“Greater works than these shall you do”

Think about the works of Jesus while He walked this earth.  Do you think you could do the same things?  Are you?  Then what does He mean when He says,

John 14:12-14  “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”

Are these verses not true?  Or do they not apply to me?  Or do I just not believe in Him?  Or does He mean something else than His miracles by ‘the works that I do’?  What does it mean to ‘ask in My name’?  I’d really like to know the answers.

Some of my thoughts are:

I really do believe in Jesus.  I’ve no doubt that I am a child of God and that I have eternal life.  So this promise is to me.

One of the elements involved in asking in His name is to ask for the things He is asking the Father for.  Many times that’s not obvious to me, so I need to ask Him what I can pray in His name.

He doesn’t say ‘when’ He will do it.  I get in a hurry and want instant results.

One of the measures of a ‘great work’ is longevity.  Many of the things I ask for are temporal.  Things that last are things like salvation, transformation in a life, forgiveness (both received and given), authentic worship of God, tears of prayer He ‘saves in a bottle’, ministry of the Word, etc.

Jesus said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”  John 6:29

For the, ‘Ok, so what do I do?’, I’m left with praying “I do believe, help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24) and to simply keep on praying, particularly Eph. 3:20 prayers – the beyond your greatest hopes and dreams type.  And then WATCH and LISTEN to see what God does and to hear what God says.

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