Dear Church, 

Praise God for an amazing Resurrection Sunday!  24 New members were added to Immanuel and 4 new people were baptized.  God is moving powerfully in our midst and let us continue to worship and adore him as the one worthy of all our devotion and praises.  As reminded in yesterday’s message, let us continue to commit our lives personally, sacrificially, and eternally to Jesus because it is only in Him, we are found and our ultimate purpose realized.

Sometimes our trails are far too intense, and even people close to our lives fail to understand the depth of our pain.  Romans 8:26, says, “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.”  The word Paul uses here for intercedes in the original Greek is ‘huperentugchano’ which means super-intercede. This means when we are unable to put words to our struggles and cry-out to God, the Holy Spirit super-intercedes on our behalf with “wordless” groans. 

Now, these are words of great comfort for us because the effectiveness of our prayers does not depend on us.  Some of us may not have the right words to express our needs based on God’s will, but Romans 8:27 reminds us “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.”(NLT)  This truth elevates our prayers to something we do in participation with the trinitarian God – We pray to God the Father – The Holy Spirit is our advocate and intercessor in the process and through Jesus Christ, we have an approach to the Father by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). In addition to this Jesus “is at the right hand of God interceding for us” (Romans 8:34).  Never think that you are praying alone in your struggles, God has NOT left us alone in this endeavor.  We serve a mighty God!

Be Encouraged,
Mathews