I’m very glad that my parents taught me obedience. That training has helped me to obey God. To obey, you first have to listen and make mental notes of the instructions given. [Remember, I’m speaking about obeying God – not a human being who is subject to changes of heart, after which he/she may not even remember or honor what he/she told you to do. But that’s an aside.] The real reason for my post is to remind Believers that Yeshua (“Jesus”) gave instructions about how we should pray: to the Father in Yeshua’s (/Jesus’) Name. This was for requests as well as thanksgiving. See John 15:16, 16:23, 14:13. Inspired by the Spirit of God, the Apostle Paul elaborated on the topic, teaching in Colossians 3:17, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the Name of the Lord Yeshua, (even) giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
With all of that instruction, I really don’t understand how some Christians can “pray” without even referring to Yeshua’s (/Jesus’) Name. I hear prayers that are like the reading of a long wish-list placed before God – apparently in the name of the wisher. I also hear prayers that sound like a list of instructions that we are giving to God about what He must do for us. Perhaps God receives it differently from people who don’t know better, but to me these prayers sound like someone saying, “Lord, this is your to-do list, your marching orders from me today. Amen. Let it all get done.”
Our parents taught us to say “please” when asking someone for something. Yet we feel we can give God orders and demand compliance from Him – without either that common courtesy we learned as children, or without obedience to God’s own specific instructions. It pains me to hear those prayers, because I know that many of them will just bounce off the ceiling. Bouncing back to us and echoing in the ears of witnesses, these prayers might satisfy our senses and egos, but will they get the response from God that we have asked for? I suspect not; that’s why it pains me to hear people glibly rattling off, offering up and putting their trust in such prayers.
If your parents were good teachers, then in training you to say “please” they would not have given you what you asked for, until you followed their simple instruction. Well, take a hint – God is an excellent parent and teacher. He is not about to contradict or annul His own instructions to please someone, to make someone feel like His handler, or to encourage “faith” in self-based prayers.
A striking Biblical example of doing all in the Name of the Lord is cited by Yeshua’s half-brother Judah in Jude verse 9, reminding us that even “Michael the (mighty) archangel, in contending with the devil… did not (simply) bring against him a reviling accusation, but said “The Lord (not just I, the mighty archangel) rebuke you!”
Who is “the Lord”? Philippians 2:6-11 answers that question for the Believer. Verses 9-11 specifically identify Him as the One Who has been given “the Name that is above every (other) Name, that at the Name of Yeshua (/Jesus) every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue profess that Yeshua HaMashiach is Lord – to the glory of God the Father.” No wonder He told us not to waste our breath, but to pray to the Father in that Name!
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