Vs 16 – The preface is, I pray that out of his glorious riches. In Corinthians Paul said, He who was rich became poor for our sakes. Now that he has ascended and is with his Father again, he is again glorious in spiritual riches. He has resources that we each may seek.

Paul prayed for the Ephesians, and for us by extension, that he may strengthen you with power though his Spirit in your inner being. God will answer the prayer to make us strong inwardly. It is the Holy Spirit who does it. He is able to make us strong. Our spirits, that is, souls (Greek: psychos), were made to be healthy. They were designed to have the power of God, the strengthening that God can provide.

When you are sick you long to come out of it. You want to feel good again. Likewise, when you are spiritually ill, you are self-centered; that often expresses itself in "low self-esteem." What that actually means is that you are looking so much at yourself that you are depressed. You need to love others again, to have private and social wholeness, relate to the creation, and to the Creator, as we were designed to be.

I pray that the Father will strengthen you with power by the Spirit! As a companion to this my prayer, you can read in Scripture of Christ. It is Christ’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who will strengthen you, and he will use the written word to do it, and he will answer my prayer.

Vs 17 – The preface to the next "may" is, so that Christ. Jesus the Christ is Jesus the Messiah. Christ is the Greek word for the Hebrew messiah, meaning the anointed one. Most people, when they speak of Christ, are thinking of him as having come (Christians) or as one who will come (Jews). The common debate is whether he has come or not, in some physical manifestation.

But Paul prays differently: May (Christ) dwell in your hearts through faith. Christ in you, the hope of glory is a spiritual condition that you should desire and can realize. You can pray for yourself that Christ will be in your heart, your spiritual capacity. May your soul be filled with Christ!

Our son came home from Iraq, and he was more than glad. His good nature filled our hearts, and every place he went he encouraged people! Similarly, the messiah will dwell in you through your faith. Quicken our faith, Holy Spirit! Quicken us each. Enliven us by being our internal blessing!

Vs 17b, 18 – The preface is this next "may" is: And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love. If the love of God is in you, if the basics of salvation are in place, the Spirit’s prayer is in place, is appropriate: …may (you) have the power, together will all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,

This description of Christ’s love is obviously metaphorical, for there are no physical dimensions in something like love. But the metaphor sure does illustrate. When we stand in front of a huge, tall building, we can immediately see two dimensions, width and height, but we also deduce length. Surely the building not only is wide to our left and right, but it extends beyond what we see. The length is surely there. The love of Christ is like that, there are aspects of it that we do not immediately see, but we can fathom it, and we can pray for a knowledge of more of it. There is even more. Not only is there height, but there is depth, because, in our understanding of big buildings, there is a deep hole into which the foundation of the building goes. Again, the love of Jesus is deep. "Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus" is a hymn that we sing.

His love is boundless, and we can never pray too much for it, for it is endless. It is the Spirit’s desire that we grasp divine love in its fullness, and as Paul prays for the Ephesians, so we should pray for ourselves and for our friends, that all of us would be sure of at least this reality, that God really does love us.

Even on a human level, love from another to us is deeply consoling. How much more the love of God! My prayer? Spirit of God, may you move me into all the dimensions of Christ’s love!

Vs 19- The preface to the next "may" is and to know this love that surpasses knowledge. My dog Berta has a hearing vocabulary, she obeys all manner of commands, joyously. She also picks up on our love; she knows, perceives our faithful attachment to her, and she responds in kind with her wagging, knobby tail and exuberant body language.

There is super-abundance in God’s grace toward us. We can know (experiential knowledge) which serves as a sort of foundational thing for what follows, as an answer to prayer. This is the next "may" at hand here in this text: that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Sometimes we are filled with good things of creation: the aromas of magnolia, plowed earth, harvested corn, crab-apple blooms, roses. I pray that the Father may fill you to the measure of his fullness! You know, that is hard to describe, but when God answers my prayer, you will know it.