“Intimacy In Intercession”

In the Executive Office of the President of the United States, the highest ranking employee is called the Chief of Staff. And essentially, that person acts as the nation’s intercessor. An unknowledgeable citizen they would think this person’s position is just to introduce proposals for the President to consider. But this is not what their intimate responsibility is at all.

The Chief of Staff must fully understand the office of the President, the unique personality of the President, and the political concerns that the President feels are important. This type of insight can only be accessed by a person that is close to the President in a personal way. Because the Chief of Staff has been given this quality of access, it also means they have the ability to shield, or reveal, certain crises that the nation might be facing.

Abraham was the first patriarch that was called and intercessor, when he made intercession to God concerning Sodom and Gomorah.  The Lord said, “Shall I keep back from Abraham what I’m about to do? Abraham is going to become a large and strong nation; all the nations of the world are going to find themselves blessed through him.” In this example, God respected the call and the blessings that were already upon Abraham’s life. This caused Abraham to have such an intimacy with God that God shared his intimate plans with Abraham before he even committed them to action.

Abraham’s role as an intercessor was kind of a heavenly Chief of Staff for God. Of course there is no way that any human enterprise can reflect the vast array of authority and power in the kingdom of God,  but He gives us an insight of how you and I ~ if we are to truly become intercessors, must be in a place of intimacy with God that causes us to understand what God is concerned about on earth.

Usually prayer warriors are concerned about things that affect them personally ~ their church, or their individual concerns ~ whether they be national, economic, or business. For example,  if they work at an accounting firm they would be concerned to intercede about the financial situations around them. But this is not what a true intercessor is.  A true intercessor will leave their own sphere of influence, their own area of responsibility, their own world of understanding and start to enter into the world and dreams of God Himself. They only become concerned about that which concerns God.

To the average person this would seem be a dream world where only a chosen few enter into the glory realm of Jesus Christ. I agree with you, yes, it is a dream world  ~ but it’s an accessible dream world for any person desiring to become a true intercessor. If you leave your own realm of concerns and focus totally upon God’s will and purpose,  guess what? God takes care of all of your problems and fixes everything in your own personal life.   That’s what the Lord was saying about Abraham. Bear with me, at first this is something that is hard to see.  God knew Abraham was going to become the father of a mighty and blessed nation. And because God had spent so much time blessing Abraham, He would not do anything bad to Sodom and tomorrow unless he first talked to Abraham about it.

By default, God’s blessings and intimacy with Abraham ~ based on Abraham’s personal obedience to God ~ actually put him in the position of an intercessor. It was never Abraham’s goal to be an intercessor.  It is something that occurred to him by default.  And so it is with you and I.   If you’re trying to be an intercessor, you may miss the mark, if your desire is just to control others.  But if you are trying to be intimate with God, to bless the Lord and fulfill his purpose in the earth, then by default you become an intercessor.

Intercession is a very deep subject.  In next week’s blog, I hope to share much more of how important intercession is in your life.