Intercessory Prayer

Jinhi Roskamp, a member here at Faith Community and faithful servant of Christ, is teaching a growing number of FCC members on intercessory prayer. Jinhi led a national prayer movement in Paraguay in the 1990's. This is world-rocking, life-changing stuff. Jinhi's central premise is that prayer is our God-given tool for pulling down the powers of the heavens. This is firmly rooted in the Scriptural mandate to prayer, and the reality of our role as the body of Christ (servants living in union with the living Christ) in this already-not yet kingdom.

In Jesus Christ, we are intercessors. We stand between the world and God and plead the plight of the defendant with desperation. This requires the Church to fully identify with the intercessee, which is so often quite uncomfortable for Christians, ironically enough. This is irony because we ourselves are recipients of God's unmerited favor. No, that is too soft. We were redeemed by God, loved by Him, and showered with His grace while we were still sinners! God condescends to us ("the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us"), and has fully interceded on our behalf through the ministrations of His son Jesus Christ, revealing once and for all His justice and steadfast love. This is what Christ did and is doing. Now He does this through the Church empowered by the Holy Spirit.

The Daily Office epistle reading for today comes from Paul's letter to the church in Colossae. He writes, "I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (v. 24). To be an intercessor is to suffer. To be an intercessor is to suffer in the labor of Christ's love for the church. To be an intercessor is to stoop down to the muck and pain. All for the sake of Christ and His church!

The 21st century church in North America is largely ineffective because we have sought comfort instead of suffering. We have sought "our best life now" and our own salvation (which is already won for us in Christ) at the expense of a broken and hurting world so loved by God. It is time for the Church to wake from its slumber.

Do you know there is a war going on? It is raging and we, God's people, are largely asleep. I'm praying for an awakening of God's people in West Chicago, that the Church may engage in the battle "not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12).