Dear Friends,
During most of my time in seminary I worked across the street from the seminary in the Registrar’s Office of Asbury College. One of the functions that was occasionally part of my job was the preparation official transcripts or other documents. Preparing these documents might mean stamping the signature of the Academic Dean, Dr. Thomas and pressing the seal of the college into the paper with an embosser. When I placed these stamps and seals upon a transcript I put upon them the integrity of the institution and the authority of the dean. He had entrusted to me the authority to work on his behalf knowing that if I was to take advantage of this privilege and place his signature and the school’s seal upon a fraudulent document I violated a trust that had been given to me and would cause his character and the integrity of the institution to be called into question.
Each of us has had times when we have been given the authority to speak on behalf of another or have given others the authority to function as though they were us. There is a great trust being placed in the person, one we don’t often think about, even if it was something as simple as signing a birthday card and putting your spouse’s name on it.
Do you know when you pray you are doing much the same thing? Speaking and acting on behalf of God.
In John 14 Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure. He is laying the groundwork for what life and ministry is going to be like for them without him walking beside them. The beginning of this chapter includes the verses that many of us are so familiar with. Jesus has said to his disciples he is going away. They want to know where he is going. Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life . . .”
They still don’t get it so Jesus continues to instruct them and that is where we get to these verses in chapter 14:
“Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12 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. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:11-14, NIV)
Did you catch that all important line in verse 13?
Have you ever thought about why we end our prayers “in Jesus’ name” it is because Jesus has granted us the authority to speak on his behalf? Much like a supervisor giving us permission to make choices on their behalf, Jesus is saying that when we pray, whatever we pray in his name he will do. Why? Because we are speaking with his authority not our own; the authority of the one who created this world and holds it all together by his own hand. And when we pray for power to be revealed it is his power not ours.
So, here is the question: Are you praying the kind of prayers that Jesus would pray?
Blessings,
Pastor Stephen