I recall a story of Alexander the Great that I had heard sometime back, whether true or folklore. It went something like this. He was walking through his military encampment and came across a sleeping soldier who was supposed to be on guard. With total disgust and rebuke Alexander awoke him and demanded to know his name. The trembling soldier muttered that his name was also Alexander. In a tone of dismay, Alexander the Great replied, “Either change your name or live up to your name.”

How many believers or children of the most high have fallen asleep because they are naive of who they are in Christ. If they understood that they had the name of Christ and were His ambassador. They wouldn’t be falling asleep and slacking in their responsibilities.

The Bible and history itself confirm that God uses those called by His name to stand watch in prayer for His purposes. The Spirit will prompt us in intercession, yet we will probably never know the entirety of the impact our prayers have, until we are in Heaven.

In the garden the night before our Savior, Jesus Christ, went to the cross to carry all of humanity’s sin, He stood in the gap for us. He denied His own flesh and pursued the will of the Father for the entire world. The scripture reveals His passion for us in Luke 22:44-46, “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. When He rose up from prayer, and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow. Then He said to them, ‘Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.’”

              As Christians we either need to change who we’re representing or start living up to His name!     (tweet)

In the most crucial time of church history, we find Jesus standing in prayer and intense intercession. It was so intense that He sweat great drops of blood (Luke 22:44-46). Jesus was so focused on what lay before Him, and the purposes of God, that He agonized in prayer for the Church and its redemption. Yet, the disciples, in the most important time, were sleeping and unwilling to stand in watch with Him.

Moses was also an intercessor that spiritually stood guard and watched for the people of God. In Exodus 32:1-12, we see the children of Israel straying from God and worshipping a golden calf. They had been delivered from bondage through a mighty show of God’s power but quickly slid
back into Egyptian idolatry when left to themselves. God’s anger was stirred toward the people so that He wanted to get rid of them. But Moses quickly stepped into the place of intercession and pleaded that God would spare them (Ex. 32:13).

Because Moses stood in the gap all were spared except for the instigators and the rebellious. Moses later came down from the presence of the almighty God and radiated His glory in such a dimension that the children of Israel couldn’t look upon him (Ex. 34:29-30). There is a reward for intercessors that watch and stand in the gap for God’s people. I believe in reply to Moses asking, that God showed Him enough of His goodness and glory that it changed him forever (Ex. 33:18).

There is a reward that the intercessor receives from God that can only be obtained through a relationship of intimacy in intercession. Therefore, either we need to change who we’re representing or start living up to His name!