Yesterday I heard on the radio, a preacher encouraging the audience that Jesus prays and intercedes for us. I cringed. The preacher meant well, but I am of the opinion that Jesus' intercessory prayer does not concern our wants.

Jesus prays for us is told in John 17. Intercession points below (verses from GNB).

• v6: They have obeyed your word
• v11: Keep them safe .. so they may be one just as you and I are one
• v15: Keep them safe from the Evil One
• v17: Dedicate them to yourself
• v21: They may all be one
• v21: They be in us, just as you are in me and I am in you (repeated again in v22 and again in v23)
• v26: I made you known to them and I will continue to do so
• v26: So the love you have for me may be in them and so that I also may be in them

Jesus interceding for us is not what we may have in mind when we hear the word "intercessory prayer". It is never about health and prosperity. His intercessory prayer is bigger.

And I believe he is still interceding for you and me, by way of the Spirit.

"In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express.

And God, who sees into our hearts, knows what the thought of the Spirit is; because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of his people and in accordance with his will."

(Romans 8.26-27 GNB)

Keep this in mind: "the thought of the Spirit .. in accordance with HIS will". Not my will.

Related:

• Jesus prayed for us
• Keeping focus on God
• All things