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love & prayer


There are many things that are linking together.  Two of the best and biggest and brightest spiritual things linked are LOVE and PRAYER.  I want to to take a short trip down a road we have been on, actually a few times.  Connecting these two spiritual attributes will make us stronger and even more reliant on our God.

Ephesians 1:15-18  NLT
Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, 16 I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, 17 asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. 18 I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.

Verse 18 is one that I cannot overlook.  It has been shared in these devotions many times, and I desire to have that light flooding your life and mine many times over.  I am confident that without God we are in trouble.  I am confident that with God we have a great inheritance, here and in the future.

But step back a couple verses and notice what makes Paul begin to pray and be thankful.  It was when he heard of the faith of the people in the Ephesus church and their love for God.  

What Paul saw in the people’s lives made him love them and love God even more.  The closer we get to God the more blessings and goodness we will see and experience.  

Literally he said that he couldn’t stop thanking God.  It was an overflow of God’s glory.  God is working.  God’s people are glowing from God’s work.  All of that leads to the fact of what their prayers, and Paul’s prayers, are overflowing and unending because of God’s love.  Also this is their love for God.

Our prayers and real love are irrevocably linked, and that is by the plan of God!
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