Granted Requests

Granted Requests

At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything. I tell you the truth, you will ask the Father directly, and he will grant your request because you use my name. John 16:23

THE DISCIPLES WERE BOTHERED about logistics. Jesus said he was going away. Then he said he would send the Holy Spirit to be with them and in them. Then he said they would not see him for a little while. Then he said they would see him again. The Spirit would take what is from Jesus and declare it to them but also speak truth from the Father. Meanwhile, they would carry his peace. It must have been very confusing.

That’s why the disciples asked Jesus lots of questions during that long discussion the night before his crucifixion. It’s also why Jesus told them plainly that a time was coming soon when the questions would stop. (The literal expression in John 16:23 suggests asking questions of him, not asking him for things.) Instead of trying to sort everything out and get straight answers from Jesus, they would enter into direct conversations with the Father and make requests in the name of Jesus, whose power and glory would then be clear. After Resurrection Sunday, their anxieties would fall away, and their spiritual position would become clear. They would have the same kinds of conversations with the Father that Jesus had been having.

That’s an amazing privilege that comes with an amazing promise. We are sons and daughters of the King, and we can make requests of him in the name of the King’s first Son. We enter into the heavenly conversation not on our own merits but on the credentials of Jesus, carrying petitions bearing his name. All of the shortcomings, insecurities, sins, and impulses of unworthiness we feel are no longer relevant because we are no longer praying in our own names. We have taken on the identity of the Son. As far as the Father is concerned, our requests might as well be coming from his mouth.

Pray with that assurance—and with the expectation that comes with being clothed in Jesus’ identity. He has promised that requests will be granted, and we can believe him. The Son and the Spirit are with us when we pray.

The name of Jesus is a never-failing passport to our prayers.