Silas
Beloved of All
What a rich and beautiful prayer you have shared from Ephesians 3, and I am glad to join my faith with yours in asking God for these very things.
Paul asks the Father, according to the riches of His glory, to strengthen us with power and might through His Spirit in the inner person. That is the need we all have. There is a new law at work in the believer, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which sets us free from the law of sin and death. God does not only forgive the past, He writes His will on our hearts and changes our desires from within. Your body is now the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you, a gift from God. Before you came to Jesus the Spirit was with you, drawing you, showing you your need and pointing you to Christ. Now that you have received Him, the Spirit dwells in you to give you power to live a life that pleases God. You cannot overcome the deeds of the flesh in your own strength, but by the Spirit you can put them to death and walk in victory.
That strengthening has a purpose, that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith, and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all of Gods people what is the width and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. The true evidence that the Spirit of God is abiding in us is not an outward display that can be counterfeited, but love. God is love, and when His Spirit lives in us His love is formed in us. We love one another, we love the family of God and the things of God, and we love Him because He first loved us. You cannot manufacture this kind of love or work it up by resolve. It belongs to the realm of the Spirit and comes only as He dwells in us. As we dwell in God and God dwells in us, that love is made mature and complete. It becomes the way others know we are His disciples, and it is the way we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit and the fruit of that Spirit is love.
That love also keeps us and motivates us. The love of Christ constrains us. When we see how He loved us and gave Himself for us, we want to love Him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love others as He has loved us. It leads us to lay down our lives for one another, to build others up rather than tear them down, and to put away bitterness and anger and unkind speech which grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we are sealed. As we walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, and let the Spirit lead us in close fellowship with the Father, He bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and heirs with Christ. Nothing can separate us from that love, not tribulation or distress or persecution or any other trial.
And Paul prays that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. God has given us His Spirit as the down payment and guarantee that He will finish what He has begun and bring us into His full redemption. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.
So I pray this for you now, that the Father would strengthen you in your inner being by His Spirit, that Christ would dwell richly in your heart through faith, that you would be firmly rooted in His love and grow in understanding more and more of how wide and long and deep and high that love is, though it is beyond full comprehension, and that you would be filled to overflowing with His presence and goodness. To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Paul asks the Father, according to the riches of His glory, to strengthen us with power and might through His Spirit in the inner person. That is the need we all have. There is a new law at work in the believer, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which sets us free from the law of sin and death. God does not only forgive the past, He writes His will on our hearts and changes our desires from within. Your body is now the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you, a gift from God. Before you came to Jesus the Spirit was with you, drawing you, showing you your need and pointing you to Christ. Now that you have received Him, the Spirit dwells in you to give you power to live a life that pleases God. You cannot overcome the deeds of the flesh in your own strength, but by the Spirit you can put them to death and walk in victory.
That strengthening has a purpose, that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith, and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all of Gods people what is the width and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. The true evidence that the Spirit of God is abiding in us is not an outward display that can be counterfeited, but love. God is love, and when His Spirit lives in us His love is formed in us. We love one another, we love the family of God and the things of God, and we love Him because He first loved us. You cannot manufacture this kind of love or work it up by resolve. It belongs to the realm of the Spirit and comes only as He dwells in us. As we dwell in God and God dwells in us, that love is made mature and complete. It becomes the way others know we are His disciples, and it is the way we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit and the fruit of that Spirit is love.
That love also keeps us and motivates us. The love of Christ constrains us. When we see how He loved us and gave Himself for us, we want to love Him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love others as He has loved us. It leads us to lay down our lives for one another, to build others up rather than tear them down, and to put away bitterness and anger and unkind speech which grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we are sealed. As we walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, and let the Spirit lead us in close fellowship with the Father, He bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and heirs with Christ. Nothing can separate us from that love, not tribulation or distress or persecution or any other trial.
And Paul prays that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. God has given us His Spirit as the down payment and guarantee that He will finish what He has begun and bring us into His full redemption. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.
So I pray this for you now, that the Father would strengthen you in your inner being by His Spirit, that Christ would dwell richly in your heart through faith, that you would be firmly rooted in His love and grow in understanding more and more of how wide and long and deep and high that love is, though it is beyond full comprehension, and that you would be filled to overflowing with His presence and goodness. To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
