We need to Respond to Christ’s Intercession by Exercising our Spirit to Intercede

Christ in the heavens as our High Priest intercedes for us before God, the Spirit in our spirit joins us in our weakness to intercede for us according to God, and we need to respond to Christ’s intercession by exercising our spirit to enter into His interceding life.

On the one hand, the ascended Christ as the Head of the Body and the High Priest is in the heavens interceding for us before God; He undertakes our case, bears us on His shoulders of strength and breast of love before God, and always lives to intercede for us to be saved to the uttermost.

On the other hand, Christ as the Spirit is in our spirit, and He joins in to help us in our weakness of not praying or being willing to pray; He joins in, comes along side in like manner as us, and intercedes for us according to God.

The ascended Christ prays in the heavens in the Holy of Holies before God, bringing us into God’s presence and making intercession for us continually that we may be transformed, glorified, and made part of His glorious expression on earth.

The Spirit within us joins us in our weaknesses and groans with us, giving us a deep burden to pray; we may not know what to pray for or even how to pray, but the Spirit intercedes for us according to God.

The Spirit searches the hearts, and He knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to God. The mind of the Spirit is slowly being infused into our mind to mingle with our mind until our mind is not just ours in an independent way but it becomes the mind of the Spirit, and the Spirit can pray in our prayer.

There’s a wonderful process of mingling taking place in our being; God’s life is being mingled with our life, His nature is being mingled with our nature, and His mind is being mingled with our mind, until we fully match Him to become a corporate glorious God-man, the Body of Christ, expressing Him on earth.

As we see that the ascended Christ as our High Priest intercedes for us before God, and the Spirit with our spirit intercedes for us according to God, we need to respond to Christ’s intercession in His heavenly ministry.

The Lord needs our response, our cooperation to His operation, so that He may have a free way to accomplish in us what is in His heart and mind.

We need to Respond to Christ’s Intercession by Exercising our Spirit to Intercede

Christ has done everything: He has accomplished redemption, He became a life-giving Spirit, and now He is our High Priest in the heavens and the Spirit in our spirit interceding for us that we may be transformed into His image, conformed to Christ, and glorified.

On our side, we need to respond to Christ’s intercession in His heavenly ministry, that is, we need to participate in Christ’s interceding life and become on earth a reflection of Christ’s intercession in His heavenly ministry.

What the Lord desires to gain is not super-spiritual Christians who are “giants in faith” and “prayer warriors” to fight the battle for God; He wants to gain our response as we see Christ interceding in the heavens and the Spirit interceding in our spirit.

He simply wants us, His Body, to be a reflection of what is happening in the heavens. We need to realize that, whatever the Lord intercedes for us in the heavens cannot happen or at least it is delayed in taking place unless we respond to Christ’s intercession by the exercise of our spirit to pray and intercede.

We need to agree with the heavens, saying Amen to His prayers, by the exercising our spirit to respond. We can’t get to heaven to be with Christ physically in the Holy of Holies, but we can exercise our spirit to pray and intercede!

Our urgent need today is to exercise our spirit in a deeper and more solid way; our spirit in general is too weak. Since our spirit is so weak, how much of Christ’s intercession in the heavens is realized, and how much of the Spirit’s intercession in our spirit can we participate in? It all hinges on the matter of the exercise of our spirit.

Every genuine prayer before God involves four steps:

1. God has a need, a purpose. All genuine prayer begins with God, His need, and His purpose.
2. He puts this need and purpose within us through the Holy Spirit, so that we would feel His need.
3. We respond to God’s need by uttering this need through prayer back to God. This prayer is an echo of God’s need which has been put in our spirit.
4. God does His work and accomplishes His purpose, since He has a man on earth who cooperates and agrees with Him.

It all begins with God’s will, His purpose, which is imparted into our heart as we exercise our spirit and groan in the Spirit’s groaning; then, we pray back to God the need and purpose He put in us, and God hears it and does it.

When we seek the things which are above, we respond to Christ’s intercession in His heavenly ministry and we reflect it. We will sense a current flowing back and forth between Him and us in our prayer; by means of this kind of prayer, the divine riches are being transfused into us.

The way to set our mind on the things above is by exercising our spirit to pray; when we pray by setting our mind on the things above, we will pray not for trivial things but for what Christ is interceding, for we respond to Christ’s intercession in the heavens and are one with the Spirit’s intercession in our spirit.

Our responsibility is to simply seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33) by exercising our spirit to pray and intercede for God’s need, and God will take care of all of our needs.

When we pray and respond to Christ’s intercession, we become a reflection of Christ’s ministry in the heavens, giving Him a way to carry out His administration through His Body.

When we respond to Christ’s intercession by exercising our spirit to pray and intercede, we become heavenly ambassadors on earth as the extension of God’s kingdom in a practical way.

Lord Jesus, we want to respond to Christ’s intercession in His heavenly ministry by exercising our spirit to pray and intercede on earth as a reflection of Christ’s intercession in the heavens. We want to participate in Christ’s interceding life and become the reflection of Christ’s intercession in His heavenly ministry, praying the prayers of the interceding Christ. We exercise our spirit to set our mind on the things which are above and seek first the kingdom of God. Lord, we want to give You a way to carry out Your administration through Your Body!

How the Body gives Christ, the Head, a way to Carry out His Administration through Prayer

In Rev. 5:6 and 8:3-5 we see two portions in which Christ is about to do something major in dealing with man, and what triggers it is His people’s intercession and cooperation with His heavenly ministry.

Christ in His ascension is seeking to have a way in us and through us; in the heaven He has no hindrance, but on earth we limit Him very much. We, the Body of Christ, need to give Him, the Head of the Body, a way to carry out His administration through His Body through prayer.

Prayer is not our declaration of we want to do or we can do for Him, but an echoing of what God wants to do on earth. He wants to open the scrolls of God’s economy and pour judgment on earth, and we need to cooperate with Him in prayer.

Whenever God is about to do something important and strategic, there has to be the prayers that open the way and give Him the cooperation.

Before Pentecost happened, the disciples prayed in one accord for ten days. Before the first gospel journey into Europe, there were some brothers in Antioch who prayed. We can’t bypass prayer; Christ is doing His job of interceding for us, but there’s a great need for our response, a kind of intercession that brings in His move on earth.

In Acts 12, for example, when Peter was in prison, prayer was being made fervently by the church to God concerning Him (Acts 12:5). Satan stirred up the Gentile authorities and they put him in prison, but the church prayed for Peter, and the Lord released him. Behind the scene there was a battle of spiritual forces, a battle between God and His enemy, Satan (Acts 12:4-6).

Today in the Lord’s ultimate move there’s a battle raging; even as the world situation is changing, we need to respond to Christ’s intercession and pray to give Him a way to do what He wants to do on earth.

If we don’t intercede one with Christ, entering into His interceding life by exercising our spirit to pray, we hinder the Lord in doing what He intends to do.

There’s a lack of intercession among us in the church life; we may pray a little here and there, say Amen to the Lord’s speaking concerning His move to Europe, but who stands in the gap and intercedes for the Lord’s ultimate move today?

Where are those who pray and fight the battle with God against Satan, the evil one? Who are those in the Body of Christ who are one with the ascended Head to give Him a way to carry out His administration through His Body?

Who realizes the urgent need to exercise our spirit to pray and intercede one with Christ in the heavens and with the Spirit in our spirit, so that God would carry out His economy?

Who has a consciousness of God’s need, His purpose to be carried out, and His economy, and therefore stands on earth in prayer one with Christ and in the Body for the Lord to do what He intends to do?

Lord Jesus, save us from hindering or delaying You from what You want to do by our not exercising our spirit to pray and intercede one with You. We want to give You a way through prayer to carry out Your administration on earth through Your Body. Gain in us the response You need to bring in and further Your move on earth. Oh Lord, we refuse to stay passive as we realize You’re interceding in the heavens and in our spirit; we exercise our spirit, we are joined to our fellow members in the Body, and together we say Amen, do in us and among us what You want to do! Bring in Your kingdom! May Your kingdom come and Your will be done!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James L. for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3609-3610, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Cooperating with the Heavenly Ministry of the Ascended Christ (2017 Spring ITERO), msg. 6 (week 6), Responding to Christ’s Intercession in His Heavenly Ministry.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Pray with one accord in spirit, / Pray and watch persistently; / For God’s kingdom and His glory, / Pray and watch in harmony. / Pray with one accord in spirit / Seeking God in unity; / In the Spirit of the Body / Ever pray in harmony. (Hymns #779)
  # Teach us to pray! Move on our hearts, O Lord, / Till Thine own passion all our being move! / Teach us! Pray in us, till our prayer shall be / Christ in us praying to the Christ above! / Teach us to pray! Reveal Thy will to us, / Till Thine own purpose all our being move! / Teach us! Pray in us, till our prayer shall be / God in us answering to the God above! (Hymns #762)
  # Intercede! Intercede! For Your people, meet Your need! / Hallelujah! Get Your Bride this way. / Have Your way! Have Your way! Do a building work we pray— / Hallelujah—in our life each day! / Through the cross of Jesus, / By the Spirit filled, / We are blending, building up! / We all are one! / We are…Jerusalem! / Dear Lord Jesus, we ask You to come! (Song on cooperating with Christ)