Quinquagesima Week – Saturday

“If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it“. — John 14:14.

Jesus instilled His despondent disciples with courage in that night by giving them a great and sure promise. He said: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto My Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:12-14).

Through faith in Him, His disciples were to be men of God’s power on earth. They were to do the works that He had done, and greater still. For while Jesus preached, and did signs and wonders, and brought people to faith in Him in but a small nook of the earth, they were to go into all the world, and preach the Gospel, and do signs and wonders, and bring many more people to faith in Him than He had done Himself! And such power He would give them when, through suffering and death, He would enter into the glory of His Father. And if they would pray in His name, trusting in Him and believing His promise, they would always be endowed with such power from Him, in order that the Father might be properly known and glorified in Him, in whom alone the Father is truly revealed and made known to mankind. And the Lord assured them: “If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it.“

What Jesus emphasizes to His disciples, as well as to us, is the special relationship that all true believers have with the Father by faith in His Son. The Father loves all of Jesus’ disciples because of their faith and love for His Son, that Son “in whom” God is “well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). By faith in Jesus, we poor sinners, who, by nature, are God’s enemies, become God’s children. As God’s children, the Father has the same love toward us as He does for His Son, hearing and answering our fervent prayers, asked in Jesus’ name, that is, in true faith and love for His Son. What else in the world could possibly be a greater motivator to bring our petitions, that is, our prayers and praises, to the Father, than His assurance that He has such a great paternal love for us through the work of His Son? St. John wrote in his First Epistle: “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him” (I John 5:14-15).

As those who believe in the precious Savior and who love Him because of His redemption, be confident of the Father’s love in Christ Jesus toward you, dear brethren!

PRAYER – Almighty God, who has promised to hear the petitions of those who ask in Thy Son’s name, I beseech Thee, mercifully to incline Thine ears to me, and grant that those things which I have faithfully asked according to Thy will, may effectually be obtained to the relief of my necessity and to the setting forth of Thy glory, through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, my Lord and only Savior. Amen.

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry, everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit; oh, what needless pain we bear;
all because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer!

(Hymn 457, st. 1; TLH)