Ask and You Will Receive that Your Joy May Be Full

David W Palmer

(John 16:23–24 NKJV) “And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. {24} Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

At this point of their fellowship and deep sharing, Jesus gave his graduating class a prayer promise. This covenantal guarantee states that whatever we ask the Father in Jesus’s name, he will give us. Before stating this open-ended promise, however, Jesus had laid a firm foundation, including:

• Demonstrating his humble, servant’s heart by washing his disciple’s feet (John 13:3–15)
• Reminding them of the role of obedient servants (John 13:16–20, 15:20)
• Revealing his intentions to John, the disciple with his ear closest to Jesus’s heartbeat (John 13:21–26)
• Disclosing his new commandment— “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34)
• Reminding them not to worry (John 14:1, 27)
• Telling them that he is the truth (John 14:6)
• Revealing that he and his Father are one (John 14:8–11)
• Promising them that whatever miracles, demons, or things they command/demand in his name, he will make sure that what they say happens (John 14:12–14)
• But reminding them that the words and actions originate with him; he sends them to the disciples, and they speak, command, or demand them in his name (John 14:15)
• Exhorting them that if they truly loved him, they would obey his commands (John 14:15)
• Promising that he would send the Holy Spirit to be in them and with them, guiding them and leading them into all truth, and reminding them of what he said and says (John 14:16–18, 15:26–27, 16:7–15)
• Reminding them of the need to stay abiding in the vine and in his word (John 15:1–8)
• Giving them a second reminder to obey him, and thus be his loving friends (John 15:9–17)
• Revealing his new role at God’s right hand, having birthed a new dispensation of joy (John 16:19–22)

From what Jesus established in this foundation, we see that the “whatever you ask the Father” of verse 23 has nothing to do with self-motivated avarice, self-serving, or selfish ambition. On the contrary, it is completely about whatever you ask in the context of what he had just shared with them. That is, that it is in his character of humbly serving Father’s vision, that it is at his command as revealed by the Spirit of Truth, that it is something that springs to life as we abide in the living word of God, or that it is in total harmony with his new command to love one another as he loved us.

This is the path to: “Ask and receive, that your joy may be full.” Full joy comes from unhindered and surrendered intimacy with the one in whose presence is fullness of joy:

(Psalm 16:11 NKJV) “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Today, my encouragement for you is to: stay close to Jesus’s heartbeat; love him with all your heart; abide constantly in his word, meditate in it day and night; develop surrendered intimacy with the Holy Spirit; mingle your heart with God’s in humble, surrendered, worship; adopt his vision, take on his passion, and imbibe his Spirit of holiness. As you do, you will know what he wants prayed. Then you can pray it in his name and see wonderful answers. You can literally “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

Remember; asking in Jesus’s name in this context is not simply appending the phrase “in Jesus name” to the end of a prayer to suit our own ideas (even though this may have some validity for new or baby Christians.) However, we could summarize what it is by saying: “Asking in Jesus’s name is asking for exactly what he would ask for in the same situation. In other words, asking as led by the Holy Spirit”:

(Galatians 5:16 NKJV) “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”

(Galatians 5:18 NKJV)

(Romans 8:14 NKJV)