\u201cFor this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom [a]every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen\u201d (Eph 3:14-21 NASB).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Macarthur, \u201cIn this great prayer of entreaty to God and exhortation to His children, Paul prays specifically for the inner strength of the Spirit, for the indwelling of Christ in the believer\u2019s heart, for incomprehensible love to permeate their lives, for them to have God\u2019s own fullness, and for God\u2019s glory thereby to be manifested and proclaimed. Each element builds on the previous ones, making a grand progression of enablement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since \u201cour new identity makes us the dwelling place for God\u201d (cf. Eph 2:5, 19, 20, 22), \u201cPaul prays that God would enable them to employ the fullness of that power . . . [and] \u201cthat their unlimited energy from Him would be manifested\u201d (Macarthur)). As Christians therefore, we are to walk by the Spirit (Gal 5:16), i.e. we must \u201cbe Spirit conscious, Spirit filled, and Spirit controlled\u201d (Macarthur).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Curiously, Paul in Ephesians 3:16-17 seems to place the Spirit\u2019s presence within the person before the salvation experience but this order would be incorrect \u201cbecause every believer at salvation is indwelt by Christ (2 Cor. 13:5; Col. 1:27) and cannot have \u2018the Holy Spirit in the inner man\u2019 until he has received Christ as Savior (Rom. 8:9, 11; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19). Paul, however, has already made clear that all believers are in Christ (1:1, 3, 10, 12; 2:6, 10, 13). He is therefore not here referring to Christ\u2019s indwelling believers in salvation but in sanctification\u201d (Macarthur).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBeing made strong inwardly by God\u2019s Spirit leads to Christ\u2019s being at home in our hearts, which leads to love that is incomprehensible\u201d (Macarthur; cf. Eph 3:17-19). \u201cWhen the Spirit empowers our lives and Christ is obeyed as the Lord of our hearts, our sins and weaknesses are dealt with and we find ourselves wanting to serve others, wanting to sacrifice for them and serve them\u2014because Christ\u2019s loving nature has truly become our own. Loving is the supernatural attitude of the Christian, because love is the nature of Christ\u201d (Macarthur).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This Holy Spirit filled life, as prayed for by Paul for all Christians, where believers mature in Christ, grow in their love for God, and glorify Him with their lives will result in an evangelistic fervor among those who possess it. To be thoroughly equipped and filled with the Spirit, Christians must diligently study the Scripture and apply its teachings to their lives (2 Tim 3:16-17). As they grapple with the biblical demands for holiness and become convicted of their sinfulness (as their misdeeds and errant thoughts are brought to light through careful study of God\u2019s word), they will be led to apply the gospel of repentance and faith anew. This gospel of sanctification is merely the application of the gospel proclaimed at salvation as Christians are exposed to the demands of Scripture and their corresponding fallenness. When convicted (just as with their initial salvation experience), Christians are to repent and seek God\u2019s grace (empowerment through the Holy Spirit) to achieve the victory over their sin and to make them righteous in Christ. This is what it means to be filled with the Spirit, and this filling will lead to a love for God as the believer obeys God\u2019s Word. As 1 John 5:3 NASB states, \u201cFor this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.\u201d With a growing love for God sparked by diligent study and application of His Word and empowered by the renewing presence of the Holy Spirit, believers will be enabled to live holy lives (by keeping with repentance) that exhibit Christ to a lost world. Evangelism that arises from these spiritually filled believers will be far more powerful than any contemporary worldly gimmicks employed by some churches. This holiness evangelism, built on obedience to Christ and His Word, will spawn from believers as they spread the love of God in word and Deed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cFor this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom [a]every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evangelism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2373,"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/2373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlehardenedbeliever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}