Pray for Spiritual Things

Introduction

Last week we talked about the mystery of Christ revealed and no longer a secret and another call to unity within the body of believers and the importance of living in unity and living as a witness for Christ in everything that we do. Now Paul goes into another prayer for the Ephesian church. Part of our relationship with others is carried out in prayer for them. So let’s look at the way that Paul prays for the church at Ephesus.

Be strengthened

God’s riches are are limitless. So the strength that we receive is without limit because of that reason. Paul prays that the Christians at Ephesus would be strengthened with power or might. He desires that God would make them strong and capable to carry out their lives for him during pretty heavy persecution. He knows the opposition that they face daily and he knows that the only thing that will allow them to continue to press forward in love and faith will be the power that comes from God alone. Where do we receive this power?

The Holy Spirit in your inner being is where the access to this power comes from for us! Though our bodies are growing older, though we get weaker, though illness may plague us, our inner being is being renewed every day. (1 Corinthians 4:16) Do we pray for the Holy Spirit to display God’s power in our lives to strengthen us? God has made available all of His riches of glory to us through the Spirit that lives inside of us and I know for myself there are so many times that I am weary, hurt, beaten down, exhausted, discouraged and I never think to ask the Lord to strengthen me or my wife or my family or my students or my leaders. God gives to those who come to Him humbly and He gives generously. So call on Him and He listens.

Faith is the human requirement as the attitude that receives him. Faith is so important in the life of the believer because it is that that welcomes Christ into your life and into your heart for Him to dwell gladly and work mightily in and through you. GO TO THE NEXT POINT.

Be rooted

Christ’s presence brings strength, but also wisdom, inspiration and LOVE. Paul prays that these Christians and also for us today to be ROOTED in LOVE. Having faith in Christ and being firmly established in love in our lives opens the door wide open for us to go into deeper understanding of God. (Talk about the metaphor of a tree and the roots of a tree and show a picture) God desires for us to be firmly rooted in love. Love holds together and grounds us when the winds blow. Love doesn’t waver when things get difficult. Real love doesn’t fold when the pruning happens but brings new and healthy growth.

You CANNOT know God without love. If there is no love, the Spirit of the Lord is not present, and there can be no understanding of God. The book of 1 John is extremely clear that without love you cannot be a follower of Christ. You must love others. This love doesn’t stay locked up inside of you but is meant for you to be so involved with all the saints. In a few weeks when we study through Chapter 4 we will see that Christ’s body can grow in understanding and in strength only as each possesses and uses the gifts of the Spirit that are given in love to build up the body. People are limited in the very understanding of the purpose of God until you see it working out in your life and in others and as you see yourselves as part of God working in and through the Church.

The biggest part of grasping the love of God is simply experiencing it as you are living your lives. The love of God will be so evident to you and you will come to understand more and more what it is to be loved by God as you experience it with the people of God and extend it as an invitation to those that do not know God. This is another reason why it is SO IMPORTANT that the body is UNIFIED together in its purposes because we are a city on a hill being watched by others so that they might see how God’s people really interact with each other daily. The more you experience the love the more you understand the MANY DIMENSIONS of love that weave into all the fabric of our lives.

Be filled

The love of Christ is greater than anyone can fully know or imagine, and it is much more than any knowledge that we may have because it is superior to knowledge. But to know the love of Christ is to experience the love of Christ. To know the comforting love of Christ in the trials and the sufferings. To know the convicting love of Christ when we are stuck in our sin. To know the peace giving love of Christ when we face sorrows and loss. There isn’t any vocabulary that can rightly express to anyone the greatness of God’s love for us displayed through Christ. However when you experience that love the best way to describe it is to be filled.

Paul doesn’t end with some special gift that God might give or some secret thing that we might obtain when we get to a certain level of maturity…but he says that we may be filled with all the fullness of God himself. Paul wants nothing less, for those he’s ministering to and for any Christian who reads this letter, than the fullness of God’s spirit to dwell in us.

Whatever you might ask of God in faith Paul says here that God can do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. So what are we asking for from God? Have we asked God to save our friend? Have we asked God to save many of our friends? Have we asked God to save those in our schools that we don’t know yet? Are we asking God to use us to boldly share with those around us? What do you ask him for?

Conclusion