Ask In My Name

Ask in my Name

And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.

John 16:23

The verse that I am using today comes from a bigger picture of Jesus telling His disciples that He will be physically leaving them, that He must endure the shame of the cross for the sake of mankind. And He tells them that they will feel bad for a while, but they will get over it and realize the good purpose His death would bring. So, in this verse He tells them that they will not be able to ask Him anything again in person, but that they should start asking our Father in heaven, doing so in the name of Jesus. Here in this verse, we have Jesus telling us to pray. Yes, I say us, because we are His present day disciples; and because we are His disciples we are to adhere to what is written in the Word of God, and may I remind you that what is written is not words from a far gone point in time but is a statement that is living, because the Word of God is a living entity. The Word of God pertains to the time it was spoke by Jesus some 2000 years ago, as well as to today, and tomorrow. So yes, He is telling us to pray to the Father and He will answer our prayers because we do it in the name of Jesus.

This is a true story of a rough high school where there were few Christians apart from one teacher, David Bunton, who taught manual arts. Years after leaving Bunton’s classroom, dozens of his former students became believers. Many have entered the ministry and become pastors and missionaries. I tracked down Bunton, who is now seventy years old and retired. He was stunned with emotion when I told him of the many conversions of his former students.

I asked how his influence had brought such a harvest. He told me that many times he had prayed softly over his classes as he sat at his desk and watched them work. Apart from that, he had done nothing to influence these students toward Christ. The only common point of spiritual connection the students shared was that they were prayed over by their teacher.

Jesus tells us that whatsoever we ask the Father in His name, the Father will give it to us. I am told that this teacher asked for favorable results in the lives of his students. Our heavenly Father wants us to ask. Not unlike a natural father wants his children to come to him for whatever they need. Our heavenly Father wants us to ask Him for anything we need. There is no prayer request too big to ask the Father. Your heavenly Father is waiting for you to ask because He is waiting to do what you need Him to do.

Did any of you catch that last sentence? “Your heavenly Father is waiting for you to ask because He is waiting to do what you need Him to do.” Yes, I purposely wrote it that way because that is the way most of us pray, treating God like He is our personal genie in a bottle. We get up in the morning, or whenever we pray and rub the bottle: “Lord, gimme, gimme, gimme.” Now I must admit that there is nothing wrong with asking for things for you, but do we ever stop and think about what is it that God wants? In Matthew 6:7-13 Jesus gives us the model for our prayers that should align our prayers to what God wants:

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Verse 9 of the Lord’s Prayer tells us to first and foremost give God the reverence He so rightly deserves. Regardless of how you approach this we need to realize that we are coming to Him to ask for something that we could not do on our own, so it stands to reason that we need to give Him respect first.