Lesson Six: Building Process 3 - Growing in the Life of Intercession

Spiritual Warfare in Intercession

Just as armies prepare physically and mentally before they go to battle, God’s people have to prepare themselves as well for spiritual battle. Aside from having a Spirit-filled life, we learn from Biblical examples that the discipline of fasting helps strengthen the believer as he fights spiritual battles. In this section, we will seek to better understand the biblical practice of fasting, and how it relates to intercession.

Our first example is the prophet Daniel. He was distressed over the prophecy he discovered concerning the plight of God’s people in Babylon. He wanted to know more about it. He sought God to gain understanding of His will and to intercede for the Jewish people. If you read his prayer in Daniel 9:4-19, you will find that Daniel acknowledged God’s character in relation to where they were as a people. Then Gabriel was sent by God to give Daniel understanding.

Two years later, Daniel again received word that caused him to be disturbed such that he decided to fast and seek the Lord. He stayed in that posture for 21 days before the vision from God appeared to him. But according to the angel, his prayer was already heard and answered from the first day, but a spiritual battle in the heavenly places delayed his coming. In fact, another angel (Michael) had to come to help him fight the spiritual prince of Persia.

We fast to seek a clearer understanding of God’s will. (Daniel 9:1-3; 10:12-14)

• Daniel studied God’s Word.
• He humbly sought God’s intervention.
• Daniel’s intercession: mentioning the character of God and his knowledge of God in his prayer.