“We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 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” (Rom. 8:26,27).

I have thought when I have heard one after another say, “Pray for me,” that Christ Himself prayed for us, and that the Holy Spirit Himself is making intercession for us.

While we can ask for others to pray for us, can we not appropriate the prayers that are being continually offered for us in heaven above? Christ and the Holy Spirit are praying for us. For myself, I can understand and draw encouragement this way: I lay my soul open before God, and ask Him to give me-what shall I ask for?- sometimes the words are gone, and I can think of nothing, only an inexpressible desire for something more than I have. But the Holy Spirit knows what I need, and knows the mind of God. He knows what God has to give me, and so He makes intercession for me and God gives exceeding abundantly above all I can ask or think. The Spirit of God takes those thoughts that we cannot put into words and can scarcely think, and transmutes them into words and petitions before the throne of God, and He who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the spirit.

Some say they are “going to search their hearts, and put away all the evil things that they can find to be in them.” Jeremiah says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind” (Jer. 17:9,10). We cannot search our hearts and put away all the wickedness in them. The heart will deceive us every time. Yet God can search the heart, and He does. And if we will take the result of His searching, great will be our joy. It is the Comforter who brings these sins to our hearts, that the Lord has searched out; and this very act of bringing our sins before our eyes is part of the comfort of God.

Jones, General Conference Bulletin, 1895, p. 267