Do you feel like your prayer life is stagnant? Does your prayer life seem to lack effectiveness? Prayer is an area we are all feel we could do better, but how? By considering the mind of God towards us who believe, we can learn a new way to pray that will ignite a fire in our life and return the reality of an effective and powerful prayer life.

In Ephesians 1:15 we learn the reason that Paul is able to pray in a fresh, new way. It’s because Paul is convinced that God sees every believer in an amazing way. When God looks at us He sees us as Saints, that are praised and giving praise, because He chose us to be HOLY and BLAMELESS, Sons and Daughters that are set free from sin, and forgiven in such an abundant way that it all brings praise to His grace. And He secures us through the deposit of His Holy Spirit till we see Him face to face.

With this mind towards those who believe Paul does not cease to give thanks. This is the first step to pray in a fresh way. Give thanks to God for other believers in your life and church. Thank God for His glorious work in them. But what can we pray for them? Paul asks God to give a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God, having the eyes of their inner person enlightened. Meaning that we need to ask God to help others and ourselves to have a deeper reliance upon God and to know God in a deeper way. Do you care if people’s eyes are opened? Do you pray for eyes to be opened.

As their eyes are opened He asks that they would know 3 things. This is not just an academic knowledge. But a deep and intimate knowing. It is a knowing the things of God in a unified, intentional way. So when we pray for people to know, we want them to have a deeper relationship to the promises of God. The word “to know” here is a word that can be used for sexual intimacy. So this “knowing” is a marital oneness. A relation where God is not by you, He is in you, and you know it.

The 3 things we are to know are “the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe…”

How many hopeless people do you know? There seems to be hordes of hopeless people. So pray it. Pray for them to know the hope that God called to them. The hope that this is not our home, that He is our God, and that He has us. He is not going to loss us and that He has forgiven us and set us free in Him. He has called us to live lives of hope.

Are people aware that in them lies the riches of God’s glorious inheritance? Are we as Americans properly defining what it means to be rich? This is why we need to pray for God’s people to know God’s riches, and that those riches are in them, and that those riches are the in them already. The riches of God experienced by the seal of the Holy Spirit. Pray for people to live richly and to know His riches.

Last, POWER! P.O.W.E.R Do God’s people live with the reality of God’s power? If not, pray. Pray for those who are struggling to live in the power of God to know the power of God! This is no small power, it is an immeasurable power. It cannot be measured! There is no limit! There is no bounds to the power of God! But do we know that power? We profess to believe in the resurrection, but do we know that power is available to us who believe? PRAY IT!

Could it be that Christians are living shallow, hopeless, bankrupt, powerless lives because we are not asking God for believers to know God’s hope, riches and power? We have not, because we ask not. Fall on your knees, see believers as God sees them and pray! Pray that we might know the hope, riches and power of GOD! 

 

Thanksgiving and Prayer For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:15-23 ESV)