Ephesians 3:14-21

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family^[a] in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶ that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

²⁰ 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, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Given what God has done for humans – vertically and horizontally – Paul turns to him in prayer; after all, as the ‘Father’ of the household, who else is the household dependent upon? Paul’s prayer is first for God to work in the lives of his people, to strengthen them by his Spirit and to enable them to accept the new landlord in their lives – Jesus (vs.16-17). 

Secondly, Paul’s prayer is for the Ephesians to grasp the magnitude of God’s love; the very same love that moved them from corpse to Christian (vs.17-19). The whole point of this prayer is so that God’s mob can display God to the world (vs.19). The prayer is so big that we need to be reminded of the bigness of God – he can do so much more than anything we can imagine (vs.20-21). 

Question:

Take a moment to just read, and re-read, this prayer a few times. Compare it with so many prayers we offer and hear. Ponder again how immense it is!

Prayer:

Father, you know where we live and what aches our bones and what we eat for breakfast, and you exercise power to raise Jesus from the dead so that we can have life we do not deserve. Please use that same power to make Jesus our landlord, to enable us to grasp your love, and to display your fullness to this world. Amen.