Eternity Daily Bible Study: No. 541 Romans 1-8 - A Righteousness That Is By Faith Verses: Romans 8:26-27 Topic: The Holy Spirit Our Intercessor Date: 15th November 2005 Romans 8:26-27 MKJV Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. (27) And He searching the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Because of our earthly limits we have no idea how to pray. One way to illustrate this is to think of the task of taking a person from the state of sin to being perfectly Christlike in the image of God. To accomplish this we would need to know exactly who we are, and where we needed to change, and who Christ is and what exactly the image of God is, then we would have to pray accurately and exactly about each step of the process, and in the correct order that such changes were required to be made in. Now we simply do not know ourselves exactly, nor do we know exactly who Christ is and what the image of God exactly is, and nor do we know how to get from A to B and what steps we should undertake. Nor do we have the power to make these changes on our own. We are thus clearly ignorant and powerless when it comes to our own salvation and sanctification. In other words we do not know how to pray, even for ourselves! In our weakness God supplies the Holy Spirit. In 1984 I had just graduated from bible college and was pastoring my first church and feeling inadequate. One afternoon, as I sat on the back steps I asked God for a magic wand so I could change all that was wrong with me. God simply asked "where would you start". I thought with X, then no I would have to do Y before that, no I would have to start with Z..and so forth and soon I became aware that I had no idea of where to even start the process. Then God said "Just leave it to the Holy Spirit". And I was flooded with peace at the thought and from then on I simply stopped struggling over myself and left "changing me" up to God. The Holy Spirit knows who I am, and knows who God is, and knows which things in me need to be changed and in what order such things need to be done. Since no one else knows these mysterious things the Holy Spirit is the ONLY person who can rightly change me! Thus the Holy Spirit is the one who must help me to pray for myself and to bring my soul before the Lord. Now what I have applied to changing myself also applies to changing the world or changing others. Only the Holy Spirit knows the future of the nations or the hearts of men and women. So the Spirit must guide our prayers for all things. Now this applies even to healing prayer. We can be praying say for someone to be healed of a certain disease and the Spirit may say something like "Pray that they forgive their mother" and lo as the person forgives their mother, they are then healed of the disease. We have to be very sensitive to the Holy Spirit as we minister to others. Paul writes of the prayers of the Holy spirit being beyond easy verbal expression: but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. This may refer to the gift of tongues, but it may also refer to direct mystical Spirit to spirit communication, the deepest movement of persons in prayer. This phrase reminds us that the spiritual realm cannot be neatly packaged in logical propositions. Heaven contains inexpressible divine mysteries that are far beyond the reach of human speech. We are ignorant, we are weak, we are full of infirmity and we see through a glass darkly. No one is an expert on what to say in prayer. We need an intercessor to pray for us and to pray with us. This intercessor is the Holy Spirit. This is why some quite non-theological people can have wonderful Christian testimonies. Despite their lack of theology they have a deep intuitive sensitivity to God at work in their life and God the Holy Spirit has interceded for them and they have been transformed by the Lord the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 HCSB (17) Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (18) We all, with unveiled faces, are reflecting the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit. You see it is God who changes us, not we ourselves. Intellect plus willpower plus theology will not necessarily make you into a saint. Some people with great bible knowledge have little grace, while others with little knowledge experience great grace. Now Scripture clearly asks us to get knowledge and wisdom, and we should study the Word. But it is the Spirit that changes us and transforms us. Paul connects God searching our hearts with the intercession of the Holy Spirit. And He searching the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. This is a deep insight into how God works within us. God searches out human hearts (Jeremiah 11:20, 1 Corinthians 4:5, Hebrews 4:13) and as He does this mysterious work He does so mindful of what the Holy Spirit has said to Him about us and our needs. Mary needs patience, and James needs inner healing and guidance and so on. The Holy Spirit intercedes "according to the will of God" so that we are equipped for life and ministry and become blameless and holy. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us so that God's will may be perfected in us. We need to ask the Holy Spirit into our lives to help us to pray and to move within us so that we are made into a Christian that fully does the will of God. Ask God to fill you with the Spirit that you may pray well and be sanctified in all the will of God. And ask the Holy Spirit to teach you to pray for yourself, for others and for the world at large. Blessings, John Edmiston (johned@aibi.ph) REFER OTHERS: If this devotional is a blessing to you, maybe you have a friend or family member that would like to start receiving this daily bible study. You can forward this to them, and they can use the following link to subscribe. http://www.aibi.ph/eternity/ or they can just send a blank email to: eternity-dbs-subscribe@strategicnetwork.org BLOG: If you missed a day or would like to read the bible studies online you can catch up using the new Eternity Daily Bible Study Blog at: http://aibi.gospelcom.net/eternity/wordpress/ EBOOKS & ARCHIVES : http://www.aibi.ph/eternity/ - includes free ebooks containing each series of Eternity-DBS bible studies. SUPPORT: Eternity-DBS is part of a faith ministry (the Asian Internet Bible Institute) that is supported by your donations - to donate go to: http://www.aibi.ph/articles/donate.htm You are receiving this email because you either subscribed on the website, or sent an email to the subscribe address. We do not subscribe people without their consent. To subscribe - send a blank email to: eternity-dbs-subscribe@strategicnetwork.org To unsubscribe - send a blank email to: eternity-dbs-unsubscribe@strategicnetwork.org