I pray that<\/i> the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know\u2026what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.<\/i> Ephesians 1:18a; 19b<\/p>\n
That snowy morning God spoke to me quite a bit about my<\/i> part of our relationship and how to recognize looseness on my end of that connection with Him. But connections run two <\/i>ways\u2014He reminded me about His<\/i> commitment to do His part, as well.<\/p>\n
It would be absolutely impossible for us humans to be personally accountable if God refused to uphold His end of the connection. We could try\u2014but we would fail again and again. But because God is<\/i> God; because He is<\/i> good; and because He is<\/i> gracious, He provided His Son as an atonement for our sin so that through Jesus, we could be empowered to walk in newness of life and to receive the grace necessary to sustain a close connection with Him.<\/p>\n
The apostle Paul wrote, \u201cI pray that<\/i> the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know\u2026<\/i>\u201d In order to access anything, it is beneficial to know<\/i> that it exists and is available. Someone may have set hundreds of thousands of dollars aside in an account for you, but if you don\u2019t know about it, the money just sits there\u2014unknown and unaccessed\u2014while your financial needs pile up, unmet.<\/p>\n
Along with other momentous truths, one thing that God wants you to know is this: that His power is surpassingly great toward you who believe. I like how the King James Version says it: \u201c\u2026that ye may know what is<\/i>\u2026 the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe<\/i>\u201d. The exceeding greatness of His power is \u201cus-ward<\/i>\u201d. In other words, you can read it this way: God has locked and loaded the exceeding greatness of His power me-ward<\/b><\/i>\u2014and He\u2019s not afraid to use it!<\/i><\/p>\n
All of \u201cthe immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power<\/i>\u201d (Amplified) is focused on you<\/em>, and God is more than willing to unload it on your behalf. He wants you to become so intimately knowledgeable about His willingness to use His power \u201cyou-ward\u201d that it will be as natural for you to trust Him as it is to breathe.<\/p>\n Everything in your life; everything in your heart, mind, and personality; everything that has anything<\/em> to do with you is something about which you can access the exceeding greatness of His power \u201cyou-ward\u201d. \u00a0In fact, your end of the connection with the Lord can be made snug and secure only<\/em> because His end of the connection provides the power to make <\/i>it secure.<\/p>\n When you were little, you learned your ABC’s and math facts by repetition. You learned how to tie your shoes and ride a bike through trial and error\u2014through practice\u2014over time. You may have thought at first that “el-em-en-o-pee” was a big, fancy letter; you may have computed 2 + 3 to equal six every now and then; you may have hopelessly knotted your shoelaces a time or two; and you probably wiped out while learning to ride your bike a few times. But with every miss, you got up and tried it again. And eventually, you conquered.<\/p>\n Have you suffered a couple or so “misses” while seeking to receive from God? Take a lesson from “little you” and get up and keep on going. Don’t let your past failures\u2014whether through misinterpretation, miscalculation, misunderstood instructions, or unbalanced attempts at moving ahead\u2014steal from you the joy of your salvation. The Lord remains the same; His mercy endures forever; and His power will always<\/em> be you-ward.<\/p>\n So get back up. Say<\/em> those ABC’s. Calculate<\/em> that math fact. Tie<\/em> that shoe. Ride<\/em> that bike. And trust God once again. He will make things clear; He will illumine your darkness; He will not fail.<\/p>\n And pray. Pray for the eyes of your heart to be enlightened to know\u2014to really<\/em> know\u2014what is the surpassing greatness of the power of His connection “you-ward”. This is a prayer He delights in answering.<\/p>\n Dorothy<\/p>\n Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.<\/em> Ephesians 3:20-21<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know\u2026what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. Ephesians 1:18a; 19b That snowy morning God spoke to me quite a bit about my part of our relationship and how to recognize looseness on my end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4307"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4314,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4307\/revisions\/4314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}