All tagged name
Pray more, pray with great faith, and pray as an emissary of the Lord Jesus, that is the subject of this morning's contemplation, and in his final conversation with his disciples before ascending into heaven Jesus spoke these words regarding how they should pray, and how they should do so under the auspices of His approval, and full authority:
When we pray to God, do we ask of Him in the name of Jesus? So many of us think that this simply means that we are to say the words “In the name of Jesus I pray.” as we conclude our prayers, but it is much more than that… it is praying as if we were Jesus Himself. Do we pray in this way? Do we pray as heirs and joint heirs, with the full righteousness of Christ, and ask only for those things that conform to the will of our Father? Jesus was not born to be a symbolic of God on earth, but to speak with the full authority of His Father… do we pray with the full authority of Jesus Christ when we pray in His name, and what does that mean?
As Christians we speak with the authority of Christ, and not with any power of our own. We do nothing except through Jesus who is in us, and we in Him. Does this sound familiar? Well, it should because Jesus tells us the very same thing about His relationship with God, and the authority He has received from Him. Jesus took on the authority of God, and we assume the authority and power of Christ, but neither of these can be accomplished without absolute love… the Seal of God.
When we rise up from the waters of baptism we are told that we have put on Christ, but it doesn’t stop there. When we rise from our bed in the morning, our first word should prayerfully be the name of God, and then we should be clothing ourselves in Jesus. Each morning as we dress ourselves for the day ahead, what is the nature of the garments we select? Do we put on a worldly covering or a spiritual set of clothes? Are they the old rags we wore yesterday, or the new clothes of our transformed self… the clothing of Christ?
We listened as Jesus taught His disciples to pray, and then we memorized that prayer, and now recite it. We call it the Lord’s Prayer, and it has become the greatest gem in our treasure of all prayers, but do we concentrate on the words we pray, or are they simply the words that children commit to memory, and adults chant and sing routinely in worship? We say “Father in Heaven”, but do we dwell on what it means when we say hallowed be your name?