Intercession

Post # 40
I have taken selected excerpts from the article Intercessory Prayer – by Robert Longman and have added some thoughts of my own.
Intercession is praying with the real hope and real intent that God would step in and act to benefit someone or situatiion.
It is trusting God to act in a helpful way according to his will . God wants us to ask, even with a sense of urgency. It is casting our sense of helplessness to do anything before God, and to have a bit of godly passion burning in us.
There are a number of examples in the Bible of people who intervened on behalf of others.
Probably the most famous one was when Abraham pleaded with God for Sodom to be spared, because his nephew Lot was living there. His passionate concern for Lot drove Abraham to persevere with his bargaining with God on his behalf.
Moses also stepped in when God was angry at the children of Israel, standing in the gap in the most literal sense : offering his own life for that of his nation.

It was part of the role of a prophet not just to speak to the people what God speaks to them, but to speak with God on behalf of the people.
Isaiah prayed with King Hezekiah to save the nation from defeat and destruction at the hands of Assyria, and the armies were suddenly turned back.

In John 17:26 Jesus prayed for his disciples and all future believers; “And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
Paul prayed constantly for the struggling young church, for character, behavior, witness, and wisdom.
It is Paul’s regular intercession for the church and its people which sets the usual pattern for our own intercessory prayers.

Our private devotions are not just for our own benefit. If God’s love is at work in us, we will care about others, and our love for them will lead us to take it to God, the ultimate source of strength, healing, and love.
God likes to see his compassionate love at work in us and he honors our part in the relationship.

From the article I got the sense that some people suffer more than others and we should take note and show them compassion in prayer, whether we can do something in person or not.

What Is Compassion?

Compassion: – A powerful, deep awareness of someone else’s suffering, making it so that you want them not to suffer.
For a Christian, all compassion is shaped by and rooted in Jesus’ Passion, in which His awareness of our suffering drove Him to do something about it. He provided the way for us to escape suffering in the resurrection to eternal life.
A sense of solidarity develops; – your suffering becomes my suffering.
No one needs a special gift to have compassion. We only need enough love in us to want someone’s suffering to end or at least become more bearable.

There are some related words. Sympathy is being sad about others’ sadness.
Commiseration is when that sorrow is expressed to the saddened ones. Pity leads you to want to help them if you could.
Compassion is more than a mere desire to help; it creates a determination, a decision to actually help, even if only in some small way.
Compassion puts something of yourself on the line. Compassion differs from mercy in that compassion is about an emotional connection, while mercy is about an action. Compassion can lead us to do an act of mercy for someone.

Acts of heroism come to mind such as when someone is moved by compassion to jump into deep water to rescue another person by an act mercy.