The Gift of Intercession

Sunday morning, I had the opportunity to reunite with friends from the adult class. Due to some events dealing with students, I had only one person in my class, so connecting him to another, i joined in the adult class once again.
The subject was prayer and I sat silently and listened. Throughout, i had some comments but felt that they had to be waded through before speaking.
There was a brief moment or two when the conversation drifted into praying for others. Spilling out right and left were the various comments on the matter. All good thought. But it lead me to think of the theological framework of prayer in the Bible. I began to muse a little on the time in scripture when Jesus actually taught us to pray. Of all spiritual disciplines, at least the ones we talk about most, Jesus answers about prayer directly when asked, "Lord, teach us to pray". It went something like:

Our Father who is in Heaven, Hallowed be your name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Give this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors.

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

For thine in the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen.

Of course, maybe you can see where I am going to come from here, but I want to raise the point that in this one direct teaching, there is no refeence on what we can call intercession, and not much reference to praying for others. Before you go up in arms, let me explain.
The chief reason for my thoughts is to get us to take another look at what we currently call intercession. Perhaps it is in just Pentecostal circles, but I often hear of this "gift". And i think it deserves some Biblical light, or at least some Biblical reminders.
Regarding Jesus' teaching on prayer, I want to first make the point as to why maybe he didn't mention this form of prayer. Mainly, we often forget that Jesus himself has been established as our intercessor (1 Timothy 2:5, John 17, Romans 8:34). When we use the term intercession, we reference the fact of standing between God and man. Now we see this a lot in the Old Testament in the lives of God's elect. God often changed his mind concerning man and his end because Godly men prayed. We see it in the general population, that when men turned back to God, God showed mercy and blessing once again. We even see it as an offer of God in 2 Chronicles 7:14 (the pentecostal fundametalists favorite scripture) But today, we have Jesus. All of the OT were types and shadows of Him. He now stands between God and man, and He only. The reminder, I have today, and for you as well, is that we need not forget that God changing anything is hinged on Christ, and not my ability or lack thereof to "intercede". When prayer is discussed, we often voice how guilty we are of not doing it enough. And if it is a sincere discipline problem that you stand convicted of, so be it. But sometimes I hear this condemnation in comments as if God refuses to move based on our lack of "intercession". Don't know about that. We have to remember that, "He is faithful, even when I am faithless."
Now second and lastly, I do have to mention that there is plenty of Biblical warrant to pray for others. If some misunderstand their roles or gifts in scripture, than there are some who use scripture to explain away their responsibilty. I do not want to be one. We all have the opportunity to go to God in prayer for others. But we have to understand what this does and how we are to do it.
First of all, what it does, chiefly, is exercise our faith in Him and reinforces our belief that He is the source everything. By prayer for others, we proclaim that we have no faith in our ability to save, heal, and restore, but He has every ability. We say to God and to ourself, that we have no answer for the given situation, and He has every answer. We truly have the opportunity to lay it down, to "cast our care on Him, because HE CARES FOR US". Prayer for others puts Him in focus, especially in the most diffcult realm of our existence...human relationship!
Next, how we do it is important. We need not pray in a fashion that exalts our "fervency" or "great faith". Remember prayer has to put God in the forefront. I have often heard it quoted the "the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much". And I suppose it does. But why is it we only quote that when we are trying to create and energetic and emotional environment. You see what happens here, we exalt the fervency of man versus the righteousness of God. Ouch! We then, in effect, teach people that Godly results are produced by personal effort. Hence, we get the comments when we discuss prayer like, "I am so guilty of not doing it enough", and "I just need to pray more or harder". Come on, really? I'm sorry, but that's Christless.
How we pray is important. We can take lessons from Paul, as he prayed things like, "Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus; that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ... Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:5-6, 13). How grace filled, how Christ-pointed. The hope of such prayer can be nothing but Christ working in a life to the golry of God. It takes the effort of even "ministry" out of the picture and puts all hope in Christ to do the work. This is great Biblical example of what it can look like in the life of man. Let uis give great attention to subjects and words of our prayers. The opportuites we do have, let's not make them futile by exalting the wrong ideas.
Prayer is a gift. But Christ is our only "gift of intercession". May the Word of God remind us of that, and free us of the guilt and shame, and spur us to the pirvilege of pure and holy prayer.