1 SEP 23 Friday: A Closer Walk Devotional
“He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. Abba, Father, he cried out, everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Mark 14:35-36
When you read the gospel account of Christ's passion, you are shocked at what our Lord went through to free us from the penalty of our sin and evil. This was not a plan “B”, but was the plan before the foundation of the world. The only solution acceptable to God was the brutal suffering and death of his only Son, Jesus. He had to go through great suffering to fulfill the plan, to rise again, and give us new life.
Jesus prayed fervently to the Father that he would not have to go through this, but he yielded to the Father’s will. “I want your will to be done, not mine.” We need to put that one sentence in all of our prayers to God. We need to recite that sentence morning, noon, and night. At some point, we will go through things we don’t want to go through. We will face disappointment, pain, suffering, or death. That may be part of the plan for your life.
In our hearts, we naturally say, not your will, but mine be done. Mankind desires autonomy, but that will never happen. We were slaves to sin, but now we are slaves to God. We have been purchased by God through the cross of Jesus. We can’t say, ‘just do you’ to our neighbor. You can only ‘do Jesus’. John the Baptist got this when he told his disciples that he must decrease so that Jesus could increase. John learned that he must suffer to fulfill God’s will for his life, In his suffering, God was glorified.
Do you pray, thy will be done, not mine?
Reading Plan: Psalm 16, 17; 1 Kings. 5:1-6:1, 7; Acts 28:1-16; Mark 14:27-42
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