Intercessory Prayer

Good Morning!

James 5:13-18 (English Standard Version)
The Prayer of Faith
13Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 17Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

Friday we talked about anticipatory prayer – where we pray in expectation of God’s goodness towards us. Today, let’s talk about intercessory prayer – where we are praying for one another. I took an hour or so to reorganize the prayer list. Did you realize that we have over 100 names on the prayer list that we are praying for daily? That’s a lot of folks to pray for … but well worth praying for. Intercessory prayer is good for us because it takes the focus off of the “me” and places it on our brothers and sisters of the faith and on those who have yet to come to Jesus. I think it healthy to be aware of the needs of others for several reasons – but it is best illustrated by an occurrence that I feel had a profound influence upon my youngest son.

Alberto was a tropical storm that came up through Alabama in 1994. If my memory serves me right, I was driving home from visiting Grandma Leta on the Fourth of July holiday when the rain began. It rained for the next thirty days – and not just a little bit – a whole bunch. Finally, the dam at Lake Blackshear could hold no more water and it burst, flooding Albany (pronounced “all BENNY”) Georgia – as well as surrounding areas. Macon Georgia also had flooding – but the effects of the dam break was devastating to a portion of Albany.

Life of Georgia had a district office in Albany. Most of its sales were to people who were of limited means. And many of these people lived in the flood plain. So we organized a group of folks to go to Albany to help these folks clean up and to give them a hot meal. My son David accompanied me on the trip. What he witnessed was people who had barely nothing before the flood having been left with nothing after the flood – and still praising God. When he saw the entire possession of a family in a small stack on the side of the road, he realized how blessed he was. (As did I but I had already had that experience in Louisiana several years earlier.) And he also realized how important we all are in the fabric of community – for without each other, hard times overwhelm.

When we kneel or bow to pray for another person, we surrender the “I wants” and replace them with “Lord bless”. When we take time to look at another’s heartache, body ache, circumstance or grief, we begin to realize how much God has blessed us. And we begin to understand what Jesus means when He says “love one another”. So our prayer for each other has great power both on the one who is praying and on the one who is being prayed for.

I redid the list to give it a little more structure. Some of the requests can be closed – others need to stay indefinitely. These are requests you have made – so please give us updates periodically. Thank you for your faithfulness in prayer for these folks.

Agape’



Mr. Jim