A Kingdom of Priests (7)

 

 Intercession (2)

 

“And He saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was no one to intercede…” Isaiah 59:16a.

 

“I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.” Ezekiel 22:30.

 

Intercession is at the core of the Royal Priesthood of Jesus Christ, for it flows from the Nature of God, and those in whom His Nature lives, in Jesus Christ, are intercessors by Nature. The Bible tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:16). Love is self-giving, it is self-sacrificial; when intercession is necessary, love is intercessory.  God’s response to man’s sin was immediately intercessory – Genesis 3:15. Prospectively, in eternity, the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world; hence before the Fall we see the intercessory Lamb.

 

Sadly, we are convinced we are turkeys and not eagles and the image of soaring in the heavens is alien to us, the idea of living in the Throne Room as we walk the earth is foreign to our thinking and way of life.

 

For those of us who recall the View Master, it is as if someone gave us a View Master device but then also gave us one-dimensional slides to put in the device – thwarting the very purpose of the View Master. If we didn’t know any better, we’d think that our experience of the View Master was normal and we’d not relate to what those people who had three dimensional slides were talking about when they described what they were seeing. This, my dear friends, is the difference between living in the glories of Romans 8 and living as if we were still slaves in Egypt. This is the difference between living in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ with it roots in the heavenly Throne Room, and living as earth dwellers.

 

In the Isaiah passage above, Yahweh is astonished that He can find no intercessor. In Ezekiel, Yahweh is looking for a man or woman to build up the wall and stand in the gap before Him, on behalf of the people of the land, and He can find no one.

 

Now let’s be clear, intercession has to do with both words and deeds; it encompasses intercessory prayer and intercessory living – in terms of intercessory living consider Colossians 1:24; Philippians 3:10; 1 John 3:16, and ponder 2 Corinthians 1:3 – 11, noting verses 6 – 7. In the Incarnation we see Jesus Christ living the Intercessory Life and praying intercessory prayer, such as John 17. Since the indwelling Christ is within us, since the Incarnation continues within us, our individual lives and our collective Body Life ought to display the Intercessory Life and ongoing intercessory prayer of Jesus Christ – for as the Head is, so is the Body.

 

One of the challenges in intercessory prayer and intercessory living is that of identification. We must first be citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20) and live and intercede from a place of transcendence in Jesus Christ, otherwise our living and praying will be fractured by this world’s perspectives and agendas. Let me try to illustrate this.

 

I have seldom been in an actual prayer meeting, that is, I have seldom been in a gathering of Christians in which we actually pray, rather than talk to one another. Also, often when we do pray it isn’t that we pray and intercede for others, but rather that we pray for our own political and social and religious agendas to be adopted by others – that others will “see the light” and adopt ways of thinking that please us. In other words, rather than praying and interceding for others, it is as if we are praying against others.

 

We will talk about things that need changing, and people who need changing, and then we say a prayer or two in the confidence that God realizes that our agendas are the best agendas and that He must absolutely agree with our thinking. Surely God is a conservative, or a liberal, or a moderate, or a capitalist, or an American, or a Republican, or Democrat…the list goes on. Naturally, quite naturally, God has also adopted our doctrinal distinctives, our denomination, our special emphasis, our form of music…we seem to assume these things are so.

 

Ah, but to be an intercessor, to live an intercessory life, means that we belong to Jesus and His Kingdom; it means that we hear the Father’s Beloved Son and represent Him in our words and actions. This means that the Divine Life within us transcends the present evil age, it transcends the agendas of mankind, it recognizes no geopolitical borders, it realizes that no national flag or constitution embodies the Kingdom of God – and so the sons and daughters of God live as strangers and pilgrims on earth, and in a world-system that is in rebellion against the Father and Son (see Psalm 2 and Daniel 2). We are in the world but we are not of the world – and the “left” is as fallen as the “right” and the “right” is as fallen as the “left” and the seduction of one is as dangerous, if not more dangerous, as the overt opposition of the other.

 

And this means that “the Son of Man has no place to lay His head” is just as true today as it was when Jesus first spoke the words 2,000 years ago. The man or woman or people who will live an intercessory life and live a life of intercessory prayer will find no place of rest in this world – and yet will carry the burdens and sin of this world to the Throne Room, and from the Throne Room will carry the love and mercy and grace of God to the world – to the “right” and the “left” and all who are in between.

 

Can you hear the call of Jesus Christ to enter into His intercessory life? Can you hear the call of the Royal Priesthood to live a life of intercessory prayer?

 

O dear friends, the world does not need to be reconciled to this agenda or that agenda, it needs to be reconciled to God; 2 Corinthians 5:16 – 21.