Love Your Neighbor: Intercessory Prayer.

Beloved Savior, my Strength, my Reedemer, my First Love, Teacher, Healer, Omnipotent and Worthy to be Praised, Sacrificial Lamb, I come before you in humility hoping that what I speak is not of my own but is of your Holy Spirit working within me. I thank you for your Spirit Lord which enables me to do what I could not do by myself which is to live holy. I praise you and thank you. I ask that the words that follow touch lives and bring the "...peace of God, which transcends all understanding and will guard [people's] heart's and minds in Christ Jesus." AMEN

Brothers and Sisters. PRAY PRAY PRAY. But Kwame, I already do that so tell me something new. Ok, here's a message I recently sent to a community of praying believers I belong to:

Philipians 4:6-7 "do not be anxious about ANYTHING, but in EVERYTHING, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God....." 1 Peter 5:7 "cast ALL your anxiety on him because He cares for you" and Psalm 55:22 "cast YOUR CARES on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall." I see a predominant theme here which is to say cast any worry (nothing is too big or too small) on the Lord. I'm thankful to have this group and I pray we all make prayer a lifestyle.

Recently, my pastor preached on 2 Corinthians 5:18-21

PLEASE READ IT BEFORE MOVING ON.

Reconciliation is needed why because anyone who is not friends with Christ is actually about to go to war with Christ (Read all of Revelations, Rom 8:6-7, James 4:4) This should scare us. Think about it. People we love and care about stepping into a fight they have NO way of winning. But God is sooooo LOVING AND WONDERFUL because we can change this. He can be moved by our prayers.

Ok so, we all have needs and we should make our requests to God but there's one thing that moves the Father in heaven and is kind of His "weak spot" for a lack of better words and that is when we love our brothers as ourselves. How do we do that? By Intercessory Prayer. Think about a loving husband and wife. When a wife (usually) cries or is about to cry the husband cannot help but feel moved or be changed in someway. The husband will usually beg that the wife not cry or shed a tear because he knows he has a weak spot for that. The Father in Heaven has no choice but to act to bring relief when we intercede.

OUR PRAYERS FOR OTHERS ARE LIKE TEARS TO HIM.

In my pastor's words:

Intercessory Prayer- Intercede means to interfere in a fight where one will die, it means interfere or mediate or come between so as to modify cause of events

This means to pray for those who are lost in your communities and on TV, outside your town, WHEREVER. You don't have to personally know them but there's an act of Love that goes into that prayer which Jesus displayed.

GET YOUR SCRIPTURES OUT FOLKS

Jeremiah 7:16, This is not a command to stop praying for them because Jeremiah prays for them in Lamentations and throughout His entire life but this is the Lord showing His heart. Basically saying, as we humans do, in paraphrase "Don't pray for them because if you do then I'll be moved or forced to actually forgive or love them again because when you pray for others who are lost it's a sweet spot for me". Do you know what? Jeremiah's prayers were answered. He brings relief to the people after Jeremiah's life and also brought us Christ which is the ultimate love.

Look at how God blesses those who pray not just for themselves or loved ones or saints BUT PRAY FERVENTLY, LOVINGLY AND HEARTILY for nonbelievers (muslims, pedophiles, rapists, disobedient youth, homosexuals, homeless, prostitutes, think about a person or type of peoples you used to look at with horror or judge. PRAY FOR THEM out of love and ask that God help you do this because our hearts are deceitful [jeremiah 17:9-10 and psalm 44:20-21] into thinking we are praying with love when we are actually not.). In Job 42:8, God told Job your friends are wicked but if you pray for them I won't punish them. Then when Job prayed God was moved to forgive and RECONCILE (getting back to the first passage i sent 2 corinthians 5:18-21) and he actually BLESSED Job more than before. I pray this blesses and adds a whole new dimension to our prayer lives. Job could have said these people were accusing me while i was on my death bed but instead he shows love and prays for them.

God Wants to Loves us but our hearts are so wicked that He can't look at us but those who know Jesus Christ can turn His heart back towards the sinners of this day who are blinded by the god of this age. Think about how many people probably prayed for you before you became saved. People you may have never even met. But God found a way to get to your heart because of them.

Other great intercessions: Abraham tried to intercede for Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:22-32). Do you know what's so amazing about this? Only one family was found righteous (that was Lot's) and they were rescued. God was moved. He SAVED that ONE. Also, Acts 26:16-18, Paul was the intercessor for us as gentiles. God needed someone to go out and bear their heart out for the gentiles so Christ would be MOVED to love us despite our immorality. Think about how many times in his letters (corinthians, ephesians, galatians, etc..) paul would say "I cease not to pray for you.." (paraphrasing).

Although God is loving He is also just and CANNOT STAND sin. Therefore it is our job on this earth to step in for our brothers and sisters who are in the dark (all of John 1:1-14) and don't know that they are headed towards destruction. LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Dear God, we know what moves You and we are gathered here as your people to lift up our voices and build a house of prayer. We will seek You alone and not your hand or the gifts, riches and blessings which you give. We will read your Word and yield to your Spirit. We thank you and we pray that you strengthen us so we may Intercede on behalf of our brothers and sisters. We pray that Satan's lies be removed from them and their eyes be made to see the truth and value of your Love Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. In Jesus Name we pray. Amen.