What Does It Mean to Pray in Jesus' Name? Andrew Murray Explains

Prayer Discipleship

To pray in Jesus' name means more than ending a prayer with the words "in Jesus' name, amen." In With Christ in the School of Prayer, Andrew Murray teaches that asking in Christ's name means coming to the Father as Christ's representative: one who shares His life, lives for His interests, and has given up his own name for His. The name works in prayer to the degree it rules our life. That is why Jesus could attach such wide promises to it.

Murray gives this subject a whole lesson, Lesson 24, "In My Name," and returns to it in several others. Here is what he says.

The promise Jesus gave

On the night before the cross, Jesus spoke of His name again and again.

If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
John 14:14

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
John 16:24

Murray points out that the disciples had never prayed this way before, and that Jesus Himself had not used the phrase until these parting words. Now He links it to promises with no limit: "whatsoever," "anything," "what ye will."

The power of prayer and the answer depend on the right use of the Name.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 24

What a name stands for

Murray starts with a plain question: what is a name? It calls up the whole person. A king's name carries his honor, his power and his kingdom.

And the Name of Christ is the expression of all He has done and all He is and lives to do as our Mediator.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 24

So to do something in another's name is to act with his authority:

It is to come with the power and authority of that other, as his representative and substitute.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 24

Nobody hands over the free use of his name to someone he can't trust. When Jesus gives His disciples the right to use His name at all times and for all they desire, it's a sign of great confidence and close union.

Three pictures of using the name

Murray gives three pictures to show what kind of union lets us use Christ's name.

The merchant and his clerk

A merchant who leaves on a trip may give his chief clerk the power to draw large sums in the merchant's name. The clerk does it for the business, not for himself. When Jesus went to heaven, He left His work in His servants' hands and gave them His name to draw what the work needs.

The use of the Name always supposes the surrender of our interests to Him whom we represent.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 24

The child and his father

A child bears his father's name because he has his father's life. People may help him for his father's sake, but that won't last if the father's character is missing in him. Name and spirit have to match.

we are one, we have one life, one Spirit with Him; for this reason we may come in His Name.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 24

The bride and her husband

A bride who was poor takes her husband's name and may now buy in that name. He has made her one with himself and trusts her with his interests. So it is with Christ and His church.

It is not a formula

Murray says these pictures show how thin the common idea is, the picture of a messenger carrying a request for someone absent. Jesus isn't absent. He is with the Father, and we come in union with Him.

to ask in the Name is to ask in full union of interest and life and love with Himself, as one who lives in and for Him.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 24

In a footnote to the lesson he quotes the English writer Jukes, who puts it sharply:

We ask in Christ's Name, not when at the end of some request we say, "This I ask in the Name of Jesus Christ," but when we pray according to His nature, which is love, which seeketh not its own, but only the will of God and the good of all creatures.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 24

The name works in prayer as it works in life

This is the heart of Murray's teaching. What the name is in our daily life decides what it can do in our prayers.

the power it has on my life is the power it will have in my prayers.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 24

He ties "ask all in My name" to the apostle's word "do all in the name of the Lord Jesus."

And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
Colossians 3:17

Then he gives one of the best lines in the book:

It is not to the lips, but to the life God looks to see what the Name is to us.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 24

Why the promise is safe

Many Christians, Murray says, have tried to shrink these promises because they seem too free. He answers that the words "in my name" guard themselves.

We did not understand that the word "in my Name" is its own safeguard. It is a spiritual power which no one can use further than he obtains the capacity for by his living and acting in that Name.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 24

Someone who wants Jesus to serve his own comfort can't really pray in Jesus' name, because he isn't living in it. Murray makes the same point in Lesson 19, where the promise of the name comes tied to doing Christ's works. The disciple who gives himself to the Master's work is the one who learns to claim the promise.

The name and the Holy Spirit

In Lesson 25, "At That Day," Murray shows that "at that day" means the day the Spirit came. Praying in Jesus' name became possible when the Spirit of the glorified Christ came to live in His people.

It is living in the Name of Christ that is the secret of praying in the Name of Christ; living in the Spirit that fits for praying in the Spirit.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 25

And in Lesson 27, from Christ's prayer in John 17:

To pray in the Name of Jesus is to pray in unity, in sympathy with Him.
With Christ in the School of Prayer, Lesson 27

Praying together in His name

The name also gathers believers. In Lesson 15, on "if two of you shall agree," Murray says the name must be the center that unites those who pray together, the way a home holds a family.

How to start

Murray ends Lesson 24 with a prayer that fits anyone who wants to learn this: that God would teach us so to live, act, walk and speak in Jesus' name that our prayer could not be anything else. Practically, that means:

Bring your requests to the test of Christ's interests. Is this for His work and His glory?
Let His name rule the rest of your day, not only your prayer time.
Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what the name means.
Take the promise as Jesus gave it, and expect an answer.

See all 31 lessons in the With Christ in the School of Prayer summary, collect the best lines in With Christ in the School of Prayer quotes, and meet the author in Who was Andrew Murray? Best of all, read With Christ in the School of Prayer for yourself, starting with Lesson 24.