Date: 13-Sep-2025
Name: Juan Perez
Topic:
INTERCEDING SATURDAY
Content:
1 / 2
Interceding Saturday
Today is interceding Saturday – where we pray for our communities, our cities and nations, for institutions and for the body of Christ.
Please start texting on the Zoom chat any intercessory prayers you wish us to lead today.
* Let’s pray as we reflect on this and start adding to the chat.
When we intercede we are speaking with God on behalf of another situation or group, institution, His Church and its leaders and on behalf of our communities.
We are encouraged by Jesus to pray as part of loving one another. We carry these burdens, and we can do that in prayer.
In Matthew 5: 43-48, Jesus tells us:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Let’s remember the power of intercessory prayer today.
In Acts 12, we see Apostle Peter miraculously being released from prison by an angel as a result of God's people praying.
In Acts 12:1-10 we hear:
It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.
So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.
Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.
Gentlemen, who do you know who is being persecuted in your family or in your community?
Please put their names in the chat.
* Let’s pray for anyone that you know who is being persecuted in your family or in your community.
2 / 2
Those being prosecuted are being unfairly judged by their governments and communities. But Jesus teaches us not to judge or you will be judged.
In Matthew 7:1-5 Jesus tells us:
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Gentlemen, what leaders do you know that are judging others unfairly?
* Let’s pray for the leaders that are casting judgements that are prosecuting others. That their hearts be softened. That they hear and be touched by the Word of God. That they stop their judgements that then lead to prosecution.
Gentlemen, it is only right that as we pray for those persecuted and the leaders that judge, that we stop and pray for Charlie Kirk who died so young and murdered in the most heinous way. He died evangelising and fighting for Christian values.
* Let’s pray for Charlie Kirk and for his family and all mourning him at this difficult time.
Gentlemen, we now pray through the chat requests:
* [Work Through Chat Requests]
Concluding Prayers
When we intercede we are focussing our time and attention on what is important. In doing so we show we can lay down our life for another. It is a form of loving another.
In 1 Peter 4: 8-10 we hear:
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
In 1 John 4: 7-12 we hear:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
* Let’s thank God for His love and give him all our praise and love.
Prayer Points:
