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world one heart at a time, one community

at a time. Once you experience this type of
grace, you just can’t get enough of it, be-
cause grace frees you from keeping score,

and it empowers you to love others the
way God loves you in Christ—sacrificially,
healingly, and eternally.

So as Paul writes his letter to the Ephe-
sians, he decides to write two prayers for
them. His readers are aware that he is un-

der house arrest in Rome, and they are
worried about him, but he feels that any
hardship he endures pales in comparison to

the endless resources of love that God can
provide. So he prays:

14
For this reason I bow my knees before
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the Father, from whom every family in
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heaven and on earth takes its name. I
pray that, according to the riches of his

glory, he may grant that you may be
strengthened in your inner being with
power through his Spirit, 17 and that

Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith, as you are being rooted and
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grounded in love. I pray that you may
have the power to comprehend, with all
the saints, what is the breadth and
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length and height and depth, and to
for you. May you have the humility and cu-
know the love of Christ that surpasses
riosity to keep learning, and may you be
knowledge, so that you may be filled
continually renewed by God’s grace as you
with all the fullness of God.”
are strengthened in your inner being by the
th
On the occasion of your 40 anniver- power of the Holy Spirit.
sary, dear church, may this prayer be true
Amen.

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