Praying With Paul Sýnishorn

Praying for Power

Prayerlessness is often a warning light indicating our ignorance of God. Genuine and vibrant knowledge of God not only instructs us what to pray, but it also encourages us to let our requests be made known to the all-holy, all-loving, all-wise triune God, our Creator, Savior, and Lord. In Ephesians 3 Paul grounds his petitions in his understanding of God’s revealed character as Father and the salvation He accomplished through Jesus Christ.

Paul’s prayer for power and his doxology celebrate the matchless, praiseworthy power and glory of God. God must empower us by His Spirit so that we might be increasingly transformed into the likeness of Christ. Further, we need God’s power so that we might comprehend the limitless love of God for us in Christ. When we pray for God to strengthen us and other believers in this way, we should recognize that God is able to do abundantly more than we can ask or think and thus respond by praising our all-powerful, glorious God. 

In Ephesians 3:14-19 Paul humbly and boldly petitions God the Father to exercise His omnipotent power on behalf of the church, that they may experience the blessing of Christ’s presence by faith and grasp more of Christ’s limitless love so that they may be filled with God’s fullness. In verses 20-21 the apostle puts these extraordinary requests in proper perspective with a closing word of praise that stresses two themes: the power of God and the glory of God.

The doxology of Ephesians 3 also confronts our sinful human tendency to usurp God’s rightful place in pursuit of our own glory. This God-centered word of praise forces us to examine even our motivations in prayer: Do we make our requests to God both with the immediate goal of receiving what we need and with the ultimate goal that God receive the glory due His name? The ultimate aim of Paul’s prayer is thus the same as God’s aim in everything He does, to ascribe glory to God, the Father of glory, “in the church and in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:21). Believers are blessed “in Christ” (Eph. 1:3), give thanks to God “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:20), and here are summoned to join Paul in living for and declaring God’s supreme glory and majesty as Jesus Christ is exalted in Christians’ thoughts, speech, and conduct. Here, then, is how we shall reform our praying. We learn to pray with the apostle not only in his petitions but also in his words of praise, in his ultimate goal, in his profound God-centeredness. True power in prayer comes from a deep knowledge of God that expands in to heartfelt praise for God.