What’s In A Difficult Week?

What’s In A Difficult Week?

Luke 22:39-46NKJB

Have you ever had a difficult week? Have you? I certainly have, Sometimes I’ll get like, “What’s the use!” No one will escape a difficult week in losing a loved one. Grief over-the-top, not seeing your way out. “We’ve all had difficult weeks.” Moreover, more are ahead. P.H.

Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. 40 When He came to the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

41 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” 43 Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. 45 When He rose up from prayer, and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow. 46 Then He said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.”

This garden was called Gethsemane which means oil press. (More about that in a minute).

Nothing was glamours about Jesus’ final week. He contemplated, Sought His Father’s will, laid His agenda down, and experienced deep devotions within and throughout.

As we look at such suffering we ask, “Why would God forsake His love for His only Son?” “Why would He turn His back on the very One to whom He said, "This is My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him?”

Isaiah 53:10NLT Sums up God’s love for His humanity. 10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush Him and cause Him grief. Yet when His life is made an offering for sin, He will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in His hands.

The crucifixion of Jesus brought about more than anguish to His soul. It opened the doorway to Heaven. He who was humiliated, is raised on high in glory and majesty and is ready to share His victory and its glorious blessings with all who will follow Him.

Remember this, A difficult week will either leave you with a good testimony, or it will leave you with a sour taste in your mouth, and ready to quit.

It is held early on in the 3rd week of First Phase – before the Navy makes an expensive investment in SEAL operational training. Hell Week consists of 5 1/2 days of cold, wet, brutally difficult operational training on fewer than four hours of sleep. Hell Week tests physical endurance, mental toughness, pain and cold tolerance, teamwork, attitude, and your ability to perform work under high physical and mental stress, and sleep deprivation. Above all, it tests determination and desire. On average, only 25% of SEAL candidates make it through Hell Week, the toughest training in the U.S. Military. It is often the greatest achievement of their lives, and with it comes the realization that they can do 20X more than they ever thought possible. It is a defining moment that they reach back to when in combat. They know that they will never, ever quit, or let a teammate down.

Jesus contemplated. He went into the Garden of Gethsemane. This was a garden that was filled with olive trees. Inside this garden laid an oil press, a place to take the olive’s and squeeze or extract of the oil from them.

Oil is a type or shadow of the Holy Spirit.

Again, Nothing was glamours about Jesus’ final week. 1) He contemplated. 2) Sought His Father’s will. 3) Laid His agenda down. 4) He experienced deep devotions within and throughout.

The first thing we can see as Jesus entered that last week before His crucifixion is that, He began contemplating and accepting the future.

Moreover, Before you can go ahead you got to accept the past. Before the oil of the Holy Spirit could flow there had to be a death of a will.

Contemplation.

It took Jesus contemplating with a total surrender to lose His will.

Listen to Matthew 26:39TM Going a little ahead, He fell on His face, praying, “My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?”

Hear this, The deeper you go with the Lord the more contemplating and surrounding you do.

Isaiah 10:27KJ And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.