Evening

June 26

John 14:12-14 ¹²I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. ¹⁴You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

In the verses that preceded the text for this evening, Jesus had just told the disciples that He was in the Father and the Father in Him. The words that He spoke were not His but the Father's. If we take the above verses out of context, it sounds like Jesus is our magic genie. That is not what He is saying.

If you have faith in Jesus, that is to believe and receive Him, or to have the relationship He has with the Father, you will do what He has been doing. The miracles and words of Jesus came from His relationship with the Father. If you have the kind of relationship with Jesus that He lived out on this earth with His Father, then your life will look like His. The New Testament writers understood this clearly. Jesus' goal is to conform us to His perfect example. That is the expression of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

If we have that oneness with Jesus that He exemplified with the Father, then you can "ask in His name." That means you can request with the authority of an official representative of Jesus. It does not mean to add the magic phrase "in Jesus' name." The request will be the will of Jesus just as Jesus' requests were always the will of the Father.

This promise carries no limits, but it is not without the previously implied conditions. If those conditions did not exist, every immature Christian would have won the local lottery and be a super-star to his or her spiritual detriment. That would move you away from God's goal, Christ's likeness. But if that oneness with Jesus does exist, consider your potential to touch the world around you with the very words and miracles of Jesus!

Consider: What should I be asking of God in the authority of Jesus' name?