7. Growing in Prayer – The Learning Tree – (2) Submission

⁸ But God clearly shows and proves His own love for us, by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  --Romans 5:8 (AMP)

We are speaking about submission!  Jesus is our example of true submission – “not My will but Your will” (Luke 22:42).  We share with you the agony Jesus suffered in submitting to the Father for our sins.  Jesus did this to free us from sin so that we might have eternal life with our Heavenly Abba.

 “As He [Jesus] slowly sags down with more weight on the nails in the wrists excruciating pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain -- the nails in the wrist are putting pressure on the median nerves. As He pushes Himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, He places His full weight on the nail through His feet. Again there is the searing agony of the nail tearing through the nerves between the metatarsal bones of the feet.  At this point, as the arms fatigue, great waves of cramps sweep over the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push Himself upward. Hanging by his arms, the pectoral muscles are paralyzed and the intercostal muscles are unable to act. Air can be drawn into the lungs, but cannot be exhaled. Jesus fights to raise Himself in order to get even one short breath. Finally, carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically, he is able to push Himself upward to exhale and bring in the life-giving oxygen. It was undoubtedly during these periods that He uttered the seven short sentences recorded”.  “With one last surge of strength, he once again presses His torn feet against the nail, straightens His legs, takes a deeper breath, and utters His seventh and last cry, "Father! Into thy hands I commit my spirit.”[1]

Why do we share these brutal details; because, the relinquishment of self is so important in our walk of faith.  We must experience the Garden of Gethsemane.  Many times in our prayer life, we want God to do our will.  We pray for what we want to happen dictating to God our wishes regarding our surrounding circumstances.  If He would only do as we request, things would be much better.  In our selfish pursuit to have control over the situations in life, we feel certain that what we want would be best and did not Jesus promise all we have to do is ask in His Name (John 14:13).  There are many scriptures in learning God’s Will.  God is sovereign that means he determines everything in His purpose the ultimate outcome of Who God is.    Until we understand scripture, we will never understand the effective prayer.

However, rather than asking in God’s Will, we want to dictate the changes according to our will.  Somewhere along the line of our thinking we did not absorb or take to our heart God’s Word in Isaiah55:8-9, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, . . . . ”.  Somewhere we have not connected to this truth.  Or maybe we didn’t get the truth in I Corinthians 1:25. John 3:30 tells us: ³⁰ He (Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease.

This is submission giving up self to be more like Jesus.  Jesus, (fully human; and fully divine), gave His will to the Father’s Will in the Garden of Gethsemane.  In your Garden of Gethsemane are you willing to submit your will to our Father’s Will?  This is effective prayer.  I must decrease so that Jesus will increase!

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[1] Dr. C. Truman Davis, “A Physician's View of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ”.