Ephesians 3:16

“that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man”

“That He would grant you”: The word "grant" simply means to "give". God wants us to have wisdom, confidence, boldness, spiritual maturity, spiritual strength, and hope but we must cooperate (Hebrews 5:12; James 1:5). “According to the riches of His glory”: “Out of His wealth of glory” (Gspd). “His own infinite perfections” (Alford p. 1226). “According to His glorious wealth, the infinite resources of God's wisdom, power, and love may be spoken of as His ‘wealth' or His ‘glory'” (Bruce p. 325). “Paul is not asking God to do something beyond His resources. God's treasure store of rich blessings is inexhaustible (Ephesians 1:7; Ephesians 2:4)” (Boles p. 255). “God's standard of giving is liberal, bountiful, and overflowing” (P.P. Comm. p. 108). We need to be impressed with the fact that God wants all Christians to have the level or quality of spiritual growth and strength mentioned in this prayer. God definitely is on our side (Romans 8:32). Hence, the only thing standing between us and this reality is our own freewill choice. “I like to think of the apostle's petition as. staircase by which he climbs higher and higher in his aspiration for his readers. His prayer-staircase has four steps, whose key words are ‘strength', ‘love', ‘knowledge', and ‘fullness'” (Stott p. 134).

“Strengthened”: To empower and increase in vigor. The Bible often talks about Christians being "strengthened" (Acts 14:22; Acts 15:41; Acts 16:5). This reveals the truth, that by our own "wits" we are no match for temptation. Caldwell said, “Surely all of us have felt weak spiritually and sensed that we could not survive on our own strength” (p. 134). “With power through His Spirit”: Which reveals the "medium, channel or source" of this strength. “The mighty inner strengthening of His Holy Spirit.” (Tay). “In the inward man”: The soul or spirit, as opposed to the physical body (2 Corinthians 4:16).

Man is composed of more than just. physical body and man has more of an existence than just mere physical life (Ecclesiastes 2:7; Matthew 10:28; James 2:26). The "inner man" includes the heart, mind, conscience, will, and reason. This is the "real" person inside the physical body and every command in the Bible is addressed to this inner man (1 Corinthians 6:19; Ephesians 4:22). More is needed to live. Christian life than "sheer" unaided human determination. We cannot bring about our own salvation, apart from God's encouragement, guidance, and grace. The "strengthening" mentioned in this passage is not mysterious or miraculous. Paul is praying for something that would be true and can be true in the life of all Christians and not all Christians even in the first century had. miraculous manifestation of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:29). In addition,. miraculous strengthening, or. strengthening that overrides human freewill, would violate the very basis of the gospel message (Acts 10:34; Romans 2:6). The medium or tool that the Holy Spirit uses to strengthen Christians is the revelation He delivered to mankind, The gospel is called the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). It is praised for its ability to penetrate the human heart (Hebrews 4:12) and to get people back on the right track (2 Timothy 4:2; 2 Timothy 3:16). This is the means that the apostles used to strengthen new converts (Acts 14:22; Acts 15:41; Acts 16:4).

The Holy Spirit can offer the Christian tremendous spiritual reinforcement for the inner man, but all such reinforcement is found in the Word of God (Psalms 119:105), and such makes perfect sense, because every bit of encouragement, incentive, and exhortation which God could give us, must already be revealed so that all Christians of all ages have equal access to such motivational truths. This means that Bible study should always be more than. mere learning of facts and figures. We should look for God's incentives, exhortations and encouragement.. good parallel to this passage would be the Psalms. David said that God "restores my soul" (Psalms 23:3), and yet he points out that such was accomplished through the "law of the Lord" (Psalms 19:7). Unfortunately many religious people want "inner strengthening" apart from the Word of God. They complain that the above view that. have just presented limits the role of the Holy Spirit.. strongly disagree. When. respond to God's encouragement found in the Scriptures,. am allowing the Spirit to do His work and. am not limiting Him. But when. want "strength" to come from some mysterious feeling, experience, or emotional high, then all of. sudden. am simply trying to strengthen myself through mere human means. The reason for this is because all such things are of. subjective nature, which in turn means that the individual is allowed to believe what they want to believe about such "feelings". That is, the individual is allowed to play the role of God. If they want. certain "feeling" to mean that God approves of them, then that is what that feeling means. In contrast, the Christian wants God to strengthen them, and that means that the Christian always wants to listen to objective encouragement, or encouragement and incentives that He knows are 100% from God. To find that encouragement, you must turn to the Scriptures.