Tag: Comfort

The Holy Spirit Prays For Us

~ Suzanne Davis Harden
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Christ’s Spirit Prays In Our Hearts: Illustrated by S.D. Harden

The Holy Spirit Prays For Us

The other night as I was sketching a picture of Jesus praying, I thought of the verse in Romans 8:26 where St. Paul writes that the Holy Spirit prays for each believer, deep within the sacred temple of their being, at the altar of their heart, interceding for their needs according to the will of God.

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” Romans 8:26

As I sketched my symbol for the Spirit of Christ praying to the Father, I wanted to give my Heavenly Intercessor a peaceful expression but also evoke how powerfully focused He is as He prays steadfastly for the individual needs of the one He indwells.

According to scripture the Holy Spirit abides within each child of God. He loves and cares for each believer as if he or she is God’s only child. The Holy Spirit makes each soul He indwells His priority. He is always praying through them to the Father, interceding on their behalf. The child of God is His beloved, precious charge. His love for each is measureless. Here is what St. Paul wrote about the love of Christ for His children:

 Ephesians 3:17-18 “And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself.”

 God’s Spirit will not ever abandon nor forsake His little one. Jesus said, the Holy Spirit would be with us forever.

(John 14:16-17 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth.)

What an amazing promise! What an incredible comfort to know that we who belong to Christ are in-dwelt by His very Spirit who is always interceding for our every need according to God’s will.

He will never leave or forsake us. He will always love each one of us with measureless love, no matter what. That means Nothing you do will ever make God stop loving you. Please believe what His word promises. For God cannot lie.

Hebrews 6:18 “God has given us both his promise and his oath, two things we can completely count on, for it is impossible for God to tell a lie.”

Nothing can separate us from Christ’s love!

Romans 8:38-39 “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Heavenly Father, comfort us today with the assurance that You will always love us and never leave or forsake us demonstrated through the gift of Your precious Holy Spirit that abides within us. In Jesus name. Thank You. Amen.

Create In Me A Clean Heart

~ Suzanne Davis Harden

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Jesus Christ Suffered and died on the cross so that all could be forgiven.

CREATE IN ME A CLEAN HEART

Psalm 51:10-12

” Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.”

King David penned Psalm 51 after the prophet Nathan confronted him with the terrible sin he had committed against God. In the Bible, 2 Samuel 11 & 12 tells the sad story of how David, the man after God’s own heart committed adultery with a woman named Bathsheba. She became pregnant and then David had her husband Uriah murdered to try to cover up his sin. God was very grieved with what David had done. He sent Nathan the prophet to confront the king with his sin and to tell him what his punishment would be.

David did not foolishly try to deny what he’d done, or hide his sin. Instead, he immediately confessed and repented. He asked God to forgive him. He wrote:

“Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin.For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.” ~ Psalm 51:1-4

 Though David repented sincerely from the heart and God forgave him, he still had to bear the consequences of his sin. The child that Bathsheba bore to him became sick and died, and God told David that from that time on “your family will live by the sword because you have despised Me by taking Uriah’s wife to your own.” ~2 Samuel 12:10

David loved God with all his heart, but there came a time when he got his eyes off the Lord and onto the things of this world. And that is how he became so vulnerable to the temptations that brought his downfall. The story of his family becomes very sad after this time. Nathan’s prophecy against David proved all too true. David’s own son Absalom committed treason and tried to kill him. His son Amnon committed incest by raping his sister Tamar. Then Tamar’s brother Absolom murdered Amnon. All these were David’s kids.

All of David’s bitterest family troubles might have been prevented had he kept his eyes on God and his heart loyal to him. And he knew this when he wrote Psalm 51.

“Create in me a clean heart, Oh God, renew a steadfast spirit within me…Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.” ~Psalm 51:10,12

Though our sins may be different from David’s, still there is not one of us who cannot identify with this beautiful prayer he wrote!

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“The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.” ~Psalm 14:2-3

Long ago the prophet Isaiah wrote: “All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.” ~Isaiah 53:6

The “him” Isaiah wrote about is Jesus Christ, our sin bearer.

Isaiah was prophesying about his coming. And when He at last came into the world, Jesus said:

 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” ~John 3:16-17

God knew that not one of us could ever be perfect, even David who was “the man after his own heart.” Even that man stumbled and fell into sin, though he loved God so much.

That is why we needed a Savior who would bear our sins, become the righteousness of the Law that we could never measure up to because of our imperfections.

Jesus Christ shed His spotless, sinless blood for all people so that whoever believes in Him could become cleansed through His holy sacrifice for their sins.

He once said that He would never reject the person who came to Him seeking forgiveness. “Those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them.” ~John 6:37

We may not have committed the kind of sins David committed, but according to God’s word, we have all sinned and need for God to cleanse our hearts.

“If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.  But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.” ~1 John 1:8-10

Today if we pray that beautiful prayer David wrote, “Create in me a clean heart, Oh God, renew a steadfast spirit within me…” God will honor that prayer.

“The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.
     You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.” ~Psalm 51:17

And may we all remember that there is not one human soul on this planet that is without sin. Only Christ was without sin and He bore all our sins so that we could be forgiven for our sins and live forever in eternity with Him.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Your one and only Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins. May you create in me a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me today. Please give me a heart that is willing to abide in You and obey You always. In Jesus’ holy name. Thank You, Lord. Amen.

*Prayer Song/Video: “Create in Me a Clean Heart”: I have temporarily removed my prayer song/video so that I can remake it. The original video that I posted here was created for our church Prayer Night in only 3 hours! I will re-post the video as soon as I finish making it again. I apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for your patience, my friends! God bless! ~Suzanne

 

 

Christ Holds All Things Together

~ Suzanne Davis Harden

Image Gerrit van Honthorst: King David Playing the Harp

“For He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken.”~Psalm 34:20

Psalm 34 has always been one of my favorite Psalms. It begins with the introduction:

“A psalm of David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.”

David had been driven from his homeland by King Saul and pursued ruthlessly, his life always in danger.

After being hunted like a criminal for years, though he was an innocent man, one would think that David might really have lost his mind because of all his troubles. Yet he starts the Psalm off with: “I will praise the Lord at all times. I will constantly speak of His praises…” ~Psalm 34:1   The tenor of  the whole psalm is one of triumph.

By the time we get to verse 20, “For He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken,” we have to wonder if David is talking about more than just literal bones.  David was a man of war who had been in numerous violent battles. It is indeed possible that the Lord never allowed him to break any bones in his lifetime, for God can do anything, yet many God-fearing people have suffered broken bones since he penned this psalm.

Aside from this verse being a prophesy about Christ on the cross, (for David was a prophet as well as a king and many of his psalms contain prophesies about Jesus the Messiah); I believe this verse also has applications for each believer and that David was talking about more than literal bones.

I looked up the word David used in the bible for bones and discovered several meanings: “bone, by extension, the body; figuratively, the substance, the very life of one.”

I believe David is using bones as a metaphor for the very substance, the foundation of his life and that he is saying that God keeps all the various parts of his life together, no matter what his outward circumstances may be. For in the preceding verse he has written:
“The righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to the rescue each time.” ~(Psalm 34:19)
The idea of God holding things together, and by extension keeping everything under control, continues even into the New Testament for the author of Hebrews wrote: “The Son…holds everything together (sustains/upholds all things) with His powerful word.” (Hebrews 1:3 EXB)
St Paul wrote in the book of Colossians 1:17 “(Christ) is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

If we abide in Christ, He will hold our mind, our spirit, and our body together, for He is our peace. John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

We may not ever experience a total absence of conflict in this life, for Christ does not promise us this. He promises peace despite the raging storm. He will walk through the fire with us and hold us through the floods. (Isaiah 43:1-2)
We will overcome by faith and underneath us will be His powerful everlasting arms holding us together despite the raging winds that threaten to tear us asunder.
“Let not your hearts be troubled,” His voice comes over the waters.
“Do not be afraid. I will keep all your bones, I will hold you together. Trust Me.”