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.

I have a Question

This is an article I wrote for our Sunday bulletin that I wanted to share with some of you. I just personalized it toward me a little by taking out the "we". After all its a more personal reflection: I remember in my high school Algebra class as being lost. Let’s face it, I simply wasn’t gifted in math. I am more of a concrete thinker. I was confused at the introduction of variables and could not understand why x and y could not just stay the same number. I figured that if x and y were having an identity crisis, that I shouldn’t really intervene. But being in the class, and faced with failing, I resorted to questions…endless questions. I asked so many in fact that my teacher finally would answer them with, “Well that’s just the way it is, Pounds.” I escaped with a C average, and to this day I am wholly convinced that I charmed my way into that grade. I still have problems with the introduction of variables. Things change and shift. There is very little concrete on this planet in our day to day. Constant shifting of circumstances can often back us into a corner of questions. And I am quite ready to question the God of the universe. I bombard Him with whys and why nots, often using the fact that He doesn’t readily answer us as an excuse for our continued unbelief and spiritual complacency. I put God into the position that He must answer to us. But I must remember what the Psalmist said, “when I consider the works of your hands, what is man that you are mindful of him?” God is not afraid of my questions, but I have to remember that in His majesty, He really reserves the right not to answer. He stormed back the answer to Job’s inquiries of unfairness, “Where were you when I spun the earth into orbit?” Sometimes I have to understand whatever I am enduring, that it’s just the way things are; quite possibly it's divinely aligned no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. God has a plan. It is my place to continue to trust Him as I have the awesome opportunity to play a role within it. God bless. May you find trust and solace in the Everlasting.

Boy Meets Girls

I dedicate to this to my wife. She brings me so much joy. This is my spin on the old-time story of romance: BOY MEETS GIRL Girl walks by boy, boy either has the confidence to go right up to girl and speak and meets girl, or boy remains "good friends" with girl for ten-twelve years before they realize they are for meant each other. Boy dates (or courts if you are a Chrisitan) Girl. Girl is decieved realizes that this Boy is an exception to the rule that all boys are pigs as boy woos girl with his God-given charm and lavishes girl with gifts that make girl blush, but simultaneously prove boy has no little or no ability to make sound financial decisions in the future. Girl falls in love with boy, and boy with girl. Boy finances ring and awaits the perfect and most uncommon moment in the world to bow before girl asking her hand in marriage. Little does boy know, girl knows its coming and has braced herself for it, but girl acts overwhelmed anyway, thus re-paying boy for his earlier deception. Boy is engaged to girl. Boy wishes to plan with girl but soon finds out it's best for boy to stay out of girls plans, or perhaps that girl already has plans and only asked boy to confirm what girl already thinks. After boy fails on the first three inquiries, boy relinquishes planning rights and signs over full control to girl. Boy will run many errands though, picking up what girl has chosen or ordered. Boy marries Girl. Girl and Boy are swept away into a magical leand of wedded bliss. Boy and Girl discover several things on honeymoon that boy leaves unsaid in this note due to fear of facebook expulsion. Boy and Girl after sometime decide that little boy or girl would be fun. For some reason, boy and girl seem to think marriage doesnt provide enough excitement and disorganization. Boy and Girl feel that they have arrived at everything life offers to boy and girl, and feel its their time to teach a little boy or girl how to survive in the world. Boy and Girl have no idea what they are doing. Little girl or boy come into the world confirming the clulesseness of older and wiser boy and girl. Such ignorance is revealed after a while that all rationale goes out the window and boy and girl decide to have more little boys and girls. Life is soon taken over by the worlds most noisy toys and near-impossible to assemble play-stations. Boy and Girl, as boy did earlier in the union, relinquish control to little boy and girl and things go chaotic. Boy and girl bring the boy and girl that decided to bring them into the world in to consult. Little does boy and girl know, those people take little boy and girl for the weekend and further soilidify little girl and boy's control. After a short while, boy and girl regain control and begin to learn balance. In all the chaos, boy and girl start to remember why they fell in love. Boy and girl learn what it is to give and take, even though it seems girl will always give more. Boy learns that girl is even more amazing of a creation than he ever imagined, and falls in love with girl more everyday. Although, one day boy realizes that in the midst of all girl does so well, God never created girl with a laundry folding chip. Boy realizes that if he takes that on as his one consistent task, girl would fall in love with him all over too. Boy begins to fold laundry without being asked by girl. Boy and Girl live happily ever after.