Predestination Produces Praise and Prayers

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of Wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. (Ephesians 1:15-16 NIV 1984)

As we see in this passage, and in several New Testament verses, the Apostle Paul flows straight from praise to prayer. His praises are built on deep theology and deep love, and so are his prayers. The words "for this reason" at the beginning of Ephesians 1:15 point back to the line of thought expressed in Ephesians 1:3-14. As recorded in Ephesians 1:3, Paul praised God because He "has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing that is in Christ." And the crowning evidence of God's 'spiritual blessings' toward us (which is breathtaking, if we really consider it) is that "[God] choose us in [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight" (Eph 1:4). This choice that God made of us "before the creation of the world" was not arbitrary, as if He were rolling some eternal dice and randomly choosing some people and not others; rather, God's choice was accompanied by His wisdom and love, as the Apostle Paul also declared: "In love, [God] predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will" (Eph 1:4-5). Far from being a cold doctrine, producing a group of iron-faced, ice-hearted "frozen chosen," Paul viewed the eternal predestination of those who are elect in Christ as a motivation for praise, thanksgiving, and prayer for others.