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IN THE NAME OF JESUS by Harold Smith |
"Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My Name He will give you." John 16:23How many times have we said the words, "In The Name of Jesus…"? When we sit down to a meal they are said. When we gather for fellowship we use them. When we are bereaved over loved ones they are intensely inflected. When our financial horizon looks bleak, we envelop our words with them, hoping they will help to turn our fortunes around. Just about any time we offer up a prayer of any kind, we tag our wants and needs with what has become a formulistic catch-all phrase that we believe will supernaturally open up the windows of heaven and cause God to answer our plea. |
But what do they really mean? And do they really - I mean, really - work?
In most cases, the words, "In Jesus' Name" have become ritualized onto the end of a prayer because of the scripture found in the gospel of John quoted above. We certainly want Him to give to us and if this is the way to get it - then, by all means, let us be sure to mouth the proper words in the proper order. The problem I ran into was that after years spent uttering those words, I really did not see much difference in the way and manner God chose to answer my prayers with them or without them. I thought, maybe I wasn't doing something right.
"You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on yourself (your selfish wants, desires and needs)." James 4:3
"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain." Exodus 20:7 Vain means to use for selfish purposes. Vanity is when we become consumed with self.
Innocently, I began to ask, "Well, then Lord, what is Your Name and how should I use it?" When I introduce myself to someone, I say, "My name is…", or, "I am so and so." In like fashion, I thought that, if I were to invoke His Name, I should at least be aware of what that Name is. A search of the Bible turned up over a hundred different names and titles of Jesus and God, but none of that research seemed to give definition to my quest. Interestingly, however, I found that Moses had asked that very question of God in Exodus, chapter 3.
Then Moses said to God, "Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?" And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" Moreover God said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: 'The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My Name forever...'"
His Name is I AM: Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM." John 8:58, thus equating Himself with God.
"Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him (Moses) there, and proclaimed the NAME of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation." Exodus 34:5-7
So, we see that God Himself has proclaimed His Name to have many facets - Mercy, Grace, Longsuffering, Goodness, Truth, Forgiveness; and from the book of Matthew we can add Meekness (for wherever He says "I AM" He is declaring His Name): "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I AM meek (gentile) and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matt.11:29.
These attributes sounded resoundingly familiar to something I had also read in the New Testament: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. Against such there is no law." Galatians 5:22, 23 The Amplified Version puts it this way: "But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness, gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things there is no law [that can bring a charge]."
For most of us, when we read these words concerning the Fruit of the Spirit, we immediately associate them with the feelings we have come to know about some of them. We have an idea of what love, joy and peace feel like so the rest of those listed must have some similar association with a feeling - right? I thought so, until one day the Lord asked me what it was like to "feel" longsuffering. I had to admit that I had never felt longsuffering. Have you ever felt self-control? These attributes are not based in feeling, but are things that are done. It was with this same eye that I began to take another look at how the Fruit of the Spirit is manifested in my life. When I consider love as something that I just do, rather than waiting on a feeling of love to arrive, it then becomes an act of my will whether to exercise it or not. The same is true of peace - I can choose to exercise peace in the midst of chaos. If I were to wait on a "feeling" of peace before acting, it might never come and I might not ever "do" peace. I have never "felt" patient. Patience is something I simply exhibit - I "am" patient when I wait in line. Thus, if I look at all those fruit listed as acts rather than feelings, then I don't have to wait around for some supernatural impression or goose-bump to arrive before I do something because I am already empowered within to do it. I can then choose to be kind in the face of harshness. With each situation I find myself in, it can be approached from a standpoint of "how should I do" rather than "what should I do."
They are not called fruit by chance. One day, as I was beholding the beauty of an apple tree, the Lord asked me, "Have you ever seen a fruit tree eat of its own fruit?" I had to say, I had never seen an apple tree reach out and begin to munch on its own apples. That fruit is there for others passing by. That tree grows its fruit for the benefit of others to enjoy.
We can start living as He lived - today, with those we find around us in our immediate vicinity - just by extending the Fruit of the Spirit that we already have residing in us, growing in us, to those we find in front of us right now. You know, that apple tree has absolutely no pre-occupation with exporting his apples somewhere else. He just grows them so that those in the space right around where he is planted can enjoy the sweetness of his fruit.
It was becoming increasingly clear to me that the Name of Jesus was more than just a mere utterance - that it was, in fact, the essence of Who He Is! I then came across this verse from John: "I Am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." John 15:5. This word "abide" comes from the Greek word meno {men'-o} which means to remain or continue to be in a particular state or condition.
This is what Jesus meant when He proclaimed: "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill." Matthew 5:17. fulfill (pleroo {play-ro'-o}) means - to cause to abound, to furnish or supply liberally. He became the law. He was the embodiment of the law. The dictionary defines "embodiment" as to give a body to, or to make a spirit perceptible.
If we follow the example that Jesus set for us to live, by choosing to exercise the Fruit of His Spirit in our life, then just as He became the embodiment of the law (and He summed up what the law was in Matthew 22:36-40 - to love the Lord with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself) as we embody His Name we become the expression of His Name. We ABIDE IN HIM as we BECOME HIS NAME. As we BECOME HIS NAME "love" to the unlovely; as we BECOME HIS NAME "joy" (gladness) for the broken-hearted; as we BECOME HIS NAME "peace" toward those who harbor resentment; as we BECOME HIS NAME "patient" with those who exercise us; as we BECOME HIS NAME "gentile" and "kind" toward those to whom hardness and harshness have overwhelmed; as we BECOME HIS NAME "faithful" to the demanding and the needy; as we BECOME HIS NAME "restrained" (self-control) in the face of those whom excess has overtaken - we then BECOME the embodiment of HIS NAME, because that is who He has declared Himself to be. Once we "abide in Him", once we are "IN HIS NAME" we can then ask what we will of the Father and it will be granted to us because we are no longer asking for ourselves, but for those to whom we minister.
Our utterances of "In His Name" or "In the Name of Jesus" then become, not a plea, but a proclamation of who He is in the midst of the circumstance we find ourselves in. He thus becomes glorified in our actions as our behavior begins to mimic His. He becomes manifest in the earth through us and we, the embodiment (making perceptible the Spirit) of who He is, become the manifestation of the Sons of God (Romans 8:18-19).
…..and (as it was with Jesus first, and then the early church) the dynamic, supernatural, overwhelming power of Almighty God will be unleashed through us and around us to affect and to change the immediate world we live in. YOU can do this. If YOU abide in the Jesus living within you (you have all the attributes of His Spirit residing in you once you have embraced Him), YOU have the power within you to change people's lives for all of eternity - just like Jesus did. YOU - not somebody else - can walk and move and have your being in the fullness of the power of who Jesus is …TODAY!