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.
