Prayer in the Name of Jesus Christ

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:25).

These two jailbirds were beaten to a pulp, bruised and bleeding and there they were “praying and singing hymns of praise to God.” What a privilege in time of need to receive encouragement and comfort from God Himself.

True prayer is offered to God the Father through His Son, Jesus Christ.

R. A. Torrey said, “We should never utter one syllable, either in public or in private, until we are definitely conscious that we have come into the presence of God and are actually praying to Him.” 

Real prayer is “having an audience with God, actually coming into the presence of God.” Prayer is “one of the most highly esteemed privileges of life.”

When we go to God in prayer we need to ask ourselves if we are conscious of being in His presence? Am I truly communing with Him?

Paul and Silas were in the presence of God in a Roman jail cell.

The place where we pray is insignificant as long as our prayers are offered to God the Father on the basis of the death of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you” (John 15:16).

The emphasis He consistently made was “that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

“Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13).

Then He went on to say, “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” (v. 14). 

Again in John 16:23-26 Jesus said, “In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full. These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father. In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf.”

You cannot “out ask” a giving Father. The imagery is that of a child asking a loving parent.

With repeated emphasis Jesus taught the disciples the night before He was crucified, “Ask the Father in My name.” Note the attitude of life expressed in these words.  It is dependence upon the Father.

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (14:6).

Jesus Christ makes it possible for God to answer our prayers. Because of the atoning sacrificial death of Jesus we are invited, even urged, to go into His holy presence and offer our petitions.

The last will and testament of Jesus is a fraud and a sham unless He truly is the Son of God. “Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything, He will give it to you in My name" (16:23).  Because He truly is the Second Person of the Godhead we do ask and receive.

Prayer is the exclusive exercise of believers in Christ. No one can go into the presence of a holy God on the basis of self-merit.

No sinner can receive anything from God on the grounds of his or her own goodness. However, on the ground of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the worst sinner who has turned from his sin and accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior can come and with boldness can speak out of the longing of his heart and receive from God what he asks.

When you pray do you go to the heavenly Father in the name of Jesus? We have the privilege of entering into His presence only on the basis of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only prayers God hears are prayers offered to God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ.