Incomparably Great Power

“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, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.  That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.” – Ephesians 1:18-20

I couldn’t sleep this morning.  I’m still getting used to our new house, and every little thing bothers me when I’m trying to sleep.  Andy says I have a problem.  But this morning my problem worked to my advantage because I finally grew tired of tossing and turning in bed while my husband (to my great jealousy) slept soundly beside me despite my efforts to engage him in conversation, I might add.  I decided to get up a little after 7, make some coffee, and spend some time with Jesus because I could feel him calling me.  My quiet times lately have been a bit lackluster as I have been putting them off until the afternoon and pretty much skipping my study in favor of prayer because I didn’t leave myself enough time to do both.  The Lord knows what I need so much better than I do, and thankfully, Andy is still sleeping and my phone has been silent allowing me to dig into Ephesians for the past hour or so.

To start with a tangent that will make sense later, one of the things I admire most about Andy is that he analyzes each verse when he reads scripture.  He reads for the little ideas as well as the big ones.  I’m a gist reader.  I’ve always been a gist reader – in everything.  I don’t get bogged down in details and when I understand the big idea, I move on.  Lately, however, I’m thinking that my reading style is causing me to miss too much.  Today, I tried to read Ephesians 1:15-23 for the details.  Wow.  I think I could spend months on this passage and still not really figure out exactly what Paul is saying.  The gist?  I’ve got that.  He wants the Gentiles to know God fully.  They have been adopted as heirs – meaning that salvation is available to them, and not just the Jewish people, because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.  Paul wants the Gentiles not only to understand and accept salvation but also to know God, and all he has to offer, intimately.

But when I read for the details, I see that there is still much I don’t understand.  Versus 18-20 were the ones that caused me the most confusion.  They say, “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, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.  That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.”  I certainly don’t have the first two requests Paul makes of the Lord for the Gentiles figured out – “the hope to which he has called you” and the “riches of his glorious inheritance” – but I can assume that it has something to do with salvation, the earthly blessings that are given to all believers, and eternal life in heaven.  I’m sure I could study these more deeply, but I was too intrigued by “his incomparably great power for us who believe” to do it.

A bit of background that might help explain my interest in this section: I am reading a book by Mark Batterson called The Circle Maker.  It is about prayer, and I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend it.  It offers a really fresh, interesting perspective on prayer, and it rates right up there with Bill Hybles’ To Busy Not to Pray, which is another book that drastically impacted my prayer life.  Anyway, Batterson explores the overwhelming power of prayer.  He says that many people never experience this power because they don’t pray with belief – they don’t take the time to know the will of God and pray in that will and so, at most, they can only pray in hope – not in confident belief.  Oh, I’m so so guilty of this.  Through reading the book, I’m convinced that my prayers could be a million times more powerful and could accomplish so much more for God if I only knew how to pray.  So I’ve been praying like the disciples, “Lord, teach me to pray!”

And, boom!  This morning, comes Ephesians 1:19.  Since I’ve been so focused lately on the power of prayer, I think the word “power” just jumped off the page at me.  Couple that with the fact that Paul was praying for the Gentiles to know the power available to them, and I wanted to shout, “Paul!  Pray it for me too!  Pray that I know the power!”  The rest of the passage left me unsatisfied with how to know the power or what it really entails, so I started digging in some commentaries.

Here is the gist of what Paul means according to my skimming Matthew Henry’s commentary and Asbury Bible Commentary from BibleGateway.com:

The power is God’s power, and he gives it to all believers so that they can live the life he has called them to live.  He knows that in our own power, we could never accomplish things like faith, love, mercy, forgiveness, so he gives us mighty power – the same power he used to raise Jesus from the dead – to do what he has asks us to do.  I’m assuming (but based on versus 13-14, I think it is a correct assumption) that the Holy Spirit is God’s power living in us that enables us to live the life of a Christian.  It occurred to me that maybe this is also the reason you’ll hear Christians say that you can’t hold non-Christians to the same standards of behavior as Christians.  For example, how can you expect a non-Christian to practice radical forgiveness without the power of Christ?  I think of Christians I admire and of the things they have gotten through with absolute grace and faith – the death of a child, cancer, forgiving when they’ve been completely mistreated, problems with pregnancies, mental illnesses, moving to locations they would never want to go because they believe it is where God wants them.  Without tapping into the power of Christ, I don’t think their actions would have been possible.  I think bitterness, hopelessness, and hate could have easily been their companions without the Holy Spirit in their lives.  This is part of the power of Christ available to believers.

However, I felt like there had to be more to this verse.  Power is such a heavy word.  So, I kept digging!  And now, if you are still reading, you are thinking “Great Shannon, is this blog ever going to end??” Hang in there because this is cool. I came across a sermon by Dr. Wayne Barber online.  I have no idea who he is or how credible he is, so take this with a grain of salt, but here is some of what he says (summarized in my own words):

1. The original word for the English translation “power” that was used in this scripture is “dunamis.”  He says that the original word communicates the ongoing great power to accomplish something.  He connects the word in verse 19 to the resurrection power discussed in verse 20 and says that the power this passage discusses is the power to accomplish something that we could never do for ourselves.

2. He also points out that this power is available only to “those who believe.” That meant nothing special to me until he appealed to the English teacher in me and noted that the verb was in present tense – not past or future.  He says the power is not for those who used to believe or for those who will believe; it is for those who believe now.  Who are believing.

Well, hello!  There was my wakeup call this morning.  Don’t you just love it when all kind of things you have been seeing and hearing from the Lord suddenly add up??  This was my moment.  In his book, Batterson talks about the importance of belief as it is connected to prayer.  The Lord is bringing James 1:7 to my mind even as I write this to summarize what I want to say, and it says, “Those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord.”  He is talking about the importance of belief when you pray and ask God for wisdom, but I think it could probably fit other types of prayers.  If we pray and don’t really believe God will answer, why should he?  Isn’t belief the point?  And if we have power available to us – the kind of power that allowed Jesus to come back from the dead – why would we NOT believe?

There are prayers I’m praying that I know line up with God’s will because they line up with scripture – like the promise that he will give wisdom and understanding to believers and the promise of joy in times of trouble.  There are other prayers that I really believe line up with his will because I think I’ve heard him speak the promises to my heart – like the promise that my house will sell or the promise that living in Charlotte is where he wants me.  So when I pray about all of these things – the promises that are free to everyone in his word and the promises that he has spoken to my heart – why do I not rest in the power that he has given?  He is not asking me to accomplish anything on my own.  I’ve done all I can do in some of the areas about which I’m praying.  For example, I’ve done every single thing my realtor has suggested to get my house sold.  I’ve done my part, and now it is time to let God does his part.  It is not my job to sell my house.  This is power – he will do for me what I cannot do for myself.  I can do nothing more for myself.  Now it is in his hands, and I have to believe that in his time, he will do what he has promised.  I guess that is (at least in part!) what the scripture means.  Maybe Paul’s prayer for the Gentiles is that they will do what they can do but live with a great knowledge that their actions essentially amount to nothing, so they should pray for God’s power and allow him to do all kinds of things in and through and for them that they could never, ever do for themselves.  And how exciting it would be to see that power in action??