Another result of pray-reading is that we will pray for all the saints. Verse 18 concludes, “Praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints.” To pray at every time means to pray daily and throughout the day. We need to pray at every time, and we need to pray not from our mind but in our spirit. We should pray first to receive the word of God, and then we should pray concerning all the saints.
We may already pray concerning the saints, but we need to learn how to pray concerning the saints in the proper way. We may pray mainly concerning the saints’ health, marriages, children, or jobs. This kind of prayer is good, but it is not the highest prayer. In Matthew 6:31-32 the Lord said, “Do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With what shall we be clothed?...For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” Our heavenly Father knows everything that we need, and He will take care of all these things. Therefore, we do not need to anxiously pray for these things. In verse 33 the Lord went on to tell us, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” If we seek first the kingdom and the righteousness of God, God will give us His kingdom and His righteousness and will add to us all that we need. This has been my experience throughout the many years of my Christian life.
We need to see what the kingdom and the righteousness of God are. Romans 14:17 says, “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” According to this verse, God’s kingdom in the present age is the church, and righteousness is the daily life of the church. We need to pray not for outward necessities, such as eating and drinking, but for righteousness—a proper daily life for the church life. We need to pray in this way all the time for all the saints. After reading the previous chapters concerning Ephesians, we might pray, “Lord, bring all the saints into the proper church life so that they may experience Christ and have Christ make His home in their hearts. Lord, cause every saint to realize the mingling of the Triune God with the church, and allow each one to see that the Spirit is in the Body. Lord, help every saint to see that they have an organic union with You and that the Triune God is truly one with the church.” We need to pray for these things. This is to pray in a high way.
Paul gives two examples of prayer in Ephesians. In 1:17-23 he prays, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart having been enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the operation of the might of His strength, which He caused to operate in Christ in raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and He subjected all things under His feet and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” We need to pray for the saints in such a high way. Our prayer must be elevated from the earthly things to the heavenly things.
Then in 3:16-19 Paul prays, “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.” We need to pray for the saints in this high way.
In 6:19 Paul also asks the saints to pray for him, that utterance would be given to him in the opening of his mouth, “to make known in boldness the mystery of the gospel.” We also need to pray for the apostles that they may have the utterance, the expression, to speak the mystery of the gospel. Most preachers today preach a low, shallow gospel, telling people only that they may be saved from hell, have their sins forgiven, and receive peace, joy, and God’s blessing by believing in the Lord Jesus. This gospel is correct, but it is superficial. What Paul preached was deep, hidden, and mysterious. The mystery of the gospel is God’s economy, the dispensing of Christ in His unsearchable riches into the believers to produce the church for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose. To preach these mysterious and hidden things, there is the need of utterance. Human language is not adequate; we need divine utterance to speak concerning Christ as God’s mystery, the church as Christ’s mystery, and God’s heart’s desire, economy, and dispensing.
If we all pray for these things in this kind of elevated prayer, the Lord will have a way to answer the prayer, and the proper church life will be brought in. The church has been on this earth for nearly two thousand years, but the situation among Christians today cannot satisfy God’s heart. Few Christians see God’s economy, the mystery of God, or the mystery of Christ. Before the Lord can come back, He needs a recovery of the proper church life to carry out His eternal purpose. He needs a group of people who see the great mystery of Christ and the church and who experience Christ to the uttermost so that corporately they become the expression of Christ, His organic Body as His fullness. This is our vision according to the divine revelation.