JESUS YOUR HIGH PRIEST INTERCEDES FOR YOU

The verse says that Jesus always lives to make intercession for us. Once, I used to think that this meant that Jesus is seated at the Father’s right hand today, praying all the time for us, waiting and hoping that the Father will do something for us.

But that is not true. Look at what Jesus prayed when He stood before Lazarus’ tomb. He declared, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me” (John 11:41). He prayed these words even before Lazarus came forth from his tomb alive. Jesus knew that what He said would come to pass because the Father always hears Him (see John 11:42).

So what does “Jesus always lives to make intercession for us” mean?

Because Jesus is our High Priest (see Hebrews 4:14), we get a picture of what happens when we pray when we understand what the high priest in the Old Testament did with the burnt offering of a bird (see Leviticus 1:14–17).

The birds brought to the high priest are a picture of our prayers “flying” to the Lord Jesus because we pray to the Father in Jesus’ name. Now, just as the high priest removes the bird’s feathers after killing it, Jesus removes all that is superfluous and unclean from our prayers, such as unbelief and self-centeredness.

Then, just as the high priest offers the bird as a burnt sacrifice, a sweet aroma to the Lord, Jesus our High Priest adds His perfection, beauty, excellence and fragrance, which the Father so delights in, to our prayers. That is how He presents our prayers to the Father. That is how He lives to make intercession for you.

My friend, you don’t have to run to a church leader to get him to pray “more powerfully” for you. You can pray yourself. Then, take advantage of Jesus’ intercession for you and say, “Lord Jesus, I don’t know what else to say…please intercede for me.” And when Jesus gives His personal touch to your prayer, you can be sure that it will be answered! (Article & Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince Ministries used with kind permission).

WITHOUT JESUS, WE CANNOT. WITHOUT US, HE WILL NOT.

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.  John 15:5

In more than two decades of ministry, I have learned this from the Lord: Without Him, we cannot. Without us, He will not. What this simply means is that we need to recognize the fact that if we do not depend on Jesus, there can be no real, long-lasting and abiding success—without Him, we cannot. The Bible tells us that unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain (Psalm 127:1). Believers who want to experience His success need to recognize this truth and begin to depend on Jesus and Jesus alone.

There are some believers who may not articulate it, but in their hearts, they believe that without Jesus, they can still succeed. By believing and acting on this, they fall from the high place of God’s grace (His unmerited favor) back into the law, back into trying to merit and deserve success by their own efforts. God’s Word tells us, “For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace [unmerited favor]” (Galatians 5:4, NLT).

These are strong words of warning. Once you start depending on your own merits and efforts to deserve God’s favor, you are back under the system of the law. You are cut off from Christ and have fallen from the place of having His unmerited favor work in your life. Don’t misunderstand me, Jesus is still with you (He will never leave you nor forsake you [Hebrews 13:5]), but by depending on your self-efforts, you effectively cut off His unmerited favor in your life.

So what do I mean when I say, “Without us, He will not”? Well, Jesus is a gentleman. He will not force His unmerited favor and success down your throat. He needs you to allow Him to work in your life. He waits patiently for you to trust Him. He waits patiently for you to depend on His unmerited favor, the way Joseph trusted and depended wholly on the Lord’s presence, until His manifested presence took over, and His glory radiated from everything that Joseph touched.

Beloved, let’s learn quickly that without Jesus, we cannot succeed, and if we choose not to respond to His unmerited favor, He will not force it on us. God’s unmerited favor is ever-flowing toward us and Jesus is waiting for us to come to the end of ourselves. He is waiting for you to stop struggling in your own attempts to somehow “deserve” His favor, and just depend on Him. So in the areas that you are still depending on your own efforts to succeed, start resting in Jesus’ unmerited favor and begin experiencing His manifested presence and glory upon everything you touch!  (Article & Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince Ministries used with kind permission).