Magnificent Prayer #88

According to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

Ephesians 3:16–17 KJV

An old friend of mine used to startle and amuse and challenge me by crying out: “All Heaven is free plunder to faith!” And in my early-morning prayer times I began to feel that it was so.

And now that prayer had brought me into God’s treasure-house, I continued to examine, and I found Paul praying for the Ephesians that God would grant “according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” And that was just what I felt God was doing for me. I felt no longer dull and depressed, but fully alive toward God and man, and ready for service or suffering or sacrifice.

And then I read that this was all wrought, not by some new, strange power which I had not known before, but “according to the power that worketh in us”—the power that convicted me and brought me to Jesus and pardoned my sins and led me on into “the holy of holies,” into the blessing of a clean heart and a life hid with Christ in God.

And what is that power? The same power that wrought in Jesus when God “raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come” (Eph. 1:20, 21). Matchless, exhaustless power! And this power was working in me!

SAMUEL LOGAN BRENGLE

Who among us has the Spirit of prayer? They are mighty who have this Spirit, and weak who have it not.

J. HUDSON TAYLOR