In John 14:13-14, Jesus says, “I will do whatever you ask in my name,” and “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” So is it Jesus we pray to now?

But Jesus also says in John 15:16 that “the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name,” so is it the Father we pray to? On the other hand, Jesus says in John 16:15, “All that belongs to the Father is mine,” so does that mean the Father has passed everything on to Jesus, and therefore we’re back to Jesus being the one we pray to?

John doesn’t make things any clearer in 1 John 3:21-22 either, when he writes that “we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask.” No mention of whether it’s the Father or Jesus we pray to – just “God.” And just “God” again in 1 John 5:14, when John writes of “the assurance we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”

John doesn’t separate the Father and Jesus as to who answers. But the process by which our prayers are answered does separate them, because in John 15:16 Jesus directs us to the Father as the source of every answer, but in John 3:35, “The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.” All answers to our prayers, therefore, originate with the Father, but the Father has given Jesus the power and authority to make the answers happen.

So when Jesus says in John 15:16, “the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name,” we’re acknowledging the part they both play in answering our requests. 

It also shows that the Father and Jesus are in this together – not only for us, but for each other as well. Jesus, for instance, wants to give all glory to the Father by answering us exactly as his Father wishes, so we come to love the Father like he does. The Father, meanwhile, wants to give all glory to his beloved Son by giving Jesus full power and authority to make his wishes happen, so we come to love his Son like he does. In our prayers to the Father and Jesus, therefore, we’re being drawn into their world – of their love for each other and their love for us. 

But what about the Holy Spirit? “Do we pray to the Holy Spirit too?”….(next blog)

In the book of Acts, when the use of Jesus’ name began, it had nothing to do with ending a prayer. In Acts 2:38, when Peter says to his fellow Jews, “in the name of Jesus Christ your sins may be forgiven,” it wasn’t said in a prayer, or to end a prayer; it was said to direct the Jews’ attention to Jesus being the source of forgiveness. 

The second time “in Jesus’ name” is used is in Acts 3:6, when Peter says to a man crippled from birth, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Again, it wasn’t said in a prayer, or to end a prayer; it was said to direct the Jews’ attention to Jesus being the source of the man’s healing. As Peter said in verse 16, “It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has given this crippled man complete healing.”

The reason for using “in Jesus’ name,” therefore, was to highlight “the God of our fathers glorifying his servant Jesus” (13) and raising him from the dead (15), so that in Jesus – that name and that person – the Father had provided forgiveness and the power to restore broken lives. Which Peter rounds off very nicely in verse 26, that “When God raised up his servant (Jesus), he sent him first to you (Jews) to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.” In Jesus’ name came the promise of forgiveness and the chance for a new life. 

The use of Jesus’ name, therefore, had nothing to do with ending a prayer; it was purely to draw attention to the powers God had given to Jesus as “Lord and Christ” (2:36), including the power to save from death, as Peter made clear in Acts 4:12, that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name by which we must be saved.”  

So where did the idea come from to end every prayer with “in Jesus’ name”? Well, didn’t Jesus say in John 16:26, “In that day you will ask in my name,” and in John 14:13, “I will do whatever you ask in my name”?   

But the reality of what Jesus meant by that is explained in the book of Acts, that the Father would raise Jesus back to life from the dead, so that in Jesus – in his name and position as “Lord and Christ” – the Father’s purpose would continue. And that’s what Jesus’ disciples catch on to in Jesus’ name, that he is the one the Father now wants us turning to, because it’s in what Jesus is doing in and through his disciples that the Father’s work continues (15:8). So “Is it Jesus we pray to now?”….(next blog) 

In John 14:13 Jesus tells his disciples, “I will do whatever you ask in my name,” and again in verse 14, “You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.” Whatever Jesus meant by that, the use of “in my name” carried with it a promise to answer their requests to him. And, what’s more, anyone who believed it “will do what I’ve been doing,” verse 12 – and “do even greater things too, because I’m going to the Father.” 

Jesus “going to the Father” was important for the disciples to know too, because that’s when the Father will “give me all authority in heaven and earth ” (Matthew 28:18). Which means Jesus will also have the power to answer what his disciples ask of him.

To add to that, Jesus has a purpose for answering his disciples’ prayers too, “so that the Son may bring glory to the Father,” John 14:13. And how Jesus brings glory to the Father is in his disciples “bearing much fruit” (15:8), the kind of fruit, that is, that demonstrates in the disciples’ lives what the Father’s purpose is – that he’s restoring humans to what he intended us to be in the beginning.

Three things, then, are connected to asking Jesus “in his name”: promise, power, and purpose. It means he promises to answer, he has the power to answer, and he has a purpose in answering. 

But he’d never told his disciples to specifically “ask in my name” before. It didn’t make any sense either, because why would they need to ask in his name when he was still there with them in person? He was about to die too, so even if they did ask him in his name he couldn’t do what they asked for anyway. So what was Jesus getting at? 

Well, in verse 18, he said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” And come to them he would, not as the physical human they’d been able to ask in person to, but as the resurrected Jesus and the mighty Son of God in the full splendour of his majesty and power. It was that Jesus they’d be praying to in future, “the Jesus whom God had made both Lord and Christ,” Acts 2:36. So when Jesus promised that “anyone who has faith in me will do even greater things,” he meant faith in the Jesus he was about to become, because that’s when he’d truly have the power to fulfill his Father’s purpose in them.

With that in mind, then, “Must we end every prayer ‘in Jesus’ name’?”….(next blog) 

In John 16:26, Jesus tells his disciples that no longer “do I need to ask the Father on your behalf,” because, verse 27, “the Father himself loves you.” Which was great; it meant they could have the same direct and very personal relationship with the Father they’d seen Jesus have. 

Jesus then explains in verse 27 why it is that “the Father loves you” – the reason being, “because you have loved me.” So in approaching the Father take into consideration, Jesus is saying, what the Father loves. As Jesus said back in John 14:21, “He who loves me will be loved by my Father.” 

To experience the love of the Father, then – which was the wonderful new world that would be opening up to the disciples – it was good to know this crucial point about the Father himself, that he loves those who love his Son. In which case, “How do we love his Son?” 

Jesus himself answers that in John 14:21 as well, when he says, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me,” and in verse 23, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.” And in John 15:10, “If you obey my commands you will remain in my love.” And verse 14, “You are my friends if you do what I command.” 

So obeying Jesus is how we love him. And it was no different in how Jesus loved his Father too: “I love the Father,” John 14:31, by “doing exactly what he commanded me.” And in John 15:10, “I have obeyed my Father’s commands and (that’s how I) remain in his love.”

Jesus knew, therefore, what the love of the Father was like, because he’d set his heart on fulfilling exactly what the Father had sent him for, to “testify to what he’d seen and heard” of the Father as being utterly “truthful” (3:32-33). And the Father loved him for it, which Jesus experienced in the Father enabling him to do the grandest job of fulfilling his wishes exactly, and the joy Jesus experienced that came with it. 

And that was exactly what Jesus said would happen to his disciples when they set their hearts on obeying what he was sending them to do, because in them loving him that way, they too would experience the love of the Father in a promise in John 15:16, that “the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” Which sounds amazing, but “What does ‘in my name’ mean?”….(next blog)

Why was it so important for Jesus to say to his disciples in John 16:33, “Take heart, I have overcome the world”? 

He gave two reasons: first of all, that “In this world you will have trouble,” because he knew the world would do to his disciples what it had done to him. And secondly, when that trouble hit, “in me you may have peace.”

Because in an hour or so trouble would hit, and trouble the disciples weren’t prepared for either, because they thought they’d got everything sorted out already. What more did they need to know, or questions did they need to ask when they’d always had Jesus close by with all the answers (29-30)?

But Jesus knew their confidence would evaporate when he was taken from them. They’d scatter off back home, and in Peter’s case even deny knowing Jesus at all. So Jesus told them ahead of time that “You will leave me all alone” (32), but not to criticize them. It was to let them know that, no matter what the world threw at him, he would be able to overcome it all “for my Father is with me.” 

Now that’s something the disciples could relate to, because in the three years they’d been with Jesus they’d noticed the amazing relationship he’d had with the Father. Jesus clearly loved the Father and he knew the Father loved him. He totally trusted the Father as well, to live to perfection in him all that the Father wanted said and done. And when it came to seeking his Father’s will and wisdom Jesus always got an answer. 

But the disciples were merely observers during this time, never experiencing this relationship with the Father themselves, having always relied on Jesus’ relationship with the Father to see them through.

But that was about to change, and in a wonderful way, because with Jesus gone the disciples would receive “another” helper, the Holy Spirit, who would bring Jesus’ relationship with the Father to life in them (14:17-19), so they too would experience it. They too, therefore, could experience the same peace Jesus experienced in his relationship with the Father when trouble hit. That’s why Jesus could say, “Take heart, for I have overcome the world,” knowing they’d discover the Father was with them too. A new world would be opening up to them, therefore, of “The love of the Father”….(next blog)

In John 16:25, Jesus says to his disciples, “I’ve been using figurative language, but no more of that, just plain talk about my Father.”

What Jesus had been aiming at in his “figurative language” about the Father began back in John 14:2, when he told his disciples that “In my Father’s house are many rooms” – to stir a picture in their minds that being with the Father in his home was their ultimate destiny and that’s what Jesus was preparing them for (2-3, 6).

The second analogy Jesus uses about his Father is in John 15:1, when he says, “I’m the true vine and my Father is the gardener.” Again the focus is on their ultimate destiny that the “gardener” Father had planned for them, and again Jesus being the instrumental “vine” in the Father’s garden to bring that purpose about. 

The third analogy Jesus uses about his Father is in John 16:21, when he compares the pain and anguish of a “woman giving birth” and the joy she receives when the baby is born, to the pain and anguish his disciples will feel when he leaves them, but the joy in store for them too when they realize his leaving them is to open up the same direct relationship with the Father for them that he had, in which “my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name” (23). So it’s the same purpose as the other two analogies – to focus their attention on the Father’s plan for them, and Jesus being the one who made it possible. 

But enough of analogies, Jesus says, it’s time now for speaking plainly about his Father. And it’s a simple point Jesus makes in verse 27, that “the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” All these analogies Jesus had been using about his Father, then, were actually – and primarily – about the Father’s love. It’s important to Jesus, then, to get this point about the Father loving them fixed in their heads first. 

But second point, it’s also important to Jesus that his disciples love him too, to focus their minds on him being the ultimate expression and proof of the Father’s love, which is why the Father had sent him – to love them and care for them on his behalf. And it was both these simple points Jesus wanted his disciples to know, because he knew what the world would throw at them after he was gone, and how it was that he was able to say, “I have overcome the world”….(next blog)

When Jesus told his disciples in John 16:20, “your grief will turn to joy,” it’s an amazing promise and it illustrates one of the wonders of God’s creation, that, yes, there’s bound to be suffering and grief in this life of ours – and Jesus didn’t shy away from saying so either – but just as inevitable is the cause of the suffering becoming the cause of joy. 

Jesus illustrates this by “a woman giving birth” (21), which inevitably involves “pain and anguish,” Jesus’ own words. And what is the cause of all that discomfort and worry? The baby. But the suffering only lasts until out pops junior, and unless there are complications all that discomfort and anguish melt into irreplaceable joy. And what is the cause of that joy? Again, it’s the baby. So what caused the suffering for the mother is also what causes her joy. 

“And so with you,” Jesus continues in verse 22, “Now is your time of grief.” And the cause of it? Him. By leaving them he would cause them pain and anguish too; it was the last thing they wanted him to do – “but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” And the cause of their irreplaceable joy? Him again, when he came back to them. So Jesus being the cause of their suffering would also become the cause of their joy. 

And that’s what Jesus wanted his disciples concentrating on, because he knew “a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered each to his own home, and you will leave me all alone” (32). All their love for Jesus, and their belief in him being sent by God (27), and their confidence in him “knowing all things” (30) – all of it would fly out the window when he was taken from them. 

And he wouldn’t be around anymore to answer their questions either (23). So now what? How could that be a cause of joy? Jesus’ answer, same verse: “my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name,” and in the Father’s answer “your joy will be complete” (24). So in Jesus causing them suffering by leaving them it would also become a cause for joy as they experienced the Father himself now answering their requests, just as he had for Jesus.

So they were about to embark on a whole new relationship with the Father, which they’d seen Jesus have but not experienced themselves yet. It was time, then, for some “Plain talk about the Father”….(next blog)

It was Jesus leaving his disciples that stirred his comment to them, “Now is your time of grief” in John 16:22, because he knew they’d miss him terribly. They’d miss sitting and talking with him and asking questions when they were confused. They’d miss his love. They’d miss the peace and joy he exuded too.

Jesus also knew what they were in for after he left them, like “the world hating you” (15:18-19) and persecuting them just like they persecuted him (20). People would even “kill them believing they were doing God a service” (16:2). And while his disciples would “weep and mourn” at his leaving, “the world would be rejoicing” that he’d gone (16:20). So how could it be “for your good that I’m going away” (16:7)? 

Jesus answered that in the second part of John 16:22. “Now is your time of grief – but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” So yes, “You will grieve,” verse 20, “but your grief will turn to joy.” 

And their grief did turn to joy when he came back to them after he was killed. But that wasn’t the joy Jesus was really getting at, because as he said in verse 28, “I’m leaving the world and going back to the Father,” so he’d be leaving them again and this time permanently. So where would their joy come from then? 

Jesus answered that in verse 23, when he told them the time was coming when “you will no longer ask me anything,” because “my Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name.” Up to that point they’d never asked the Father directly for anything (24), because they’d always had Jesus to go to. But Jesus knew the real source of joy was his Father. It was in “asking and receiving” from the Father, therefore, that “your joy will be complete” (24).

Jesus wanted them to get the point that “the Father himself loves you” (27), so when asking the Father “in my name” it didn’t mean Jesus would do the asking on their behalf (26). Now they could go directly to the Father just as Jesus had done, and the Father himself would answer (15:16). And the reason he’d answer was “because you have loved me” (16:27), which is why we pray in Jesus’ name, in recognition of our love for him and the Father’s love for him for “entering our world” (28) to make our direct access to the Father possible. Which his disciples would need, because the Father is the expert at “Turning grief into joy”….(next blog)

In John 15:11 Jesus says to his disciples, “I told you this to fill you with my joy, real joy filled to the brim.” And the source of such joy? “Remaining in his love” (9) by loving each other as he’d loved them (12). 

In other words, joy, the kind Jesus experienced as a human, comes from loving and being loved. Jesus knew he was deeply loved by his Father and remained in his love always, which in itself was a source of great joy to Jesus, but included in his joy in verse 9, was loving others with the same love his Father had for him. 

And that’s the joy Jesus wishes on us. He got that point across in verse 13, when he said, “There’s no greater love than laying one’s life down for one’s friends.” And I imagine his disciples nodding in agreement, because the willingness to sacrifice one’s life for someone was such an obvious sign of love. But then Jesus says in verse 14, “You are my friends,” because that’s how much he loved them too. 

So they got the point that they were deeply loved. But Jesus then added that being his friends also included “if you do what I command” (14), because it was in his command for them to love each other like he’d loved them (12) that would fill their joy to the brim, or make their joy “complete” as other translations phrase it. 

So again it was both: joy included both being loved and being able to love. But, Jesus added, it was able to love on an even higher scale than love for each other, because back in John 14:21 Jesus told his disciples, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” Included in joy, then, would be the ability to love Jesus too. And it didn’t stop there either, because Jesus adds in verse 21, “He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him” – so both he and the Father would be constantly showing the disciples how much they were loved.

So Jesus keeps pouring in the reasons for joy, which must have seemed overwhelming to the disciples, because how could they fill up on them all? Jesus’ answer was: “my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (16:23-24). In other words, recognize the source of such joy. It comes from the Father who gave it to Jesus who gives it to us. It’s a gift just begging to be asked for. But didn’t Jesus also say, “Now is your time of grief”?….(next blog)  

In John 15:9, Jesus told his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”

Which may not have been that difficult for the disciples to grasp because they’d “remained” in his love for the last three plus years. He’d deeply loved them and they’d grown to love him – but that meant they’d be “filled with grief” when he left them (16:5-6), so how could they “remain” in his love when they couldn’t see or feel his love in person anymore? 

Jesus answered that in John 15:10, when he told his disciples, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” And Jesus was speaking from experience too, because his Father had not been with him in person either, yet he’d lived as a human in the constant knowledge of his Father’s love. Fortunately, then, he knew from his own experience the exact combination to open that lock for his disciples too. 

The combination being obeying known commands. And that was exactly the same for Jesus as it was for his disciples. But how do the two tie in together? How, for instance, did obeying his Father’s commands translate into Jesus knowing his Father deeply loved him?

Well, what did his Father command him to do, first of all? Jesus answered that back in John 10:18, when he actually spoke of the “command I received from my Father,” the exact command being to “lay down my life for the sheep” (15), which he willingly did “of my own accord” (18).” And that was “the reason my Father loves me” (17). He knew his Father loved him, because that’s what the Father made Jesus fully aware of in response to Jesus’ willingness to lay down his life for his disciples. 

Which takes us back to John 15:12 and Jesus’ specific command to his disciples, which was to “Love each other as I have loved you.” In other words, “lay down your life for others like I laid down my life for you.” Which is exactly what Jesus went on to say in verse 13, that “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” Result? For their willingness to lay down their lives for each other, Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command” (14). Like his Father did for him, Jesus makes it known to us that we are his dearest friends, constantly and always, to which he adds: “So that my joy may be in you”….(next blog)