Standing in the Gap

Are all your prayers centered on you? When you intercede you help lift up fellow Christians before God. Jesus lifts us up before God; he stands in the gap between God and man. If you know of anyone in the prison of want, depression, stagnancy, unbelief or sickness, you should pray for such a person just as the church prayed for Peter. Do not only pray for you and yours!!

[Acts 12:1-19] While Peter slept…, why wasn't Peter praying? Maybe he had prayed, but the point is this: When we find ourselves in gruesome situations, we might not be in prayer mode and this does not mean that we have backslidden or that we do not believe in God's power to answer prayers, it just means that at that point in our lives, we might not be able to pray for ourselves. The church was praying for Peter and God heard their intercessions and answered their prayers. So let's look at the scenario again... Peter slept, the church prayed, God delivered, Peter testified, and the enemies perished!

Intercession is a prerequisite to peaceful living in all godliness and holiness and it also pleases God. [1Tim 2:1-4]

Apart from interceding, we are to encourage one another and build each other up [1Thess 5:11], there is a difference between being a busybody and encouraging people. The latter is done out of love motivated by the Holy Spirit while the former is brought about by the sinful desires of the flesh. Heb 3:12-13 reminds us to encourage our brothers so that none of us would be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. To encourage in this sense means to offer kind words, counsel, listening ears and resources to the person in need while reminding the person of the word of God that applies to them and their situation and lifting such a person to God in prayer.

This is important because we will all share in Christ if we hold strongly to the end the confidence we had at first; by interceding and encouraging ourselves, we help our fellow Christians regain the confidence that trials and tribulations may have stolen.