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Friday 7 February 2014

Luke 22:39-46 - Prayer

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and prays His famous prayer. "Take this cup from me, yet not my will but your will be done", and it records that His sweat was like drops of blood. Note that it says like drops of blood, not that it actually was drops of blood. It is possible that He did actually sweat drops of blood, but based on the text it seems by no means certain. What is certain is that Jesus experienced extreme anguish. The cross and all the associated events were absolutely real, fully experienced by Jesus. This was not charade, Jesus was fully man about to fully experience the judgement of God. 
In His prayer this is the only time that Jesus prays "if you are willing" and "your will not my will". We are perhaps too ready to tack these sorts of phrases on to prayer. Now not being fully sanctified yet there is going to be a greater degree of uncertainty about our prayers for there are going to be more times when we are wise not to trust our motives. However, as we mature in Christ and our hearts and minds become more aligned with God's a greater authority should come into our prayer life. Prayer is about working together with God.
Jesus was strengthened in His darkest hour by an angel. Angels are real. We must not over emphasise them, and there are several warnings in the New Testament letters against doing this, but they are real and God does send angels to help us.
Jesus had told the disciples to pray that they would not fall into temptation, this was to no avail.

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