We have learned my dynamic lessons as to how we should pray for our friends, family and colleagues. Through Paul’s prayer, we have learned, how to pray for spiritual wealth for their needfulness, spiritual strength for their weakness, spiritual depth for their shallowness and spiritual perspective for their narrowness. Now, he challenges us with:
Spiritual Fullness For Their Emptiness
Do you know when people are going to have trouble? When they are empty. When we are not full of Jesus, that’s when we get into trouble. When something or someone jostles us, whatever you’re full of is going to spill out. You’re either going to be full of Jesus or you’re going to be full of self.
When self is on the throne, Christ is not on the cross. When Christ is on the throne, then self is on the cross. Paul is praying, “Lord, help them to be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Do you know when we’re a blessing? I’ll tell you when we’re a blessing. We are a blessing not when we’re trying to be a blessing, but when we’re just overflowing. In my opinion, there is nothing more pathetic than to see a half-empty Christian trying to overflow.
When we are filled with the fullness of God, we will bless people, even when we don’t even know we’re blessing them. I have had people come to me sometimes and say, “I want you to know that you have been a blessing to me.” I did not know I was blessing them by what I said or what I did. I had no idea. We should pray that our fullness overflows on to our friends, family and colleagues.
These five power prayer principles are the in sync with the will of God. Paul says, “And this is the confidence that we have in him, if we ask him anything according to his will, he hears us.”
Sometimes we pray and we don’t know whether we’re praying in the will of God. We express words like, “I hope this is the will of God or I hope you get this new job or this great scholarship.” Yet, we don’t know really if these things are the will of God or not. Sometimes we ask God for things that God doesn’t want us to have. Yet, Paul’s prayer is a prayer that God will answer. “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us” (Eph. 3:20-21).
When we pray, we need to focus our mind on God’s mighty power, not upon the problems. Sometimes when we pray we may feel or sense that our prayer was not answered. If your prayer is not answered, it’s not because your prayer exceeded God’s power, but because God’s plan exceeded your prayer.
Paul goes on to say, “And, God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you could even ask or think, for we know not what we should ask for as we ought but the spirit himself makes intercession for us.” We should glance at our problems and gaze at God’s power.
We should not only keep God’s power in mind, but we should keep God’s praise in mind. We read, “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end, amen.”
When our prayers are for the glory of God, we are going to see things begin to happen. Unto him be glory in the Church! Look at your prayers in the light of God’s power and God’s praise. If we are having difficulty with prayer, then we should praise Him. We will have an ocean to swim in. “Unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, amen.” The next time you pray for a loved one, a friend, a colleague or acquaintance, just lay it out there and begin to pray these five powerful prayers for them.
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