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Reading through the Gospels #158

 

JESUS CLEARS THE TEMPLE

Mark 11:12-25, Matthew 21:12-22, Luke 19:45-48

(Created March 20, 2016; Tomorrow Good Morning Girls is continuing with the Book of Mark starting in Chapter 11. I have not been keeping up well. I had some time today to choose what to do and, although I have many projects to choose from, I really just wanted to do a new Digital Bible Journaling page as I had not done one in a while.
I choose these verses to study because they have bugged me for a long time. I see many people really really really praying "in faith" and praying as they really really "believe" what they pray for happens, and it makes me wonder how they feel or what they think when it does not happen. Do they feel a huge let down and begin to doubt God? I would think praying in such a way would lead to doubt and that is not a good thing.
I tend to pray to God and say "if it is in Your will" often, rather than with notion and attitude that what I am praying for will really happen. I just leave it up to God and accept whatever the answer. So am I praying wrong? Is that why I might not have more "yes" answers?
I found my answer in The Message version which says "Embrace this God life, really embrace it." I've heard this before as I have had a CD in the past that put out by The Message publishers, of music, and I can still hear these words being said as I read it. I found it on my computer and it is called, "Songs from the Message: Way of Love." I listened to that CD a lot back in the day. I'd love for it to be on Youtube so I can share.
So I began thinking on what it means to really embrace this God life, this faith in God (that is a gift from God). Read my graphic to see where my though process went and how it explains why sometimes God's answer to prayers is 'no.' This has helped me to refocus my prayer and what I am asking for in prayer. Hubby and I talked about it for a while, thinking on Jesus's examples of how He prayed against how I pray. Of course, we have the Lord's prayer as an example. But we imagined what Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Did He pray that God take away what He was about to do, to make his life easy, or did He pray for strength to get Him through? He knew the Father's plan and would not pray against His Will, but probably prayed for strength to endure as a man. We thought about Jesus going out to a quiet place to pray before preaching in His travels. What did He pray about? I can imagine He prayed that the people would
"hear" and "listen" and "accept." This thought process journey I took while studying these verses really helped me to gain a better focus on what I should pray.
I also have this written in my OneNotes from some time ago on verse 11:25. These are words spoken by Jesus. He tells us to forgive others. Sometimes when the hurt feeling is still there, it is hard to forgive. Sometimes I can tell myself that I have forgiven a person, but cannot make those hurt feelings go away. I must wait on God to heal my emotions and make me whole again. Just because I still hurt, it does not mean I haven't forgiven. Healing just takes time. Read more about having unforgiveness on my layout.)

 


Copyright Cheryl Rutledge-Brennecke
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