You cannot intercede in prayer for others if you don’t believe in the reality of the redemption. If you intercede without believing, you’ll wind up turning intercession into pointless sympathy. Sympathy never leads people to God; it only makes them more content to stay out of touch with him.
In proper intercession, you bring the person or circumstance that’s weighing on your mind before God until you are moved by God’s attitude toward that person or circumstance. Paul gave the model for intercession when he wrote, “I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions” (Colossians 1:24). This is why there are so few intercessors. Most of us, when we intercede, try to put ourselves in the place of the person for whom we pray. Never! We must try to put ourselves in God’s place.
As a worker for God, be careful to keep pace with him as he communicates things to you that require your intercession. If you seek to know more than he wants you to know, you won’t be able to pray because the condition of humanity is so crushing that you will be crushed and unable to get through to his reality.
Our work involves coming into contact with God about everything. We shirk this duty when we pursue busywork instead of intercession, even busywork for God’s ministry. Many of us will do tasks that can be easily checked off a list, but we won’t intercede. Yet intercession is the one thing which, spiritually speaking, has no pitfalls, because it keeps our relationship with God completely open.
The thing to watch for in intercession is that no soul is blocked because of us. Every individual soul must get into contact with the life of God. Think of the number of souls God has brought across our path that we have dropped by failing to intercede! When we intercede on the ground of the redemption, God creates something he can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.
