“O Lord, I beseech You, may Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayer of Your Servants who delight to revere Your name, and make Your servant successful today and grant him compassion before this man.” Nehemiah 1:11
Nehemiah served in the court of a pagan king, providing protection from poisoning and personal security to the monarch, but His Sovereign was Almighty God. He appealed to the Sovereign Lord of Creation to influence the heart of a king who had the earthly power to provide relief to the cries of God’s people on earth.
Nehemiah turned to intercession as the primary means of inviting God’s intervention into the affairs of man. With our own nation in crisis, we should do no less.
“…Be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayers of Your servants who delight to revere Your name…”
Intercession is an expression of great personal concern being pointed towards God calling for His intervention. Still, it is a form of spiritual delusion on the part of any prayer warrior to believe, in the midst of the battle, that they fight alone.
Nehemiah didn’t allow himself to be deceived by the clamor and the chaos of the crisis. He called on God to be attentive, not only to his prayers, but to all the prayers of His servants. Nehemiah reminds us of those who take great delight in revering God’s name. His words bring great comfort in the midst of the battle.
The power of intercessory prayer is not found in eloquence, but in reverence. Listen carefully to the prayers of people and you can discern very easily the difference between those who “delight to revere Your name” and those who are trying to make a name for themselves. Nehemiah was only interested in lifting up and honoring the name of God. Pray like him.
At a recent prayer event I attended, one man couldn’t resist the temptation to slip his website into his remarks. He did it twice. He was more interested in connecting the people with himself than he was in connecting the people with God. At another prayer event, men who were given the responsibility to intercede, couldn’t resist a hot microphone, and succumbed to the tempter’s snare to address the audience with a few well-chosen remarks before entering into a conversation with God. It was disappointing to me. More importantly, it was grieving to the Holy Spirit. This foolishness needs to stop!
Being eloquent before men is not always being reverent to God. Answered prayer is not concerned with being heard by men. Intercessory prayer becomes answered prayer only by being heard by God.
Putting God on hold before you pray does not revere His name. It is an insult. Warming up the crowd with a fit of eloquence does not warm up the heart of God. It is irreverence.
Nehemiah was interested in God’s undivided attention, not the attention of man. Though he was a cupbearer to the king of a great empire, before he placed his request for aid before a man of earthly power, he pointed his prayer to the source of spiritual power, Almighty God. Follow his lead.
This is the great need of the day, men and women of Issachar who are able to discern the times for a nation in crisis. They will not only make the effort to intercede for God to intervene. They will be willing to take their intercession to the next level and be instruments of God’s intervention.
Nehemiah entered into intercession, and became an instrument of intervention. As a cup-bearer to the king, he held a position of privilege and responsibility. It was not an accident, but a Divine appointment.
The privilege of intercession led him to take personal responsibility for the intervention that was needed. His burden for his nation left him tearful over the condition of His people and fearful of the consequences of intervening. He could lose his job, and his life. He did it anyway. Thank God he did.
Nehemiah prayed for God to intervene in the heart of one man before he spoke one word to him. Nehemiah didn’t lean on his own eloquence or confidence to create compassion in his heart for the cause of God’s people. He turned to God. Nehemiah’s prayer appealed to God, to move the heart of the king to express compassion. Without asking, God moved in Nehemiah’s heart to create great courage. Prayer always does.
NOTE TO SELF: God may place a burden on your heart and call you to intercede for a specific person or a specific need. Don’t be surprised if he uses you as a personal instrument to carry out His plan for intervention. Encourage pastors and key lay people all over this nation to pray for their country to turn back to God. Pray for them to be willing to be instruments of His intervention in this nation. Nehemiah did, and God used him. The rest as they say is HIS story.
TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!