With Christ in Prayer
by Henry Blackaby
"My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death" Matthew 26:38.
There is a fullness of time in the economy of God. Jesus knew in Gethsemane when that was, and He didn't want His disciples to miss that incredible moment. It seems as you read through history, God's moment for great and mighty revival is always preceded by and accompanied by an unusual measure of prayer. God seems to do something in the hearts of His people to call them beyond anything they had ever known. Jesus knew His disciples would be the very essence of the people of God that the Father wanted to use to touch and change the entire Roman Empire, so He introduced them to a moment in God's timing when they could see the kind of praying that would be laid over their heart.
When God's heart has a burden He lays that burden over the heart of His own. There is no question that the Father's hour was Gethsemane. For centuries, even back into eternity, the Father was planning this moment. It was the moment when He Himself would be in Christ reconciling a whole world to Himself. There was much at stake in how His Son read the heart of the Father and that was exposed in His prayer time. That kind of praying is unusual praying. Jesus could announce to these three, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death" Matthew 26:38. They watched Him in agony, and in Luke 22:44 it says that the sweat came from His brow as it were great drops of blood.
Do you know why we do not have revival? We don't have revival prayers. We are content to let sin reign and then complain to God how awful sin is. God says that any hour you are willing to pay the price you can be the one who turns that around. But it is no ordinary praying. Would you be wiling to let God take you to another level of praying? He will unite you with His Son and you will go through that hour and listen to every word and watch every move and hear Him say, "Would you not watch with Me one hour?"
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