Ask Bigger

In this episode, we dive into the powerful prayer of Ephesians 3—a prayer focused not on circumstances, but on strength, faith, and understanding who God truly is.

Paul prays that believers would be strengthened in their inner man, rooted and grounded in love, and filled with the fullness of God. This isn’t surface-level faith—this is deep, unshakable connection.

The episode highlights a key truth:
 God doesn’t just meet needs—He exceeds expectations.

“Exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think” isn’t just a phrase—it’s a reality when we understand that God already dwells within us. The power we’re asking for is already working in us.

But the challenge is faith.

Too often, we limit God by what we see, feel, or understand. We forget who He is. We forget what He’s done. And we shrink our prayers accordingly.

This episode calls you higher:

👉 Strengthen your inner man
 👉 Let God dwell fully in your heart
 👉 Stop limiting what God can do

Because when you truly believe…

You stop asking small.

 #PressToPray #Ephesians3 #FaithOverFear #GodCanDoAnything #PrayerWorks #ChristianGrowth #InnerStrength #HolyGhostPower #KingdomMindset #TrustGod

Follow us on Facebook or Instagram or enjoy our blogs and even more episodes at www.presstopray.com!

Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Press Movement Podcast. Thank you for joining me today in studio, aka the green room at our church. 

We have with me Kayden O'Kelly, who is a press club leader and a wonderful young lady, and she is going to take us further into the book of Ephesians than we were last week. So, Kayden. Hello, I'm so happy to be here. 

I'm going to be going out of Ephesians 3, and it's basically going to be led by Paul, Ephesians 3, and first before I read Ephesians 3, and like summarize before I read, I want to talk about who Paul is and who he was before. So, who Paul is in Acts 9, it explains who Paul was before, which was his name was Saul, and his job was to persecute Christians. And I will skim through a little bit of the scriptures, verse 4. It talks about God coming to Saul and asking him, why is he persecuting his people? Then skipping down to verse 8 and 9, it talks about the punishment of what he did and him being blind, but this is really an eye-opening of how powerful God is. 

In verse 10, it shows that one of God's disciples, Ananias, was used to heal him from the blindness, and he recovered his sight. And then after that, dropping to verse 17, he was filled with the Holy Ghost and was baptized. And immediately after that, he went straight away to preaching the gospel in the synagogues.

And a lot of people were questionable about it because he used to kill Christians, but in verse 21, it shows that a lot of people were amazed by it, and it just shows that God can use anybody. Okay, so going back to Ephesians 3. So, we're going to start in verse 14 through 21. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ with past this knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. 

Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. So, basically before I explain like a few of these scriptures step by step, the summary of Ephesians, it basically talks about Paul's mission to reveal the mystery of Christ. 

Paul discusses his leadership in preaching this followed by prayer for believers to be strengthened by the Spirit and to know the tremendous love of Christ. Paul was a humble servant and dedicated to strengthening the prayer. Okay, and starting in verse 14, he starts with the prayer by bowing down, and that just means that he is yielding to pressure and respecting God and surrendering.

And skipping down to Ephesians 3.16, we'll read it again, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man. The key phrase that stood out to me was riches of his glory, which refers to infinite and inexhaustible. So, what I got from that is that God can grant us infinite strength spiritually in the inner man, which means inside of us. 

When we are tired, God can give us strength. Another scripture for that is Isaiah 41 and 10. This scripture encourages me, and I know it will encourage you guys too.

It says, Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee. 

Yea, I will help thee. Yea, I will hold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. This scripture just explains how God can do anything. 

He can strengthen us. He will help us. And it really just adds on to Ephesians 3.17. This is the most important verse to me because it really shows like what we need to do in ourselves. 

And it says that Christ may dwell in you, your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love. So, this scripture is basically saying that God will dwell in our hearts by faith. The key point is by faith. 

And we need God in our hearts because it can be very deceitful. And I can point out a scripture for you guys and an important scripture for faith also. And I'll be going out of Jeremiah 17 and 9. And it says, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. 

Who can know it? And then on verse 10 it says, I the Lord search the heart. So, it basically says that our heart is very deceitful, but the only God can know what's in our hearts. So, it's really important to have faith and to allow God to be in our hearts. 

Faith is an important thing in general, but especially spiritually. It shows that we really trust God and it's also impossible to please God without faith. And I basically got that from Hebrews 11 and 6. Another thing that helps me to have faith in God and in my heart is Proverbs 3, 5 through 6. And it's talking about how we should trust God with all our heart and not lean into our understanding. 

When we lean into things that we might think are important and might not be important to God, it might be something else that's important to Him. And we really just have to make sure that we're focusing on God and His word. And that's what's going to lead us. 

Okay, now going to Ephesians 3, 18 and 19. Some of these scriptures kind of pair with each other, like verse 18 and 19. And it says, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ with passion's knowledge that ye might be able to be filled with all the fullness of God. 

And this scripture basically says, once you know the love of God, you can be filled with Him inside of you and have the fullness of God in you, which is the Holy Ghost. And that's really important because it says it passes all knowledge, which means it's going to give you strength. You're going to know what to do. 

He's going to lead and guide you. So that's why it's important to be full with God. Now, lastly, we'll be talking about Ephesians 20, verse 21. 

And it says, Now unto Him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask according to the power that worketh in us. Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. 

God can do literally anything above our expectations. Some people let us down, but God won't let us down. We don't have to ask Him to show up because He's already in us. 

We just have to ask Him to show out. And I learned this from Bible class from Pastor Harris. And it's really important when you think about it, it makes sense because He's in us already. 

We just have to ask Him to show out of us. And He ends it with amen, which means it is so and it's true. And He believe it's going to happen. 

And the last scripture explains that we will honor Him, we'll praise Him and the church will know to honor and praise Him forever. I like this prayer because it just shows like how we get strength from the Lord and how important it is to bow and tell God our needs and just to be strengthened. And yeah, that's basically what I got from Ephesians three. 

And listening to it, I went back to last week's podcast and I noted how I just tied in because he was always praying for the Ephesians that they would have the eyes of their understanding open, that they would know who they're dealing with. And I see that even in this prayer in Ephesians chapter three, as you were stating, He wants them to know Jesus. That's what this is all about for Him. 

It's not about anything else, but that you all will be connected to Jesus and understand the fullness of God and be filled with that and that He can do anything. I once heard a preacher ask, what would you ask God for if you really believed He could do anything? And that question really stuck with me. I saw your face go up too. 

Yeah, because it's a lot of things, but if you just have faith, you can ask anything. If you really think about it. Yeah. 

And I think sometimes we put God in a box of sorts. Yeah, definitely. I don't know why. 

I don't know why either. I mean, let's ponder that a bit. Why do we do that? Sometimes for me, when I'm not in my word and forget what I'm supposed to be doing when I get into a panic or when I forget, God is right there.

Just say a whisper of prayer. He hears it. And even when you feel like this is impossible, go to your word. 

There's so many testimonies in the Bible that are so amazing that you can read about and it will strengthen you and it'll give you faith to ask anything of God. And I think you hit the answer on the head. It's when we forget.

Yeah. It's when we forget and we're too loud, ourselves, our emotions, our situation, it gets too loud. So I see as you did, why Paul prayed this prayer and why it's so special.

He wanted them to know God. And after he taught them, because I believe you outlined the book a bit too, what was happening throughout the chapters. And after he taught them, he didn't just leave it at, I'm teaching you or telling you this. 

He's also praying for them. That prayer takes what we've learned and it's like it helps us be saturated in it. It's like the oil to all weapons we have. 

Later in this book, he'll list the weapons of our warfare. And he'll say, you know, you need the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the feet shall be the preparation of the gospel of peace, the sword or the spear, which is the word of God. Lord's word about with truth, breastplate of righteousness. 

I think I hit them all, but not in order. And after he gets done listing all of the weapons of our warfare, he'll say praying always, because though prayer is not a weapon or named as a weapon, it is that oil, if you would, that keeps everything in check and functional and going. Kaden, if you had to encourage the people about what prayer can do, what would you leave them with? It can help you stop focusing on yourself because that's a really bad thing to do. 

When you focus on yourself too much, then your mind will be everywhere. You'll feel overwhelmed. It solves every problem. 

Just pray like God is there. He's listening and he wants to hear from you. That's all I got to say. 

It's like everything. He can do anything for you. He can do anything.

So simple, so true and so needed. As you go into prayer today, remember he can do anything. Why not? Right. 

Ask big because prayer reaches every single situation. Join the movement. Join the community.

Like, share and subscribe to this podcast. Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook. Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and we're wondering how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice. 

It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have. You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer. 

It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith. Visit PressToPray.com