Pump It Up A Three-minute Bible Study Print, Study and Apply Title: Pump It Up Keywords: "spiritual strength” Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation. The following passage includes one of the Apostle Paul's great prayers for believers. In it, he requests certain things from God for our benefit. We'll take a few days to explore this prayer and see how it might help us stand strong in the face of sexual temptation. Passage: Ephesians 3:14-19* 14. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, 15. from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16. that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; 17. so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18. may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19. and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God. Questions 1. What does Paul's posture in prayer ("bends the knee") tell you about his attitude when he prays?   2. What is the significance of God being the One who "names" every family in heaven and on earth?   Practical help Different kinds of strength are needed for different tasks. You need mental horsepower for calculus, endurance strength for marathon running and explosive strength for sprints. Weightlifting, ditchdigging, and bricklaying require other kinds of strength. Paul prays here that God's Spirit would strengthen believers in the "inner man." What is the "inner man"? When the Bible wants to describe the essential nature of who we are in Christ, the going-to-Heaven, forgiven people we are now that we have trusted Christ, it sometimes uses the term "the inner man." That is to distinguish from the "outer man." The "outer man" represents the separate from God, going-to-Hell, under the condemnation of God person I was prior to coming to faith in Jesus. It reflects how I lived as an unbeliever, with all the things I did to make life "work" apart from God. For the Christian, that "outer man" is wasting away, gradually decreasing, becoming frail, sloughing off through lack of use (see 2 Corinthians 4:16). The "inner man," though, is being renewed day by day by day. To be blunt, it is possible to be a strapping, healthy, robust, strong Christian teenager or twenty-something or thirty-something on the outside, and yet be frail on the inside. Likewise, it is possible to be a physical weakling, frail, and infirm on the outside (we're all getting there!), yet be strong in "the inner man." Some of us will here never become world-class athletes. Our muscles will never grow strong enough to compete in Olympic competition. But every Christian has the capacity to become strong in the inner man through the Holy Spirit. Everyone one of us can pump up, can run the race, and can resist temptation! The power is there for the asking. That's why Paul asks. eXXit homepage Index of three-minute studies Copyright 2003 by eXXit *Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. ----