As we would expect, Scriptures contains many prayers for God’s people which reveals the will of God for us. One such prayer is found in the first chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.
“15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 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, 18 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 …”
Paul is not praying for us to gather more information about Jesus but to know him from our personal interaction with him in our life. And out of this experience comes two outcomes: First, we will “know what is the hope to which he has called [us], what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints (verse 18).” Today, most people think of “hope” as wishful thinking, but that is not what Paul has in mind here. The “hope” that Paul prays for is certain and sure, and creates in us a positive anticipation of that which is to come. In other words, as we taste of the “riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” on this side of eternity, regardless of how incomplete that experience may be, we become assured of the fullness of God’s promise in the world that is to come.
Secondly, Paul prays that through our personal experience of God, “we may know 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…(vv19-20).” The resurrection is indeed a strange power that has never been revealed in human history until Jesus. It is a power that confounds human wisdom. Why? Conventional wisdom will not have the Son of God, the all eternal, all powerful one to be threatened by death. As it turned out, the power that God worked in His Son did not shield him from death. Instead, this power allowed Jesus to overcome death by subjecting him to death’s tyranny. It is a power that ultimately triumphs in God's own terms.
This is the kind of power that is at work in us. God may not shield His children from threats and dangers but He empowers us to face every threat in order to overcome them. When we are confronted with the insurmountable, let us remember this great power which raised Jesus is now working in us. It will bring about God's victory, in God's own terms, according to his own perfect timing.
Rev. David Lee