With Christ in the School of Prayer (24) ... the All-Powerful Plea, using His Name

by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net

Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace

An all-time Christian Classic on prayer which is a foundational study on prayer that anyone interested in Prayer should read. So, I decided to summarize it chapter by chapter. With Christ in the School of Prayer is a classroom on the Power of Prayer in your Life.

With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray,
Chapter 24, the All-Powerful Plea, using His Name.

“The disciples had not asked in the Name of Christ.  The power of prayer and the answer depend on the right use of the Name.

What is a person’s name?  The name of a king includes his honor, his power, his kingdom.  His name is the symbol of his power.  And so each name of God embodies and represents the glory of the Unseen One.  And the Name of Christ is the expression of all He is and lives to do as our Mediator.

What is it when Jesus gives us power over His Name, the free use of it, with the assurance that whatever we ask in it will be given to us?  Jesus solemnly gives to all His disciples a general and unlimited power of the free use of His Name at  all  times for all they desire.  The free use of the name of another is always the token of great confidence, of close union.  He who takes the name of another, gives up his own as of no value.  When I go in the name of another, I deny myself, I take not only his name, but himself and what he is, instead of myself and what I am.

Such a use of the name of a person may be in virtue of a legal union.  A merchant leaving his home and business, gives his chief clerk a general power, by which he can draw thousands of pounds in the merchant’s name.  When the Lord Jesus went to heaven, He left His work, the management of His kingdom on earth, in the hands of His servants.  He could not do otherwise than also give them His Name to draw all the supplies they needed for the due conduct of His business.

The use of the Name always supposes the surrender of our interests to Him whom we represent.

Or such a use of the name may be in virtue of a life union.  In the case of the merchant and his clerk, the union is temporary.  But we know how oneness of life on earth gives oneness of name: a child has the father’s name because he has his life.  The name and the character or spirit must be in harmony.  When such is the case, the child will have a double claim on the father’s friends: the character secures and increases the love and esteem rendered first for the name’s sake.   So it is with Jesus and the believer:  we are one, we have one life, one Spirit with Him; for this reason we may come in His Name.  Our power in using that Name. The use of the name rests on the unity of life; the Name and the Spirit of Jesus are one.

The union that empowers to the use of the Name may be the union of love.  When a bride whose life has been one of poverty, becomes united to the bridegroom, she gives up her own name, to be called by his, and has now the full right to use it.  She purchases in his name, and that name is not refused.  And this is done because the bridegroom has chosen her for himself, counting on her to care for his interests:  they are now one.  And so the Heavenly Bridegroom could do nothing less; having loved us and made us one with Himself, what could He do but give those who bear His Name the right to present it before the Father, or to come with it to Himself for all they need.

The name represents the person; to ask in the Name is to ask in full union of interest and life and love with Himself, as one who lives in and for Him.  The name and the power of asking go together:   when the Name of Jesus has become the power that rules my life, its power in prayer with God will be seen too.

When Scripture speaks of ‘men who have given their lives for the Name of the Lord Jesus,’ when it is everything to me, it will obtain everything for me.

Heaven is set open to you; the treasures and powers of the world of spirit are placed at your disposal on behalf of men around you.  O come, and let us learn to pray in the Name of Jesus.  O awake, and use the name of Jesus to open the treasures of heaven for this perishing world.  Learn as the servants of the King to use His Name:  ‘WHATSOEVER ye shall ask in my Name, THAT WILL I DO.’”

More on the All-Powerful Plea, using His Name:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.XXIV.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled life.