Hebrews 5:7-9 "During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” This episode discusses how God doesn't need us to be perfect. It also talks about how He always answers our prayers, even if it's not how we want Him to. And finally, how we need to obey God, even when we don't want to. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Progress Not Perfection
Hebrews 5:7-9 "During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”
I think this verse struck me at first because of the line in the middle that says, “He was heard because of his reverent submission.” My ears perked up because I am always trying to figure out how to maximize the power of my prayers. Saying that out loud I understand how crazy that may sound. Although I don’t think I am alone. I am sure there are others out there that are trying to pray perfectly so that God will answer our prayers. However, God doesn’t need us to pray a certain way. He doesn’t need us do make our prayers powerful, that is His job. And yet, I am still always trying to figure it out anyway. I am constantly trying to figure out the perfect way to pray. Why is it that we are always searching for perfection when God is only asking us for progression. Progress not perfection is something I tell my friends and family all the time. I celebrate with them in all their imperfections because I truly believe that we should focus on progress not perfection. If we are moving forward towards our goal, no matter how small that progress is, we should celebrate. God is not asking us for perfection, he just wants us on that journey to come closer to Him.
This verse can help us on that journey if we really look at it. The first line says that while Jesus was on earth, “he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” Reverent submission, do we all know what the means? It can be summed up with these 8 words, “yet not my will, but yours be done.” Jesus did not want to die. Jesus was begging and crying for the Lord to take this cup from Him and yet He was willing to obey if that is what His father asked Him to do. Can you imagine how hard it was for God on that night? I have a hard time sticking to bedtime when my child is begging to stay up for one more show. I can’t even imagine if they were begging me to save them from an excruciatingly painful death and I had the power to save them, but I couldn’t because it wouldn’t serve the greater purpose. Just thinking about that right there helps me to understand how much God loves us. It makes me wonder how anyone could question that God loves us if He could do that for us.
Another powerful part of that line is when it says, “He was heard.” This is powerful because we are told that Jesus’ prayers were heard, yet He was still crucified. We sometimes think that God must not have heard our prayers because if He did surely He would have saved our loved one, or granted our request, whatever it was. However, right here in this verse we are told that Jesus’ prayers were heard, and yet He was still crucified. God hears our prayers, always. Even if we don’t say them perfectly, even if we are not living our lives perfectly, He always hears us and He always answers our prayers. Sometimes the answer is no and that is really hard for us. We don’t understand. I have been praying a lot for this friend of a friend. She was diagnosed 2 years ago with ALS. There is no cure and it is a really debilitating disease. The end comes pretty quickly and yet not before taking away your ability to do the most basic things like swallow and breathe. She was a young woman and she has two young children. I was praying for a miraculous cure or healing. I was begging God to not leave those two boys without a mother.
This young woman died last weekend. God heard my prayers and yet the answer was no for Him keeping her alive. When I struggle with times like this I remember Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” We don’t always understand, but we can be confident that He heard our prayers, just as He heard Jesus’ prayers. If He had to tell His only son no, he will have tell us no sometimes too. God has a difficult job. Imagine how hard it was to parent your children. Whether you had one, two, or twenty, it wasn’t easy to watch them make mistakes and know that you can’t save them from it because it needs to happen. And if you were like me, you weren’t always strong enough to let them make those mistakes. I stepped in and shielded my children from things that I should have let them experience. Now imagine you have more than 7 billion children you are taking care of. Imagine how hard it would be to allow them to make the mistakes that you know they are going to make. God is so strong and so amazing. He is the ultimate Father.
The last line in this verse says, “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” Jesus learned obedience from His suffering. He didn’t want to do it and yet He did because His Father asked Him to and because of this obedience, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him. These last 5 words also stuck out to me when I read this verse for the first time. Jesus is the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him. Obeying Him is something I struggle with sometimes. I want to do what is right and yet, my mind wants to do other things. For instance, I am working on writing a book that I truly feel the Lord asked me to write. I think it will help a lot of people with their anxiety and bring people closer to the Lord. I want to obey the Lord and finish this book. I honestly do. I think about it alot. Then when I sit down to work on it, I open up Facebook instead of my writing app. I got lost in social media for an hour and then run out of time. The other day I had all evening to work on it. I was looking forward to it all week. Then when the time came I decided to watch a quick episode on TV while I ate my dinner. Four hours later the night is over and I have not written a single word but instead I watched 4 hours of TV. The words from St. Paul in Romans 7:15 come to my mind often, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
I think we all have ways we could obey the Lord more. They may be small ways and they may be larger ways. Only you know what the Lord is calling you to do. Jesus was called to sacrifice His life in order to gain eternal salvation for us. Whatever the Lord is calling you to do, will seem small in comparison to that. Can we follow in Jesus’ footsteps? Can we have reverent submission? Can we say to the Lord, not my will but yours be done? It is not always easy. He will call us to do things we don’t want to do. Maybe right now He is calling you to do something really hard, something you don’t want to do. Maybe He is calling you to give up drinking, or calling you to fast, or something else that is really hard. If this is the case I want to remind you, and myself, He is not calling us to do anything alone. He will be there every step of the way. He is also not calling us to do anything that He won’t give us the power and strength to do. Call on Him as He is calling on you. Be obedient and you will be amazed at the ways you see God show up in your life.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, you are amazing are we are truly luck we have you are our Heavenly Father. We are grateful that you are in charge instead of us. We are grateful that you are strong enough to make the hard choices. We don’t always understand your plan Lord. Please help us to stay faithful when we struggle to understand. Please help us to remember that you are looking for progress not perfection and that it is not our job to make our prayers powerful, that is your job. Lord, we pray that you give us the strength and power to obey even if we don’t want to. Help us to pray the prayer and truly mean the words, not my will but yours be done. Lord, we love you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!