Prayer

John 16:23-33

After Jesus shares with the disciples about His departure He again teaches them about prayer. Notice He says in v. 23 “if you shall ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.” This phrase is not a magical formula for us to use in order to have our requests granted. In My name may be rephrased “in My will” or in order to carry out My will for you. In v. 24 He explains that our joy will be made full as we live our lives carrying out His will. Answered prayer brings complete joy in our lives.

The next time Jesus uses the phrase (v. 26) He says “I do not say to you that I will request the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me.” Because of what Jesus has done for us, we have a personal relationship with the Father. Paul says in I Tim. 2:5 “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” and the writer of Hebrews explains “He is also the mediator of a better covenant…”

What a tremendous privilege it is for the Christian to be able to communicate with our heavenly Father, knowing He loves us and desires the very best for us. Prayer is not simply asking for our needs but it also provides a way for us to personally express our love and adoration for the Father. We can thank Him and praise Him for what He does in our lives. Often we are like the nine lepers (Luke 17:11-19) who failed to thank Jesus for healing them. The Father loves our adoration and praise and we should honor Him with it. Prayer is also a time of confession; a time when we can ask the Lord to convict us of our sins and then specifically ask Him for forgiveness (I John 1:9).

Paul tells us in I Thes. 5:18 that we should “pray without ceasing”. Our relationship with our Father ideally should be that as we go through each day we should consistently seek His counsel and offer Him praise for His direction in our lives. I also think we should engage in a consistent time of prayer each day. My personal habit is to keep an excel spreadsheet of prayer needs with a column for each day of the week. That helps me to be consistent in my prayer life.

I pray that you would have a vibrant prayer life.