This'll change your life
"This will change your life!"This is a promise often made by advertisers, friends applying peer-pressure and those who just want us to go with them.
While Paul doesn't use these words, the sentiment or, more accurately, the conviction is present in his hungry prayer for the Ephesian Christians.
And what does he pray for?
- He prays for inner strength (resilience, character, integrity & perseverance)
- He prays for the indwelling presence of Christ
- He prays for the power to grasp God's love.
The third prayer is significant.
God's love is so great that we need help to understand it!
He uses four dimensions in his attempt to alert us to the magnificence of God's love. I love his image: How do you grasp length, breadth, height and depth?
Is there any better prayer we can pray for people?
Read the prayer slowly and thoughtfully.
Dwell on the enormity of a love that we need power just to help us get a handle on it....!
| I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians3:16-21) |
