What about Gethsemane?

I have been thinking of Gethsemane since preparing for this year’s celebration of the Holy Week. Yesterday I read an encouraging devotional about the need each believer has to know the recommissioning experience Peter had beside the Sea of Galilee with our Lord after the resurrection. It caused the question to rise in my mind about Gethsemane. What about Gethsemane in relationship to the daily lives of believers? 

In the shadow of the cross the Son of God knelt in agony beyond my ability to understand or empathize with. There He spoke the words which would change life and eternity forevermore: "Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done." It seems to me that our Lord denied Himself, took up His cross, and followed the will of the Father. I think another way of saying it is that He loved the Father with all of his heart, mind, and soul (strength); and he loved us as Himself. My thoughts raise a question. If it is true that the Lord denied Himself and took up His cross (that is, loved the Father with all of His heart, mind, and soul; and loved us as Himself), should Gethsemane be a part of every believer’s life? 

My answer to this question is, "Yes, it should and will be a part of every believer’s life." Jesus clearly states in Luke 9:23 that anyone who would follow Him must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Him. We each are commanded to obey the Great Commandment, with the promise of the Father and His presence if we do so (John 14:20-24). When do we therefore encounter our Gethsemane?  

We encounter it whenever we are faced with a decision to do what honors the Lord, or what benefits us, or what provides for our comfort. We encounter Gethsemane when we are discouraged and want to change life to be less demanding or difficult rather than be faithful to Him. The minister faces it whenever he is faced with the unrelenting pressure of those who oppress and control. A wife faces Gethsemane whenever she is discouraged and feeling unloved. The businessman faces it whenever he must choose between what is right and godly or what is profitable. The Christian leader faces it whenever he or she has the choice to relate to people out of what is most comfortable, safe, or beneficial for him or her, rather than obeying the Great Commandment. The young person or student faces it when making choices of going along with the group or honoring God and parents. Yes, we each face our own Gethsemane, each and every day, each and every decision. Some days our decisions are more agonizing than others. The Lord therefore says to each of us, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”  

Abiding—well, it is all about prayer, and sometimes it is in the agony of our own Gethsemanes.

Faith, Relationship, and Prayer

My wife checks her email every day. She normally finds an e-mail with a new recipe from a website she subscribes to. When we go to a doctor, we are prescribed a course of treatment to enable us to return to health. Often we are counseled about living life in way which prevents illnesses or debilitating diseases. Appealing and satisfying food needs recipes, healing needs a prescribed plan, and the ability to live healthily requires goals, discipline, and often endurance.

  

This past week we celebrated Easter Sunday. For Christians it is an annual day of celebration and rejoicing. We rejoice because our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, is indeed risen from the dead and is alive forevermore! In the words of the old hymn "I serve a risen Savior; He’s in the world today." We rejoice to know He is alive.  

Thinking on the implications of the resurrection I was reminded of two scriptures. One is Romans 6:5-11. In this text Paul explains that one who is born again has indeed experienced that the old person (the old person separated from God by sin and in bondage to sin) has been put to death. In the same way he declares the one who is put to death in Christ is raised in Him. Verse 10 is significant because it emphasizes that the one raised in Christ Jesus is to live a new life unto God—a resurrected life. Verse 11 commands the one who is truly born again to be aware he or she is to live a resurrected life. 

The second scripture is found in Romans 8:11 which declares that “… He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” As I write this moment, a third scripture comes to mind. In Galatians 2:20 Paul says as a Christ follower, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." All of the scriptures emphasize a born-again Christ follower is to live a resurrected life. The question is: How do we live such a life? What does living a resurrected life look like, as we live it in this crazy and confused world?  

Jesus anticipated this question prior to His crucifixion, and He sought to prepare His disciples by providing a recipe or prescription for them. In John 14:1-14 our Lord teaches that one will live the resurrected life by faith in Him—faith in Him who establishes a place, in the very heart and presence of God, for all who are born again—faith in Him as the One who will guide us in the way, instruct us in truth, and enable us to know His life as we live the resurrected life toward the fulfillment of the hope He establishes. He also tells us He has revealed the Father to us in all He said and did. 

Jesus was even more majestic when He declared, “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.” The resurrected life is therefore eternal life, as we live in a personal and real knowing relationship with our Heavenly Father (John17:3). Then finally He sends those who are His Christ followers into the world to do greater works than He did because they will be empowered to declare and serve the Kingdom of God. He explained that the preeminent need for a Christ follower is prayer in His name—to live the resurrected life in a consistent prayerful relationship with the Father through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  

The prescription or recipe is to believe in God and in His Son Jesus Christ, to abide in a confident and real relationship with God as Abba Father, and to prayerfully live life in the hope of eternity. Thus Jesus explains that we abide in Him and He in us.  

Let us celebrate our Lord's resurrection by abiding in His love, praising our Heavenly Father forever, as we endure in His hope to His glory.