From: April 25, 2024
“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul” (Psalms 94:19 ESV).
Is your heart burdened with many “cares?” Are you worried and concerned about many things? Have you been bottling up your distress within you? Why not open up to the Lord about it? For He has a multitude of “consolations” that can bring delight to your soul. Notice that the psalmist doesn’t say that the Lord takes away his cares. Yet he does say that the Lord gives him “consolations,” surely one to match every concern, so that his gloomy soul is made glad.
What are these comforts and consolations that the Lord gives? The psalmist doesn’t name them, perhaps because they are “new every morning” (Lam. 3:22-23) as the prophet Jeremiah observed. Or perhaps because the psalmist wanted to move us to look to God’s Word for ourselves. For in the Bible there is a promised divine comfort to match every human care.
Yet we must learn how to lift up our cares to the Lord in order to receive His comfort. As the apostle Peter wrote, “Cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:7).
PRAYER. Dear Father, we cast our cares, our worries and concerns, upon You. We leave them with You today. Apply your comfort to our souls. Replace our gloom with gladness and our worry with worship. Teach us to bring our burdens to You, not trying to carry them alone. Strengthen us for today’s journey now. In Jesus’ name, amen.
From: April 25, 2023
“Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives” (Luke 22:39 NLT).
On the night that Jesus would be betrayed, He went out “as usual” to the Mount of Olives to pray. On this unusual evening, Jesus followed His usual habit: He prayed on the mountain. And His disciples followed Him. Yet, rather than praying, they slept. For they were exhausted with grief.
The disciples were accustomed to Jesus withdrawing to “lonely places to pray” (Luke 5:16). For this was His practice everywhere He went. And they knew He especially loved praying on the Mount of Olives, where He could see the entirety of Jerusalem and its Temple from the Mount’s greater elevation, yet still be hidden from the crowds.
Judas Iscariot knew where Jesus would be. His habit of praying on the Mount of Olives was well known to the betrayer. For he had been there with Him many times before. Yet this dark night, he came not to pray with Jesus, but to betray Him with a kiss, while thirty pieces of silver jingled in his pocket.
Have you learned to follow Christ’s habit of prayer, following Him so often that it becomes “usual?” And when you seek to follow Him in prayer, have you felt the temptation to either fall sleep or to let you mind wander to worldly things, like money and possessions? Yet as we grow in the discipline of praying with Jesus, we learn to stay awake and pray with Him, overcoming our physical exhaustion and temptation to sin.
PRAYER: Dear Father, our spirit is willing but our flesh is weak. Teach us to pray as Jesus did. Lead us to follow Him up the Mount to pray “as usual.” Strengthen us to stay awake and not to give in to temptation, but to focus on His voice as we pray with Him. Father, help us to learn to follow Christ’s habit of prayer. In Jesus’ name, amen.
From: April 25, 2016
On the night He was betrayed, Jesus quoted the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 53:12 to prepare the disciples for His crucifixion. He who knew no sin, would be “numbered” or counted among the sinners. And He would allow this accounting to take place willingly, so that those who believed in Him might be numbered among the righteous.
From: April 25, 2015
While Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples fell asleep. He had told them to watch and pray while He pulled away to pray alone. But they were exhausted with “sorrow” (v.45). Jesus was trying to prepare them for a difficult trial, but their human frailty was too much. I wonder how many times the Spirit of Christ urges us to pray, yet our flesh is too weak? Instead, we sleep. Christ followers still hear the Spirit say, “Rise and pray.” Rise up from your sleep and lift your heartfelt prayers to the Father. There is a rest that comes from prayer that is better than that from sleep.
From: April 25, 2014
Both the humanity and divinity of Jesus are seen in this prayer. His humanity in his desire to avoid suffering and death. His divinity in his obedience to the Father to lay down his life for our sin. That Jesus is both Son of God and Son of Man is seen, but also a new way of praying. Praying like Jesus, we not only express our desires to God, but we invite God to realign our will with His. We pray like Jesus when we pray, “Not my will, but Yours be done” prayers.