photo credit: Timothy R. Botts, artist

How wonderful to be beginning the new year with the important prayer that Paul prayed in Ephesians 3:14-21. Please pray it for yourself and/or others!

Ephesians 3:14-21   ¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,  ¹⁵ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,  ¹⁶ that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,  ¹⁷ that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height —  ¹⁹ to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  ²⁰ Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,  ²¹ to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

We looked at several phrases in this prayer in our homework (Unit 6, Lessons 1 – 4). I found it very exciting to begin my new year with the lesson on power.

And it was very intriguing to me because I spent the month of December focusing on the word miracle. It is almost a parallel word to the idea of dunamis – power. Dunamis is the word used to express the power of God that raised Christ from the dead. That was certainly a miracle!

Miracle is defined as – an unusual event .. something that goes against the normal laws of nature.

Miracles are done by the power of God. And God does all things so that people will know Him for who He is.

Listen to what Peter said

Acts 2:22-24   ²² “Men of Israel, listen to these words: This Jesus the Nazarene was a man pointed out to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through Him, just as you yourselves know….  ²⁴ God raised Him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.

In our every day lives, we have the great assurance that our God is a powerful, miracle-working God. Nothing is too difficult for Him. So we pray that He would act according to His power, and we make requests of Him and submit our desires to His perfect will and wisdom.

The prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesians is a prayer that we must pray for ourselves so that we will be aware of and dependent on the power of God in our personal, individual lives.

God loves us with His love that . . .  surpasses all knowledge.

God’s power toward us and in us . . .  surpasses all imagination.

The power of His love is able to do more than we can imagine in our lives. And it is all to bring Him glory.

That’s the kind of pep talk we need to start the year and to start every day!

(There is no video or handout to correspond to Unit 6, Lessons 1-4)