HEBREW WORD STUDY – SOMETHING
BEAUTIFUL
John 14:13-14, “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that
will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye
shall ask any thing in my name, I will do [it].”
What could be more clear? If you ask anything in the name of
Jesus it will be done, He will do it. There are only two
conditions, we must ask and we must ask in His name.
Hence
we pray and ask, good for us. We are also taught way back in
Sunday School that we are to conclude our prayers with “in
Jesus name, Amen.”
Well that should pretty well sew it up.
We should get what we ask for. Ok, I am asking or praying, in
Jesus name that my book makes it to the New York Times Best
Seller List. I am even making it easier on God, I am not
even asking that it becomes number one on the New York Times
Best Seller List, just that it makes it. Will it happen, of
course not. Well, I mean it is being published by a publisher
who regularly makes the New York Times Best Seller List so it
is in the range of possibility, but I don’t really believe it
will happen. “Ah, Ha,” you say, “Gotcha, you gotta believe.
You have to clinch your fist and say over and over, ‘I
believe, I believe.’”
All this time God is watching very
close. “Ok, angel, you keep an eye on that Chaim Bentorah
fellow, if you catch him doubting for just one moment you let
me know, ya hear. I do not want to answer this prayer so I am
going to catch him on a technicality and if I can find him
doubting for just a moment, we got him, prayer denied.”
Two times in a row Jesus repeats that if you ask anything in
His name, He will do it. When something is repeated in the
Semitic culture, which gives it a certainty. What a wonderful
promise, you can’t lose. Except for one major problem, it
doesn’t always work.
Let’s look at these conditions again.
We must ask in His
name. Does that mean that we must ask using his Hebrew name
Yashuah? We all know Jesus is not His real name, which is just
a Greek perversion of his real name. Now if we used his real
name Yashuah
well that ought to ring His bell.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t work any better than using his
Greek name. Back to the drawing board. The word name in
Aramaic and Hebrew are the same, shem. This basically means a
reputation or what someone is about. Yashuah means salvation
so whatever you ask in the name of salvation will be done.
So maybe you can pray, “Lord I need a million dollars to start
a television program to get people saved.” Obviously that
does not work. Besides, Jesus has many names, Wonderful,
Counselor, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father. Which name is
Jesus referring to.
Again shem also has the idea of
a
collective, such as the name of a family, tribe, or a
company.
Perhaps Jesus is referring to the name of the
kingdom of God.
Whatever you ask that will further the
kingdom of God, He will do.
If you are a manager or
supervisor for a company you know that whatever you ask an
employee to do in the name of the company you work for, they
must do it. If you ask them to do something that has nothing
to do with the company, like help me put a new roof on my
house, they are under no obligation to help.
These are all ideas you can ponder, but I would like to move
on to the next condition that I find intriguing. You must
ask. Why must you ask? Does not God know what you want and
need even before you ask (Matthew 6:8)? Is He going to force
us to beg? Let’s take a close look at that word ask. In the
Greek it is the word aiteo which means to ask, beg, request or
petition. It all pretty much means the same thing, you speak
out a request. Jesus spoke these words in Aramaic and the
Peshitta uses the word shel. This is an interesting word in
its Semitic root. It is comes from an old Canaanite word which
has the idea of giving a pledge. In the ancient culture when
you borrowed something you gave something to someone they
would give you something in return called a pledge.
If we
apply the ancient concept of shel to this verse then what the
disciples may have heard Jesus say was not anything you want
you’ve got it, but, “I am giving you my life what are you
giving me in return, whatever you give me, I will use it.
Whatever you pledge anything that you pledge to me I will use
it for my name. If it is just a cup of water, I can use that.
So many Christians woefully sit back and say that they have no
talents, no gifts, nothing at all to give to God. Perhaps
that is what Peter was thinking. In the prior verse Jesus is
talking about doing great works for Him and old Peter is
thinking, “Yeah sure, me a fisherman, bumbling fool, what have
I got to give?”
Jesus then answers His question and your
question as well. “Whatever you pledge to me I will use it to
do greater things and you will get my life in return.”
You see, the mistake we make in trying to understand this
verse is that we make it out to be a verse that is used to
getting a miracle or a healing or whatever we want, yet it is
not about getting it is about giving and what God will do with
what we give to Him. For He is pledge His life to us, what
will we give to Him?
Years ago Bill Gaither wrote these words:
Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion He understood
All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife
But he made something beautiful of my life.
John 14:13-14 is not a promise that we are going to get
everything we want, it is a promise that if we give him what
we have, even if it is just brokenness and strife, He will
fill it with his light and life and make something beautiful.