Hebrews 5:7-10 “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 and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek." This episode talks about the importance of making time for prayer and finding the lesson in suffering. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Time To Pray
Hebrews 5:7-10 “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 and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
There is a lot in these verses. I think we all could have guessed that Jesus offered up prayers and petitions while he walked on earth. I find it amazing how many times in the Bible it talks about Jesus going off and praying by himself. Jesus was so busy in his three years of ministry. I am not amazed that Jesus wanted to go off and pray, I am amazed that He found the time to do that. I am also surprised He was able to go off and be by Himself to pray. It seems He was followed around by huge crowds of people. In order for Him to be able to go off by Himself to pray He had to have been very intentional with His time. He knew what He needed and He made sure that He got it.
This is a good lesson for all of us. Prayer time won’t just happen. If you are waiting for the perfect time for prayer, you will be waiting forever. If you are waiting for a time when you are less busy to pray, you may never pray. Time slots in your busy schedule don’t just happen to open up for prayer. If you want to make time for prayer in your life, you need to be very intentional. The best way to make sure you fit prayer into your schedule is to put it in your calendar the same way you would a work appointment or a doctor appointment. When you write it into your schedule you are much more likely to follow through with it. Sometimes we feel that we’re too busy to pray. We have so much stuff to do, we just don’t have time. I have this poem up in my work space and I feel I should share as it goes along with being too busy to pray.
Time to Pray (author unknown)
I got up early one morning and rushed right into the day; I had so much to accomplish that I didn't have time to pray.
Problems just tumbled about me, and heavier came each task. "Why doesn't God help me?" I wondered. He answered, "You didn't ask."
I wanted to see joy and beauty, but the day toiled on, gray and bleak; I wondered why God didn't show me. He said, "But you didn't seek."
I tried to come into God's presence; I used all my keys at the lock. God gently and lovingly chided, "My child, you didn't knock.”
I woke up early this morning, and paused before entering the day; I had so much to accomplish that I had to take time to pray.
I think I like this poem so much because it points our what many of us don’t see. We think that we are too busy to pray, but that is exactly why we must pray. God is there to help us. He wants to help us, He is just waiting for us to ask. If you have a busy day, that is the perfect time to take a moment and ask God for help. I think you will find that your days, especially your busy ones, will go by much more smoothly when you begin them with prayer.
This next part of the verses above are where it gets complex. Jesus was praying to the one who could save Him from death. It also says that He was heard because of His reverent submission. First, what does reverent submission mean? I looked this up online, as I really wasn’t sure. Everyone that wrote about it seemed to agree that reverent submission means that you obey the Father’s will even when you don’t feel like. You do not follow your own will but you seek the Father’s will. You obey the Lord even when you are weak or tired. One person talked about how Jesus’ reverent submission had two components. First was continual dependence, he never stopped relying on His heavenly Father to provide for Him. Second was surrender of His will. Even at the end when he was asking God to take this cup from Him, Jesus said, “not My will but Your will be done.” God heard Jesus’ prayers because of this reverent submission.
You might hear this and think to yourself, wait a minute, how were His prayers heard? God didn’t save Him from death. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. This is true, Jesus was crucified and died on a cross so that we could be saved. God did not save Jesus from the pain and suffering of dying on the cross. However, He did save Jesus from eternal death. Jesus rose again after He died. Next it says, “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered.”
”Jesus learned obedience from His suffering.” I think this is a line that we could easily skip right over and yet there is an important lesson in it. I think this line is so important because we tend to want to skip over the suffering in our lives. We want God to save us from all of it. When we are suffering sometimes we wonder why He is not answering our prayers. Even though it feels like this, God always answers our prayers. He answers them according to His perfect will. If He is not answering your prayers the way you want Him to then trust He has something bigger in mind for the situation. God never promised us that we would have a life without suffering. What He promised us is eternal life in the next world. Once we make it to Heaven we will have endless joy. That was not promised to us in this world. This is a broken world and we will encounter suffering while we are in this world. There is no way around it.
The lesson is to figure out what we can learn from our suffering. Maybe we will learn obedience like Jesus did. Maybe we will learn something else. Please know that just because you are suffering does not mean that God is not answering your prayers. Sometimes the answer to our prayers is “no.” And sometimes we won’t know why that is the answer. But know that God did answer and that He is there with you just as He was there with Jesus.
Finally, the verse says, “once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” “Once made perfect,” Jesus suffered and died on the cross and He was made perfect. He surrendered His will for the Father’s will and he was made perfect. He endured unimaginable pain so that we could be redeemed and He was made perfect. Once He was perfect He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.” How great is it that we have a source of eternal salvation? How amazing is our Father that He would not only save us, but offers us eternal life. Up until that point we disappointed our Heavenly Father pretty regularly. We certainly didn’t deserve eternal life. And yet, being the loving and merciful Father that He is, He gave it to us anyway.
I feel as though that was a lot to cover in one episode. It just so happened to be a verse with several things to touch upon. Hopefully it was not too much info or too confusing. Just as a quick refresher, the two main things to remember are:
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to the episode today. Lord, we ask that you help us to make prayer a priority in our lives. We ask that you help us be intentional about when in our day we are going to add our prayer time. Lord, we love you and we know you answer all of our prayers. Help us to be gracious Lord when you don’t answer them the way we want you to. Lord, help us to understand that your plan is better than our plan. Help us to know that even if we can’t see what your plan is right not, we will understand it all someday. Lord, help us to learn whatever lessons you want us to learn through our suffering. Help us to not become bitter or resentful during our suffering. Lord you are amazing and we are so grateful for all that you do. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.