“(I am) Asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.

I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him.” Ephesians 1:17, 19a (NLT)

I try to be authentic in my faith walk but often time find myself guilty of behavior that resembles the world.  Although I daily pray and meditate on His Word, I am often beset by the desire for “more’—specifically more of the spiritual things that I read about or hear about from other Christian believers.  So what’s my problem?  Jesus answered me but not in the way I expected.

I asked the Lord for more faith to believe what He had for me.  I failed to realize that more faith was not to come.  Jesus told His disciples that if they had “faith the size of a small mustard seed” they could move mountains (Matt. 17:20).  Jesus refused my request for more and replaced it with the directive to do more with what He had given me.  My assignment was to step out on the faith I currently had.   I was to focus on being a “faithful steward” (Luke 12:42) and increase His investment in building the Kingdom of God.

I asked the Lord for more spirit to accomplish the tasks He had given me.  I again failed to realize that, like faith, more spirit was not to come.  When I first received the Lord, He placed a full measure of His Spirit within me (Rom. 12:3).  It would be the Spirit of God that would remind me of my new identity in Christ including all the power and privileges that accompanied my new life.  This is the understanding that Paul desired for the church at Ephesus—“that they would be “strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man” (Ep. 3:16).

Today I don’t need to ask God for “more”.  While I think it is God’s desire that I seek more of Him, the spiritual shortfall comes when I fail to recognize that what I desire is already mine.  I now prayer to quickly recognize the great and precious gifts He has entrusted to me (2 Pet. 1:4) and move boldly lay hold that which God has already revealed in His Word and through His Spirit.    I now know that “more” was given to me the moment I accepted Jesus as my Savior.  And that is more than enough.

 Good to the Last Byte…

The New Testament often uses the word “know” to describe how we understanding “spiritual things”—with our heart (experiential) or with our head (intellectual).  Both levels of knowledge are needful, but Jesus is calling us to experience Him through a personal relationship with Him.  It is here that we gain “more”—not in quantity but in the quality of intimacy.