THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE FULL

T

ruly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the father,

he will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked

nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive,...

John 16:23-24

.....and the lack of joy in many of our lives can be traced back to just this:

We're afraid to take hold of this promise.

We don't want to stick our necks out anymore. What if we ask and nothing happens? Then the few drops of faith we have left will go down the drain, and we'll have nothing.

Better to keep it vague.

Better to pray in generalities.

"Dear God, bless all the people in the world.

Bless all the brothers and sisters in the fellowship.

Help everyone in trouble."

0, there was a time when we got specific and we saw fantastic answers to prayer. But then it seems we hit a season when,

- we prayed for certain things, and nothing happened,

- we cried out for that mountain to move and it was still there

and we felt like fools.

So, we thought.....

Maybe those early answers to prayer were only coincidence.

Or, maybe God has withdrawn from that miraculous relationship

with Him we once seemed to have.

Or, maybe when the honeymoon is over we're not supposed to

get answers to prayer in the same way.

So now we're cautious. That boldness we once had is gone. And now our prayers are more monologue than prayer.

We still say the words,

"Lord, help us.....

Lord, give us.....

Lord, open those doors....

Lord, send forth your light."

But we know even as we're speaking these words, that we aren't really expecting much to happen. All we're doing is "saying our prayers."

No wonder we can't find time to pray!

No wonder our minds travel around the world and back when we're trying to pray!

- We're not expecting anything.

- We're not claiming the riches of our heavenly Father.

- We're "doing our duty."

If we really believed that the God of this universe is listening to our prayer, that we have a heavenly Father lovingly drinking in every word .... I say, if we really believed that, there wouldn't be a person reading this who'd come around with the excuse "I can't find time to pray."

We'd find time to pray if we had to quit eating!

Let's admit it. Our problem with prayer is that most of the time it isn't prayer at all.

- We don't really believe God is listening.

- We don't really believe God is interested.

- We don't expect anything to come of it.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the

Father in my name, He will give it to you. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask and you will receive that your joy may be full."

With this promise Jesus is calling us into His prayer life, calling us into the very communion with the Father that He had during His life of flesh and blood, offering us the privilege of praying the way He prayed.

In that day you will ask in my name and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and

because you have believed that I came from the Father.

Everything that Jesus did for us,

- His death on the Cross,

- His resurrection,

- His ascension to the right hand of the Father,

- His outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church,

was done so that we might now be able to come boldly, confidently, joyfully, and with praise into the presence of God, and ask, and know that a loving Father is listening to every word we say.

If this isn't happening in our lives, if we're not coming before the Father's Throne and asking and receiving, this means that the purpose of our Lord's death is not being fulfilled in us. Jesus didn't atone for our sins for some future showdown, He atoned for our sins so that we could come into the presence of the Holy God now!

The first sign that our lives have really come under the power of His blood is that we are able to come into the Father's presence and really pray.

- If our prayers are weak,

then our salvation is weak.

- If our prayers are weak,

our experience of our Lord's resurrection is

bound to be weak.

- If our prayers are weak,

our vision of the ascended Lamb is weak.

And when these things are weak, what can our daily walk be? How can our practice of love toward our brother be anything but weak? How can our witness to the world out there be anything but weak?

"Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name."

It's not a matter of learning certain truths about prayer and applying them, it's a matter of entering into the mind and spirit of the Lord Jesus Himself and praying to the Father. That's what it means to pray in Jesus' name. Not merely tacking the magic words, "In Jesus' name" on the end of our prayer, and hoping they will make something happen, but being lifted right up into the mind of the Son of God.

"And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba! Father!"

To pray in Jesus' name is,

- to yield to the Spirit of the Son,

- to obey the Spirit,

- to submit to the Spirit.

Then prayer becomes living, burning, unselfconscious, free communion

with the living God. And things happen!

- What we bind on earth is bound in heaven.

- What we loose on earth is loosed in heaven.

- What we claim on earth is released in heaven.

Doors open. Mountains move. Walls come crumbling down.

The prayers we see being prayed in the Book of Acts, or in Paul's writings, or in Revelation don't come from earth. They come from heaven. They breathe with the Spirit of Christ. Men and women of flesh praying prayers with a wisdom and a liberty which are utterly beyond them. They're talking to the Father as they never talked to the Father before Calvary and Pentecost.

What a change we see in Peter from the old days. Now Peter is a man of divine authority and the root of that authority is inspired prayer.

- He kneels by the dead body of Dorcas and prays and calls her back to life.

- He goes up on the rooftop to pray and learns he'll have to take the gospel to a Gentile household — an unheard of thing.

When Peter's in prison, earnest prayer is made to God for him by the church, and the prison opens for him.

These people weren't just "saying their prayers", they weren't just holding "prayer meetings", they were a people gathered into the name of Jesus,

- thinking with the mind of Christ,

- seeing with His eyes,

- hearing with His ears, loving with His heart,

- and, above all, inspired by His Spirit as they called upon the Father.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name..... Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name."

We need to learn to enter into the name of Jesus.

We need to learn to pass out of ourselves and enter into our Lord; into His mind.

Into His will.

Into His nature.

Into His love for the Father.

Into His love for this sick race.

And pray to the Father, not in ourselves, but in Him.

There are two things we need to remember that will really help us to be in Christ when we pray:

1. Every prayer we pray to the Father is based on the Son's death.

No matter what you're asking. If you're asking the Father for forgiveness, for peace,

or wisdom,

or healing,

or help with a financial problem,

or guidance for one of your children,

or deliverance for a brother or sister,

the basis of your prayer — the one thing that gives you the privilege of calling upon the Holy God — is the blood of Jesus.

Every time you really pray, you're standing at the cross. The more clearly you see that, the more boldness you'll have.

Sometimes we go through all kinds of acrobatics to try to prove to God that we're really sincere, or that we really have faith, that we really deserve an answer — "after all, we are more religious than most people."! That doesn't mean a thing. That doesn't give you any leverage with God. It's the fact that Jesus died and washed away your guilt that enables you to come now as a real son of the Father, a true daughter of Yahweh, and ask.

And who sent the Son to die for your sins? Who caused Calvary to happen? Why the very God you're talking to! The same love that sent His only begotten to die is now listening to the cry of our heart!

Not anger,

not wrath,

not indifference, but unspeakable love that knows you by name and everything about you and is pleased to call Himself your Father!

2. Every prayer we pray is made possible by the Holy Spirit.

You couldn't address a single word, or cry, or groan to the heavenly

Father if the Holy Spirit weren't moving on your mind helping you.

You don't have it in you to pray. You have neither the faith nor the vision. It's the Spirit of the Son poured out upon you from on high who helps you from within.

Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8:26-27

So when we yield to the Spirit who stirs in our hearts, we don't pray "off the wall." We pray with the mind of Christ. Now we ask what needs to be asked. We ask for things we wouldn't have dared asked for or would never have thought to ask for, and we receive, and our joy is full.

There are miracles hanging over our heads waiting to come down the

minute we abandon ourselves to the Spirit of Christ and ask, as He leads us.

Before we can expect to go out into the world and speak forth the Word of the living God with authority, we have to learn to go into the Holy of Holies and stand before the Father in Jesus' name, and ask and receive.

The same unbelief and fear that keep us from going out to the world with boldness are also keeping us from going into the Holy of Holies and claiming our Lord's promise.

So, He tells us as a body, and as individuals, whose prayers are far from the joyful, refreshing, heavenly thing they should be,

"Draw near to the Father. Don't be afraid."

Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name,

He will give it to you.