Pray For One Another

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much."   [James 5:16]

As an encouragement cheerfully to offer intercessory prayer, remember that such prayer is the sweetest God ever hears, for the prayer of Christ is of this character. In all the incense which our Great High Priest now puts into the golden censer, there is not a single grain for himself. His intercession must be the most acceptable of all supplications—and the more like our prayer is to Christ's, the sweeter it will be; thus while petitions for ourselves will be accepted, our pleadings for others, having in them more of the fruits of the Spirit, more love, more faith, more brotherly kindness, will be, through the precious merits of Jesus, the sweetest oblation that we can offer to God, the very fat of our sacrifice. Remember, again, that intercessory prayer is exceedingly prevalent. What wonders it has wrought! The Word of God teems with its marvellous deeds. Believer, we have a mighty engine in our hand, use it well, use it constantly, use it with faith, and we will surely be a benefactor to our brither. When we have the King’s ear, speak to him for the suffering members of his body. When we are favoured to draw very near to his throne, and the King says to us, “Ask, and it will given to you what you want,”  let us petitions be, not for ourself alone, but for the many who need his aid. If we have  grace at all, and are not an intercessor, that grace must be small as a grain of mustard seed. We have just enough grace to float our soul clear from the quicksand, but we have no deep floods of grace, or else we would carry in our joyous bark a weighty cargo of the wants of others, and we would bring back from our Lord, for them, rich blessings which but for us they might not have obtained: — “Oh, let my hands forget their skill, my tongue be silent, cold, and still, this bounding heart forget to beat, If I forget the mercy-seat!”  Hallelujah, God bless