What do we mean when we say at the end of our prayers ‘In Jesus name’ or something similar?
It means that we are invoking or calling on the authority that Jesus has given us to use in prayer. An illustration might be helpful
Suppose you have a child who has reached young adulthood. He or she has always wanted to work in a specialist area that inevitably involves being a long way away from home — let’s say your offspring has landed a job with the Great Barrier Reef authority in Townsville. They need a car so before heading off on the long drive, you are asked if your offspring could have a credit card on your account but with their name on it. They promise to only use it for things which you would approve of. After some considerable soul-searching you and your spouse agree to give you offspring your credit card with their name on it. Of course you emphasise that it must only be used in situations that you would approve of. They have no credit history so they can’t get their own credit card, and they are totally dependent upon your excellent credit history and your economic power.
Praying in the name of Jesus is a bit like this. The spiritual power belongs to Jesus. We have been given the incredible privilege of using that authority in prayer to achieve things that Jesus not only approves of but wants us to achieve.
As One under authority yet exercising the authority of God, Jesus did a most amazing thing after His resurrection: He passed on the authority in which He worked to His followers. These were Galileans, people without respect in Jewish society; but they had spent time with Jesus, and He trusted them even though they were continually letting Him down.
The disciples had worked in Jesus’ authority while He was on earth; during His ministry. We read in Luke Chapter nine ‘And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.’ He promised them that when He left, He would send them the Holy Spirit—the One who had empowered Him—to enable them to do all He had done and more (John 14: 12). So, just before departing, He instructed them to wait in Jerusalem “for the gift I told you about, the gift my Father promised . . . the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1: 4–5). And He commissioned them to carry out certain tasks: “Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28: 19–20).
This Great Commission is prefaced by this statement: “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28: 18). The commissioning of Jesus’ followers, which gives them authority to teach and minister, is founded on the authority of Jesus. Jesus’ disciples are then to teach their disciples, and their disciples to teach their disciples, and so on.
The Great Commission implies, I believe, that Jesus’ authority will underlie ours as we obey.
A friend told me once about an acquaintance who had been converted to Christianity out of a New Age group. While in bondage to Satan, this woman had the ability to “see” the amount of spiritual power different people carry with them, and she could pick out the Christians in a group “a mile away” by simply noting the amount of power they carried. Although she knew Christians wield more power than New Agers, she also knew that most Christians have no idea what to do with that power. So the Christians were no threat, except the occasional one who knew how to use the power of Christ. She and her fellow New Agers tried to keep well away from such people.
NT is full of promises to the effect that whatever we ask in prayer, we will receive. But we all know that what we ask must align to God’s will. A prayer for a million dollars is unlikely to be answered.
I want to mention three things that I believe are crucial if we are to effectively use the authority we have been given in Christ.
The first is know who you are in Christ. Charles Kraft, a writer who I have found particularly helpful writes: ‘Through years of working in inner healing and deliverance, I have become convinced that the enemy’s primary area of attack is our self-image. He does not want us to discover who we are. I minister to victimised, abused and defeated people whose lives are often characterised by severe hopelessness or depression. Yet they are often brimming with hidden talents and untapped spiritual gifts given to them by God. The enemy, knowing what these gifts and talents are, has done his best to keep these people in the dark about their abilities and the relationship to God. In doing so he has destroyed or nearly destroyed their awareness of who they are intended to be.
If we are to live and minister effectively for Christ, we need to know who we are, and what it means to be who we are. Here are eight suggestions.
We were intended for second place. We are created only a little lower than God, in the image of God himself.
We are redeemed. Although in Adam we gave it all away, God has stepped in and redeemed us. Through the fall we dropped to a position below the Angel Satan. But God did not leave things that way; he made it possible through Jesus, the second Adam for us to be re-established in our rightful position just under God, on the basis of our faith.
We are children of God. As John writes, “see how much the father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called records children — and so, in fact, we are”.
We have the Holy Spirit. As family members, God gives us the Holy Spirit to live within us. Thus we get to carry infinitely more power than all in the Satanic kingdom put together! Within us lives God himself, the creator and sustainer of the universe and the creator of all the angels, including Satan.
We are united with God. To use one of Paul’s favourite sayings, we are “in Christ”. God has united with us for eternity. God in Jesus joined himself to us.
We are children of the King. This is our true identity, giving a special rights and privileges with our famous father. We have, amongst other things, special permission as his princes and princesses to come into the king’s presence at any time. We call him Abba, our dad.
Can you identify with what Charles Kraft writes in relation to this truth. “Allowing this truths to penetrate the deepest parts of me has transformed me, destroying my negative self-image and abolishing destructive mind-sets. I have lived most of my life with an attitude akin to Charlie Brown’s or Murphy’s Law, an attitude that says, “it’s normal for things to go wrong, so if anything goes right, it must be a mistake”. With this attitude, I felt God must’ve made a mistake by linking up with me. What freedom I have found by allowing myself to accept and bask in the truth of what God thinks of me! And what confidence in operating in the authority and power he has entrusted to us!
We are entrusted with divine authority. By God’s grace, he actually trusts us! Something within me says, he should have known better than to entrust his work to us. But Jesus does trust us, Just as he trusted his disciples enough to turn the kingdom over to them.
We are inseparable from our spiritual authority.
Three things that are important in being aligned to God’s will.
- Know who you are in Christ
- Maintain intimacy in Christ (John 15)
- The tricky one — the importance of community whereas we are all about individualism.
We have “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world” available to us (Ephesians 1: 3).
We (plural) have the mind of Christ.
I don’t call you servants, I call you friends. The servant doesn’t know what his master is up to, but you know.
Numerous promises that whatever you ask for in my name you will receive. But this is highly dependent on knowing His will, and this involves intimacy with God.
And there is mutuality — gifts of knowledge and prophecy given when we come together help us to know the Father’s will, but we are so individually focused.
If two or three of you agree on earth . . .
Three things we can agree are God’s will
That we should bless
That we should pray for healing
That our battle is against the principalities and powers, and that should be a focus of our prayers.
Frank Viola talks about the two passages that refer to taking the Kingdom of God by violence, or the parallel that refers to ‘pressing in’ to the kingdom. He points out that this means not being discouraged, not taking no for an answer, keeping it up.
Matthew 18: 18, the Lord makes an amazing statement: “What you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.” When Jesus first said this to Peter, He used the singular you. But when He repeated it in Matthew 18, He used the plural you, extending this authority to the whole group and to all His followers down through the centuries. Older translations use the word bind rather than prohibit or forbid and loose rather than permit or allow. Whatever terms are used, the focus is on the close relationship between what happens on earth and what goes on in heaven. Jesus’ statement seems to confer great authority on us to do something. Just what that something is, though, is hard to figure out with any degree of certainty.
We must know who we are and the authority that entails. We are children of the King! Royal blood flows in our veins. We have the authority to come boldly and confidently into His presence (Hebrews 4: 16) and call God “Abba,” Dad. We do not have to fear Him as Isaiah did (Isaiah 6: 5). Further, we know we are loved by God because of who we are, not because of anything we may accomplish. As John says, “See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God’s children—and so, in fact, we are” (1 John 3: 1). One mind-blowing aspect of our status is the trust God puts in us by granting us this position and the authority inherent in it.