The other morning I was talking with my wife about the meaning of asking or praying in the name of Jesus. She had left the room for a moment when I asked the Holy Spirit if He would tell me just what that meant. How many of you know that when God speaks directly to our spirit that what He says isn’t really measured by the number of words spoken? Sometimes, He can say a day’s worth of human communication in a moment of our time. A day with the Lord is as a thousand years…anyway you probably want to know what He told me don’t you? He said, “My Authority.” To pray in My Name is to pray in My Authority!

Awe, is that all, you say? Everyone knows that. When my wife came back into the room I told her what the Holy Spirit said to me and it met with nearly the same response. I, however, felt like Indiana Jones when he discovered the lost Ark of the Covenant. I was in that moment of divine revelation that often escapes us in the following days. One of the reasons I write these articles. This nugget, however, has stuck around calling to me as if it is something that the Holy Spirit knows that I must remember and allow to change me. 

Have you ever read anywhere in Scripture where Jesus asked anything in the name of His Father? Jesus didn’t say, “Lazarus, in the name of Yahweh, come forth!” I cannot recall Him telling the ten lepers that they were cleansed through Jehovah’s name. When He forgave the cripple man’s sin He didn’t say in God’s name. On the contrary, He said, “…that you might know that the Son of MAN has authority to forgive sin take up your bed and walk.” 

Powerful stuff you say, but Jim He was God’s Son and He always said what God said. Yes, that is my point; whose child are you? However, you will note that He said that you might know that the son of man not the Son of God has authority. We need to know the truth too, not just in our mind, but in our experience. There is no other way to know for certain that you will get what you ask for except for asking for what He has told you to ask for. 

I believe Jesus was telling us more than just, He could forgive sin. He was saying that His identification with His heavenly Father was so absolutely complete that whenever He spoke it was the same as His Father speaking, but He did it as a man. God’s thoughts were his thoughts and as a result, the son of man’s ways was God’s ways. They really were one. (Remember when Peter prayed for Dorcas or Gazelle as she was called in their language. He took a moment to pray. I imagine he was asking the Master if this was indeed a Divine appointment).

The New Testament Scripture is filled with similar claims. One section that is so powerful is in the Gospel of John, chapter 17, often called Jesus’ high priestly prayer. Over and over He entreats His Father to make us one just as He and His Father are one. That wasn’t just pie in the sky wishful thinking. That chapter has the devil quaking in his boots. Satan knows that if we ever get a hold on this revelation—the reason Jesus came would happen.

Jesus was our example of what His work on the cross and resurrection from the dead would cause His followers to become. He is called the firstborn among many brothers, the prototype or pattern son.

On my website I have a motto I have adopted from Scripture. 
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8b RSV)

Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy—these are his works. These works are not designed for him to gain material wealth, but the souls of the ones created in the image of God—his arch enemy. These works are designed to keep us apart from God.

Let me say it plainly,

“Jesus came to destroy every hindrance between us and His heavenly Father, the works of the devil, our sin and our sinful nature, replacing it with God’s divine nature; transforming us into God’s offspring that we might be in the same relationship with the Father that he was so that he (Jesus) could complete his mission to put all of his enemies under his feet. Then he would present this Kingdom to His Father. Hallelujah!

There is nothing more important to our heavenly Father than that the reason He sent Jesus be fulfilled. He wants to experience the exact same level of intimate fellowship and love with each one of us as He experienced with His Son Jesus while He was here on earth. He is a Father—our Father and one day all the poor earthly role models will fade in the light of our glorious heavenly Father’s incomprehensible love. 

Once we begin to see and live in this astonishing love, the desire to sin against Him will melt and drain out of our lives. Then His great mercy and power will start shinning forth from His redeemed children and our “food” will also be to do the will of the one who now sends us and to complete the work He gave us to do. We must become totally and complete identified with Christ Jesus. The man, Christ Jesus will sit at his Father’s right hand until the body Christ Jesus put all of our enemies under our feet.

It is not just about doing the “Greater works” of John 14 as much as it is becoming one with Jesus that we may be one with our heavenly Father. It’s all about love! If we are one with Him we will have truly been crucified with Christ that we may truly be raised with Him in this new life. Are you truly praying and asking in the Name of Jesus because your totally one with Him or is it more like a Christian formula that either must precede or end a prayer request. To be in Christ is to be truly identified with Him so that when the Heavenly Hosts see you they see the One who has become your life. 

The enemy’s tactic is to try and make us believe such talk is blasphemous. Jesus, as the Son of Man faced the same accusations in His earthly walk, but He is still asking us to dare to trust Him enough to allow Him to transform us into these creatures that have been born from above, truly recreated in His image. 

May the name of Jesus become more than words on a page or a formula that begins or ends a prayer. May the name of Jesus become a transforming living reality in our lives that all the world and hosts of heaven marvel at until the end of time and beyond. May His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, in His Name I pray! AMEN—SO BE IT.