{"id":6428,"date":"2020-05-31T21:18:26","date_gmt":"2020-05-31T11:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6428"},"modified":"2020-06-08T15:43:21","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T05:43:21","slug":"ask-in-my-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/ask-in-my-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask In My Name"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Mark Basily<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Passage\nJohn 16:23-33<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAsk in My\nName\u201d \u2013 a phrase repeated by Christ throughout this passage. This is a promise\nfrom our Lord \u2013 Christ is saying, \u201cI promise if you ask the Father in My Name,\nyou will receive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a\nvery bold promise. This is a huge commitment to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUntil now, you have asked nothing in My\nname. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full<\/em>.\u201d \u2013 John 16:24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does\nthis actually mean? What are we allowed to ask for? Can I ask for materialistic\nthings, a car, a phone? What is the Lord promising us today? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four\nkey words He says are, \u201cAsk in My Name.\u201d If we take each of those words\nindividually, we understand His promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ASK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wants us\nto ask! We shouldn\u2019t assume that He knows what we want already. He knows what\nwe need but He still wants us to ask for it. When we ask for it, we are\nadmitting that we need Him. We ask and when we receive, we are thankful for we\nknow it came from Him. If I don\u2019t ask, I will never realise that He is the\nsource. I will never truly realise that I need Him. The important step that He\nasks first, is to ask. This is not a burden, but a privilege. We are given the\nopportunity to ask of God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember\na time when one of our students was going through hardship and he came to me\nand asked me to speak with the Dean of his university to explain his situation.\nI called the secretary of the dean and she told me I couldn\u2019t speak to him\nwithout an appointment. I asked to make an appointment, she came back and told\nme that he wouldn\u2019t speak with me, but I could write him a letter. I wrote him\na letter and never heard back from him. It was unlikely that he even read my\nletter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This made\nme realise that if the Dean of a University was too important that he couldn\u2019t\nmake time to speak to me, let alone read my letter, but where does he stand in\ncomparison to God? Today, Christ is telling us to just come to Him! Come talk\nto Me, I\u2019m here, I\u2019m ready, you don\u2019t need an appointment. This is our God. He\nis the King of all kings but He humbles Himself to hear MY prayers. When Christ\nsays, ask, it is an honour, a blessing, a gift, to ask the Creator of the\nUniverse, and we should take full advantage of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IN <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are we\nin<\/em>? We are in Christ. When we ask, we\nbelong to Christ. When we belong to Him, we stand before the Father, in Christ.\nImagine Christ is the One asking, and we are in Him. Could the Father say no to\nChrist? Never, so we ask IN Christ. When we belong to Him and are a part of\nHim, there is nothing that we cannot ask of the Father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MY <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My kids have been asking for a Nintendo Switch. I don\u2019t want them to become addicted to games and screens. They beg and plead but I know this is not good for them. I explained to them saying, \u201cI want you to understand that if you ask for something that is good for you, I will always say yes. Ask me for something that is bad for you, I will say no. If you want a book to read, I will go to the bookshop for you right now and get it for you. If you want a soccer ball, that\u2019s good for your fitness, we\u2019ll go get a soccer ball. If you want a new bike, that good for you to exercise, we\u2019ll go get a new bike. Ask me things that are good for you.\u201d Now, they ask according to what is good for them. My will for them, to be good and well-rounded children. God has a will for us, and He wants us to ask according to His will, and not our will.

If I ask God to give me the strength to fight temptation, what will He answer? His answer will be yes, it\u2019s a given. If I ask for peace, His answer will be yes, given. If I ask God for holiness, yes here it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We ask\naccording to His Name and according to His will for our lives. When we are in\nHim, we begin to know His word. When we are in Christ, we know Him, we know His\nwill for us, we know if the answer will be yes or no, this is good for you or\nthis is not good for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NAME<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The name of\nJesus is powerful. In Jewish tradition, the name of somebody held significance.\nIt was not just a nice sounding name. The name held significant meaning, and\nGod changed a person\u2019s name based on significant events. Abram to Abraham.\nSarai to Sarah. Jacob to Israel. God has changed people\u2019s name for a reason.\nThe Jews would not refer to God as YHWH. The Hebrew word was too holy to utter,\nso they used Adonai (which meant Lord). They used this as a substitute. So, we\nknow that just the name of Jesus Christ is powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We say not\nto use the Lord\u2019s name in vain for it is powerful. There is a beautiful prayer\ncalled the Jesus prayer that goes like this, \u201cMy Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a\nsimple prayer that has come from the repetition. The monks of the early church\nwould repeat this. They called it the Arrow Prayer, because in uttering the\nname of Jesus Christ, we invoke the power of the name of Jesus Christ to have\nmercy upon us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a reminder of the gift of asking, anytime, anywhere, anything. All we need to do is to be in Him, to know Him, to belong to Him, to know His will. When we ask in His name, we ask according to His will, and His will becomes ours. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Mark Basily Passage John 16:23-33 \u201cAsk in My Name\u201d \u2013 a phrase repeated by Christ throughout this passage. This is a promise from our Lord \u2013 Christ is saying, \u201cI promise if you ask the Father in My Name, you will receive.\u201d That\u2019s a very bold promise. This is … Continue reading “Ask In My Name”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[329,119,35,330,331],"class_list":["post-6428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-ask","tag-gods-will","tag-prayer","tag-recieve","tag-supplication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6428"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6473,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428\/revisions\/6473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}