Ephesians 3:16-21 - “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 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, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
William J. Seymour gathered with a small group of believers regularly to pray and fast at the turn of the 20th century, hungry to receive from God what they read in Acts 2. Even though they had not experienced Acts 2 at that point, they believed and sought after what was described there. After a month of fasting and prayer, William and several others experienced the Holy Spirit and received the gift of tongues. News of this spread and attracted people from everywhere. What subsequently happened over the next three years changed the course of church history.
“The Western church has perhaps allowed itself to be lulled into thinking that prayer and action are at opposite ends of the scale of Christian activity. On the contrary. Those who want their actions to be effective for God’s kingdom should redouble their time and effort in prayer. Prayer brings together love and power: the relation of love that grows up between God and the person who prays, and the flowing of power from God to, and especially through, that person.
“That is what Paul’s prayer here is all about. Essentially, it is a prayer that the young Christians may discover the heart of what it means to be a Christian. It means knowing God as the all-loving, all-powerful father; it means putting down roots into that love - or, changing the picture, having that love as the rock-solid foundation for every aspect of one’s life. It means having that love turn into a well-directed and effective energy in one’s personal life. And it means the deep and powerful knowing and loving into which the Christian is invited to enter; or - to put the same thing another way - the knowing and loving which should enter into the Christian. Paul, quite clearly, knows all this in his own experience. He longs that those who have come to put their faith in Jesus should know it too” (N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters.)
Today, let us worship and pray Ephesians 3, banking on the one who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, for ourselves, our fellowships, our missional groups and our churches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl6Mt1gFcw4
-AP
