from February 20, 2011 prayer update

I am teaching the book of Ephesians in one of the adult Bible fellowships in my home church this spring. This week we studied Paul’s second prayer for the Ephesian believers at the end of chapter 3. The prayer ends with a benediction in verses 20-21, both for the first half of the book and for the prayer. “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

I see four key ideas in this benediction. First, it is imperative that we see God as powerful. Theologically we know this to be true. But practically we often see God as impotent. We doubt that He is really in control of or involved in the mess we see in the world we live in and the mess our lives sometimes are.

Second, we need to pray big, audacious prayers. We need to tap into all our creativity and innovation, and ask God to do some wildly significant things. We need to claim the promises of Scripture, and ask Him for outrageous things.

Third, we need to not only see God as powerful, but see His power at work in us, His body, His Church. We are not all, but certainly part, of how God will answer our prayers. He will share His power freely with us as we prove faithful to use it to further His mission in the world, and not our own.

And finally, our prayers need to focus on the glory of God. Not some self-focused desire or personal agenda. We need to become consumed with what will advance God’s reputation and God’s mission in the world. Not what will add to my or someone else’s personal peace and affluence.

So what should you and I pray?

A great place to start is with the hundreds of unconditional promises found in Scripture. But guided by the framework that God laid out for Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3. “Blessed to be a blessing.” Not asking God to bless us as an end in itself (prosperity gospel). But asking God to allow us to join with Him in His mission and use us as vehicles for blessing the nations.

A second suggestion is to begin to take advantage of some great daily prayer tools to pray for those at the very center of God’s mission in the world today – those with little or no access to the gospel, the world’s least reached peoples. Check out Joshua Project’s unreached people of the day (www.unreachedoftheday.org) or the USCWM’s global prayer digest (www.globalprayerdigest.org).

Let’s start to pray some big, hairy, audacious prayers and see what God does in response.