There is nothing better than expressing joy and gratitude to God for the great things he has done in and through the lives of his children.
After sharing the great mystery God had revealed to him—Jewish and Gentile believers are united as a spiritual family through their faith in the Lord Jesus—the Apostle Paul is overcome by his gratitude and devotion to God and falls to his knees in adoring worship to the Father and intercessory prayer for his readers.
This is the second prayer Paul prays for his readers in Ephesus. In the first prayer in chapter 1, he prays for their enlightenment. In this prayer Paul prays for their enablement. He asks God to not only give them the knowledge of this revelation, but also to strengthen his readers in their walk with him.
The Greek word for “strength” is the opposite of “discourage” (v. 13). This strength is provided by the Holy Spirit and is targeted at their “inner being.” It is in this “inner being,” where the Holy Spirit provides power for their new lives. This is a lifelong process.
When we receive Christ by faith, we immediately begin a personal relationship with God. The Holy Spirit begins the process of molding us into the likeness of Christ. He helps us pray, he inspires us to worship, shapes our character and unites us with the body of Christ, the church.
The Holy Spirit can be experienced by all who believe and works through those who surrender to him. Through this obedience, the Holy Spirit gives us the moral power to serve Christ in the middle of a lost and dying world. We are able to receive this power through our prayer lives and our worship. Paul’s prayer begins with gratitude for how God has used him and a petition for his readers to be strengthened to fulfill their calling.
In verses 17-19, we find the thrust of Paul’s prayer for all who read these words. His ultimate goal is for the readers to “be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” How does one reach this goal? First, as our trust in Christ grows, he will become more “at home” in our lives (the center of our emotions and will). As we grow in our faith, Jesus becomes more real to us and we are more comfortable with him.
For this faith to be growing and effective, it has to be “rooted and established in love.” “Rooted” refers to trees whose root systems provide stability during storms and nourishment during droughts. For believers, God’s love provides us such stability when the storms of life would destroy and take away hope. “Established” speaks of a solid foundation. God’s love is the soil of the root and the bedrock of the foundation on which faith is based.
The next step in experiencing the fullness of God is to experience with the rest of the church the “power … to grasp … the love of Christ.” We are to reach out and receive this understanding “together with all the saints.” No single believer can comprehend the mystery, wisdom or riches of the love of Christ by himself. It takes the entire body of believers, the church as a whole, to assimilate this mystery.
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Paul says God’s love is total, complete and covers everything. This love is far beyond anything we fully can understand. Its width covers experience and reaches out to the whole world. Its length covers the years of our lives and goes on into eternity. It is high enough to see our victories and celebrations. It is deep enough to find us in the depths of our discouragement, despair and death. When we feel shut out or isolated, we can know we are never lost to God’s love. God’s love is all-encompassing.
Paul tells us in verse 19, we never will understand fully the greatness of God’s love, but the more we comprehend it, the more we will experience the fullness and power of God in our lives. What a promise.
To me, verses 20-21, are some of the most powerful and encouraging words in Holy Scripture. Paul writes these words while under arrest in Rome. As he writes this, the Christian movement was considered a small sect of Judaism which caused trouble, and its followers often were exiled and persecuted.
Yet, Paul writes “To him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think.” He could write these words as a testimony because he personally had experienced this power of God in his own life. Paul had seen God answering his prayers in greater ways than he could have ever imagined. God did it through the empowering work of the Holy Spirit in Paul’s life.
What a lesson for us at the beginning of the 21st century. This same power that lived in the believers of the first century is available to the believers of this century. God desires for us to pray our hearts, hopes and aspirations to him. He can and will act beyond our ability to ask or imagine. His mind is greater than our mind. Through his power that lives within us, God can do great and mighty things through us for his glory.
This demonstrated power is given to individual believers who will join with other believers to allow God’s power to work through them. The purpose of the church is to bring glory to God. God alone deserves it. The word “glory” speaks to the presence of God himself. The only way the church can give glory to God is through his Son, Jesus Christ. He has commissioned the church to carry out his plan on earth to share this good news and make disciples until Jesus returns. In doing so, God’s glory will be made known “throughout all generations, for ever and ever” (v. 21). Praise the Lord!
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