Knowing Him Better

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

KNOWING HIM BETTER

Eph 1:15-18

15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

NIV

As we remember, the reason is the fact they have been included because they believed and having been marked with the Holy Spirit. So Paul gives this prayer for them and as we are included in those who believe, his prayer is also for us. Of course, he could no know about our faith, so some of his words are directed only to those in Ephesus. However, we could take a lesson from him on this point. When we are aware of the faith of others, such as our fellow believers, especially in the local church, but also that would include believers in other parts of the world, we should never stop giving thanks for the, and remembering them in our prayers. This certainly would be far better than any of the back-biting, gossip, and lack of forgiveness which seems to happen far too often in the local church, alone with envy and jealousy. We have to be careful not to allow those attitudes to be a part of our life, but instead, be about giving thanks for the faith of others and praying for them. What Paul is praying for is they will receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so they may know God better. This makes it sound as though they have yet to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. However, this also reveals to us that as we have been, we now have the Spirit of wisdom and revelation and we do know God better each and every day. We are continuing to have new revelations from the Spirit regarding who God is and how he interacts with us. Our desire should be to know God better, to not be content with the limited knowledge we currently have. The Spirit is constantly at work within us, revealing more and more all the time for God is infinite and it is said he is beyond understanding. But that is not true as the Spirit of wisdom is within revealing the Father to us so we may know him better. Maybe that better is still limited because of our finite ability to comprehend the infinite. However, because we have the infinite Holy Spirit, who is God dwelling within us, we may know him better, which implies better than we presently do. God is not keeping himself a secret from us, he desires we know him and so he reveals himself to us. This should offer us an insight as to how we should live and glorify Him for the faith of others, as well as how we should worship him. If we truly know him, our worship would surely show it. But, also we would be praying others would know him better as well.