From the Pulpit: A Power Prayer (part 2)

This week I am picking up where I left off last week, looking devotionally at a prayer of Paul’s for godliness from the book of Ephesians.  It is a prayer that believers should pray today.  

We pick up in the body of the prayer in the second petition.  In which, Paul prays “that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17b-19).  Paul begins with mixing an agricultural metaphor and an architectural metaphor that both teach for Christian maturity we must be rooted and grounded in love – for love is fundamental to Christian living. 

Then Paul prays that they would have strength to comprehend dimensions that refer to the immensity of the love of God.  Christ’s love for us is unmeasurable and infinite.  Paradoxically, Paul is praying that they will comprehend something that he describes in immense terms and he even says “surpasses knowledge.”  The point is: we are exhorted to know it truly, even though we could never know it exhaustively. 

I recently heard of a couple who were in the foster care system who were asked to take in twin two year old boys.  No one else would take them.  They were told it would be for a short time – six weeks.  These boys were from the ghetto, were abused psychologically and sexually, would not talk, were full of hate, and were violent in their behavior.  They had already been in 17 different homes and been diagnosed as being irreversibly and irreparably damaged.  Well after they could not find them a home and 18 months later, these boys were adopted into this home.  During this time these boys received consistent discipline and constant love with the result of becoming normal boys.  In the environment of a loving / disciplined home they were able to mature.

That is what we need as Christians – to know the love of Christ.  For Christians to grow up into maturity, and that is essentially what Paul is referring to when he says “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God,” Christians need to comprehend the love of Christ.  

We must prayerfully meditate on this.  He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4); He has redeemed us; He purifies us; He brings us into fellowship with Himself and His people; He has granted us many of our desires in what He has ordained; O’ What love the Father has shown us in that we should be called the children of God (1 John 3:1).  

Friend, beg God that you would be rooted and grounded in love.  That you would comprehend in a growing measure the love of Christ.  I challenge you to pray this for yourself, your family and your church.