Before we pray I have something to share.
Recently, I was traveling to a meeting regarding an important work in Israel that my friend and I had been invited to attend. My friend said something that I want to address this week in my blog. She said, “I’m not really a very good intercessor for Israel.”
How many times I have had that same thought about myself!
When I heard her statement I knew I should share with her my testimony of how I became an intercessor for Israel. I also want to share that testimony with you – those of you who are following my Thursday Prayers for Israel blog postings. I hope it encourages you in your prayers too!
Seventeen years ago I was not thinking about being an intercessor for Israel or about being an intercessor at all. However, that’s when God decided to reveal to me that He had chosen me to stand in the gap for Israel through prayer.
A Jewish believer and prophetic ministry leader had come to our congregation to pray over our new pastor and to “set” him in to lead us. He didn’t know me or my husband, but as he ministered to our gathering of faithful believers he suddenly stopped his message and looked at me and asked me to come forward.
He pointed to me and asked me to come up front to receive a word he had for me. He saw my husband sitting next to me and asked him to come up and stand beside me. Then he spoke those 10 words that I will never forget, “God has called you to be an intercessor for Israel.”
He laid hands on me and began to pray for me. And then he looked out to the congregation as his hand rested on my shoulders, “This woman has been set aside to pray for Israel. You must support her in your prayers. She needs your prayers and your support. You are called as a congregation to come alongside her.”
And then the prayer was finished and we were instructed to return to our seats. That was it. The installation service continued without another word spoken about the call to intercession for Israel.
I went home that day full of questions and not really understanding what had happened.
That was March and it took me five months to finally begin to understand and respond in obedience. The breakthrough came one day as I was praying in my “upper room” (attic). It was during that prayer time that God spoke to me very clearly. He opened my eyes and taught me two valuable lessons.
Number one – I learned that I was full of unbelief. I lacked faith. God made this clear to me as He called me to repent for unbelief by fasting for three-days. That was July 2nd! That meant no food on July 4th when the whole family would be together eating! And, I was not to mention the fast to them! Actually it was interesting that my family never even noticed that I wasn’t eating. And, praise the Lord I obeyed and kept that fast of repentance! God was leading me.
Lesson number two – I learned that of course I can’t “do it.”
As I cried out to God in my attic confessing that I just didn’t know how to pray for Israel, whimpering, “I can’t Lord. I can’t.” He spoke very clearly, “Are you willing to allow me to do it in you? Are you willing to allow me to use you to pray my prayers in you and through you?”
Immediately I was reminded Isaiah 6:8
Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
“Yes Lord,” I very humbly answered on July 2, 1996. “I am willing.”
I wish I could say that my “yes” to God that day solved the whole problem of my inadequacies. However, I have discovered the truth in what the Apostle Paul taught – that in my weakness He is made strong!
Today I continue to press in to seek Him in praying for the salvation of the Jewish people and the nations. I continue my journey of obedience as He teaches me that it is He who will bring to pass His plans and His purposes for Israel.
As I offer up these Thursday prayers for Israel remember that you can join me as His intercessor simply by allowing His word to form the prayers that will come alive within you as you pray them. Our unity in praying His word for Israel, and our humble efforts to stay the course and pray without ceasing, will rise as incense before Him and become a sweet smelling fragrance in His nostrils! He will do it!
Maranatha! Amen. Come Lord Jesus.
Today He has given me the following scriptures to pray for Israel, and the nations. Seek the LORD for His heart as you consider these powerful, prophetic promises from His Word:
The scorched land will become a pool
And the thirsty ground springs of water;
In the haunt of jackals, its resting place,
Grass becomes reeds and rushes.
A highway will be there, a roadway,
And it will be called the Highway of Holiness.
The unclean will not travel on it,
But it will be for him who walks that way,
And fools will not wander on it.
No lion will be there,
Nor will any vicious beast go up on it;
These will not be found there.
But the redeemed will walk there,
And the ransomed of the Lord will return
And come with joyful shouting to Zion,
With everlasting joy upon their heads.
They will find gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.
In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians will come into Egypt and the Egyptians into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.
In that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”
For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.
He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.
Amen. Thank you Lord. You are faithful and true. You are longsuffering – the lover of Israel and every nation, tribe and tongue. We praise you and thank you. Blessed be Your name forever and ever, world without end. Amen.
Isaiah 35:7-12
Isaiah 19:23-25
Ephesians 2:14-18
Photo used with permission from Pastor Robert Buck of Let My People Know.
All Excellent Things Blog 
Amen, right on! You put the arrow on the bulleye!
Thank you brother. And thank you for these wonderful photos. Your work with Let My People Know is so precious to the Lord. He will do it!