Interceding

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail." -James 5:16

Oswald Chambers writes. . . .

You cannot intercede if you do not believe in the reality of the Redemption; you will turn intercession into futile sympathy with human beings which will only increase their submissive content to being out of touch with God.  In intercession you bring the person, or the circumstance that impinges on you before God until you are moved by His attitude towards that person or circumstance....The thing to watch in intercession is that no soul is patched up, a soul must get through into contact with the life of God.

My nightgown is in need of being patched up.  No one would argue that, I'm sure.  It started out a small rip, but I did not attend to it, and look at it now!  Chambers, however, contends that we shouldn't try to "patch up" a soul ourselves.  Too often when we pray for another we ask God to take their trial away without giving thought to the possibility that He is doing a work in them that the trial necessitates.  We must always keep in mind that God knows what is best for us, and the first order of prayer is for others to be saved.  We must not let our sympathy for people's plight tempt us to pray away their troubles.  Instead we must hold them up to God, then be prepared to be His agent in their lives.  This is what true intercession is.

I am grateful for those who have interceded on my behalf.