There are many excellent books today for teaching and
training on intercession, prayer, spiritual warfare, prayer walks, city-wide
prayer gatherings etc. You can find some
of these excellent books books link. For anyone just beginning to develop their own personal prayer life I'd
recommend the series of Books by Larry Lea starting with "Could You Not
Tarry One Hour." If you are just beginning
to learn about intercession I refer you to "Possessing the Gates of
the Enemy" by Cindy Jacobs and "Intercessory Prayer by Dutch
Sheets".
For anyone just beginning to develop their own personal prayer life I'd
recommend the series of Books by Larry Lea starting with "Could You Not
Tarry One Hour."
Let me start by addressing
an attitude in the body of Christ today that says there are people called to
the ministry of intercession. My intent is not to challenge the few who
do intercede and pray, but to challenge the majority who don't consider
themselves an intercessor. I want to challenge those who habitually pass
their prayer responsibilities on to the handful of people who do pray
consistently.
This habit has led to a
tremendous burden being placed on a few. The Bible clearly teaches
us in Ephesians 4:16 that it is important for every person to do their share.
I do not see anywhere in
the Bible a "ministry" or "gift" of intercession. We do see Jesus in
Hebrews 7:25 who is our High Priest and He ever lives to make intercession for
us. But we are all called to be like Him, and if we are all called to be
like Him, then we are all called to intercede.
Who do you intercede
for? I would like to answer that with, what or who are you responsible
for? It starts in your family, extends out to your church family,
anything (business, job, position, office) or anyone whom you have
responsibility for and anything the Bible tells us to pray for (1 Timothy 2:2
says pray for those in authority).
What is an intercessor?
"An intercessor is a man or woman-or child-who
fights on behalf of others. As
such, intercession is the activity that identifies us most with Christ.
To be an intercessor is to be like Jesus because that is what Jesus is
like. He ever lives to intercede. "
Dick Eastman
So how does the individual intercessor fit in CONECT?
As you recall, in the first chapter we focused on the
book of Nehemiah 1 - 4. The walls
were broken down in many places and the gates were burned with fire.
In 1 Peter 2:4-6 people are referred to as stones being built into a
spiritual house. In Isaiah 54:11-17
and Isaiah 60:18 we
find people referred to as precious stones as well.
Note: Ezra
and Nehemiah’s ministries overlapped. Ezra
was focusing on building the house of the Lord while Nehemiah’s ministry
focused more on protection. Hence,
the people worked on both the temple and the walls at various times. In
CONECT, we focus primarily on equipping an organization to become a strong
base of operations like
Zion
was for King
David. Once King David had a
stronghold (
Zion
) then we set up
the Tabernacle of David. A
habitation for the presence of the Lord. That
my friend is exactly what we hope to help you facilitate in your organization,
city, and region.
We are using that scriptural basis to develop a plan to
build a wall of prayer for a church or a city.
The wall is made up of people. First,
the leadership has to identify the perimeter or the wall.
How do they do this? They
simply survey all the people who are in their congregation or all the
Christians who are part of their organization. They could use a
membership role or perhaps a phone directory to identify their people. Second, all the people will be assigned a place in the wall where they
are responsible to watch and build.
This is done by assigning each family to pray for two other
families.
The wall
of prayer is made up of people.
Each
family prays for two other families.
This strategy has several
benefits.
 |
Promotes maturity by
encouraging each believer to take responsibility for praying for their
family and two other families in the church. (Nehemiah 2-4) |
|
Distributes the
workload as every person does their fair share and no one is overburdened
(Ephesians 4:16) |
|
Assists leaders in
being better stewards of their flock. (Proverbs 27:23) |
|
Encourages the
building of relationships and accountability. |
|
Employs a strategy of
mass as a three fold cord is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:12) |
|
Requests for prayer
are initially handled at the lowest level so that only major prayer needs
that the three families are unable to handle make it up to the leaders or
prayer chain. |
|
Provides a way for
anyone to report anything they see or hear in prayer. |
|
Assists leaders in
being good stewards of every report generated |
|
It is efficient |
Once the wall is
identified, how do you build the wall in prayer?
Ezek 22:30
"So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand
in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but
I found no one. (NKJ)
Isa 58:12
Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise
up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the Repairer
of the Breach, the Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
(NKJ)
Ezek 13:3-5
Thus says the Lord GOD: "Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow
their own spirit and have seen nothing! "O
Israel, your prophets are like foxes in the deserts.
"You have not gone up into the gaps to build a wall for the house
of Israel to stand in battle on the day of the LORD.
(NKJ)
The word gap literally means a break in the wall or a
breach. Francis Fragipane says
that: "you have to be an intercessor who 'stands in the gap.'
The 'gap' is the distance between the way things are and the way
things should be" and it is the
responsibility of Godly leaders to make sure the gap gets filled.
Nehemiah fulfilled his responsibility by assigning
families to positions on the wall to repair it.
They were to watch for the enemy as well as build the wall until the
breach was repaired. We see in the
scriptures where people are referred to as stones.
Therefore if we consider Ezekiel 22:30 and Isaiah 58:12, then a way to
build the local church is to begin to pray for the people in our local church;
building them up and strengthening them.
The initial function that each family will perform is to
stand in the gap and intercede for the families on either side of them and
pray for the building-up of the weak places in a church.
Why? Because building the wall of prayer is actually building each other
up. The bible teaches us that we are our brothers keeper. There
are also several examples in the word of God wherein the sin or weakness of
one affected the whole congregation (ex. Ai - Joshua 7). If you are an enemy,
do you attack the opposing force where they are strong or where they are
weak? The enemy would pick the weakest place to attack. That is
why we have to build each other up because when one suffers we all suffer (1
Corinthians 12:26).
Filling in the gap starts
with prayer.
So how do you do that? The
leadership needs to provide a list to the congregation on the strengths and
weaknesses that they would like the church to pray for as well as well as the
vision of the church. Each
family needs to be assigned two families to pray for on a daily basis.
Each family should get to know the other two families well. The better
you know them the more specific you'll be able to pray. It is of course
assumed that each family led by the head of household is praying for
themselves everyday as well. This makes sure everyone in the congregation has at least 2 people
praying for them daily. After
that, the whole congregation can
agree together daily, praying for the building up of the weak places.
The procedures implemented here employ the warfare principles of
objective, mass, and communication.
So what should the intercessor pray?
Pray for the development of Godly character and His kingdom to come and
His will to be done in their lives.
"The Scriptures reveal that
there are two acts which go on continually before the throne of God - intercession
and accusation. The
conflict between these two is the focal point of the battle between the
kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.
Because God has chosen to make the church His dwelling place, and
therefore the place of His throne, it is in the heart of the church that this
battle now rages."
Realizing the gap can also be referred to as a fault,
we need to be careful not to dwell on the negative and become only fault
finders. Therefore we must be
very careful what we do and not accuse. Proverbs
18:21 says that life and death are in the power of our tongue.
So speak life. I Peter 4:8
says that love covers a multitude of sins.
So fill in the gap with the love of the Lord.
Look at the Word of God and call things that are not as though they
were. Do you see a weakness in
their character? If so, then pray
and appropriate God's power and grace so they can change.
There are many excellent books on intercession and prayer.
I recommend that you take advantage and learn how to pray.
The bottom line is, don't criticize the breach or fault, repair it.
Start by praying the general will of God and use the Word of God and
the vision for the local church as your blue print as you build through
prayer.
The Gathering of Stones
However, prayer is just the start.
Once prayer is being lifted up on a consistent basis then plans for the
gathering of old stones and new stones can begin (remember, stones refers to
people). The old stones are people
who were at your church, but due to an offense, cares of this world or
whatever, they left and your church is where God intends them to fulfill their
destiny. Begin to pray that God
would draw them back. Then watch
for divine encounters to begin to occur as you are given the opportunity to be
a minister of reconciliation.
The new stones are people who have not been saved or who
have not found their church home yet. That
spells, EVANGELISM! As you begin
to pray, God will give you the specific action plan for you to implement at
your church. So, we build up the
walls first with prayer and then we build up the walls with people.
In the context of CONECT.
It is the intercessors who are the workers building up the walls
through intercession. It is the
intercessors who fill the roles as soldiers responding in force at the
direction of leadership to fill-in the gap when an enemy attacks through one
of the breaks in the wall (Nehemiah 4:13-20).
In Nehemiah, some were assigned the specific duty as
watchmen but all the builders were to be on alert and sound the alarm
reporting what they saw or heard.
The intercessors are like those builders.
Working with the watchmen, individual intercessors stand at their post
and watch as they build-up the wall in prayer.
They are always ready to respond to any threat and they realize that
they are a part of a team. Each
intercessor understands that it is very important that they faithfully do
their part. They are part of a
team and a team is only as strong as the weakest link.
The enemy will typically attack the weakest point.
Therefore, it is the intercessors that form the back bone of this
operation. They are the builders.
They are the soldiers. They
are the ones who "Stand in the Gap!"
By the time the gaps are filled through intercession, the
communication center will be in place and functioning.
The communication center will provide leadership with real time
information concerning the current situation in their area of responsibility.
Now the can begin to seek the Lord and devise evangelistic strategies
to be combined with the prayer strategies in order to finish building the
house of the Lord (Rev. 5:9, 1 Pet. 2:4-6) by winning souls.
These souls will also take their position in the wall as well, and be
discipled, trained, and equipped to fulfill their destiny.
It is important to note an observation from Nehemiah.
The wall was large and the people were dispersed far and wide.
A watch was established all along the wall.
When an enemy was spotted, the report had to be made to Nehemiah who
kept the trumpeter next to him
(Nehemiah 4:18). Then
the trumpeter sounded the alarm. The
report would probably come from a watchman but it could also come from one of
the workers on the wall. When the
trumpeter sounded the alarm, the rest of the people were to gather there to
fight.
Nehemiah was like a communication center.
He would have to receive reports from all around the city walls and make judgments
about where to employ his forces. It
was his job to interpret the reports and make decisions.
The watchmen or the workers on the north side of the city would have a
different view from those on the south side of the city and so it is today with
watchmen and intercessors in the body of Christ.
It is possible for two or more watchmen or intercessors,
because of their assigned positions, to see the same thing yet from a different
perspective. If one is posted on the
northwest corner of a city and one is posted on the southwest corner of a city
and an army approaches from the west. The
watchman on the southwest side will see the same army as the watchman at the
northwest post but he will probably see some things that the watchman in the
north cannot see and vice versa. However,
as the report is sent by each of the watchman, the captain of the guard or the
leadership will be able to develop an overall picture as to what is going on.
Then decisions can be made and strategies implemented.
Tim Taylor
Dick Eastman, Love On Its Knees (Tarrytown,
N.Y.: Chosen Books, 1989), p. 21.
Francis Frangipane, Repairers of the Breach (Cedar Rapids, ID., Arrow
Publications, 1994), pg. 17.
Rick Joyner, Epic Battles of the Last Days ( Charlotte, NC., Morning
Star Publications, 1995), pg. 20.
