Jesus said in John 16:24 that “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full”. This Scripture is sometimes used as an encouragement to bring our request to God, and we tend to imply/say that God says we have not asked Him for anything yet. But using this Scripture that way does not add up. We may all have lost count of the number of times we have asked God to meet a need in our lives. How then can we always come and say that until now we have not asked?
The correct use of the Scripture can be found when we take the sentence in full “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name”. “If we take away the emphasis on the name of Jesus from this Scripture, we will make Jesus tell a lie since the disciples had already inquired of Jesus before this time. But the Scriptures say “Let God be true and every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). Before Jesus told them this, Philip had just asked Him to show them the Father (John 14:8), and the disciples had earlier asked Him why He spoke to the crowd in parables (Matthew 13:10). So obviously, Jesus was not saying they had never asked Him anything. Rather, they were to continue asking but they were soon to use the name of Jesus in their asking. This was also to be the custom for us to follow as we shall see below. For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us (Romans 15:4).
Up until the time Jesus told His disciples they had not as yet asked anything in His name (John 16:4), the Jews did not have the name “Jesus” as a requirement for prayer in their law. But He told them there was a day coming when they will pray to the Father directly in the name of Jesus (see John 16:26-27). The name “Jesus” was to be the only way and means by which we were to come to God. Not even the Jewish customs would suffice anymore, let alone any other name or ways man was to come up with thereafter. So we are told in Philippians concerning Jesus that: “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:8-11).
That day Jesus talked about came when He rose from the dead, and from then it was His name alone by which we could get access to the Father (see Romans 10:9; Romans 10:13) and ever be guaranteed to receive answers to our prayers (See John 16:23-24). So in Acts chapter 4, after the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, Peter describing how they got a lame man healed clearly stated: “let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by this name this man stands here before you in good health (Acts 4:10)”. He adds in the verse 12 that “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved (except the name Jesus).”
It is evident through the words of Jesus that His name being used in prayer was key to receiving the answer. Let us dig a little deeper on this. John 14:13-14 says “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. Jesus did not just promise to do whatever we ask, but rather whatever we ask in His name. Asking in the name of Jesus was the key to getting Him to answer your prayer so that the Father will be glorified in the Son. This reveals that we hardly bring glory to the Father when we do not use the name of Jesus to pray – for it is when we ask in the name of Jesus alone, that He guarantees to answer so that the Father will be glorified in the son. When we don’t use the name of Jesus, we are guaranteed no answer to our prayers, and the Father is not glorified in the son when the answer doesn’t come. Jesus again stressed the importance of using His name in prayer when He said“…Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you” (John 16:23). Again it was asking the Father in the name of Jesus (not just asking the Father) that was guaranteed to yield results. And as though these were not enough, Jesus added that “ until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full (John 16:24).
With all these, how can we ever decide not to use the name of Jesus to pray? We hinder our own prayers if we choose to do so. We cannot be saved without the name “Jesus”, and we have no guarantee of an answer to prayer without praying in the name of Jesus.
To be continued….
Kwdwo Omari
(c) 2015