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I want to welcome you to day four of our look through Ephesians chapter 3 and
daily drive time devotions. We're going to be looking at verses 14 through the
first half of verse 17 today. You might remember the last couple days we've been
talking about what it means to see yourself as a significant servant of Jesus
Christ and how servants see themselves.

As we get to the end of this chapter, we begin to look at what it means to have
a sense of spiritual confidence in your life that grows out of how you see
yourself in Christ. I would call these verses how to develop a confident faith,
not a selfish faith, not a self-confident faith, but a Christ-confident faith.
You might remember yesterday back in verse 12 we talked about approaching God
with freedom and confidence in our lives.

How do we get there? You may have even thought that as we read that verse
yesterday. How do I get to that place of freedom and confidence in my
relationship with God?

Well, here's where it starts. It starts on your knees. It starts in prayer.

Ephesians 3, 14 to 15, "For this reason," Paul says, "the reason of all that he
just talked about, the reason of what Christ is doing through us, for this
reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on
earth derives its name. " To live your life as a significant servant of Jesus
Christ, a significant servant of others, prayer must be an important part of
your life. And yet, for many of us, I would say even for most believers that I
talk to, prayer is something that we do, we are faithful to pray, prayer is
something that helps us to sense our closeness to God from time to time, but we
don't sense the power of prayer most of the time in our lives.

And maybe that's as it should be. You don't always have to feel power for it to
be there, but you do have to know it. You do have to know that there is power in
prayer.

And so these next couple days, we're going to talk about how do you empower your
prayer life in such a way that you develop a more confident faith. There are two
prayers in the book of Ephesians. The first we've already looked at back in
chapter 1, verses 17 to 19, it's a prayer for enlightenment.

I pray that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened. Here is the second
prayer in verses 14 to 21, and I would call this a prayer for enablement, a
prayer for seeing, first we have in chapter 1, and this is a prayer for being,
being the person that God's made you to be, the servant that God has made you to
be. And in order to empower your prayer life, Paul gives us some very simple,
very simple tips here in what he says, a man who had a deep, deep prayer life.

He tells us to pray with a reason and pray with an attitude. First pray with a
reason. For this reason, he says, I pray.

The reason is found in the previous verses, the reason is found at the end of
the chapter, some people say, but whatever, there is a reason. Because God is so
available, we sometimes lose the reason that we're praying. You might try asking
yourself the question sometimes, why am I talking to God right now?

And a lot of times, we answer, because I'm supposed to, I mean, this is what
Christians are supposed to do, but God told us to ask. God told us to come with
a reason. Why am I talking to God right now?

You see, I don't know about you, but if I don't do that, I find myself praying
the same things again and again without even really thinking about what I'm
praying. By the way, when we talk about praying with a reason, desperation is
not the only reason for prayer. Prayer should be our first response, not our
last resort.

In other words, you don't just pray when there's emergencies. Many times I pray
with a reason because I love the people in my life. I pray with a reason because
I see what God's doing in the world.

I pray with a reason. That means you pray specific prayers. But Paul also said,
and this may be the more important thing for all of us, pray with an attitude.

In fact, there's two attitudes that are shown in Paul's heart here. Paul says,
"I kneel before the Father. " And even in kneeling, you see the attitudes of
humility and intensity.

Kneeling, by the way, was not the normal Jewish posture of prayer. Prayer was
usually done standing with arms outstretched to heaven. Kneeling, when somebody
kneeled in prayer, it indicated great importance and seriousness attached to
that prayer, great intensity.

And here's Paul, when he was in these Roman prisons, he was often chained to a
Roman guard. And I wonder what the Roman guard thought when Paul would kneel in
prayer. He could sense his humility and intensity at the same time.

Humble intensity. That's the attitude of prayer. And when I can get to that
place, talk to my Father with humble intensity, then I am coming to him with
freedom and confidence.

That's how I develop a competent faith. The book of Ephesians, by the way, it's
interesting, is filled with truths about our spiritual posture. Remember, we've
already talked about sitting with Christ in the heavenly places in chapters 1
through 3.

We're going to talk about walking with Christ in chapters 3 through 6. And
between sitting and walking, right here, is kneeling, kneeling. And by the way,
that helps us to stand against the devil in chapter 6, verse 10.

Sitting, walking, kneeling, standing, all the postures of a believer. And here
it's kneeling in prayer. It is through prayer that we're able to believe like
Christians so that we can behave like Christians and battle like Christians.

Prayer with a focus, Paul had. He prayed with his focus on the Father. "I prayed
to my Father who is in heaven," he says, "from whom the whole family in heaven
on earth derives its name.

" Family here, the idea here is actually fatherhood, and the Bible is telling us
here that we all trace our genealogy back to God. Let me just save you some time
and trouble in all of those genealogical studies. We all go back to God, and
that's the one route that we need to all get back to.

I love that story about the little three-year-old whose father was given a new
rank in the Navy. He was the Grand Exalted Admiral of Her Majesty's Fleet. And
the little three-year-old asked, "Do you think he'll mind if I still call him
Daddy?

" Well, God is the Almighty Creator. He is the Holy One on high. But he doesn't
mind if you call him Father.

The reason for your prayer is not the focus of your prayer. The reason for your
prayer is not the focus of your prayer. We talked earlier about the reason.

You go and you ask God. But the focus of your prayer is on who. Not on what
you're asking, but on who you're asking.

The focus of prayer is the Father. You don't focus on what you need so much as
you focus on the God who can meet your needs. You see the difference between
those two.

Yet, many times I find myself in prayer confusing that difference and thinking
the focus of my prayer is what I'm asking for. No, the focus is always on the
who, on who God is. You want to develop a confident faith?

Ephesians 3, verses 16 to the first part of verse 17 talk about prayer and how
important that is. Let me read those verses. "I pray," Paul says, "that out of
his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your
inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

" Paul is praying and he's praying for power in the lives of those who had
followed the words of Jesus Christ. But he's also praying for power in your
life. This is a prayer for power in any of our lives.

And the question that's behind this prayer is where does power come from in our
lives? How do you develop a confident faith, a confident Christianity? In my own
life, I struggle with this.

I can easily get more focused on what I can't do for God than on what God can do
in me and through me. That's an easy direction for me to take. But these verses
remind us that's not the focus.

The focus instead is on what God can do in his power. And notice in verse 16,
Paul tells us that this power comes from the inside out. Look at the process
that God uses to release his power in our lives.

It begins with God, out of his glorious riches, through his Spirit, in your
inner being. It begins with God, out of his glorious riches, and then God has
sent his Holy Spirit into our lives, so it's through his Spirit and he releases
this power in your inner being. So you depend on God, on the person, through his
Spirit within you.

Do you see now, by the way, why Paul was so insistent in chapter 1 on talking
about the riches that we have in Christ? It is out of these riches we talked
about in chapter 1 that we draw for power from the inside out. In your inner
being, he says.

You see, you have an inner being where God is at work in power. What is this
inner being? It's not some strange thing.

It's your mind, your will, and your emotions. It's what you think, it's what you
decide, it's what you feel. It's your ability to relate to God.

And God has come there, to that place in your life, through his Spirit, to show
you the direction in life. So when you feel like, "God, I just can't," instead
of just saying, "God, I can't," instead pray, "God, through your Spirit who is
within me, if you want me to do this, would you show me that I can? Would you
show me that you can through me?

" Because you see, the result of God's power being in your life is, well, Paul
says it this way, Christ is dwelling in your heart through faith. I pray that
Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. One question many people have is,
"Why is Paul writing this to Christians?

Doesn't Christ already dwell in our hearts through faith? " Well, dwell, the
word here comes from two Greek words, the word for down and the word for home.
It's sort of a down home kind of thing, and I can understand that.

The idea of it here is to settle down and to feel at home. So Paul, when he uses
this word dwell here, he's not talking about the fact of Christ's presence,
which is settle the moment you're saved. He's talking about the quality of His
presence, the sense of His presence that you have.

You want to develop a confident faith? You realize that God has sent His Spirit
into your life, and you draw upon that person within your life to let you know
Christ is in me, and He wants to work through me in this world. I'm not perfect,
but He wants to perfect me.

He wants to grow me. I'll never be perfect in this world, but He wants to grow
me in this world. I don't always understand everything, but He does, and He
knows how to direct me.

That's what you draw on. In fact, let's draw on it right now, and will you just
pray this simple prayer? Jesus Christ, I pray the prayer we just talked about
today.

I pray that out of Your glorious riches, You would strengthen me with power
through Your Spirit in my inner being. I pray that out of Your glorious riches,
You would strengthen me with power through Your Spirit in my inner being. I pray
it in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well join us tomorrow. We're going to continue our look at what it means to live
out a confident faith as we end our study together of Ephesians chapter 3.