That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Paul was an early Christian leader who wrote this letter to the church in Ephesus, a major city in what is now western Turkey. This verse comes from a prayer Paul prays over the people — not a request for their safety or success, but for a specific kind of knowing. The 'Spirit of wisdom and revelation' is God's own Spirit helping them understand things they couldn't grasp on their own. Crucially, the goal of all this wisdom isn't to accumulate more facts about God — Paul's aim is relationship. He wants them to know God better as a person, not just as a concept or a set of doctrines. This prayer treats knowing God as something you grow into over a lifetime.
Glorious Father, I confess I sometimes chase information about you more than I chase you. Give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation — not so I can feel spiritually accomplished, but so I can actually know you better. That is what I want most. Amen.
What if you've been approaching God the way you'd study for an exam — accumulating information, tracking your consistency, grading your performance — when what God actually wants is to be known the way you know your closest friend? Not analyzed. Known. Paul's prayer for the Ephesians doesn't ask God to make them more obedient, more disciplined, or more productive. He asks that they would know God better. Which suggests everything else he cares about flows from that one thing. There's something quietly freeing in how Paul frames this. He doesn't say 'try harder to understand God.' He asks God to give the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. Knowing God more deeply is both something you pursue and something you receive — it isn't manufactured through sheer effort. Maybe the most honest prayer you can pray today isn't 'help me do better this week' but 'help me know you better.' Not as a spiritual productivity strategy, but as the thing itself. If you actually knew him better — really knew him — everything else in your life would start to rearrange itself around that.
Paul prays for wisdom and revelation specifically so believers might know God better — what is the practical difference between knowing about God and actually knowing him?
If someone asked you honestly whether knowing God better is your real goal, or more of a background assumption while you focus on behavior and outcomes, what would you say?
Paul asks God for this rather than simply telling the Ephesians to pursue it themselves — what does that imply about how genuine spiritual depth actually happens?
How does your level of intimacy with God — really knowing him versus just knowing things about him — affect how you treat the people you're in closest relationship with?
What is one thing you could do this week to pursue knowing God rather than just knowing more about him — a question you bring to him directly, a practice of listening, a deliberate pause?
And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
Isaiah 11:2
That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
Colossians 1:10
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
Colossians 1:9
Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
Proverbs 2:5
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
James 3:18
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure , then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
James 3:17
For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
Proverbs 2:6
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Colossians 3:16
[I always pray] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may grant you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation [that gives you a deep and personal and intimate insight] into the true knowledge of Him [for we know the Father through the Son].
AMP
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,
ESV
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.
NASB
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.
NIV
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
NKJV
asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.
NLT
But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally,
MSG