Imagine writing a prayer that would be read by and prayed for the saints two thousand years in the future, how would you pray? Think about that for a moment.
The exact wording might vary, but the typical Christian today would pray something like, “Oh God, we ask You to pour out Your power on this generation. Just move and send revival."
It would all be some form of pleading with God to do a new thing, to move, to do something. Let’s take a look at the way Paul approached this task in Ephesians 1:15-23.
The only thing he asked God to do is give us a revelation of what the Lord had already done. Paul didn’t ask God to do anything new. He just said, “Open up their eyes to what You’ve already done.” He was praying for every believer to receive revelation of what they already have.
I have seen people with a prayer request such as — “Will you please pray that God will pour out His love in my life?” What they don’t realize is that God has already poured out His love through Jesus. He sent the Holy Spirit who shed abroad the love of God in our hearts (Rom. 5:5.) There is no problem with God’s love. He loves every one of us infinitely more than any of us has ever understood.
We don’t need God to pour out His love. However, if you ask, “Would you please pray with me to receive a revelation of what I know is true? I know God loves me, but I don’t have a revelation of it. I don’t understand it, and I’m not walking in it.” I’ll pray with you in a heartbeat for that. I’m happy to help you fix your receiver, but I refuse to impute to God that He doesn’t love you. God loves you. You may complain that you don’t feel the love of God. Your feelings are wrong. They’re broken. But it’s not God who isn’t transmitting His love.
You may say that you don’t feel the joy of the Lord or His peace. Your feelings are wrong because the truth is you have love, joy, and peace on the inside of you all of the time. Every time you have been depressed and discouraged, your spirit is just rejoicing and praising God. Your spirit is always happy and blessed. You may be thinking, No, it’s not.
I would know if it was. That’s not true. That which is spirit is spirit, and that which is flesh is flesh. (John 3:6.) You can’t tell what’s going on in the spirit realm unless you get into the Word of God. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63).
- Bulls to charge into Zimbabwe gold stocks
- Samaita owes success to God
- ZRC wraps up stakeholder consultations
- Grace Tidings: The grace of God and His unconditional love
Keep Reading
Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:15- 16 says “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love to all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers”.
In our prayers, not many of us give thanks. Our prayers consist of, “Oh God, I need this. Please give me that. Oh God, help me...forgive me.” That is what most people’s prayers are about. If you are a spiritual giant today, then your prayer is all about “Oh God, give them this, and give them that. Oh God, forgive them.” Notice that 99.9 percent of all prayer is about your needs. There’s not a lot of thanksgiving and praise because again, we don’t see God as having done much.
We see Him as able to do anything, but He hasn’t done very much. We feel we must constantly petition Him. However, once you start understanding that by grace it has already been done, then your prayers turn more toward thanksgiving.
Paul was praying in Ephesians 1:16-17,1”.. Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; 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”. For the sake of accuracy, verses 8 and 9 say that God has already... ... abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having made known to us the mystery of His will... The truth is God has already given us wisdom and prudence, making known to us the mystery of His will. In verses 16 and 17, Paul was just praying that this wisdom and prudence will start functioning in our lives.
He’s not asking God to do something that He hasn’t done. He is praying that we would understand what the Lord has already given us. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints (Ephesians 1:18). He is praying that your eyes would be opened—not your physical eyes, but your spiritual eyes. He’s talking about the eyes of your heart.
Personally, I believe that God originally created us with six senses, not five. We walked by faith. Adam and Eve communicated with God through the spirit. When Genesis 3:7 says that their eyes were opened, it isn’t talking about the eyes of their heart. It was talking about their physical eye sight which began to dominate them.
They were created with a sixth sense of faith, which they originally walked by. But once they fell, their spiritual eyes became closed and their physical eyes opened up to the existence that most of us live in now. We are carnal, and we just go by what we see. We don’t have any spiritual perception at all. Originally, God made man to be able to perceive things in the spirit realm.
In 2 Kings 6, there’s an instance where Elisha was surrounded with a Syrian host. His servant exclaimed: “Alas, my master! how shall we do?” (2 Kings 6:15). Elisha prayed and said, “Lord, open up the young man’s eyes” (v. 17). He wasn’t talking about his physical eyes. His physical eyes were already as big as saucers looking at all of the enemy troops round about them. Elisha was praying that his servant’s spiritual eyes would be opened. All of a sudden, this young man saw with his heart and perceived all the defending angels.
This is a very good lesson for you and I that we need to open our spiritual eyes all the time. Without opening those spiritual eyes, you and I are blind and we can miss a lot of what God has made available for us. We should walk by faith not by sight and this is how we are able to open our spiritual eyes.
Adam and Eve could see into the spirit realm because they were walking by faith through the eyes of their heart until the fall. This instance in 2 Kings 6 is the exact opposite of what happened with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve degenerated from seeing and walking by faith to seeing and walking by sight. Elisha’s servant went from seeing by sight to seeing by faith and perceiving the spirit realm. Now, through the new birth... We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). The norm for the New Testament believer should be walking by faith. We should have this sixth sense of faith restored to where we can see things with our hearts that we can’t see with our physical eyes.
In Ephesians 1:17-18, Paul was praying that our spiritual eyesight—our spiritual understanding—would begin to perceive things that we can’t perceive with our natural senses. He prays that through the eyes of our heart, we would start to perceive the hope of his calling.
This isn’t just the hope of your calling. It’s the hope of His calling! Now that you’re born again, you have a calling that is beyond human ability.
