Prophetic Intercession: Waiting For His Voice

Isaiah 40:28

“Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow weary, and His understanding no one can fathom...” 

I love this quote by John G. Lake, “There is probably no more delightful thing on earth than to watch a soul praying to God when the light comes on him and the life of God fills his nature, and the holy affection that we seek from others finds expression in Him.”  

We  were made to encounter God in the place of prayer.  We were never meant to strive to form perfect words to move Him or to be spotless on our own before approaching His throne of grace.  If we wait until we are perfect before we approach Him, then we will have a lifeless, meaningless relationship with Him.  Too many people love God without having a prayer life because they feel that they have to fix all of their problems first.  They feel dirty, ashamed and guilty over struggles with sin, inability to feel His presence or the length of time since the last time they sat down to spend time with Him...thinking that it is the Lord that condemns them when, in reality,  they condemn themselves.  We tend to make spending time with God more complicated than it needs to be.  We struggle just to get to the point of talking to Him, let alone succeeding in encountering His heart and His affections toward us.

Lets just strip it all down to waiting.  Start with waiting.  We are much too hard on ourselves.  If we wait on the Lord He will renew our strength (Isaiah 40:31)and through His kindness He will lead us to repentance without fear of rejection or condemnation. (Romans 2:4) Rather than the unrealistic expectation of walking into our time with Him refreshed and renewed, lets come as we are and then leave our time with Him refreshed and renewed by His mercy shown to us.  We must remember that we serve a gracious and loving God who spread out His arms and died for us so that we can encounter Him, washed and made whole by the blood of the Lamb.  Not by our works, but by His grace alone are we made worthy to approach Him and to fall into His open arms.  He is always ready to receive us, if we will only just come...

Ecclesiastes 5:2

“Do not be quick with your mouth; do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God.  God is in heaven and you are on the earth, so let your words be few.”

Here’s the good news!  Praying doesn’t necessarily equate to talking!  You don’t have to have perfect words!  As an intercessor, we must start with the basics.  “God what is on Your heart?  What is on Your mind?”  Pressing into Him who has all knowledge of what was, what is, and what is to come, is the only way we will be able to truly pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Often, we assimilate “pressing in” with talking to Him.  However, to enter into a place of “Prophetic Intercession” the bulk of our time must be spent in waiting, listening and allowing ourselves to hear revelation, to feel revelation, to know the revelation of what is on God’s heart. 

I believe that as we wait for Him quietly, we allow the core of our spirit-man to do the calling/inviting.  To be silent in the natural, yet longing and crying out to Him deep on the inside.  “I want to know what’s on Your heart.”  It is in the depths that the whispers of God’s heart are spoken.  I have found that often I will walk away from “waiting’, having not heard or sensed anything.  Then a few days later, I will have a dream, or something will just drop into my spirit, when I am least expecting it.  We need to remember that when we wait on the Lord, we may not get instant results.  God loves being mysterious and He loves to provoke our hearts to “press in”.  We must always keep our spirit-man engaged and ready to hear from the Lord.

If we are to enter into “Prophetic Intercession” then we must learn to wait on God without fear of rebuke.  To understand that He wants us to come to Him and pray so that we will know Him fully and fall in love with Him and His will everyday.  He desires for us to seek revelation and the knowledge of God.  What a joy it is to then pray into the very things that He has revealed to us!  It always comes back to intimacy with Him!  He wants to be one with you!  (John 17:22)  You are His bride and He is your Bridegroom!  Wait on Him, rest in Him!  He reveals His heart in the place of rest and intimacy.  Let Him take care of you in the place of prayer!

Practical Application:  Prophetic Intercession is all about waiting on the Lord to reveal His secrets about people, places and things.  And then, after the revealing, we pray into those things that He has shown us.  Today, start with YOU!  Find a quiet place, and with your heart, rather than your mouth, begin to invite the Lord to reveal His affections for you.  “What do You see when You look at me?  What are Your dreams for me?  Jesus, talk to me....about me.  I want to know the secrets of Your heart towards me.” 

Prophetic Intercession: The Invitation

Jeremiah 33:3

“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”

Prophet- One who utters divinely inspired revelation:  One gifted with more than ordinary spiritual and moral insight.

Intercession- The act of a person praying on behalf of another person, place or thing.

Prophetic Intercession-One who prays divinely inspired revelations on behalf of another person, place or thing.

As intercessors, we are invited to hear and learn the heart of God towards people, places and things.  He is a feeling and loving God.  He is emotional and responsive.  From the beginning of the foundations of the world He has invited humans to know His heart and partner with Him in shaping history.  

In Jeremiah 33:3 the Lord extends an invitation to Jeremiah to “Call to Me” and then the Lord will answer and reveal great things.  We all want God to reveal great things to us.  Often, as an intercessor, we are asking the Lord to reveal His plan/intent for our families and friends, as well as the nations.  We all have our own way of asking God to reveal Himself and His wisdom towards situations to us, but what does it mean to “Call” on Him?

The Greek word for “Call” is Kaleo which literally means to “invite loudly”.  In Jeremiah 33:3, the Lord is inviting Jeremiah to invite Him to reveal great and mighty things that he does not know.  That same loving command and promise is extended to us.  But how do we make the shift from asking to inviting?  What is the difference?

Invite:   
To make a polite, formal, or friendly request to (someone) to go somewhere or to do something.

Ask:     
Say something in order to obtain an answer or information.

I am struck at how an invitation is so much more personal than just simply asking.  To make a request politely is to ask sweetly, to be formal is to show respect and to take it seriously, a friendly request is happy and light hearted.  God is so infinitely wise even in the words He chooses in telling us to invite Him into an intimate relationship with Him through prayer.  We were never meant to pray from our own limited understanding or imaginations of how things should be.  We were created to walk intimately with the Living God, partnering with His heart towards people and situations.  When we pray from a place of revelatory insight, intercession becomes exciting and new every time.  We break out of the hopeless, mundane task of making a difference with seemingly empty words that hit a deaf ceiling to uttering the very will and purposes of God and witnessing a transformation in the lives of the people around us as we enter into Prophetic Intercession. 

Practical Application:  Find a quiet place today and focus on “inviting” the Lord to reveal Himself to you, to show you His intentions for your life, for your family, for your city.  Focus on the invitation, rather than the response.  There are rewards in the seeking... not just the finding, in the knocking... not just the opening, in the inviting... not just the revealing.