Moving Beyond Mediocrity | Get Rich #2

In most areas of our lives, we usually don’t want to settle for “good enough” – except for when it comes to our spiritual lives. But God desires for us to go beyond mediocrity and experience all the fullness and blessing that can come from a rich relationship with Him. In Ephesians 1, the Apostle Paul offers a prayer for Christians that highlights some of the key elements that can help us move beyond “good” toward “great” in our pursuit of God. 

The baseline of a pursuit of God

This passage begins with Paul describing a healthy starting point for a pursuit of God. He praises the Ephesian Christians because they are doing well with the basics of pursuing God.

Ephesians 1:15-16 Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you.

Paul thanks God because the Ephesians are excelling with the foundational elements of faith – loving God and loving others. This is the baseline, the irreducible minimum, of what it looks like to follow Jesus – and these fundamentals cannot be set aside. Yet Paul wants more for these Christians than the basics, so he continues his prayer for them. In the next verses, he offers a 3-part prayer that reveals to us part of the pathway beyond spiritual mediocrity.

Growing in your knowledge of God

Paul’s prayer is for spiritual wisdom and insight that will enable us to move beyond a casual acquaintance of God to a deeper, more genuine knowledge. He doesn’t want us to know God like we know the guy we bump in to at the gym once a week. He wants us to know God like a best friend. The only way this will happen is for the Spirit to open up our hearts and minds to His truth – and the only way that will happen is through greater time in the Word and in prayer.

Ephesians 1:16-17 I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.

This passage teaches us that a deeper knowledge of God comes through the combination of God’s written Word and the illuminating power of His Spirit. Both are necessary to the greater wisdom, insight and knowledge that propel us beyond mediocrity. 

Developing a hope-giving eternal perspective

As long as our hearts and minds are fixated on the earthly here and now, we shouldn’t be surprised when God feels so far away. That’s why Paul prays for an eternal perspective on the part of his readers.

Ephesians 1:18 I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.

As followers of Christ we must learn to take our eyes off the temporal, passing things of this world and focus more intently on the eternal riches of our inheritance that awaits us in Heaven. This is why the Bible regularly calls us to lift our eyes heavenward, toward the spiritual reality beyond the physical world. The more we set our sights on Heaven, the greater ability we have to weather the challenges of this life and the more we get caught up in our real life – which is Christ. 

Living a Spirit-empowered life on mission

Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry out a mission: to live a perfect life and then sacrifice his own life for ours in order that we might find eternal life. As his followers, our mission is to help others experience the results of his mission, and the same Holy Spirit who empowered Christ empowers us as well. That’s what Paul prays for in the final section.

Ephesians 1:19-20 I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.

Too often we live with fear and insecurity when it comes to our mission. We’re scared to intentionally help other people. But we need to remember that the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead is alive in us, enabling us to live for him! And we will only experience the fullness of pursuing God when we chose to use this power to live out our mission.

Don’t settle for a spiritual life that is “good” but not “great”. As you prayerfully seek God’s Word, as you intentionally set your eyes on eternity, and as you live on mission with the power of the Holy Spirit, you can move beyond mediocrity to the life in Christ you truly desire.