Stay here and watch with Me —Matthew 26:38
Watch with Me.” Jesus was saying, in effect, “Watch with no private point of view at all, but watch solely and entirely with Me.” In the early stages of our Christian life, we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him. We do not watch with Him through the revealed truth of the Bible even in the circumstances of our own lives. Our Lord is trying to introduce us to identification with Himself through a particular “Gethsemane” experience of our own. But we refuse to go, saying, “No, Lord, I can’t see the meaning of this, and besides, it’s very painful.” And how can we possibly watch with Someone who is so incomprehensible? How are we going to understand Jesus sufficiently to watch with Him in His Gethsemane, when we don’t even know why He is suffering? We don’t know how to watch with Him— we are only used to the idea of Jesus watching with us.
The disciples loved Jesus Christ to the limit of their natural capacity, but they did not fully understand His purpose. In the Garden of Gethsemane they slept as a result of their own sorrow, and at the end of three years of the closest and most intimate relationship of their lives they “all . . . forsook Him and fled” (Matthew 26:56).
“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit . . .” (Acts 2:4). “They” refers to the same people, but something wonderful has happened between these two events— our Lord’s death, resurrection, and ascension— and the disciples have now been invaded and “filled with the Holy Spirit.” Our Lord had said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . .” (Acts 1:8). This meant that they learned to watch with Him the rest of their lives.
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September 5, 2012
Lord, thank you for the reminder to watch with You, not just for You…but how do I actually do that? How can I watch with You and look at things like You would, when I often have trouble just avoiding bad or selfish decisions? How can I actually watch with You, like You do when I am so inwardly focused on
the issues of my life and those of my friends and family? Oh, I see, it is You watching through me.
And God says…”When you allow Jesus to live through you, by simply focusing on Him, He lives through you. When you take his “blood and body”, you take Him to live in you and through you. When you are connected it is not you that lives, but Jesus in you. Imagine life when Jesus lives through you…..Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and all you need or require will be provided for you in this life.”
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