September 26
The pleading Spirit
Ellen G. White
"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." — Romans 8:26 · KJV
1203. Christ is our advocate, pleading in our behalf. The Spirit pleads within us. Then let us show perfect trust in our Leader, and not inquire of false guides.
1204. The grace of God takes men as they are, and works as an educator, using every principle on which an all-sided education depends. The steady influence of the grace of God trains the soul after Christ's methods, and every fierce passion, every defective trait of character, is worked upon the molding influence of the Spirit of Christ, until the man has a new motive power, and becomes filled with the Holy Spirit of God, after the likeness of the divine similitude.
1205. The Holy Spirit is the source of all power, and works as a living, active agent in the new life created in the soul. The Holy Spirit is to be in us a divine indweller.
1206. Jesus conveys the circulating vitality of a pure and sanctified Christ-like love through every part of our human nature. When this love is expressed in the character, it reveals to all those with whom we associate that it is possible for God to be formed within, the hope of glory.
1207. Christ is to live in his human agents, and work through their faculties, and act through their capabilities. Their will must be submitted to his will, they must act with his Spirit, that it may be no more they that live, but Christ that liveth in them.
1208. Wherever we go, we bear the abiding presence of the One so dear to us; for we abide in Christ by a living faith. He is abiding in our hearts by our individual, appropriating faith. We have the companionship of the divine Jesus, and as we realize his presence, our thoughts are brought into captivity to him. Our experience in divine things will be in proportion to the vividness of our sense of his companionship.