The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

Mark 14:32-36, “And they came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, ‘Sit here until I have prayed.’ 33 And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled. 34 And He said to them, ‘My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch.’ 35 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.

36 And He was saying, ‘Abba! Father! All things are possible for Thee; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what Thou wilt.’”

Some things are worse than death. It may not seem so with us, but it was so with Jesus.

No one in Scripture prayed more often or more fervently than Jesus. It might seem that

He needed less to pray than anyone else because He was the Son of God, but He did not

see it that way. We, too, might assume that because we have accepted Him, prayer is not

so necessary to us as to the lost, who desperately need His saving grace. But, the responsibility

for praying is, nevertheless, laid heavily upon us.

Two things are to be observed in Jesus’ prayer: first, He prayed that “if it were possible, the

hour might pass Him by”; and second, that the cup might be removed from Him. Let us be

very clear. Jesus was not afraid to die. He understood completely that He would be raised

to life again, even after death. Let me suggest that Jesus’ prayer for the removal of the cup

was that He did not want to be made sin. From death, He did not recoil. But from sin, He

did! Strangely enough, it is the other way with us. We recoil from death, but not from sin.

May He encourage us to seek only that which is glorifying to Him!

We pray for you; please pray for us –especially, for Nana!

Heartily in Christ,

Nana & Dado III

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

Springdale, Arkansas

“We never know that God is all we need

until He becomes all that we have.”