Study – How To Pray and Intercede Intimately with God

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Short Summary
The study emphasizes the importance of intimacy and intercession in prayer, highlighting how pouring out one’s heart to God deepens trust and personal relationship with Him. It explores themes such as thanksgiving, abiding in Christ’s words, personal righteousness, and praying in the Spirit as means to enhance prayer life and intercession for others. The discussion also addresses praying for leaders and those in authority, underscoring the role of intercessory prayer in supporting brethren and aligning with God’s will, ultimately fostering unity and spiritual growth within the community.

Long Summary
Detailed Summary of the Study on Intimacy, Prayer, and Intercession

Opening and Context:
– Greetings and expressions of love from various ecclesias and Bible study groups.
– Prayer request shared for Brother Ralph Allison’s son, Mickey, undergoing surgery for a serious cancer (sarcoma near the brain artery). Emphasis on prayers for strength and courage, highlighting the role of faith and trust in God during trials.

Study Theme: Intimacy and Prayer, and Intercession
– The study focuses on building an intimate relationship with God through prayer and intercession.
– Prayer is described as the “lifeblood” or “breath” for the new creature, akin to how breath is vital for physical life (Genesis 2:7 – Jehovah God breathed life into Adam).
– Breathing exercises and meditative prayer (e.g., calling on “Jehovah”) can be both spiritually and physically beneficial.

Scriptural Foundation:
– 1 Timothy 2:1-2 urges supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for all men, highlighting the universal scope of prayer.
– Discussion on the “therefore” in 1 Timothy 2:1, linking intercession to warnings about false teachers and Paul’s own experience of being prayed for during his trials (Stephen’s intercession).

Key Questions Explored in the Study:

1. How does pouring out your heart to God deepen trust and intimacy?
– Psalm 62:8 encourages trusting God and pouring out one’s heart to Him.
– Despite God’s omniscience, verbalizing our thoughts and emotions builds intimacy similar to human communication.
– Prayer is not only for needs but also for thanksgiving and sharing joy.
– Pouring out the heart often involves deep emotional expression, creating spiritual rest, honest dependence, and personal dialogue with God.
– Example: Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 1:10-18, pouring out sorrow and longing before God, resulting in relief and answered prayer.
– Pouring out is likened to the Old Testament practice of pouring out sacrifices (Leviticus 16), symbolizing total surrender.

2. What role does thanksgiving play in making prayer personal and peaceful?
– Philippians 4:6-7 exhorts believers to present requests to God with thanksgiving, leading to peace that surpasses understanding.
– Jesus’ prayer before raising Lazarus (John 11:41-42) includes thanksgiving, showing the importance of gratitude even when outcomes are uncertain.
– Thanksgiving shifts attitude from anxiety to gratitude, recognizing God’s goodness, mercy, and faithfulness (Psalm 100).
– Thanksgiving is connected to sanctification (1 Thessalonians 5:18; 1 Corinthians 1:30) and peace offerings in the Law (Leviticus 7:11-13), symbolizing joy for God’s provision despite human imperfection.
– Recognizing God’s ongoing work in our lives, including trials, cultivates trust and love.

3. How does abiding in Christ’s words through study and obedience enhance intimacy in prayer?
– John 15:7 emphasizes that abiding in Christ and His words results in answered prayers.
– Abiding involves meditating on Scripture, allowing it to shape thoughts, desires, and actions, aligning our will with God’s.
– Obedience is crucial; “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22).
– Harmonizing with God’s word leads to a mutual, loving communion, making prayer a two-way conversation.
– Psalm 1:1-3 and Colossians 3:16-17 illustrate the blessing of internalizing God’s word and living it out.

4. Why does Paul prioritize intercession for all people (1 Timothy 2:1-2), including rulers?
– Intercession means “standing in the gap” for others, especially brethren who may be overwhelmed.
– Paul’s instruction to pray for kings and those in authority aims for peaceful lives to enable godly living and gospel spreading.
– Complexities arise in praying for corrupt or ungodly leaders, but believers are called to trust God’s sovereign plan (e.g., Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar).
– Intercession reflects God’s heart of love and desire for unity among believers.
– Examples of fervent intercessory prayer include Epaphras (Colossians 4:12) and the early church praying for Peter’s release (Acts 12:5-6).
– Praying for authorities can be challenging but is necessary for societal order and spiritual growth.

5. What do we pray for when interceding for brethren?
– Prayers include requests for faith, wisdom, love, spiritual growth, service readiness, and peace amid trials.
– Ephesians 4:12 speaks of equipping saints for ministry and building up the body.
– Intercession involves personal investment and carrying others’ burdens.
– Isaiah 53:12 shows Christ making intercession for transgressors, serving as the ultimate example.
– The unity of believers (John 17:21) is a key prayer focus.

6. How does personal righteousness amplify intercessory prayer?
– The effectiveness of prayer is linked to righteousness (James 5:16).
– Obedience, faith, and sanctification increase the power and intimacy of prayer.
– Trusting God’s answers—yes, no, or wait—builds faith and closeness.

7. What does it mean to pray “in the Spirit” and how does this guide intercession?
– Ephesians 6:18 calls for praying always in the Spirit.
– Praying in the Spirit involves heart-directed, sincere, Spirit-led prayer rather than mere ritual.
– It frees believers from anxious calculations, placing concerns fully in God’s hands.
– Prayer “without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) means maintaining a continual attitude of prayer and dependence on God throughout daily life.
– The intimate Father-child relationship is exemplified by Jesus’ use of “Abba” (Daddy) in prayer.

Practical Applications and Encouragement:
– Developing a structured prayer life including various forms of prayer: supplication, thanksgiving, abiding in Scripture, and intercession.
– Prayer as continuous communication with God, not limited to formal settings.
– Importance of perseverance (“Don’t give up”) in prayer.
– Recognizing that God’s answers can be subtle and timely.
– Encouragement to incorporate intercession as a meaningful, personal involvement in others’ spiritual welfare.
– Prayer changes attitudes, fosters unity, and increases trust in God’s plan.

Closing Thoughts:
– Prayer is a precious gift from God for intimacy and spiritual growth.
– The goal of prayer and sanctification is to reach a mature, perfect love akin to God’s (Matthew 5:44, 48).
– Intimate prayer includes pouring out the heart, thanksgiving, abiding in God’s word, intercession, and living righteously.
– The study encourages believers to deepen their prayer life with intentionality and love for others.
– Final encouragement: end prayers with gratitude, recognizing the Lord’s faithfulness even before answers come.

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Key Bible Verses Mentioned:

– Genesis 2:7 — God breathed life into Adam.
– 1 Timothy 2:1-2 — Exhortation to pray for all men, including rulers.
– Psalm 62:8 — “Pour out your heart before Him.”
– 1 Samuel 1:10-18 — Hannah’s prayer of pouring out her heart.
– Philippians 4:6-7 — Prayer with thanksgiving brings peace.
– John 11:41-42 — Jesus thanks God before raising Lazarus.
– Psalm 100:3-5 — Call to enter God’s courts with thanksgiving.
– Leviticus 7:11-13 — Law of sacrifice of thanksgiving and peace offerings.
– John 15:7 — Abide in Christ’s words to have prayers answered.
– Colossians 4:12 — Epaphras’ fervent prayers.
– Acts 12:5-6 — Church prayed intensely for Peter’s release.
– Isaiah 53:12 — Christ’s intercession for transgressors.
– Ephesians 4:12 — Praying for equipping and building up the body.
– John 17:21 — Prayer for unity among believers.
– James 5:16 — “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
– Ephesians 6:18 — Praying always in the Spirit.
– 1 Thessalonians 5:17 — “Pray without ceasing.”
– Matthew 5:44, 48 — Love and pray for enemies, be perfect as God is perfect.

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This summary captures the essence of the study’s discussion on the vital role of intimate prayer and intercession in the Christian life, emphasizing trust, thanksgiving, obedience, and personal involvement in the spiritual welfare of others.

Transcript

Can everybody hear me? Okay. Good morning, brethren.

Well, first of all, we want to bring love from some of the brethren that we meet with. We have love from the Albuquerque Ecclesia, who all wanted to send their love. I would bring love from the Southern Colorado Bible students, but we’re all here, all three of us, and then I have love from our Friday night meeting that we are studying the fifth volume of the Atonement, and also love from the Monday Africa meeting that meets on Monday mornings at 8.

And I think that gets all the love I have. Announcements I was requested, and I think it’s so apropos that as we’re studying intimacy and we’re looking into intimacy and intercession that Brother Ralph, you know, Brother Ralph Allison and Sister Vicki Allison, who wanted to be here this year, but they’re going through a trial and I got a prayer request for, and Brother Ralph this morning asked that the prayers would be for strength and for courage as their son, and a lot of, you know, their son Mickey has a carcinogen cancer that’s sarcoma, a soft tissue cancer.

And it’s right in between the artery that’s going on the neck, that’s going to the brain, and so there’s going to be a team of three surgeons that will operate on Mickey on the. On the 20th. On the 20th of this month, and there’s a bane surgeon, there’s the cancer surgeon, and then there’s the other surgeon, I forget, that is his regular.

She’s a cancer doctor also. But the two specialists there. So with that, we ask for intercession and prayer for them, and I think it was wonderful that Brother Ralph asked for strength and courage, and, you know, that’s what Vicki has brought up also, is the strength and courage to go this way because, you know, faith can truly trust our Father, come what may.

And in that spirit, we bring that up.

When I was given this assignment, I thought, well, what a wonderful assignment, and, you know, it’s blessed me so much to look into this, and hopefully it’ll be a blessing to you also. We’ve shared this, and we went over this with the Southern Colorado Bible students, and every one of these questions took a lot more than an hour and a half. So we’re going to be moving on this a little bit, and I like the way that the study was put up.

First of all, intimacy and prayer, and then intercession is the way that it was sent to me, and when we look at intercession, how do we intercede for those of our brethren? And how important it is to have this intimate relationship with God we’re thinking about. Some have said that just as the breath is the lifeblood for the earthly creature, that prayer is the lifeblood, the breath and the lifeblood for the new creature.

And we think about to Genesis 6, 2, and this, I think, is where we learn about the covenant and the promise that Adam and Jehovah God have, and that’s the first time that we see the name Jehovah in the Bible, and it says Jehovah, Elohim breathed into Adam and he became a living being. Breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a living being.

And it’s funny, I was sitting here and before this, I have a problem with blood pressure. So sometimes my blood pressure spikes and that in situations, and so I do breathing exercises, and I learned from these breathing exercises that when you breathe into the diaphragm and then into the chest and then you exhale that, it’s in three parts. So what I do is I go Yehovah.

And that’s one of the ways that I take down my blood pressure. So with that, with intercession, we thought we would go to First Timothy 2. 1, and in First Timothy 2, 1, it says, I exhort thyself, first of all that supplication, prayers and intercessions be made for all men. Well, there’s an interesting word in there, and that’s the therefore.

And we’ll touch on that intercession in this study because that’s suggesting that it’s talking about something else. In this greeting, this letter to Timothy, Paul warns him about false teachers, and then he goes into how Christ came to save sinners, and he talks about himself being the worst of the sinners, and you think about that.

When Paul was speaking to Timothy of this, he must have gone back to that intercessory prayer that was given to him by Stephen when he was stoned, and how apropos. That’s my new word, apropos. Apropos, that is, for this lesson that Paul gives. So we thought about looking at these.

And, you know, you notice that Paul speaks of intercession for all men, and when we think about that, we think, well, let’s look at it. We kind of have bullet points in the study. The first you will see is, how does pouring your heart out to God deepen your trust and intimacy with him? Well, we think that pouring out your heart when we looked at these Scriptures was the idea of supplication.

So supplication is the pouring out of your heart, and the word supplication actually has the idea of. Of begging or pleading for something that is deep upon our minds. So we thought that supplication would be a good starting point and then is brought up thanksgiving abiding in Christ and obedience, intercession for all, personal righteousness and praying in the Spirit would be the bullet point. So up here, up here on the screen, you see the question, how does.

And this is the question we’ll pose to you. How does pouring out your heart to God deepen your trust and intimacy with Him? The scripture that we have up There is Psalm 62. 8. Trust in him at all times, ye people.

Pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us, Selah. So with that, we’ll open up the question, how does pouring out your heart to God deepen your trust and intimacy with Him?

You got to turn it on. I do believe. There it is. I wasn’t paying attention to you, Brendan. Sorry.

But, yeah, I think pouring out our heart just builds that relationship that we have with him and so that he can hear what we’re going through. That’s it. Over. So while you’ve got the mic, if he knows everything before we come, why is it important that we bring these things up and tell them to.

So why is it important if he knows everything?

I guess that’s kind of in us. So, I mean, it’s our responsibility to go to God and pour out our heart and share what we’re going through, even though he does know what we’re going through.

So I don’t know if that answers your question. I think you hit the nail on the head. I think that’s beautiful, because what way do we build intimacy with someone else? Communication. So God wants us to communicate with Him.

So if these things and we go, and it’s not that we don’t pray and that the Spirit intercedes with groanings and knows what we must pray for, but God wants us to come and bear all with Him, and I think that it drops any pretense and we come to God as we are. We’re needy, we’re flawed, or we’re joyful, and when you pour out your heart to God, it can also be in a joyful way.

And I think the more that we pour out our heart in this way, the more we’re going to be able to pray out in supplication in a joyful way.

Sister Kathy? Yeah. I would like to add that one of the reasons why we would pour our hearts to God is because we don’t know the outcome of our situation, and so we rely on him for his strength and his comfort and his guidance because we don’t know what will happen. Thank you.

Amen. Yeah, that’s a beautiful answer because that’s the attitude that gets us to the attitude of gratitude, isn’t it, Brother Ben? Yes. So is this good enough? Prayer is a wonderful gift that God has given to us.

You said it correctly. When he already knows exactly what we’re going through. But he provided this other part that we have a communication with Him. Now, when you are in prayer, a lot of this communication goes on in your head and it sets your mind towards casting these things to him. There’s many scriptures that talk specifically about this.

And God knows exactly what happens to us when we do this. It is liberating. It is something that reduces your blood pressure.

And he loves that we have this gift from him. He loves that we get to have this level of communication with Him. It is beneficial to us as human beings, and I think that pouring out our hearts to him deepens that connection in our minds when we think about God, and the more you do something, the easier it is to do that particular thing.

If this becomes a habit, then prayer doesn’t always have to happen before a meal or just before bedtime or first thing in the morning. It can happen anytime. While you’re driving in the car, while you’re going for a walk, while you’re just taking in the sights, and that’s exactly what God wants. He wants to encourage you to have more of that and pouring out your hearts.

It’s not going there necessarily because you’re having difficult issue. It’s going there to say, thank you so much for this wonderful view. Thank you so much for allowing me to have my family. It’s everything. It’s all encompassing.

That was it. Amen, and you know, we thought about being instant in prayer, and as we learned to pray in supplication, being instant in prayer, how many days, how many minutes are there in a day, how many hours, how many minutes of the day? And this is the most important thing, one of the most important thing we do is to pray.

Then how often do we pray to sustain this? And you know, a lot of the brethren is that we’re instant in prayer in everything and always in that attitude of prayer. Sister Kathy Well, I don’t have my Bible with me. Well, I have my one year, but I don’t have my other one. So I can’t get give you the scripture but when Jesus is going to raise Lazarus, he prays to the Father, but he does say, I know that you always hear me.

You always hear me. So. But he’s saying it for those around him. So he’s teaching us that even though we know he always hears us, that we pray to him because it’s required of us to be personal with Him. Amen.

And Brother David, pouring out of your heart implies that there’s some deep emotional thing going on, and that’s the way that I get it. You pour your heart out. You’re in the midst of some emotional trial or just trial that brings on emotion. It’s a little bit different than just thanking the Heavenly Father for the blessings.

Part of what the dynamic of prayer is the fact that God answers our prayers. I love Jesus. Words In Matthew, chapter 7, verse 7 and 8, he says, ask and it shall be given. You seek and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

For every one that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened, and then jumping down to the last part of verse 11, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? So the question asks, how does it deepen our trust and intimacy? I think the answer is twofold.

Number one, we have a certain level of faith when we come before the Lord at times of need. If you didn’t have that faith, you wouldn’t do that. But you recognize that we have a Heavenly Father that wants to hear from us, and by the way, just as a sub note, you asked a very good question earlier. If the Heavenly Father knows everything, what’s the point of going to Him?

Well, the point is our own development. He wants to see us move toward him. Draw nigh unto me, and I will draw nigh unto you. Yeah, he knows everything, but he wants to see that expression. But the second part of this dynamic is God’s answer to us.

And that’s where real trust and intimacy begin to develop. When we ask our Father for something, and lo and behold, he gives it to us. If it’s a promise, the answer is always yes. But if it’s not promised, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask for it. But we should be prepared for the other possible answer, no.

God always answers our prior yes, no, or wait, and so, deepening our trust and intimacy, we can’t do that unless we go to the Heavenly Father in prayer often, and then, as Brother Fry used to say, if you ask for Something you better be watching. Because sometimes the Lord answers us. His answer is very subtle.

We may miss it if we’re not paying attention, but he always answers, and that’s where trust and intimacy grows to a wonderful amount. Over. Yeah, and trust and love and intimacy all go. We’re going to take one more question, then we got to go on.

Sorry. I just wanted to mention that the pouring out here, that word in the Greek is the same as in Leviticus when they’re pouring out the blood at the base of the altar. So I think it really means a total giving over of yourself to the Lord. Over. Yeah, and I agree with that.

And when we think about that pouring out, we see lots of inferences to that in Revelation, the incense of the saints and the prayers of saints, the. Which all comes from that. Leviticus 16, and, you know, it’s wonderful to think that, you know, in Matthew 6, when Jesus, when he’s asked how to pray, he says, when you pray, he doesn’t say if you pray. He says, when you pray, you do these things.

And so you would say that it’s not a commandment, but it is. What we would be encouraged to do is to stay in this relationship, and we think about, you know, one of the examples of the pouring out of one’s heart is the prayer of Hannah. In 1st Samuel 1:1018. It says, Hannah was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore, pouring out her longing for a child.

After doing so, her countenance was no more sad, you know, and when you think about the pouring out of. Of Hannah for the birth of the son and the situation she was in, the marriage that she was in, she was married to Elkanah, who came from the line of Korah and all that was going through, and she was looking, and she was the first wife, but the second wife was the one that had the children, and she was being tormented because of this. That’s what brother David Stein was talking about.

I do believe when we pour out our heart to God for a longing for something, and that’s why I think we may get a lot of our trials, is that this pouring out of our heart, this longing for something, increases that intimacy. Uh, oh, my screen went away. Okay, there it is. So unburdening. Spiritual rest, honest dependence, strengthens trust, personal dialogue, a living relationship.

And his invitation indicates his desire for intimacy with us, and he wants us to give our will in our lives. Our second question is, what does thanksgiving play in making prayer personal, a personal, peaceful experience rather than a ritual and the scripture that is up here is, be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known unto God, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. So giving that scripture and your own knowledge, all of these things, you guys know, and you know, we’re setting this to put it in the front of our mind so we can practice it.

So what does Thanksgiving do for us, Sister? And I don’t know. Sherry.

Well, just taking this back a step and tying in Thanksgiving with what was already said about the first part. I just looked up the part about Jesus raising Lazarus, and if I could just read that, and Jesus looked upward and said, father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here so that they may believe that you sent me.

So I think our Lord is making a powerful statement here. He’s beginning this request before he raised Lazarus by thanking the Heavenly Father. So that thankfulness, I think, ties in, too, with the pouring out of your heart. Because the Heavenly Father always knows what’s in our heart, but sometimes we don’t, and when we pour something out to him verbally, that gets it right on the table for us so that we can’t ignore it.

And I like the point that you brought up, that Jesus thanked the Heavenly Father before he raised Lazarus, and he says, I know that you always hear me, but for their sake, and that, we would say, is an attitude of gratitude. You know, when we pray with Thanksgiving, I think it changes our attitude because we can get into supplications and we can look at all of these things that we’re begging and longing for. But what is it we can always do with the Heavenly Father? We can be thankful for things.

And you can name. You know why we talked about the breath of life that we get first thing in the morning. Thank you. When we wake up, we think about the plan that we know of the kingdom of God. We think about the coming millennium.

We think of Jesus words. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You know, and just as Jesus did, we can thank him for always being there.

Juliet. Sister Juliet.

You know, when we’re grateful, when we’re, you know, we thank our Heavenly Father.

He sees that we got it. We just pay attention. I think you really appreciate when we pay attention to what’s going on around us, that his promises are being fulfilled each and every day. You know, He Makes his bounty fall on the just and the unjust. You know, we have his grace to help every step of the way.

And we notice, we thank him and he’s pleased because we pay attention, but we thank him not only when things are going well, we thank him when things are bad, too. I was just sharing with a sister this morning, and, you know, this is how when we talk together, the spirit of remembrance touches our heart and bring to our memory back things that you think don’t matter. But I was telling her about when I lost my husband, Brother Tim, and how it answered one of my prayers, because I was praying for many years, Heavenly Father, I really want to love Jesus more. I really want to treasure what he did for me, and I just don’t feel it.

And when Tim passed, I thank God. I said thank you because you sent your son to fix that so that nobody has to endure suffering and death anymore, and this becomes very personal. This touches our heart deeply in our guts. We feel it, we know, we appreciate.

And now we know why he permits all the things he permits. His plan is beautiful. We embrace it, and we know that’s the only way, and we are just amazed in front of this amazing God.

Thank you. Amen, sister, and, you know, we think about the scripture. Jesus wept and he felt that, that same thing, he came down here and he felt that for all of mankind, and he paid that ransom price for all mankind.

And what a wonderful hope that we have and how thankful we can be with that, and you brought up the rain on the just and the unjust also. How beautiful that is, that in the millennial kingdom, all men will be blessed. All that will will come to the knowledge of Christ.

Test it. Thanksgiving indicates a confidence in our Heavenly Father for what he’s done for us on all the little things in life, and when we come to him with some weighty matters, he appreciates it. Just like Brother Davis said, we draw nigh to him and he draws nigh to us. It’s for our discipline to be benefited by drawing near to him, because he’s always near to us.

We just have to make ourselves available to Him, and he’s pleased when we acknowledge him as the Savior of our soul. He’s pleased that we’re. That we’re thankful for even the smallest things in life. But it’s just that thanksgiving and confidence just go hand in, hand over.

Yes, and Brother Paul, 1, 2, 3. So there’s two scriptures I think we should put together on this subject, and that’s one that you have listed not Here, but in another place in everything. Give thanks for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus, and the other is this is the will of God for you, even your sanctification.

And so the giving thanks and sanctification are connected, and sanctification means to be made holy, and so I look at the phrase hallowed be thy name as a thanksgiving phrase as well as a reverence phrase, that we should be so thankful that we can look to the character, the holiness of our dear God and our dear Savior, and through that process of giving thanks, we can be sanctified ourselves. We can be made holy ourselves.

And that’s God’s will for each of us.

Thank you, Brother Paul and Brother David.

Okay, now it’s on. I appreciate Brother Paul’s comments on sanctification. We have a scripture in Leviticus 7 that combines this idea of peace and thanksgiving, and it really has to do for being thankful for the things that God gives us as part of our adoption into his family. In Leviticus 7, starting in verse 11, 11, 13, we read, and this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings which he shall offer unto the Lord.

By the way, let me pause there. Peace offerings were in the category of free will offerings. These weren’t required under the law. A freewill offering isn’t required. That’s what makes it a free will offering.

It’s also interesting that in every instance in under the law where God says that an offering is a sweet smell to him. I think there’s one exception to this, but in every other case it’s always with regard to freewill offerings. God does not say it’s a sweet smelling offering for a sin offering. They’re required under the law, and so part of what makes it sweet smelling to God is that it comes from the heart.

It’s gratitude that we express as a thank. We’re reading on here in verse 12, if he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Number one, unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and number two, unleavened cakes, unleavened wafers anointed with oil. Number three and cakes mingled with oil of fine flour, fried.

And number four, besides the cakes he shall offer for his offering, leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving for his peace offerings. So there’s four items here that an Israelite could express his thanks to God. The first, unleavened cakes mingled with oil. Well, these are familiar symbols to us. Unleavened cakes represent perfection and we have perfection given to us.

In our justification, mingled with oil. There we have, we think, symbolic, a reference to our spirit. Begetto are being adopted into the family of God. So we’re thankful for to God that He has justified us and that he, to use Paul’s words, is sanctifying us through His Holy Spirit, through the beget of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, we have unleavened cakes mingled with oil or unleavened wafers.

Pardon me. A wafer is something that’s a thin piece of bread, and it’s so thin it’s translucent, and we think that this might bring our minds to the promises of God. They’re out there. We don’t have them yet.

We can see them in part. But we can be thankful now for all the promises that he gives us to guide and to sanctify us day by day. Thirdly, cakes mingled with oil of fine fire fries. Can we be thankful for the fiery experiences? We should be.

We should give thanks to God even though we’re suffering in the flesh, because that has eternal implications to us. It is what is developing us. Again, using Paul’s words, it’s further sanctifying us through these fiery experiences. We should be thankful for them, and lastly, and this is very unusual, how many sacrifices can you think of under the law that required leaven?

Well, here’s one. Leavened bread. What could that mean? Well, we associate with leavened sin. I think the lesson here in this particular item is that we are to be thankful to God in spite of our innate sinfulness, in spite of our imperfection, in spite of our tendency not to get things right.

God has covered that with the blood of Jesus, and so we shouldn’t allow sin to hold us back from being thankful at all, but rather thankful for the redemption that we will have ultimately to get out from under these bodies of sin over. Amen. Thank you, Brother David. Brother Joe.

Jeff.

What?

When we give thanks to God, we. We’re thanking him for a lot of different things, but also, you know, because he’s working in our. In our lives, and I like the example of Jesus. When he raised Lazarus, he said, thank you, God, for you heard my prayer.

So it’s not only just thanking God for working in our lives, but thanking him that he’s heard us and that he’s answered our prayers. So if we look for those daily experiences and the examples of how he’s answered our prayers, thank him for that too. We should thank him for all things that he’s giving us and working in our lives. Thank you, Brother Jeff, and all of the answers I like, you know, that inert sin that is within us is covered by Christ, and to become sanctified, we need to be under the blood of Christ.

And I like the picture of. Even though we have this sin that besets us, we need to be thankful for what the Lord is doing for us. You know, sometimes when we think we’re waiting on God, God is waiting on us. Right, and so I.

I love the idea of the. Of the sanctifying and, and we know that all things work for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose in that sanctification. Sister Sonia.

So I really appreciate the. The thoughts. Yeah, yeah. I appreciate the thoughts and considerations that have been given. Really appreciate.

Brother David’s going back in the Old Testament, so I’m going to go there too. I’m gonna go to Psalm 100, because before we were praising, they were praising as well. They were giving thanksgiving as well, but they did it for a different reason, and let me read just three verses. It says, know ye that the Lord, he is God.

I’m reading from verse three. It is he that have made us, and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. So enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name.

For the Lord is good and his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endure to all generations. This we know because we have beneficiaries even now, being called into this grace, into this hope, and so that is why I give thanksgiving, because of those things over. Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, give grace and thanks to Jehovah when we come into his courts.

And that attitude of thanksgiving, we’re giving all of these examples in the Old Testament and in the New Testament of the thanksgiving that we had, and so when we pray, when with thanksgiving, there’s a change that affects our attitude and the way we look at things, and we always have something to be thankful for, even the trials that we’re going to. You know, Jesus in the Beatitudes, he said, you know that blessed are you when men persecute you for my sake. He says, rejoice.

And that word there, rejoice is jump for joy, you know? And so we need to be able to see that these things that we are going through are needful for our sanctification. Let’s go on to question three. We’ll take one more question.

Sister Karen, I don’t think you’re on. There you go. Yeah, I had heard a thought, actually it’s from the reprint that beyond the veil, not going to be praying, we’re only going to be praising, and that thought was very helpful to me. It’s almost like seeing the goal of praise.

So because we’re in imperfect bodies and in earthen vessels, we need to pray. But to. But that comment helps me see that beyond the veil we’re not going to be praying, we’re going to be only praising. So therefore that is the goal that we have to reach. Very good.

And so hallowed will be his name at that time, and this one thing I do, pressing on towards the mark of that high calling, forgetting the things that are past, and when we get to that point, how beautiful it’s going to be to praise the Father, how thankful we ought to be that that’s going to be what we get to do. So let’s go on for time, and the third question is how does abiding in Christ’s words through study and obedience enhance the intimacy of prayer?

And we’ll give you the scripture, John 15:7 says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. What does it mean to abide in Christ?

Brother Paul AI has an excellent answer. Actively engaging with Scripture, meditating on its truths, responding to them through prayer, allowing God’s Word to shape one’s truth, thoughts, desires and actions. This consistent engagement with God’s Word strengthens prayer, enabling individuals to align their prayers with God’s will and experience a deeper relationship with Him. My goodness. So if I would summarize that, that you’re saying that if we abide in the Word of God, then we know what God’s will is.

And if we obey his will, that’s the second part of abiding in Christ. So it’s a two part act of obedience and praise and faith to abide in his word.

So with that, I think that if we abide in His Word that we have the confidence to go to Him. We with the promises that were brought out and with the Scriptures and the obedience, you know, when Solomon or when Samuel came to Saul, he said to obey is better than sacrifice, and so that’s how much of the importance we see, you know, in obedience to Christ’s words invites both the Father and the Son, and for that indwelling relationship which makes prayer intimate because it’s no longer a one sided plea, but a conversation that we’re having with God with a mutual loving communion Studying His Word equips us to obey. Because if we don’t study His Word, what do we know to obey?

And obedience opens the door to his nearness. The prayers of a righteous man availeth much, Brother Ben, along with what Brother Paul gave as the description for abiding. I think there’s even a deeper connection there that the Scriptures are trying to convey, and that one is not just all of those things being consistent, continual, but in harmony with. If your mind is in harmony with Christ’s words, with God, then that allows for these Scriptures and the will of God to much easier come into our minds and allows us to then reciprocate those things back. But if you had two tuning forks and they are on different frequencies, they clash.

It doesn’t allow for a nice even tone. Abiding is being in sync with the words. It is being in sync with Christ and with God, and when you harmonize with it, then your will becomes his will and his will becomes your will over. Amen.

I like that idea of harmony, the harmony of God’s will, and Brother Jeff, you had a comment. Just to add to what everyone else has been saying. It’s our alignment with God’s will. That’s what we’re trying to do.

And so when we abide in His Word, that’s what we’re doing. We’re aligning ourselves with him, not asking him to align him with what we want. You know, when you’re a child, you go to mommy and daddy and you ask them, can I do this, can I do that? And we do that with our Father. But as we mature, we know what’s right, we know what’s wrong, we know what the word of God says.

Those are the things that we should go to God with and thank him for and try to align ourselves with his will and all of our experiences. Yeah, and as you’re speaking, I think of that Psalms 1:1 9, 11, it says, Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not see sin against thee, and so what is the heart? What is our heart but our moral compass that we develop?

And we’re supposed to develop perfect heart intention, and so while abiding in God’s word and doing these things, then that compass can always point north, can it? When we’re at rest, we want our thoughts to go to the Heavenly Father. So when we’re in line with with God’s will, it keeps us in step with him and it reduces that barrier of sin, and God wants us to come because Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, that belief of what God has done as we abide in him.

All of these things that we experience in life becomes part of our story that will be tell later in the millennial age, if we’re faithful unto death. You know, we all have a song that we’re creating now, and so I think that hiding that in the heart, there’s Colossians 3, 16, 17. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord, and whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Okay, I think that we’ll conclude there. So we think that when Christ’s words dwell richly in us, it overflows into every action. Every one of our actions become more in the example of who we want to follow, and that reflects God’s heart. I do believe, you know, First Timothy 2:1:2, I exhort thee, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercession, and thanksgivings of thanks be given to all men. Okay, that brings us into our third quest, our fourth question.

And this is from our first Timothy 2:1:2, and the question that we put forth on this is, why does Paul prioritize intercession for all people? And how does this reflect God’s heart? So remember, First Timothy 2:1:2, I exhort thee, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, and this is where Paul is talking of intercession for all men.

And he brings up for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty.

So what is intercession, Sister Karen?

So intercession to me is a little bit more than just praying for the brethren. I guess the term for it is standing in the gap. So when we have brethren who are struggling, and sometimes they’re so overcome with whatever’s going on that they can’t even pray. So you stand in the gap for them and pray for them. So it’s a little bit more involved than just saying, I pray for Brother Ken, who’s going through this trial, but it’s more earnest and it’s more involved.

Over. Yeah, and I like that, the intercessory where, you know, we have the Scripture that says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that we cannot understand, and so in that example of intercession, we also see the point that Sister Karen brought up about. You know, sometimes when we’re going through things, we need our brethren to intercede for us, especially in great times of trial, and then you think about, why then does Paul put such emphasis for all men, for praying for our leaders and, and those that are in power.

Juliana. Sister Juliana, I would like to give an example. In the scriptures, in Colossians 4:12, it talks about a faithful servant, you know, during the early days of the Gospel. Epaphras. I really like Epaphras.

There’s a little written about him. But the way Paul describes him shows, you know, how he battled in prayer for the brethren, and the purpose was beautiful. It says, epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, always laboring fervently for you in prayers that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God, and, you know, when we sometimes have experiences with our brethren, sometimes we have conflicts or we don’t understand each other, or sometimes there are times where there’s need to be a rebuke, or in any circumstance, if we try it with our own incapacity, we’re doomed to fail.

We need God’s blessing, We need God’s direction. We need God’s way to help us do it in a way that will be profitable for the other one. But that shows the unity of Christ, that, you know, we have the other ones in our care, that we battle for them, that our purpose is to regain our brethren. Our purpose is to unify, and, you know, Satan will do everything to divide.

So that’s why intercessions are so needful, because they are one that are discouraged. How do we find the right word that will touch their heart? I don’t always know. Sometimes, you know, I assume, you know, I share some of my experiences, that sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes it’s not. But if I go in prayer before trying to give words of advice or even comfort, then the Lord give me words that I don’t even know where they’re coming from.

But it’s the spirit of remembrance, and he gives me what will be useful for that person, and that’s where, when we realize our own incapacity and we turn to him, intercession shows our desire, our heart desire to keep the unity of the body of Christ and show our love and our care. God said, you know, if you say you love me, but you hate your brother, you know you’re a liar. So it shows our earnest interest and concern for one another.

So we bear one another’s burdens, and in prayer we do that. So we’re going to go first to Sister Karen and then to Sister Robin Kathy. Karen want to say, okay, it’s all right. This scripture is an interesting one to me because it’s saying that we should pray for kings and those who are in authority, that we may lead peaceful lives.

And I guess what I was thinking is that how do we pray for individuals who are in leadership, who are in authority, who we believe exemplify corruption? And I know that we should pray that the Heavenly Father’s will will be done through them, but when it says to pray for them, I guess puts a little question mark in my mind because I do believe that the those who are in power and authority are those who the Heavenly Father wants in terms of bringing down our social order, and if we are in line or in harmony with the Heavenly Father’s will, we will not resist their rulership. However, just to pray for them, it just brings a question in my mind, especially if they have no interest in the Heavenly Father, that. Thank you.

Yeah, and, you know, I think that maybe a part of that is to pray that the Christian’s role is to have trust in the order of the society. That is, and maybe not pray that all of their desires be met, but we pray for them that God continues to overrule in this way.

That’s one thought on that. That’s a very good question to bring up, Sister. Yeah, I appreciate this discussion, and it seems to me, you know, based on what Sister Karen was saying earlier, that there’s a difference between praying for someone and praying on behalf of someone, and it seems like intercession is you’re praying on behalf.

And it makes sense then, in the context of the scripture, that where Paul is asking us to pray and intercede for those of the world whose prayers don’t necessarily go up, they don’t have the standing to pray. So just as Jesus is our advocate and he advocates for us to the Father, it sounds like we should be advocating for the world to the Father as well, and maybe over. I like that thought.

Sister Joyce. Yes, this scripture has always intrigued me, and I think what the key is right there in the scripture, it says that we may continue to do what we’re doing. So it isn’t a prayer necessarily for individuals in power. It’s a prayer that whatever is happening in the world stays away from us as much as possible so we can continue to do God’s will and God’s work and I’m always.

I always enjoy the little line from Fiddler on the Roof. I know David Stein really loves these two, and it says, may God bless and keep the Tsar far away from us. Right, and I really love the point you brought out about, you know, praying for those in power so that we can have peaceful lives, so we can spread the gospel.

And when in Timothy, when Paul was talking about this, like I brought up at first, I think he remembers the prayer that Stephen gave for him and that Stephen interceded on his behalf. Now, how many of the brethren were praying for Paul at that time? And what an important prayer that was that went up to heaven, to God, and we’ll go. Sister Carol, I was going to answer Sister Kathy’s, because the quote that she did about praying for the king, when I’m looking at the ugliness in the news about Trump, it made me think when I’m reading that, to pray for the king, then, okay, then I think we should pray for Trump, for Netanyahu, and so I do.

I pray that they do thy will, Lord, that they do what’s right for their people. That’s my thinking on that scripture. Thank you. Thank you, Sister. We have Brother Homer.

So, yes, that’s a very interesting scripture, and I think it can be interpreted many, many ways. I want to go back to the time, however, when, prior to the Exodus, the time of the plagues, and we know that the Scriptures indicate that that very first Pharaoh, who had hardness of heart, was raised up for that very purpose, and so what I would suggest is, again, our absolute confidence that our heavenly Father has a plan and it always works for good, and I’m sure that at that time, not everybody could see that.

As a matter of fact, poor Moses found that, you know, when these things were happening, that the Israelites were complaining, you know, you’ve done this, and we have, for example, we have to build bricks without straw, and so if you don’t understand that God is in control and his ultimate good has to be served by what are the means he chooses, which we cannot see without approaching him and saying, lord, I cannot see it, what is it that you have in mind? So again, as others have been said, that my will can be aligned with yours and I can be obedient and stand fast. Thank you.

Very good, and Brother Brendan and then Brother Jeff, a couple things. One, hopefully we don’t get too derailed. I think the more important aspect of your study is how it applies to ourselves personally, not this, you know, the king’s thing. It’s something that we could easily get a little sidetracked on.

But I liked what Sister Joyce said, and I think that’s the general bend to it. Is that in that little quote there from. Was it Fiddler on the Roof or whatever, they keep the. Keep the Tsar far away. That basically, you have to remember during the early church, they were being persecuted on every side by both Jews and Gentiles, and they just wanted the freedom to worship God through Jesus without being molested by various governments and other institutions.

So the prayer was that they would be left alone, and by doing that, they also agreed to abide by the secular rules of government as long as they didn’t directly conflict with the worshiping of God. So Paul’s very thorough on both sides. He says, hey, like Jesus said, you give the government what the governments do and you give God what God has due, and so the only real prayer or interest we have is that we’re allowed to develop as unmolested from these influences, you know, directly, as long as the Lord sees fit.

There may come a time where that’s not possible, and then the other thing we have to remember is Nebuchadnezzar was called God’s servant and he destroyed Israel, and he wasn’t a particularly noteworthy character as far as individual. We see that he did some pretty horrible things and was a hothead, but still. So like Brother Homer was saying, God uses can.

You know, we see evil, but the ultimate terminus of that evil is potentially God’s plan and is there for a particular reason. So, and just getting back to the intercession aspect of it, I really like the thought that intercession is kind of, I don’t know. Growing up in school, we were exposed to this. I don’t know if it was a poem or a story called Stone Soup. Does everybody remember that?

So I don’t know if they teach that in schools any longer, but of course you remember that everybody was hungry and it was winter and nobody had an abundance of food, and so one guy just starts boiling water and throws in a few stones, and then little by little, everybody knows what happens. Someone came with one thing that others didn’t have. Another person came with another thing that others didn’t have.

But individually they were, you know, there was nothing, I’ll say, really nutritious. No one had a good meal worth of food. But to get combined together, you know, they formed a community and they were able to have a, you know, have that, I’ll say, wonderful experience, plus eat, you know, and be filled. I Like. Like an intercession to that.

That all we might have are stones, but we put in what we’ve got, and the more brethren that are involved in this and that are exposed to this, I think God looks down at it and sees that we’re trying to make soup. We’re trying to do something and accomplish something beneficial for either an individual or the body as a whole, and so that’s, and it’s interesting.

And I still don’t know, and if someone has a great way to explain it or a great way to think about it, I would love to hear it, because I don’t know how to explain or even understand prayer and what is actually going on behind the curtain that we can’t see when we pray. Because there’s something special there in prayer and in talking to God and in communing through the Holy Spirit that we read about and everything. But how that, like what’s going on behind the scenes that makes that so. That God baked that in to us as people and into our consecration and into part of his whole plan, that it’s.

It’s so critical and indispensable, and that’s one way that we can diagnose a weak spiritual life is if we have a weak prayer life, and that’s something that I’ll say is probably the number one manifestation or symptom of having a weak. Or, you know, I’ll call it lame, but in the sense of actually being lame prayer life or spiritual life. So those type of things, I think are important because it doesn’t get a lot of airtime, I’ll say, in our general circles, and how we can do these things for each other rather than just praying, you know, just.

We’ll say, I’ll pray for you, you know, a lot of times, and those. This your study, and I think the intent of this whole weekend is to go far beyond that into much more practical. How do we. How, you know, what is intercession?

How can we intercede? How do we intercede? How does it work, all those things? And why is it so important? And why has it been chiefly, I don’t want to say neglected, but sort of downplayed or marginalized more or less in the big picture.

Over. Amen, and I love the point you brought up about when we’re intimate in prayer and we come to the throne of grace, it’s like we come right before the Father and we don’t know how that works. But when it becomes an intimate relationship like that, through the advocacy of Christ, we come to The Father to a personal, intimate relationship with the Father, and the question was, how do we become more intimate in prayer and then intercession?

I was talking to Brother Keith this morning, and he said on his talk, how do we not give up? He says, just don’t.

And then how do we become more intimate? Just do it. You know, if the stone and the water is there, add your piece of cauliflower, add your little piece of meat, whatever you have to that. Brother Jeff, I apologize. Go ahead.

I think of an example that’s near to my heart because of my wife. A lot of the brethren in the former communist countries imagine what they had to go through, praying for those in authority, or as Romans 13 talks, about being in subjection to the governing authorities. So how do you do that when it’s such an opposition to your faith? So if you’ve ever read the book the Sky Through Bars, there’s some really beautiful examples of how these brethren were able to keep together to help each other, to encourage each other, yet under really adverse circumstances and difficulties and praying for each other. The other example I think of is our brethren who are in the concentration camps.

And I used to think that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were the primary targets of the Nazi regime, but because they were opposed to war and they were neutral. But when you look at the Nazi documentation, the primary reason was because we as Bible students were Zionist, we believed in Israel, and that’s what they were opposed to. So under those kind of adverse circumstances, how do you encourage each other? How do you help each other? How do you.

How do you pray for the government or the governing authorities when the persecution is so difficult and severe? And there’s a brother Augustin from Poland, who, through a bunch of circumstances, ended up in a concentration camp. He died just a couple weeks before the camps were liberated. But he wrote this beautiful letter of faith that was sent out to the brethren, and it’s just.

Those kind of examples are just inspiring to me. So thank you. Thank you, and when you were. All of the experiences of our brethren in this end of the age, I mean, we’ve been pretty blessed, and that may change a little bit.

But when you think about. I think the best example was the prayer, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, and that could be our prayer, is that they don’t get so far down and that God will forgive them so that they can be brought up in the millennial kingdom.

So I think that all of those things that are put forth for our edification and our Sanctification are trying. No trial is joyous for the time, but then afterward it reaps the. The benefits, and so when you. When you think about.

And Sister, I don’t know your name.

Hello, It’s Gabriella. Gabriela. Yeah, thank you. I appreciated the examples of the Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh and how God was using them and how that applies today as well, probably with these people who are in power who we may not like, and I think it might be an important growth for us in terms of separating the sin from the sinner.

Because if we have a big problem with some of these people in power, we still have to love them in the kingdom, and when God looks at them and is using them to bring about whatever, he still knows who they will be ultimately, and that’s a lot harder for us because we don’t know the future, but we do know God’s plan and how they will be part of walking up the highway of holiness, and eventually we’ll be praising God, and if we can look past that of the current and able to see that in them, I think maybe that is the way that we can lead quiet and peaceful lives in godliness and honesty.

It might not be physically or in the flesh, like in our prayer for them. If we can be genuinely praying for that person, not just like the fiddler on the roof prayer or sort of a passive aggressive, like, prayer about them, but if we can genuinely be praying for that person as an individual who is a victim of their system, then our heart condition will be such that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, and maybe that’s the way that we should be reading that scripture. So go ahead, Sister. Sister Dan was on.

I really appreciated what Sister Gabriella just said, and that really hits the nail on the head, and it also is a perfect segue into the question that Brother Brendan had said later, like, how does this whole prayer thing work? And this brought a hymn to my mind, and I don’t have strong enough Internet to get the whole thing.

But it just so happens that the first verse does, and it’s called Behold what manner of love? And you’ll all recognize the tune. Probably it says, behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the sons of God, that we should be called the sons of God, and Gabriella expressed fully how that works over amen.

And we want to get to that. That point of agape love and love, just like the Father loves eventually on the other side of the veil, don’t we? So what about this? What about praying to bless our enemies? In Matthew 5:44, it says, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Brother Paul, what good is it if you pray for those who. Or if you love those who love you back? That’s the previous verse.

Well, there’s some good to that, right? But Jesus goes on, pray for those that hate you, you know, that persecute you, and then he says something that it’s interpreted a lot of different ways. Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. Okay, so that’s the.

To me, that is the goal of us being mature in Christ, us being perfect in righteousness faith that you have as the next question, and this is kind of a segue into your next question, because the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, and I think about Abraham praying for Sodom and Gomorrah and negotiating with God. He negotiated with God, you know, if there’s 50 in there, if there’s 40, if there’s 30, if there’s 10, will you spare them? Okay, so what does that mean for us?

And I think what it means is that God reserves blessing and favors and even mercy waiting for us to pray on behalf of somebody else. Now, what if we don’t do it? Well, I think God will assign that to somebody else, and we’ve missed that opportunity. But there are blessings and mercy reserved only to be given if we pray for one another. Isn’t that an incredible responsibility?

Yeah, and that was brought up earlier, too. I kind of want to go on to. When we talk about intercession is intercession for our brethren, because I think it’s very important to get to what do we pray for for our brethren when we intercede for them? And we’ll give an example of Acts 12:26, when Peter was in prison. It says, so Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made to God intensely by the church.

So what is Peter being prayed for in the prayers of the church? What is the goal of this prayer? That God would intercede.

Did they pray for him? You know, I think that when we look at this, I think that we see Peter facing a trial. He was kept in prison, and I think that the brethren were praying to fortify his faith and that there would be a miracle on his behalf, and what does that do for us when we pray for our brethren?

It unites us, and we have 10 minutes. Sister Kathy, Karen.

So I Just want to read Isaiah 53:12. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he has poured out his life unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sins, the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. So he prayed for those who were persecuting him. He didn’t.

And so we, and the brethren who were praying, you said when Paul, Peter, Peter was in prison, you know, what were they praying? Were they praying, Lord, to get him out or were they also praying for those transgressors, the ones who are holding him? So there’s. I don’t know, probably both.

Yeah, and I think that’s correct, and I think that praying for that is part of that. Praying for strength to overcome trials, you know, and there’s another scripture and we’re going to go a little quicker here in Ephesians 4:12 about praying for the brethren. It says for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. So that’s another aspect of what do we pray for the brethren?

How do we intercede for the brethren? What do we pray for them? So we would say that praying for brethren to grow in wisdom and love, that they may be filled with more knowledge of God’s will and that that would prepare them to serve shining as lights as we read in Matthew 5:16, and brother Paul’s point he brought up about being perfect and there’s a thought in the reprints of Perfect Heart Intention and that word perfect means complete when you look in strong, and Brother Russell brings out the point that we’re not going to be perfect on this side of the veil, but we can have perfect hearted tension.

And I think that is one of the things that we would be praying for our brethren about.

Sister Kathy what I was going to say is Peter in prison, the brethren would be praying that Lord have mercy on him, they have already killed James and Peter is now in prison and have the same thing. So naturally they would be praying that Peter escaped that. Yeah, and that’s the point is James is all, and so this is for actual intercession in this prayer, isn’t it? Because they’ve experienced this already.

And so we can pray for our brothers, and it was brought about of the ones that were in Nazi prison camps and through the bars, you know, I mean those are real heartfelt intercessionary prayers. So we think about that in those situations Also about equipping them for the service and good works that we brought up in Ephesians. What about this prayer here, John 17:21, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may be in us.

Gretchen Brendan well, it wasn’t specifically on what you’re asking, so I’ll pass on to someone else who has a comment on that, and I’ll just say about in about six minutes, you can, if you just will, dispense with a hymn, because we only have a 15 minute intermission. So in about six minutes, if you could just close and close with prayer, and then we’ll just have a 15 minute, very brief 15 minute intervention or intermission or intercession.

And then it’ll be. Brother Homer. So we just don’t have a lot of time. So I’ll stop here. Yeah, we’re behind.

And so, you know, one of these things we think about is that the prayer, some of our prayers for our brethren will be the oneness, the oneness and the unity of the church, and I think that’s a wonderful prayer, and then Brother Brennan. Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt your thing, but I guess based on that, just to make a quick comment, I from just personally, I think intercession is when we take it personally that it’s not just, I’ll say a disinterested third party prayer on behalf of an individual or a group or the brethren or whatever the case is. This is.

We’ve entered into like a partnership, if you want to call it that, or we’ve taken a burden on ourselves and agreed to, you know, so it’s a, it’s a much more personal affiliation with what either the individual or individual group that we’re attempting to intercede for, and so I think it’s something that’s done at a different level of consciousness, if you want to call it that, or a different level of intent. It’s something that we’re personally invested in over. Yeah, I agree with that, and that brings forth that unity, doesn’t it, that we were talking about?

I mean, we become one with those that we care about, we spend time with, and we know how to carry their burdens, and we pray that their faith and alignment will be with God’s will, and so some of the other points we would think about is to find peace amid anxiety and uncertainty, that we could pray for our brethren. Philippians 4, 6, 7 says, don’t be anxious about anything, but with everything by prayer and pleading, with thanksgiving Let your request be known to God, and the peace of God will guard your hearts. So lifting personal fears and intercession swaps worry for peace, trusting a Father who knows, because the Father has all in his plans and he knows what we have need of.

So we touched on righteousness a little bit. We’ll think about. How does personal righteousness through intimacy with God amplify the effectiveness of intercessory prayer? Well, it says the prayers of a righteous man availeth much, and so the prayers of being obedient to God’s will, we covered that a little bit, is more than important for our prayer to be comfortable and intimate with our God when we come to Him.

So let’s go to question 6. What does it mean to pray in the Spirit? And how can this guide our intercession for others? Ephesians 6:18 says, Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

You know, praying in the Spirit with the mind and heart directed by God’s Holy Spirit becomes more than just a ritual of praying, but it is, it is a, how would I say, not mere emotion or ritual, but it would be an intimacy and a direction by the Holy Spirit that is brought up. Go ahead, brother. Brother Keith? Yeah, I believe the difference is like when we were talking earlier about our leaders and stuff, personal praying for them, praying in the Spirit. The seat of the Spirit is in the heart.

Not the physical, not the literal heart, but the seat of our emotion and our feelings as opposed to our thinking mind, and if we’re praying about our leaders based on our thinking mind, I don’t think that reaches the level. Praying from our heart. Intimacy only occurs when to, you know, both sides open their heart, you reveal things that you wouldn’t reveal to others, and that creates trust and intimacy.

And I think that’s what the Father wants from us, and so when we pray, don’t be trying to think about the solution, present your concerns. God will have the solution. But then you’re free of worrying about that concern because you know God has the solutions. You’ve just revealed to him that you have a concern about it, then you’re free from worrying about that.

If you’ve honestly put it in God’s hands, you feel that peace because you’re not holding it in there and you’re not worried, oh, what’s going to happen? How is this going to work out? And you’re trying to think about 10 different calculations on how to make it work when if you just present it to God from the heart and you trust that he is going to take care of it, then you don’t have to worry about those 50 calculations you are trying to make in your mind. It will work out. So you are saying that prayer is not a to do list.

And also what you brought out, Brother, was the praying with both the mind and the heart and that we pray with our heart and that God knows what we need before we even ask it to leave it in his hands. So Brother Paul, very quickly pray without ceasing. What does that mean? That means like a magnet or like a compass. Whenever our thoughts are free, immediately we should be in the spirit praying.

As Brother Ben mentioned earlier, wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, we can be praying, and that’s in the spirit, and so it reminds me of the manna text from a few days ago. Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed, and so I think that’s what it means to be in the spirit, that we are ready to, to have our hearts and minds go to God in prayer and supplication.

But my wife has a real answer. Go ahead. Just again, very, very briefly, I know we’re out of time, but Jesus says that we go to the Father as Abba, and in Hebrew abba means daddy, and if you go to Israel and you go like on the beach or something, you hear abba, abba, abba, abba everywhere.

And that’s how we should be. It should be abba, abba, help us Abba do this. Abba is just like a little child would completely trust a father. We have that relationship with the Almighty creator of the universe, our Abba. Yeah, Daddy.

Our Daddy in heaven, and we’re going to have to close. We’re out of time. We’re out of time and we’re going to have to close. I want to leave you with the last question for yourself.

How can you structure your day to prioritize intimate prayer and intercession based on what we’ve studied and Sister Karen, we’re going to give you final closing thoughts and then I’m going to ask a blessing.

Yeah, but I actually would like a 1 minute comment on that last question. But that’s not what I was going to say. I basically was saying is we probably have five or six solutions in our brain to a situation and I can guarantee you 100% it’s none of those, and when it happens, it’s 10 times better than we ever dreamed. That’s my comment.

And I would say practice makes perfect, and I put together a prayer chart for myself. So how do we practice with these different kinds of prayer? And we may always want to pray in the spirit and then go to praise and thanksgiving, pour our heart out to God, abide in Scripture, and you can have copies of these.

This isn’t a Ken’s prayer to do list. This is some of the things that I’ve been practicing on, changing my intimacy with prayer. We’ll close with that, and I think that we should always end with gratitude. We should always end our prayers with thanksgiving, that the Lord has already answered them before we know, let us bow our heads.

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