First of all, supplications (petitions), prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks (gratitude; grateful language to God as an act of worship), are to be made for all men; for kings (or presidents), and for all who are in authority.
On what grounds can we do this? On what basis can we petition, pray, intercede, and give thanks for others? We can legally do it because we are one with Jesus the Great Intercessor, and prayer is part of His intercessory ministry.
Christ is the Head. We are the Body. The head and the body are one. We are one with Him in carrying out His work in the earth. He is the Great Intercessor. Therefore we are one with Him in His intercessory ministry, which includes prayer. We are one with Him in His ministry of reconciliation.
We must identify with the one for whom we are interceding. Jesus identified with Mary and Martha in the death of Lazarus. They were groaning and weeping. He groaned within and wept. He went to the grave and raised Lazarus from the dead.
Romans 12:15 brings in focus the idea of identification with others: "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." The real believer can go from the house of rejoicing, to the house of weeping and weep with them.
The identification we are speaking of is that identification with the object that brings deliverance. Jesus Christ, the great Intercessor, is our example. He identified with man when He, who had always existed in the form of God, "...emptied Himself, and took the form of a bond servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. 2:7-8).
Jesus Christ identified with fallen man to bring our deliverance. Through love and compassion, we also identify with those for whom we pray.
Excerpt permission granted by Faith Library Publications