The Spirit HIMSELF: Reminding and Groaning

 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God …
Romans 8:16 NASB

Me & my dad

Dear Readers,

As you may remember, my word of the year is “Himself.” Himself and other pronouns ending in “-self'“ are reflexive pronouns — they “reflect back” to a person, place, or thing (“noun/pronoun”) previous in the sentence.

However, when the noun is immediately followed by the reflexive pronoun, it becomes intensive, emphatic, “pause and really get it” important. And so I’ve been on the search to find some of these “intensives.”

Thus far we have seen that Jesus HIMSELF has said He will never, ever, ever leave us, nor forsake us. And He HIMSELF is our Peace in the midst of turmoil and conflict.

Then we saw that Jesus wanted His followers (including us) to know He is not the only one who loves us. His Father HIMSELF loves us. [See previous posts]

Now we see the Holy Spirit HIMSELF reminding us when we forget something incredibly important — We are God’s very own children.

The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God …
Romans 8:16 NASB

God is not just the Father of Jesus…He is our Father also. This is our identity. And the Spirit reminds us continually. We need to be reminded, because we so easily forget who we are and Whose we are …

God’s beloved sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of His Son, containers and expressers of His indwelling Holy Spirit-”Zoe”- Life.

So I love this:

So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit [HIMSELF] when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.
Romans 8:15-17 NLT

And not only that, friends,

Now in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:26-27 NASB

He groans in prayer along with us. The big difference is HE prays according to the Father’s Will because He knows it … and it’s His continual request on our behalf.

Thank you, O Father. You Yourself love us.

Thank you, dear Lord Jesus. You Yourself will never, ever, ever leave us, nor forsake us. And You Yourself are our Peace in the midst of turmoil and conflict.

Thank you, Amazing Holy Spirit. You Yourself remind us again and again who we are and Whose we are — the Father’s beloved ones, so we can cry out “Abba, Father.”
And You Yourself are our continual Groaner and Pray-er according to our Father’s Will.

O God, You are so Good … and we are good because we are Yours!
Amen