REMAIN WATCHFUL

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Then Jesus went with His disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with Him, and He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me.”

Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Then He returned to His disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with Me for one hour?” He asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may Your will be done.”

When He came back, He again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So He left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

Then He returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

Matthew 26:36-46

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to His disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with Him, and He began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” He said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

Going a little farther, He fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from Him.

“Abba, Father,” He said, “Everything is possible for You. Take this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will.”

Then He returned to His disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” He said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Once more He went away and prayed the same thing. When He came back, He again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to Him.

Returning the third time, He said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

Mark 14:32-42

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and His disciples followed Him. On reaching the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

When He rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, He found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. “Why are you sleeping?” He asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”

Luke 22:39-46

When He had finished praying, Jesus left with His disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was a garden, and He and His disciples went into it.

John 18:1

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

As we come to the last two weeks before Easter, I will be returning to the Gospels and writing a series of devotions that carry us through Jesus’ resurrection and beyond. And if you follow the writing I do in the name of the Lord, you know I firmly believe in studying the Gospels synoptically which simply means looking at all four Gospel accounts collectively when we find passages contained in each.

We begin today by traveling with Jesus and three of His most trusted disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane. Just before He faces Judas’ betrayal and the arrest that followed, we find Jesus going to His Father in prayer, troubled with the suffering that was soon to come.

Of interest, the garden of Gethsemane was located in the Kidron Valley and within the Mount of Olives which makes sense given the translation of the word Gethsemane is “oil press”. Jesus and His disciples, which included Peter and the sons of Zebedee, James and John, entered the garden for prayer.

The scriptures tell us that Jesus intentionally positioned His three faithful followers with this order:

“Pray that you will not fall into temptation.”  

What was that temptation?

Well, as we’ll see in a moment, Jesus could have been warning about the temptation to fall asleep but more on that in a moment. Before we get to that point, it’s important to look at Jesus’ mindset as He was set to pray and as we look at the passages, we find Him telling His disciples in an act of complete transparency. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells Peter, James, and John, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” before commanding them to “Stay here and keep watch.”

Jesus fully knew what was coming. He was about to bear the penalty for every sin ever committed and such judgment would be beyond human comprehension or endurance. No one would ever ask for this level of supreme punishment and in His humanity, we see that Jesus, through His own words, was not looking forward to the suffering ahead.

And so He did the only thing He could do in the moment, the only thing that anyone of us can do in a moment of extreme trial and difficulty. He went to God in prayer.

Finding a spot about a “stone’s throw” away from His three disciples, we read where Jesus fell with His face to the ground and said the following prayer:

“Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.”

As Jesus prays here, He is teaching us important truths about life as it relates to God, His Father and ours.

First, there is nothing God can’t do. Nothing.

If God wanted to remove the cup of suffering Jesus was about to drink from, He could have. God can do anything He wants to do.

And this leads to the second important thing Jesus wants us to remember.

Things happen in life as God wills. He knows the plans He has for us (Jeremiah 29:11) and puts things in motion so that those plans can be accomplished just the way He wants them to. Jesus knew this and so although He hoped He could avoid the coming suffering, He also acknowledged that He would go through it if His Father wanted.

After His prayer, it’s interesting to note that an angel came to Jesus from heaven to bring Him strength in the time of need. Only Luke’s Gospel tells us this, underscoring my earlier discussion about why we need to study the Gospels synoptically. If you were only using Matthew’s or Mark’s account, you wouldn’t know about the angel’s coming.

Well, after being strengthened by the angel, we find Jesus checking on Peter, James, and John, and He wasn’t happy with what He saw. For when he got to the three, He found them sleeping and asked them:

“Couldn’t you men keep watch with Me for one hour?”

He then specifically asked Peter, the disciple He called the “rock” He would build His church on:

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Jesus had told His three trusted followers to pray and be on watch so they wouldn’t fall into temptation. I’m sure the disciples wanted to remain obedient in their individual spirits but they were also tired in their flesh which ended up winning the day. In other words, the disciples’ spirit to pray and stay on watch as Jesus told them was trumped by their weary flesh which led them into sleep.

In today’s day and time, we all have many things to carry out based on what Jesus commanded. The question is, is our spirit strong enough to withstand the weakness of our flesh?

The only way it will be is if we allow Jesus to be our strength because through Him, we’ll have the strength to do all things (Philippians 4:13).

And with that, Jesus returned to pray the same prayer to His Father:

“My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may Your will be done.”

Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was in such deep anguish over the suffering He would soon have to endure that sweat dripped from His face that was “like drops of blood falling to the ground.” We all have been through hardships in life but I’m pretty sure nearly every person has not produced blood-laced sweat from their anguish.

And with that, Jesus returned a third time and guess what was happening?

Not much because the disciples had once again succumbed to sleep. Rather than wake them, Jesus instead returned to His prayer spot for a third time and asked the same thing from God before going back to the disciples and rousing them from sleep with these words:

“Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

Indeed, Jesus saw Judas approaching with a group of soldiers who came with the intent of arresting Him. The disciples couldn’t remain awake to watch Jesus’ back but soon they would watch Him being hauled away to a hearing before the Sanhedrin. Jesus had warned them to remain watchful so that temptation wouldn’t lead them into sin and disobedient. But the three disciples had weak flesh and this led to them falling into the temptation of sleep and disobedience to what Jesus had commanded them to do.

Today, we face similar situations where Jesus has called us to do one thing but if we’re not watchful, temptation comes along and leads us away from what Jesus expects. Our flesh overcomes our spirit of obedience and we end up failing and falling.

In today’s message, Jesus is speaking to us as much as He was to Peter, James, and John. He wants all of us to watch and pray so that we won’t fall into temptation.

In response to this, are you alert and carrying out His call or are you sleeping?

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com