Today’s Reading: John 13:1-17, Matt 26:14-56
Optional readings: Mark Ch 14:12-52, Luke 22:1-53, John 13:18-18:12
Last Supper, Gethsemane, Arrest
I am so grateful that God gave me the opportunity to walk through this study with you. As I have pored over the gospel accounts, I am flooded with a fresh sense of His indescribable, infinite love for us. I am undone.
I want to pivot at this point in the study-
Let’s shift from a white-knuckle, try-my-hardest, best-effort kind of striving…
To an open-handed, overwhelmed-with-gratitude, “fill-me-with-Your-Spirit” kind of surrender.
Look at Him…
Kneeling on the ground to wash the disciples' feet.
Breaking bread with his betrayer.
Laying face down in the garden, overwhelmed with sorrow.
Deflating with disappointment when He finds His friends sleeping.
Asking the Father if there is any other way.
Sweating blood in his turmoil and stress.
And praying, “Yet not as I will, but as You will.”
I can’t get out of my mind how alone He must have felt. He usually went away by Himself to pray, but this time He actually wanted his friends to keep watch with Him.
He was betrayed, alone, abandoned, denied. And He knew that this was only the beginning of the pain he would endure.
His death on the cross says, “I love you,” but so did every agonizing step toward that moment.
How can I see this tender love and not be forever changed?
He is everything to me.
I will spend my life praising Him.
I will never get over it, this great love.
Whatever it means for me to follow this Jesus, I am all. in.
All to Jesus I surrender
All to Him I freely give
I will ever love and trust Him
In His presence daily live
All to Jesus I surrender
Humbly at His feet I bow
Worldly pleasures all forsaken
Take me, Jesus, take me now
All to Jesus I surrender
Make me Savior wholly thine
May Thy Holy Spirit fill me
Truly know that Thou art mine
(Judson W. Van DeVenter- 1896)
Jesus, Sometimes I don’t know what to say. Words won’t suffice.
For my life, I pray, “not as I will, but as You will.” Amen.