A Prayer to Pray For Your Family

The Apostle Paul prayed a beautiful prayer for the Ephesians in chapter 3:14-21. I want to point out four things in this prayer. We can pray for strength, love, fullness, and a greater understanding of God’s omnipotence.

It’s not just those who are sick or discouraged that need to be strengthened, but all of us. We need to be inwardly strengthened to remain faithful. Paul’s first request is for strength, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,” (Eph 3:16).  Life has a way of crushing us with the burdens we try to carry. How many of our family and friends face overwhelming situations and need God to strengthen them?

Secondly, Paul prayed for love, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, (Eph 3:17-18). Dr. Donald Barnhouse pointed out that love is intrinsic to all the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23. He said, “Joy is love singing, peace is love resting, long-suffering is love enduring, kindness is love’s touch, goodness is love’s character, faithfulness is love’s habit, gentleness is love’s self-forgetfulness, and self-control is love holding the reins.

The words Paul uses to demonstrate love are not nouns but verbs—at least fifteen. Love is more than a feeling. It is what we do. It is more than affection. It is how we treat people. We are never more like Christ than when we love in the way shows kindness.

Thirdly, Paul prays that we will be full of God “–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:19). We are often full of ourselves or completely empty, but what we need is the fullness, God. God has enough to fill all of us when we ask.

Fourthly, Paul prays that we will grasp that God is omnipotent, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,” (Eph 3:20).

Nebuchadnezzar was practically the king of the entire world, but that was not enough—he wanted to be worshipped. So he made a massive statue of himself and called all his people on his immediate payroll to bow down and worship the statue. It was all orchestrated so that it seemed like the thing to do—everybody did it except for three young men.  Everyone was to do this because if you didn’t, there would be severe consequences.

They answered the king, telling him they would not bow down to the idol. They would face the consequences of being thrown into a furnace of fire. They declared that their God was able to deliver them, but even if he didn’t, they would still be faithful and worship only Him (Daniel 3:16-17). They knew their God was able! And that made all the difference in the world.