A Prayer and Fasting Devotional
If you are anything like me, you often pray for strength. You know that you need God's power in your life. Whether facing an ordinary task or a particularly heavy burden, you probably ask God quite often for the strength to accomplish the things He has called you to do. And we can ask God for strength because He is the source of all strength and power, and He promises to give strength to His people. Psalm 10:17 reads, "O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart..." and Psalm 29:1 and 11: "Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength ... May the Lord give strength to His people!"Now as a Christian, the source of your strength is God - and all that God promises to be for you through Jesus Christ and the Gospel. We continually receive Christ and His Spirit day by day through the powerful word of the Gospel. Listen to the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:18: "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." Note the present tense. Paul doesn't say, 'The word of the cross was the power of God.' Rather, the word of the cross is the power of God. And Romans 1:16: "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes..." I think this is why, when we look closely at Paul's prayers, we find that he doesn't merely pray for the strength to do things. He also prays for the strength to know something: the love of Christ, which is the Gospel.
In Ephesians 3:16-19, Paul prays: "that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
What strength is Paul praying for? He's praying primarily for spiritual strength to comprehend and know the love of Christ. Paul prays that they would be strengthened by the power of the Spirit, not just to do something - but to know something: "strength to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge..." And this knowledge is not merely intellectual, but experiential and transforming - because the word of Christ is power. As Paul concludes, this strength to know the love of Christ is for something: "that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." The strength we need (but often neglect praying for) is the strength to know the love of Christ – in order that we might be filled with the Spirit of God and live lives worthy of the Gospel. May God strengthen you to more fully comprehend His gracious love for you through Jesus Christ – so that you might be filled with His Spirit during this season of seeking to draw closer to Him.
Jim Thomforde
Ministry Director at Cornell
