15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.
Dear heavenly Father, the prayer life of the Apostle Paul reminds me of the importance of praying the things I believe and treasure deep into my heart. It’s precisely because the Ephesian believers were marked by Christ-centered faith and a robust love for one another that he continued steadfast in prayer for them. My affection for you cools too easily, or gets diverted to lesser loves.
17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
Do the same for me, Father—glorious Father. May the Holy Spirit do his renewing, relationship-deepening work in my heart. I want to know you better and better and better, for to know you and Jesus IS eternal life (John 17:3).
18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you…
Open the eyes of my heart that I might experience more of the wonder and certainty of the hope to which you have called us in Jesus. Christ in me is my only hope of glory; me in Christ is the basis of my hope, for Jesus is my righteousness; Christ for me is my utter delight and unshakable assurance of a future beyond my greatest dreams and longings.
the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people…
Father, continue to free me from my unbelief. Convince my dull heart that we—your wayward-yet-beloved-people, are your inheritance, “portion,” and treasure—that you really love us that much.
19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
Lastly, Father, keep releasing the power of Jesus’ resurrection in and through my life. There’s no other way I will become like Jesus, and no other way I will love like Jesus. So very Amen I pray, in Jesus’ exalted and worship-worthy name.