Saturday August 24
"Father…Take
this cup away from Me.”
Mk 14:36 NKJV
Facing Your
Biggest Fears in Prayer
The next time you drink from the communion cup in church,
stop and recall what was in the cup Jesus drank from in Gethsemane on
the night before He was crucified. You can drink from the cup with assurance
because He first drank from the cup in agony. On the eve of His death He
prayed: "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death…Father, all
things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what
I will, but what You will” (vv. 34-36 NKJV). Note the words, "exceedingly
sorrowful.” (If you think your sin is no big deal, perhaps those words will
help to change your mind.) Christ drank from the cup of God’s wrath so that you
could drink from the cup of God’s grace. Although He was sinless, He tasted the
sins of both the most refined sinner and the most repulsive one. He had never
felt God’s fury; He didn’t deserve to. He had never experienced isolation from
His Father; the two had been one from before time began. He had never known
physical death; He was an immortal being. Yet within a few hours God would
unleash His sin-hating wrath on His sinlessly perfect Son. And as a man, Jesus
was afraid. Deathly afraid. And what He did with His fear shows us what to
do with ours. He prayed earnestly and persistently. He told His followers,
"Sit here while I go and pray over there” (Mt 26:36 NKJV). Jesus faced His
ultimate fear with honest prayer, and overcame it. And through prayer, you can
overcome your fears too.
Taken from the Word for You Today devotional
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