VIDEO The Unrivaled Power of Prayer

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. —Romans 8:26

We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; and we know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit; but we don’t often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us which we cannot utter ourselves. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.

“He,” the Holy Spirit in you, “makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27). And God searches your heart, not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is.

The Spirit of God uses the nature of the believer as a temple in which to offer His prayers of intercession. “…your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit…” (1 Corinthians 6:19). When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, “…He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple” (Mark 11:16). The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple, and said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer…. But you have made it a ‘den of thieves’ ” (Mark 11:17).

Have we come to realize that our “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit”? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, even though only a small part of our total person, is to be regarded by us as a “temple of the Holy Spirit.” He will be responsible for the unconscious part which we don’t know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 664 L

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Groanings Too Deep for Words (Romans 8:26-28)

Loving Our Neighbors

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19:18

In the days of self-isolation and lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, words by Martin Luther King Jr. in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” rang true. Speaking about injustice, he remarked how he couldn’t sit idly in one city and not be concerned about what happens in another. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,” he said, “tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects us all indirectly.” 

Likewise, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted our connectedness as around the world cities and countries closed to stop the spread of the virus. What affected one city could soon affect another.

Many centuries ago, God instructed His people how to show concern for others. Through Moses, He gave the Israelites the law to guide them and help them live together. He told them to “not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life” (Leviticus 19:16); and to not seek revenge or bear a grudge against others, but to “love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 18). God knew that communities would start to unravel if people didn’t look out for others, valuing their lives as much as they did their own.

We too can embrace the wisdom of God’s instructions. As we go about our daily activities, we can remember how interconnected we are with others as we ask Him how to love and serve them well.

By:  Amy Boucher Pye

Reflect & Pray

Why do you think Jesus echoed God’s law when He told the religious leaders to love their neighbors as themselves? How could you put this instruction into action today?

Loving Creator, help me to share Your love and grace today

Let Us Press On To Maturity

This particular “Let us” is very appropriate to the New Testament Hebrew people because they had failed to live in accordance with it. They had trusted their special privileges and rested in them. They had become, quite frankly, lazy; they simply took things for granted.

“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:11–14, NIV)

What the writer was saying there—bluntly—is that the Hebrews were mere spiritual infants. They had no right to be infants at that stage in their Christian progress. They had had so many opportunities over many years that by then, they should have advanced to maturity. The writer of Hebrews also explained the only way to advance to maturity. We must train ourselves to distinguish good from evil. Advancing to maturity on the path of righteousness comes in practice by training ourselves constantly. It does not happen automatically; it requires discipline. That is why one of the earlier steps was “Let us be diligent.” We must train ourselves to distinguish good from evil.

Many times, even large Christian congregations are unable to distinguish what is spiritual and scriptural from that which is just a fleshly presentation with soulish appeal. The only remedy is to train ourselves by constant use and careful practice.

Prayer Response

Thank You, Lord, that You are leading me onward. I proclaim that I do not trust in special privileges or rest in them, but I am training myself to advance to maturity. I shall press on to maturity. Amen.

All Authority Belongs to Christ

 All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. — Matthew 28:18

All power is given unto Jesus Christ. After His ascension, He sat down at the right hand of God until His enemies be made His footstool (Psalm 110:1 and Hebrews 1:13). Through these last 2,000 years, Jesus Christ has been continually gaining the victory, a victory that began at the time of His death and resurrection, and which continues on through the ages.

In 363 a.d., Julian the Apostate, the emperor of Rome who tried to relight the fires on pagan altars and overthrow the newly established Christian faith, was marching against the Persians. One of his soldiers, a Christian, was being sorely derided and persecuted by some of the heathen soldiers. They mocked him, beat him, threw him to the ground, and said, “Tell us, where is your carpenter now?”

He responded “He is busy constructing a coffin for your emperor.” A few months later, with a mortal wound in his side, Julian the Apostate took his hand and grasped a handful of his own blood, flung it against the sky, and said, “Thou hast conquered, O Galilean.” The Carpenter of Galilee is busy constructing coffins for all the ungodly kings and kingdoms of this earth.

Christ is Lord of all.

Back into the Heart of God

…for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are….And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s. —1 Corinthians 3:17, 23

Deity indwelling men! That, I say, is Christianity, and no man has experienced rightly the power of Christian belief until he has known this for himself as a living reality. Everything else is preliminary to this.

Incarnation, atonement, justification, regeneration—what are these but acts of God preparatory to the work of invading and the act of indwelling the redeemed human soul? Man, who moved out of the heart of God by sin, now moves back into the heart of God by redemption. God, who moved out of the heart of man because of sin, now enters again His ancient dwelling to drive out His enemies and once more make the place of His feet glorious. POM100-101

Regeneration is like building a house and having the work done well. Sanctification is having the owner come and dwell in the house and fill it with gladness and life and beauty. TFG025

Shut in with Thee, O Lord, forever,

My wayward feet no more to roam;

What power from Thee my soul can sever?

The center of God’s will my home. HCL215

Love with a “Stoop”

Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness.—Hebrews 4:16

Grace is more than a synonym for love; it is a characteristic of the Deity which is quite close to love (and mercy) but yet deserves to be seen as different and distinctive. I heard an old Welsh preacher say: “Grace is a word with a’stoop’ in it; love reaches out on the same level, but grace always has to stoop to pick one up.” It was probably this same thought that an anonymous writer had in mind when he said: “Grace is love at its loveliest, falling on the unlovable and making it lovely.”

But it is to the great Puritan preacher Thomas Goodwin we must turn for the best clarification of the difference between love and grace: “Grace is more than mercy and love. It superadds to them. It denotes not simply love but love of a sovereign, transcendentally superior One that may do what He will, that may freely choose whether He will love or no. There may be love between equals, and an inferior may love a superior, but love in a Superior—and so superior that He may do what He will—in such a One love is called grace. Grace is attributed to princes; they are said to be ‘gracious’ to their subjects, whereas subjects cannot be gracious to princes.”

Grace then is God’s kindness bestowed upon the undeserving; benevolence handed down to those who have no merit; a hand reaching down to those who have fallen into a pit. The Bible bids us believe that on the throne of the universe there is a God like that.

Prayer

Loving and gracious God, help me understand more deeply than ever what it means to be a recipient of Your grace. I have some idea, but I long to realize it even more. Help me, my Father. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Further Study

Dn 9:1-18; Dt 9:5; 1Pt 5:5

Is grace the result of righteousness?

Who does God give grace to?

Steadfast in Your Resolve

When the days were coming to a close for Him to be taken up, He determined to journey to Jerusalem.—Luke 9:51

It is easy to become distracted in the Christian life! The moment you understand what God wants you to do, it will seem as though everyone around you requires your time and attention! When the time came for Jesus to go to the cross, He “set His face” toward Jerusalem, so that nothing would prevent Him from accomplishing His Father’s will. So obvious was His resolve to go to Jerusalem that the Samaritans, who hated the Jews, rejected Him because they recognized that He was a Jew traveling through their village to the hated city of Jerusalem.

Jesus determined not to digress from His mission, but He took time to minister to many people along His way. He sent out seventy disciples into the surrounding towns (Luke 10:1). He healed lepers (Luke 17:11–19). He cured a man of dropsy (Luke 14:1–4). He brought salvation to the home of Zaccheus (Luke 19:1–10). He continued to teach His disciples (Luke 15:1–32). Jesus did not refuse to minister to others as He went to Calvary, but ultimately He refused to be deterred from His Father’s will.

If you know what God wants you to do, set your sights resolutely toward that goal with full determination to accomplish it (Prov. 4:25). Your resolve to go where God is leading ought to be evident to those around you. Beware of becoming so sidetracked by the opportunities around you that you lose sight of God’s ultimate goal for you. Do not succumb to the temptation to delay your obedience or to discard it altogether. Once you have received a clear assignment from God, your response should be unwavering obedience