As Jesus faced the cross, we read in Luke 22:39-46,“39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and His disciples followed Him. 40 On reaching the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” 41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. 44 And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. 45 When He rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, He found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. 46 “Why are you sleeping?” He asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” This Scripture reveals for us the consistent pattern of prayer in the life of Jesus. Whatever was happening, Jesus was in the habit of praying. He did not simply turn to God His Father in prayer in desperate times, Jesus had already demonstrated that prayer and spending time with His Father was a priority all the time. Jesus counsels His followers that they should pray that they will not fall into temptation. When circumstances of our lives are in turmoil and when we do not know how to understand what is happening, we can always pray. It is prayer that keeps our faith grounded. This is how Jesus approached this time of anguish in His life. He poured out His heart to God in prayer. Jesus comes through this concerted focus on God in prayer with a releasing of everything into God’s hands. He invites God’s will, not His. We can follow the pattern of Jesus by regularly committing our lives and their circumstances to God in prayer. We can actively engage with God and come to the sincere conclusion that we want what God wants. As a result, our faith can be strengthened and we can avoid the temptation of faltering in our faith, as we stagger under the weight of what is before us. We can become more like Jesus when we join for our WEDNESDAY PRAYER TOGETHER tomorrow April 5th at 1 pm.
Wanting to follow Jesus and become more like Him, with prayer being the consistent focus of our lives, Pastor Lola
God our Father, we thank You that we have free access to You through Jesus Your Son. We recognize that it was the usual pattern of Jesus’ life to be committed to spending regular time with You in prayer. This is why He turned to You when facing the incomprehensible reality of the cross. We see in Scripture that Jesus’ disciples followed Him to His usual place of communing with You. We too want to follow Jesus to a place of communing with You in prayer. Please God, may prayer be the usual practice of our lives too. We want prayer to be such a habit that we naturally turn to You for guidance and for strength that living life requires. This truth that prayer can be the means of us avoiding falling into temptation, motivates us to want to pray more often and more effectively. And also like Jesus, we do not want to give up praying. When we are in anguish and distress, we ask that we will pray even more earnestly. Thank You God for assurance of Your loving care for us that is established as we do pray even more earnestly. Our God please lead us to continue in prayer until You show us that it is time to rise up from prayer. When we return to those we have asked to pray, we ask that they will have remained faithful in prayer. We do want to avoid the temptation of having our faith falter. When You do meet with us in prayer and lift us up and give us renewed hope in You, we want to be reminded to trust You even more. And God, with busy activities and family gatherings that are often part of Easter weekend, we want to maintain time to pray. Like Jesus, we ask to be lifted up in prayer. Beyond our personal experiences of meeting with You in prayer, we do pray that others will also want to encounter You God through prayer. Thank You God that each of us will have unique transformation that You bring about through sincere prayers. For those things in our lives that we have been bringing to You in prayer for an extended time, we continue to invite what You will do. When how we hoped You would answer our prayers is not what happens, we do not want to abandon our faith in You. We actually pray for faith in You that deepens with the struggles of our lives. We do pray for compassion towards the anguish of others. Our prayer is that following Jesus in His pattern of prayer will result in following Jesus more closely in every aspect of our lives. We anticipate that remembering Jesus and what He has done in giving Himself for us can amplify our commitment to Him and our amazement at what He has accomplished in being willing to go to the cross for us. We pray this prayer with profound and humble gratitude in the Name of Jesus. AMEN.