Jan 27 – Standing in the Gap

Christianity has a long history of standing in the gap. A history of Moses representing the people of Israel before God; the High Priest representing the people in sacrifice and worship; Hosea uniquely represented God before Israel; and most importantly Jesus represented us and our sins on the cross. The scriptures even tell us that he ever lives to make intercession on our behalf. So to, the Holy Spirit, gives us prayers when we don’t know how to pray.

Hebrews calls the Church a Royal Priesthood. But when was the last time you thought about how you can represent others before God? We haven’t maintained a good understanding of how we can represent others before God. This was a theme of our prayer this morning. We prayed that we would become a people who learn to pray on behalf of those who don’t know how to pray for themselves.

Each and every person has a promise of God on their life. But so many people, even Christians, don’t know how to pray that these promises be fulfilled. We are in the midst of a huge faith crisis – the promises of God are at risk of never being heard.

To make matters worse the church isn’t praying for those people either. We need to realize that we are called to follow Jesus’ example to stand in the gap for those who lack the faith to pray for themselves. Just like an adopted parent takes over when the natural parents have either died or are unable to raise their children, we need to become adopted spiritual parents who nurture and train the spiritually orphaned.

This year we are praying for 100 commitments to Christ. I’m personally praying for the man that stabbed my Dad. He’s dead to the Holy Spirit’s prompting; he wont even accept a visit from any of us at the church. But that’s the whole point. He needs someone to stand in the gap and pray on his behalf. I know if our positions were reversed I’d hope someone was praying for me. Ask God who you should spiritually adopt this year. It might be a friend, it might be someone you don’t even know yet. Ask God to give you a picture of who they are. Then start praying for them and don’t stop until the promises of God begin to be released in their life.

There is no spiritual orphanage. If we don’t steward the spiritually abandon, who will?