Devotions

The Bible tells us that Jesus makes intercession for us: “Therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25, NKJV). What do the scriptures mean by this?

I believe this subject is so deep, majestic and beyond human understanding that I tremble even to address it. Through prayer and trust in the Holy Spirit’s guidance, I’m beginning to grasp just a little of this incredible subject. Recently, I’ve prayed very simply, “Lord, how does your intercession in heaven affect my life? Your Word says you appear before the Father on my behalf. What does this mean in my daily walk with you?”

The English word ‘intercession’ means “to plead on another’s behalf.” This speaks of a figure who takes your place before others to plead your cause. When you hear such a definition, do you picture Christ continually pleading to God for you, asking for mercy, forgiveness, grace and blessings? In my opinion, this image makes our heavenly Father appear tight-fisted. I simply refuse to believe that grace has to be pried out of our loving God. If we limit ourselves to such a narrow definition of intercession, we’ll never understand the deeper spiritual meaning of what Christ does for us.

The Bible declares that my heavenly Father knows my needs before I can ask him, and he often supplies those needs even before I pray. Therefore, I find it difficult to accept that God’s own Son has to plead with him for anything. Besides, the Bible says the Father has already entrusted his Son with all things: “For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:9-10).

I don’t claim to know everything about Christ’s intercession for us, but I do believe that whatever our high priest is doing in his intercession for us, it is a very simple matter. I believe that intercession has to do directly with the growth of his body here on earth. He is at work supplying every joint and part with might and strength so that we may be complete in him.

Please carefully read Ezekiel 44:15–16; the prophet is referring to a man named Zadok who served as a priest during David’s reign. The Hebrew name Zadok means “right or righteous.” This righteous man never wavered in his faithfulness to David or to the Lord. He stood by the king and by God’s Word through thick and thin. Zadok always remained loyal to David because he knew the king was the Lord’s anointed.

Because Zadok remained faithful through everything, he came to represent a ministry distinguished by its faithfulness to the Lord. Indeed, Zadok was a prime example of a true minister of God: separated from this world, shut in with the Lord and consistently hearing from heaven.

True new temple priests are faithful to stand before the Lord before they ever stand before the congregation. They spend precious hours in the Lord’s presence until they’re saturated with a message that’s been burned into their souls. When they emerge from God’s presence, they are able to speak straight to the people’s hearts because it has come directly from God’s throne.

The Lord says of the Zadok priesthood, “These ministers will enter my sanctuary and stand before me. They shall come near to my table and minister to me. I’ll be faithful to direct them, and I’ll give them my word for my people.”

Indeed, we see the “priesthood of believers” echoed throughout the books of the New Testament. John tells us, “[He] has made us kings and priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever” (Revelation 1:6, NKJV). Peter writes, “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).

You may not have ministerial credentials from any church body. You may never have been to seminary or preached a sermon. You are still as called and ordained to serve in the Zadok priesthood as the most well-known preacher or evangelist. Both Testaments make it abundantly clear: Each of us is to hold the office of priest and perform a priest’s duties.

How are you to do this? You do it by ministering primarily unto the Lord. You offer up sacrifices of praise and service to God, turning over to him all your heart, soul, mind and strength. He’s called you to be part of his royal priesthood.

Faith begins with a total abandonment of oneself into God’s care, but our faith must be active, not passive. We must have full confidence that God can and will do the impossible. We see in scripture “Jesus looked at them and said to them, ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’” (Matthew 19:26, NKJV) and “For with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37).

In short, faith always says, “God is enough!”

The Lord makes men and women of faith by leading them into impossible situations. He wants to hear his servants say, “Father, you led me here, and you know best. So I’m going to stand still and believe you to do the impossible. I’ll put my life in your hands, fully trusting you.”

Our faith is not meant to get us out of a hard place or change our painful conditions. Rather, it is meant to reveal God’s faithfulness to us in the midst of our dire situation. God does at times change our trying circumstances; but far more often, he doesn’t because he wants to change us.

We simply can’t trust God’s power fully until we experience it in our crises. This was the case with Daniel and his three friends. His friends saw Christ only when they were in the midst of the fiery furnace, and Daniel experienced God’s power and grace when he was thrust into the lions’ den. If they had suddenly been pulled out of their circumstances, they never would have known the full grace of God’s miracle-working power, and the Lord would not have been magnified before the ungodly.

We think we’re witnessing great miracles whenever God ends our storms and crises, but we can easily miss the lesson of faith in such times. That lesson is that God will remain faithful to us through our hard times. He wants to lift us above our trials through faith so that we will say, “My God can do the impossible. He’s a deliverer, and he’s going to see me through.”

In Psalm 31, David introduces us to the phrase “the secret of your presence.” He writes, “Oh, how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you, which you have prepared for those who trust in you in the presence of the sons of men! You shall hide them in the secret place of your presence from the plots of man; you shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues” (Psalm 31:19-20, NKJV).

David is saying something very profound here. In the Old Testament, the presence of the Lord was associated with the ark. Israel believed that wherever the ark was, God’s presence was there, so wherever the people traveled, they took the ark along with them. We see an example of this faith concerning the Lord’s presence with the ark in 1 Samuel 4.

The devil greatly fears the Lord’s presence in our lives. He trembles at the very thought of a believer’s nearness to Christ. When his demonic hordes see you praying each day in the presence of your heavenly Father, all hell cries out, “God is with this believer. This one has the divine presence. What can we do against such?”

This is why Satan will do everything in his power to rob you of the Lord’s presence in your life. It’s why he wants to bog down your soul in doubt and fear. He wants you drained of all strength, and he’ll use anything he can, even ‘good’ things, to keep you away from spending time alone with Jesus. He knows your time with Christ makes you victorious over the fears and anxieties of this age.

The Word of God tells us we can pray without ceasing. This is unspoken prayer, anywhere, any time. I have come to believe that my most important prayers are those quiet whispers of thanksgiving that I offer to him all through the day. This keeps me in constant awareness of the Spirit.

All true strength comes from drawing near to the Lord. The measure of our strength is proportionate to our nearness to him. All the strength we’re ever going to need will come only through our secret life of prayer. If we’ll just draw near to Christ, he will draw near to us, giving us a fresh supply of strength daily. This is the secret of his presence!

In Isaiah 38, God tells King Hezekiah, “You’re dying. It’s over.” Hezekiah begins to grieve and goes into great despair. “I said, I shall not see the Lord, the Lord in the land of the living; I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world. My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd's tent…from day to night you bring me to an end; I calmed myself until morning” (Isaiah 38:11-13, ESV).

His goal is just “I hope I can make it through the night.” Have you ever had an argument with a husband or wife to the point where you couldn’t sleep at night? All you could do is try to calm yourself until the morning? Have you ever had one of those emergency phone calls in the middle of the night that kept you up until the sun rose? That is Hezekiah’s cry of the soul.

He goes on to say, “What shall I say? For he has spoken to me, and he himself has done it. I walk slowly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul” (Isaiah 38:15). The circumstances that he finds himself in are so difficult that there’s a heaviness to his soul. Now the bitterness here is not “I am bitterly angry at somebody and holding a grudge.” It’s tasting something in life that causes bitterness to come into the mouth then into the gut, and it slows his whole system down.

Look at the word of the Lord here, though. Hezekiah says something that would be rejected in 90 percent of the pulpits in America today. “Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back” (Isaiah 38:17).

He said that this bitterness of soul worked something good in his life. Most of us want to rebuke the bitterness of soul. Many of us want to pretend it was never there in the first place. Instead, we are called to trust God even in the bitterest circumstances. Praise him when things are going well. Praise him when things are difficult. Praise him when there’s healing. Praise him when there’s suffering. We are called to praise the Lord.