Intercession

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2012)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2012)

Intercession is the act of interceding (intervening or mediating) between two parties. In Christian religious usage, it is a prayer to God on behalf of others.

In western forms of Christian worship, intercession forms a distinct form of prayer, alongside Adoration, Confession and Thanksgiving. In public worship, intercession is offered as prayer for the world beyond the immediate vicinity and friendship networks of the church community. As such, intercession constitutes part of the worshipping community's engagement with otherness, as it expresses Christians' solidarity with those who are 'other' than themselves. In so doing, a church both appeals to, and seeks to embody, God's own love for the world.^[1]

There are different forms of written intercessory prayer in various churches: Baptist, Catholic, Church of England, Ecumenical, Emerging Church, Methodist.

Rees Howells Intercessor

Rees Howells Intercessor is a biography written by Norman Grubb, in which it identifies intercession as being an intensified form of prayer, consisting of three elements that make it unique from normal prayer: identification, agony and authority. Whereas Jesus was our Divine Intercessor, taking on the sins of the world so that we did not have to bear them, God also calls people to be intercessors. People can only be intercessors because Jesus gave us His Holy Spirit to be an intercessor for us. Because the Holy Spirit dwells in Christians the intercessor is called to pray, fast and obey other commands from God in order to enact intercession for someone, ie - heal them, for instance.

Identification: We can only intercede for people because of the Holy Spirit. Agony: The Holy Spirit calls us to agony to intercede for someone else in the form of fasting, praying, and making other sacrifices, sometimes of an extreme nature. Authority: Intercession moves God. The intercessor gains his objective, or rather, the Spirit gains it through him.