I do not
believe in using Mosaic Theology, which means taking many bits of scripture[1]
and combining them together into a picture God never revealed (usually
contradicting God’s revealed word). However, I do believe that God’s book
interprets itself, so there are many times when our understanding of one piece
of revelation increases as we shine it through the lens of another passage of
scripture.
This happened
for me this morning. A couple of passages I had already been meditating upon
came together with a third scripture in a way that called for a strong and
faith-filled response. I believe this bigger picture is consistent with what is
said in each of the three parts.
Praying according to the riches of God’s glory
The first
passage that has been my focus for a couple of weeks is a central part of Paul’s
prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21. The way Paul prayed, and the things he prayed for,
where, “according to the
riches of his glory.”[2]If all my praying is according to the riches of God’s glory, instead
of according to anything I see with my eyes, believe with my mind, or feel in
my soul, the things I ask for will be impossibly bigger than me. God is still able to do “far more abundantly than all that we ask or
think,” [3] so, when I pray based on the riches of God’s glory, I will pray for
things my sarky self cannot even imagine.
When
I consider what we pray for according to the riches of God’s glory, I discover
that Paul’s praying focused on these things: strength, our inner being, heart
fellowship with Christ, and both the comprehension and experience of the love
of Christ.[4]
This
means that, if we are going to pray that God “may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit,”[5] and we ask for this strength according to the riches of God’s
glory, we are going to ask for strength we cannot even imagine in ourselves. We
are going to ask for strength in the church that so many negative experiences would
argue against, because our prayers are not according to experience, but
according to the riches of God’s glory.
When
we pray according to the riches of God’s glory, our prayers for strength “in your inner being”[6] will not be in support of all the wrong beliefs and self-protection
we see inside. Instead, we will pray that every promise for peace, rest, and
freedom, in our Lord Jesus Christ will be fulfilled in our innermost being no
matter how many layers of sin and self-protection must be blown to smithereens in
the process.
When
we pray according to the riches of God’s glory “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith,”[7]we
ask God for the experience of fellowship with Jesus Christ in our hearts that
far surpasses any experience of superficial fellowship we have ever known. We
will pray for the faith that believes God for every description of fellowship
with Jesus Christ, and keep praying according to the riches of God’s glory in
giving us this heart-experience of Christ.
When we pray
that we “may have strength to comprehend
with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of
“the love of Christ,” and that we
would “know the love of Christ that
surpasses knowledge,”[8]we
do not pray God-limiting prayers based on heartbreaking experiences. Rather, we
look at the riches of God’s glory in loving us, and pray accordingly. We ask
for the fullest possible experience of the love of Christ, both in
comprehending its infinite and eternal immensity, and in knowing this love
personally in a way that far surpasses the limitations of knowledge.
Praying out of the mercy and grace of God
Since
it is Paul who told the Ephesian Church what he was praying for them, I found
it particularly helpful what he said in his testimony. His initial experience
of God was, “I received mercy because I
had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me
with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”[9] From the very beginning of Paul’s relationship with God, everything
was about “mercy” and “grace.”
Mercy
is withholding from us the judgment we deserve. When Paul referred to his past
life of sin, he called himself, “the
foremost” of sinners.[10]He described himself as, “a
blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent.”[11] When he discovered God’s hand upon him to save him from his sin,
and then appoint him as an apostle in leadership of the church, he could see
how God’s mercy withheld from him the incredible judgment he deserved.
Grace
is giving us blessing we do not deserve. Paul did not deserve to be saved. He
did not deserve to be an apostle. He did not deserve to lead the church he had
persecuted, or bear the name of the one he had blasphemed, or walk in
fellowship with the Savior he had opposed. Nothing he had was deserved.
When
I connect these two things, that Paul’s whole life was about mercy and grace,
and when he prayed it was according to the riches of God’s glory, I can see how
prayer rises up to expect things from the riches of God’s glory for the very
reason that we are not going to pray according to what we deserve, and we are
not going to pray according to what we don’t deserve. God’s mercy calls us to
look at the riches of God’s glory and pray in direct contradiction of whatever
our sins and trespasses deserve, and God’s grace calls us to look up at the
riches of God’s glory and pray for wonderful things we could never deserve.
God’s
mercy and grace are already according to the riches of his glory, so they add
to the witnesses that encourage us to pray according to these riches, and to
hold nothing back in our praying because we think we deserve less, or we can’t believe
we could have more. The measure is the riches of God’s glory, and anyone who
has felt the mercy and grace of God will pray accordingly.
The armor of God that answers our prayers
for strength
When
we pray “to be strengthened with power
through his Spirit in your inner being,”[12]along with all the corresponding requests for the inner-being
experience of fellowship with Christ, immersed in the comprehension and experience
of his love, we discover that God has a gift that comes out of the riches of
his glory. It is called, “the whole armor
of God.”[13]
It is no
accident that Paul’s teaching on the whole armor of God comes at the end of his
letter in which he has prayed for the church “according to the riches of his glory.” The church is the “one new man”[14] that
is also “a holy temple in the Lord… being
built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”[15]When
Paul prayed for the church, he was praying for them as one body of believers, a
group of people in which God lived by his Spirit.
Paul also
knew that the church was already under immense assault from false teachers
presenting a different Jesus, and a different gospel. He knew that the world
was inviting believers back to the pleasures of sin. And he knew that the arch
enemy of the church, “that ancient
serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world,”[16]
was unrelenting in his work to “steal and
kill and destroy.”[17]
In view of
all this, both our identity as the church in Jesus Christ, and the constant
attack of the devil with all his schemes, Paul not only described the whole
armor of God, but he presented it to us in this letter. If we were to take the
time to elaborate on each piece of this armor, we would find in the book of
Ephesians the wonderful gifts of doctrine and exhortation that show us why and
how to live out each portion of our protection.
What I want
to focus on in this post is that we must see the whole armor of God through the
double lens of praying according to the riches of God’s glory, and praying out
of an expression of God’s mercy and grace. Instead of limiting our prayers to what
we see in the mirror, expecting so little because of how little we see in
ourselves (or how much of ourselves we see in ourselves), we raise our prayers
up to what we see in the riches of God’s glory.
Instead of
limiting our prayers to what we think we deserve because of how we are doing,
or what we think we could never deserve because of how we are doing, we pray
out of God’s mercy and grace. We deny what our sins and failures tell us we
deserve, and we ask for things we could never deserve, because everything about
our relationship with God is mercy and grace from beginning to end.
When we add
the whole armor of God to the picture, we EXPECT to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might,”[18]
because we are coming to him in his mercy and grace and expecting from him what
is according to the riches of his glory. We do not expect to fall just because
of what we are like (that would be a denial of God’s mercy), and we do not
expect little of God because of how little we are doing (which would be a
denial of God’s grace). Rather, we pray for things that the riches of God’s
glory would freely give us in mercy and grace.
We must look
at the whole armor of God as the gracious provision of mercy and grace to
people who would never be treated as their sins deserve. In other words, when
we know that EVERYTHING in our lives is based on mercy and grace, pouring out
from the riches of God’s glory, we must absolutely expect to be a church that
puts on the whole armor of God and takes our stand against the red dragon
himself, all “rulers… authorities… cosmic
powers over this present darkness… spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly
places,” included.[19]
Protected in our practice of prayer
As I write this,
I am preparing for our church’s prayer meeting this evening, very conscious of
our enemy’s efforts to shut down prayer by any means possible. I seek to
encourage us all to have such a grasp of the riches of God’s glory, flowing
freely into our lives in mercy and grace, and giving us the whole armor of God
in which to live as the one new man in Jesus Christ, fully protected from all “the schemes of the devil.”[20]
When we are “praying at all times in the
Spirit, with all prayer and supplication,”[21]
we can be sure to see answers to our prayers that match what God’s glorious
word has told us to expect.
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
[1]
The word “scripture” refers to the written words of God’s book. It is a
beautiful word to get to know as we stand in awe that God would communicate his
infinite and eternal thoughts into words the human mind can understand and
comprehend.
[2]
Ephesians 3:16
[3]
Ephesians 3:20
[4]
Ephesians 3:14-19 is Paul’s prayer, with 3:20-21 his benediction.
[5]
Ephesians 3:16
[6]
Ephesians 3:16
[7]
Ephesians 3:17
[8]
Ephesians 3:18-19
[9]
I Timothy 1:13-14
[10]
I Timothy 1:15
[11]
I Timothy 1:13
[12]
Ephesians 3:16
[13]
The whole armor of God is described in glorious detail in Ephesians 6:10-20,
with the specific phrase in verses 11, and 13.
[14]
Ephesians 2:15
[15]
Ephesians 2:21-22
[16]
Revelation 12:9
[17]
John 10:10
[18]
Ephesians 6:10
[19]
Ephesians 6:12
[20]
Ephesians 6:11
[21]
Ephesians 6:18
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