Satan would not have been defeated.
I was starting to pray for the Persecuted Church when the thoughts for this meditation came so heavily upon me that I had to postpone my prayers and start to write.
By faith some of us have gone to Gethsemane with Jesus and wept over His anguish, even while (Matthew 26:39) we are eternally grateful that the Father did not take the CUP away. What was in that CUP? All your sin and mine – every wrong thought, desire, attitude, word and deed, the furious wrath of God’s outraged holiness, and all the torment and punishment of certain judgment. If God had taken that CUP away from Jesus, it would have been yours and mine, a bottomless CUP to drink forever somewhere but definitely not in heaven.
My desire is to be a worshiping intercessor. My intercession will be stunted and weak or effective and powerful according to my worship of God.
My worship will be according to my knowledge of God. The better and more fully I know Him, the deeper and all-consuming will be my worship of Him Who is the Living God, Jehovah, Elohim, Adonai. If I don’t worship God, I have no basis for prayer but if I do worship God – then I must pray. If, when I pray, I worship God because of the terrifying brilliance (1 Timothy 6:16) of His Holiness, the limitless power of His Omnipotence or the endless scope of His Omniscient wisdom and knowledge, and the magnitude of the Grace in God’s heart which is greater than the sin of any person’s life and all the sin of all the people of all the world, then my prayers will be eternally effective for God’s purpose. The loving-kindness of God’s Grace continues throughout my day every day. I would be hopeless without the Lord but I am never helpless because (2 Chronicles 20:12) the Lord is always with me. To behold the worthiness of (John 1:29) the Lamb of God (Revelation 5:9, Revelation 5:13) when I pray, causes me to be fully confident (Genesis 18:14, Luke 1:37) that nothing is impossible with God. Always looking to Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) the Source and Originator of our faith and He brings our faith to maturity.
Unbroken communion with God is a continual attitude of worship and intercession. Jesus prayed (John 17:11) that we would be one with the Father. In that oneness we will be heart-to-heart sensitive always to the interests of God’s heart and mind. To be on fire for God, to be the fuel for God’s fire, would be, to be like (Exodus 3:2) the bush that was burning with fire but was not consumed because it was the fire of God in that bush. (Major Ian Thomas) “Any old bush will do as long as God is in the bush.” What I am writing, with a full heart, could never have been said and would never have been true if the Father had taken that CUP away from Jesus.
Don’t foolishly rush to the Throne of Grace (Hebrews 4:16) to quickly drop off your request list to some supposed Blessing Machine in the sky. Such a mockery of prayer is unavailing and unacceptable to God and will be totally ignored by Him, except for possible judgement. Take time to worship Sovereign Almighty Majesty, Who rules supremely over all on that Throne. God the Son, of course, would continue forever but if God the Father had taken away that CUP from Jesus in His humanity - - all humans would be damned and doomed. No precious Blood to forgive our sins and open the way for loving fellowship with God, no death-conquering Resurrection, no Easter, no Pentecost, no thrilling Rapture by our beloved and longed-for Bridegroom, no prayer, no joyful reunion with departed love ones, no glorious eternity with Jesus in His kingdom. Only torment and punishment of unrelenting judgment forever, nothing but unending horror.
His killing torment and anguish forced the question (Luke 22:44) from Jesus. “Father, if it be possible let this CUP pass.” BUT because of His determined obedience He was given (Luke 22:43) heaven-sent help and Jesus added the first WORD of triumph (Matthew 26:39) “Nevertheless” and then “not My will but Thine be done.” With these WORDS He fulfilled (Genesis 3:15) prophecy and delivered the crowning blow which would crush Satan. Jesus drank into Himself all that was in the CUP until that CUP was completely dry and totally empty. There was nothing, absolutely nothing left in that CUP for us. We need to go back to Gethsemane and remember (Philippians 2:5:8) that because Jesus was equal with God, He could have refused the CUP, instead He humbled Himself to care nothing for His own entitlement but cared everything for our need. In His humanity Jesus is (Hebrews 1:3) the only visible radiant representation of the invisible God. Jesus drank it all, bore it all, suffered it all and paid all of our debt in full. I want to (Mark 4:34) spend time watching in Gethsemane with Jesus. I want to take His yoke (Matthew 11:29) and learn of Him. I want to live and conduct myself (Colossians 1:10) in a manner worthy of my Lord and fully pleasing to Him. I can accept the ‘inevitables’ of aging in a fallen world because I know that God weaves even these into the (Romans 8:28-29) “all things” for His purpose to make me like Jesus.
We have the priceless privilege (Hebrews 10:19) of free access to the Holy of Holies through the Blood of Jesus. How could we ever dare to come to pray at the Throne of Grace without worshiping the all-glorious Sovereign enthroned on that Throne? As we worship the Lord according to knowledge, we have full confidence to pray because we know that we are welcomed, loved and heard.
We can know God in the continuing and deepening intimacy of unbroken union and communion. We can worship God in the beauty of His holiness. We can pray to the Lord with absolute assurance that He will grant our every request.
- BUT ONLY BECAUSE - God did not take the CUP away.
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All that I have written is covered and made possible for us by the SO of God so loved (John 3:16) so greatly loved, that He could not take the CUP away.