PURPOSE OF PAUL’S PRAYER
(How To Pray Like An Apostle)
Ephesians 1:15-23
by: Pastor Edward Vincent J. Barcial
Dr. D. Stuart Briscoe, an evangelical Christian author, international speaker and the former senior pastor of Elmbrook Church, in Brookfield, Wisconsin once said, “When our children were small and we were trying to teach them to pray, we had three kinds of prayer: "Please prayers," Thank you prayers," and "Sorry prayers." (S. Briscoe, Getting into God, p. 55).
Perhaps most of us grew up with this concept of praying: Asking, Thanking and Repenting. Most of our prayers revolve around us and our needs. Many Christians come to me for prayers for various needs and requests for jobs, favor, provision, etc. Somehow prayer for most is a means to acquire material things and to get things done our way.
Not so with the Apostle Paul. His prayer for the Ephesian Church has nothing to do with their material needs. Let us examine three things involving his prayer for the saints.
Ephesians 1:15-23 (NKJV)
Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:
1) Revelation of God
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
Firstly, Paul prayed that God is revealed in their lives. Since God is the source of all things, it is quite important that the saints should know Him first. Wisdom requires that we should know God through revelation.
Edward McKendree Bounds (August 15, 1835 – August 24, 1913), a clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church South and author of eleven books, nine of which focused on the subject of prayer, wrote, “The central significance of prayer is not in the things that happen as results, but in the deepening intimacy and unhurried communion with God at His central throne of control in order to discover a "sense of God's need in order to call on God's help to meet that need" ( E.M. Bounds, The Weapon Of Prayer).
Prayer is supposed to expose us to God’s heart so we would know His needs and ask for His power to fulfill His will here on earth. It is not the other way around. Prayer should result in a deeper closeness to our Master so we can feel His heartbeat. Even if we didn’t get our prayers answered, we will walk out of the prayer closet with the knowledge of His love and will.
2) Reward Of God
18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
Because we are so blind to the truth of His heavenly kingdom and the rewards that God has reserved for us His children, we tend to crave for the things of this earth in a way that we think that it will make us happy. With our spiritual eyes wide open, upon seeing the glory that awaits us, the things that we first thought that should fulfill us no longer become an obsession, but a deep peace and content will dwell in our hearts, asking for nothing more than His presence. David said, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” (Psalm 23).
In his book “The Weight of Glory”, C. S. Lewis notes how believers often underestimate the full riches God has for His children. He said, "...If we consider...the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
3) Rule Of God
19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. 22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Your Kingdom come, let Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10). Prayer should make us feel His power and authority over our lives. God is not like a genie that lives in a lamp that you rub in a certain way to get your three wishes. He is Lord over all! He is the master and we are the servants. Our prayers should put all things under His feet, including our hopes, dreams, plans, desires and even the devil himself!
Eli Stanley Jones (1884–1973) ,a 20th century Methodist Christian missionary and theologian, said, “Prayer is surrender--surrender to the will of God and cooperation with that will. If I throw out a boathook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God. (E. Stanley Jones, Liberating Ministry From The Success Syndrome, K Hughes, Tyndale, 1988, p. 73.)
Conclusion:
James Hudson Taylor (21 May 1832 – 3 June 1905), was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM) (now OMF International). Taylor spent 51 years in China. The society that he began was responsible for bringing over 800 missionaries to the country who began 125 schools and directly resulted in 18,000 Christian conversions, as well as the establishment of more than 300 stations of work with more than 500 local helpers in all eighteen provinces. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
In an article in Daily Bread (July 19, 1989) Eighteen-year-old Hudson Taylor wandered into his father's library and read a gospel tract. He couldn't shake off its message. Finally, falling to his knees, he accepted Christ as his Savior. Later, his mother, who had been away, returned home. When Hudson told her the good news, she said, "I already know. Ten days ago, the very date on which you tell me you read that tract, I spent the entire afternoon in prayer for you until the Lord assured me that my wayward son had been brought into the fold."
His mother’s prayer made Hudson Taylor an apostle to the Chinese nation. We can see in his life the things that the Apostle Paul prayed for the saints in his letter to the Ephesians. Below are some of the most famous quotes this Man of God left as a legacy for all of us to follow.
1) The Revelation of God
“It is the consciousness of the threefold joy of the Lord, His joy in ransoming us, His joy in dwelling within us as our Saviour and Power for fruitbearing and His joy in possessing us as His Bride and His delight; it is the consciousness of this joy which is our real strength. Our joy in Him may be a fluctuating thing: His joy in us knows no change.”
2) The Reward Of God
“ God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supplies.”
“I NEVER made a sacrifice," said Hudson Taylor in later years, looking back over a life in which to an unusual extent this element predominated. But what he said was true. For as in the case in point, the first great sacrifice he was privileged to make for China, the compensations that followed were so real and lasting that he came to see that giving up is inevitably receiving when one is dealing heart to heart with God.
It was so, very manifestly, this winter. In the hour of trial, a step of faith had been taken and a victory won that made it possible for the Holy Spirit to lead him on. Not outwardly only but inwardly he had accepted the will of God, giving up what seemed his best and highest, the love that had become part of his very life, that he might be unhindered in serving and following Christ. “The sacrifice was great, but the reward far greater.”
3) The Rule Of God
“Christ is either Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all.”
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