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God's Great and Precious Promises

(Overcomer Wu)

“Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” John 16:24

In the Lord Jesus' last discourse with His beloved disciples (which include us today), our Lord and King held out, as it were, His royal scepter and urged us repeatedly to pray and ask the Father. First, in John 14:13-14 He said, "And whatever you ask in My Name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in My Name, I will do it." We may have read these verses many times, but it seems that oftentimes we hardly believe these words of promises given by the Lord. Of course, this is not a blank cheque for us to ask for anything in a selfish manner, to ask amiss, to ask in order to consume it upon our own lust, to ask while not obeying the Lord's Word, or to ask not in accordance with the Lord's will, etc.. With that aside, if we would concentrate and realize the full import of the Lord's great promises to us in these words repeated so many times just before He went to the cross, we cannot but be astonished and repent for how little we spend in times of real prayers, supplications, and intercessions.

These are the very words uttered not by a mere man, but by the Son of God in the flesh, the Lord of heaven and earth (Heb 1:8); and He uttered these words at a most solemn and critical moment of His life -- at His farewell address to His disciples just before His was about to be put to death. We know of course the great importance of the words uttered by anyone during these last moments of their life; thus, it behooves us to give our special and our utmost attention to these words. These words of promise given in John 14:13-14 must have staggered the minds of the disciples, for hardly could we find much greater and grander promises than these. And keep in mind that these are promises that apply to all of us the modern day disciples of the Lord as well.

To bring emphasis on this great and precious promise, the Lord Jesus reiterated in John 15:7, "If you abide in Me and My Words abide in you , ask whatever you will, and it shall come to pass to you." Of course, we need to note that there is a condition attached here which is that we need to abide in Him and have His Words abide in us, for we know from experience that as we have the Lord's Word richly indwelling us, our asking will be nothing less than His own asking through us. "For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks" (Matt 12:34b); therefore, if we are filled with His Words, then we will simply be His mouthpiece to utter His Words or His will in our prayers. The Lord Jesus repeated His promise and His wish yet one more time in John 15:16: "...I appointed you that you should go forth and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you ask the Father in My Name, He may give you." Notably, we see this verse is spoken in the context of our commission to bear fruit. (Bearing spiritual fruits of course is not mainly gospel preaching to save people, rather the fruits are all the spiritual virtues mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23 and Ephesians 5:9 lived out through us, the fruit of righteousness in 2 Corinthians 9:10, Philippians 1:11, Hebrews 12:11 and James 3:18, the fruit of holiness in Romans 6:22, and the fruit of praising God and giving Him the glory in Hebrews 13:15.)

One would think that the three-fold emphasis on this matter would have been sufficient to make His point etched into our brain, yet the Lord Jesus felt the need to re-emphasize one more time, most likely in less a 24-hour span, in John 16:23-24, "... Truly, truly, I say to you, if you shall ask anything of the Father, He will give it to you in My Name. Until now you have asked nothing in My Name; ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be made full." In this last iteration of this great promise and urging, the Lord Jesus revealed to us His motive behind these many reminders of this promise and a lofty spiritual exercise is that He is deeply concerned with us [besides His desire for the Father to be glorified (Jn 15:8)]. After all, when he spoke these words, He was only hours away from His departing from His beloved disciples, and He knew that they will be faced with much afflictions, persecutions, troubles, disappointments, and agony in their lives. For this reason, this last reminder and urging of the Lord that we continue in prayer is for our "joy may be made full." As a confirmation of this deep and unfathomable love and care of the Lord for us in His many iterations for us to pray and commune with Him and the Father, He ended the chapter with these words, "These things I have spoken unto you that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulations, but be of good cheer/courage, (for) I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:33). Following this in John chapter 17, we see the Lord Jesus practiced what He preached by rendering a most lofty, regal, passionate, and intense prayer for the glorification of the Father and the Son and for us as well as for those who have and will ever believe in Him.

We praise and thank the Lord for His great and far-reaching loving concern for us in leaving us these great and precious promises in His last day on the earth. May we truly learn to enter into and lay claim of these precious promises which is our privileges as disciples of the Lord Jesus. It is the Lord's desire that our joy may be made full by granting unto us our prayer and petition according to His will.