What is Jesus praying about for you?
Have you ever thought about that?
Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father right now. In Romans 8:34, we’re told that he is interceding, or praying on our behalf. Jesus is praying for you! Have you ever considered what Jesus praying about for you?
One way to answer that question is to look at the various prayers recorded throughout the New Testament. As Christians, we believe the New Testament authors were inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit. So the prayers written in the New Testament are Spirit-inspired prayers. They are the very prayers of Jesus!
One of the prayers we can be confident Jesus is praying about for you and me is Paul’s prayer in his letter to the Ephesians. Paul begins his two-part prayer in chapter one: “I pray that God, our glorious Father, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, having the eyes of your heart enlightened…” The word enlightened means to give light to, to shine on, or to illuminate.
Picture yourself sleeping in a dark room. When morning comes, someone walks into the room and opens the window curtains. Rays of sunlight fill the room. As the light shines on your face, you slowly wake up and open your eyes to see. This is Paul’s prayer for the church!
Paul is asking God to pull back the curtains, to shine His light into our hearts, and for the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds so that we can see. But see what? That we would see, ever more clearly and fully, that through Jesus, our Father has lavished the riches of his grace on us. Paul’s praying that you and I would see, and understand, and know the rich, and powerful, hope-filled love of our heavenly Father.
Paul continues the second half of his prayer in chapter three. There he prays that God would give all the Lord’s people - all Christians in the church – the power to grasp Jesus’ massive love for us. Think about that!
Jesus’ love for you is so immense and overwhelming, that you need the power of God to help you wrap your heart and mind around it! Paul goes on to pray that we would “know this love.” The Greek word for know there is ginosko. I think this is one of the more striking terms in the New Testament. Ginosko is a knowledge grounded in personal experience. It means to be intimately acquainted with. There is a big difference between knowing information about Jesus, and having a close, personal relationship with Jesus. Through Paul’s prayer we learn that the Holy Spirit wants us to personally experience and be filled with Jesus’ love, in more ways than we can imagine!
This prayer is a corporate prayer for the whole church. Paul is asking God to awaken the bride to the riches of Jesus’ love. And we can be confident, that Jesus is praying this prayer for you and me.
Jesus wants you to grasp and experience, to be filled with his love for you!
Over the years I’ve found it helpful to pray Paul’s two-part prayer in Ephesians. I want to encourage you to make Paul’s prayer your own. You can simply read the prayer, and then pray it, using a mix of Paul’s words, and your own words. You can pray this prayer for yourself, for your family, for friends, for those in your small group and in your church. You can pray this prayer, like Paul did, for all the Lord’s holy people!
When we pray this prayer, we are joining in agreement with Jesus’ prayer for the church. Can you imagine what God might do, if the church unites together in praying this prayer? In what ways could we see God give us the power to grasp and experience, and be filled with Jesus’ love? I trust in more ways than we can imagine!
Paul’s Two-part Prayer:
Ephesians 1:15-19a and 3:14-21.
