A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. 

I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.

His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.

This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others. 

There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned.

Interssory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the fellowship must enter every day.

The struggle we undergo with our brother in intercession may be a hard one, but that struggle has the promise that it will gain its goal.

How does this happen?

Intercession means no more than to bring our brother into the presence of God, to see him under the Cross of Jesus as a poor human being and sinner in need of grace.

Then everything in him that repels us falls away; we see him in all his destruction and need. 

His need and his sin become so heavy and oppressive that we feel them as our own, and we can do nothing else but pray; Lord, do Thou, Thou alone, deal with him according to Thy severity and Thy goodness. 

To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right that we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in his mercy.

This excerpt is from  Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

May these words truly penetrate each of our hearts and be become the true intercessors that God would have to be become.