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27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

 

This verse is a conclusion to verse 26, dealing with the believer’s inadequacy in praying in the will of God.

27 Now He who searches the hearts

The “He” here is the Father. The Father searches our heart and knows the mind of the Spirit in this regard. We cannot fool God; He can search the inner recesses of our soul:

1 Sa 16:7, But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Ps 44:21, Would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.

Ps 139:1-2, 23, O Lord, You have searched me and known me.2 You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off… 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties;

knows what the mind of the Spirit is,

The Father knows astutely the mind of the Spirit. Verse six referred to “the mind of the Spirit.” The prayer of the Spirit is always answered and never in doubt. God does not always answer the prayer of the believer, because his prayer is often faulty in terms of God’s will.

because He makes intercession for the saints

Although the Spirit’s words are not expressed to the Father, the Father knows the Spirit’s thoughts.

In the Greek, the definite article “the” does not appear before the word “saints,” and this gives a quality to the word. The point is that the Spirit does not pray for saints as a group but because of their quality of being saints. No matter how humble the saint, he or she has quality in God’s eyes.

according to the will of God.

The Holy Spirit always prays according to God’s will or with what agrees with God’s standards. This is God’s will at the level of the Spirit’s consideration; God does not always respond to the believer’s prayer because he does not always know God’s will about his prayer. Sometimes God gives a different answer to our petition. If He does, the answered prayer is always in “the will of God.”

PRINCIPLE:

The Holy Spirit compensates for the believer’s ignorance of the will of God in prayer.

APPLICATION:

The Holy Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the Father’s will. No matter how dissatisfied we are with our prayer life, we can take comfort in the idea that the Spirit makes up for our lack of proper content in our prayers. The Lord Jesus intercedes for us in heaven and the Holy Spirit intercedes for us by His indwelling presence. There are two kinds of intercession available to the believer:

The intercession of Christ on our behalf (He 7:25).

The intercession of the Holy Spirit (Ro 8:26,27)

God does not always answer the prayer of the believer. For example, He did not answer Paul when he prayed three times about removing his thorn in his flesh (2 Co 12:7-10). However, God always answers the Spirit’s intercession on our behalf because He always prays according to God’s standards or will. Christians should take courage that God’s will is fulfilled regardless of our failure to pray properly. If the deepest longing of our heart is to do the will of God in our prayer, the Spirit will meet us in that prayer.

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