“Ask And You Will Receive, And Your Joy Will Be Complete!”

“Ask And You Will Receive, And Your Joy Will Be Complete!”(Jn.16:23b -28).
“Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. ‘Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.'”
These are some of the messages of Jesus preparing the disciples to cope with his departure. We are trying to understand and interpret the message in the context of Christ’s ascension into heaven. Four days from now will be Ascension Day, which is the fortieth day from the day of the Lord’s resurrection. During these forty days, he appeared to the disciples variously so that his being alive again could be testified by eyewitnesses.
Before and during Jesus’ time on earth, believers prayed directly to God the Father. However, the risen Christ is now saying, we now have to ask in his name. It is in this regard that we end most of our prayers with “through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,” or, “in Jesus’ name we have prayed.”
The Father is ever ready to give us whatever we ask him in the name of Jesus.
However, there is a caveat concerning the Father giving us whatever we ask in the name of the Son. I often watch hens as they forage for food for their chicks. When the hen scatters dirt or ground, edible insects and worms come out. If a chick takes on something that can be risky to itself, the hen seizes it and consumes it itself. The lesson here is that when we ask what is risky to us, God does not give us.
In as much as the Father will give us whatever we ask in the name of Jesus, we must also know what we ask from him.
God the Father loves us because we love Jesus and believe that he came from the Father.
The Lord Jesus Christ is not in heaven as our intercessor in the sense that he is the one asking the Father on our behalf. No! The Lord Jesus Christ only reminds the Father to comply with the requests that we have made to him in the name of Jesus Christ.
The third person of the Trinity is not mentioned here, but he is implied. Earlier on, Jesus had said he will ask the Father to give us another Counsellor to be with us forever – “the Spirit of truth.” This Spirit lives with us and is on us (Jn.14:15-18).
Therefore, when we have the Holy Spirit with us, we won’t ask the Father what is irrelevant.
We have this confidence in the words of our Lord when we ask from the Father: “Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” Our joy becomes complete because we do not ask for things that may become burdens to us!
What God gives us makes our joy complete because he does not gift us with a white elephant! God does not give us stones when we ask for bread or give us snakes when we ask for fishes.
Sunday prayer: Holy Spirit, purify our thoughts and desires so that we ask from the Father only what when received will make our joy complete in Jesus’ name. Amen!
Have a blessed Sunday! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.
10/05/2026.