over the condition of God’s people and step into the breach before Him in prayer!

 

Do you believe that the ministry of intercession is valuable in the eyes of God and that He responds in a clear, specific way? Your personal prayer life answers this question.

With more intercession, the Lord would certainly give more vitality again! “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (John 13:17).