Pray to the Father For Others — Tim Conway

Paul’s Prayer in Ephesians 3

You can turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 3. Now we had left off in Ephesians 3. Verse 14. We went down through 13. We're going to pick things up and spend a number of weeks here in the last half of Ephesians 3.

Let's read this. We'll read from verse 14 to the end of the chapter. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen. For this reason, look at verse 14. For this reason, what's going on here? It's been a while. Remember with me. Remember. You've got your face there in your Bible. You see, for this reason, and if you go back up to verse 1 of chapter 3, you see that he started the same way.

For this reason. Now, could it be that in both places he's speaking about different things? It could be. I mean, you could be having a conversation with somebody and you could say, for this reason, so-and-so.

And then later in the conversation, you could say, for this reason, and you mean another reason. And that's possible. In both cases, verse 1, for this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles.

Verse 14, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father. In both cases, we might ask, what's happening? What reason? Well, just remember this with me. Back up in chapter 3, verse 1, most of your Bibles, I recognize if you've got the King James Version, it doesn't have this, but every other Bible has that double dash at the end of verse 1.

Now, whether your Bible has it or doesn't, obviously, it doesn't show up in the original Greek. There's no double dash there to be found. This is put here by the translators. Why? Because they're assuming that Paul digresses.

They're assuming what you have from v. 2 to v. 13 is a parenthesis. In other words, Paul was starting to say what he says in v. 14. For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and he was going to say, bow my knees before the Father.

But you know what? In describing himself as a prisoner, he recognized that you can see it in v. 13. He recognized that people might lose heart. He recognized that he himself being in prison might create sorrow in their hearts.

And so, he digresses. He digresses to basically show them, look, this is your glory that I'm in prison. This is not a bad thing. Don't get discouraged. Don't be depressed. Don't lose heart to the fact that I'm doing this.

And you know what? We all do this. We all at times are speaking to somebody, and as we're speaking to them and we're trying to say one thing, a thought comes into our mind that something I just said needs to be clarified.

Or something I just said needs some extra light. And we feel like we need to abruptly interrupt and stick it in there before we keep going. We do that. And you know, one of the things is, we sometimes think that because men are inspired that they can't do those kinds of things.

Because it's almost like we view inspired writers as dictating for the Spirit of God. My mother used to be a legal secretary. And she, back in the day, this is before they have all the recording ability, she did shorthand.

Anybody remember shorthand? She would have the attorney dictate to her and she would write down in shorthand. But that is not the way Scripture comes to us. Can we allow somebody that's under the inspiration of the Spirit to suddenly interrupt their train of thought and go in another direction?

I love this. It shows the nature of God-breathed Scripture. Paul can be completely controlled by the Spirit of God and yet, the Spirit isn't just dictating to him like he's some robot. That's not what's happening.

Paul writes in such a way that his own thinking, his own writing are free and spontaneous and yet he is writing word for word what God wants him to write. That's what happens. Here's an interruption in Paul's train of thought and yet the whole thing is divinely conceived and controlled.

And so, what happens? You get to 14 and now Paul's going to go back to what he was originally wanting to say. For this reason, I mean, it stands, we ought to ask, what reason? He says this, for this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened.

Now it could be that the reason that he's, it could be for this reason I bow my knees, why? Because I want you to have power. It could be that. But if you go back up to 3 .1 when he first said it for this reason, well, it's very likely pointing to what he got done saying at the end of chapter two.

It's likely that his whole reasoning is this, for this reason, because you Gentiles, that's been his whole argument all along, you Gentile Christians have been added to the saints of God. Because of your standing.

Because go back to chapter two, let's just run through this really fast. But verse 13, they were brought near. Verse 16, reconciled to God. Verse 18, given access to the Father. Verse 19, fellow citizens, members of the household of God.

Verse 20, on the apostolic foundation, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone. Verse 22, built together, dwelling place for God. Paul bows his knees before the Father. Why? To pray for the select people.

For this reason, because of your standing. And I like this. I mean, this causes me to think. Do you recognize when Paul speaks to Christians in the New Testament, he is talking about how often he thanks the Lord for them and how unceasingly he prays for them.

When Paul found elect people of God, he was constrained. People who the Father loved, he looks at them, he recognized, they're not like the rest of the world. They're beloved of God and it struck a chord in his own love.

Paul prayed for God's people. You can't get away from that reality. He prayed, he prayed. Why? These people are adopted by the Father. Adopted through Jesus Christ. Adopted His sons. They're part of the family.

They're in. These are God's people. He set His love on them. And for Paul, that was powerful. When he found true Christians, it had a singular effect on the angle of his knees. And you notice that. I bow my knees.

Caused them to bend. Now, here's the thing. I know this. I have desired since the very beginning of this church that we would have a praying church. Because I'm absolutely convinced that we need God in praying people lay hold on God and God responds to praying people.

God moves and things happen. Prayer is absolutely essential in the life of the church. And what I find is this, when you find prayers in Scripture, they as much as anything are great lessons in how the church should be praying.

Learning to Pray According to Scripture

And so I want us to take this for what it is. Paul, he's praying. It's a prayer. Well, not exactly. He's telling us how he prays. This isn't him actually praying like Jesus in John 17. This is him telling the Ephesians how he prays.

His posture of prayer and what he prays. That's what's happening here. Paul telling us how. Massively instructive. Why? Because Paul's under inspiration. You know what the Spirit's doing here? Paul, tell them how you pray.

That is helpful. Because you know, we see a lot of people pray. You come to the prayer meetings, you hear people pray. You get in a small group, you hear people pray. When we don't get into small groups, but we all stay together, we pass that microphone around, voices come through the speakers.

Undoubtedly throughout your lives, you hear people pray. And we can ask the question, are our prayers pleasing to God? Are our prayers biblical? Do our prayers resemble something that would seem to be pleasing to God?

Maybe we say, well, if we pray, doesn't that in itself please God? But I'll tell you this, there's a place definitely to learn how to pray. Jesus taught His disciples, pray this way. There's a place for being instructed.

There's a place for learning. And I find this, when you find a prayer that we know to be inspired of the Holy Spirit, under inspiration, the Spirit was moving Paul to tell these Ephesians how He prayed.

And it's going to do us well to pay attention to this. Do people pray according to the Spirit? You know, you can hear somebody pray. Well, is that according to the Spirit? Is that not according to the Spirit?

Well, we know this is. If you ever want God just to teach you how to pray, here it is. We don't have to guess. This is acceptable. And brethren, you'll notice what isn't here. This jumps out at me. What's not here?

Oh, how shallow it is when people just simply pray, Lord, bless this, bless him, bless her, bless that, bless the other thing. Do you notice Paul doesn't even use that word bless once? Now look, I'm certainly not saying that you can't use that term when you pray, but oh, how often praying for a blessing is just a default word for not knowing what to pray.

And for shallow prayer. In fact, if you go through Scripture and you look at the specific prayers that are given in Scripture, how seldom or never do you find that word bless. Of course we want God's blessing, but what sort of blessing?

Paul is specific. See him there. See him there on bended knee. What is he going to ask for? What is it? Hear him. Father, can you see him? Bended knee. Where was he? I don't know where he was. He's in some kind of prison.

He was imprisoned. You can imagine him in a prison cell. You can imagine that a lot of his time was spent there. And what's he praying for? Hear him. Hear him. Hear his words. Father, please, please. What?

Bless them. Bless that. Bless Thessalonica. Bless Philippi. Bless the Romans. Bless those at Jerusalem. It's not that. He's very specific. And he says specifically for these Ephesians, on bowed, bended knee, listen to his voice.

He says, Father, please, according to the riches of Your glory. Now, you could stop right there. He's, Father, not in some meager way. Not in some off-handed way. Not in some barely recognizable way.

Not in some way where we've got to squint real hard to say, did he answer or not? But according to the riches of Your glory. What a powerful plea. What an argument. Please, Father, please. I'm asking to answer.

Not in some barely recognizable way. Arise! Act consistent with the riches of Your glory. That is a way worth praying. That's how you want to pray. Lord, please, look, we're not like the lost people. We're not like the pagans.

You're not like you were when you were lost in a nominal whatever you were. Whether you were a lost Baptist, a lost pagan, a lost nominal Catholic, lost religious, lost unreligious. The God you called upon and the kind of prayers you had.

And some little idol or some small figment of your imagination. Listen, that is not the way we've learned our Scriptures. That's not the way we've learned the God of Scripture. He is not some small little idol, some little statue to be prayed to like that.

He's not like those Indian gods that they have to carry around. This God is the living God and He doesn't need to be carried. And He can part red seas and when you pray to Him, you should pray according to the magnitude of His glory.

That's what Paul's doing. Don't pray silly little prayers. Look, that doesn't mean you can't pray for the smallest things. I remember Mueller, he would say, look, in his day, I guess they were what? The quill pens?

He said something about if a pen needs to have the cartridge replaced or whatever they called it in that day, he said it's worth praying about. Obviously, even praying about small things, we should blanket everything in our lives in prayer.

But I'm just saying this, we have a big God and we should pray as though He is big. He is rich. If you have something worth praying for, something you think God should grant, if there's some great mountain in your way, then if you're going to ask God to do something, ask Him for the best.

Ask Him for the biggest. Ask Him according to the riches. Brethren, I remember this. I remember there being something in my life that I really desired to see happen. And I saw a TV show where that thing was granted to somebody.

I went to the Lord and I said, Lord, they can think that up and put that on TV, and that's not even real. But they can imagine that. The true God. Lord, You ought to be able to do better than Hollywood can do.

And certainly He can. And certainly, He would have us have that expectation. Ask Him how? Ask Him according to His riches. You know, we've got a rich God. Do you believe that when you go to pray? According to His riches.

Paul isn't messing around. He goes to Him, Father, I'm asking for something. Lord, according to the riches of Your glory. Riches! Riches! His glory. Pray. That's how we should pray. Ask Him. He doesn't say, oh, well, you know.

Humility. If we're going to be humble, we should never ask too much. We should never ask anything too big. Listen, what is humility? What is pride? Pride is when we're stuck on ourselves. Pride's when we see ourself big.

But what's humility all about? Humility is seeing ourselves small and seeing God big. And if you're going to claim that God is big, then act like it when you pray. You see, seeing Him as big is not pride.

And acting as though He's big is not pride. You see, you insult Him when you have great, small... I shouldn't use the word great, but when it's these small expectations from Him. Look what He does in Scripture.

He saved 3 ,000 people in a day. You see, whether it's arguing with God concerning Hollywood. Seriously, Lord? Is Hollywood going to create better, fictitious stories? More glorious than what You can do?

Are You going to allow that to happen? But the other argument is, Lord, are You simply going to have us live off the history books? The pages of Scripture that talk about the great works of God in the past?

Lord, is that it? Should we just content ourselves? Well, 3 ,000 people got saved in a day back in the book of Acts, but that can't happen anymore. So we're not even going to ask such things. Do you know what our sister is asking down in Saltillo?

She sent out a WhatsApp message this morning and she's praying that God would save 20 people in Santa Margarita when our brother goes there to preach today. Well, think ye. Impossible? See, have we just grown to expect very little?

Have we come to the place, well, God doesn't do that. God doesn't part the Red Sea anymore. God doesn't do those things. We should have no expectation. I'll tell you, if you were on bended knee next to Paul and you were listening to him pray and you were in that prison cell with him, you might be surprised at what he prayed.

You might be surprised at the vastness, the size of his prayers. Do things according to Your greatness and my weakness. Do you know we have a giving God? I mean, when God talks about supplying all of our need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus, have you thought about that?

God will supply your needs according to His riches. Do you believe that? Do you know how rich God is? Do you pray like He is? I'm not talking about just selfishly trying to accumulate everything. I'm not talking about fleshy desires and covetousness.

I'm talking about being involved in the Kingdom of Christ and really having a desire for the glory of God and praying in that way. Praying in a way that God is... Listen, if He didn't spare His own Son, how will He not?

What? With Him? Or in Him? Isn't He going to give us every good thing? I mean, don't we have promises of a God who's giving every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. No variableness.

No shadow of turning. Now that's important. He doesn't change. He's giving. You know, David, we heard about him in the first hour. He could cast himself on God's mercy. Oh, please, don't hand me over to men.

But you hand me over to God because His mercies are great. That's why he was praying for that son so long. He knew God's mercies. He prayed for that boy because he thought there was a good possibility that God in all of His mercies would answer.

Now, God didn't answer. God didn't save that boy. But you know what? It shows what David thought about his God. He recognized this is a God whose tendencies are mercy. Look, if you come to a God who is infinite, He is almighty, and His very character is just spilling over with mercy, and He's given us examples like this, listen, let this resonate.

The Spirit of God recorded this. Paul praying the way he prays so that it would be preserved for us so that we could learn from this. How do you pray? You come to a God like this? Oh, do you not hear Newton?

Large petitions with thee bring. Why? Why? Because you're coming to a King. His grace and power are such you can never ask too much. That's the kind of God we're coming to. Listen, if you go before King David, we heard about him, or King Solomon and all of his riches and his glory, or you go before Caesar, or you go before Pharaoh, or you go before President Trump and you ask for a piece of bubblegum, and you know what?

We can think, well, that's ridiculous, but that's how a lot of our prayers are. Paul's not messing around. He's coming before the King of Kings. And he is appealing. That is a way to appeal. God, please, don't give to me like the false gods give.

Don't give to me like the demons give. Don't give to me like the non-gods give. You remember those prophets of Baal up on Mount Carmel slicing and cutting themselves and jumping around, and the prophet says, well, maybe he's going on a trip.

Maybe he's relieving himself. Maybe he's this or that. Listen, when you pray, you don't want it to be like that. We want to pray to this God, and we want response according to the riches, according to those.

How rich is God? I mean, if we look and we say, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why? He's blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. If we're looking at this, He says He blesses us.

He has given us promise of blessing. He does things like parts the Red Seas. He wants us recounting His great works. Why? So that our faith would increase, increase, increase. So that when we come to Him, we would not have little faith, and we would not ask for little things, and we'd not ask for bubblegum.

Don't do that. Don't pray that way. We need to pray big prayers. Jesus said it. If you've got faith but the size of a mustard seed, what can you not do? That's the issue. How do we pray? We need to pray.

We need to pray big prayers. We need to pray according to God's riches. His riches in glory. He is a giving God. Don't pray to Him as though He is some little God. And listen, you're praying to Him as though He is a little God if you pray to Him and then walk away not expecting a response.

Listen, if you come into the prayer meeting and the only reason you pray things is because it was brought up as a prayer request, and you just prayed it because other people were listening, but you have no expectation, then stop.

Stop. You're praying to Him like what? That's an insult. Pray what you believe you need. Pray what you believe is going to be to His glory. Pray what your children need to be saved, what your relatives need to be saved, what the church needs to not fall away.

Pray big. Don't pray like He's some little incompetent God. Don't pray to Him in a way that's going to insult Him. Now, Jeffrey Thomas was just with us a few weeks back. And he said that he used to think that the Holy Spirit was the forgotten member of the Trinity.

And he said he's not convinced that's the case anymore. He now believes God the Father is. I think he is exactly right. The forgotten member of the Trinity. I'm saying among the three. You know, we live in an age when the Holy Spirit is getting a lot of attention.

But what's happened to the Father? Some Christian circles, it seems like it starts and ends with Jesus. But you will notice that Paul is bending his knee before the Father. The Father. Just what I want you to think about here is the Father for a second.

The Father’s Work in Salvation

Now, you know, I went through from Ephesians 3 .14. I counted how many times the Father was referenced, how many times Jesus was referenced, how many times the Holy Spirit was referenced. Can you guess?

Make a wild guess if you were to imagine how much each of them proportionately. You have any idea? Equal? The Father and the Son are about equal in their references. The Spirit, much less. Here's the thing, in the first chapter and a half, the references to Jesus Christ are by far references that identify some aspect of the Father.

It's not until you get to chapter 2, verse 13 or thereabouts, that Christ's involvement in our redemption is really spelled out for us. I want you to think about the Father. Just go through. Quick survey.

Ephesians 1. You see, this is very characteristic. 1 .1, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Well, Christ is in there, but how is He in there? He's in there only by way of identifying the Father.

Paul is an apostle of Christ, but the active member of the Godhead that is making this happen is indeed the will of God. This is the Father. You see, as we move through here, verse 3, "...Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.".

There again, you have the Lord Jesus Christ, but why is His name there? His name is there simply to describe, to give identity to who the Father is. But it's the Father who is active. It is the Father who is moving.

It is the Father who is giving. It is the Father who is choosing. It is the Father adopting. It is the Father predestinating. It is the Father's will. Again and again and again, we see this. Look, "...Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.".

He it is who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Four, even as He chose us, it's the Father. Five, He predestined us. It's the Father. Six, to the praise of His, this is the Father with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.

That's in Christ. But you see this, verse 9, it's the Father making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose. It's the Father's purpose which He set forth in Christ. If it was Christ there, you don't say which He set forth in Christ, but which He set forth in Himself.

But that's not it. It's God. 11, in Him, in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of the Father, Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory.

He is the One who gives the Holy Spirit. He is the One, if you go to verse 15, for this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom.

See, it's the Father who is giving this. It's the Father who opens their eyes, enlightens them, gives them a knowledge of these things. Verse 20, or the end of 19, according to the working of His great might that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.

It's the Father who raised Christ from the dead. It's the Father who is working His great might in the people of God. You keep going through here, verse 4 of chapter 2, but God being rich in mercy. There's the Father again because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

God is doing this. God raises us up. It's God's love. It's God's mercy. It's God who seats us with Him, so that in the coming ages, verse 7 of chapter 2, He, God the Father, might show immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Verse 10, we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand or He prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. What I want you to get a feeling for is you do not want to forget Him.

And I think that even in our song selections in this church, I went through our song list today. It is hard to find songs that are about the Father. Very hard. I mean, in our song list. Why is that? Well, look, there is a reason that we look to the cross.

There's a reason we want to preach the cross. There's a reason that we want to think about the redemption that we have in Jesus Christ. But you know what you don't want to forget? You don't want to forget that Jesus taught us that when we pray, we should pray this way.

Our Father who art in Heaven. We should look to God. God the Father is the one before whom Paul is bending his knee. And you remember, it is the riches of His glory. He is the one that gives these spiritual blessings in heavenly places.

He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He adopted us as sons in Christ Jesus. It is Him. It is His love. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, He raised us up with Christ.

He seeded us with Christ. It is His blessings that are poured out. It is not by our works. It is the gift of God that we are saved by grace through faith. Remember this. The Father. The part that He plays in this.

It is the Father who so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son. We don't want to forget the Father. It is His plan. It is His purpose. According to His purpose. How often do you see that in this book?

The Father. The Father. Listen, do you know? Some of you have heard this. Every single time that the Lord Jesus Christ addressed God, He called Him Father. Every single time. Now there were times that He talked to other people about God and He called them God.

My Father, my God. Your Father, your God. It's probably backwards. There are times He used that language. But when He addressed His Father in prayer, He called Him Father every single time except... do you know when the exception was?

On the cross. During the hours of darkness. My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me? Quoting right out of Psalm 22. What's my point? Sometimes I sit in the prayer meetings and I will hear a brother or a sister, usually it's brothers, and they pray and they call our Father, they call Him God almost exclusively or the majority of the time.

And I wonder why? Why? Brethren, you've received the Spirit of adoption by which we cry, what? Abba, Father. It's beyond me why Christians want to pray and consistently call God, God. We have a God who invites us to call Him Father.

In fact, He gave us a Spirit that would compel us to pray that way. Don't be cold and distant in addressing Him. Listen, you're coming before One who says, I want You to call Me Father. Why? Because I am Your Father.

You think about a little child coming to a father. How much more? You're having the Father give good things to them that ask. Including the Spirit. We're coming to Him according to the riches of His glory and He's your Father.

Now that is good news. That bodes well for your prayer life. Does it not? What purpose does Paul cry out to the Father? To ask for a better car? A husband and wife? More money? Look, I'm not saying you can't pray for those things.

But I would have you notice this, Paul doesn't pray for himself once here. Not once. None of those things. Take notice. Notice. Paul is praying, but he's not praying for himself. Brothers and sisters, how desperately, desperately we need men and women in the church like this.

The Need for Intercessors in the Church

Paul is interceding. Interceding is what you call it when you bow your knees to God for the sake of others and not for yourselves. How we need intercessors in the church. And I'm concerned. I'm concerned.

When I got saved, honestly, I hungered to have time with the Lord. The first three years of my life, I was able outside of work and even times at work during breaks and lunch, I wasn't married. I was able to give my life to communion with the Lord.

And I moved down here to Texas, lived with John Seitzman. Very business-oriented family. And things were working at a pace. I just felt like John was very much given to devotions in the morning and before the family got together.

And I liked to walk in the evenings and be out in the field and away from the heat. And John's schedule and mine were a little bit different. I remember just panting after having that time back. And I recognized that I needed to move separate so that I could get back into my own schedule.

And I longed for that. And you know, I guess my sense was that that's how it is with all Christians. We don't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And we want to abide in Christ and we love walking to Him and meeting with Him.

And there's things to confess and there's worship and just getting to meditate before Him and praying and interceding for the sake of others. I just assumed that. And then I got married and my wife basically lived that way day after day.

I guess my assumption has largely been, well, of course, that's how Christians live. I don't know, I guess I'm kind of baffled by the frequency at which I hear that people in this church have a real difficult time maintaining just a consistent intimacy with the Lord.

And I guess my concern is this, I'm not sure what lies behind this. Difficulty? Is it immaturity? Is it worldliness? Is it busyness? Is it just that there's no hunger there? I know this, intercessors don't come from marginally spiritual people.

Why? Because interceding requires love and a level of maturity and a lack of selfishness. Selfish people? Their prayers are all about themselves. Very little worship. Very little confession. But a lot of give me, give me, give me, give me.

Now, I know there are prayer warriors in this church. I know there are. I know there are some of you, your walk is close to the Lord. I want there to be more. I want this to characterize the church as a whole.

Intercessors. We desperately, desperately need this. And if people can barely manage to find their way into the secret place of prayer each day, I know this, you're not interceding for anybody. It's not happening.

Where do intercessors come from? They come from people that live in the presence of God. You think about it. Paul, you can imagine the guard walking by. The guard's talking to each other. What's the guy doing in there?

Every time we walk by there, he's on his face. He wasn't idle. He wasn't wasting his time. He wasn't wasting his time in prison. He was crying. He was bending his knee. He was pleading. He was crying out for the sake of others.

You find in just about every single one of his epistles, he cried out for people. He called upon them. Where do intercessors come from? People who don't live by bread alone. People who are desperate. People who are abiding in the Lord.

People who are talking to Him and walking with Him. Where does it come from that somebody says for this reason? I know them to be a Christian. For that reason, I'm on my knees before them. They're beloved of God.

Something is released in my heart. I need to pray for them. I'm thinking about other people all the time. I'm thinking about their needs. I'm thinking about them glorifying God. Where do intercessors come from?

Intercessors, not marginally spiritual people. You know, if we don't have intercession happening commonplace in your life, I'm not just talking about in the church. If intercession is not happening as a commonplace thing in your life, one of the great manifestations of sacrificial love is missing.

And listen, that's important. Sacrificial love. You think about judgment day. Jesus talks about what you did for others. I was in prison and you visited me. You know, one of the ways you can visit people in prison is by praying.

The thing is, as long as you have life and breath and you have consciousness, you can pray for people. We need it. We need this desperately. Where are the men and women? I know we've got some. I know.