Jesus says, “Lazarus, come out!” And, the dead man got up and came out of the tomb.
The only Person present to release the resuscitation is the Intercessor who submits to the process of pregnancy and gives birth to a purpose. The boldness to call a dead man to life when no one else has even the tiniest faith for his life comes from a process. The authority is earned what is done in preparation, We are positioned by preparation. The Intercessor stands in the right place at the right time to release the right purpose.
Earned Authority
The Lamb who was sacrificed was worthy of All because He was sacrificed. What He did earned Him authority. The scope of what He did was the scope of His authority.
We shared His sufferings. We fill up His sufferings.
It is not that His sufferings were not finished or are not now completed. They are. The share we take in them prepares and positions us to represent Him in further application of His eternal redemption. He is Intercessor now because He is restoring what He created and redeemed. What He did, earned Him authority.
When Jesus heard his friend Lazarus sick, He was fully aware of the seriousness of the illness. He did not respond to the plea for His help because He was not carrying a healing but a resuscitation. He would release what Father sent Him to release in Bethany, and He was not carrying or interceding for a healing. So, He waited. When Lazarus died, He started walking toward the tomb.
The faith of that family was strong for healing but empty of belief for resuscitation. They were deeply disappointed that Jesus missed their deadline for a miracle. They gave up when Lazarus died.
Jesus arrived on assignment, at the right time, for what He carrying. He was carrying what He earned. As Jesus got closer to the place and time of releasing what He was carrying, He experience birthing.
Twice on the way to the tomb, He stopped because of a deep groaning within Him. The groaning was a strong, intense sigh. The Greek word is the same one used in describing a horse blowing out his lungs. The sound is extremely forceful, a blast like a large bellows used in a blacksmith shop to make the fire hotter.
We do not know how to pray what is necessary. Holy Spirit enters into us at the place of our pregnancy, the push of our labor pains. He enters into labor with us. God groans with us.
When Jesus stopped to groan, Holy Spirit was blowing the sighs of resuscitation into and through Jesus.
Carry the Pregnancy Full Term
You may find that God causes you to hesitate, disappointing yourself, your closest friends, and the neediest of those you love. That is painful. That is the test of boldness, to earn authority at the level of the assignment so you can declare with authority what Father wants. Knowing what to pray is a revelation, a pregnancy of purpose carried to the time of release.
Beware aborting the process that produces the full-term pregnancy! Avoid the release of what you are hearing and feeling premature to your positioning.
Some pregnancies take a decade. Some twenty years.
God chose a man and woman to birth nations who couldn’t have children, and it took a century for them to give birth to Isaac. Abraham earned the authority to father nations: that is why Jesus asked him what to do about Sodom. God knew what Abraham and Sarah carried in their DNA, but He also needed to prepare and position Abraham for that purpose.
God knew there were plenty of men who could be fathers, but He was looking for a father of nations,
Boldness doesn’t come upon us so much as it is rises from the place of earned authority. We know what’s going to happen, so we are bold to release. We know the time to birth has arrived, so we groan to birth.
Maturing Intercession in Matured Intercessors
Sometimes we just groan. The groan doesn’t produce because we are not pregnant with purpose. The purpose of the pregnancy is determined by the source of the pregnancy.
If we are pregnant by the soul, we give birth by means of the flesh like Jacob claiming his birthright by lying. Jacob was prophesied to be the firstborn, but the word was fulfilled by the wrong process.
If we are pregnant by the flesh and try to produce by the spirit, we are guilty of witchcraft. When we want what we want and attempt to use spiritual power to get what we want, we are using spiritual power with the same motives and sources as witches. We are appropriating spiritual power for our own purposes. We have no right or authorization to do this.
If you are pregnancy by Holy Spirit, and give birth with flesh we produce Ishmael. When we are pregnant by Holy Spirit and give birth by Holy Spirit, we give birth to purpose.
- The groan is a sigh of frustration because of fear or anger.
- The groan is a sigh of flesh because of our own desires.
- The groan is a sigh of fiction because we are full of delusions.
The groan we must release to birth is not our groan! We must release the groan of God by being pregnant with the purpose of God. We partner with God in intercession for His purpose, not what we want. This intercession is more about submission than personal power.