Spiritual Empowerment

Paul suffered a lot to tell the world about Christ and how we are to operate as a family under God the Father. Even when imprisoned he wrote letters of encouragement, and sometimes discipline, to help everyone stay on the right path with God. God empowered him for his mission and no matter what, he kept doing it. He understood God’s love and made sure to show it to everyone he met, even in letters he sent.

Eph 3:12-19 NLT

Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come fearlessly into God's presence, assured of his glad welcome. 13 So please don't despair because of what they are doing to me here. It is for you that I am suffering, so you should feel honored and encouraged.

14 When I think of the wisdom and scope of God's plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. 17 And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

In this part of Ephesians he tells us we can go boldly to God because God gladly welcomes us. No matter what is going on, He wants us to talk to Him about it and gain His guidance. Paul did this regularly and knew what man did to him did not matter compared to his relationship with Christ. This is why he told people not to despair about his persecution because God’s work would be accomplished. We all should be able to have this same fortitude with God no matter what people think of us for following God.

Paul prays for them to have the empowerment of God. It takes God’s strength to do the work, and He gives us this power to do as He directs us. We don’t have to try to do this on our own. As soon as we do, things fall apart. This empowerment not only lets us do what we should, but we can do it under severe persecution like Paul. He never gave up despite beatings, attempted stoning, and imprisonment. His letters still got to the various churches as his way to reach out when he could not be there. The churches could send people to visit him. Many of his captors learned about God because he let God’s power handle what needed to be done. We are the vessels that His might and love can flow through into the world no matter where we are.

We get all of this because of God’s love that runs far deeper, farther and higher than we can imagine. God never leaves us alone or without His help to live life to the fullest the way He intended. He will never give us a mission that we can’t finish. We can go boldly to Him for all the help that we need, even to confess we got lost in our purpose. He will set us straight and send us back out with His power. Don’t be afraid to go to Him about anything. He will keep you on track in His mighty love and power. All we have to do is listen and go where He says, like Paul did.