The Vending Machine

John 14:12-13
"I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. (NLT)

When I was teaching at the college and had to stay for an evening class I would head down to the vending machines and get a soda or perhaps a bag of chips or something. All you had to do was feed a dollar into the slot, look over the items in the machine, and pick a number. Then the item you wanted would drop out. Success had to do with the condition of the dollar bill. Some went in fine and others were all wrinkled and unable to be read by the machine.

How many times do we treat God like a vending machine? We know what we want from Him, stick in our offering, and press the button of our choice. We don't get to see what we want as a display of products. We speak to Him and ask for it and the "condition" of our prayer does not count at all. Unlike that wrinkled dollar bill that would not work in the vending machine, our pray can be a short plea in our own words or long and filled with scripture and He still hears us. Then we judge God when He does not deliver what we want in the time frame we want it. Wow!

We tend to take verse 13 on its own instead of in context with verse 12. It looks to me like Jesus is saying that as we go about doing the works He did, we can ask in His name and see them finished. Jesus healed the sick, cast out demons, told mountains to move, raised the dead, and more.

As we go about doing the works Jesus did, completing what the Father starts, we are to ask for those things in Jesus name. For we cannot do them on our own fleshly merit. But He can do them through us when we ask.