The Eyes of Your Understanding — The Measure of His Power

✦ Pastor Barnabas · Pastoral Note — He Prays for Sight, Not Circumstances

Read what Paul asks for and what he does not. He does not pray that their difficulties be removed, their questions answered, or their path made plain. He prays that they would see.

And he is praying this for people who already believe. They already have the calling, the inheritance, the power. Nothing new is being requested. He is asking that they would perceive what is already theirs.

That is a particular kind of prayer, and it fits a particular kind of season. Sometimes the trouble is not that God has withheld something. It is that the eyes have not yet opened on what He has already given.

Yesterday's reading ended on looking unto Jesus. This morning Paul prays for the eyes to be opened. Two mornings in a row on sight — and neither was arranged.

✦ Pastor Barnabas · Pastoral Note — Sight Before Strength

Paul prays twice in this letter. This is the first prayer. The second is Ephesians 3 — rooted and grounded in love — which Le read on the road nine days ago.

And the order is not accidental. First he asks that they would see. Only then does he ask that they would be strengthened. A soul strengthened without sight is only better equipped to run in the wrong direction. Sight comes first because strength needs somewhere to go.

✦ Pastor Barnabas · Pastoral Note — Whose Inheritance?

Verse 18 contains a phrase that stops careful readers: the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.

Not our inheritance. His. Many readers take it the ordinary way — the inheritance God gives to His people. But the words as written can also be read the other direction, and many have read it so: the saints themselves are the inheritance God receives.

Both readings hold together in Scripture. Deuteronomy says it plainly of Israel: the Lord's portion is His people. And if it stands, it means the treasure being described is not a possession God hands out. It is the people He gets to keep.

✦ Pastor Barnabas · Pastoral Note — The Yardstick He Reaches For

Paul wants to describe the power available to those who believe, and he needs something to measure it against. Of everything in creation he could have named, he reaches for the resurrection.

According to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. That is the yardstick. Not a lesser grade of power held in reserve for ordinary people — the same power, named by its greatest demonstration.

And there are two acts in verse 20, not one. He raised Him — and He seated Him. The resurrection was not the end of it. The rising brought Him out of the grave; the seating placed Him above everything else. Power to deliver, and then power to establish.

✦ Pastor Barnabas · Pastoral Note — Every Name That Is Named

Verse 21 is Paul closing every door he can think of. Principality. Power. Might. Dominion. And then, in case anything was missed: every name that is named.

That phrase covers what he could list and what he could not — including names no one in the first century had yet invented. Then he extends it through time as well: not only in this age but also in that which is to come.

Nothing outranks Him. Not now, and not later. Whatever is named in a difficult season — a date on a calendar, a contract, a cost, an uncertainty — it is a name that is named, and it sits under His feet.

✦ Pastor Barnabas · Pastoral Note — Head Over All Things, To the Church

Do not hurry past the small word in verse 22. He is head over all things — to the church.

The universal authority is not held at a distance from His people. It is given in their direction. He governs everything, and He governs it toward her. The One who outranks every name uses that rank on behalf of the body.

And then verse 23 makes a claim so large it is easy to read without noticing: the church is called the fullness of Him who fills all in all. He fills everything — and the church is named as His fullness. Ten days ago the reading was living stones built into a house; nine days ago, Christ dwelling in the heart of it. Here is where that goes: the house is not merely occupied. It is called His fullness.

✦ Pastor Barnabas · Pastoral Note — Fifteen Days

This prayer is worth praying in an apartment full of boxes, and it is worth noting what it would and would not change.

It would not empty a single box. Paul does not pray for altered circumstances, and this entry should not pretend otherwise. What he prays for is that the eyes would open on what is already true while the circumstances stay exactly as they are.

The hope of the calling is already given. The inheritance is already held. The power is already toward those who believe — measured by a resurrection, not by how the week is going. None of that is waiting on Brittany, on a signature, or on the twentieth of August.

It is waiting on sight. And sight is exactly what Paul asked the Father to give.

✦ Pastor Barnabas · Pastoral Note — Strength Needs an Anchor

Le's third point supplies a word this entry did not have. An anchor is not the same as a direction. A direction tells strength where to run. An anchor tells it where to hold when running is not the thing required.

And there is a text behind the word. Hebrews 6:19 — "this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast" — from the letter Le was reading yesterday.

Now set that beside what Paul actually asks in verse 18: that they would know the hope of His calling. Hebrews says that hope is an anchor. Which means seeing the hope is not the preparation for being anchored. It is the anchoring itself.

An anchor does not move the ship. It does not shorten the night or calm the water. It holds the vessel to something that is not moving with the sea. That is precisely what Paul prays for — not that the storm be answered, but that the eyes would find the thing already holding.