In Jesus' Name

Every Christian knows that we add “In Jesus’ name. Amen” to the end of our prayers. But why do we do that? It’s not just tradition… at least, it’s not supposed to be. But it seems like the meaning of “In Jesus’ name” has lost its importance over years of repeated use.

Praying in Jesus’ name (John 14:13-14) doesn’t mean that we ask for something and add Jesus to it in order to get an answer. It means that we ask for things according to Jesus’ will. When you do something in someone else’s name, you do it because the other person would want it to be done. For example, let’s say you go to the store and you see something you know your friend would want, so you buy it. You know him well enough that you know he would want that thing from the store, so you buy it “in his name”—you buy it because you know he would buy it if he were there. It’s the same with praying in Jesus’ name: we pray for the things Jesus would pray for because we know Him so well that we can tell what He would want. We don’t just pray for whatever we want and offhandedly say, “Jesus would want this, so God will do it for me.” Praying in Jesus’ name involves getting to know Him so that our prayers—our will—would not be our own, but His.

So prayer is more than a simple list of needs and wants. Prayer is a form of communication to get to know Christ more intimately, and it is an indicator of your relationship with Him. The better we know Jesus, the more we understand His will; the more we understand His will, the more we pray for His will to be done; and the more we pray for His will to be done, the more He gives us what we ask for because what we ask for is what He wants to give. So basically, the closer we get to God, the more powerful our prayers become. Not that they weren’t powerful before, but the more we know Him, the more we pray for His will to be done rather than our own will; therefore, we will receive our desired answers to our prayers more frequently. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” When we want what God wants, He is more than happy to bless us and grant us our requests, because they aren’t our requests but Christ’s. So as we continue to be sanctified through Christ, our will begins to overlap with His more and more. That’s why James says, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).

Now, I understand that this may be a little bit confusing when you look at the cases where non-believers “prayed,” asking God to reveal Himself to them if He’s real, and God answered and changed their lives forever. But if you look at Psalm 37:4 again, it says that God will give you “the desires of your heart.” God has given every person a need, a desire, for Him in his or her heart. So even from the beginning, a prayer for salvation matches up with God’s will, “for I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” (Ezekiel 18:32). And the more we acknowledge our need for Him, the more we desire for His will to be accomplished, the more we will see the truth of John 14:14: “You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it.”

So I'm really excited to be on the Freshley Prayer leadership team next year.  I can't wait to grow closer to God in prayer and to grow in my understanding of His will so that my prayers, through Christ, will be a powerful weapon against the enemy.  And the great thing is that I don't have to wait!