Daily Bible Verses for 5/19/2017

Paul’s Prayer and Blessing for All Believers Part I – (Ephesians 3:16-19)

Daily Verse(s)
That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Reading Notes
Paul is continuing his prayer and blessing for believers, he is asking God that we through the Holy Spirit may fully experience, know and understand the richness of God’s love for us. And that we would know the power we have in Christ Jesus and the sufficiency of the faith we have in Him. Paul is concerned for our spiritual welfare and he is asking God to sustain and empower our faith in Jesus, as we face the trials he knows will come while living in a fallen world, a world which is at enmity with God. Paul is asking God to bless and strengthen us with the limitless riches of His glory, which are available to all believers and administered by the Holy Spirit’s work in us and in our lives. Paul loves believers dearly, and he is asking for very specific things for our spiritual welfare. He asked that God through the Holy Spirit will strengthen our inner person. That Jesus because of our faith in Him, would dwell in our hearts and that we be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ. A love that stems from our faith in Jesus, and the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, our minds and in our lives.

A work of spiritual growth that begins with our salvation, and comes as a result of God’s process of sanctification, which is carried out in us from the moment we accept Jesus by faith. A love that surpasses all understanding of man, because it is a supernatural love which comes from God, and comes as one of the many gifts of our salvation. As we continue with these passages, we see that Paul gives us very specific goals in our understanding of Jesus’ love for us. He asked that we would know the breadth of God’s love, which is never ending, there is no where we can go where God’s love cannot reach us. Paul asked that we would know the length of God’s love for us, which extends from before the foundations of the world were laid in place, into eternity everlasting. Paul asked that we would know the depths of God’s love for us. A love that sees the deepest needs of our heart and provides a salvation impossible for us to attain on our own, but freely given to us by Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the Cross of Calvary. And finally Paul asks that we would know the height of God’s love for us, which extends from where we are, to the very throne room of God. Because the Bible tells us the prayers of the saints come before the very throne of God, they are a sweet smelling incense.