The Searcher Of Hearts

Romans 8: 27a

We must not lose sight of the tremendous parallels in this passage,
before they show us how the grace of God can meet our needs.

As we groan, He groans, and this gives a meaning to our trembling desires which they did not possess before.

As hope sustains, He sustains, and this provides a source of strength,
which is more than a match for our weakness.
This is seen in His work as the One who inspires the spirit of supplication after the will of God.

Paul writes from the wealth of his own experience.
It was 14 years since he had asked the Lord to remove the thorn in the flesh.
God did not grant that prayer in the manner that he desired, but gave him an even more mighty answer in the promise
that His grace would be more than sufficient for all his need.
(2 Corinthians 12: 9)

Paul has just been speaking of another groaning within ourselves,
which is the expression of the "earnest expectation" of
"the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body".
Paul says that that longing will be more patient, the more it is full of hope.

This is Paul's conception of the normal attitude of a Christian soul.
That attitude is difficult to keep up in one's own strength, because of the distractions of time and sense,
which is always leading us to be satisfied with the gross and the dull present.

But our own daily experience makes us only too sure that such elevation above, and remoteness from earthly thoughts,
with all their pettiness and limitations, is impossible for us in our own strength.

As Paul says,
"We know not what to pray for"; nor can we fix and focus our desires, nor present them as we ought.

It is to this weakness and incompleteness of our desires and prayers that the help of the Spirit is directed.
He strengthens our longings by His direct operation.

The Holy Spirit inspires our prayers.

He inspires those prayers which arise from our inmost soul.
A person's heart is moved when that person groans.
Such prayers will rise within us when the mind is far too troubled to let us speak.
We know not what we should pray for as we ought, and then it is that we groan.

The Psalmist said, "I am so troubled that I cannot speak."

These prayers sometimes concerns such deep things that they cannot be spoken.
We may groan at times because we are conscious of the littleness of our desire and the narrowness of our faith.
The trials may be so severe that our prayers are not only the groans within,
but the shedding of tears without.

Where in the Christian experience shall we find anything like these unutterable longings
after the redemption of the body which Paul in this passage takes for granted in the experience of all Christians?

There is no more startling condemnation of the average Christian of today,
than the calm certainty with which Paul takes for granted that the Roman Christians will endorse his statement,
and would know what he is talking about.

Look at these!

• "We cry, Abba Father."
• "We are children of God."
• "We suffer with Him that we may be glorified with Him."
• "... glory shall be revealed to usward;..."
• "We ourselves groan within ourselves."
• "We hope for that which we see not."
• "We know that to them that love God all things work together for good."
• "In all these things we are more than conquerors."
• "Neither death nor life... nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God."