“Never stop praying” (1 Thessalonians 5:17 NLT)
”So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.” (Hebrews 4:16 NLT)
“Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” (Mark 11:24 NKJV)
Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to flood our imaginations with light as we invest time in once again reading Paul’s prayer for the believers in Ephesus…
…“Because of this, since I first heard about your strong faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and your tender love toward all his devoted ones, my heart is always full and overflowing with thanks to God for you as I constantly remember you in my prayers. I pray that the Father of glory, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, would impart to you the riches of the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit of revelation to know him through your deepening intimacy with him. I pray that the light of God will illuminate the eyes of your imagination, flooding you with light, until you experience the full revelation of the hope of his calling —that is, the wealth of God’s glorious inheritances that he finds in us, his holy ones! I pray that you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God’s power made available to you through faith. Then your lives will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you! This is the mighty power that was released when God raised Christ from the dead and exalted him to the place of highest honor and supreme authority in the heavenly realm! And now he is exalted as first above every ruler, authority, government, and realm of power in existence! He is gloriously enthroned over every name that is ever praised, not only in this age, but in the age that is coming!” And he alone is the leader and source of everything needed in the church. God has put everything beneath the authority of Jesus Christ and has given him the highest rank above all others. And now we, his church, are his body on the earth and that which fills him who is being filled by it!” (Ephesians 1:16-23 TPT)
Step 1: Probe the prayer under the light of the Holy Spirit.
Today we are going to probe verses 19 and 20…
…“I pray that you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God’s power made available to you through faith. Then your lives will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you! This is the mighty power that was released when God raised Christ from the dead and exalted him to the place of highest honor and supreme authority in the heavenly realm!”
After Paul prayed for the believers at Ephesus to receive an impartation of the riches of the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit of revelation, he prayed that they would experience the hope that was found in their inheritance. This brings us to the next item – power.
It is possible to live in the continual experience of God’s power. I love the way that Paul described this power. It is the “immeasurable greatness” of God’s power that is continually available to me. It is the same power that was used to raise Jesus from the dead. This power resides in me by way of the Holy Spirit. However, in order for that power to do me any good I need to tap into it with my faith.
Faith is the “go switch” in my partnership with my Father. He has already done everything that will ever need to be done to provide me with all of the resources of the Kingdom of Heaven. As I have stated before, he put heaven in my heart and in my hands. He gets great pleasure out of seeing me live by faith experiencing fully his immeasurable power. When I am sick I have access to healing power. When I am oppressed I have access to freeing power. In my spirit, by way of the Holy Spirit, I possess power to overcome every obstacle and jump over every hurdle.
In the Kingdom the way to receive is to give. This is true of every aspect of life. It is also true of the power that is within me. As I share this power with others I become a walking, talking advertisement for the life changing power of God. As those around me see my life being transformed by the power of God they begin to wonder what’s happening. When I bring that power into their lives, that is when they stand up and take notice. When I hear about someone having a financial need met, it piques my interest to one degree or another. When my financial need is met, you have my attention. The same is true of healing, deliverance, and on and on.
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16 BSB)
The word “salvation” used in Romans 1:16 is from the Greek word “soteria” and includes deliverance, safety, preservation, restoration, and healing. The Good News (Gospel) is that God has released his immeasurable power through the sinless life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ and has deposited that power in each of us who believes by the Holy Spirit.
No wonder Paul didn’t spend his time praying for the individual needs of each of the Ephesian believers. He knew that when they lived lives directed by the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit of revelation they would be in a continually deepening intimate relationship with their heavenly Father. From this intimacy the eyes of their imaginations would be opened to see the hope of the inheritance that they possessed. This fervent expectation of the full manifestation of everything that they possessed in Christ would in turn unlock the full experience of the power of the Gospel of the Kingdom. Any need that was present would fade in the revelation of who they were and what they possessed in Christ.
Take that in as you move deeper into your inheritance with…
…Eric’s Life Lesson # 432: Praying With Paul – Ephesians 1:15-23 Part 6