Loving God Through Our Prayers For Others
This is the third week in our series of How We Love God Through Our Prayers. P-praise, R-repent, A-ask for others, Y-yourself.
As you see, we are talking this week about how we are called to intercessory prayer. I ask myself these questions. How important is it to pray for others? How do I love God when I pray for others?
Simply put, intercessory prayer is when we pray to God on behalf of others. One of the great mysteries of God is that He is all-knowing and all-powerful, yet He gives us the opportunity to change the world through our prayers. James 5:16 urges us to pray for the sick and encourages us that there is great power in our prayers. We sometimes forget that our most powerful resource is our communion with God. If we remember that God’s power is infinitely greater than ours, we would run to Him in every situation so that He would grant us power in our circumstances and in the lives of others. God’s power comes to us through our prayers.
In the Old Testament, intercessory prayer was very common. Some of the men that commonly interceded for the people in their prayers were Abraham, Samuel, David, Daniel, Elijah, and Jeremiah. In the New Testament, there was a huge change. Jesus was brought into the world and when He died on the cross, He broke the barrier between us and God. Jesus is our intercessor to God. Every time we pray, Jesus takes our prayers to God. Because of this, we can all intercede in our prayers for others asking God to grant their requests according to His will.
In the New Testament, both Peter and Paul ask for others to pray for them. When they were struggling in their ministry, imprisoned, or had a specific request, they asked for churches to pray for them. This is not an option to add to your walk with God or not, it is an act of obedience with God. 1 Samuel 12:23 tells us that it is a sin against the Lord if we do not pray for each other.
This leads us to our second question, “How do we love God when we pray for others?” Any time we are obedient to God, we are loving Him. Obedience brings us to humility and devotion to God. We are called to put our brothers and sisters before ourselves. Jesus says we are to love others because He first loved us. We love each other the same way He loves all of us. That is hard, but the one thing that changes our hearts to love is prayer. Remember that there is power in our communion with God. There are the obvious people we pray for such as friends, the sick, our ministers, and family. But we are also commanded to pray for our leaders (1 Timothy 2:2), fellow countrymen (Romans 10:1), our enemies (Jeremiah 29:7), those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44), those who forsake us (2 Timothy 4:16), and all men (1 Timothy 2:1). This is where is gets tough but where it is such an important opportunity for God to change our hearts.
When we pray for those we don’t necessarily want to pray for or even know how to pray for, God changes our hearts towards love for others and for Him. Showing love for others is loving God. In everything we do, do it for the glory of God. If this is tough for you to do, begin your intercessory prayer with praying for God to soften your heart and to give you the words to pray. You will see His power evident in your prayers if you welcome Him in first.
Digging Deeper:
Read Daniel 9:1-23. This is one of the greatest intercessory prayers of all time.
How do you struggle with praying for others?
Who do you need to pray for today?
How do you see loving God through praying for others?