He Set the Example...


Luke 22:41-42 - And He was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me, nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done. 


Last night while at prayer at our church He Set the Example was mentioned and immediately I thought about the verse above.  That's kind of how this blog has been going for me the last few days.  I'll hear something and have like this whole download of a thought that I've never had before.  So last night when I heard this I felt connected to Jesus in a way I had not before.  I think in my mind I fell into the yeah Jesus was man but He was also God and does not fully understand me and what it's like to be me trap.  That was not my conscious thought, but I'm realizing subconsciously yeah I did.  It's the whole God choosing to make Himself like me.  Who would choose that on purpose.  But He did and there is comfort in the verse above.  Because it makes me stop and say Jesus felt fear, anguish, pain, distress.  But in spite of it all He still chose to say not my will, but Yours Father.
He believed that the plan for His life was even greater than His life.  So should we.  He set the example.  God knows the plans that He has for us and He says it's to prosper us and not harm us (Jeremiah 29:11). Today we need to know that Jesus gets it.  He knows what we are currently feeling.  Insignificant, Insecure, Scared, Depressed, Devastated, Grieved, Ignored, Complacent, Alone, Comfortable (Yes I said comfortable. That's not a safe place either).  But He gets it.  But like Him we can't be immobilized by it.  God's plan for our lives is so much more than our current state.  But we choose not to see past them sometimes.  We think this is it.  We look at our lives and get stuck on our lives.  What if that's what Jesus did?  Where would we be?  So what makes us think it's ok for us?
John 14:12 says " Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.  People we have work to do.  We have been bound by the enemy for too long.  God says greater works than these we will do.  We question a lot of times why are we not seeing God move in major ways these days.  Why are we making it His problem and not looking within?  We will overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our TESTIMONY.  Do you know your testimony or are you allowing the enemy to cast shame and fear in your life thus hindering you from doing greater things.  I did.  I'll be the first one to say that I carried around more mess than a message for years.  But we have work to do.  This world needs us.  There are people out there going through things us believers have been through but at least we have Hope.  Because we do. Sometimes we don't act like it.  But we do have Hope.  They don't even know what Hope looks like and we allow the enemies whispers of shame and fear  from our past to stop us from giving it to them.  After realizing that, how can we sit back and let it happen?  How can we just be ok with that?
All the tools that we will ever need for this life to get through this life, we have already been given.  It's time for us to realize that and activate those tools.  We have the best role model ever to learn from.  Learn from Him.  Because He gets it.  He lived it.  He understands it, got through it and will get us through it.

He set the example...