PAUL'S PRAYER FOR THE EPHESIANS - PART 1

MONDAY 23 JANUARY 2023

Paul says, "I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in Him." Then next, he prays that your root will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. More below!

Reference: Ephesians 3:18-19 New Living Translation (NLT) "And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God."

Paul's prayer here is for every saint to experience Christ's love on a personal level. This is the reason for the personal pronoun "you", as stated in our referenced verse: "may you have the power" not "may we have the power." He is praying for you to have a customised understanding and experience of Christ's love, that will place an engraved mark or sign in your heart, so you can easily identify with this remarkably prodigious love and function in it - by the enabling influence of the Spirit. This is because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Romans 5:5 KJV).

You can rest assured that God has a tender affection for His church and His people (the body of Christ). For this reason, Paul's prayer, inspired by the Spirit, noted, "And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is." In other words, this understanding is designed for all of God's people. Then, he continued, "May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully." This means that God wants us to have complete satisfaction in experiencing this love, such that it will settle as a mark or a seal upon the tablet of our human heart, denoting our being ever mindful of it. Got it?

Graciously, Paul the apostle acknowledged in this same prayer, the immense and remarkable standard of this love: the width, the length, the height, and the depth, which make the excellency of the amplitude, too great to be fully understood. In the successive parts of this topic, I'm going to expound the referenced verse in this manner: Firstly, may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is (power for adequate spiritual understanding); Secondly, may you experience this very love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully (richest experiential knowledge); Thirdly, then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God (fullness and totality of Supreme Deity within you). Stay tuned for part 2. Shalom!

Scripture Reading - Zephaniah 3:17; Psalm 63:3; Isaiah 54:10; 1 John 3:1.

Guided Prayer: Thank you precious heavenly Father, for the plentifulness, lavishness, luxuriance, exuberance and cornucopia of Christ's love for the saints, which saturates my divine experiences and continually exposes me to the fullness of divine life in Christ. This love is written and inscribed all over my heart by the Holy Spirit, in honour of Christ, and it inspires my love and great delight for Him, as well as my confidence in Him, which in turn, mould and guide my actions. I'm ceaselessly glad that I'm daily built up as your habitation and temple of the Holy Spirit, through the ever-increasing knowledge of this love, in Jesus' Name, Amen!