The Prayers of St. Paul – Part 3

In my last two posts I have been discussing the Prayers of St. Paul with specific regard to that which St. Augustine called the problem of our sin “Incurvatus in se.” This phrase translates as being curved in on ourselves. We live for ourselves, our lives are curved inward as opposed to the life God intended for us, which is life lived with an outward focus. A good test of whether our prayer live is turned in on ourselves is to compare our prayers with the prayers of St. Paul.

Paul’s prayer for this post comes from Ephesians 1: “I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” Ephesians 1: 15-19 (NRSV)

Much of our knowledge of what it means to be a Christian comes through our intellectual knowledge. Just as Paul prayed, the eyes of our hearts must be opened if we are to receive all that God has for us. Many Christians have a hard time with this and suffer with spiritual poverty. Their understanding of the Christian life is too limited and thus they miss an Encounter with the Living God. Maybe this old tale will help make this point.

In the 1930’s, during the Great Depression, Mr. Yates owned some land in Texas. However, because of the depression he was very poor – living in poverty and struggling just to feed his family. He was about to lose his land because he was unable to pay the taxes on it. Then an oil company approached him and said they believed there might be oil under his land. The oil company offered Mr. Yates a contract to allow them to drill for oil. He signed the contract and in a short time the company struck the biggest oil deposit discovered up until that time on North America. Overnight Mr. Yates became a billionaire. Or did he? The oil was there all the time.

Like Mr. Yates, many Christians just do not understand what God has done for them, and thus they live in spiritual poverty. In Christian bookstores there are as many “self help” books encouraging Christians to change their lives as there are in the secular bookstores. God does not call us to change our life. He calls us to Exchange our life. The Christian life is not a self-improvement program – it is about New Life in Christ. It is expressed in the terms of a total change in identity. The Christians in the Middle Ages understood this. When a person came for baptism they were given a new name – usually from the Bible – and thus came the tradition of referring to your first name as your Christian Name.

Jesus Christ identified Himself with us in his death in order that we might be identified with Him in His resurrection, and thus an Exchange takes place. We give God all that we are, -- spiritually dead, guilty sinners and Christ gives us all that He is. As I have noted on these posts before, the bed rock of the Christian life is in understanding that as a Christian what is true for Jesus is true for us as well. Jesus is the beloved child of God, with whom God is well pleased and upon whom God’s favor rests. So also for the followers of Jesus.

In this new identity Christ becomes our life. Because Christ is our life, God, our Father, declares that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. He further attests that this righteousness, since it was given to us as a gift, is not based on our behavior. We are not his righteousness or new creation because of what we did, or we are doing, or what we have refrained from doing. Rather it is because of what He has done in uniting us to Christ in death, burial, resurrection, and enthronement.

When we know who we are in Christ and we live out of that identity we are living the Christ life. The distinguishing characteristic of the Christ Life is that Jesus lives his life outwardly – he lived to be a blessing to others.

Live outwardly.

Selah,

Alex