STANDING IN THE GAP FOR THE CHURCH

Forty days of focussed prayer and fasting 20 June – 29 July

FAITH FOR A CHURCH, FAITH FOR A CITY

2 Chronicles 7:14 If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Eph:20-23 All this energy issues from Christ; God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.
'Thy Kingdom Come Thy Will be Done'

Monday 16 July 2007

Devotion - Day 27

Advocacy: Standing up for others

We have already defined intercession as ‘praying for the needs of others’. We also said that solidarity is aligning ourselves with God and His Word. Advocacy is the aspect of intercession where we align ourselves with those who cannot pray for themselves.

Out of our intimacy with Christ comes responsibility for others, in prayer. Out of our love for God, advocacy becomes an act of love for our neighbours. We begin to see that God intends prayer to be a way for us to release His loving power into the lives of others. The beautiful thing about loving others in prayer is that there is no limit as to how far our love can go.

A biblical model of this approach is God’s assignment to the high priest in Exodus 28:29-30. Every time he came into the holy of holies to intercede on behalf of Israel, he bore stones on his vestments on which were inscribed the names of each of the tribes, as a remembrance before the Lord.

If we are going to take the power of advocacy seriously we need to deepen our understanding of those for whom we pray. We need to develop ‘intelligently targeted compassion’. This is what Jesus had in mind in Matthew 9 when, out of His compassion He called His disciples to look clearly at the people in need, then to pray on behalf of those who could not or would not pray for themselves.

Posted by Doxa Deo Blog-Admin at 06:03

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