Inner Strength

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. (Ephesians 3:14-16)

You can tell a lot about your spiritual maturity with God by what you pray for and how you pray for it. But let’s be honest, we don’t always handle prayer the right way. In fact, there are two problems when it comes to prayer: we don’t know how to pray, and we don’t know what to pray for.

At times our prayers are like throwing stuff against the wall and hoping it sticks. We are going to learn today that the greatest prayer you will ever pray and the prayer that you will know always makes a direct connect with God is the prayer that comes from God. God always answers every prayer that is according to His will, and any prayer that God tells you to pray reflects His will. We don’t always get what we pray for, but we always get what God wants us to pray for.

From Ephesians 3, we can learn about how to pray from Paul, specifically with how we should start our prayers.

Paul begins his prayer in a way that we rarely (if ever) begin ours. Usually when we pray, we are asking God to do something for us (heal us, bless us, provide for us, take care of us), but Paul doesn’t ask God to do something for him. He asks God to do something in him. He asks God to strengthen him through His Spirit.

Paul’s first prayer was not for health or wealth. It was for inner strength and power. It is not coincidental that was the first thing he prays. Do you know why? Because unless you are daily, continuously strengthened by the Holy Spirit, you cannot walk with God, work for God, witness for or even worship God the way you should. You see, God doesn’t need our power to live for Him, because we don’t have any. We need His power to live through us.

Dear Lord, thank you for the example Paul set with his prayer. Help me moving forward to start each prayer by asking for inner strength from Your Spirit so that I might serve you and worship you well. In Jesus’ name, amen.