Lesson 84: Christ the Intercessor, part 3
The Only-begotten is the only one who has the right to pray: to Him alone it was said, “Ask, and it shall be given You.” As in all other things the fulness dwells in Him; so the true prayerfulness too; He alone has the power of prayer. And just as the growth of the spiritual life consists in the clearer insight that all the treasures are in Him, and that we too are in Him, to receive each moment what we possess in Him, grace for grace, so with the prayer-life too. Our faith in the intercession of Jesus must not only be that He prays in our stead, when we do not or cannot pray, but that, as the Author of our life and our faith, He draws us on to pray in unison with Himself. Our prayer must be a work of faith in this sense too, that as we know that Jesus communicates His whole life in us; He also out of that prayerfulness which is His alone, breathes into us our praying.
To many a believer it was a new period in his spiritual life when it was revealed to him how truly and entirely Christ was his life, standing good as surety for his remaining faithful and obedient. It was then first that he really began to live a faith-life. No less blessed will be the discovery that Christ is surety for our prayer-life too, the center and embodiment of all prayer, to be communicated by Him through the Holy Spirit to His people. “He ever lives to make intercession” as the Head of the body, as the Leader in that new and living way which He has opened; and as the Author and the Perfecter of our faith. He provides, in everything, for the life of His redeemed ones by giving His own life in them: He cares for their life of prayer, by taking them up into His heavenly prayer-life, and by giving and maintaining His prayer-life within them. “I have prayed for you,” not to render your faith needless, but “that your faith fail not:” our faith and prayer of faith is rooted in His. It is, “if you abide in Me,” the ever-living Intercessor, and pray with Me and in Me: “ask whatsoever you will, and it shall be done unto you.”
The thought of our fellowship in the intercession of Jesus reminds us of what He has taught us more than once before; how all these wonderful prayer-promises have as their aim and their justification, the glory of God in the manifestation of His kingdom and the salvation of sinners. If we only or chiefly pray for ourselves, the promises of the last night must remain a sealed book to us.
It is to the fruit-bearing branches of the Vine; it is to disciples sent into the world as the Father sent Him, to live for perishing men; it is to His faithful servants and intimate friends who take up the work He leaves behind, who have like their Lord become as the seed-corn, losing its life to multiply it manifold—it is to such that the promises are given. Let us each find out what the work is, and who the souls are – who are entrusted to our special prayers; let us make our intercession for them, our life of fellowship with God, and we shall not only find the promises of power in prayer made true to us, but we shall then first begin to realize how our abiding in Christ and His abiding in us makes us share in His own joy of blessing and saving men.
O most wonderful intercession of our Blessed Lord Jesus, to which we not only owe everything, but in which we are taken up as active partners and fellow-workers! Now we understand what it is to pray in the Name of Jesus, and why it has such power. In His Name, in His Spirit, in Himself, in perfect union with Him. O wondrous, ever active, and most effective intercession of the man Christ Jesus! When shall we be wholly taken up into it and always pray in it?
Prayer: And, oh my Lord, give me specially to know, as You promised Your disciples, that You are in the Father, and I in You, and You in me. Let the uniting power of the Holy Spirit make my whole life an abiding in You and Your intercession, so that my prayer may be its echo, and the Father hear me in You and You in me. Lord Jesus, let Your mind in everything be in me, and my life in everything be in You. So shall I be prepared to be the channel through which Your intercession pours its blessing on the world.