Paul Petitions God

Paul Petitions God Ephesians 3:14-21

Here are a few questions to ask ourselves before we start studing Paul’s petitions to God. Are we praying? Are we praying for our family? Are we praying for our children? Are we praying for our friends? Are we praying for our church? What are we praying for?
Do we pray for health, material items like cars, boats, clothes, or money to pay bills?

Here from the apostle Paul we have a wonderful example of praying to God the Father.
This is the second prayer in Ephesians, the first is in ch 1.
These 2 prayers as well as the other prison prayers deal with our spiritual condition, our inner man, not our material needs.
The other “prison” prayers are in:
Ephesians 1:15-23, Ephesians 3:14-19, Philippians 1:9-11 ,Colossians 1:9-12

The Petitions

Ephesians 3:16-19

Paul is not praying for physical things. How often when we pray do we pray for material items, or situations in life. Paul’s consistent example is to pray for our spiritual condition.

Paul petitions God for 3 things and they concern their: 

• Their will– That God may give them strength for their inner man
  • We live in a world that is at war with God. As we live our lives doing our best to show Jesus, we can get weary and worn out. Paul is praying God will give the Ephesians and subsequently us, strength for our inner man. That means to have an inward resolve and determination. We are determined to do the right things even when everyone else is not. We have already resolved that we are going to show Jesus in every situation. It takes strength to do that, and God will provide that strength.
• Their hearts– That Christ may dwell in their hearts
  • When we become saved the Holy Spirit dwells within us. So what is he talking about here? 
  • John 14:15-24 helps us understand. “If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.

• • If we put God’s Word into practice in our lives and follow what He says, we will sense Christ’s presence in our lives. As we live out God’s Word, by faith we will know Christ is with us, and we’ll see the evidence of Him in our lives.

• Their minds– That God will give them comprehension
• How can we comprehend the capacity of Christ’s love, which is unknowable? 
• We have some knowledge of His love for us. If you can say today that you’ve accepted Christ as your savior then you have an intimate knowledge of His love and sacrifice for us.
• We can spend a lifetime searching the capacity of God’s love for His children and God will keep surprising us with blessing after blessing.
• As we search and never get to the end, we will be filled with fullness and joy just while going through the experiences of His love.
• Paul says this in Philippians 3:12-16 “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.”