Prayers of Paul 04

Ephesians 1 - continued
15Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.

Last time we saw that, with their spiritual eyes opened through the gifts of wisdom and revelation, the Ephesian believers will then be able to ‘see’ what The Father has given to them. Paul lists 3 things he wants them to realise that God has given to them: His calling, His inheritance and His power.

The second thing Paul prays for is that they would know “what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” Another version puts it this way, “what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.” But what is this inheritance, and who is receiving it?

‘His’ refers to The Father. But God is not receiving the inheritance, He is giving it. ‘The saints’ then, are the recipients of the inheritance. Remember, Paul is praying for the believers in Ephesus to receive all that God has given them. He wants the Ephesian church to know the full extent of what is available to them.

The question remains, what is this inheritance? By ‘riches’ Paul is not referring to worldly wealth or material possessions. He is trying to convey the magnitude of this gift being given. It is infinite, inexhaustible and eternal. How could an inheritance from God be anything else? What is this inheritance? It is life—eternal life, infinite in both quantity and quality. And though the full extent will only be known in eternity, Paul wants the Ephesians to begin appropriating it there and then.

And what about us here and now? Ed Strong said we receive our inheritance in two ways, individually and corporately. Both individually and corporately, God assigns us the details of our inheritance: the territory that He has given us to conquer.

As we pray, let’s ask the same for us:
That we will realise that as children of God, we are receiving the same inheritance as the Ephesians.
That we will never fall into a victim or pauper mentality.
That we will live in light of the riches of God available to us.
That individually, we will appropriate our own unique inheritances.
That your local church will appropriate its corporate inheritance.