Daily devotion – the prayer of Jesus in the garden
Matthew 26: 36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” 37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”
39 He 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.”
The hour had come, Jesus was about to be arrested, beaten, tried, beaten again, scourged, and finally He would be crucified.
Here in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus begins the hour in deep prayer. His disciples, fall asleep when He needed them the most, Jesus is alone in the redemption plan but His Father is with Him.
Jesus prayer reveals to us that there is no other path to salvation but through His sacrificial death on the Cross at Calvary. Jesus prayed three times, but the Father’s will was through the cross alone – the Lamb of God dying in the place of the guilty, the blood of the innocent for the sinner!
People try many ways to get to God. There are many religions in the world, but when a religious teacher came to Jesus by night, Nicodemus was told there was but one path, one way – Jhn 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Jhn 3:14 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
Jhn 3:15 “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
Jhn 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
People can give all their money to charity, they can attend Church faithfully, they can give their lives in service to the community, they can abstain from many things, but none of these will bring them redemption or salvation.
Many people in Australia struggle with the concept of Church and Bible teaching and therefore abstain from both but still think that their ‘good work’s will be enough to get them into Heaven when they eventually die. But the Bible tells us no one nor their works, their best efforts, are ‘good enough’, it is only through repentance, and coming to the Cross of Christ that salvation is made available to the lost sinner.
As believers, when we are in discussion about life after death, Heaven, knowing God, we must not facilitate our friends and family into a self-deception that their way of living will get them by. This is only being an accessory to the crime!
Give them lovingly the scriptures – Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Rom 3:10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We are not to argue with them over these scriptures but to make them known – let God do what only God can do.
We can and must present them in a loving way and we can also tell them that today they can receive Christ as their Lord and Saviour, simply by confessing their sins before Him and receiving His as their Lord. Right there on the spot! Ask them!
Tell them Christ awaits their call to Him – Rev 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
But there is no other way to God – Jhn 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.