A Surrendered Life

For some time now I’ve been reflecting upon the Garden of Gethsemane and there is just SO much I could say and unpack, but what really hit me was Jesus-the-surrendered-One. The prayers that Jesus prayed in garden were things like:

• “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
• “Father, if this cup of suffering cannot pass away, then let Your will be done.”
• “My Father! PLEASE if it is at all possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I will be obedient. Let Your will be done, not mine.” ‭‭‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

We see in the garden that Jesus laid down His will and cried out the words: but yet NOT my will but Yours, Father God, be done!, now I’ve read those words many times and the depth of them has only recently hit me. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane is overwhelmed with grief, He is described as feeling: “agonizing sorrow”; as being “deeply distressed” and in “agony” because His heart was “overwhelmed and crushed with grief”.
Jesus felt as if He was dying.
In fact, Luke 2:445 details that Jesus “was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.” Now doctors have been able to prove that this can actually happen when people experience EXTREME stress.

Place of crushing

It’s also interesting to note that Gethsemane means olive-press, in Jesus’ time an olive press was made up of heavy stones. The torn flesh of the olives was placed onto a flat stone where heavy stones would then be lowered onto the olive pulp. Many people have paralleled the heavy stones laying upon the olive pulp to the sins of the world weighing heavy upon Jesus. He would have had this feeling of being squeezed between stone, which would explain why He was feeling as if He was dying.
But despite Jesus feeling all of these emotions, He still willingly and loving offered Himself for us as a redeeming sacrifice.

For the past 5 years I’ve felt like I’ve been in this place of crushing and for a long time I REALLY resented it. But then one day God challenged me to look at it completely differently. I was reminded of Psalm 91:4 where God promises to completely protect me with His pinions, commonly known as feathers.
The challenge God issued to me was to imagine His wing as a cocoon.
It is in the cocoon that transformation takes place, in the natural a caterpillar becomes a new creature a butterfly. When we surrender to God’s cocoon of love a transformation takes place for us, we become NEW creatures in Christ.
The promise in 2 Corinthians 3:18 is that I’m being changed from glory to glory, and this has been a great comfort to me because I can know that as another part of my old self is crushed and destroyed, that it’s transforming me to become more and more like Christ.

Prayer:

It is my prayer today that we grasp hold of living a surrendered life, that we would join Jesus in crying out the words: ‘NOT my will but Yours be done Lord.’
That we would focus on Jesus-the-surrendered-One and surrender our cares and concerns to Him because He longs to help.
I pray that we would completely and utterly let go of our old nature and choose afresh to COMPLETELY surrender our lives. That as we let go we discover the freshness and fullness of the abundant life that Jesus offers, that we would see a transformation take place as LIFE in ABUNDANCE is infused to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s press in and allow God to radically transform our lives; to become so transformed that people would look at us and say: ‘surely that person knows Immanuel, for I can see that God truly dwells with them.’.
Thank You Jesus that this Easter we can remember Your body was fully surrendered for us and Your blood was so willingly shed for us.

In Jesus’ precious and mighty name I pray. Amen.

Many blessings, Keona

Notes:
1. The Garden of Gethsemane can be found in Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-52, Luke 22:39-53 and John 18:1-11.
2. Jesus prayers have been created using Matthew‬ ‭26:39‬ (‭NLT‬‬)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ and then other versions as inspiration.
3. “agonizing sorrow” is found in Matthew 26:36-38 (MSG)
4. “overwhelmed and crushed with grief”. is found in Matthew 26:37 (NKJV)
5. Luke 2:44 is the NLT
6. In regards to the olive press I found these 2 articles were really helpful:  Ray Vander Laan  and The Olive Oil Source
7. LIFE in ABUNDANCE is described in Romans 7:6 and John 10:10.

If you would like to study more about the Garden of Gethsemane Got Questions has another good article.