For our devotion series, I are looking at “Prayer and the Will of God”. In our text, we find some very precious promises given to us by our Lord …. Rom 8:26c Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
From our text, we know that the Spirit of God helps us to bear the load of our weaknesses, inabilities and the many effects of our fallen nature. One of the ways He does this is by assisting in our prayer life. Although we know a Christian should take his burdens and weaknesses to Christ, his struggles to properly voice his situation to God. Our lesson this morning deals with the Spirit’s intervention in this type of situation. What does He do when we cannot verbalize our needs in prayer?
“the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
When we find we are unable to verbalize our situation and our desires to the Lord, the Sprit intervenes by making intercession for us. What is meant by “maketh intercession”? This phrase comes from two Greek words fused together:
1. The first word means “on behalf of”
2. the second word is defined as “to meet with” or “to have a conference with”.
When we put these together the idea is this: “to make intercession” means “to hold a meeting on behalf of another.” In other words, when we do not know what to say to our Lord, the indwelling Spirit shares the burden of our inability to pray by verbalizing our intents to God! He stands in our place and makes our requests and pleas from within us. What a blessing!
But how does He make those requests on our behalf?… “with groanings which cannot be uttered”. First of all, please notice the Spirit intervenes with groanings that we cannot verbalize. It is a type of spiritual communication that cannot be enjoyed by man. In other words, they cannot come from the physical mouth of man.
Why are they described as groanings? Many times, when we groan, it is an expression of pain, sorrow, or another type of distress. This helps us to understand the Spirit is sharing in the distress we are experiencing. Remember, he is bearing this inability WITH us. He knows exactly what we are going through and our feelings of inability. He is now “standing by our side” and “standing up for us” by expressing our situation and desires to our God. He does this in a way that we cannot even begin to experience of our own ability.
What a wonderful promise to know that the Spirit within us will stand on our behalf in prayer concerning our weaknesses, even when we cannot express our feelings, experiences and desires. The next time we face a situation that, literally, “leaves us speechless” before God… keep heart for we know the Spirit is helping us! What a wonderful blessing!
May the Lord bless us as we “Think On These Things”.
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