Thoughts for Life: #104 Pray for Your Intercessors

C. Peter Wagner shares with
us from his book, Prayer Shield:

"The relationship between
pastors and intercessors is
not a mutual relationship.

Receiving intercession is not like
borrowing money that has to be repaid.

Joshua won the battle because he received Moses'
intercession and returned very little if any.

The term I have used throughout this book, 'prayer partners,' has also been used by some as describing a reciprocal relationship.

'You pray for me and I'll pray for you.'

This is a very fruitful relationship. In the last chapter, I mentioned how Evelyn Christenson recommends it and how she needs at least one such relationship as an intercessor herself.

However, this is not the sense in which I have been using 'prayer partners' in this book.

If I tried to repay the prayer I receive from my prayer partners, I would do little other than pray. Attempting to do that would be just underattempting to repay Jesus for my redemption. Impossible!

So I have learned to receive their prayers as a gift of God's grace and their obedience.

All this does not mean that we should take our prayer partners for granted. I thank God for our prayer partners every day.

I keep a picture of each pasted inside the front cover of my Bible and I turn to the pictures and pray for each one by name. I do not usually spend a long time on each one, but I bring each before God's throne.

In the epistle to the Ephesians in which Paul asks for intercession, he also says,

'I...do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of
you in my prayers' Eph. 1:15,16. This is what I try to do also.

There are occasions where I do pray more for my prayer partners. I often pray when I know one of them is going through particularly difficult. I pray as well when they are part of an actual ministry involvement along with me.

[When in 1991, they were in Argentina for their first annual Harvest Evangelism International Institute] ..we all intensified our prayers for each other when we discovered that a group of Argentine witches and warlocks had set up an 'occult fair' in the same hotel we were using to claim the territory for Satan one week before and during the week of our institute.

Because of the intercessors, the witches' chants, incantations, curses and attempts at infiltration were effectively neutralized.

On the last day, the government
expelled them from the hotel for
illegally practicing divination, and a
local newspaper ran a cartoon
showing the witches flying out
of the hotel on a broomstick.

Shades of Ephesus!

We know well why Paul so greatly desired intercession."

#104 Pray for Your Intercessors,

in the series taken from C. Peter

Wagner’s book, PRAYER SHIELD,

How to intercede for pastors,

Christian leaders and others

on the spiritual frontlines.

(pgs. 185-186) Regal Books

PRAYER SHIELD ChristianBooks - offered for $9.69 There are many of Wagner's books offered. Type in the title of this book at top of page. It is the fourth one down…

Let’s pray:

Father, we know that

prayers do help, so we ask

Your guidance in our praying

for those who are in leadership.

I'm glad to be a part of the
prayer team of my church, and

that my prayers really do count.

Help me to be sensitive to the needs at hand, and to pray faithfully alone, and with others.

I ask this in Jesus' Name. Amen.

Today’s Bible verse: Ps. 92:4 "For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in thy works of thy hands."

Today’s quote: E. M. Bounds – “Prayer should not be regarded ‘as a duty' which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.”

Some thoughts today: God gives you favor, but not for your favor, but so that doors will be opened to you to witness to His goodness.

- Temptations come to you, so you can be a witness of God's truth.

- Find that secret place in God and submit to Him. Obey His will for you. Jump in it! He wants you to have faith in Him.

26th Saturday’s post: Will the Roof Really Cave In? Tammie Johnson

27th- Sunday's post: Christ Heals the Hurting James Cagle

27th- evening's post: Discernment vs. Criticism Part 1 Jean Oathout

29th- Tuesday's Post: #105 Communicate Regularly C. Peter Wagner

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