Today I want to share again from Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest".
Vital Intercession
Praying always with all prayer
and supplication in the Spirit. — Ephesians 6:18
As we go on in intercession we
may find that our obedience to God is going to cost other people more than we
thought. The danger then is to begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom
God was gradually lifting to a totally different sphere in answer to our
prayers. Whenever we step back from identification with God’s interest in
others into sympathy with them, the vital connection with God has gone; we have
put our sympathy, our consideration for them, in the way, and this is a
deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible to intercede
vitally unless we are perfectly sure of God, and the greatest dissipator of our
relationship to God is personal sympathy and personal prejudice. Identification
is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with God, it
is by sympathy, not by sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our
relationship to God, but sympathy will, sympathy with ourselves or with others
which makes us say — “I will not allow that thing to happen.” Instantly we are
out of vital connection with God.
Intercession leaves you neither
time nor inclination to pray for your own “sad sweet self.” The thought of
yourself is not kept out, because it is not there to keep out; you are
completely and entirely identified with God’s interests in other lives.
Discernment is God’s call to
intercession, never to fault finding.
This is SO vitally important! Sympathy is the very worst thing that you can give to others. Sympathy changes nothing! What people REALLY need from us is to "Speak the Truth in Love" (Ephesians 4:15)! As it pertains to intercession, we are praying for the ANSWER to their problem, and the answer will sometimes require changes on their part. We must simply be the conduit through which Holy Spirit can pray the perfect will of God through, and nothing more! The rest is not our business. Being wholly committed to allowing Holy Spirit to pray through us in intercession is the most unselfish thing that we can do for another. Let's step up our game and not be moved by natural things, but be moved only by the Spirit of Almighty God Who desires for people to be set free more than we do! AMEN! Here is Hillsong UNITED with "Ready Or Not":
Shalom in Him!
