Hi, and welcome to the Five Word Prayers Daily, a five-day-a-week daily devotional where we share the word, prayers, and our heart.

I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me, which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent.

Goodness, I've loved talking ministry with you all week, and I hope you enjoyed our guest, Kristen Schell, yesterday, talking the

Ministry of Hospitality, such a vital ministry to leave people to Jesus and nurture each other

in the body of Christ.

Today I want to talk about maybe the most important ministry of all, and it's one we can

all participate in, and I hope we are all participating in, the Ministry of Intercessory

prayer, that is, praying for others. I'm anxious to dive in, so let's get right to it.

So one study Bible defines intercession as holy, believing, persevering prayer whereby someone

pleads with God on behalf of another or others who desperately need God's intervention.

I don't know about you, but I suspect you're like me and the thought of someone praying to

Jesus on your behalf is a precious, beautiful thought. I need prayer. I long for people

to be praying for me, especially on the days I struggle to pray for myself. I think this is why

a lot of us love and adore our mothers and grandmothers so much. If we have mothers and grandmothers

of the faith, we depend on their prayers for us when no one else is

praying. We know these giants of the faith are praying on our behalf. For some of us, they

prayed us through crazy college years or prayed us through bad marriages or prayed us through

drug addiction or joblessness or whatever the case is, were it not for praying people

in our lives, who knows where some of us might be?

One of the most powerful ministries, if not the most powerful, is the ministry of prayer.

In Ephesion 6, the passage most well known to be the armor of God passage, where it tells

believers how to suit up for battle against

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