Ep 3:16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

I recently read a Father’s Day Card that said, “May your Father’s Day be better than your jokes.”  While our dads may need a lot of things-including a better sense of humor-what substantive things do our dads need most as we recognize them this weekend?  While the traditional gifts are touching, they need more than a fresh tie or nifty power tool.  With all that the fears, pressures, temptations, and marginalization that the average man now faces on a regular basis, the one favor that the male in your family desperately stands in need of is prayer!

As we approach Father’s Day here in the United States, here is a prayer from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:14-21 that is centered in the gospel of Jesus Christ:

Give our fathers humble submission to God the ULTIMATE FATHER.

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

Give our fathers a grander context and identity in which to live up to by God’s grace.

Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,

Give our fathers a greater emphasis upon authentic riches, glory, and strength being developed on the interior more than the exterior precincts of their life.

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

Give our fathers an abiding faith and stabilizing love that can only be sustained in Jesus.

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

Give our fathers a deeper appreciation for a growing, spiritual knowledge with all saints in place of the superficial factoids of this world.

May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

Give our fathers a richer understanding of divine love that saturates not just their occasional thoughts but their very being.

And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

Give our fathers a dynamic expectation and imagination for what is possible in their God-insured future where they are tempted to despair.

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

Give our fathers a renewed commitment to their spirit-endued role in the local church and its worship of Jesus both now and forever. Amen!

Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

For the sake of your family, church, and the cause of Christ, would you please pray this for the flawed but special man that God has providentially place in your life?  What could God do through them for His glory if you would ask Him to do so?

Also pray that fathers would pray.  Pray that “men would pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting” (1 Ti. 2:8).  E.M. Bounds writes, “What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use-men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men-men of prayer.”