DAY EIGHT: IN JESUS’S NAME

12/8/24

Jesus teaches His disciples to ask the Father “in His name”. When we end our prayers with the phrase, “in Jesus’s name”, what we really mean is that we are appealing to the authority of Jesus, and we are praying in alignment with His character and will. Even though Jesus promises that whatever we ask in the Father’s name will be given to us (Jn. 16:23), many of us are still suspicious of this promise. We may have had unanswered prayers in the past that made us doubt God’s faithfulness, or there may be a general sense that God doesn’t even want to answer our prayers.

Psalm 37:4 is the cure to these doubts. It writes, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” When we delight ourselves in God, He is the one who becomes the desire of our heart. When He becomes our heart’s desire, our prayers naturally align with His will, and when our prayers align with His will, we are asking in Jesus’s name, and Jesus assures us we will receive that our joy may be completely full.

It's not wrong to pray your heart’s desires, and we should believe that God will answer those prayers, but we should make sure we are first delighting ourselves in God. Has your prayer life felt powerless lately? Do you feel that God isn’t answering your prayers consistently? Has your prayer life felt dull? If so, ask the Father to reveal His beauty and majesty to you, and when you see Him as infinitely worthy, you’ll find yourself delighting in Him, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

- Dane Bateman