Matthew 26:39 (NKJV) 39He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
We have been studying the weapons of our warfare that have been given to us to cause the devil to flee. In this section we have been looking at the weapon of prayer, specifically prayer as Jesus prayed. In our last two posts we saw that Jesus prayed for specific groups of people. There is one more individual Jesus prayed for. He prayed for himself.
Nothing in his physical life was as challenging as what he did at the end of it. His physical death was more painful and gruesome than any of us can imagine. However, I think that the spiritual part of his suffering was probably more of what he was praying about than the physical. He could not bear the thought that for any time at all he would be separated from God. That is what happened to the man Jesus when the sin of the world was laid upon him. Either way, he was facing something that he did not want to go through. In that moment he prayed.
He asked God if it might be possible to bypass what he was going to have to endure. Yet what he really was asking the Father for was the strength to go through what it was going to take to do the will of God. As we read on in this story, we find that after this time of prayer, Jesus was at total peace. Even in the presence of Pontius Pilot, he was the voice of reason. Pilot said to him, “Don’t you know that I have the power to condemn you or let you go?” Jesus responded, “You have no power over me that God has not given you.” In those words, he relieves the burden on Pilot. From that point on he never faulters, never complains and never resists the things that were done to him. His prayer for strength worked.
When we are stressed with any of the myriad things that can come upon us in life, what do we do? Many of us will give in to fear, worry and stress. We will do everything we can to find a solution until we are exhausted and fold under the pressure. The one thing we usually do not do is pray. Sometimes we just do not think about it. Sometimes we just do not believe it will help. I think there is a tendency to think we are supposed to be able to handle whatever the challenge may be. None of these reasons are valid. If Jesus needed to pray for strength in his time of need, so do we.
We need to run to the Lord with our problems. We need to pray for the strength to get through the things we may face. We also need to pray for wisdom, guidance and direction. We need to pray for the power of God to be present whenever we find that we are not able to handle the problem ourselves. I pastored a long time, and I studied psychology and other things that would help me minister to the people under my leadership. I never told someone not to seek “professional” help, and I never advised against medication that was needed. However, I do believe that if we would take the stress and pressure of life to God in prayer, most of the depression, discouragement and even anxiety we feel would be lessoned or eliminated. God hears and answers prayers we pray for ourselves.
Jesus knew this truth and I am sure that Gethsemane was not the first time he prayed for himself. One key to why it was so affective is found in the only context in which Jesus ever prayed. Jesus always prayed from the perspective of absolute faith in the existence, goodness and power of God. Andrew Murrey, a mighty man of God from the late 1800s, said that Jesus never prayed as some spiritual exercise alone. He prayed to get results. He could do this because he had faith in the one to whom he prayed.
If we are going to be successful in our prayer lives, either for others or for ourselves, we must settle in our hearts that almighty God does hear and answer our prayers. There are times we will pray through heartbreak, carrying heavy burdens. We do not have to pretend that this is not true when we come to God. He knows everything about you and your circumstances. We may need to cry out to him. We may have questions that make it hard for us to endure because we do not understand. There is nothing wrong with asking him those questions and even bringing our very real feelings to him. When we do, we must do it from the context of faith. We may not understand why things are happening the way they are. That is normal. We must not assume that God does not care or does not know.
When we pray in those times, we must do as Jesus did in Gethsemane. He asked God to free him of the obligation before him. He did not want to do what was being asked of him. All of us can understand that. I think in his natural mind he knew the basic things he was about to face. However, I expect there were things that were outside of his human experience, and therefore the unknown was part of what he may have faced. That is certainly what makes so many things so difficult for us. How he ended the prayer shows us that he had faith in God, even in his desire to escape what was coming.
“Nevertheless, not my will but your will be done.” He let His Father know that he was in distress and why. In the end he yielded to the will of God, not because he was resigned to the fate that seemed to be his but because he had absolute trust that God would never do anything that was unnecessary to work the highest good for the man Jesus and for the greater purpose of God. He never once thought God had forsaken him until the moment on the cross when he became sin for us. Even then, it was the faith in God’s goodness and justice that kept him during what he endured. Look at Hebrews 12.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NKJV) 1Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus endured the cross. He did not enjoy it. There are some things in life that we must endure. We all face hard things that put incredible pressure on our emotions. Jesus despised the shame he was forced to endure. There are times in our lives where we will despise what we must face. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. He is the one who initiated the kind of relationship with the Lord that we enjoy today. He faced hard things that he did not like, and so will we.
Yet in the midst of it we can have the two things that brought him through the pain, pressure and shame of the cross. He was not going through this for nothing. There was a joy that he looked forward to in the midst of all of it. He knew that he was going through these things for a purpose. That purpose was the freedom of God’s family. He also knew that he would end up at the throne of God.
When you and I face difficult and sometimes unthinkable things, we need to pray for ourselves. We need to do it by faith, choosing to believe that there is a purpose God is working in us and knowing that we are in him even now at the right hand of the throne of God. That is why Paul, even while enduring many trials, could say in Romans 8, “I am more than a conqueror through him who loved me.” He could declare this because he had prayed and believed that he had already overcome them even before he saw his deliverance. When we pray for ourselves within the context of this kind of faith, we will be able to decare the same.
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