I want to read a little portion from the book of John, “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.”  In John, chapters 14, 15, and 16, Jesus says to ask in His name at least six, maybe seven times. That means to ask God for things in the name of Jesus Christ. Today, on this program, In the Beginning, we are going to talk about what it means to ask in the name of Jesus.  We are going to cover the matter of prayer in the Bible. I want to read from the gospel of Luke, “And I say to you, ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives, and He who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it shall be opened.”  We have three important words in this little portion:  Number one, asking. Number two, seeking. Number three, knocking. These are three forms or types of prayer. Today we want to talk about these three words. What does it mean to ask?  What does it mean to seek?  What does it mean to knock? And what is the real essence of prayer? What does it mean to pray?In Romans 8, Paul is talking about living in the Spirit, how we need to walk in the Spirit, and how we need to set our mind on the Spirit. Later in that chapter he gets a little bit into the subject of prayer.  I want to read from Romans 8. He says, “In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself, intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.”  Paul is saying that a lot of times we feel weak, and we need the Spirit to strengthen us. Not only that, a lot of times we don’t know how to pray.  It says, here, that the Spirit intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.

As an eBook on Olive Tree see Prayer in the Lord’s Name by Drew Haninger.