Introduction
As a
child, I had an unhealthy fear of voicemails. Given that voicemails are now
almost relics of a bygone era, this might need some context. During my school
years, most phones were still attached to walls and lacked caller ID. This
meant that if you called someone and they didn't answer, your identity remained
a mystery unless you left a voicemail. It seemed straightforward and safe,
right?
The Fear Begins
One
day, when I was about ten years old, I called my friend across the street to
see if she wanted to play, but no one picked up. I hung up. A few minutes
later, I called again. No answer. I hung up. I repeated this cycle several
times over the next hour. My mom noticed my peculiar behavior and asked what I
was doing.
“I
was just calling to see if my friend wanted to play, but no one’s home.”
“Well,
why don’t you just leave a message?”
I
tensed up. “Oh no, no... I’ll just try again in a few minutes.”
“No,
Marshall, that’s rude to keep calling like that. You really should leave a
voicemail.”
“No,
really, Mom, it’s not a big deal. They don’t mind.”
“No,”
she said firmly, “you’re going to pick up that phone right now and leave a
voicemail.”
I
waited to see if she was serious, then slowly lifted the instrument of terror
from the wall. There was something about being recorded—with no opportunity to
delete, or try again, or call timeout—that made me feel exposed. It certainly
didn’t help that my (female) friend could be a bit of a bully and relished just
about any opportunity to laugh at my expense.
Again,
no one answered. The dreaded beep came. My mom stared at me intently. “Hi,
uhhh, Jenna... This is Marshall. Umm... just wanted to see if you were home and
wanted to play. So... give me a call when you get back... Umm... in Jesus’s
name, Amen.”
My
mom’s eyes widened, and she covered her mouth. Her cheeks strained to fight
back laughter. My young, insecure blood boiled. She made me do that. How could
she!
The Common Paradox in Prayer
It’s
funny, but my (tiny) humiliation plays out a common paradox in prayer: Those three
words—in Jesus’s name—were already so deeply ingrained in my mind through
countless prayers in our home that they instinctively poured out. At the same
time, they had become so familiar that they had begun to lose their weight and
meaning (so that I blurted them to the 10-year-old girl across the street).
Many of us have forgotten, through lots of meals and bedtimes, services and
Bible studies, what we hold in these three staggering words: in Jesus’s name.
Six Facets of Praying in Jesus's Name
Where
do we learn to pray in Jesus’s name, anyway? The Lord’s Prayer doesn’t end that
way. In fact, when you go looking, you realize that we don’t have any actual
prayers in Scripture that end with those words.
We
hear people baptize in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38), heal in the name of Jesus
(Acts 3:6), teach in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:18), exorcise demons in the name
of Jesus (Acts 16:18), and perform wonders in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:30).
The apostle Paul goes as far as to tell us to do everything we do, in word or
deed, “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). The clearest teaching
on praying in Jesus’s name, though, comes from Jesus himself, on the night he
was betrayed.
In
John 14–16, we have Jesus’s last words to his disciples before he goes to the
cross, and in all three chapters, he mentions the power of praying in his name:
“Whatever you ask in my name” (John 14:13) ... “Whatever you ask the Father in
my name” (John 15:16) ... “Whatever you ask of the Father in my name” (John
16:23). In the repetition, we see how critical this kind of prayer will be for
followers of Jesus, and we learn at least six reasons for Christians to pray in
his name.
1. Access: God Listens to You
When
we pray in Jesus’s name, we rehearse our only reason for believing God will
actually hear our prayers. We dare to bow before the Father only because the
Son chose to bow upon the cross. Before he encourages his disciples to pray
this way, Jesus says to them, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). No one comes except in
me—but everyone who comes in my name will be received, heard, and loved. His
life, cross, and resurrection lift our prayers into heaven.
Jesus
goes as far as to say (really listen to what he says here), “I do not say to
you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves
you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God” (John
16:26–27). In other words, I don’t have to ask him anything for you anymore. No,
in me, you can ask the Almighty yourself.
2. Love: God Chose You
God
doesn’t only listen to our prayers because Christ died for us, but because,
long before his Son was born and took the cross, he had already chosen us as
his own. He decided, based on nothing in or about us, to love us and save us in
Christ.
“You
did not choose me,” Jesus says, “but I chose you and appointed you that you
should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you
ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16).
I
chose you, so that your prayers would have power. That means every prayer we
pray in his name is an opportunity to remember the undeserved wonder of our
election. The God of heaven and earth, the one who made all that is, the one
whom you rejected and assaulted in your sin, chose to love you.
And
if he had not chosen you, you would not believe, much less pray. Jesus says,
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44;
also 6:65).
3. Power: God Can Do Anything
When
Jesus ascended into heaven, he left his disciples, but he didn’t really leave
them. Before he rose into the clouds, he said, “Behold, I am with you always,
to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). How could he say that as he was
literally leaving them? Because he had told them, “I will ask the Father, and
he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of
truth” (John 14:16–17, see also 14:25–26).
By
the Spirit, Jesus still lives with us, even within us. Therefore, his name is a
constant reminder of his abiding, satisfying, empowering presence.
"Abide
in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it
abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you
are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much
fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:4–5)
In
his name, anything is possible through prayer. Apart from his name, we can do
nothing.
4. Safety: God Keeps Your Faith
As he
comes to the end of his final words, he says to his disciples, “I have said all
these things to you to keep you from falling away” (John 16:1). I’ve repeatedly
told you (among other things) to pray in my name so that you will not fall away
from me, so that you won’t fall into temptation and make shipwreck of your
faith. Fearful days were coming, days that would strain their faith (if
possible) to the point of breaking. “In the world you will have tribulation,”
he warns them a few verses later. “But take heart; I have overcome the world”
(John 16:33). And in my name, you will too.
So,
our prayers in Jesus’s name are not only accomplishing great things out in the
world and among those we love, but they’re doing something supernatural inside
of us. Through them, God is fortifying our faith in God. He’s exerting his
infinite power to guard our love for him (1 Peter 1:5). Prayer is perhaps the
single greatest way that God works in us the kind of heart and life that please
him and persevere to the end (Philippians 2:12–13).
5. Confidence: God Won’t Dismiss His Son
Why
won’t the Father ignore prayers in the name of his Son? Jesus tells us,
“Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified
in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13–14).
The glory of God himself is at stake in our prayers (even our seemingly small
or insignificant prayers), and God will not surrender or violate his glory.
That means no prayer is insignificant to God. He will answer your prayers in
Jesus’s name because he’s fiercely devoted, with all his sovereign
.jfif)
