Luke 22:44 – And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
This obscure passage found only in the gospel of Luke gives us a first glimpse into the Passion of Jesus Christ and the depth and effect of His work of redemption on human souls. Many of us have not come to the important understanding of the nature of fallen man. The Lord said in Jeremiah that our hearts are desperately wicked. Of course that was not the way God created us and was not what He had intended for our lives to be like, on the other hand He was not surprised knowing the end from the beginning.
So what went wrong in that Garden of Eden that would be reconciled in the garden of Gethsemane?
We all know the story of the forbidden fruit but not so many have grasped the consequences of that first sin. Adam and Eve were warned not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but eat of the tree they did. The results of that act of disobedience was devastating. We were created with a free will to serve and honor God with our lives, it was that free will that suffered the results of the fall. Our will became enslaved by sin that day and our ability to follow God was destroyed. The tragedy had eternal ramifications, man was now eternally separated from God by his sin.
This is where the story of redemption sets in, John 3:16 – “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but would have eternal life”. That’s what Gethsemane was all about. Jesus had become a man born of a virgin without a fallen nature. Like Adam, He grappled with temptation in the garden but this man was victorious resisting sin and offering His life as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. So what we see in this garden is Jesus saying yes to the plan of redemption and He even began shedding His blood as He prayed and yielded His will to the Father. We now see the liberation of man’s fallen will. When we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ our enslaved will is set free. We are now, by the grace of God, able to say yes and are able to follow Jesus.
1 thought on “FREEING OF OUR WILL”
During all those years of rebellion, where was my free will? What was the hidden, secret place from which it was summoned in a moment, so that I might bend my neck to your easy yoke, O Lord? How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys, which I had once feared to lose. You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. -Augustine
It is only by the grace of God we can obey him🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈