The betrayal and arrest of Jesus was preceded by an extended time of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. When He stepped out of the garden to present Himself to His enemies, Jesus had been alone, praying and agonizing for hours, wrestling with the will of His Father for His life, sweating what seemed to be great drops of blood in His effort. Throughout His agony He received the personal ministration of angels who helped Him to renew His strength, and He overcame the supreme temptation of the enemy to defy God’s purpose, choosing instead to go to the Cross. His humble submission to His Father’s will must have given Him a mantle of power that cloaked Him for the nine-hour journey that would take Him through six different trials, the inhumane cruelty of physical torture, the ultimate rejection by those He loved, and the climax of His own crucifixion and death on a Roman cross.
How is it that you and I think we can make it through the grueling journey of life without that same humble submission to the Father?
Feb 28, 2013
Since the first day that you set your
mind to obtain understanding and to
humble yourself before your God,
your words were heard, and I have come
in response to them. But the prince of the
Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days…
Now I have come… Daniel 10:12-14
Sometimes I seem to get “stuck in prayer.” I pray and pray. I claim Scripture, holding God to His Word. I re-examine the request to make sure it’s in line with God’s will. And still… nothing. It’s as though something is blocking the answer. Resisting it. What I need is a Breakthrough!
This past month, God has encouraged me through a passage He seemed to highlight in my personal devotions from 2 Samuel 23:13-16. In this portion of Scripture, David was hiding from the enemy in the Cave of Adullam when he expressed his longing, Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem. Bethlehem was off-limits because it was behind the enemy lines. Philistines were camped all over that entire area. However, three of David’s mighty men heard him voice his desire, risked their lives to break through the enemy lines, got the water, and brought it back to him.
As I was thinking through David’s situation, I continued my devotional reading and came across Psalm145:19, which promises: He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them. (NASB) God seemed to whisper in my heart that the Father, His Son, and the Holy Spirit were the three Mighty Ones who had heard my desire for a fresh outpouring of Living Water. They had not just risked life, but the Son had sacrificed His life in order to break through the enemy lines to make the Water available and accessible, and would pour it out on those for whom I was praying.
So I am praising God for His power to Breakthrough!
What makes you and me think we can do without a personal prayer life? It’s through prayer that we come into a personal, intimate relationship with our heavenly Father.
Do you long to have a closer relationship with God, but you don’t feel worthy? Are you convinced you are a nobody and therefore would never be accepted, much less welcomed, into His presence?
Praise God! Our entrance into His presence is not based on our own worthiness but on the worthiness of Jesus Christ! When we enter God’s presence in Jesus’ name, we are as accepted by God as Jesus is, because God counts us as His own dear children!
Jesus invites you and me, in His name, to come into His Father’s presence through prayer, crawl up into His lap by faith, put our head on His shoulder of strength, feel His loving arms of protection around us, call Him “Abba” Daddy, and pour out our hearts to Him.
Jan 22, 2013
And I will do whatever you ask in My name,
so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.
You may ask Me for anything in My name,
and I will do it. John 14:13-14
My days in December were devoted to hovering over my husband in the hospital. On the morning during the first week of the hospitalization when the dreaded diagnosis of a MRSA infection was confirmed, the above verses were in my devotional reading. I read them, then went mechanically to the next phase of my reading. Even as I moved on, I knew I was covering up the fact that I didn’t really believe those verses. Not at that moment. Or at least, they didn’t seem to be true for me. But instead of repressing my uneasy thoughts, I went back to the verses. This time when I read them, I said as softly and respectfully as I could, “Lord, these verses don’t seem to work for me.” In response, all I heard was silence. So I repeated my thought, this time a little more vehemently, “God, I know Your Word is true, but these promises don’t seem to be true for me. I’m struggling with the fact that I have been asking You to heal Danny and make him better, and he has gotten decidedly worse. He has MRSA!” Again, all I heard was silence. So I waited. To my mind, came a gentle whisper…Anne, I will do whatever you ask when it’s in My will. That brought me up short. In My will? Surely it was in His will to make Danny better. So I inquired, “Don’t You want Danny to get well? Why have You allowed this to happen to him? Lord, what is Your will for him?” And again, so softly it was more of an impression than a whisper, I felt what He wanted to do for Danny was something on the inside. Something spiritual. Not physical.
So I began praying differently. I began to ask God to give Danny a fresh touch from heaven. I began asking God to give him a glimpse of the Lord, seated on a throne…to give him a vision of the glory of Jesus Christ such as had been given to Isaiah when something bad had happened in his life, too (Isaiah 6:1-8). I fervently asked Him to use the infection, and all the trauma that went with it, to revive Danny on the inside.
Immediately, I saw the Spirit of God begin to work. Miracle after miracle. Blessing after blessing. Mornings and evenings especially, as we shared Scripture and prayed together, whether it was just the two of us, or with other family members present, I glimpsed evidence of a deep spiritual renewal on the inside of Danny Lotz.
And then God restored him physically. He was home for Christmas Day. Then he returned home for good on December 28th. I could almost hear the choirs of Heaven singing Glory, Hallelujah, to the One who is still seated on the throne! Even now, weeks later, I can see the glow of revival fire in Danny’s eyes, and hear it in the tone of his voice.
So I humbly bow my head and thank God for re-teaching me a life-lesson. He has reminded me that when I pray, I am not to assert my will, demanding and expecting Him to do what I ask. And I am not to assume that I know what God’s will is. Instead, I am to ask Him what He wants. I am to ask Him how I can pray so that His will is done here in my life and in the lives of my loved ones, as it is done in Heaven.
Something else He taught me: praying in His will takes the struggle out of unanswered prayer.
When you approach God through faith in His Son, God is accessible twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, twelve months a year for the rest of your life!
For many years, I have carried a cell phone with me whenever I leave the house. Even when I take my early morning, three-mile walk, I have my cell phone in my pocket. Invariably, when I speak with my children or staff before I go out of town, I remind them that I will have my phone with me. If I’m needed, all they have to do is call me. Yet how many times have I noticed that I have a voice message waiting on my phone because either it was out of the range of a tower, or I had turned it off while flying, or muted it, or left it in that other pocketbook!
Praise God! He is never out of range! He is never turned off or tuned out! His ears are never deaf! He is always available, accessible, and attentive to our call!
