Ephesians 1:15-16 NLT‬
[15] “Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, [16] I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly,…”

When I read Paul’s prayers, I am ashamed to think of the way I have prayed on the past. My prayers were mostly about me, my, and mine, and… about needs and wants. After all, I thought prayer was not prayer unless I was asking for something for myself or someone near to me!

How different were Paul’s recorded prayers! Thinking about God’s blessings in Christ led him to burst out in praise to the Father. Praise, in turn, made him realise how much God’s people need to understand what God has done for us.

Our ignorance of what God’s salvation means to us in the New Covenant cripples our prayers. We are confused between Old and New Covenants, thinking that God still wants our obedience to His commands to make us righteous. When we fail, we try harder, but that is not the way that God accepts us as righteous.

He gave us Christ’s righteousness when we believed in Jesus as the Son of God, and received Him as our Lord. In the New Covenant, God has exchanged “believe” for “obey” and “done” for “do”. Our salvation, our wholeness as new people, now depends on what Jesus did, not on what we try to do.

Paul exults in all the marvellous ways in which God reveals His love for people…chosen, adopted, set free from slavery to sin, forgiven.

‭Ephesians 1:4-5 NLT‬
[4] “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. [5] God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure….
[7] He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.”

… And all this happened before He breathed out one creative word! This means that God knew what would happen through Adam’s rebellion and what He would do to fix it before He created anything.

Not only did God bless us with these spiritual blessings but He also gave us His Spirit to enable us to understand what God has done. .

‭Ephesians 1:8 NLT‬
[8] “He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.”

Paul knew that we struggle with issues in our lives, not because we don’t try harder, but because we don’t know or understand what God has already done for us through Jesus.

So, Paul prayed, not the “Please-gimme, please-do-this-or-that-for-me” prayers we so often pray but prayers of affirmation. God has done everything He needed to do to provide for us in this life and the next. “Open their spiritual eyes, Father, to see what you have done!”

‭Ephesians 1:16bn-20 NLT‬
[16] “I pray for you constantly, [17] asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your KNOWLEDGE of God. [18] I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can UNDERSTAND the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. [19] I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power [20] that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.”

What do we, God’s children, need to navigate, safely, this treacherous world? First, we need confident HOPE . We need to see what the finished product will look like while we are still incomplete.

Hope is like the picture we look at of something we want to copy, for example, a garment we want to make. As we work on our garment, we keep looking at the picture to ensure that we are making an accurate replica. The picture helps us to stay on track.

So it is with our hope. God’s promises are the picture we look at, and faith in God keeps us on track.

‭‭Hebrews 11:1 CEV‬
[1] “Faith makes us sure of what we hope for and gives us proof of what we cannot see.”

Second, we need God’s mighty POWER to enable us to become what we cannot become under our own steam. What are we to become? Perfect replicas of Jesus! What an impossible hope without God’s power!

God uses everything, good or bad, to help us become like Jesus. Check this out!

‭Romans 8:28-29 NLT‬
[28]” And we know that God causes EVERYTHING to work together for the GOOD of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. [29] For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become LIKE his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”

Prayer, then, is no longer please-give-me begging but thank-you affirmation that God will do what He promised.

‭Ephesians 1:19-20 NLT‬
[19]”I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power [20] that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.”

Psul doesn’t pray that God will GIVE us His power – He already has – but that we will UNDERSTAND that the power available to us is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.

God has already raised us from death.

‭Ephesians 2:1 NLT‬
[1] Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins….
[4] But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, [5] that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) [6] For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus…

Wow! Did you get that?! God isn’t telling us to BEG for His power. He’s telling us to USE His power by faith, understanding what He has done and by saying “thank you” and believing His promise.

You see, God gave Jesus all authority over everything, including everything that happens in our lives.

‭Ephesians 1:22-23 NLT‬
[22] “God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. [23] And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.”

Since the church is made up of all of us, Jesus is in charge of all of us. His will, in sync with the Father, is that we become like Him. Therefore, He will do everything He promised to do, through His power, to transform us from selfish, self-centred sinners to new creations in Christ, increasingly resembling Him on our journey to the Father. He will work in everything in our ordinary, daily lives, to move us towards that goal.

God, the three-in-one, is constantly at work in us, changing us according to the blueprint, Jesus, He designed before He created the universe and every one of us.

‭Ephesians 2:7 NLT‬
[7] “So, God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.”

Andso, He’s done it all already and
… it’s all for His glory!!!