Friday, July 26, 2013
What Incredible Passion
The night before Jesus died
he prayed passionately in the garden of Gethsemane, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup
of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
(Matthew 26:39 NLT) We often understand
that to mean that Jesus, in his human weakness, would like to have avoided
Calvary, but, because of his love for us, He proceeded to give His life. That may be the long and short of it. If so it is the greatest story ever told.
But, this could have been an
even greater love story than we realize.
The night Jesus prayed in the garden he was under so much emotional and
spiritual pressure Luke says, "He prayed more fervently, and he was in
such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of
blood." Medical doctors have
identified this condition as very serious and even deadly. Suppose he was near death and was not praying
to get out of dying, but, rather, that he would not die prematurely.
I picked up this idea by
reading Hebrews 5:7 from The Living Bible: " Yet while Christ was here on
earth he pleaded with God, praying with tears and agony of soul to the only one
who would save him from [premature] death. And God heard his prayers because of
his strong desire to obey God at all times. (TLB)
If the devil could have
killed Jesus in Gethsemane, he could have foiled God's great plan of
salvation. But Jesus was committed to
the task; He was ready to lay down his life.
We see this same determination at several other junctures in Jesus' life:
·
When Herod tried
to kill him as an infant, God and his parents kept him alive.
·
When a crowd of
people tried to kill him, he walked through the crowd.
·
Near the end of
his ministry he avoided crowds because it was not yet time to die.
The Living Bible goes on to
make these side comments: "Christ's longing was to live until he could die
on the cross for all mankind. There is a strong case to be made that Satan's
great desire was that Christ should die prematurely, before the mighty work at
the cross could be performed. Christ's body, being human, was frail and weak
like ours (except that his was sinless). He had said just a few moments before,
"My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death." And can a human body
live long under such pressure of spirit as he underwent in the Garden, that
caused sweating of great drops of blood? But God graciously heard and answered
his anguished cry in Gethsemane ("Let this cup pass from me") and
preserved him from seemingly imminent and premature death: for an angel was
sent to strengthen him so that he could live to accomplish God's perfect will
at the cross."
What incredible passion The
Mighty God in Christ exhibited toward mankind.
What tremendous passion He still has for you. There is an innumerable multitude of true
stories that follow a plot similar to this:
·
Someone comes to
a desperate place in their life.
·
They find a place
to sincerely cry out to God, asking Him if He is real.
·
God uses the
Bible, people, circumstances, visions, dreams, songs... to make Himself real
·
They respond by
expressing their faith in God through repentance and baptism. (Acts 2:38)
·
God fills them
with His Spirit and they speak with other tongues just like 3000 people did on
the first day of the New Testament church. (Acts 2)
Passion marks the lives of
such believers. But it is no wonder believers are so passionate toward God - He
was first passionate toward them. He
refused to take the easy route and so should true believers. People should look at believers and say,
"What incredible passion!"
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