The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe ~
Ephesians 1:18-19.
Our Father has revealed truth and wants us to know and understand. As a new Christian, I was taught the bible revealed not only who I was as a new creature in Christ, but what I had been given as a child of God. The more I read it, the more I saw.
Growth is a never ending process for us and conforming to the image of Christ is a goal we move towards daily. To do and be as He is, to express Jesus on this earth, requires wisdom, insight, knowledge and understanding.
Paul writes and says our Father, has made known to us the mystery of His will. He has abounded to us in all wisdom and understanding. Ephesians 1:8-9. Everything is written that we might know. Jesus is made unto us wisdom. He is the express image of the Father. Filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding is a right of every child. If we lack wisdom, we are to ask the Father who gives to us liberally. Our Father wants us to know and to understand and He has given us His spirit that we might know the things that have been freely given to us in Christ.
Our eyes being enlightened is not just Paul’s but the heart and mind of our Father and the beginning of our understanding of who we are in Christ and what we have been given to do here and now ~ The hope of His calling. We read this about our calling, but the Bible says to understand His calling. Paul encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus asks, who are you and what must I do? These two questions frame our daily existence ~ how do I fit in with the work Jesus is doing.
To understand what the Father has inherited in the saints gives us a greater reality of purpose and of work for Him in His Kingdom. Then to know the exceeding greatness of His power to every one who believes is to not only understand but experience the unlimited resources of Heaven at our disposal here and now.
What we must do always comes with the grace to do it. Every spiritual blessing in heavenly places has been given to us. All authority in heaven and on earth has been committed to Jesus the head of the church and as his body we now walk under His authority achieving His purposes.
Here in Ephesians Paul prays for us to understand the things given to us for the purpose of doing the “greater works than these shall you do because I go to the Father”, Jesus spoke about in the gospels.
To know the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and give him be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that fills all in all.
A prayer to “see” clearly, to understand fully, gives us a greater capacity to do righteously.