Praying in and by the name of Jesus. We are set apart by our faith in Jesus - set apart from this world and unto Christ, children of God, filled by His Spirit. In so, we carry His name, we live in allegiance to Him, so that it is by His name, the Son of God, Jesus, that we live and move, speak and pray. As we walk with, as we remain in truth - the Word and the Spirit - Jesus’ words and the Spirit's presence, gives us life, prunes us, forms and shapes us, purifies and cleanses, refines us like silver, like gold (1Pet 1) and our lives reflect Him, more and more - having “...been crucified with Christ, I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me“ (Gal 2:20).
So, when we pray, we pray in his name:
John 14: 12-14, Jesus says:
I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
This passage has everything to do with life here and now because Jesus in entrusting His mission to His disciples. Jesus is speaking about PRAYING IN HIS NAME. In the Jewish culture names carried a special significance. A person’s name was more than just a tag or mark to identify someone – it was actually an integral part of that person, and it revealed that person’s essential character. To act in another person’s name was to use that person’s authority as a basis for one’s actions. In essence, you would be acting as a special advocate or proxy.
The one entrusted would want to be certain they understood and knew the person very well. To pray in Jesus’ name requires that we try to understand Jesus’ mind so that our prayers represent His will as closely as possible. To pray in Jesus’ name is to bring prayers into accord with the essential character of Jesus. It’s a way of bringing our prayers in alignment with the will of Jesus. Praying in Jesus’ name, is praying for those things that Jesus can gladly bless. To pray in Jesus’ name requires that we be in close relationship with Him, and that we do everything we can to understand and submit to his will. The whole discipline of life is to enable us to enter into a close relationship with Jesus. It’s a joy to Jesus when a disciple takes time to develop a more intimate relationship with Him. When we develop an intimate relationship with Jesus we are never lonely, we don’t need sympathy, and we can always pour out of ourself and into others, without ever getting empty …. Because Jesus simply flows through us! Through a close daily relationship with Christ, we begin to be more Christ-like, and our prayers are aligned with the will of Jesus.
Prayer is the greater works! Our duty is to pray ….. we are called to pray to Him all the time ….. and our prayers will be answered when they are aligned with God’s character and will.
When we live, we live according to that name, according to who we are, because of whose we are - Jesus’ - and that life in Him, guided into all truth - truth in our thinking, believing, saying, doing, and praying - should all be reflective of that name - conscious of our being who He has made us to be and Who it is we represent, Whose name we carry, and “...live a life worthy of our calling…” (Eph 4:1)
Why?
1Peter 2:11-12 “Beloved, I beg of you, as wayfarers and as foreigners, depart from all these desires of the body that makes war against you soul. And let your way of life be beautiful before all children of men, those who speak wicked words of you, that they may see your beautiful works and praise God in the day of examination.”
John 14:30-31; 15:9-16:11
9“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17This is my command: Love each other.
The World Hates the Disciples
18“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ b If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’ c
The Work of the Holy Spirit
26“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
John 16:1-15
1“All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. 2They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. 3They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. 4I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, 5but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. 7But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
12“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
We do not belong to this world, any more than Jesus belongs to this world…
John 15:18“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
No longer of this world, but children of God (Jo 1:12-13; 3:5-6; Ro 8:16; Ga 3:26; Ph 2:15; 1Pe 1:23; 1Jo 5:19), and co-heirs with Jesus, seated in the heavenly realms (Eph 1:3; 2:6; Col 2:12; 3:3), we are Jesus’ righteousness, and, that is what we are, goes before us, comes through us, and touches the lives around us. (2Cor 5:15-21; 1Jo 2:29;)
“16So… we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way - we do so no longer. 17therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old is gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was/is reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people's sin against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Why do we not see Jesus and the world from a worldly point of view anymore? Because we are no longer of this world.
John 17:14 I have given them Your word and the world has hated them; for they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
Therefore, as His righteousness, with the Spirit indwelling us, we should…
1Peter 2:12 “Live such good, proper, honorable, honest, excellent, beautiful, right - upright and righteous - lives among those who do not believe that
Live such: to “up-turn” - living out your inner beliefs. The ways in which holy living shows itself (Eph 4:22; 1Tim 4:12; Ja 3:13; 1Pe 1:15,18; 2:12; 3:1,11,16; 2Pe 2:7 and Heb 13:7)
Have such honorable conversations with… (Matt 12:35; Eph 4:29; Col 3:16;4:6; 1Th 4:11; 1Pe 3:15; Lu 20:20-40)
Aliens and strangers - and that is what we are…
1Peter 1:1-2; 2:11-12 To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout… 2who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance…
…11Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles - strangers, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 12Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
