Prayer Day 2: Paul's Prayer for Spiritual Strength

Day 2:  Paul’s Prayer for Spiritual Strength

What is the first image that pops into your head when you think of the word Prayer?  For me, tiny, dimpled up, cherub-like hands pressed together.  The young child’s eyes are closed and rosy cheeks adorn his face.  There is an innocence that can almost be felt in the vision.  For some of us, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep” brings back childhood memories of bed times.  There is something sacred about praying before bed.  Remembering the day and asking for forgiveness of sins and blessings onto family members and friends.  I pray with Ayla for sweet dreams of sunsets and sand beneath her toes.  Our God hears us.  He hears our pleas and heartaches right along our mundane small potato prayers. 

We can have constant communion with our Lord.  We can be driving in the car or taking a shower.  As we talked about yesterday, we can write out our prayers.  There are a few different ways to pray that the Bible tells us about. 

“BOW:      Psalm 5…I will bow down to your holy temple

                  Psalm 95: 6 ‘Oh come let us worship and bow down…”

  KNEEL:   Psalm  95: 6 ‘…let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!”

                 Daniel 6: 10 ‘Daniel knelt’

                Luke 22:41 ‘Jesus knelt and prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane’

 STAND: 2 Chronicles 20: 8 ‘Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly’

 LYING PROSTRATE: Numbers 16: 22 ‘Moses fell in the presence of the LORD’

 HANDS RAISED: Psalm 134, 141 …priests worshiped with hands raised in the temple”

(Tim Challies)

 

I can guess that most of us don’t lie prostrate most of the time while praying.  I sure don’t! (That is unless I accidentally fall asleep which may have happened once or twice or ok a lot…) But these are some ideas and tangible ways to change up our prayer lives.  Please don’t panic, I won’t make us kneel down next week with our hands raised, I promise!! 

Paul actually bows down in this passage we are going to read today. 

Ephesians 3: 14-21

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be all glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

 

WOW!  I think we need to take a couple of minutes and read that again.

 

Paul is writing this letter not only to the church of Ephesus but to the Church of Jesus Christ.  Remember he is in prison while praying these words. 

First he bows before our Lord and acknowledges His eternal riches of glory and His sovereignty as the creator. 

Does this fact that God is a King who is filled with riches of glory give you hope? Why or Why Not?

 

If there is no power behind what is strengthening something than the object will remain weak.  How reassuring to know that almost 2,000 years ago the apostle Paul was praying for our hearts to be strengthened through the power of the Spirit of God!

 

Here are some more verses to remind and reveal to us that Christ lives in our hearts…

(fill in the blank)

Romans 8:10 “But if Christ is ____ you, though the body is dead because of sin, the ________ is life because of__________________”

Galatians 2: 20 “I am crucified with ___________; and it is no longer I who live but__________ who lives in me”

Ephesians 3:17 “That Christ may ___________in your___________ through faith” (hint: you should know this one!)

My bible states, in verse 16 Paul speaks of the indwelling “Spirit” and here of the indwelling Christ.  This suggests that the Spirit and the Son are both God.

He prays for us to be rooted and grounded first in LOVE and then in knowledge, that we might comprehend….

Read 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8
Ask God to help you understand that it is His love that is being talked about here. 
He is Love!
Fill us with your love Oh Lord!

Back to Ephesians 3: 17 and 18

My bible goes on to say….breadth…length…height…depth. The immeasurable dimensions of God’s riches in Christ.  One commentator I looked up says this breadth, length, height, depth…, “The early fathers delighted to refer it to the cross, and to trace in the four dimensions of the cross a symbol of this four-fold extension of the love of God in Christ.  All I know is this analogy makes me feel like his love spans far and wide and high and low.  Christ’s blood covered it all.  Every sin that has kept us separated from God has been paid for and now He dwells inside of our hearts. 

 

As I type this I am reminded of my walks to the bus stop when I was in 1^st grade.  My mom had started taking us to church and I learned in Sunday School that I could ask Jesus into my heart and that I really should do it if I wanted to go to heaven one day.  So Every. Single. Day as I made my way up to our very safe stop right on West Jefferson (it was the 80’s I guess they didn’t worry about children getting hit by heavy traffic back then.  Kind of like the lack of baby car seats or bike helmets…who knew?)  Every day I asked Jesus to come into my heart.  I have felt bad for not knowing better in the past but as I read this prayer of Paul’s I realize maybe I was onto something…

Every. Single. Day we should pray for God to fill us up to overflowing.  We can get so distracted and busy that we tend to forget.  I yearn to walk in the fullness of God.  He has the power to fill us and our children and our children’s children for many generations to come! Praise His Holy Name!

Write a prayer asking Jesus to come and dwell in your heart with a new fullness that spans far, wide, high and low! End it with some words of thanksgiving and praise.