Just Pray
A Personal Devotional from Romans 8:26-27
Yesterday, I was privileged to preach in the Living with Confidence message series that Pastor Mark has been doing this summer. In accord with the rest of the titles, this one was called “Confident in Our Intercessor” and you can view the message online.
Here are some notes you can use to personally reflect on the passage.
Why do you pray?
How would you interpret this quote from Charles Spurgeon?
“We are never so weak as when we think we are strong, and never so strong as when we know we are weak, and look out of ourselves to our God.”
God doesn’t invite us to pray from a position of strength but one of weakness.
Bottom line, big idea of the message:
Just pray. Don’t worry about impressing God. Don’t worry about messing it up. Don’t worry about failing. Just pray.
Read and interact with 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.” (Romans 8:26–27, ESV)
Who is the main character in these verses?
What is the main character doing?
How is he doing it?
Why does he need to do it? Or, why do we need him to do it?
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
Remember that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to live with believers without the restrictions of Jesus’ human form. (See John 14:6.)
Our Knowledge Problem
“we do not know what to pray for”
The verb “know,” used in the perfect tense here, refers to the past act of seeing with the present effect of knowing what was seen.
We can’t see it all. The Spirit can. The Spirit transforms prayers from ignorant to informed.
Are you struggling with any life situation now so that you aren’t even sure what you’re supposed to pray for? How does the work of the Holy Spirit give you confidence anyway?
Our Articulation Problem
“the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
We can’t say it well. The Spirit can. The Spirit transforms prayers from groaning to grand.
How does this statement make you feel?
“There is comfort in knowing that even the unspoken prayer of the unformed opinion springing from the uninformed mind is valid when prompted by the Spirit who steps in and invests the sigh with significance and the tear with meaning.” (D. Stuart Briscoe and Lloyd J. Ogilvie. Romans.)
Are you someone who is very good at putting words together? How has this affected your prayers? What does Romans 8:26-27 suggest about the need for great wording in prayer?
Our Confidence Problem
“the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
What do the following verses say about your own heart when entering into prayer?
“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”” (1 Samuel 16:7, ESV)
““I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”” (Jeremiah 17:10, ESV)
“but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.” (1 Thessalonians 2:4, ESV)
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10, ESV)How does 1 John 5:14-15 fit with Romans 8:27?
“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” (1 John 5:14–15, ESV)
We can’t secure God’s activity. The Spirit can. The Spirit transforms prayers from pitiful to powerful!
Pray with Confidence
You can pray with confidence, NOT because you’re ever going to figure everything out. Pray with confidence because you know you have the Holy Spirit.