"Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears ... and was heard in that He feared" (Hebrews 5:7)
Christ, as Head, is Intercessor in heaven; we, as the members of His Body, are partners with Him on earth. Let no one imagine that it cost Christ nothing to become an intercessor. He could not without this be our example. What do we read of Him? (Isaiah 53:10-12): "When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed ... He shall see of the travail of His soul ... I will divide Him a portion with the great, because He hath poured out His soul unto death." Notice the thrice-repeated expression in regard to the pouring out of His soul.
The pouring out of the soul - that is the Divine meaning of intercession. Nothing less than this was needed if His sacrifice and prayer were to have power with God. This giving of Himself over to live and die that He might save the perishing was a revelation of the spirit that has power to prevail with God.
If we as helpers and fellow-laborers with the Lord Jesus are to share His power of intercession, there will need to be with us too the travail of soul that there was with Him, the giving up of our life and its pleasures for the one supreme work of interceding for our fellowmen. Intercession must not be a passing interest; it must become an ever-growing object of intense desire for which above everything we long and live. It is the life of consecration and self-sacrifice that will indeed give power for intercession (Acts 15:26; 20:24; Phil. 2:17; Rev. 12:11).
The longer we study this blessed truth and think of what it means to exercise this power for the glory of God and the salvation of men, the deeper will become our conviction that it is worth giving up everything to take part with Christ in His work of intercession.
Blessed Lord Jesus, be pleased to teach us how to unite with Thee in calling upon God for the souls Thou hast bought. Let Thy love fill us and all Thy saints that we may learn to plead for the power of Thy Holy Spirit to be made known. Amen
~Andrew Murray~
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