By Pastor Stephen Hess –
I once heard it said that our prayers tell us a great deal about ourselves and our faith. Alistair Begg writes, “Our conversation with God in private reveals what is in our hearts. Listen to someone pray—or listen to yourself pray—and you gain a window into the very center of the being.”
Too often our prayers can become lists of requests for material blessings from God. We pray for health and healing. We pray for provision and success. We pray for safety and protection. None of these are bad things, but I would argue that if our prayers are comprised of only material concerns then we are not setting our sights high enough.
If you read the prayers of the Apostle Paul, you will quickly notice that Paul prayed very little for material blessings and almost exclusively for spiritual blessings. His prayers challenge us to make our prayers bigger and set our sights higher. For example, his prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21 shows us four things that we can pray for to expand our prayers. Theologian John Stott compared Paul’s petitions here to a “prayer staircase” where with each petition or step Paul is climbing higher and higher in his aspirations for the church.
First, we should pray to be strengthened with power. In verse 16 Paul prays, “…that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:16-17). Our tendency in life is to think that we have strength in and of ourselves to live the way God designed us to live. But the reality is we don’t. Time and time again we are reminded that the power to serve God and live a holy life comes only from the strength that God provides.
Second, we should pray to be rooted in love. At the end of verse 17 Paul prays that the Ephesians would be “rooted and grounded in love.” Paul uses two metaphors here. The first one is a botanical metaphor and the second one is an architectural metaphor. We are to be both rooted in love and grounded in love. In other words, love should be both the foundation and the source of everything we do. To quote from R. Kent Hughes, “Like trees, our lives are to send down roots deep and wide into the soil of love. Like buildings, the edifices of our lives here on earth are to have deep, solid foundations of love. If we are properly rooted and properly constructed on a foundation of love, nothing will be able to shake us.”
Third, we should pray to be deepened with knowledge. In verse 18 Paul prays that the Ephesians “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” (Eph. 3:18-19). From Paul’s perspective, Christ’s love is so immense that we will never be able to fully comprehend it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t grow deeper in our knowledge of it with each year that passes.
Fourth, we should pray to be filled with fullness. At the end of verse 19 Paul prays, “…that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” To be filled with the fullness of God means to reflect God’s character in our lives. Paul is praying that we might be filled with his goodness, his love, his wisdom, his justice, and his righteousness. Our goal is to become more and more like Christ every single day, therefore we should pray that we might be filled with God’s fullness.
Paul ends his prayer by describing God as the one who “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20). We worship a big God, and therefore we should pray big prayers! So let’s set our sights high by looking above the material concerns of this world to the spiritual riches that are found only in Christ.