My body is . . .

The Lord is revealing more deeply that my body is His. His claim on me is not just about how I act, or what I eat and drink, but how I pray, or rather how He uses me for prayer . . .  

 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. 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. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26-27

Chambers points to the reality that my body is a temple for the Holy Spirit and that Spirit is my energy for prayer. He also notes that the Spirit prays for things that I cannot utter, things that I may not know are the will of God and pertinent to the situation for which I pray.

Then he says that God searches my heart, not to know what my conscious prayers are, but to find out how the Holy Spirit is praying! This is because the Spirit uses my body “as a shrine in which to offer His intercession.”

I’ve been reading books about prayer most of my Christian life, yet this is the first time I’ve read (or remember reading) that this is one way that God uses my body for His glory. The Holy Spirit lives in me as His temple where He can offer prayers to the Father — on my behalf and on the behalf of those I pray for.

Chambers reminds me that when Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, He would not let anyone take anything into it that did not belong there. In the same way, the Holy Spirit resists those times when I try to use my body for my own convenience. When Jesus ruthlessly cast out all the people that sold and bought in the temple, He said—“My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves.”

This is one more reason to keep my body undefiled. Considering my body as His temple is helpful in many ways, but realizing I am a temple for prayer is incredible and humbling. Even though I may not often sense His prayers or how He is praying, I know that He is my ‘translator’ as I pray and that is a huge encouragement. I know that whatever I say will be in the will of God after the Holy Spirit sends it to the Father so I can trust God hears me, but also hears me rightly!