Intercession is a prayer partner's mission. Intercessors take other people's needs to God. For too many of us, prayer is often simply telling God our personal want and wish list. If that's your pattern of praying, a wonderful adventure awaits you in learning about intercessory prayer. It is liberating to get beyond ourselves and to love others through prayer. Intercessors enjoy the unselfishness of taking other people's needs to God. Over time, God gives them special insight into how to pray more specifically and effectively for friends, relatives, acquaintances, leaders, strangers and lost persons. More than anything else, intercession is love on its knees, seeking God's mercy and blessings for other people.

Another mark of intercessors is their intense commitment to seeing God's will done on earth. They study His Word to discern His desires and plans. And out of this search to know the Lord, His will, and His ways, flow prayers for others to experience His fullness in their lives. Intercessors are intimate with Christ, and because of the closeness they maintain to Him, they know how to pray intimately for others who need His touch and His power in their lives.

Intercessors are believers who "stand in the gap," a biblical expression for being another person's spiritual protector, encourager, and partner. It is drawn from Ezekiel 22:30. An Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel, longed for the rebuilding of his nation, Israel, after its destruction by foreign invaders. The problem preventing this, however, was the indifference to God, false self-confidence, and moral disability of the nation's people and remaining leaders. In a vision from the Lord, Ezekiel was shown the solution. The Lord's voice said to him, "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none." Apparently, God highly regards our prayers for one another. He gives or withholds some blessings on the basis of His people's faithful intercession for one another.

Ancient biblical cities were often surrounded by a stone wall to protect their inhabitants. Ezekiel envisioned a city wall that had been torn down and only partially rebuilt. It still had huge holes that needed repair, and until the construction was complete, there also needed to be sentries posted to prevent enemies from getting in and to protect the workers inside. The person who stood in the gap was a friend of those within—a friend who cared enough about their work and safety that he or she came to their aid.

Intercessors are prayer partners who are spiritually qualified to stand before God to obtain His mercy for others, and who earnestly seek for God's will to be done on earth. Just as in Ezekiel's time, the Lord still welcomes intercessors, people who are ready to build strong walls of spiritual protection around others and "stand in the gap" to encourage and support them in their labors.