Sabbath: Jesus’ Last Days
Read for This Week’s Study: Matt. 26:1-16, Luke 12:48, Matt. 26:17-19, 1 Cor. 5:7, Matt. 26:36-46, Matt. 26:51-75.
Memory Text:“‘This very night you will all fall away on account of me … ’” (Matthew 26:31, NIV).
Image © Lars Justinen Goodsalt.com
In this lesson, Jesus is now entering the final moments before the cross. The world, even the universe, begins to face the most crucial moment in the history of creation.
So many lessons can be derived from the events that we will look at this week, but as we read, let’s focus on one—and that is freedom and free will. Look at how the various characters used the great and costly gift of freedom. Look at the powerful and even eternal consequences that arose from the use, one way or another, of this gift.
Peter, Judas, and the woman with the alabaster box all had to make choices. But most important of all, Jesus, too, had to make choices, and the greatest one was to go to the cross, even though His human nature had cried out against it: “‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will’” (Matt. 26:39, NKJV).
The irony is incredible: the gift of free will that we had abused brought Jesus to this very moment, where Jesus—using His own free will—had to choose whether or not to save us from the destruction that our abuse of free will would otherwise have brought us.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, June 18.
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Free will. There is no one with reason to complain.
when face with a choice very often decisions are made without fully assessing the consequences and as a result we regret having made those decisions. let us pray over decisions that we make no matter big or small.
I find this point interest on sabbath's part of the lesson:
'Jesus, too, had to make choices, and the greatest one was to go to the cross, even though His human nature had cried out against it: “‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will’” (Matt. 26:39, NKJV).'
Lesson: often we make choices due to our feelings. Often the right decisions to make in life require sacrifice and go against our emotions/feelings. How do we ensure that like Jesus we make the right decisions all the time even though we may not be feeling like doing them? The secret lies in considering how Jesus managed to make the right decision - it was by faith in His Father and total dependence on Him. Jesus exercised faith daily since His very childhood and developed a character that was strong enough to resist evil even until death. So it can be for us if we surrender our wills to God as fully as Jesus did. May God help us.
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith. - 1 John 5:4. Each day we need to be reborn of God by surrendering anew our wills to God and renewing our pledge of allegiance to the Lamb and to Cross. May God help us indeed.
No one has ever faced the choices that Jesus made in Gethsemane. No matter what text we quote, Jesus' will, was always to obey His Father. To compare that obedience to our weak, faltering, lives may be a stretch. Jesus was as human as is possible. Not because we choose what we want but what we know to be the right choice. Matthew 26:38-42. Verse 39 puts it about as graphically as possible. He fell on His face. If some have gone through this type of anguish over the loss of a loved one, that type of sorrow is as deep of an experience as the savior was experiencing. I can imagine some of what Jesus was going through during the walk to the cross. It has to bring tears to our eyes each step of the way.
The power we where given by God is choice, power to choose i.e. to obey or to disobey him. Its vital to allow the holy spirit to help us to make the right choice.Self denial and putting on Jesus's character.