Praying in the name of Christ

In the night before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples a wonderful word about prayer : "Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the glory of the Father may be revealed in the Son. If you ask me something in my name, I will do it" (John 14: 13-14). The prayer in the name of Christ is powerful before God. God takes pleasure in His Son Jesus Christ. He always listens to it and therefore he always listens to the prayer that is really addressed to him in the name of Christ. There is in the name of Christ a fragrance that makes all prayer that pleases Him acceptable to God.

When I address the bank of Heaven, when I go to God in the prayer. I have no deposit there. I have absolutely no credit, and if I come in my own name, I will get absolutely nothing. On the other hand, Jesus Christ has unlimited credit in Heaven and he has given me the privilege of going to this bank with checks signed by his name. If I present myself in this way, my prayers will be honored without any limitation.

Praying in the name of Christ is to pray by melting, not on my credit, but on his. It is giving up the thought that I have some right to argue with God and come to Him on the basis of the rights of Christ. To pray in the name of Christ is not simply to add to my prayer the formula : "I ask these things in the name of Jesus". I can put these words in my prayer and yet rest in reality on my own merits. On the contrary, I can omit this formula without really ceasing to rely on the merits of Christ. But when I really come to God, basing myself not on my own merits but on those of Christ, not on my qualities but on the blood of the atonement (Hebrews 10:19), God listens to me.

Many prayers today are vain because men approach God by imagining that they have on him some right that would compel him to answer their prayers.

Jeremy Sourdril