Leader Guide

Prayer

Have children form a circle around you.

The SuperVerse talks about being enlightened. I am going to read another prayer Paul wrote. He prayed that believers would be enlightened, or have a deeper understanding of the Lord and His love for them.

Read Ephesians 3:14–19:

¹⁴ When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, ¹⁵ the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. ¹⁶ I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit. ¹⁷ Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. ¹⁸ And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. ¹⁹ May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Paul prayed for us to have the power to understand. This power only comes from the Holy Spirit. Through Him, we can know Jesus and understand how much He loves us and the wonderful plans He has for us.

We are going to pray for the Holy Spirit’s power to understand God in a deeper way. On the board is this sentence: Help us know Your _______. We will each pray this sentence, adding words like love, mercy, forgiveness, grace, patience, care, or anything that is on your heart to pray. Or you may simply say, “Help us know You.” I’ll start, then we’ll go around the circle.

Begin the prayer, adding a word to the sentence. When everyone has had an opportunity to pray, close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we have chosen to follow You. As we live our lives for You, please open the eyes of our hearts so we have a deeper understanding of who You are and how much You love us. Help us to understand the blessings we have through Christ. We rejoice in the sure hope of eternal life with You! In Jesus’ powerful name we pray, Amen.