Quote from Forum Archives on July 23, 2002, 2:26 pm

Posted by: biblenotes <biblenotes@...>

Subject: Two Great Men of Prayer
From: Martin M Overfield
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000

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Two Great Men of Prayer

Scripture: II Corinthians 12:7-10; Matthew 26:29-45

    No, I'm not talking about Praying Hyde,

Jonathan Edwards, John Knox, or George Mueller, though

they were all great men of prayer.  I am talking about

Jesus Christ the Son of God and Paul the apostle.  Both

of them had something in common besides the fact that

they were always much in prayer, and that they were able

to receive miraculous answers to prayer.

    What I am thinking of is the fact that both of them

asked the Father for a specific thing three times and

did not receive that for which they asked. (By the way,

they both set us an example of praying until they got an

answer, even though the answer did not agree with their

pure human desires.)  You might say, "What?  Paul maybe,

but Jesus never!"  Oh, yes, I’m absolutely serious.

    Paul asked three times that God would take away his

thorn in the flesh; and, Jesus asked three times that His

Father would let “this cup” pass from Him: that awful

bitter cup including betrayal, denial, unfair trials,

undeserved beating, being spat upon, suffering the

shameful death on the cross, and bearing the

unimaginable weight of all the sins of the world.

    Paul’s thorn was for the purpose of keeping him

humble and thus was more useful and necessary to him

than total freedom from the problem would have been.

Jesus' cup was for the purpose of redeeming us from

all iniquity and saving us from an eternal hell.

If the Father had taken away His bitter cup of

suffering, all of mankind would be hopelessly lost,

for there was no other way to save us.

    The will of God is far more important than anything

you and I may want.  We might think that our desires

are good, legitimate, appropriate, right, fair, and

maybe even unselfish; but we must, must, MUST, let God

make the final decision.  We may have totally pure

motives for what we are asking of God.  This is not

always a guarantee that what we are asking is His

perfect will for us, or that it would even be good

for us.

 

Yours In Christ,
Martin Overfield

 

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