Other than the Lord’s Prayer, the apostle Paul recorded perhaps one of the most powerful prayers for the Church in the New Testament. He requests specific things for all believers of great spiritual magnitude that can only come from God. His prayer is in Ephesians 3:14-20 (TPT)
Paul prayed:
14So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, 15the perfect Father of every father and child in heaven and on earth. 16And I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power.
17Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life.
18-19Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is his love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding—this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!
One could give a study about these verses and still find much more to say. Paul speaks about the Father, Jesus, and his unlimited riches of glory and favor, supernatural strength, explosive power, faith, intimacy, and endless love beyond measure.
I wanted you to read these first before highlighting some things about verse 20. Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.
My question to you is: Do you believe this? The Lord is fully committed to outdoing your wildest prayers or imagination for his will for your life. What will he do? He will begin by removing the limits, barriers, and lies from your life that prevent you from believing his truth so that you can enter into all he has planned for you. He accomplishes this by his mighty power that is at work in you. The problem is we may not be fully committed to letting him do this because we do not yet understand who we are in Christ.
For instance: 1 Corinthians 5:21 says that we are the righteousness of God in Christ: 21For God made the only one who did not know sin to become sin for us so that we who did not know righteousness might become the righteousness of God through our union with him. You cannot say that you are not righteous, because the righteous one lives in you. Same with glory. You cannot say that you are not glorious because the glorious one lives in you. (Ephesians 5:27)
We have to start looking at ourselves differently. We can overcome in Christ because he has overcome. We are more than conquerors because he conquered death, hell, and the grave. (Romans 8:37) We have his life within us and are at one with him and others in the body of Christ in unity. Together we are one and are his house. Again, He is fully committed to doing this work within us.
Let me share a story I heard. I really received a revelation from it, and I hope you do too. I want to tell you about a house. This house is your house. You own it, and you live there. You have worked hard to keep it clean, neat, and orderly. Everything is in its place. After having done all you can, you look around, and think. I have all my ducks in a row, and everything looks good.
Then there is a knock on the door. You go to answer it, and you see Satan standing there. He asks to come in, and you say no, but he knows how to push your buttons to get past you and into your house. After he comes in, he messes everything up. He puts graffiti on the walls, destroys things, and leaves a huge mess. You think, oh no, here I go again. I have to clean up this mess and get it back in order! We live our lives trying to keep our own house in order.
Now let’s look at it another way. Jesus comes into his house, and that house is now you because you are his dwelling place. Jesus has paid the price for you and you are his possession; he now lives in you. You realize it’s not your house anymore, you just get to live there. You get to live there and enjoy his presence, power and possessions.
As you are sitting at the table, Jesus sets before you some of your favorite food and says enjoy! You are so excited! You think, this is pretty cool, and start to eat, and once again, there is a knock on the door. You have forgotten that it’s not just your house anymore. You put your fork down and get up to answer the door. Jesus says to you, what are you doing? You don’t answer the door in another man’s house.
Then you sit back down, and Jesus goes to the door, opens it, and Satan is at the door. He asks, is Diana here? Then Jesus says to him, yes she used to live here but doesn’t anymore. I live here and it’s my house. If you want to come in and get to her, you will have to go through me.
Wow!!!!! What if we could live our lives with that revelation. That we now live in the house of the Lord, and he takes care of all things for us. When we live in his house, he will answer the door of our problems, difficulties, and worries if we just would let him. He took care of all of them through the Cross. He has all the answers and solutions. To let Jesus take care of all of it, we just need to give him your yes, and he will answer the door.
Here are a couple of passages of scriptures where we see this in action. In Galatians 2:20 (TPT) Paul says: My old identity has been co-crucified with Messiah and no longer lives; for the nails of his cross crucified me with him. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God, who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, and dispenses his life into mine!
The scriptures confirm that we are his house. Hebrews 3:1-6 (NIV) declares: Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful as a servant in God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.
Now that we live in God’s house, we should give him full permission to run it. After all, he is now the Master of the house. We live our new life empowered by our faith in the Son of God, who loves us, gave himself for us, and he dispenses his life into ours. We must firmly hold our confidence in him, and we will see him do great things in our lives!
