If you’ve spent much time in church, you’ve no doubt heard someone end a prayer by saying, “And we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.” But have you ever wondered what all is involved with praying “in Jesus’ name”? Well, to help you with that, I’d like to devote a series of posts to the subject.

I’ll begin by giving you the Bible passage from which we draw this whole idea. It’s John 14:12-14, where Jesus says to His chosen twelve apostles:

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. (N.K.J.V.)

Okay, now that we have quoted the passage, the first thing we need to learn about praying in Jesus’ name is this: It can only be done by a Christian. And before you label me a bigot for saying such a thing, please note that Jesus addresses His words specifically to “he who believes in Me.” That narrows the field down quite a bit, doesn’t it?

The fact is, there are a lot of people out there praying. It’s even become a cliche for politicians and celebrities to say to the victims of some tragedy, “You are in our prayers.” That sounds so compassionate and comforting, doesn’t it? What we must question, however, is the level of power in such prayers.

You see, real power in prayer comes from praying in Jesus’ name, and the only people who can legitimately pray in Jesus’ name are Christians. Oh, sure, lost people can mouth the words “in Jesus’ name” at the end of their prayers, but that doesn’t mean those people have truly prayed in Jesus’ name. It just doesn’t work that way.

In the next few posts, we are going to learn the incredible importance of these words, “in Jesus’ name.” What we are going to find is that the words are not only the key to an effective prayer life but also to living the Christian life. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself, and so for now I’ll just ask you to stay tuned. For this first post, we’ve begun where we had to begin: at the beginning. Now that we’ve laid the necessary foundation for the topic, we can start building the levels necessary to complete the task.