In the Name of Christ
"Whatsoever ye shall ask _in My Name_, that will I do. If ye shall ask anything _in My Name_, I will do it. I have appointed you, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father _in My Name_, He may give it you. Verily, verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father _in My Name_, He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing _in My Name_; ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. At that day ye shall ask _in My Name_."--JOHN xiv. 13, 14, xv. 16, xvi. 23, 24, 26.
In my name--repeated six times over. Our Lord knew how slow our hearts would be to take it in, and He so longed that we should really believe that His Name is the power in which every knee should bow, and in which every prayer could be heard, that He did not weary of saying it over and over: _In My Name!_ Between the wonderful _whatsoever ye shall ask_, and the Divine _I will do it, the Father will give it_, this one word is the simple link: _In My Name._ Our asking and the Father's giving are to be equally in the Name of Christ. Everything in prayer depends upon our apprehending this--_In My Name._
We know what a name is: a word by which we call up to our mind the whole being and nature of an object. When I speak of a lamb or a lion, the name at once suggests the different nature peculiar to each. The Name of God is meant to express His whole Divine nature and glory. And so the Name of Christ means His whole nature, His person and work, His disposition and Spirit. To ask in the Name of Christ is to pray in union with Him. When first a sinner believes in Christ, he only knows and thinks of His merit and intercession. And to the very end that is the one foundation of our confidence. And yet, as the believer grows in grace and enters more deeply and truly into union with Christ--that is, as he abides in Him--he learns that to pray in the Name of Christ also means in His Spirit, and in the possession of His nature, as the Holy Spirit imparts it to us. As we grasp the meaning of the words, "_At that day_ ye shall ask in My Name"--the day when in the Holy Spirit Christ came to live in His disciples--we shall no longer be staggered at the greatness of the promise: "_Whatsoever_ ye shall ask in My Name, I will do it." We shall get some insight into the unchangeable necessity and certainty of the law: what is asked in the Name of Christ, in union with Him, out of His nature and Spirit, must be given. As Christ's prayer-nature lives in us, His prayer-power becomes ours too. Not that the measure of our attainment or experience is the ground of our confidence, but the honesty and whole-heartedness of our surrender to all that we see that Christ seeks to be in us, will be the measure of our spiritual fitness and power to pray in His Name. "If ye abide in Me," He says, "ye shall ask what ye will." As we live in Him, we get the spiritual power to avail ourselves of His Name. As the branch wholly given up to the life and service of the Vine can count upon all its sap and strength for its fruit, so the believer, who in faith has accepted the fulness of the Spirit to possess his whole life, can indeed avail himself of all the power of Christ's Name.
Here on earth Christ as man came to reveal what prayer is. To pray in the Name of Christ we must pray as He prayed on earth; as He taught us to pray; in union with Him, as He now prays in heaven. We must in love study, and in faith accept, Him as our Example, our Teacher, our Intercessor.