Intercession is a Work of Faith

Intercession is preeminently a work of faith. Not the faith that tries only to believe the prayer will be heard, but the faith that is at home amid heavenly realities—a  faith that does not trouble about one’s own nothingness and feebleness, because it is living in Christ.  A faith that does not make its hope depend upon its feelings, but upon the faithfulness of the Three–One God, in what each person has undertaken to do in prayer.  A faith that has overcome the world, and sacrifices the visible to be wholly free for the spiritual, heavenly and eternal to take possession of it.  A faith that knows that it is heard and receives what it asks, and therefore quietly and deliberately perseveres in its application till the answer comes.  The true intercessor must be a man of faith.

The intercessor must be a MESSENGER—one who holds himself ready, who earnestly offers himself personally to receive the answer and to dispense it.  Praying and working go together.  Think of Moses—his boldness in pleading with God for the people was no greater than his pleading with the people for God.  We see the same in Elijah—the urgency of his prayer in secret is equaled by his jealousy for God in public, as he witnessed against the sin of the nation.  Let intercession always be accomplished, not so much by more diligent work, as by the meek and humble waiting on God to receive His grace and spirit, and to know more definitely what and how He would have us work.  It is one thing,  a great thing, to begin to take up the work of intercession—the drawing down to earth of the blessings which heaven has for every need.  It is a greater thing as an intercessor personally to receive that blessing, and go out from God’s face, knowing that we have secured something that we can impart.  May God make us all whole-hearted, believing, blessing-bearing intercessors.

But there is so much conscious sinfulness and defect in our prayer? True, but have you not learned what it is to pray IN THE NAME OF CHRIST?  Does the name not mean the living power?  Do you know that you are in Christ and He in you—-that your whole life is hid and bound up in His, and His whole life is hid and working in you? The man who is to intercede in power must be very clear that, not in thought and reckoning only, but in the most actual, living, divine reality, Christ and he are one in the work of intercession.  He appears before God clothed with the name and the nature, the righteousness and worthiness, the image and the spirit of life of Christ.   Do not spend your chief time in prayer in reiterating your petition, but in humbly, quietly, confidently claiming your place in Christ, your perfect union with Him, your access to God in Him. It is the man who comes to God in Christ, bringing to the Father that Christ in whom He delights, as his life and his law and only trust who will have power to intercede.

These are quotes from The Inner Chamber by Andrew Murray on Moses the man of prayer.