Praying in Jesus Name

Praying in Jesus Name. It is a good thing, when preparing to pray, to give attention to the words of Jesus which state, 'And whatsoever you ask in My Name that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

If you shall ask anything in My Name I will do it' (John 14.13-14). What does Praying in Jesus Name really mean?

It means more than just attaching the formula to the end of our prayers and saying, 'This I ask in Jesus Name' for, quite clearly, the formula could easily be attached to prayers that are crudely and utterly selfish.

It means praying according to the character of Christ, or praying prayers that He would pray if He were in our shoes. God can only answer prayer if the prayer is in accord with the spirit of Jesus Christ.

Don't try to get God to do anything that is not Christ like. He just won't do it. In fact, He can't do it for it is impossible for God to do anything that is against His own nature.

Praying in Jesus Name is not trying to get God to do our will, but it is the bringing of our will into line with God's will.

When we are praying in Jesus Name, we are asking that we might be so caught up in the spirit of Christ, whose sole aim, you remember, was to do the will of His Father, that we will pray the kind of prayers that puts God's will as the highest priority in our lives, even though it may run counter to our own plans and desires.

There are some petitions we present to God of which if we were to stop and ask ourselves: 'Can I be certain this is what He really wants?' we would have to say, in all honesty, 'I don't know'. At such times we can safely leave the outcome to God and say 'If it be thy will'.

Concerning many things, however, no shadow of doubt remains. We know God's will. We know that He desires the salvation of lost souls. We know that He wants to give us health of spirit, soul and body.

We know that He wants to give us love, joy, peace, etc. To wonder about these things is to wonder about something we ought never to wonder about at all. When we are praying in Jesus Name, We know!

The more we soak ourselves in the principles of scripture the more we will know what prayers we can offer by praying in Jesus Name and for which we can rightfully press our claims.

In the early days of my Christian experience, before I knew Scripture as I know it today, I found that my prayer life was filled with petitions for things. I prayed for money, for clothes, for a car, for books, and a whole host of other articles.

Now however, I pray less and less for things and more and more to know God. I have an increasing conviction (as I said earlier) that the more I ask God for Himself, for the assurance that my will and His are not at cross-purposes, that we are in agreement on all major and minor matters, then I will get all the things I need.

Kagawa, the great Japanese Christian, when asked to give his definition of prayer, answered in one word - 'Surrender'.

He was right. It is the surrender of our selfish desires in order that we might lock into God's desires - the giving up of self interest in order to find an eternal interest.

Prayer is the will to die on the level of an empty selfish, defeated, ineffective, short-circuited life, and the will to live on the level of a victorious, full, effective and abundant life.

It is self denunciation to find self-realization. Praying in Jesus Name is the wire surrendering to the dynamo; the flower surrendering to the sun; the child .surrendering to education; a branch surrendering to the vine.

If we fear to surrender our wills to God in the event He might deprive us of something we feel is beneficial to us, or that we might lose our ambition, then we are greatly mistaken.

A branch if not surrendered to the vine, but cut off and on its own is not free, or fulfilled, but dead.

A person who doesn't surrender to God isn't free; he is futile. He is like a blind man, with cataracts, who won't surrender his blindness to a surgeon in order to sec. He is free - to remain blind.

Learn, therefore that, praying in Jesus Name, is praying in the spirit of Jesus Christ. Prayers that are under girded by Biblical principles. Prayers that put God first and self second.

Prayers that Jesus would pray if He were in your shoes. To pray such prayers will not demean your personality but direct it - to God's ends.

It is not a passive surrender but, as someone described it - 'alert passivity'. It is a passivity that awakens the whole being to the right kind of activity. The surrender is but a step to real mastery.

After Praying in Jesus Name, Listen for God's Voice.