Intercession: The key to the next move of God

KAYODE CROWN

Copyright © 2013 Kayode Crown

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1494343436ISBN-13: 978-1494343439

DEDICATION

To intercessors and intending intercessors around the world

CONTENTS

Foreword i

1 INTRODUCTION: GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY AND PARTNERSHIP

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2 WHAT IS A MOVE OF GOD? 4

3 INTERCESSION IS PARTNERSHIP FOR THE NEXT MOVE OF GOD

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4 PUTTING YOUR MIND TO INTERCESSION 10

5 TOOLS OF INTERCESSION 15

6 THE PRACTICE OF INTERCESSION 20

7 APPENDIX: HOW TO BE BORN AGAIN 23

FOREWORD

Welcome to this training manual on intercession. You will be presented with all the possible angles to this sacred activity. It is to inform the mind and to spur you into a higher level of activity when it comes to intercessory prayer.

This book is meant to change you, not just in what you know, but in what you do, i.e. how you practice intercession. You may need to come back to it again, as a form of refresher course on the all-important spiritual activity.

You have in your hands what should give you a spiritual impetus. I believe that as soon as you peruse the book, it will be like a burst of light in your spirit. So that at the end of your journey through it, you will come out as the intercessor God wants you to be.

Olukayode CrownBible teacherCrown Teaching Ministry

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1 INTRODUCTION

GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY AND PARTNERSHIP

Yes, God is sovereign, he does whatever he likes. King Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged that fact after his experience of God, saying: “all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done (Dan 4:35)?’”

And when Job was also confronted with the reality of God, he said: "I know that you (God) can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted (Job 42:2).”

The above scriptures are definitely true, and a deeper look at them would reveal certain salient truths. From the words of King Nebuchadnezzar, we can glean at least two things: God has a will that dictates his action; God has a hand that defines his ability.

From Job, we learn at least one thing: God has no limitAs valid as all those points are, there is another side to

God’s “will, ability and limitlessness” on the earth. And that side was revealed when he made Man, and decided to devolve dominion on the earth to him, and introduced another dimension to himself, which is partnership.

When God made man, he said to him: “Be fruitful and

INTERCESSION: THE KEY TO THE NEXT MOVE OF GOD

multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Gen 1:26-28)."

God set out to create man in his own image. And since he has a will, ability and is unlimited, man in the image of God must exhibit the same qualities. If truly he is in the image of God, he has to reflect who God is.

We know man has a will, and has means to achieve his purposes even now, but we are yet to see man as being limitless, that is, fully like God.

The writer of the Book of Hebrews noted: “It has been testified somewhere, ‘What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.’

“Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.

“But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone (Heb 2:6-9).”

Man, we have seen in the foregoing, was designed to rule over all, but the writer of Hebrews considered that has not been the case, revealing what Jesus did about it.

As the bridge between the intention of God and its realisation, we were told in the above passage that Jesus is crowned with glory and honour after tasting death. Not only that but in another place, after he resurrected, Jesus said that all power has been invested in him, and by extension in his name, by God (Matt. 28:18).

God is limitless, and shared that same attribute with man at creation, but man fell short of the glory of God in sin (Romans 3:23), i.e. he fell short of the ultimate manifestation of the glory of God. Now, Jesus is the revelation of that ultimate possibility of God, being without limit, and Christians share that reality through his person and name.

That same thought was revealed by Paul in his letter to

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INTERCESSION: THE KEY TO THE NEXT MOVE OF GOD

the Church in Philippi. He told them: “Have this mind in you, which was also

in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.”

“Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Php 2:5-11).”

The same glory lost by man because of sin, is restored in Christ, and the glory is expressed in the use of the name of Jesus. Christians have identified with Christ in his death and resurrection, we have become sons of God (John 1:12), the same title that was first borne by the first Adam, because of the pristine state he was in (Luke 3:38).

The logic therefore is that as we use the name of Jesus in intercession, representing his will, we move his hand and unleash his limitlessness, swallowing up our own limitations.

By creating man in His own image, He shares His sovereignty with man. In other words, there is a partnership arrangement, and heaven synchronises with the earth to move things; that is the essence of prayer; that is the essence of intercession.

The dominion of God that shared with man finds ultimate fulfilment in Christ and his brothers and sisters (Acts 3:6) which we become as Christians.

In the ultimate sense, there is only one God, but when he created man, in the relative sense, He set out to create many “gods”, since the image of God has to be God, at least in a relative sense.

“I said, "You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; (Psa 82:6).”

The above statement by the Psalmist was quoted by Jesus (John 10:34) when he defended his statement that

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INTERCESSION: THE KEY TO THE NEXT MOVE OF GOD

he was the Son of God. What that means is that all sons of God are gods, aligning with the train of thought we have been on till now.

As previously explained, ordinary man cannot claim such privilege. But Christians are so privileged to be limitless by the use of the name of Jesus.

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Matthew 28:18).’”

The reason the name of Jesus conveys the limitlessness of God is revealed in the verse above. Therefore with Jesus, there is the realisation of the partnership intention of God for man to achieve dominion on the earth.

So if man refuses to use the name of Jesus what happens? Nothing! No dominion is expressed; the authority of Jesus is not deployed.

But you ask: “what about the sovereignty of God and the bible verse that says: what will be will be?” First, there is no such verse in the bible and if from the foregoing, it is clear that with God’s creation of man, He puts a certain limitation on Himself as God. God by his sovereignty has decided that man would share that sovereignty with him.

The partnership factor shows that the next move of God is linked to prayer; because when man prays, he wills the will of God, as he links with the limitlessness of God, and by so doing become limitless, exercising “Godness” in the name of Jesus.

A type of prayer is intercession, which is the focus of this book.

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