Go to the home page: Do You Need A Winning Game Plan For Your Life?
Matthew 14:32-15:15
Jesus knew what was coming and he knew it would be the most painful and most difficult event of his life. What did he do to prepare? He went out of the busy city to a quiet green space called Gethsemane to pray.
Do we prepare ourselves for the day with prayer? Do we gird ourselves for the daily battle by asking God to guide us each step of the way? Maybe we get down on our knees after bad things have happened to us and beg God to show us a way out. Here we learn from Jesus that we must pray before the bad things happen! While he was crying out to his Father, the disciples fell asleep. He woke them and asked that they pray with him but they fell asleep again and again. It is true for all of us that when we are tired and worn out or burned out, we are vulnerable. It is hard to hear the call of Jesus when all we want to do is sleep.
Even his dearest friends on earth were not supporting him, did not understand him and we learn from this that only God is truly dependable. You may think you have your life planned out and that you are secure with friends and family but over and over people will fail you.
So Judas comes with the temple police to have Jesus arrested. Was he arrested for making the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the crippled to walk? Well, yes. Jesus made the Jewish leaders look silly and small and they did not like it one bit. Jesus was teaching the new way to live life on earth and the Jewish leaders knew if Jesus was embraced, they would lose their positions of power.
Read the story for yourself to get the details but soon Jesus was standing in front of the Roman leader, Pilate. It was Pilate's job to give the citizens under his jurisdiction a fair hearing. Pilate could not figure out why the Jews were so angry at this man who was unlike any prisoner he had ever seen. Of course, Pilate was standing in the presence of God.
Pilate did not like the idea of sending Jesus to the cross so he tried to let him go free. Barabbas was in jail because he had started a riot and he had killed some people. He was a bad man. Pilate thought that if he gave the crowd a chance to let one prisoner go free that they would choose Jesus since Barabbas was known to be a notorious murderer. But the crowd was obsessed with stopping Jesus.
The first time God substituted his life for another person, it wasn't the beloved disciple John, it was the notorious criminal, Barabbas. If he did it for Barabbas, he'll do it for you.
