The Father of Glory

Ephesians 1:17a

We discussed last time about how the church of Ephesus was known as a church that put their faith in Christ and loved one another (verse 15). We also saw that Paul was grateful for them and prayed for them daily (verse 16). In verse seventeen we will see what it was that he specifically prayed for regarding these Ephesian believers.

Before getting into it, I want to note that even though this was specifically written to the believers at Ephesus, it is still relevant to us today. We will see that Paul prayed for wisdom for this church. That is clearly something that we need. It would be good for us to pray for others to gain this spiritual wisdom and also for ourselves to gain this wisdom.

Ephesians 1:17 says, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and the revelation in the knowledge of Him.” There is a lot to unpack in this verse! I would be remiss if I skipped over the first part of this verse to focus on what Paul prayed for. Therefore, I will focus on the first portion of this verse in today’s article and the second portion in next week’s article. Let’s dig in to the first portion!

We see that Paul is specifically praying to God. He is asking God to answer his prayer. We know that Jesus is our Mediator, and He made it possible for us to talk to God (we see that clearly in Hebrews), but God is the One who listens to our prayers and ultimately gives us an answer. We see an example of this in Matthew 20:23. James and John had their mom ask Jesus if they could sit at his left and right hand in the kingdom and Jesus responded by saying, “to sit on My right hand and on my left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father.” God the Father made the decision, not Jesus. Now, we know that Jesus is God (John 1:1), but we also see that even Jesus humbles Himself to God! How much more should we? That is not what I want to focus on in this lesson, but it is a good thought to ponder.

We have seen that Paul prays specifically to God, Jesus’ Father. Let’s now look at the next portion of the verse which says, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory…” God is the Father of glory. When we glorify Him we are glorifying the Father of glory. He is the creator of glory. Without Him glory would not exist. That’s powerful!

He is the creator of all things. The sun, moon, and stars which worship Him. The waves and the sea obey Him. The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the land animals, the flowers of the field, all come together to give Him glory. Think about it. He is the creator of all things. He created everything and everything that He created He created to glorify Him. He created us to glorify Him. He is the Father of glory.

This is the God that Paul prays to. This is who we pray to. We are not praying to a genie. We are not praying to a passive, shy God. We are praying to the Father of glory! We should be humbled to come into His presence. We should be humbled to make a request. Yes, He wants us to ask of Him, but that doesn’t mean we deserve it. That should not make us feel like we have a right to talk to Him based on our merit. We are blessed by a gracious God to talk to Our Creator. He gave us the right by sending His Son to die for us. Isn’t that incredible?! Isn’t that unfathomable?!

The Father of glory chose us, adopted us, graciously sent His Son to die for us, and gave us the gift of prayer. We are blessed beyond what we can imagine. Our flesh tries to convince us that prayer is a burden. Shun your flesh. Shun evil. Talking to the Father of glory is a privilege we have been gifted beyond what we can fathom!

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