Imagine a teenage computer geek writing software in his basement: “How can I get this in the hands of the people at Microsoft?” He doesn’t know anyone there, and he has no idea how to introduce his ideas to them. Who knows how many requests they receive in a day.

One day there’s a knock at the door, and a man in his late sixties, with grey hair and glasses is standing there. “Hi, I’m Bill Gates…” The next thing this teenager knows, he’s sitting at his laptop with Bill Gates at his elbow.

“Let me tell you,” says Bill, “where Microsoft is headed. Move your work in that direction, and maybe we can be partners.”

When this young man eventually sends his proposal to Microsoft, he sends it with great confidence, because he knows that what Bill Gates has prompted, Bill Gates will receive.

God comes to every believer and teaches us what to pray. When that happens, we can pray with confidence, because what the Spirit has prompted, the Father will receive:

This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. (1 John 5:14)

Sometimes we’re like the geek working in the basement. But true prayer involves the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and you. There’s a profound sense in which you never pray alone.

Think about the geek’s confidence before and after he talked to Bill Gates. Does your confidence in prayer typically look more like one or the other?

Once you’ve grasped that there’s one God, and that He’s not whoever you want Him to be, the next question is “How do you come to Him?” That depends on what you want to receive.

The Bible uses the picture of a throne to help us understand. There is one God, but more than one throne. That’s easy for us to understand in the United Kingdom. There is one king in Britain, but he has several thrones, and each throne relates to a different function.

Likewise, there is one God, but He has more than one throne. There’s a “great white throne” (Rev. 20:11), where God administers justice. And there’s “the throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16). You can come to the great white throne any way you want. But if you want to come to the throne of grace, you need to come through Jesus.

The Bible tells us to hold firmly to the faith we profess (Heb. 4:14) and to approach the throne of grace with confidence so we may receive grace to help us in our time of need (4:16). Access to the throne of grace comes through our great high priest, Jesus the Son of God.

So “in the name of Jesus Christ” isn’t a tagline at the end of our prayers. It’s foundational. We’re invited to come to the Father through the Son. So, if you’re looking for grace, there’s no other way to pray but in the name of Jesus, because God’s grace comes to us through Him.

When you pray, are you coming to God any way you want? Or through Jesus? What difference does it make?

Imagine meeting with your minister at church. The minister places a number of envelopes in front of you and says, “We can talk about anything you want. But here are some envelopes with questions written on them. Go ahead and pick one.”

The topics range from faith to spiritual growth to fellowship, but you choose the envelope on prayer. The question on the envelope reads: “How would you describe your prayer life?” and inside there are a number of cards with various words—some positive, some negative.

You choose two cards to describe your prayer life: “Irregular” and “Aimless.” Many Christians today would agree, and say, “I’m doing okay in the Christian life, but I’d have to admit—I’m out of shape when it comes to prayer.”

Sooner or later, you will come to a situation in which you will want to call on God to help you. The first question is “Which God?” If you say, “There is only one God,” who is He? And how can we know Him?

Until you’ve settled this matter, your praying will not get very far off the ground. Here’s the reason: If God is whoever you imagine Him to be, then when you go to pray, you are just talking to yourself, or to a figment of your imagination, and that’s not much help.

There is one God, and we can know Him and pray to Him, because He has made Himself known to us through Abraham, Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and supremely in Jesus Christ.

How would you describe your prayer life? (Aimless? Vibrant? Irregular? Consistent? Shallow? Growing? Other?)