God is raising up believers with intercessory prayer assignments to partner with His heart for the people and causes of the earth. Many believers seek the Lord about how to use their spiritual gifts and what they are called to do with their work and ministry. But have you ever asked who God was calling you to pray for regularly?
An Invitation to Targeted Intercession
Prayer can be hard, and when we do try to pray, we default to praying for urgent needs in our own personal lives. That is not a bad thing. It is good and right to lift our own needs to the Lord. These are called prayers of petition. Jesus taught us to pray this way when He said we should ask the Father to give us our “daily bread” (Matthew 6:11).
God is also inviting us into the place of partnership with Him in intercessory prayer for others. Prayers of intercession are birthed from the place of intimacy with Him. He wants to bring us out of our own self-focus where we begin to feel His heart for people around the world. Jesus taught his disciples to pray intercessory prayers like “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is heaven” (Matthew 6:10). As we engage in prayers of intercession, God can use us to shift history in the secret place. Intercessory prayer is extremely powerful, and it can honestly be a lot of fun, too!
As we launch into intercessory prayer, we may quickly be overloaded by the brokenness and the needs in the world around us. How do we pray? There are so many hurting people and catastrophic current events. There are injustices and crises. There are churches and ministries that need ongoing prayer covering. There are millions of people far from Jesus. One could try to pray for everyone and everything, but that quickly becomes impossible. Perhaps it is easiest to throw up some vague, blanket prayers for the entire world? There’s a better way.
I believe that God has precise intercessory prayer assignments for believers that help us to focus some of our prayers consistently to bring us deep joy.
No one can pray for everything, but I believe God does want us to pray specifically. I believe that God has precise intercessory prayer assignments for believers that help us to focus some of our prayers consistently to bring us deep joy. Jesus is offering an invitation to all Christians to pray for specific people, people groups, needs and nations. Perhaps one of the reasons we don’t enjoy prayer is because we aren’t specific so we never know if God is answering our prayers or not. Jesus promised that answered prayers would be a source of joy.
“Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
John 16:24
The Holy Spirit wants to lead us into targeted intercession for specific areas that leads to tangible results which give us joy and faith to continue praying. I use the term “intercessory assignments” to describe the specific people, groups and causes that God leads us to pray for in a targeted and ongoing way. This is not a biblical phrase, but it is a biblical concept. Scripture gives us examples of this kind of focused prayer ministry in the prayer lives of Jesus and the apostle Paul.
Jesus’ Intercessory Assignment for the Church
Jesus prayed! As One who was fully God and fully man, he relied on the power of prayer to accomplish His purposes on the earth. Jesus understood better than anyone that God accomplishes His plans through partnership with humanity.
The greatest glimpse we get into the prayer life of Jesus is the incredible prayer that He prayed in John 17. Apparently he prayed this in front of his disciples, because John was able to record it for us to read in the Bible. This incredible chapter is God (the Son) talking to God (the Father).
What did Jesus pray for? Did he pray for everything? First of all, Jesus prayed for himself in verse 1-5, and then Jesus prayed for his disciples in verses 6-19. This is not shocking. We would expect him to pray first for those who were closest to him. Jesus knew his own needs and the needs of his disciples. He was with them day in and day out.
However, in verse 20 the prayer of Jesus shifts into intercession for the universal Church. Jesus prays for us — for all “those who will believe in Me through their word”. The Son of God begins to cry out to the Father for the generations yet to come. He begins to labor in prayer for people that He (in his humanity) had not yet met. Jesus was carrying an intercessory assignment for the future Church. He didn’t even pray for the lost. He prayed for Christians.
While Jesus was on the earth, He and the disciples rarely preached to the Gentiles. Instead they focused their mission on the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5-6). Jesus’ earthly preaching ministry was very specific. He had twelve disciples and he preached to the crowds in Israel. Yet part of his prayer ministry was for those in the nations who would come to put their faith in Him. Jesus had received a prayer assignment for people that He was not able to preach to at that time.
I believe God is inviting us to follow in the steps of Christ, our great Intercessor, and begin to pray for those that we do not know and can not speak to. He wants to give us intercessory assignments for people we have yet to meet.
We see this same intercessory prayer ministry in the life of the apostle Paul.
Paul’s Intercessory Assignment for Israel
In Paul’s letter to the Romans he reveals a few stunning details about his personal prayer life. In Romans 10:1 he says:
Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
Paul is describing His love for the Jewish people and his desire for their salvation. He is praying for them to come to Christ. That is not very surprising, since Paul himself was a Jew.
What’s interesting to me, though, is that Paul’s apostolic ministry of preaching and church-planting was not to the Jews; it was to the Gentiles. Galatians 2:7 makes clear that Paul’s apostolic assignment was to “uncircumcised” nations of the earth. It was actually the apostle Peter who was called to share the Gospel with the Jewish people. So Paul’s ongoing ministry assignment and activity was with the Gentiles nations. His days were spent preaching to Gentiles, making disciples of Gentiles and planting churches for Gentiles.
Even though Paul’s apostolic calling was to the Gentiles, he carried an intercessory assignment to pray for the Jewish people. Most ministers and missionaries spend their prayers focused on the needs of their own churches or the people they are actively trying to reach with the Gospel. Paul definitely prayed for those to whom he was ministering. Yet Paul also seemed to be “carrying” the Jewish people in his heart and his prayers, even though He was not called to preach to them. He was still called to pray for them.
It is safe to say that Paul was burdened and moved emotionally for the Jewish people. He says in Romans 9:2-3:
“…I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh”
Paul was willing to give up his own salvation in order to see the Jewish people come to know Jesus! He had truly stepped into that deep place of intercession (intercede means to “stand in the gap”) where he was willing to lay down his own life for those that he was praying for. This was, of course, the same thing Jesus did for us when He stood in the gap for us on the cross. Jesus is our great intercessor (Hebrews 7:25).
Discerning Your Assignment: Watch Your Tears
The way Paul was moved so deeply for the Jewish people gives us a clue as to how we can discern our own intercessory prayer assignments.
I believe the Holy Spirit will give us “burdens” for certain things in prayer. Many times this will be connected to our tears. If you find yourself tearing up or weeping when you pray for certain people or issues, it is probably because God has given you an intercessory assignment in that area. Lou Engle says, “Pay close attention to your tears, for your tears point you to your destiny.”
“Pay close attention to your tears, for your tears point you to your destiny.”
-Lou Engle
For me personally, I have found myself consistently weeping in prayer over two things that are not directly related to my ministry work: the ending of abortion and the salvation of the Jewish people. I have never been to Israel or ministered to any Jewish people, but I have cried many times praying for them to come to know Jesus (Yeshua) as their Messiah. I have not personally been touched by the issue of abortion, but I weep for it to end, especially in America. Nearly every day I pray the Bound4Life prayer: “Jesus, I plead your blood over my sins and the sins of my nation. God, end abortion and send revival to America.”
What stirs your heart? What makes you cry? Perhaps it’s a lost family member or friend. Perhaps it’s a certain nation or people group. Maybe it’s an issue like abortion or human trafficking. It may be a people group or an issue that’s unexpected, or it may be something that you’re actively involved with. I’d suspect that most of you will also receive at least one intercessory assignment that is not directly connected to your own life. God simply wants to share his heart with you and partner with you in the place of prayer. What a deep place of intimacy and partnership that He offers to us!
As we accept our intercessory assignments, let us be faithful to see them to fruition. If God is giving you a burden to pray, it’s because He wants to answer your cries! Let’s labor in prayer in specific ways to see the world around us transformed. I believe this place of intercessory partnership with the heart of God will not only bring us deep joy but will shift the course of history.