Praying In Jesus’ Name (4)

March 16, 2012 Leave a comment

With this post I want to deal with yet another aspect of what it means to pray in Jesus’ name. The new aspect goes like this: To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray with an understanding of the limitless power such praying offers. Christian, I’m not trying to swell your head with this one, but I do want you to realize just exactly what Jesus said in John 14:12-14 concerning praying in His name. Read His words again and let them sink down into your soul:

Most assuredly, 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 My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.

Now, before you run off and become a “name it and claim” kind of Christian, let me remind you of my second post from this series. There I explained that to pray in Jesus’ name is to pray in submission to God’s will. This means that words such as “whatever” and “anything” must always be viewed through the lens of God’s will. Not only is this implied in the New Testament, there is even a passage that comes right out and says it. That passage is 1st John 5:14-15, and it’s worth mentioning that it was written by the same John who wrote John 14:12-14. The passage reads:

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

And so, you see, it’s clear that Jesus never intended for His followers to turn God the Father into a wish-granting genie via their prayers. Let’s be clear about that. But, with that fully understood, let’s not water down what Jesus did teach about prayer either. He said, “The one who believes in Me and asks for things in My name will do even greater works than I have done.” What an astounding thought!

Jesus walked on the water. Jesus fed thousands with a boy’s lunch and had food left over. Jesus turned water into wine. Jesus healed the sick. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. How could Christians, even praying Christians, do greater works than these? The answer is: Our works can be greater in extent.

Remember that Jesus, in His earthly body, was confined to one place at one time and spent His entire life in one small part of the world. Furthermore, His public ministry only lasted for three-and-a-half years. Jesus didn’t preach a sermon that led 3,000 people to get saved. But Peter did (Acts 2:14-41). Jesus didn’t take the gospel throughout the entirety of the Roman empire. But Paul did. Jesus didn’t start churches wherever He went or write the books of the New Testament. But His followers did. And these works were greater in extent than even Christ’s earthly works.

Therefore, Christian, never be guilty of underestimating the incredible power of prayer. As James 4:2 says:

…you do not have because you do not ask.

A church got a new pastor, and the first Sunday the man was there he walked to the pulpit and said, “Let us pray.” Then he proceeded to pray for ten minutes. When the service was over, one church member said to another, “Boy, we’ve sure got a good pastor now. He asks God for all kinds of things our other pastors didn’t even know were available.” Christian, don’t you be like those previous pastors. Lay claim to the fact that praying “in Jesus’ name” means praying in POWER. The only requests that lay outside that power are those that lay outside God’s will for your life. Other than those, have at it with your asking! Who knows what “greater works” the Lord might have in mind to pour out in your life?

Filed under Christ's miracles, Desires, God's Omnipotence, God's Provision, God's Will, God's Work, prayer, Prayer Requests Tagged with , , , , ,

Don’t Bail Out

January 24, 2012 Leave a comment

A pilot announced to his passengers that three of the plane’s four engines had conked out. A few seconds later he came out of the cockpit, walked past them, and put on a parachute. He opened up the back door and just before jumping said, “Don’t worry folks, I’m going for help.”

This world is filled with people who will bail out on a difficult circumstance when the sledding gets rough. They won’t be going for help either; they’ll be looking out for themselves. Sadly, too many times this applies to how we Christians relate to following Jesus.

One of the most somber questions that Jesus ever asked is found in John 6:67. Let me set the context for you. A tremendous crowd of 5,000 men (not counting women and children) gathered around Jesus to hear Him teach near the slope of a mountain hovering over the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus miraculously fed this crowd by using a young boy’s lunch of five loaves of bread and two small fish. Following this miracle, the crowd tried to take Him by force and make Him their earthly king. Wanting no part of such an election, He dispersed them, commanded the twelve to get in a boat and cross over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and went up into a mountain alone.

That night a terrible windstorm swept down onto the Sea of Galilee, preventing the twelve from making much headway to the other shore. When they reached a state of exhaustion and despair for their lives, Jesus walked on the water, calmed the storm, and joined them in the boat. At that point the boat was miraculously transported to the other shore.

The following morning many of the original crowd got into boats and crossed over to find Jesus. They caught up with Him in a synagogue in Capernaum. Shortly afterward, Jesus accused these people of only following Him for His miracles. Then He launched into a weird teaching about Him being the bread of life and how they needed to eat of His flesh. You talk about throwing cold water onto a fickle bunch! When the teaching was finished, they turned away and never followed Jesus again. Just as He had said, they were only interested in following Him as long as the miracles were rolling and the teachings were pleasant and easy to understand.

It’s at that critical moment that Jesus looked at His chosen twelve and asked the penetrating question, “Do you also want to go away?” Some of them may have, but Peter spoke up before anybody else could answer. He said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Good for you, Peter!

Tell me, Christian, are you right now going through a difficult time with the Lord? Are you confused? Are you frustrated? Are you out of heart? Has He hurt your feelings? Trust me, you aren’t the first to go down such a road. The question is, how will you respond? Will you turn back from following Christ? Or will you, like Peter, understand that turning away from Him is akin to turning away from the source of life and truth? Please understand that I’m not talking about a Christian possibly losing his or her salvation. As the old saying goes, “once saved, always saved.” What I’m talking about is breaking fellowship with the Lord and bailing out on what He is trying to teach you through your difficult times. Trust me, such a bail out might provide a modicum of temporary relief, but in the end you’ll come to know all too well that you should have stayed on the plane with your Savior.

Filed under Adversity, Backsliding, Choices, Christ's miracles, Commitment, Disappointment, Discipleship, Eternal Security, faithfulness, perseverance, Problems, Rebellion, Truth Tagged with , , , , ,

What Does the Bible Teach About Drinking Alcohol? (6)

October 20, 2011 Leave a comment

Christ’s changing of the water into wine is one of His more famous miracles. It’s also one of His most debated. Some folks absolutely cringe at the very notion of Jesus devoting a miracle to making alcoholic wine. They say, “It had to be grape juice because the Lord isn’t a bootlegger.”

The problem with that line of interpretation is that it doesn’t really fit the story itself as the Bible presents it in John 2:1-11. I’m not trying to offend anyone or create a fuss. I’m simply trying to let the story read the way it reads and understand it correctly. And when we do that we see that there are at least two solid reasons why we should believe that the wine really was of the intoxicating variety.

Reason #1: The Greek word the story uses for wine in verses 3, 9, and 10 is oinos. As we learned in the first post from this series, this word clearly refers to alcoholic wine. It’s used in Ephesians 5:18, 1 Timothy 5:23, and Titus 2:3, and in those passages it obviously means wine that will make you drunk if you imbibe too much of it. As we learned in the previous post, if John had wanted to convey the idea that Jesus turned the water into grape juice, all he had to do was use different Greek wording, wording such as we find in Matthew 26:29, Mark 14:25, and Luke 22:18. Also let’s not forget that John wrote under nothing less than the inspiration of God Himself (1 Timothy 3:16). So if God wanted to clear up any confusion about the wine actually being grape juice, He could have easily done so by simply inspiring John to use different Greek terminology. At the bottom line, renowned Greek scholar Dr. Marvin Vincent, in his Word Studies In The New Testament, sums the matter up perfectly when he says, “In every instance of its use in the New Testament the word means intoxication.”

Reason #2: The words from the master of the feast make little sense if the wine was grape juice. He said, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now” (John 2:10). Now you tell me, what would be the advantage of serving the inferior wine later? You know. I’m not saying the guests would have been so wasted that they wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference in the quality. (To the contrary, the fact that the master of the feast could tell the difference between the first wine and Christ’s wine proves positively that he wasn’t drunk). But let’s at least admit that their moods would have been better and their taste buds more agreeable. Remember that the Bible makes no bones about the fact that wine makes the heart merry (Judges 9:13; Ruth 3:7; 2 Samuel 13:28; Esther 1:10; Psalm 31:6; Psalm 104:15; Ecclesiastes 9:7; and Ecclesiastes 10:19). By the way, the argument that Jesus wouldn’t have made such a vast amount of alcoholic wine (between 120 and 180 gallons) for one wedding celebration fails to consider that a large Jewish wedding of that day would last for seven days and play host to dozens upon dozens of guests. Furthermore, the argument that Jesus making alcoholic wine would have violated Habakkuk 2:15 doesn’t hold either because the prohibition there is against forcing someone to get drunk so that you can engage in sexual sin with that person. Jewish weddings never descended into the realm of drunken orgies.

And so, in conclusion, these two valid reasons leave us to believe that Jesus turned the water into alcoholic wine. Now was that wine as potent as the wine of our day? Oh, I’m glad you asked that question because I’m going to devote my next post to answering it. So I’ll ask you to hang with me and stay tuned.

Filed under alcohol, Christ's miracles Tagged with , , , , , ,

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