“So that whatever you ask the Father in My Name, He may give to you” – John 15:16
“I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, He will give it to you in My Name” – John 16:23
Several times Jesus tells us to ask in My Name. But, how many times do we try to use this against God? Jesus intends this to be a union with the Divine Will of the Trinity, not to go to the Father says, Jesus said you had to give me…
We have communion with Jesus as we do, then we, by virtue of the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, have communion with the Father. So to pray in Jesus’ name is to pray in union with Jesus, the Son, who is totally obedient to the Father. To pray in Jesus’ name is to give preference to the Father’s will, the Father’s plan of sheer goodness.
Jesus taught us to pray this way when he said, pray then like this.
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” captured in Matthew 6:10, the Sermon on the Mount.
And, earlier in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus taught about the willing heart of the Father as it relates to prayer. This is an eye opener. “And I tell you, ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. What father among you? If his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish, give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” – Matthew 7:7-12.
By being united to Jesus and animated by the spirit of love and obedience, the disciples will know joy that is perfect and complete, a joy that comes only from participating in the divine communion.
I know you’re interested in that joy. I am too.
So how to ‘get’ this joy and have the Father answer every single prayer? Being united to Jesus. Asking in His Name doesn’t mean, “give me the lottery numbers, in Jesus’ Name.” It means simply, “Thy Will be done, not mine, in Jesus’ Name.”
It comes down again to that most difficult and powerful prayer, “Thy Will be done.”
When the soul commits his prayer to God’s Divine Will, he sees all his prayers come to fruition. It is within God’s Will which we seek the Father’s answer “in Jesus’ Name.”