As a pastor, I am always encouraged when someone tells me that they are praying for me. I have a very high view of the pastoral ministry, but not a high view of myself. I know my sin, I know my weaknesses, and struggle often with feelings of inadequacy and discouragement. I admit with the Apostle Paul that it is by God’s mercy, not by my merit, that I have been given a participation in ministry. I take confidence in Paul’s words, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.”
It is because of my weaknesses that I must pray, and that I welcome the prayers of others. What I often pray for myself, and invite others to pray for me, is what Paul prayed for the Ephesian church.
He told the believers in Ephesus in a letter, “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” He prayed that God would give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation that they might know Him better, that they would know the hope to which God has called all believers, that rich inheritance He has reserved for us in Christ. Paul prayed that they would know the incomparably great power of God that is at work in believers now.
What is that power? It is the same power, Paul explained, that God used to raise Christ from the dead and seat him at His right hand, giving Christ authority over all things. You can see why I pray for myself in this way. Knowing God, His rich promises in Christ, his dead-raising power, and the absolute sovereignty of Christ, are a strengthening resource for my soul. I have been encouraged even by writing about Paul’s prayer! And yet, there is still more.
Paul also prayed that God would strengthen the believers by His Spirit in their inner being where, because of their faith in Christ, Christ dwells. He prayed for them to be rooted and established in God’s love for us in Christ, an expansive love, the end of which we will never know. Knowing that the love God has for me in Christ is endless, knowing God better, knowing better who I am in Christ, and what God has given me in Christ, is greatly encouraging.
The capstone of Paul’s prayer is the assurance that God’s ability to answer prayer is not limited to our shortsightedness. God exercises His dead-raising power in us so that he is glorified in Christ and in those who belong to Christ.
I appreciate Paul’s prayer because, rather than asking God to change our circumstances, he prays for God to change us, which is far better.
