When No One Is Praying for You
“Ain’t nobody prayin’ for me…”
“All my grandmas dead so nobody prayin’ for me so I’m on yo head”
“Nobody pray for me
It’s been that day for me”
“I feel like the whole world want me to pray for ‘em
But who the f*** prayin’ for me?”
Kendrick Lamar’s repetitive theme from his album DAMN. resonates with so many people’s life experiences. The last line is the most relatable for many. Everyone wants to receive, but no one wants to give. In the case of prayer, everyone wants to receive it, but it is harder to offer. However, is it true for everyone that no one is praying for them? That feeling may even overtake a Christian, but is the feeling reality?
Every Christian comes to a point where they too feel like Kendrick. Lonely. Not cared for. Not prayed for. But there is an often overlooked and most comforting doctrine from God’s word that can help cure feelings of loneliness and prayerlessness on one’s behalf: the doctrine of the intercession of Christ.
What is this precious doctrine?
It is concerned with what Christ is currently doing. Dane Ortlund remarks:
“There has been a remarkable recovery of the glory of what Christ did back then, in his life, death, and resurrection, to save me. But what about what he is doing now? For many of us, our functional Jesus isn’t really doing anything now; everything we need to be saved, we tend to think, is already accomplished” (Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly, p. 77).
Christians tend to focus on justification — being declared right by God by faith in Christ — and forget the current intercession of Christ. In other words, we remind ourselves what happened in the past in our salvation but forget what is currently happening in our salvation.
What is currently happening in heaven can cure the feelings of loneliness that can haunt the Christian. Jesus is praying for his children right now (Heb. 7:23). That’s what the doctrine means in simplest terms. It makes what happened in the past — our justification — real to us in the present through his heartfelt prayer on our behalf.
Or in Dane Ortlund’s words:
“The atonement accomplished our salvation; intercession is the moment-by-moment application of that atoning work” (p. 79).
Notice how Paul places justification and intercession next to one another in Romans 8:
“Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died — more than that, who was raised — who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Rom. 8:33–34, emphasis mine).
When our conscience, the world, the flesh or the devil brings up a charge against us, we are to remind ourselves that our heavenly court case has been settled. God foreloved, predestined, called, justified, and will glorify his chosen children (Rom. 8:29–30).
And when our conscience, the world, the flesh or the devil condemn us, we are to remind ourselves that Christ is praying for us and speaks a better word over us as our advocate (1 John. 2:2). See how both justification and intercession help us? They are meant to be wedded together.
Our minds forget the beauty of our justification, and that is why we need the doctrine of the intercession of Christ. Because “intercession is the constant hitting “refresh” of our justification in the court of heaven” (p. 80).
“If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room,” wrote Robert Murray M’Cheyne, “I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”
For the Christian, there is no difference between Jesus praying for them in their living room and Jesus praying for them at the right hand of the Father. The astonishing fact remains the same: Jesus is praying for them.
The Christian can never say no one is praying for them because Jesus is always praying for them.
The best news is that anyone can have a constant pray-er on their behalf. It begins by turning away from ones works and sin and trusting in Jesus, the best pray-er there ever was. Perhaps Kendrick will look more into this precious doctrine. May we all.
