Daily Devotional for Wednesday 11th September
Big prayers
Have you ever had someone pray an amazing, powerful, Scripture-filled prayer over you? All prayer is powerful, but sometimes we need to be reminded of the truth. We need to have God’s Word spoken over us. Today’s reading is Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians and it’s packed with truth. Paul declares some amazing truths about Christ. ‘God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church’ (v.22). He is in control. He is the head, and we are the body.
This is a ‘big prayer’. He doesn’t just ask God to bless His people, but He dares to ask that they would be given a spirit of wisdom, revelation of knowledge of Him and an enlightened heart.
Sometimes our prayer requests can be focused entirely on the physical things we need, rather than the spiritual. We ask for healing, for help, for strength and courage. They’re all good things. We should definitely be praying for these! God cares about everything in our lives, big and small. But it’s also good to be asking for spiritual wisdom, growth, more knowledge of Christ and a deeper understanding of His love and grace. This can be difficult, because we are so focused on our lives and the help that we need in our situations. But if we’re able to go deeper than those things and ask God for the spiritual things we need, we will experience a whole new depth to our prayer lives.
Paul starts this passage saying that he has ‘not stopped giving thanks’ for the Ephesian church and he keeps praying for them. How amazing to have the support, encouragement and prayers of someone. If someone was to continually thank God for us and to pray for us, I’m sure we would feel very loved and encouraged. So, let’s try and do that for others!
Time to reflect…
• Who are you thankful to God for today? Spend some time thanking God for that person!
• How much of your prayer time do you spend asking God for spiritual things such as wisdom, revelation and enlightenment?
Pause to pray…
Let’s pray using the words of Paul in today’s passage:
God, we ask that you may give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that we may know you better. Would you enlighten the eyes of our hearts in order that we may know the hope to which you have called us, the riches of your glorious inheritance in your holy people, and your incomparably great power for us who believe. Amen.
