Lesson 61: Power for Praying and Working, part 2
He who would work must pray: it is in prayer that the power for work is obtained. He that in faith would do the works that Jesus did, must pray in His Name. As long as Jesus was here on earth, He Himself did the greatest works: devils the disciples could not cast out fled at His word. When He went to the Father, He was no longer here in the body to work directly. The disciples were now His body: all His work from the throne in heaven here on earth must and could be done through them. One might have thought that now He was leaving the scene Himself, and could only work through commissioners, the works might be fewer and weaker. He assures us of the contrary: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and he shall do greater works.” His approaching death was to be a real breaking down and making an end of the power of sin; with the resurrection the powers of the Eternal Life were so truly to take possession of the human body and to obtain supremacy over human life; with His ascension He was to receive the power to communicate the Holy Spirit so fully to His own; the union, the oneness between Himself on the throne and them on earth, was to be so intensely and divinely perfect, that He meant it as the literal truth: “Greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father.” And the issue proved how true it was. While Jesus, during three years of personal labor on earth, gathered little more than five hundred disciples, and the most of them so feeble that they were but little credit to His cause, it was given to men like Peter and Paul manifestly to do greater things than He had done. From the throne He could do through them what He Himself in His humiliation could not yet do.
However, there is one condition: “He that believes on me, he shall do greater works, because I go to the Father; and whatever you shall ask in my Name, that will I do.” His going to the Father would give Him a new power to hear prayer. For the doing of the greater works, two things were needed: His going to the Father to receive all power, our prayer in His Name to receive all power from Him again. As He asks the Father, He receives and bestows on us the power of the new dispensation for the greater works; as we believe, and ask in His Name, the power comes and takes possession of us to do the greater works.
Alas, how much working there is in the work of God, in which there is little or nothing to be seen of the power to do anything like Christ’s works, not to speak of greater works. There can be but one reason: the believing on Him, the believing prayer in His Name; this is so lacking. Oh that every laborer and leader in church, or school, in the work of home philanthropy or foreign missions might learn the lesson: Prayer in the Name of Jesus is the way to share in the mighty power which Jesus has received of the Father for His people, and it is in this power alone that he that believes can do the greater works.
Prayer: Blessed Lord, forgive us all, that we have so little believed You and Your promise, and so little proved Your faithfulness in fulfilling it. Oh forgive us that we have so little honored Your all-prevailing Name in heaven or upon earth. You have said that in virtue of Your going to the Father, whatsoever we ask, You will do. From Your throne of power You make Your people share the power given You, and work through them as the members of Your body, in response to their believing prayers in Your Name. Power in prayer with You, and power in work with men, is what You have promised Your people and me too.