The Value God Places On Us (John Wimber)

The Value God Places On Us

This may sound strange, but I’ve never really gotten it straight why God chose me in the first place. I’m always half-expecting the Lord to show up and say, “Everybody who’s going to heaven, take one step forward.” Then he’ll look at me and say, “What are you doing here, Wimber?” But God, not desiring that any should perish (John 3:16), placed value on me when I saw no value in myself.

I don’t have intimate prayer with the Father based on my good attitudes or actions. I come on the basis of his righteousness. He justified, established, sanctified, called, saved and brought me into the same relationship that he had with the Father before the world was founded. He hears me when I call on him. Jesus gave his disciples a new and sweeping promise in his last, intimate time with them in the Upper Room (cf. John 14). Six times during that talk Jesus repeated this promise, “Then the Father will give you whatever you ask” as you pray “in my name.”

God answers prayers prayed in the name of Jesus. Be what does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus? Can I ask for anything  I want? The name of Jesus is like a check that can be cashed in by those who have been called by his name. When you go to the bank with a check, it’s the signature on that check that makes it cashable. The signature guarantees that you can draw on the resources in the account. If you have the wrong name but the right check, you can’t cash it. It’s the name that makes it possible to cash it.

When we pray “in Jesus’ name,” we pray as his representative; we ask for the things that he would ask for if he were in our situation. Praying in the name of Jesus is praying for the things of Jesus.

So we pray in the name of Jesus. You can’t get answers to your prayers any other way. Not in the name of Mohammed, Buddha, or the Republican Party. You have to ask in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s the only name that God honors.

It amazes me that I can have an intimate relationship with God, knowing who I am and what I’ve been. I wouldn’t even speak to myself if I were him. But he loves me and has demonstrated it so many ways that it’s now beyond question in my mind. I know his love. I know his generosity. I know his faithfulness. And knowing him, I trust him. I believe him when he says he wants an intimate relationship with me.

How we perceive God profoundly affects how we come to him in prayer and how intimate we are with him. Shortly before going to the cross, Jesus prayed, “I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them” (John 17:26). Jesus prayed that God would love you the way he loves his Son. We’ve been offered that relationship.

John Wimber, Prayer: Intimate Communication (Anaheim: Vineyard Ministries International, 1997), 6-7.

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