“Intercession is the womb of change!”- Francis Frangipane.

One time I got left behind in Rwanda. It was the late nineties, and I had travelled with a team from Maine to do a reconciliation conference between Hutu and Tutsi pastors in the city of Kigali. Unbeknownst to me, the rest of the team (I was the only one from Oregon) had decided to go home a week earlier than we had planned, right after the conference. Airlines weren’t real accommodating about changing tickets back then so I was stuck in the city. What was I to do?

The Lord never wastes His time or your time. Kigali was a very tense city in those days, just four years after the great genocide. No meetings were allowed at night. There was a man named Paul G who had attended our conference who had favor with the government so that his intercessors of which he had hundreds were allowed to meet at night. Paul invited me to train his intercessors at night for a week. We had fun!

Coincident to the conference, which is a great story in itself for another day, and this training was a revival that broke out locally that is even recorded in the history books of Rwanda, that transformed the nation, and made Kigali the vibrant, beautiful city it is today. I was invited to prophesy over Paul at his formal ordination a year later, and City Bible Temple was born, which has, the last time I checked, about twelve thousand members.

FOREKNOWLEDGE

However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. John 16:13-14 NKJV

I’ve often thought that as teachers we haven’t taught this truth very well, that He will tell you things to come. Perhaps we’ve thought that only the ‘prophets’ and senior people of God can get this type of revelation. No! You and I can, as well. There is clear teaching all the way through the word, perhaps starting with Joseph and Pharaoh’s dreams in Genesis, to prove this point. So, let me try a little better.

Samuel had several great instances of this type of revelation…

Now the Lord had told Samuel in his ear the day before Saul came, saying, “Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin… 1 Sam 9:15-16 NKJV

Samuel was prepared because he knew what was coming! This type of revelation prepares you to be greatly empowered as an intercessor. You see what’s coming and you pray in the will of God regarding it. You decree the will of God over it.

Faith appropriates the things of God, and faith follows what you love. The Lord will give you revelation about the people and things that you love. Do you love your church? Your country? Your family? Yourself? God can talk to you about all those things and much more. Does God care about your money? Does He know what will happen with the stock market so that you can protect your money? This truth is SO practical!

I dare say that you and I haven’t had an accident or mishap about which He hasn’t tried to warn us! Learning to listen and seek this kind of revelation is so valuable. The bigger your love is, the greater the revelation you can receive because faith appropriates, and faith is energized by love. Love lays the groundwork for revelation!

God will give you revelation about all the serious issues in your life. I never understood the love of my heavenly Father until I became a father myself. My dad showed me love, but it took having children, and realizing how absolutely helpless they are without you, and how fervently you love them, for me to begin to glimpse the Father’s love. Jesus said, Without Me you can do nothing! He knows our helplessness, and He will always come with revelation to direct our steps.

LISTEN

Plan time daily to listen to God. Ask questions, then sit and listen! Listening is a lost art. It involves your rapt, polite, focused attention on the One to whom you are listening. Have you ever considered being courteous to God? God is beginning to speak and what do we do? Check our cellphones and walk away, distracted again. Courtesy is a great compliment, an affirmation of love. Courtesy and contentment with the peace of God enables you to hear clearly the voice of God.

ONE SIMPLE VERSE

Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:27 NKJV

Romans 8:26-28 is the first great mention of the gift of tongues in the Church Epistles. Romans is the Lord’s victory song for the Church over the wickedness of sin and the designs of the evil one. The born again ones are moved out of the sinking sand of sin and degradation and set on the Rock, Christ Jesus. Romans lays the doctrinal foundation on which Ephesians builds with the Church being God’s masterpiece, seated at His right hand and filled with all His fullness. Hallelujah!

Verse twenty-six explains our weakness and God’s provision – that we don’t know what to pray for, and the Holy Spirit who enables our spirits to pray with ‘super-intercession.’

Let’s consider verse twenty-seven…

‘Now’ means ‘right now.’ God is always in the present tense. He is right here, right now, ready to meet anyone and fulfill His word when they believe.

Who is ‘He who searches the hearts’? Revelation tells us that it is the Lord Jesus.

…and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works. Revelation 2:23 NKJV

This reality of God ‘searching hearts’ is found all throughout His word. He does this for every person, born again or not. He is looking for ‘hearts’ that will seek and respond to Him. The Lord sought for Himself a man after His own heart, David…and you. The idea of testing, especially for the righteous, is also closely associated with the reality of ‘searching.’

I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. Jeremiah 17:10 NKJV

Job said, “What is man, that You should exalt him, that You should set Your heart on him, that You should visit him every morning, and test him every moment (Job 7:17-18 NKJV)?” Romans answers Job’s question. Romans says that we are children of the living God by the new birth through Christ Jesus. Like a loving parent searches, challenges and tests the heart of their child, so the Lord does for us. The amazing reality is that the Lord can set His heart, His full attention on each one of us, like as if we were an only child. Each of us is loved and valued beyond our ability to comprehend by a God, our Father, who is ever present to visit (it’s always ‘morning’ somewhere), and ever willing to bring His power to bear on our behalf.

Now, what does the Lord know? ‘Knows’ is the word EIDO, which means to see or to know. We get our English word video from this word.

The Lord knows ‘the mind of the Spirit.’ The word mind literally means ‘thoughts’ – the anxieties, expectations, decisions, determinations and emotions of the mind.

Now, ‘the Spirit.’ Does this refer to the spirit of man, or the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit? Just because the word is capitalized in our English Bibles, making it God, does not necessarily mean they were right to translate it in that way. Why would it state that Jesus would know the thoughts of the Holy Spirit? That makes no sense. They are one God with the Father. But it makes perfect sense that ‘He who searches the hearts’ would know or see the thoughts of the spirit of man, your spirit. It’s almost redundant, except that the phrase ‘He who searches the hearts’ refers to knowing the thoughts of all men everywhere, and the phrase ‘the mind of the spirit’ refers to knowing your thoughts, your anxieties, your decisions and emotions. Do you see it?

Do you see the love in that statement? The Lord Jesus, the Creator and Master of the universe, of Heaven and earth, knows intimately your struggles, your fears, your decisions and your thoughts. He knows or sees them one by one. The lie that we are alone is just that…a lie. You are loved! The Lord deeply and intimately cares for you…

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses… Hebrews 4:15 NKJV

In the context of the spirit of man, ‘spirit’ and ‘heart’ are synonymous terms. The ‘heart’ refers to the innermost part of something, which in us is the spirit of man, the home of Christ in us.

But as it is written: Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man…For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? 1 Corinthians 2:9-11 NKJV

Now we can understand and finish the rest of the verse…

…because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:27 NKJV

‘He’ refers to your spirit. It should not be capitalized. 1 Corinthians 14:14 says, “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays.” Who prays? My spirit prays, as I am enabled by the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4). My spirit, as I pray in tongues, enabled by the Holy Spirit, makes intercession for the saints perfectly. The Holy Spirit enables me, the real ‘me’ (the conscious ‘me’ that will go to Heaven when this body is laid in the dust), to come between God and the saints on their behalf to pray in for them His perfect will. When this reality slaps us awake, you and I will stop wasting endless, mindless hours in front of the TV, or Facebook, or the internet. You will invest that time in making a true difference in other’s lives, the people you love the most, through the power of the Holy Spirit!

You want to change the world for the far better? Pray in the spirit, listen with rapt attention, and seek that insight, that revelation that makes the difference. You can do this, dear one. Let’s take these insights and let’s run with them. Love you!

Remember dear one, we must be about our Father’s business…