I want to talk about prayer and begin with Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.
They came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, “Sit here until I have prayed.” And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled. And He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch.” And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. And He was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” (Mark 14:32–36)[1]
One unique aspect about this dynamic prayer is that Christ was saying, “Father, to You all things are possible; yet not what I am willing, but Your will be done.” When Christ said, “All things are possible,” He was dealing with quantum reality. This is one reason why I feel driven to study the function of quantum reality and how it works for us in our faith as believers. We know that for God all things are possible. And when we study and reach in for a new level of maturity in God, we realize that we must come into this quantum realm where all things are possible.
There are also realms in which all things are not necessarily possible because they have already been decided. In relating to the Father, Yeshua (Jesus) realized, “Anything at this moment is possible. However, not what I will, but what You choose.” At that moment Yeshua recognized the Father’s choice for salvation (Isaiah 53:10–12). Christ knew that all things were possible, but He determined to do the will of God. And once God applied His will and determination as to how salvation was going to manifest, there were no other possibilities.
Yet there are times when things are not yet cast in stone. And it is this level of prayer that God is trying to draw us into. Consider the prayer of Moses when God was set to destroy Israel (Exodus 32:11–14). Or read about how God had planned to overthrow Nineveh, but the people turned from their wicked ways (Jonah 3:4–10). In the story about the epileptic boy, Yeshua said that all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:22–23). We call this an expression of faith. But we also realize that we have to be in the realm where everything is possible.
Once the will of God is set, you better be asking according to His will or it will not happen. How many times have we seen prayers not happen? Maybe we were too late, and the will of God was now unchangeable. We must be willing to do His will. Otherwise, we are going to find ourselves fighting against God. If God says, “I will not relent,” then you better not ask Him to change His mind (see Amos 1: 3, 6, 9, 11, 13). “God is not a man, that He should lie” (Numbers 23:19). But in Mark 13:20 when Yeshua said, “Unless the Lord had shortened those days,” it means to me that those days can be shortened, and the future can change. However, once God announces His will, then like Christ we say, “Not my will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
Listen to this entire message: GIG186 When All Things Are Possible
[1] All Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).
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