Facing Your Gethsemanes | Ephesians 6:18

“Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.” (Ephesians 6:18 NLT)

 

All Christians experience times when we come face to face with overwhelming hardship. For Peter, it was witnessing the betrayal and arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. You can find the story in John 18. Peter simply could not stomach the thought of the Lord’s enemies taking Him away. Frustrated and in despair, Peter drew his sword in defense of his Lord and cut off the ear of one of the men who arrested Jesus (see verse 10). Of course, that’s not what Jesus wanted. The sword was not the answer to salvation.

Poor Peter. He was always doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. He was sleeping when he should have been praying. He was talking when he should have been listening. He was boasting when he should have been fearing. And he was fighting when he should have been surrendering. His instincts were 180 degrees off.

Peter failed to see that he was fighting the wrong enemy. As the apostle Paul points out in Ephesians 6:12, our enemies are not of flesh and blood. They are principalities and powers, and they cannot be defeated by ordinary measures. Too often we, like Peter, forget that ours is a spiritual battle that requires spiritual weaponry. And we neglect the most powerful weapon in our arsenal—prayer. We are too quick to protest or picket and not quick enough to pray.

In his description of the armor of God available to believers to withstand and counter the attacks of our enemy, Paul concludes with this: “Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere” (Ephesians 6:18 NLT).

Pray at all times. Be persistent. Prayer isn’t just an emergency button we push when we can’t think of anything else to do. It’s an essential communication channel that links us to God, our source of strength, courage, wisdom, comfort, and peace. God supplies us with everything we need for our spiritual battles. But we don’t have to wait until we’re in the thick of the fight to call on Him.

Jesus faced opposition throughout His ministry. Passages such as Luke 5:16 give us a glimpse into how He prepared for battle. “But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer” (NLT). And when that opposition came to a head, Jesus headed for Gethsemane, a favorite prayer spot.

The reality is that we all will face Gethsemanes in life. For Jesus, Gethsemane was a time of suffering and hardship, a time when He chose to surrender to the will of His Father. You, too, may face similar experiences in life that you don’t understand. You don’t know what lies ahead. But you can trust your unknown future into the hands of a known God.

 

Reflection Question: How can you make your prayers more effective in your spiritual battles?

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