Ephesians Prayer Guide - Day 8
May we grow in ever-increasing intimate knowledge of Him, as ones who have been with Him! May we be flooded with His light as we shine His light to a dark and dying world.
Read and pray Ephesians 1:17-23. Start by personalizing this prayer for yourself.
17 I pray that the Father of glory, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, would impart to you the riches of the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit of revelation to know him through your deepening intimacy with him.
18 I pray that the light of God will illuminate the eyes of your imagination, flooding you with light, until you experience the full revelation of the hope of his calling—that is, the wealth of God’s glorious inheritances that he finds in us, his holy ones!
19 I pray that you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God’s power made available to you through faith. Then your lives will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you! This is the mighty power 20 that was released when God raised Christ from the dead and exalted him to the place of highest honor and supreme authority in the heavenly realm! 21 And now he is exalted as first above every ruler, authority, government, and realm of power in existence! He is gloriously enthroned over every name that is ever praised, not only in this age, but in the age that is coming!
22 And he alone is the leader and source of everything needed in the church. God has put everything beneath the authority of Jesus Christ and has given him the highest rank above all others. 23 And now we, his church, are his body on the earth and that which fills him who is being filled by it! TPT™ (emphasis is mine)
Read (and pray) this same passage in the Message:
15-19 That’s why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn’t stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I’d think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!
20-23 All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence. MSG
Pray for wisdom, for eyes of revelation, to grow in intelligence and discernment, to have clear focus and vision – we all can benefit from this prayer. Ask God to bring that one person to mind that is in desperate need of this wisdom – and pray the Word over them. Pray this Word over the Church!
As we pray for God to fill us with this wisdom – the by-product is that “our lives (would) be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through (us)”. Can you imagine – a church, a body full of people, that can’t help but walk around as a billboard pointing the way; a people that would demonstrate who He is simply by living, and only using words when necessary? Pray for this empowerment over the Church!
“Where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18, KJV)”. Many in the church are stumbling around with lack of vision; many are stumbling around with a skewed identity. We pray that the Father would impress this Truth on His people – “to make (us) intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, (our) eyes focused and clear, so that (we) can see exactly what it is he is calling (us) to do” and that we would grow in increasing intimacy as we spend time with Him!
God wants us to know Him intimately, and because His ways are so unfathomable, He has given us the Holy Spirit to enable us to come into that continual revelation. The idea behind the word for revelation literally means an uncovering or unveiling. It is used in several ways, but here it is used for “the communication of the knowledge of God to the soul.” In other words, it is a gift from God that He directly imparts into our understanding.
What does He impart? Knowledge. In many translations, this verse ends with the phrase, “in the knowledge of Him.” The word for knowledge denotes exact or full knowledge, expressing a fuller or greater participation by the “knower,” which powerfully influences them. But here’s the beautiful thing, this word for knowledge is not found in the Gospels or in Acts, which means it is only through the gift of the Holy Spirit for the believer.
A Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation—Ephesians 1:17, Juli Camarin, jcblog
“At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence” (Ephesians 1:23 MSG). As I see the present reality of our culture and world today, I know the ONLY solution is Jesus. Too often though, I think the church takes on the mark of the culture rather than being the mark of the culture. Pray that WE, the Church, would become the impetus from which the world around us extends – the impetus through which “he fills everything with his presence”. Let us be carriers of His Presence!
Your lives light up the world. Let others see your light from a distance, for how can you hide a city that stands on a hilltop? And who would light a lamp and then hide it in an obscure place? Instead, it’s placed where everyone in the house can benefit from its light. So don’t hide your light! Let it shine brightly before others, so that the commendable things you do will shine as light upon them, and then they will give their praise to your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16 TPT™
He talks about our light like being a city on a hill. He doesn’t specify this light in a plural sense, so I am guessing our light as individual believers is supposed to be like a city on a hill. If this is true – the light of the unified BODY would shine for ALL to see; it would shed light into all the darkest places. Let’s be His light today!
PRAYER: Father God, let us be your LIGHT today! Let your Church shine into all the darkest places on earth. We pray for a shift in our culture specifically, and we ask that you would move the Church into a place where, as carriers of Your presence, YOU become the standard! We pray for wisdom and revelation knowledge to fill your people, solidify our identity so that YOU and not the world would become the thing that CONSUMES us. We pray for Your Spirit to breathe afresh into the churches in America and open our eyes. We want to see, hear, breathe and move as you would! We give you all glory, honor and praise! We love you. In Jesus’ holy and precious name, Amen.
Scripture quotations marked TPT are from The Passion Translation®.
Copyright © 2017, 2018 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com.
