I heard a thought the other day that got my gears turning. We are told to pray in Jesus' name, but some people end their prayers with "We ask these things for Jesus' sake, Amen."

Now, it's not a bad prayer. And our Father is merciful and will answer the spirit of the prayer; I'm not saying He won't.

What I'm saying is, it shows a lack of biblical understanding. When the Lord Jesus left the earth, He gave us believers authority over his kingdom. We are stewards, which means that we are in charge. We sign the checks. We make the decisions. We rule in the place of Jesus.

What we do is for Jesus' sake, obviously, and for the sake of His kingdom, but our prayers are made as the representatives of God on this earth. We pray in the stead of Jesus, in HIS name. As his deputies, so to speak.

When we realize what 'in Jesus' name' means, we understand that we are asking as if we were Jesus.

I think sometimes folks pray "for Jesus' sake" because they don't feel that their own sake is good enough. They try to get the Father to do it for the Son because he loves the Son. But He loves us, too. Didn't Jesus come to die for our sake?

No, this is an authority issue. It's a representative issue. And, honestly, it's scary because if we have to pray in Jesus' name, God might ask us to do something in Jesus' name, or speak something in Jesus' name, or even heal somebody in Jesus' name.