His CV didn’t look particularly well. He had only one item to list under Prior Occupation, the exact same item under Experience and to make the matters worse – it did take him a while to pick up any new training material and apply it. See, he was just a simple man – a nobody. An anybody. You couldn’t find them more ordinary than him. I bet if we sat down and compared ourselves against him, you and I would have far more to boast about. Our CVs would most definitely beat his (by far). How could a raw and potentially rude, uneducated fisherman trump us?
Apostle Peter was extremely underqualified. Many of the other disciples were too and that’s exactly the point. By any standards, today’s or during their time they were supposed to pathetically fail. But they didn’t. Peter was extremely impulsive, very quick to speak and a massive risk taker. Stuff you wouldn’t want to appear on your job application nowadays. Yet he got the job, the promotion, the bonuses and the retirement.
It’s a very special thing – the truth. I realize that I’ve often not appreciated all of its power. Looking back at many of my conversations with other believers, I see that others have underestimated the power of the truth, as well. I see that it’s a more wide-spread problem that one might think at first.
What am I on about… Well, it began with the question – Do I really need to prove the truth when I talk about my faith with non-believers? This has always bothered me, but over the years of my Christian life I’ve continually been taught how to defend the truth. So I presumed that the truth needs to be defended, proven, protected. Well, it doesn’t. The truth remains what it is independently of one’s choice to fight against it or to rejoice with it.
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (John 14:12-14, NIV).
When it comes to prayer, perhaps the first thing we learn after “Amen” is “in the name of Jesus.” Yet, it seems that very often, just as with Amen, the praying on behalf of Jesus is not completely understood by the believer. What does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus? Why do I have to pray this way, and what conditions are there to it?
In the context of the passage from John, Jesus is talking to his disciples about Him being the only way to the Father and His unity with Him. This is key to understanding the prayer in Jesus’ name because it establishes the foundation – the divine authority and power which is found in Jesus, and upon which we rely as we pray to Him.
At this point Jesus also gives the condition for prayer in His name – one’s faith in Him. When believers witness miracles and supernatural experiences, it is not by their power or abilities that they occur. It is through their faith in Christ that these thing happen. Faith is, thus, the door opener for God’s power in our lives. read more