Prayer for the Readers

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,^*15from whom every family^* in heaven and on earth takes its name.¹⁶I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit,¹⁷and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.¹⁸I pray that you may have the power 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, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever.

This is a very carefully worded prayer, incorporating the teaching which the writer has been giving about God’s eternal purpose, but personalizing it for the readers of his letter, or as it would have been in Ephesus, the listeners to his letter who heard it read out in the Assembly. Obviously the writer could not have known he was praying for me, or any of you who are reading this blog, but that should not stop us taking it to ourselves.

1. The prayer comes from a brother or sister in the family of God. My family is incorporated in the great family of God’s children.

2. The prayer focuses directly on my real self, my inner being. The business of belonging to God’s family is no mere outward thing, but requires me to recognise the presence of the true God in myself.

3. The prayer asks that through my trust in Jesus Messiah he may live in the centre of my emotions and decisions.

4. The prayer asserts that my personal life is rooted, and everything I build has its foundations, in God’s eternal love.

5. The prayer urges that however I imagine the ultimate dimensions of the universe, I should know that Christ’s love encompasses and surpasses all of them.

6. The prayer makes its culminating request: that my little life should be filled with God’s life; and not as it were with a tiny bit of God that might fit into such a small space, but with the “fullness” of God’s life. God never gives less than himself.

7. And in case I should dismiss all this as impossible the prayer signs off by reminding me that God is able to do far more than I can ask or think.

It is a bold prayer, asking me to believe that I am part of the very life of God and can only cease to be so by my own refusal and rebellion. I can believe this because Jesus Messiah, God’s Son, has identified with me in order that I may identify myself with him, sharing his Spirit, in the love of the one Father.

The prayer is a model of how to do theology. I don’t mean, how to engage in academic or speculative thinking. I mean how to follow the trail of God’s footsteps in the world so that I may be where God is. It’s an agenda for disciplined meditation and renewal of life.