An Angel From Heaven Appeared

Luke 22:43  An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.

     I have a picture of a statue of an angel. The statue is at resort in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  I guess you could call it the artist’s rendering of what at angel would be like in the eyes of the artist.  From what I have read, it is an accurate rendering of an angel.  This angel is not what we frequently see angels depicted as - in the form of cherubs.  If you think back to what we are told in scripture, when angels show up people are afraid.  The angels are imposing figures.  The angel at the resort is dressed as a warrior would dress.  Sword drawn, breastplate armor, buckler, and a look of BRING IT ON!  A winged warrior would best describe this angel.  If this angel were to appear it would instill confidence in how well you are protected from any foe that may choose to step and to the fight.

    Luke 22:43 casts an interesting light on the events at Gethsemane.  Jesus has brought his three disciples to pray with Him.  The disciples are weak and fall asleep.  Jesus continues to pray, and His Father sends an angel to reassure him.  The angel, a messenger of comfort from His Father in Heaven, arrives just in time to give Jesus the strength to carry on.   He does not relent to fear nor does He give into temptation. Jesus continues on in his prayer.  The strength to continue on arrives at just the right time.  And just like Jesus, the ability and need to remain strong in the face of adversity is always there. Letting your guard down offers up to opportunity for doubt to creep in.  Doubt has many facets in the spiritual life of a Christian.  We can be led to doubt the truth of grace by faith and not by works. We can encounter those who would have you believe that there is not God and everything is a random series of events beyond any control.  We are told that God is not a god of love, rather a god of anger who requires the sacrifice of your life and the taking of innocent life in order for you to enter heaven.  We can even be told God is too busy to listen to your prayers.  All of the little facets of doubt add up to one big lie.  What we know as followers of Jesus Christ is were are saved by grace through faith, God has a plan and a purpose for each and every one on earth, He is a God of love who does not demand you to sacrificing your life or the life of innocents to join Him in heaven.  What transpired in the Garden of Gethsemane is proof positive that we have a loving, caring, and listening Father in Heaven.  The angel appeared to Jesus in His time of need to give Him the strength to go on.  And each of us has the same ability to pray for the strength to endure to most difficult trials in our lives.  We have that gift of prayer for intercession because God loves each and every person.  John 3:16 reminds us of the simple truth of how deep the love of the Father is for all his mankind. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  God loves us, he gives us the strength to endure any hardship and the courage to continue on in the face of adversity.  No trial is too great that the Lord can not lift you up.  His love endures forever, as should your faith in Him. Be strong and pray often are words to remember and take to heart.

    Prayer:  Father, we often tremble in fear at what we encounter in our lives.  We forget too easily that we are never alone.  Even in the midst of tragedy, trial and hardship You are always there. Help us to remember the angel sent from heaven when Jesus was about to begin his journey to the cross. Let the hope Christ was filled with fill each of us as we go about our lives, Amen.

 

Take This Cup From Me

Luke 22:41-42  He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done.’

    In the great debate over whose will is supreme in your life, who is winning?  Is your will trumping God’s will?  Is it a case of you win most battle of will, and you let God win a few. Or have you given yourself over completely to following God’s will?  They are big questions to ask of yourself.  Sometime, soon I hope you will have a conversation with yourself.  It should start out something like this I hope.

‘Self, who is running our life?  Things have been a little rough when we have tried to manage things by ourselves.  I am sure Self, you remember the time when (fill in the blank).  That was like a poster child example of what not to do. Self, we have to make our mind up to stop this intermittent God in charge for a while then us in charge for a longer period of time.  This pattern in our lives is nothing but destructive.  We cannot survive this rollercoaster ride we have placed ourselves on.  After all Self, He is God, and we’re not.

    Okay, my feeble attempt at humor was feeble at best. But the intent is very serious. However you approach this issue, you must approach it and make up your mind. You cannot serve two masters.  Remember the words of Jesus from Luke 16? “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”  Who is your master?  Are you in the driver seat, or is God.  Jesus knows full well who is in charge.  The simple truth in His life pours out for us to cherish and adopt in the words ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done.’  Jesus asked for the cup that contained the pain, anguish, suffering and humiliation that was to be poured out in his life be taken.  Any one of us would ask this given the same circumstances knowing what Jesus knew.  Yet Jesus fully acknowledged that the will of the Father must be done and not His will.  If what was to be accomplished, a terrible price had to be paid.  And Jesus was willing to pay that price.  How humbling for us to read these words and know what transpired.  Jesus knew what was to come, how he would be treated, how he would be denied by the disciples and others in the future. Yet he said ‘not my will, but yours be done.’  We may have smaller issues in our lives to give up to the will of God.  It can become part of our routine to seek out God’s will in meditation and prayer.  And not just at Lent because we are reminded in the readings of the season.  This needs to become a pattern of behavior in our lives.  What would God have you do.  When you start with the simple things, yielding in the more complex times becomes easy. It becomes second nature or a matter of course.  It’s not only what Jesus would do, it is what Jesus did. And that should be enough to convince any of us it is the right thing to do.

     Prayer:  Lord we come before You humbly in prayer earnestly seeking Your will in our lives.  Guide is in Your path. Let Your will be know to us and clear to us in our lives today and everyday. Help us to remember to come to You first in prayer and not after our feeble attempts to run our lives leave us exhausted.  Help us Father for we are weak and You are strong. This we ask in the name of Jesus who with the Father and the Spirit at one, Amen.

Not Fall Into Temptation

Luke 22:40  On reaching the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you will not fall into temptation.’

    Have you given any thought to what is going on in verse 40 of Luke 22?  Jesus brings the disciples to Gethsemane to be by His side when His “soul is overwhelmed to the point of death.” And then He tells them to ‘Pray that you will not fall into temptation.’  I am sure they were puzzled by His words.  And we who have the benefit of seeing the whole story, the ‘big picture’ if you will, can grasp the true meaning of what Jesus meant.  It is an ominous warning filled with foreboding of troubles that await the disciples. And in this message rests the same cautionary not for each and everyone of us when we are in the midst of one of lifes’ trials.

    We know from our own reading of scripture that Jesus was to be arrested in Gethsemane and placed on trial.  We know that Jesus was tried, scourged, hung on a cross, died, was buried and rose again on the third day as foretold.  These things we know with certainty because of our faith. We have the words in scripture, the many teachings and lessons of our time as devoted followers of Jesus Christ. But, what of the disciples?  They would watch all this unfold in real-time.  There was not past to look back upon.  This was a profoundly difficult time.  They could see with their own eyes what would be their fate if they stepped up and challenged the religious authorities of the day.  It would be a case of stick another cross in the ground for each and everyone of them.  The temptation to doubt had to be phenomenal for the disciples.  Their Rabbi was to be taken away and killed before their very eyes.  The hope and promise they had in Jesus was to be dashed upon the ground just as sure as his blood was poured out during his “Passion.”  The temptation to let doubt overcome faith had to be overwhelming.  And for some, for a period of time that was the case.  Peter, who boasted of his fidelity to Jesus denied Christ three times before the rooster crowed.  And this transpired just as foretold by Jesus.  Thomas the doubting disciple would have to place his hands in the wounds to be convinced of the resurrection of Christ.  The temptation to let doubt overcome faith is just as strong today for you and I as it was for the disciples.  God and Father in Heaven will never tempt us. But Satan, the winner when doubt overcomes faith, will most assuredly take a swing at us with temptation.  The slightest doubt opens the door for more to creep in until there is a giant wedge creating a gap between ourselves and The Father.  How are we to keep doubt at bay and prevent the wedge from opening up that gap?  We follow the sound advice of Jesus given to the disciples at Gethsemane.  We pray that we do not fall into temptation.  We earnestly, fervently, and frequently pray that we are given the gift of a faith strong enough to overcome all semblance of doubt when our time of testing comes.  And when we are done, we pray some more.  To borrow a phrase from Gene Kranz, flight controller on Apollo 13, ‘Failure is not an option.” We must do what we must do to remain strong. We ask because we know without the love of the Father we are lost. We pray because we need to acknowledge to ourselves that it is not us, not anything we can or have done. It is all from the Father who sent His only Son to die for us.  And for that strong faith we must pray because temptation is always knocking on the door.

     Prayer:  Our Father in Heaven for You and You alone flows grace peace and mercy.  Your love for us who are so underserving of that love is overwhelming.  We are all too often weak and insecure. Fill is with the faith to stand strong against temptation in the name of Jesus, Amen.