We pray, because we believe we can move mountains. We stand in the gap, because God’s love has marked us, and we want that same love to turn peoples’ worlds right-side up. It’s a holy calling to be a friend of God, to intercede for the affairs on His heart. That closeness does wild things to the casual familiarity of Christianity as we once knew it. We become ever so mindful that “there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Hebrews 4:13) We start to understand that the way we wield our words in casual conversation holds as much gravity as the decrees we release over our cities in the midnight hour.

Intercession magnifies our weakness and intensifies our refinement. Even as we allow God to purge our hearts of everything that has not been refined by His burning love, our reward is intimacy with Christ, yet the ripple effects of that cleansing go far beyond us. The ever-growing sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that results catapults our intercession into new depths of compassion and keener prophetic insight. Our prayers can’t help but become more effective. By yielding to God’s Spirit in our weakness, we will voyage into new measures of God’s strength in intercession like we’ve never known before.

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Ephesians 4:29-30 (NASB)

Prayer: Father, search me and cleanse me of all that grieves Your heart. Fill me afresh with Your hot burning love until I everything I think, say and do drips with the fragrance of Your heart.

Hannah Savage, [M]Watch Senior Leadership Team