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It was a wonderful word about prayer that Jesus spoke to His disciples in John 16:23, "Most certainly I tell you, whatever you may ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you."

Prayer in the name of Christ has power with God. God is very pleased with His Son Jesus Christ. He hears Him always, and He also always hears the prayer that is really in His name.

But what is it to pray in the name of Christ?

There is nothing mystical or mysterious about this expression. If you go through the Bible and examine all the passages in which the expression "in My name" or "in His name" or similar expressions are used, you will find that it means just about what it does in modern usage.

If I go to a bank and hand in a check with my name signed on it, I ask for money from the bank in my own name. If I have money deposited in that account, the check will be cashed; if not, it will not be. If, however, I go to a bank with somebody else’s name signed on the check, I am asking in his name, and it does not matter whether I have money in that bank or any other, if the person whose name is signed on the check has money in their account, the check will be cashed.

So it is when I go to the bank of Heaven, when I go to God in prayer. I have nothing deposited there and if I go in my own name I will get absolutely nothing; but Jesus Christ has granted to me the privilege of going to the bank with His name on my checks, and when I go, my prayers will be honored to any extent.

To pray then in the name of Christ is to renounce the thought that I have any claims on God whatever, and approach Him on the ground of Christ's claims. Praying in the name of Christ is not merely adding the phrase "I ask these things in Jesus' name" to my prayer. I may put that phrase in my prayer and really be resting in my own merit at the time.

On the other hand, I might leave out that phrase but really be resting in the merit of Christ. But when I really do approach God, not on the ground of my merit, but on the ground of Christ's merit, God will hear me.

A lot of our modern prayer is ineffective because men approach God imagining that they have some claim upon God where He is under obligations to answer their prayers.

Great light is thrown upon the subject of "How to Pray" in 1 John 5:14-15: "This is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us. And if we know that he listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him." This passage teaches us plainly that if we are to pray right, we must pray according to God's will.