God’s Yes



Ephesians 3:14-21
14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
16that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20Now 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,
21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

When taught to pray, we are told that God has three possible answers He might give to us. “No”, “Yes”, and “Later”. Of course, the “no” and the “later” are difficult for us to take because we want what we want when we want it. But we love the “yes” answers, right? During our discussion of Ephesians 1:15-23, we looked at the prayer that was embedded in the text and worked on inserting someone’s name into that passage, praying down God’s blessings on that person. Today, lets pray for ourselves, using the words of today’s reading as a guide. It’s a fantastic prayer of blessing and praying it in the first person can be exciting. The best part about this prayer is that God’s answer is already assured – it’s a YES!

You could fashion these words like this:
Dear Lord, according to the riches of Your glory, please grant that I am strengthened with power through Your Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith—that I, 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 I may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that I ask or think, according to the power at work within me, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

It simply becomes a first person prayer. Of course you can also pray this prayer for others, but sometimes we become so fixated on praying for all those we love (and hopefully for our enemies as well) that we forget to lift up our own lives, begging God to become a deeper and richer part of our total being. If God is going to say “yes” to these beautiful words, I’m gonna go for it!

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