An Unknown Christian

The Kneeling Christian

Chapter 6
How Shall I Pray?

HOW shall I pray? Could there be a more important question
for a Christian man to ask? How shall I approach the King
of Glory?

When we read Christ’s promises regarding prayer we are
apt to think that He puts far too great a power into our
hands — unless, indeed, we hastily conclude that it is
impossible for Him to act as He promises. He says, ask
“anything,” “whatsoever,” “what ye
will,” and it shall be done.

But then He puts in a qualifying phrase. He says that we
are to ask in His name. That is the condition, and the only
one, although, as we shall remind ourselves later on, it is
sometimes couched in different words.

If, therefore, we ask and do not receive, it can only be
that we are not fulfilling this condition. If then, we are
true disciples of His — if we are sincere — we shall take
pains (infinite pains, if need be) to discover just what it
means to ask in His name; and we shall not rest content
until we have fulfilled that condition. Let us read the
promise again to be quite sure about it. “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 xiv. 13, 14).

This was something quite new, for our Lord said so.
“Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name,” but
now, “ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be
full” (John xvi. 24).

Five times over our Lord repeats this simple condition,
“In my name” (John xiv. 13, 14; xv. 16; xvi. 23,
24, 26). Evidently something very important is here
implied. It is more than a condition — it is also a
promise, an encouragement, for our Lord’s biddings are
always His enablings. What, then, does it mean to ask in
His name? We must know this at all costs, for it is the
secret of all power in prayer. And it is possible to make a
wrong use of those words. Our Lord said, “Many shall
come in my name, saying, ‘I am Christ,’ and shall
deceive many” (Matt. xxiv. 5). He might well have
said, “And many shall think they are praying to the
Father in my name, whilst deceiving themselves.”

Does it mean just adding the words, “and all this we
ask in the name of Jesus Christ,” at the end of our
prayers?

Many people apparently think that it does. But have you
never heard — or offered — prayers full of self-will and
selfishness which ended up in that way, “for
Christ’s sake. Amen”?

God could not answer the prayers St. James refers to in
his epistle just because those who offered them added,
“we ask these things in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ.” Those Christians were asking
“amiss” (James iv. 3). A wrong prayer cannot be
made right by the addition of some mystic phrase!

And a right prayer does not fail if some such words are
omitted. No! It is more than a question of words. Our Lord
is thinking about faith and facts more than about some
formula. The chief object of prayer is to glorify the Lord
Jesus. We are to ask in Christ’s name “that the
Father may be glorified in the Son” (John xiv. 13).
Listen! We are not to seek wealth or health, prosperity or
success, ease or comfort, spirituality or fruitfulness in
service simply for our own enjoyment or advancement or
popularity, but only for Christ’s sake — for His
glory. Let us take three steps to a right understanding of
those important words, “in my name.”

(1) There is a sense in which some things are done only
“for Christ’s sake” — because of His atoning
death. Those who do not believe in the atoning death of
Christ cannot pray “in His name.” They may use
the words, but without effect. For we are “justified
by His blood” (Rom. v. 9), and “we have
redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of
sins” (Eph. i. 7; Col. i. 14). In these days when
Unitarianism under its guileful name of Modernism has
invaded all sects, it is most important to remember the
place and work of the shed blood of Christ, or
“prayer” — so-called — becomes a delusion and a
snare.

Let us illustrate this point by an experience which
happened quite early in Mr. Moody’s ministry. The wife
of an infidel judge — a man of great intellectual gifts —
begged Mr. Moody to speak to her husband. Moody, however,
hesitated at arguing with such a man, and told him so quite
frankly. “But,” he added, “if ever you are
converted will you promise to let me know?” The judge
laughed cynically, and replied, “Oh, yes, I’ll let
you know quick enough if I am ever converted!” Moody
went his way, relying upon prayer. That judge was
converted, and within a year. He kept his promise and told
Moody just how it came about. “I began to grow very
uneasy and .miserable one night when my wife was at a
prayer-meeting. I went to bed before she came home. I could
not sleep all that night. Getting up early the next
morning, I told my wife I should not need any breakfast,
and went off to my office. Telling the clerks they could
take a holiday, I shut myself up in my private room. But I
became more and more wretched. Finally, I fell on my knees
and asked God to forgive me my sins, but I would not say
‘for Jesus’ sake,’ for I was Unitarian, and I
did not believe in the atonement. In an agony of mind I
kept praying, ‘O God, forgive me my sins,’ but no
answer came. At last, in desperation, I cried, ‘O God,
for Christ’s sake forgive my sins.’ Then I found
peace at once.”

That judge had no access to the presence of God until he
sought it in the name of Jesus Christ. When he came in
Christ’s name he was at once heard and forgiven. Yes,
to pray “in the name” of the Lord Jesus is to ask
for things which the blood of Christ has secured —
“purchased” — for us. We have “boldness to
enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. x.
19). There is entrance by no other way.

But this is not all that those words “In my
Name” mean.

(2) The most familiar illustration of coming “in the
name” of Christ is that of drawing money from a bank
by means of a check. I can draw from my bank account only
up to the amount of my deposit there. In my own name, I can
go no farther. In the Bank of England I have no money
whatsoever, and can therefore draw nothing therefrom. But
suppose a very wealthy man who has a big account there
gives me a blank check bearing his signature, and bids me
fill it in to any amount I choose. He is my friend. What
shall I do? Shall I just satisfy my present need, or shall
I draw as much as I dare? I shall certainly do nothing to
offend my friend, or to lower myself in his esteem.

Well, we are told by some that heaven is our bank. God is
the Great Banker, for “every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the
Father” (James i. 17). We need a “check”
wherewith to “draw” upon this boundless store.
The Lord Jesus gives us a blank check in prayer. “Fill
it in,” says He, “to any amount; ask
‘anything,’ ‘what ye will,’ and you shall
have it. Present your check in My name, and your request
will be honored.” Let me put this in the words of a
well-known evangelist of today. “That is what happens
when I go to the bank of heaven-when I go to God in prayer.
I have nothing deposited there; I have no credit there; and
if I go in my own name I will get absolutely nothing. But
Jesus Christ has unlimited credit in heaven, and He has
granted me the privilege of going with His name on my
checks; and when I thus go my prayers will be honored to
any extent. To pray, then, in the name of Christ is to
pray, not on the ground of my credit, but His.”

This is all very delightful, and, in a sense, very true.

If the check were drawn on a Government account, or upon
some wealthy corporation, one might be tempted to get all
one could. But remember we are coming to a loving Father to
Whom we owe all, and Whom we love with all our heart, and
to Whom we may come repeatedly. In cashing our checks at
the bank of heaven we desire chiefly His honor and His
glory. We wish to do only that which is pleasing in His
sight. To cash some of our “checks” — to answer
some of our prayers — would only bring dishonor to His
name, and discredit and discomfort to us. True, His
resources are unlimited; but His honor is assailable.

But experience makes argument unnecessary! Dear reader,
have we not — all of us — often tried this method only to
fail?

How many of us dare say we have never come away from the
bank of heaven without getting what we asked for, although
we have apparently asked “in Christ’s name”?
Wherein do we fail? Is it because we do not seek to learn
God’s will for us? We must not try to exceed His will.

May I give a personal experience of my own which has never
been told in public, and which is probably quite unique? It
happened over thirty years ago, and now I see why. It makes
such a splendid illustration of what we are now trying to
learn about prayer.

A well-to-do friend, and an exceedingly busy one, wished
to give me one pound towards a certain object. He invited
me to his office, and hastily wrote out a check for the
amount. He folded the check and handed it to me, saying,
“I will not cross it. Will you kindly cash it at the
bank?” On arriving at the bank I glanced at my name on
the check without troubling to verify the amount, endorsed
it, and handed it to a clerk. “This is rather a big
sum to cash over the counter,” he said, eyeing me
narrowly. “Yes, I replied laughingly, “one
pound!” “No,” said the clerk: “this is
made out for ‘one thousand pounds!'”

And so it was! My friend was, no doubt, accustomed to
writing big checks; and he had actually written “one
thousand” instead of “one” pound. Now, what
was my position legally? The check was truly in his name.
The signature was all right. My endorsement was all right.
Could I not demand the 1,000 pounds, provided there was
sufficient in the account? The check was written
deliberately, if hurriedly, and freely to me — why should
I not take the gift? Why not?

But I was dealing with a friend — a generous friend to
whom I owed many deeds of lovingkindness. He had revealed
his mind to me. I knew his wishes and desires.

He meant to give me one pound, and no more. I knew his
intention, his “mind,” and at once took back the
all-too-generous check, and in due time I received just one
pound, according to his will. Had that donor given me a
blank check the result would have been exactly the same. He
would have expected me to write in one pound, and my honor
would have been at stake in my doing so. Need we draw the
lesson? God has His will for each one of us, and unless we
seek to know that will we are likely to ask for “a
thousand,” when He knows that “one” will be
best for us. In our prayers we are coming to a Friend — a
loving Father. We owe everything to Him. He bids us come to
Him whenever we like for all we need. His resources are
infinite.

But He bids us to remember that we should ask only for
those things that are according to His will — only for
that which will bring glory to His name. John says,
“If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth
us” (I John v.14). So then our Friend gives us a blank
check, and leaves us to fill in “anything”; but
He knows that if we truly love Him we shall never put down
— never ask for — things He is not willing to give us,
because they would be harmful to us.

Perhaps with most of us the fault lies in the other
direction. God gives us a blank check and says, Ask for a
pound — and we ask for a shilling! Would not my friend
have been insulted had I treated him thus? Do we ask
enough? Do we dare to ask “according to His riches in
glory”?

The point we are dwelling upon, however, is this — we
cannot be sure that we are praying “in His name”
unless we learn His will for us.

(3) But even now we have not exhausted the meaning of
those words, “In my Name.” We all know what it is
to ask for a thing “in the name” of another. But
we are very careful not to allow anyone to use our name who
is not to be trusted, or he might abuse our trust and
discredit our name. Gehazi, the trusted servant,
dishonestly used Elisha’s name when he ran after
Naaman. In Elisha’s name he secured riches, but also
inherited a curse for his wickedness.

A trusted clerk often uses his employer’s name and
handles great sums of money as if they were his own. But
this be does only so long as he is thought to be worthy of
such confidence in him. And he uses the money for his
master, and not for himself. All our money belongs to our
Master, Christ Jesus. We can go to God for supplies in His
name if we use all we get for His glory.

When I go to cash a check payable to me, the banker is
quite satisfied if the signature of his client is genuine
and that I am the person authorized to receive the money.
He does not ask for references to my character. He has no
right whatever to enquire whether I am worthy to receive
the money or to be trusted to use it aright. It is not so
with the Bank of Heaven. Now, this is a point of greatest
importance. Do not hurry over what is now to be said.

When I go to heaven’s bank in the name of the Lord
Jesus, with a check drawn upon the unsearchable riches of
Christ, God demands that I shall be a worthy recipient. Not
“worthy” in the sense that I can merit or deserve
anything from a holy God — but worthy in the sense that I
am seeking the gift not for m own glory or self-interest,
but only for the glory of God.

Otherwise I may pray and not get. “Ye ask and receive
not, because ye ask amiss that ye may spend it in your
pleasures” (James iv. 3, R.V.).

The great Heavenly Banker will not cash checks for us if
our motives are not right. Is not this why so many fail in
prayer? Christ’s name is the revelation of His
character.

To pray “in His name” is to pray in His
character, as His representative sent by Him: it is to pray
by His Spirit and according to His will; to have His
approval in our asking, to seek what He seeks, to ask help
to do what He Himself would wish to be done, and to desire
to do it not for our own glorification, but for His glory
alone. To pray “in His name” we must have
identity of interests and purpose. Self and its aims and
desires must be entirely controlled by God’s Holy
Spirit, so that our wills are in complete harmony with
Christ’s will.

We must reach the attitude of St. Augustine when he,
cried, “O Lord, grant that I may do Thy will as if it
were my will, so that Thou mayest do my will as if it were
Thy will.”

Child of God, does this seem to make prayer “in His
name” quite beyond us? That was not our Lord’s
intention. He is not mocking us! Speaking of the Holy
Spirit our Lord used these words: “The Comforter . . .
Whom the Father will send in my name” (John xiv. 26).
Now, our Savior wants us to be so controlled by the Holy
Spirit that we may act in Christ’s name. “As many
as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God” (Rom. viii. 14). And only sons can say, “Our
Father.”

Our Lord said of Saul of Tarsus: “He is a chosen
vessel unto Me to bear My name before the Gentiles and
kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts ix. 15). Not
to them, but before them. So St. Paul says: “It
pleased God to reveal his Son in me.” We cannot pray
in Christ’s name unless we bear that name before
people. And this is only possible so long as we “abide
in” Him and His words abide in us. So we come to this
— unless the heart is right the prayer must be wrong.

Christ said, “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide
in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done
unto you” (John xv. 7).

Those three promises are really identical — they express
the same thought in different words. Look at them —

Ask anything in my name, I will do it (John xiv. 13, 14).

Ask what ye will (if ye abide in me and my words abide in
you), and it shall be done (John xv. 7).

Ask anything, according to his will, we have the petitions
(I John v. 14).

And we could sum them all up in the words of St. John,
“‘Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we
keep his commandments and do the things which are pleasing
in his sight” (I John iii. 22). When we do what He
bids, He does what we ask! Listen to God and God will
listen to you. Thus our Lord gives us “power of
attorney” over His kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, if
only we fulfil the condition of abiding in Him.

Oh, what a wonder is this! How eagerly and earnestly we
should seek to know His “mind,” His wish, His
will! — How amazing it is that any one of us should by our
own self-seeking miss such unsearchable riches! We know
that God’s will is the best for us. We know that He
longs to bless us and make us a blessing. We know that to
follow our own inclination is absolutely certain to harm us
and to hurt us and those whom we love. We know that to turn
away from His will for us is to court disaster. O child of
God, why do we not trust Him fully and wholly? Here we are,
then, once again brought face to face with a life of
holiness. We see with the utmost clearness that our
Savior’s call to prayer is simply a clarion call to
holiness. “Be ye holy!” for without holiness no
man can see God, and prayer cannot be efficacious.

When we confess that we “never get answers to our
prayers,” we are condemning not God, or His promises,
or the power of prayer, but ourselves. There is no greater
test of spirituality than prayer. The man who tries to pray
quickly discovers just where he stands in God’s sight.

Unless we are living the Victorious Life we cannot truly
pray “in the name” of Christ, and our prayer-life
must of necessity be feeble, fitful and oft-times
unfruitful.

And “in His name” must be “according to His
will.” But can we know His will? Assuredly we can. St.
Paul not only says, “Let this mind be in you which was
in Christ Jesus . . .” (Phil. ii. 5); he also boldly
declares, “We have the mind of Christ” (I Cor.
ii. 16). How, then, can we get to know God’s will?

We shall remember that “the secret of the Lord is
with them that fear him” (Psa. xxv. 14).

In the first place, we must not expect God to reveal His
will to us unless we desire to know that will and intend to
do that will. Knowledge of God’s will and the
performance of that will go together. We are apt to desire
to know God’s will so that we may decide whether we
will obey or not. Such an attitude is disastrous. “If
any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the
teaching” (John vii. 17).

God’s will is revealed in His Word in Holy Scriptures.
What He promises in His Word I may know to be according to
His will.

For example, I may confidently ask for wisdom, because His
Word says, “If any . . . lack wisdom, let him ask of
God . . . and it shall be given him” (James i. 5). We
cannot be men of prevailing prayer unless we study
God’s Word to find out His will for us.

But it is the Holy Spirit of God Who is prayer’s great
Helper. Read again those wonderful words of St. Paul:
“In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our
weakness; for we do not know what prayers to offer nor in
what way to offer them, but the Spirit Himself pleads for
us in yearnings that can find no words, and the Searcher of
hearts knows what the Spirit’s meaning is, because His
intercessions for God’s people are in harmony with
God’s will” (Rom. viii. 26, 27; Weymouth).

What comforting words! Ignorance and helplessness in
prayer are indeed blessed things if they cast us upon the
Holy Spirit. Blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus! We are
left without excuse. Pray we must: pray we can.

Remember our Heavenly Father is pledged to give the Holy
Spirit to them that ask Him (Luke xi. 13) — and any other
“good thing” too (Matt. vii. 11).

Child of God, you have often prayed. You have, no doubt,
often bewailed your feebleness and slackness in prayer. But
have you really prayed in His name?

It is when we have failed and know not “what prayers
to offer” or “in what way,” that the Holy
Spirit is promised as our Helper.

Is it not worth while to be wholly and whole-heartedly
yielded to Christ? The half-and-half Christian is of very
little use either to God or man. God cannot use him, and
man has no use for him, but considers him a hypocrite. One
sin allowed in the life wrecks at once our usefulness and
our joy, and robs prayer of its power.

Beloved, we have caught a fresh glimpse of the grace and
the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is willing and
waiting to share with us both His glory and His grace. He
is willing to make us channels of blessing. Shall we not
worship God in sincerity and truth, and cry eagerly and
earnestly, “Lord, what shall I do?” (Acts xxii.
10, R.V.) and then, in the power of His might, do it?

St. Paul once shot up that prayer to heaven; “What
shall I do?” What answer did he get? Listen! He tells
us in his counsel to believers everywhere just what it
meant to him, and should mean to us: “Beloved, put on
. . . a heart of compassion, kindness, humility,
longsuffering; . . .above all things put on love and let
the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. . . . Let the word
of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. . . . And
whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of
the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through
him” (Col. iii. 12-17).

It is only when whatsoever we do is done in His name that
He will do whatsoever we ask in His name.