Ask in My Name

 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” (John 14:12-15 [NASB])

So often, we come to God and ask for things and wonder when He will give that for which we ask or why hasn’t He given what I asked. You claim John 14:13 saying, “I asked in Jesus name and prayed a prayer like this. ‘Lord God, You know my needs and You know I need this now. I cannot go on. I ask this request in Jesus’ name.’” We must consider our prayers and four things Jesus set before His disciples in verse thirteen.

We need to consider what kind of prayer Jesus spoke of here. Is that need or desire something for which we need so intensely we would humble ourselves and beg? Do we crave this answer to prayer like we crave the relationship with God the prayer supposes? Do we require the relationship with God that prayer implies? When Jesus taught the disciples about prayer in this passage, He began with verse two showing the depth of relationship He has with the Father. He said in verse two, “I go to prepare a place for you in My Father’s house.” To make ready a place for someone in one’s house means a very close relationship exists. Understanding this, we must realize what Jesus said in the first part of verse thirteen. The asking comes with the understanding a close, intimate relationship exists between the Father and the disciple. When that is the case, the craving the person does is likely for what God wills. One’s asking is in line with the will of the Father.

The second thing needing understanding in this verse is Jesus said, “Ask in My name.” Asking in Jesus’ name is not a magic phrase to make all one’s dreams come true. It is a power statement. When Jesus told His disciples to ask in His name, He said to ask realizing and knowing personally everything which His name includes. Remember His stature, His rank, and everything which His name involves, recalling the power He has over demons, life, death, sin, resurrection, sickness, health, provisions, hope, love, etc. Jesus meant each disciple must be in a close personal relationship that craves communion with God. This supposes a relationship that desires His will and asks based on Jesus’ authority on earth and in heaven, knowing He has the power to do what you ask.

For the third point in this verse, Jesus said when His disciples ask craving for continued communion with God so what is asked for is God’s will, and knowing well Jesus has the power to cause that for which one asks, He will do it. This “do” is not just an everyday doing like working in the yard, but comes with divine appointment and ordination. That for which you crave in the Father’s will and ask of Him in the power of Jesus, the Savior will appoint and ordain it to be done according to the Father’s will. He has power over heaven and earth and gives divine promise that whatever is in accordance to God’s will eventually will come to happen. “Doing” understands power resides in the person to effect the action.

The final point of this verse says these types of requests to the Father and their resultant answers will glorify the Father. The Son will not do anything that doesn’t bring glory to Him. What is this glory? Is it glorifying to God just say off the cuff, “Hey, God gave it to me,” then not live a life that supports the statement, but which blatantly shows continual, intentional disobedience to the Father’s will and commandments? No. Verse fifteen speaks about this. If one does not keep Jesus’ commandments, one does not love Him. Therefore, one is not in a close relationship with God and the cravings for which he or she begs is not necessarily in God’s will. Jesus said, for Him to answer any prayer, if must glorify the Father. Glorifying means raising up the name of God so people can be in awe and wonder. To glorify God means to praise Him for who He is and what He’s done. It means to celebrate and honor the Lord and proclaim His excellences. When a person glorifies the Father, he or she recognizes all good things received came not of his or her own doing, but from the Father and so testifies to His great mercy and grace.  

The person who glorifies the Father loves the Son and obeys His commandments. This person who obeys His commandments loves Him. A person who loves Jesus and obeys the Lord’s commands is the one in a close, intimate relationship with God, and recognizes the power of the Lord to cause that for which he or she asks in prayer. Finally, Jesus said this person who craves what God craves and will glorify the Father is the one for whom He will ordain to happen what a person prays for and upon what the Father and believer agree.

Ask having a deep relationship with God. God desires to have a deep relationship with you.

Dear Lord above, help me see where I have not grasped the depth of a relationship with You. Help me seek this relationship. Forgive me for my selfish intentions that have been in the way of what You want to do in me and through me. Make me useful for Your service for your glory. Amen.

Intimate Assurance

“The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant.” Psalm 25:14 [NASB]

This verse, translated from Hebrew, means the intimacy of the Lord or the friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him, who are in awe of and reverence Him, and He makes known to them His covenant, His pledge to His people. David avowed to God he had an intimate friendship with the Lord because of his awe of Him and their covenant of faithfulness to each other. To David, what made a person intimate with the Lord and in a covenant with Him? He recorded from verses four through twelve who the person is that is a friend of God.

In verses four and five, and expanded in verse eight and nine, God teaches His friend His ways and paths. This assumes the friend of God yearns to have God in his or her life and seeks Him to grow closer to Him.  In verses four and five, David desired to know God-His ways, paths, and truth. He expressed his desire was so great he would wait for God all day. With verses eight and nine, David proclaimed God is good and upright and so He willingly and desirously wants to teach sinners, all people, His way. God desires to have a relationship with all people, not just the ones who are good, or who think they are good. David foreshadowed the Messiah’s coming for all people because God wants to have a relationship, a covenant with everyone. With verse nine, he said, “God leads the humble in justice and teaches the humble His way.” As a person draws closer to God, that person becomes renewed in the image of God and is humble. God continues to teach that person to transform him or her into Himself-to make him or her humble. As the person learns more, he or she learns to care for other people. Justice, like that of God’s, becomes what the person seeks for every person.

David continued to describe the person who desires to be in an intimate friendship of covenant faithfulness with God in verse six and ten. In verse six, he recognized his sinfulness and neediness, and remembered God’s everlasting compassion and lovingkindness towards Him and throughout history. God’s lovingkindness (His goodness, kindness, and faithfulness) David recognized and stood in awe of. Then, with verse ten, he said these paths of God, of lovingkindness and truth, are available for those people who keep His covenant and testimonies. To each person who desires God and seeks to be in an intimate friendship with Him, God leads in His ways, He teaches and instills in the person, His goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and His truth (truth of His faithfulness, stability, and continuance). To each person who comes to God, He leads them to know and learn, and then to become like Him with His characteristics of truth, compassion, faithfulness, goodness, and kindness. David desired an intimate friendship with God. He desired that which God freely gave to him to become part of his own being. David wanted to live out in the world what God gave to him, these characteristics. He wanted to keep this covenant with God by sharing with the world about God and what God put into him when He renewed him.

With verses seven and eleven, David recognized he was a sinner. He understood God is the One who can forgive and cleanse all people from their sins so they can be in a relationship with Him, be made new in His image. He asked the Lord not to remember his sins, but in His goodness, kindness, and faithfulness remember Him with love and cleanse Him. David went further in verse eleven. He recognized he could not save himself and pleaded with the Lord, because of His glorious name’s sake, to pardon his great sin. David realized his sins were all against the Lord; they separated him from God. He recognized God’s great love and wanted His glory proclaimed continually so asked for forgiveness so the world would hear again of His goodness and faithfulness.

David ended this segment of Psalm 25 with a rhetorical question that pointed to his thematic statement. He said, “Who is the man who fears and awes the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose.” The person who awes and reverences the Lord is the one who seeks to be with God and is the one to whom God teaches His paths and ways. This person is the one who chooses God’s ways out of lovingkindness, that is goodness, kindness, and faithfulness, for Him.

The person who fears the Lord in awe and reverence is the one in an intimate friendship with Him and seeks to know and follow Him. That person chooses to be faithful to his or her pledge/promise of love to God. That person chooses God above all others.

Are you one of those people?

Have you recognized your sinfulness and separation from God?

Are you humble because of following the Lord, His ways, His teachings, and His paths?

Do you seek justice and truth?

Are you good, kind, and faithful because of God’s goodness, kindness, and faithfulness to you?

Do you crave and seek God in an intimate friendship?

Are you faithful to God and His covenant faithfulness to you?

Are you this person who fears the Lord? If you are, the intimate friendship with the Lord is yours and you have no need other than to be in His presence. Your eyes will continually be toward the Lord (vs 15). You will rest in assurance nothing can pluck you from His hand, neither loneliness or affliction, troubles or distresses, nor sins or enemies.

v  You know with assurance God is your Guard and Deliverer; He is your             refuge.

v  You will wait with assurance that God’s integrity and uprightness will preserve you.

You will wait with assurance for your covenant God because of His goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and compassion to you, and yours to Him. He redeems His own.

God doesn’t only seek the good and right. Jesus said He came for the sick. He came to call the sinners (Mark 2:17). God wants to be in a relationship with each of us. He makes sinners clean. God is intimate with the upright (Proverbs 3:32). He is the one who makes each of us upright (Psalm 25:7 & 10). Just as the Lord spoke to Moses as a friend, He sought Him out and Moses craved Him (Exodus 33:11), so today God desires to be in a covenant (a faithful, intimate friendship) with you.

Lord, God almighty, I do not deserve anything You offer to me. Yet, You keep calling to me to come to You. Lord, I do not understand this great love and mercy of Yours, still, I am drawn to You. I am sinful and should not be near You. Cleanse me so I can come before You. Draw me into an intimate friendship with You for which I can never be sated so that I continue to desire You. Don’t let me go. Keep calling to my heart. Thank you for Your patient calling to me, that you never gave up on me. Thank you for your unending love, mercy, and faithfulness. I am Yours; draw me to You and never let me go. My heart I give to You forevermore. Amen.

Nations Will Know

When we become Christians by profession of faith and cleansing from sin, God calls us His own and makes us sacred for Him and His purposes. The Israelites experienced this same calling to be sacred/holy for and by God. God chose the people of Israel to be His people. He led them through a desert after rescuing them from slavery in Egypt. God prepared a place for them the people had never known. He was their Savior and Provider.

The Israelites did not quite understand and within a few years, the land of Israel split in two. Israel, the northern tribes, led by abominable kings and a queen, fell away from God and His purposes. The southern kingdom of Judah, in which Jerusalem lay and contained His temple, grew stubborn and rebellious later than the northern kingdom. They like all people sinned against God by being stubborn and insubordinate towards God and His laws, ordinances, and statues.

Each of these 12 tribes God called His own and made them sacred because of His choosing and calling. He set them up as the nation of God, a theocracy, to shine His light to the surrounding nations. The surrounding nations saw or heard about the Israelites’ God as they journeyed 40 years to the Promised Land. They knew of God’s power, might, provision, love, and salvation.

When the Judahites became impudent and stubborn (3:7), God sent His servant, a man called by Him to prophesy, to tell the people of Judah of His judgment against them because of their rebelliousness. Ezekiel first enacted God’s judgment then proclaimed it. He dared not proclaim it because God said the blood of the people, if he did not warn them, would be upon Ezekiel’s hands.

With 5:7-9, & 15, God through Ezekiel proclaimed,

Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Because you have more turmoil than the nations which surround you and have not walked in My statutes, nor observed My ordinances, nor observed the ordinances of the nations which surround you,’ therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Behold I, even I, and against you, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of nations. And because of all your abominations, I will do among you what I have not done, and the like of which I will never do again.’

‘So, it will be a reproach, a reviling, a warning and an object of horror to the nations who surround you when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging rebukes.’ I, the LORD, have spoken. [NASB]

The sacredness of the Israelites did not exempt them from God’s punishment, His judgment. Rather, as the loving Father, His love for the Israelites required Him to punish them to bring them back to Him. God sent them to be a light proclaiming Him as the One and Only God. Instead, the Judahites followed the gods of other nations. The people who were to shine a light for Yahweh, of whom the surrounding nations knew about, instead shone a light on their disobedience and rebellion.

Because of God’s love for the Judahites, He rebuked and punished them. When you near the end of Ezekiel, God proclaimed He would bring a remnant of the original Judahites back to the land He promised to them. They would still be His people called by Him to be a beacon. The people of Israel would either be a beacon for God’s love by their obedience or through their disobedience and God’s faithfulness to them carried out through judgment.

Each of us who are Christians have this same responsibility. We can be the sacred light of God to the people who surround us with our acts, words, and thoughts of love toward God and other people. We can live our lives obeying God or we can do what we want and be disobedient. This freewill is one of God’s gifts to humans. If, however, we choose in our freewill to walk away from God, He will chastise or rebuke us so we turn around and return to Him. Either way, God’s glory shines because of His love for us-a love so great He would discipline us. Just as the prodigal’s return brings great joy and the father’s love shines from his eyes on his son or daughter who returned, so the Father’s love and joy shine and He receives glory and praise when His child returns to Him after walking away.

I will give thanks to You, O LORD, among the peoples, and I will sing praises to You among the nations. For Your lovingkindness is great above the heavens, and your truth reaches to the skies. Be exalted, oh God, above the heavens, and Your glory above all the earth. (Psalm 108:3-4 [NASB])

Lord, help me be obedient to You and Your will each day. Lead me back to Your presence and forgive me when I turn away from You. Let Your name be praised and glorified in all I do and all You do to and through me. For You are glorious, oh Lord. Amen.

Rejoice with Fear and Trembling

Habakkuk fills chapter 3 with the awe of God. He shows his fear of God’s power, evidenced through His wrath, and God’s mercy. Habakkuk does this through a prayer. Through the chapter, he gives a historical account about who God is, what He’s done, and what He will do. Verse two of this chapter is the thematic statement; while verses 18-19 are the ultimate expression of Habakkuk’s praise and worship of God for who He is. Through all the things God did in the past, Habakkuk could say the Lord is his strength.

What had God done and what will He do according to history and this prophet? First, Habakkuk reminded the Judeans of God’s presence in their history. God was with their forefather, Abraham, and He chose them as His people. Habakkuk said this in verse 3 when he said God comes from Teman and from Mount Paran. Abraham came through Teman and the Israelites, in their exodus wandering, camped or visited at Paran several times.

Habakkuk continued to remind the Judeans who God is by His presence in nature. He said God’s splendor covers the heavens, and the earth is full of His praise. Even His created world will proclaim and praise Him.

Next Habakkuk reminded the Judeans of what God had done. This reminded them of His presence in power. God brought pestilence and plague to the Egyptians. He startled the nations and made them tremble. Before the watching nations, God shattered mountains on which cities relied for defense. The people of Cush and Midian knew God and trembled. Even other nations realized who God is, and that He is eternal.

Habakkuk then used rhetorical questions to make his point. Was God angry against the rivers or sea? Was He concerned about the salvation of the waters or of people? This made sense to the listener. This prayer of Habakkuk’s was for them to attune to and return to God.

Habakkuk said the power of God’s love would bring them salvation and/or chastisement. God tried to give salvation to His people, but then, as the loving Father, He had to resort to chastisement. The bows of other nations God would use to correct them. Habakkuk paused and let the people think about this.

God’s kindness leads us to repentance and salvation (Romans 2:4).

With verses 9-11, Habakkuk returned to God’s influence on nature. Before he wrote about God’s power in nature. This time Habakkuk personified nature as writhing in fear and raising its voice and hands in proclaiming God. Even the sun and moon acknowledged God’s majesty. Their light dimmed when God’s great splendor shone. God’s glorious light outshone the stars and moon, so they were unseen.

With verses 12-15, Habakkuk showed God’s power in chastisement would be fearful, but it would cause salvation. He showed God’s power over all things for His purposes. God was indignant because the Judeans (and all Israelites), though God showed His love and care for them, showed by their lives how little God meant to them. He was angry because of their disobedience. Habakkuk said God marched through the earth and trampled the nations. God would destroy all the people counted on to give them what they needed or wanted. Still, God did not do this because of His anger. He based His anger upon His love for all the people of Israel. God would march and trample because of His love for them to save the people. He was angry at the Israelites and the people who caused them pain and destroyed them. God would chastise the Judeans and their subjugators. He would kill their subjugator’s leader with his own spear. Though the Judeans’ enemy would exult in Judah’s destruction, God would go far and wide to chastise them with His might, knowledge, and anger. He would cross lands and seas to accomplish it.

Habakkuk recognized God’s power, influence, salvation, love, and continual presence. He feared with awe His God and he trembled with fear at God’s prophecy of Judah’s destruction. Habakkuk’s fear was so great he shivered with it and his bones melted.

With Habakkuk’s final three verses, he proclaimed his certainty in God’s word and His love. He praised God because he recognized that though Judah’s enemies would loot and destroy them, God was their salvation. God would not permanently remove His hand from His chosen people. Habakkuk rejoiced triumphantly because God is mighty. God was his strength. He believed God would lead him and make him steady even during rocky or shaky, fearful times.

Though God takes us through difficult times, we can trust Him. We can proclaim God when we experience trials because we realize He is our salvation. His salvation comes from His love for us as does His chastisement. Everything God does is because of His love for us. Recognize God’s greatness, His power, influence, love, and continual presence, just as Habakkuk did.

Join Habakkuk and the great cloud of witnesses exulting and rejoicing in the Lord, the God of our salvation!

“Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice!” Psalm 4:4

Though my days are dark, oh Lord, I will remember Your splendorous light and the rays of power coming from Your hands. I will not be afraid. I will wait upon and exult in You now knowing You are in control and this time is for my growth because of Your love. You, God, will provide the way of escape, and I will be able to endure through this trial with Your strength and guidance, too. Amen.

“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

1 Corinthians 10:13 [NASB]

Rejoice with fear and trembling; God will break through for you!

Holy Presence

Recall what Habakkuk said in 2:20. He said, “The Lord is in His Holy Temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.” This caught my eye as I was reading this chapter. Why is this significant? We know where we can always find the Lord, and be still and hushed in His presence. That place is His sanctuary.

Pieces of wood or stone made by humans into statues have less power than the man who carved them. They were inanimate before the carving and remained that way after the carving. The one who carved them into a shape has more power than the object. No place is holy to these objects because it has no power to make a place holy or sacred. Holiness is imbued by the character and power of a being. The only one who has this kind of power is Yahweh God. He cleanses and makes holy a place for His habitation by His decree. If we each proclaim a place clean that does not mean it actually is clean. We’ve just moved the dirt from one place to another or missed something. We do not have the power to declare something, someone, or some place clean or holy because we ourselves are sinful and unholy. We cannot even make something that is holy because of our sinfulness.

When we search for and find this place of holiness, the temple of God, we may enter. We must remember we will be in the presence of almighty, holy God. What right do we have to bring our filthy selves before Him? None, but He made a way for us to be cleansed and made holy through the sacrificial death of His Son, Jesus. Once accepting Jesus as your Savior and repenting of all your sins, you are clean. God sets you apart as His child. This setting apart is the act of “making holy.” God set apart and made His temple holy, sacred. Can you imagine the release and relief of a person who feels the weight of their dirtiness removed from their heart, mind, and soul? God’s “making holy” provides release and relief. It’s like a huge cleansing breath after being in the basement of a dank building. The sky is clean; the sun shines; the darkness departs.

Even though we tasted this cleansing, this deep breath of release and relief, why do we choose to go back to our old ways? Why do we choose to chase idols of the heart, mind, and flesh? Who would purposely choose to carry a weight on his chest bearing him down as he tried to rise from the floor every moment of the day? That is what we do when we tell our idols to awake or arise as Habakkuk said in verse 19. If we must wake our gods, they are no gods at all. They are products of our minds and hands. If they come from our hands, they have no power - no power over our present situation or our future. They cannot cleanse and make a person holy or sacred. They cannot declare a place holy. The person who made the thing is the only voice heard.

If we must wake our gods, they are no gods at all.

This then brings us back to what Habakkuk said in verse 20. The Lord is in His holy temple. We can find Him there. Always. He has breath. He is alive and doesn’t need to be awakened. The Lord created the holy temple. He has the ability and desire to make you His holy child, too. He is awake. He is aware. He is Holy and love. God wants to make you clean so you can enter His temple and come to Him.

“Come to Me all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” [Matthew 11:28] Only God can say that. Only He has the power do it. Only He loves you enough to offer it with no attachments, no tricks, and no requirements.

Come to God with your heavy hearts.

Come to Him with your pain.

Come to God with your broken hearts and spirit.

Come to Him with defeat and exhaustion.

Come to Holy God and find rest, cleansing, love, and hope.

Nothing created by the hands of people can give this. They have less power than the person who made them. We humans cannot make ourselves holy, give ourselves soul peace, heal pain, broken hearts, and spirit, or give refreshing rest. Human-made idols cannot give you this.  

God leaves it at that – COME.

Lord, I come to You exhausted, broken, sinful, hopeless, unloved, and filled with pain. I ask to come into Your presence. I seek your Holiness and to be in Your presence. Please cleanse me, calm and restore my soul, heal my broken heart, and give me your sweet rest. Show me my sins against you so I may repent and enter into Your presence.