THURSDAY March 28th
Romans 8:26-27
‘Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.’
I just love these verses, because of myself, I very often just would not know what to pray in so many circumstances, first in relation to myself, and secondly when considering the needs of others. I think we would all agree that we would always want what we want, when the heart should be seeking that which God wants! Remember when the moment came for Jesus to go to Calvary, we read this in Luke 22:42 ‘“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”’
We need the Spirit to help us to earnestly pray that God’s will be done in our lives and in the lives of those who we bring to the throne of grace. It is aligning our hearts and our praying with what our Lord taught us to pray, ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ Matthew 6:10.
But then there are those times when we simply do not know what to ask or say, and it is not because we are wanting our own way, but rather because the need is so great and so desperate we cannot put together in our own words what we want to say and Paul reminds us that in those moments the Spirit himself intercedes for us and he does so with groanings that are too deep for words. The Holy Spirit searches our hearts, he sees exactly what it is that we are desiring to bring through prayer into the presence of God and he does it for us! And the wonderful thing is that when we can’t seem to discern or work out what is the will of God in these situations, the Holy Spirit knows, and he sorts it all out for us, 1 Corinthians 2:11 ‘So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.’
Now of course it is important to realise that this doesn’t mean we don’t need to worry about praying, thinking ‘O well, the Holy Spirit knows. He’ll deal with it’, no. he comes to help us, we need first to be doing all we can, then when we have reached the point of intercession where we just do not know what to say, then he takes over for us, we leave him to search our hearts and to make groanings on our behalf.
The word intercede is linked to advocate, the Holy Spirit as come to be an advocate among us and in Hebrews we read that Jesus is an advocate for us in the very presence of God, as the family of God we are in a win, win situation!
I don’t usually send devotions over bank holidays, but I will send a devotion out tomorrow which will just include some Scriptures to read over the weekend, and for those who were at the services recently where I was taking us through the Old Testament references that pointed to the death and resurrection of Jesus I will also add the references which we didn’t get to do from Isaiah 53 so that you can go through them in your own time. There won’t be an audio version. I am having a few days holiday next week, so will resume the devotions on Monday April 8th.