Watch/Listen
Kneeling Before God In Prayer
Brian Mashburn
March 20, 2016
Audio Player
Paul's Pivotal Prayer
God wants everyone together.
In this world, there is disharmony and division, both of which are the opposite of what God is, and what He designed this world to be. They reign between God and man, man and man, and even within each man.
God wants all that healed. All of it. And that is not just His desire, it is His plan. And He will never stop working His plan. It is why Christ was sent, and it is what we are invited to - both to have and to be a part of.
In Ephesians, Paul makes this so clear throughout the first three chapters. He wants the sin problem resolved cosmically and practically. In other words, he wants our sin forgiven (so that eternal life is ours) and he wants it redeemed (so that life to full is ours now). Everyone's.
For this to be accomplished, the message of Christ must be taken to the whole world. And so he sent Christ into the world to do the heavy lifting, and now he sends the church into the world to both enjoy and share the good news that all can be forgiven and redeemed.
Paul is about to change his focus in the last three chapters of Ephesians. With the grand truths of Christianity and the church's vital role explained, he will get personal. He will begin drawing out how this incredible news touches and affects real life, how it shapes our attitudes and actions in definite ways. He will, call each of us in the church to "live a life worthy" of the calling. (4:1)
But first, he prays. He knows the life he is about to describe comes only by willing surrender to God in Christ by the Spirit. So... he prays.
Today, let us join him in those prayers.