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… with God all things are possible. - Matthew 19:26
And He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to You; take away this cup from Me: nevertheless not what I will, but what You will. - Mark 14:36
The scriptures affirm abundantly throughout the Old Testament and the New that God works miracles and indeed there is nothing impossible to our omnipresent, omniscient God who created the world and a never ending universe.
We lift our hearts and our prayers to this One who loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins so that someday all His children who have come to Him though the Messiah Jesus may be cradled in His embrace.
This image of a loving Father is exhibited in Jesus’ relationship with God. On His knees writhing in His agony in Gethsemane, as He faced His impending crucifixion, He cried, “Abba, Father.” The word Abba is the equivalent of the English word, “Daddy, or Poppa.” He was crying out to the Father He knew who loved Him and was indwelling Him. Jesus knew full well of God’s limitless power; that all things were truly possible for His Father to accomplish. With this knowledge and with bloody sweat pouring out of His brow from the stress of His agony, He begged God to find some other way to rescue the souls that He had been sent to save.
“All things are possible to You.” All things are possible for God to heal, to rescue, to deliver, to answer prayer on behalf of our loved ones, ourselves and others. It is our faith that opens the door for those miracles and evidences of God’s amazing power.
Jesus knew that God was fully capable of answering His prayer for deliverance. But in His wisdom, He also knew that whatever He requested must be in accordance with God’s will.
“Never the less not what I will, but what You will.”
God’s will was for Jesus to endure a period of immense suffering for the sake of humanity.
Likewise there are times when God will choose not to answer our prayers the way we would like them to be answered. Thus we experience the suffering that sometimes accompanies those unanswered requests.
As we know, Jesus went to the cross and suffered excruciating physical pain and the devastating separation from the presence of His Father as the weight of all of humanities’ sin was hurled upon His soul.
In the darkness that followed His death, His body was carried to a tomb and sealed there for what everyone thought would be forever. But with God all things are possible.
The victory of resurrected life negated all those desperate pleas for deliverance that Jesus uttered as He writhed in the throes of human weakness.
As we also writhe in our humanity in times of suffering when we experience the disappointment of unanswered prayers; remember that because God refused to answer Jesus’ prayer, we have the same hope of the victory of resurrected eternal life.
With God all things are possible, and because of that we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose, Romans 8:28,- including all our unanswered prayers.
Copyright 2023 by H. D. Shively
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