Have you ever been so confused that you didn’t know what to pray for? Have you ever been so heartbroken that you didn’t even have the strength to pray? Have you ever wondered if God could possibly love someone who had made such a mess of life? Do you feel helpless or hopeless or worthless?

Then today’s passage is good news for you, for it reminds us that salvation is all of God. Are you having trouble in prayer? Trust God, for verse 26 tells us that the Holy Spirit will pray for us, even when we can’t put our prayers into words. Even when we don’t know what we really need, we can be assured that God knows because He searches our hearts. In fact, God knows us better than we know ourselves because in His Holy Spirit, He is living inside of all who belong to Jesus.

Are you heartbroken by what is going on in your life? Do you wonder why a loved one got sick or died, or why you didn’t get or keep a job, or why that special someone walked out on you? Trust God, for He understands and commands all the circumstances that swirl around us. However hopeless we might feel, the good news is that God is in control, and verse 28 says that He is somehow able to put all the broken pieces of our lives together in a way that will ultimately bring good to ourselves and to others, and that will bring glory to Him.

Do you feel like you have let go of God? Do you feel like you’re so mixed up and messed up that you’re worthless, that God couldn’t possibly love you? Trust God, for He is the One Who reaches out to the worst, the most rebellious of sinners. Verse 30 reminds us that God is the One Who takes the initiative in human salvation. Just as Jesus came into our world unwelcomed and unbidden, just as He died on a cross for people who abandoned Him and denied Him, He still comes to sinners like us. However great the darkness in which we are trapped, Jesus is the One Who calls us into His marvelous light.

And He comes to us and He calls us so that He might justify us, so that He might take all our sins upon Himself. Instead of condemning us for how far away we have run from Him, He comes to us and wraps all His people in a robe of His own righteousness (5:19). The amazing truth is that when God looks at His people, He sees the perfection and holiness of Christ. And Christ did all this so that we might be adopted into God’s family (8:15), so that we might share in God’s own glory.

Do you feel helpless or hopeless or worthless? Trust the God Who knows you. Trust the God Who is in charge of everything that happens to you. Trust the God Who takes the initiative to save even the worst of sinners, reaching out to the lost and binding up the broken. Trust God, and be certain of His love for you.

Romans 8:18-39 (NASB)

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope
21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one also hope for what he sees?
25 But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
26 And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray 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.
28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;
30 and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
33 Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;
34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 Just as it is written, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.