Repeatedly in the Gospels, Jesus went to the mountains to pray. Isolating Himself, Jesus spent time in those mountains focusing solely on His communication with God.
And after Jesus had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone…(Matt. 14:23)
There is no better example of this than Jesus’s time on the Mount of Olives or Mt. Olivet. The Mt. of Olives is a mountain ridge east of Jerusalem. It earned its name because of the olive trees that once covered its slopes. Jesus spent much of His final week on the Mt. of Olives. After His resurrection, Jesus ascended back to heaven from the Mt. of Olives. The mountainside played a prominent part in the final days of Jesus on this earth.
The last night of freedom Jesus spent on this earth before His murder was atop the Mount of Olives. There He led his disciples to spend time together and to rest. The inner circle – Peter, James, and John – went further up the mountain with Jesus. There Jesus asked them to wait for Him and pray while they waited. And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Jesus continued a little further up the mountainside and prayed fervently three separate times. He implored God to let the cup of suffering and shame that He was about to have to endure pass. He begged God the father for another way to achieve His salvation plan. Luke tells us “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
Yet, His prayer did not end with His pleas but with this simple yet profound statement: Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
When He finished praying, Luke records:
And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and He said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
Clearly, Peter, James, and John – tired from a long, stressful week had fallen asleep. I have no doubt in my mind that if they truly understood what was about to come they would too have been earnestly praying by Jesus’ side. Yet, they did not so they fell asleep. (They were human after all.)
There are three big lessons I want us to takeaway from the Mt. of Olives:
🏔️ Jesus prayed to God repeatedly in very isolated places. He took His time to be with God seriously. He removed Himself from others (unless He invited them) and from the distractions of this world. Jesus went to the mountains alone to pray to God. Jesus went somewhere to free his mind from distractions.
When we pray to God, we should find an isolated, quiet place – free from the distractions of this world. We must focus solely on communicating with God. We must purposefully make that effort like Jesus did. Jesus scaled mountains to have uninterrupted time with God. We must follow Jesus’ example.
🏔️ Jesus’ prayer on the Mt. of Olives was not focused on His own desires. Yes, it is one of the few places where we read of Jesus specifically asking something from God of a physical nature. Jesus, the man, did not want to suffer, be tortured, mocked, paraded around, and brutally murdered. He wanted to spare himself and most likely those who loved Him that horrific experience. Jesus prayed for that so earnestly His sweat turned to blood. Yet, He did not end His prayers focused on Him. Instead, He ended each prayer with the same phrase. Not my will, but Yours be done.
We’ve all been in a situation where we earnestly were praying to God. A family member or yourself is very ill or facing a huge surgery or procedure. Perhaps, you or your family is in desperate financial straits. Or, you live in a country full of chaos, violence, and uncertainty. Or, maybe you have been – like Jesus – on the precipice of death. Our prayers to God, like Jesus’, become very urgent. We know that only God can provide us the help we need. Yet unlike Jesus, so many times we only accept God’s answer if turns out the way WE wanted it to go. A surgery doesn’t go well. We ask God why. A family member dies. We ask God why. Our families situation doesn’t improve as quickly as we wanted. We ask God why. Our own health does not improve. We ask God why. This is not the example Jesus provides on the Mt. of Olives. It is in fact quite the opposite.
God told Jesus no to His earnest pleas. Jesus was going to suffer and die horrifically. It was part of God’s plan of salvation before time even began. Yet, the human part of Jesus did not ask God why. He did not angrily turn away from God. He did not doubt God. He simply responded Not my will, but Yours be done. We must learn to pray like Jesus prayed and accept God’s answers even when those answers are hard to hear.
🏔️ Let’s turn to Peter, James, and John. Jesus told them why they needed to stay away and pray – “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Yet, they fell asleep (3 separate times). And what happened almost immediately? They were all faced with the temptation to flee and abandon Jesus. They all succumb to that temptation. Now, Peter followed at a distance but even though he did not immediately abandon Jesus he does in a moment of complete fear deny Jesus 3 times. (Just like Jesus asked him 3 times to stay away and pray not to enter into temptation.) James fleas. And the Apostle John most of initially fled but gathered enough encourage to return to Jesus and followed him to the cross. But they take away is – they all fled. Peter, James, and John were Jesus’ closest friends. They loved him and yet even they all gave into to Satan’s temptation of fear and abandoned Jesus. Jesus told them the preventive to their upcoming temptation. Pray. Yet, they did not see the spiritual warfare being waged right in front of them. So, they slept. And because they were not watchful and because they did not do as Jesus recommended. They gave in to the temptation they faced.
According to Jesus, pray is the key weapon and preventive measure against temptation. We should learn from the apostles and stay vigilant. We should open our eyes to the spiritual warfare of Satan. We must ask God to help us face our temptations. He will provide us a way to escape – all we have to do is ask.
Jesus scaled mountains to pray – that should tell you something about how important prayer is to God and how valuable it CAN be to our lives if we too are willing to scale the mountain of prayer. #TheMountainsofGod #MountaineeringForGod
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