Prayer of Blessing

Thursday, February 27, 2014

In Ephesians 1: 16-19 we see the apostle Paul offers a prayer for the Ephesians.

 I pray for you constantly, ¹⁷ asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. ¹⁸ I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.

¹⁹ I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him.

 He first praises their strong faith and their love for God’s people everywhere. Then he prays for their spiritual wisdom and insight so that they might grow in their knowledge of God. Next he prays for their hearts to be flooded with light so that they could understand the confident hope that God has given them. Finally he prays that they would know God’s great power. Paul reminds the Ephesians that the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead was available to them.

If God’s power was available to the Ephesians, isn’t it available to us today? Of course, it is. We don’t always call on his mighty power to help us to overcome our life challenges. The God that Paul describes is the same God we worship today. He is far above “any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else.” God can do powerful things through us. Why don’t we ask him to help us do the hard things? Why don’t we consistently invoke his power when we need to make tough choices?

In his prayer Paul prays for the Ephesians to know God better. Paul knew that if the these believers got to know God better, they would grow, have more hope and would trust God’s power in their lives. Perhaps if we know God better we will trust him with both our little and big issues. How do we get to know people better? We spend time with them. We talk to them. We read about them. We can know God better by doing these same things.

Paul’s prayer of blessing for the Ephesians serves as an inspiration for us. What an honor it would be for someone to pray for me to have spiritual insight, to be flooded with God’s light, and to understand the greatness of God’s power.

I recently asked one of my Bible study classes to use this to pray for each other. Each woman prayed for another woman for a week. I revised the prayer to make it personal. The results were heartwarming. Women felt honored and blessed to be prayed for, but the women all agreed that the greatest blessing was found in praying for a sister in Christ, lifting her up and believing that God was doing a great work in that sister’s life.

Consider praying this prayer over those in your life who could use some encouragement.

·         I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.

·         I pray that your heart will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.

·         I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.