An article I wrote for my blog.
"...because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53:12)
It's no surprise that the shallowest generation in the history of mankind has taken even the holiest things and trampled them under their feet. It's true there are pigs in the pasture, and it's equally true that the pearls of God's truth are in this day and age, pearls before pigs. But just as God can fit a camel through a needles eye, He too can make pigs appreciate the depths of His riches, I am proof of this.
Intercession has been lowered to nothing more than soulish prayer that works up a few tears, prayer that is said a little more loudly or fervently, and somehow gains insight or answer based on some gift of intercessory prayer. Prayer in these days is not the sacred act of faith it once was, it's no longer secret devotion to the Father that gets obvious answers. Prayer is a public piety that boasts in gifts before men, gets online and meets together to publicly share it's burdens. Thousands of self proclaimed "intercessors" gather on the street corners of social media and seek to bolster each other's egos and solidify the religious practices as devotion to God.
But I question this entire charade. I question this definition of intercession; and I propose to you that this religious movement desecrates the Holy office best exemplified by our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Intercession is not prayer, although it does include it. But like most things in this generation, words have been redefined to make them more palatable and easy. Intercession has been reduced to something you can do in a prayer meeting, and completely lost it's meaning and power. Once again, Satan has snuck in a good thing and professing church has eaten it up and completely forsaken God's perfect will. Once again, the good is the enemy of the perfect.
Jesus is the pattern of intercession. The proponents of this new form of intercession will boysterously shout Amen and point to Gethsemane. True, that was intercession... but that only part of it. That agony of prayer was born out of intercession, it wasn't the intercession itself. Jesus never made an intercessory prayer, He made intercession.
I've searched the scriptures for this new form of intercession and have come up empty handed. I have found intercession in scripture that pours out it's life, even unto death, in obedience to the Father. I have found Moses putting himself between a rebellious Israel and it's God, who was ready to pour out His wrath upon them, and emphatically stating his desire to himself be blotted from the book of life, if God would only stay His hand. I have found the apostolic messenger to the Gentiles wishing himself accursed from Christ for his brethren according to the flesh, Israel. I have found Jesus, seeking only His Fathers glory, crucified and bleeding on a cross in obedience.
Jesus gained the place of intercession He now stands in through the obedience of being numbered with the transgressors, and bearing their sin.
An intercessor is a man who will bear upon himself the reproach of the subject of his prayer. He will bear the burdens the one he prays for bears; he will sacrifice comfort and health to obey the Holy Spirit and make sure that the immediate will of God is carried out, and through that out poured life of obeying, intercession is made, and the intercessor has power in prayer for that person or thing.
Intercession is made, not prayed.
God seeks for a people that are not interested in ease and comfort, or taking the holiest things in scripture and rendering them completely void of meaning and power. God seeks for a man to himself take the load, under the power of Christ in him, and deny himself as Jesus did, even unto death. Bearing the burdens and numbering himself among those for whom he prays, practically in daily experience.
This generation is all about the big thing. Self proclaimed intercessors today pray for world sweeping revival, and have never even born the reproach of being numbered among the sinners in their very own city. They look for a move of God across the world, and yet the hungry in their town are not fed, the fatherless know nothing of familial love, the widows are forsaken, and their neighbors have no point of reference for the power of the Holy Spirit. They want God to move somewhere else, because if the Holy Spirit were to move in their city or family, they might have to sacrifice more than they are comfortable with, and we can't have that.
If God wanted you to intercede for Africa, He would have put you in Africa.
Intercession starts where we are, in the circumstances God has ordained and orchestrated for each of us. The problem is, living for God is hardest in our hometown, because man wants honor from other men, and a prophet is without honor in his own country. It's easy when no one sees you unless you want them to, much harder when you are seen daily, even hourly, of those you intercede on behalf of.
The Holy Spirit seeks a church that will humble themselves under His mighty power right where they are, and intercede for those they have been placed in the midst of. Because intercession is a life of bearing the load of others in practical obedience to the Father, so that Jesus might reconcile the world to Himself through us.
Intercession is a life, not a prayer.