1213 代祷
耶稣设一个比喻，是要人常常祷告，不可灰心。《路加福音18:1》
如果你不相信救赎的真实，你就无法真正地通过祷告来代求；相反，你只会把代求变成对他人毫无用处的同情，这只会增加他们继续保持与神断绝联系的满足感。真正的代祷包括把人或似乎正在向你袭来的处境带到神面前，直到你被神对那人或那事的态度所改变。代祷意味着「补满基督患难的缺欠」（歌罗西书 1:24），这正是代祷者如此之少的原因。人们这样描述代祷：「代祷就是把自己放在某人的位置上。」这不是真的！代祷就是把自己放在神的位置上，代祷就是拥有祂的思想和祂的观点。
作为代祷者，要小心，不要向神寻求太多关于你所代祷的处境的信息，因为你可能会重压难当。如果你知道的太多，超过神指定让你知道的，你就无法祷告；人们的境况变得如此强大，以至于你再也不能触及潜在的真相。
我们的工作是与神保持如此密切联系，以至于我们可以有祂对每件事的心思，但我们用行动代替代祷而逃避那个责任。然而，代祷是唯一没有缺点的事情，因为它使我们与神的关系完全敞开的。
我们在代祷中必须避免的是为某人祷告，只是要他被「修补包扎」。我们必须祷告那个人完全着实地接触神的生命。想想神在我们的道路上带来多少人，却只看到我们把他们落下！当我们在救赎的根基上祷告时，神创造了只能通过代祷才能成就的事，此外别无他法。
来自章伯斯的智慧
没有人能比耶稣在人际关系中有更敏锐的爱。然而祂说，我们对父母的爱，有时候比较起对祂的爱，我们应该要更爱祂。《故我差遣你》
1213 Intercessory Prayer
…men always ought to pray and not lose heart. —Luke 18:1
You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption. Instead, you will simply be turning intercession into useless sympathy for others, which will serve only to increase the contentment they have for remaining out of touch with God. True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God, until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance. Intercession means to “fill up…[with] what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians 1:24), and this is precisely why there are so few intercessors. People describe intercession by saying, “It is putting yourself in someone else’s place.” That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God’s place; it is having His mind and His perspective.
As an intercessor, be careful not to seek too much information from God regarding the situation you are praying about, because you may be overwhelmed. If you know too much, more than God has ordained for you to know, you can’t pray; the circumstances of the people become so overpowering that you are no longer able to get to the underlying truth.
Our work is to be in such close contact with God that we may have His mind about everything, but we shirk that responsibility by substituting doing for interceding. And yet intercession is the only thing that has no drawbacks, because it keeps our relationship completely open with God.
What we must avoid in intercession is praying for someone to be simply “patched up.” We must pray that person completely through into contact with the very life of God. Think of the number of people God has brought across our path, only to see us drop them! When we pray on the basis of redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
No one could have had a more sensitive love in human relationship than Jesus; and yet He says there are times when love to father and mother must be hatred in comparison to our love for Him. —So Send I You, 1301 L