God Centered and Spirit Controlled Prayer

26 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27 And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.

Romans 8:26-27 (NLT)

God sends His Holy Spirit to provide supernatural help and care for His people. The Holy Spirit lives inside a person’s heart with faith in Jesus Christ (John 14 ─ 16). God’s Holy Spirit helps with our weaknesses, imperfections, limitations and problems (see e.g., Galatians 5:16-23).  Even more, the Holy Spirit helps God’s people with prayer.

The Holy Spirit prays a person’s innermost feelings, which cannot be put into words, and God answers. When we do not know how to pray or what to pray for, the Holy Spirit intercedes (intervenes, pleads, and negotiates) for us before God. In essence, God’s Holy Spirit does our praying in, with and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans and meaningless utters of sounds. This “groanings” are believers’ deep feelings that cannot be expressed in words. God sees what is in a believers’ hearts and knows what the Holy Spirit is saying. The Holy Spirit prays for believers "in accordance” and in harmony with God's will and purposes in order to do what is best for them (Romans 8:27).

Often, believers face difficulties so impossible that they do not know how to even approach God with their problems. In fact, every believer of Jesus Christ encounters difficulty in knowing how to pray and for what to pray. They know that they must pray to God, but they may not know what to say. Even when believers do not know what to say to God, the Holy Spirit interprets our innermost thoughts and feelings. As stated earlier, the Holy Spirit “makes intercession” for believers with words, “unspoken sighing,” meaningless sounds or groaning which cannot be uttered. Sometimes, the believer may not be speaking at all. Those incoherent or speechless sounds are heard by God. The Holy Spirit guides believers and articulates those prayer burdens to God. These groanings or meaningless sounds are the Holy Spirit’s, not ours because the Holy Spirit is interceding for believers before God.

The Holy Spirit understands that God, who both omniscient and omnipotent, is causing everything, even painful experiences, to work for good to those who love the Lord (Romans 8:28). God searches believers’ hearts and knows our thoughts (cf. I Chronicles 28:9; Psalm 139:1, 23; Jeremiah 17:10; I Corinthians 4:5; Hebrews 4:12–13). As the omniscient God, He searches those mumbling groaning of our hearts and His Holy Spirit makes intercession for us. The Holy Spirit takes part with us and makes our sighs, groans, loud “cries and tears” (Hebrews 5:7), and other expressions of our hearts and spirits in prayer and make those prayers strong and effective. Those groans are taken by the Holy Spirit and made into effectual intercession before the very presence of God.

Amazingly, both Jesus Christ (who lives at the right hand of God the Father), (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 4:14; Hebrew 7:24-25) and the Holy Spirit (who lives within believers of Jesus Christ) make intercession for believers before God. Thank you God for all Your help!