The thing about Daniel that I appreciate most is his devotion to God and to a pure life.  From his youth he “made up his mind that he would not defile himself” (Dan. 1:8).  He also had a practice of praying on his knees three times a day (6:10); and much of his praying was with fasting (9:3; 10:3).  If we are to stand in the gap for others this must also be our manner of life and devotion.  We must lose ourselves for God and for others. In the following prayer of Daniel’s, in Daniel 9: 1-19, we learn a great deal about what intercession is.

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans —  2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the…