God Wants to do More

^{Dear Saints.  I would like to share scriptures from Ephesians 3:14-19:} 

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵from whom the whole family in Heaven and earth is named, ¹⁶that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; ¹⁷that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ, which surpasseth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.

     ^{Here Paul tells the Church in Ephesus about praying that their inner man would be strengthened (vs 16).  The Apostle Paul realizes that praying for healing, finances or other answers to minor or major issues that concern us is not the answer without first dealing with the HEART of the matter in the first place which is, our HEART.  In other words, his prayer for this particular Church was that their inner man would be strengthened first.  As an example, there is a lady I know who is often fearful about many issues in her life.  When a prayer goes up to receive healing, receive financial help or receive a specific answer to prayer for her, she does not seem to get over being fearful about one thing or another, even though many of her prayers have been answered in the past.  We need to first pray that this person deals with the real issues that are causing herself to continue to be fearful and have anxieties when it should not be the case for any Christian.  What good does it do when we do have answers to prayer, but remain weak in our faith in Him?  What good would it do when someone is sick and gets physically healed, but still has issues with bitterness and unforgiveness towards others?  What I want to encourage you is when we go to prayer, we need to ask the Lord to examine ourselves to see if their is any "heart issues" with us that we need to deal with. Just like David prayed to see if there was any wicked way in me and lead me in to the way of everlasting (Ps 139:24).  Nothing else mattered without first examining his heart.  When God encourages us to pray for our inner man to be strengthened, this would include our love for the Lord by first acknowledging His love for you and I. Another issue about the inner man would be to strengthen in our faith in Him by trusting in His total divine goodness and care for us. Because without having faith in Him, it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6).  To know that an awesome God who created the entire universe beyond mans immagination wants us to know His love and care for each of us, who promises that He Himself never will leave us or forsakes us.  Also, our inner man would be strengthened in love, unity and peace one for another, because the measure of our relationship with one another is the measure of our relationship with the Lord.} 

     When you read verses 18 and 19 along with that text, it would appear that in order for our "inner man" to be strengthened, we first need to know the greatness of the Love of God for each one of ourselves personally before we can be strengthen within.  Therefore, if we pray all sorts of prayer, but still deal with fears and anxieties, we as Christians should never be dominated by fear when we should know the awesome magnitude of how much God loves us.  When we see ourselves having fears, doubts, this is what we need to deal with before we should go to prayer for anything in general.  Being fearful is not believing or receiving the truth about His love and care for us.  By dealing with issues that deal with our soul or any of our negative emotions, I believe it is vitally important to deal with our heart by humbling ourselves before God, confessing any area of weakness we may have (James 5:16) and ask Him to reveal these things to us and believe that He has His outstretched arms out to help and care for us in our time of need.  When God invites us to go to prayer, He wants to do so much more for each of us.  When we pray for healing of a physical or emotional wound, He wants to go further and deal with deeper issues by restoring our inner man, building our hope and faith in Him by being bold and courageous because we have the confidence of His divine love and care for each of us.  It is like Christ who tells His Disciples not to forsake the weightier matters that are the real issue (Matt 23:23).

     The Lord gave me an illustration of an electric socket that had burnt edges around the perimeter where you insert your plug reseptable.  Many of our prayers are compared to removing the cover and only replacing it while forsaking the real issue which is hidden inside the wall itself that has a frayed and faulty wiring which continued to be a hazard.  When we pray superficial prayers, God always wants to go further and remove the faulty wires from behind the doors of our heart and help us deal with the real issues that really matter.  Sometimes, it is going to be hard, but always brings the peaceable fruit of righteousness in the end (Heb 12:11). So when you feel that God is breaking through the walls around your heart, He wants to replace that "faulty wire" of harbouring possible bitterness, resentment, surrendering our past hurts to Him to deal with and/or many other possible issues that may often hinder our growth in Him.  God not only wants to heal, but He wants to deliver, restore, rebuild and make us strong in Him because of the strengthening of our inner man (our renewed love relationship with Him, our renewed confidence in Him and our love relationship with each other as Christians are called to have). 

    

     Not dealing with the inner man and not dealing with the real issues we need to face up to will do us no good in the long run. Just like an unsaved man who wants to be healed, we know that it is much more important to pray for his salvation before any healing takes place, because healing without salvation will mean nothing in the long run.  Therefore, it is vitally important that we first deal with the inner man before we start asking God to answer any prayers we may personally have.  I hope you are encouraged to work with the Lord to allow Him to go deeper in the recesses of your heart and restore you fully so that in the end, the fullness of Christ may be evident through you (Eph 3:19).

Be blessed to browse my updated blog and both websites.  God bless.

In the Matchless Name of Jesus
Richard
Associate Director
Answers2Prayerhttp://sites.google.com/site/greatestbuilderforourlife  
http://www.answers2prayer.org/

Now thanks be unto God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ and who maketh manifest through us the savor of His knowledge in every place. 
(2 Cor 2:14) NKJV