DAILY DEVOTIONAL – December 6, 2019

“Whatever” 

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved.  Your name is holy and powerful.  We pray that by Your grace we would live in such a way that brings glory to Your name in all that we do.  Amen.

Scripture: John 14:8-14

⁸ Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹ Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

¹² “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.¹³ Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Devotional – “Whatever”

Here is a riddle for you.  The following three questions all have the same answer.

• What do you use every single day, but never pay for?
• What is truly yours but came from somewhere else?
• What is very personal but shared with everyone?

The answer: your name.

In our western culture that has become obsessed with the supreme importance of individuality and the endless application of labels in order to preserve that individuality, I often feel that we have lost the value and significance of a name.

For most of human history and still today throughout many cultures in the world, a person’s name, your name, is far more than just a series of letters used to create a label and spoken to get someone’s attention.   Outside of certain circumstances such as when interviewing someone or talking about them to others, when you and I call each other by name on a daily basis we don’t often, if at all, think about all that is behind that name and the whole person that the name represents.  The very opposite was true in the culture and times of the Bible.

Think about how people were often referred to in Scripture.  Take the disciples for example.  There was “James and John the sons of Zebedee” who were known by who their father was.  There was “Nathan of Cana” and “Judas Iscariot” and “Saul of Tarsus” and of course “Jesus of Nazareth”, all names given meaning by their land of origin.  There was “Simon the Zealot” and “Matthew the tax collector” who were named and known for their profession.

It wasn’t only people whose names and identity were understood as being in relation to other people and other things.  Even God revealed Himself as a God who is to be identified in relation with His people.  Time and again God said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”  The very nature of God Himself in Trinity is understood relationally as God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  Jesus’ favorite name for Himself as the Son of God was the “Son of Man”, recalling the vision of Daniel in chapter 7.

Our text for today in John 14 I believe ranks as one of the most misunderstood and abused texts in our day.  Countless false teachers present the name of Jesus as if it were a mystical utterance or magic name that when used in prayer necessitates that God will provide the desired outcome.  The name of Jesus is not three syllables, but two, and His precious and holy name was not given to us as a means to an end or as a way to “name and claim” the promises of God and misinterpret them in an attempt to satisfy the desires of our flesh.

When Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son”, that is exactly what he means.  Whatever we ask in HIS name, which means not “Jesus” the label or title, but where Jesus came from, who His Father is, and who He is as understood by what He has done.  Jesus said, “whatever you ask in my name.”  This means that whatever we ask in His name, we ask in accordance with who He is as the eternal Son of God through whom all things were made and for whom all things were made, and in accordance with who He is as the Suffering Servant and Son of Man who came not to be served but to serve by giving His life on the cross in order to pay for our sins, and in accordance with who He is as the resurrected and Risen Lord of lords and King of kings who answers to no one and who is sufficient in and of Himself and works all things according to His good pleasure, not ours.

When we pray and petition our Lord in the name of Jesus Christ, we do so understanding that as Jesus said, “whatever you ask in my name, this I will do.”  It is Christ who works out the will of God in our life, not us, and Christ will only do what is the will of God the Father.  If what we ask for, even in Jesus’ name, is not God’s will for us then it simply will not come to pass.

Most importantly, whatever it is our Lord does in our life and no matter what His answer is to our prayers in His name, Jesus does only what brings glory to our heavenly Father and for the praise of His name.  To pray in accordance with who He is and has revealed Himself to be, in accordance with what He has done and has promised to do, in accordance with His will that is far above the understanding of sinful men and in accordance with whatever it is that glorifies God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord – that is what it means to ask for anything in Jesus’ name and have full confidence that He will prove faithful to do what we ask and provide what we need, because we ask in HIS name.

To put it bluntly and simply, Jesus promised to do whatever it is we ask in His name because when we understand Him correctly and pray understanding all that His name is, we ask God to do what He already is doing for His Name’s sake.

When we pray in the Name of our Lord who has seen each of our days before one of them came to pass, He may answer by saying “no” if what we ask of Him is not in accordance with His good and perfect will for our life.  When we pray in the Name of our Lord who gave up everything so that we might receive the favor of God, He may answer “yes” and grant us our request for His glory.  When we pray in the Name of our Lord who is so long suffering in His patience with us, He may answer by saying “endure faithfully” as He grants us the privilege of sharing in the sufferings of Christ.

It is with such faith in the name of Jesus, and all that His name means, that Paul says in Philippians 4, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. ¹² I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. ¹³ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

My friends, we have every reason to rejoice knowing that our Lord Jesus has given us His mighty name, that we would believe in it and live by it.  We can be satisfied in all circumstances knowing that as 2 Corinthians 1:19 says, “All the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.”

Thanks for joining me in devotion today.  Remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow.  Amen.