I enjoy reading anything from E.M. Bounds. He was a saint who lived from 1835 to 1913. He may or may not have known it, but he was prophetic. He was certainly a man of prayer. He said things like this:
We have in the Holy Spirit an illustration and an enabler of what this intercession is and ought to be. We are charged to supplicate in the Spirit and to pray in the Holy Spirit. We are reminded that the Holy Spirit “helpeth our infirmities,” and that while intercession is an art of so Divine and so high a nature that though we know not what to pray for as we ought, yet the Spirit teaches us this Heavenly science, by making intercession in us “with groanings which cannot be uttered.” How burdened these intercessions of the Holy Spirit! How profoundly He feels the world’s sin, the world’s woe, and the world’s loss, and how deeply He sympathizes with the dire conditions, are seen in His groanings which are too deep for utterance and too sacred to be voiced by Him. He inspires us to this most Divine work of intercession, and His strength enables us to sigh unto God for the oppressed, the burdened and the distressed creation. The Holy Spirit helps us in many ways. How intense will be the intercessions of the saints who supplicate in the spirit. How vain and delusive and how utterly fruitless and inefficient are prayers without the Spirit!
E.M. Bounds understood prayer burdens. He understood how to recognize them. Do you?
Sometimes God places someone on your heart and you pray. That’s a prayer burden that’s not difficult to recognize.
But many times there’s a spiritual weight that comes with a prayer burden:
• A heaviness of heart
• A restless mind
• A spirit of mourning
• Depressed emotions that seem to come on us
And we think it’s us. So what do we do. We focus on ourselves rather than pressing into intercession. in tomorrow’s post, I’ll share with you some prophetic revelation a friend of mine shared with me on this topic, along with some Scriptures that will help is discern the call to prayer and intercession.