Grace Tidings: By Dr Doug Mamvura
Jesus gave us the power of attorney or the legal right to use His name. In this series we will be unpacking the value and authority that is associated with this name.
All the power, and all the authority that Jesus had is invested in His Name. Jesus said we could use His Name in prayer. He said we could use His Name in dealing with demons. He said we could use His Name in ministering healing. In fact, that’s where the secret lies, in the use of that Name. We have depended, too much of the time, on our own ability to deliver someone, when in reality, it is the Name that does it.
“The measure of His ability [the measure of the ability of the Lord Jesus Christ] is the measure of the value of that Name, and all that is invested in that Name belongs to us, for Jesus gave us the unqualified use of His Name” (EW Kenyon).
“Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name ask, and ye shall receive that your joy may be made full,” (John 16:24).
Jesus, here, not only gives us the use of His Name but He also declares that the prayer, prayed in His Name will receive His special attention. “Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My Name, He will give it to you.” Jesus says, “You ask of the Father in My Name; I will endorse that, and the Father will give it to you.”
This puts prayer on a purely legal basis for He has given us the legal right to use His Name. As we take our privileges, and rights, in the new Covenant and pray in Jesus’ Name, it passes out of our hands into the hands of Jesus; He then assumes the responsibility of that prayer, and we know that He said, “Father, I thank Thee that that Thou hearest Me always” (John 11:42).
In other words, we know that the Father always hears Jesus, and when we pray in Jesus’ Name, it is as though Jesus Himself were doing the praying, He takes our place.
- Grace tidings: Do you understand what it means to be holy?
- Grace tidings: Does your faith move God or moves you to God?
- Grace tidings: Celebrating the finished work of Christ
- Grace tidings: Craving for sincere milk
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This places prayer not only on legal grounds, but makes it a business proposition. When we pray, we take Jesus’ place here to carry out His will, and He takes our place before the Father. He said that it should not only cover our prayer life but it also can be used in our combat against the unseen forces that surround us. “And these signs shall accompany them that believe,” or literally “the believing ones”, Every child of God is a believing one, “In My Name they shall cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Here, He is revealing His part in the Great Commission. In that great document, He says, “All authority has been given unto Me in heaven and on earth. “I am sending you out to make disciples of all nations. “Lo, I am with you always.”
He is with us in the power and authority of His Name. What does the Name mean to the Father, to the church, and to Satan? To the Father, it must mean more than our hearts or minds will ever grasp, but we can suggest a little of the wealth that the Father has stored in that Name. First, He inherited a more excellent Name than any of the angels as the First Begotten Son. Second, God gave to Him a Name above every name that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
Third, by His conquest over sin, Satan, disease, death, hell, and the grave He acquired a Name that is above all names. When Jesus gave us the legal right to use this Name, the Father knew all that that Name would imply when breathed in prayer by oppressed souls, and it is His joy to recognise that Name. Therefore, the possibilities enfolded in that Name are beyond our understanding, and when He says to the church, “Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My Name,” He is giving us a signed cheque on the resources of heaven and asking us to fill it in. It would pay the church to begin an exhaustive study of the resources of Jesus in order to get a measurement of the wealth that Name holds for her today.
In John 16:23, Jesus not only gives us the use of His Name in New Covenant prayer, but He also declares that the prayer prayed in His Name will receive His special attention: “Verily, verily, I say unto you. Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, he will give it you”. Notice what Jesus is saying — You ask of the Father in My Name — I will endorse it — and the Father will give it to you. What an amazing prayer promise! Yet because we did not understand what Jesus said, and because we were religiously brainwashed instead of what the New Testament taught, we watered down the promises of God.
We “smuggled in” something Jesus did not say. We added something else to it. “God’s will, if it is His will — but it might not be His will,” we have said. You don’t find that kind of talk in the New Testament. People have gone along without answers to prayer, saying, “It must not have been His will, because He didn’t do it. If it had been His will, He would have done it.” Jesus stated God’s will here in John 16:23,24.
Jesus did not say, “Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive; however, sometimes He will say, ‘No,’ and sometimes He will say, ‘Yes,’ and sometimes He will say, ‘Wait a while.’ “We have added such as that to the Bible trying to give people an answer as to why prayer hasn’t worked for them. Yet the reason it has not worked for them is, they did not work the Word.
If it did not work for me, it would be because I was not in line with the Word. A person can be a good Christian, sanctified, separated, and holy, and still not get the job done when it comes to answered prayer. We believe in people living right, but you cannot come bragging on yourself when you come to pray like we see with the Pharisee who was so arrogant telling Jesus how many times he prayed and how he gave money to the poor and that he was not like “that tax collector”. You cannot come to the throne of grace, telling God what all you’ve done, bragging about that, and get an answer. No. We come bringing the Name of Jesus. And God’s Word works today, just as much as it ever did.
Some men are born to a great name as a czar or a king; others make their name great by achievements or have a great name conferred upon them. Jesus is great because He inherited a great Name; His Name is great because of achievements; He is great because a great Name was conferred upon Him. He inherited a greater Name than any angelic being, and as a Son, He is heir of all things, and through Him the ages have been brought into being. He is the effulgence, the very outshining of the Father.
His Name comes to Him as an Inheritance; and what it must have been to have Inherited this Name from His great Father-God! In Philippians 2:9-10 we find: “Wherefore also God highly exalted Him and gave unto Him the Name which is above every Name that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow of the beings in heaven and the beings on earth, and the beings under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.”
