A Prayer for the Ephesians
14For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20Now 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, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Dig Deeper
A few years back our family decided to go on a small vacation and stay at a resort for a few nights. We checked in and went to our room and began to plan the details of our vacation time there. It was kind of a last-minute thing so we didn’t have a bunch of plans. We were in such a hurry to make some plans and hit the ground running that we didn’t really pay much attention to the material in the room that explained the place we were staying at. After a few days there, we actually took a few moments and started to read. As we did so, we realized that there were all kinds of amenities, deals, and different areas of this resort that we hadn’t even taken advantage of. Not only had we not taken advantage of most of the great extras about this resort, we hadn’t even known they were available. By the time that we did realize it though, it was too late to utilize most of the privileges that came along with being guests.
At the heart of this passage, and really for most of this letter, Paul is trying to make young Christians aware of what it means to be a Christian. He wants them to be aware of the incredible privileges that come along with being in Christ. We have all, at one point or another, been (or still are) one of those Christians that are young in the faith and don’t yet realize the incredible love of Christ and transforming power of the Holy Spirit that is available to all who have laid down their life and picked up the Messiah’s. Missing out on a few extra goodies at a resort is not that big of a deal. Missing out on the life to the full that comes in Christ is a tragedy of the largest magnitude.
Paul begins this passage by making it clear that he is still offering up a prayer of praise of sorts. The posture of kneeling in the ancient world demonstrated reverence, the readiness to obey, and heightened feeling and intent. Perhaps Paul had in mind Isaiah 45:23, in which God promises, "Before me every knee will bow." Christians are the ones who, in humility, kneel now before the Father. Thus, what will eventually be true of everyone in the world is already taking place in the Christian community. This is one more example of the Church being the people who are demonstrating God’s future world in the present age.
"The Father" is the term most used for God in the Old Testament, no less than forty-two times, eighteen alone in the book of Ephesians. Surely this went back to the fact that Jesus taught his followers to address God as Abba, the Aramaic word for father. What the NIV translates as "his whole family" is probably better understood as "every family." Paul’s point then, is to be as inclusive as possible as he stresses the scope and pervasiveness of God’s reign and rule.
Just as Paul prayed earlier that their eyes might be opened to the great hope, the glorious inheritance, and the incomparably great power for those who believe in the life of Christ. He continues that thought here as he prays that they might begin to realize and tap into those glorious riches. The Christians he was addressing apparently had the same problem most Christians have today. They had little clue how wide and long and high and deep is the love and power of Christ. Christians have a limitless power source at their disposable that is capable of more than filling up each one of us with the love and transforming power of God to a state of overflowing, but we very rarely take advantage of it. We stumble around hoping to just get enough help to get by each day, to the point that we fail to realize the fullness of life available in Christ. Because of this, our prayers are often shallow and our lives reflect that shallowness.
Imagine what the Church today would look like if we could realize the prayer that Paul first offered up for the fledgling church. Imagine if we could even begin to grasp the power and love of Christ that could not just meet the temporal needs that each one us can become so fixated on, but if we could grasp the concept that God wants to fill us up to the measure of all the fullness of God. Not doing so is a little like having a bank account that has had 100 billion dollars deposited, but living as though it only had $10 in it. It is this prayer of realization, in fact, that is the foundation for the ethical principles that Paul will lay out for the rest of the book. If the Church intimately knows the presence and love of Christ everything else will fall into place.
In verse 17, Paul mentions the idea of Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith. Despite the fact that the idea of Jesus living in our hearts is one of the most cherished images of the modern Christian world, it is not an image that Paul cares to use all that often. The idea of us being in Christ is mentioned 164 times in the New Testament, while the idea of Christ being in us is only mentioned 5 times. This has much to do with the fact that Paul was far more concerned with the community that was being formed in Christ than he was with dwelling on the individual experience. This is not to say that Paul was unconcerned with the individual growth of the believer that is being transformed into Christ. He just realized the importance and difficulty of understanding the corporate life that is in Christ.
Not only does God have the ability to fill us to the measure of the fullness of God, He is able to go far beyond that. He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. The really exciting part is not that this immeasurable ability is some sort of theoretical power that we never have the chance to realize. It is already at work within us. Paul goes beyond just saying that we have a theoretical access to God’s power, we already have it. If we are in Christ, that power has already taken hold, it is up to us to realize that and let it complete the work that God has already begun. It is like the difference between looking at a blueprint for a new home and looking at the foundation and framework of a house already begun. One is theory; the other is real. It is to this God that all glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations is due.
Devotional Thought
Think about verse 20 as it relates both to you as an individual and to the Christian community of which you are a part. What is God waiting to do through you? Have you been limiting God by your prayers, your obedience, or your willingness to be used? How can you unleash the fullness of God in your life?
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