Reflective Bible Study

On the night Jesus was arrested, all four gospels describe how He goes with His eleven remaining disciples to a place just outside of Jerusalem called Gethsemane. While there, during the last moments Jesus has before His arrest, and following His last big teaching opportunity with the disciples, Jesus does something that is worth paying attention to.

For our episode this week, we’ll be focusing in on Matthew’s version of this event, though the idea we’ll be focusing in on is found in more than just Matthew’s gospel. This event is found in Matthew, chapter 26, and for our time together, we will be reading from the Good News Translation. Starting in verse 36, Matthew tells us:

³⁶ Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” ³⁷ He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. Grief and anguish came over him, ³⁸ and he said to them, “The sorrow in my heart is so great that it almost crushes me. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

³⁹ He went a little farther on, threw himself face downward on the ground, and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, take this cup of suffering from me! Yet not what I want, but what you want.”

⁴⁰ Then he returned to the three disciples and found them asleep; and he said to Peter, “How is it that you three were not able to keep watch with me for even one hour? ⁴¹ Keep watch and pray that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

⁴² Once more Jesus went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cup of suffering cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done.” ⁴³ He returned once more and found the disciples asleep; they could not keep their eyes open.

⁴⁴ Again Jesus left them, went away, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. ⁴⁵ Then he returned to the disciples and said, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look! The hour has come for the Son of Man to be handed over to the power of sinners. ⁴⁶ Get up, let us go. Look, here is the man who is betraying me!”

During the last hours, or maybe even minutes, before Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, arrives with the mob to arrest Jesus, Jesus spends the last moments in prayer regarding the mission and trial He is about to face. While some people might read Jesus’ prayer and believe that He is pushing back on God’s mission for Him to face the cross, I think that this is not the essence of Jesus’ prayer here. While the cross was coming up on the horizon not even 24 hours later, I believe Jesus was praying for something happening that was much more present than a fear of the cross.

In Jesus’ first prayer, found in verse 39, He prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, take this cup of suffering from me! Yet not what I want, but what you want.” Chances are that His prayer was a little longer than two sentences, but perhaps this was all these three disciples heard before falling asleep.

This prayer contains two important ideas for us to consider.

The first idea is that Jesus conditionally asks for a cup of suffering to be taken from Him – specifically only if it is possible. This implies that Jesus was already facing suffering of some kind. Never before in Jesus’ ministry do we get the idea that Jesus was fearful, but perhaps this was the moment fear entered His life. However, following the mob’s arrival and the trial, we don’t see Jesus display any fear, so later on during Jesus’ trial, we are unlikely to find any moments of fear.

Part of me wonders if the arrival of Jesus and His disciples to Gethsemane marked the start of the Father pulling His presence away from Jesus, while Jesus was emotionally and spiritually taking on the sins of everyone who had ever lived. If this were the case, I could see Jesus’ time in Gethsemane before His arrest being much more difficult than the road of pain and abuse leading to the cross.

However, there is a second idea in Jesus’ first prayer that deserves our attention. Jesus finishes off by saying, “Yet not what I want, but what you want.”

In the midst of a trial so big that we cannot even begin to imagine it’s total size, Jesus asks the question about if there was another way, but He frames the response He wants to receive as simply God’s will being done and not His own. While God could have swept Jesus up to Heaven at that very moment, and wiped the universe clean to start over from that point, it wasn’t part of God’s plan to give up at the most difficult moment the Godhead had ever faced. We might think that it was difficult for Jesus but not for God the Father or the Holy Spirit for that 24-48 hour period of time, but that would be a mistake.

If God truly is known as a Father, watching His Son face death would be one of the hardest things He could do, especially knowing that while He could stop it from happening, any delay would lengthen the pain Jesus was in, and abandoning the mission would prove Satan’s case against God that said God was unfair and unrealistic.

In this prayer, we see Jesus submitting to God when times get tough, and while I know the Father wanted to help Him, God knew that any help would validate Satan’s charge against the Godhead.

After Jesus returns, wakes the disciples up, asks them again to keep watch, He returns and prays a second prayer, which is similar to the first. In verse 42, Jesus prayed, “My Father, if this cup of suffering cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done.”

Jesus’ second prayer includes more courage and strength than the first. God the Father had probably answered Jesus’ prayers much more quickly than it appeared to be on this night, and because of this, I wonder if Jesus, who hadn’t seen or heard anything change following His first prayer, then shifted His prayers towards accepting the mission of suffering.

Both times Jesus frames that what He wants is God’s will do be done, and in both cases, Jesus says these words knowing that it will bring suffering into His life. While Matthew doesn’t quote Jesus’ third prayer, he tells us that it was similar to the first two prayers.

We can learn from Jesus in what we see in Gethsemane. While all the disciples were facing temptation in those hours with Jesus, I believe the greatest temptations were being pressed towards Jesus Himself.

The temptations likely centered on the ideas that Jesus’ sacrifice would not be worth it, it wouldn’t be accepted by God, no one on earth would care that He had died, and His life would ultimately be wasted.

In these moments of temptation, Jesus surrenders, but while we might surrender by doing whatever thing we are being tempted to do, Jesus surrendered into doing God’s will. It was not God’s will that Jesus would abandon humanity when things got tough, so regardless of Jesus’ prayers, as long as He framed Himself wanting to stay within God’s will and the plan they had set up, no help from Heaven would come.

When we face temptation, the best place for us to surrender is into doing God’s will. While this is clearly easier to say than it is to do, our prayers for help should always be prefaced with God’s will being done.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I want to leave with you this week:

Continue to seek God first in your life and intentionally submit to His will. When temptation comes, choose to surrender to God and let Him direct and protect you as He sees fit. Sometimes relief will come, but other times, it may feel like we are facing temptation alone. However, God will not abandon us like He never abandoned Jesus. Jesus was raised from the dead at the perfect time, and this is proof that even if we experience feeling like God is silent, He is never truly absent.

Also, be sure to always pray and study the Bible for yourself in order to strengthen your connection with God. While not every study time will be filled with insights or feelings of closeness with God, the only way to ever get any personal insights or to feel close with God is through intentionally drawing near to Him in personal study. Prayer and personal study are much more important for each of us than simply listening to a pastor or podcaster.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or be tempted into giving up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

In our last episode, we focused in on Mark’s gospel, and what we can learn from it about Jesus’ time on the cross. Mark’s gospel is very similar to Matthew’s gospel. However, Luke’s gospel, which is the one we will be looking at in this episode, shares a unique event that the other gospels don’t include, and this detail may shed light on why Jesus decided to be crucified on that weekend.

While prophecy pointed to the time Jesus would die, remember that the Godhead could have written prophecy to say whatever they wanted it to say, so Jesus wasn’t acting outside of the Godhead’s plan, nor was He trapped by it. The whole Godhead wrote this particular weekend into prophecy and creation for a specific reason and I believe Luke’s gospel shares what this reason might be.

Our last episode focused on and ended with Jesus receiving insults from everyone around Him, but I hinted at not everyone being so hostile. Let’s read what Luke shares with us, and about one condemned man’s request for a favor from Jesus. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 23, and we will be reading from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 32, Luke tells us:

³² Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. ³³ When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. ³⁴ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

³⁵ The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

³⁶ The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar ³⁷ and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

³⁸ There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.

Pausing briefly here, what we have just read echoes what we see written in Matthew and Mark’s gospel. However, from this point forward in Luke’s gospel, he draws our attention onto the two criminals, and how each one interacted with Jesus. Continuing in verse 39, Luke tells us:

³⁹ One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

⁴⁰ But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? ⁴¹ We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

⁴³ Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

When we read these last four verses, it is very tempting to shift our entire focus onto Jesus’ promise in the last verse, how immediate this promise sounds, and on how this criminal gets saved at the last possible moment. It is tempting to focus on the “deathbed confessional” and use it as a model or plan for our lives.

However, focusing on these verses in this way is both risky, and it cheapens the gift God is offering to us. We don’t know anything about these two criminals, about what they did, about when they were arrested, about how long they had been in prison, or if they had any previous interaction with Jesus.

It is very probable to conclude that with how famous Jesus was among the people, that these two criminals definitely knew about Jesus, about His ability to perform miracles, and about His love for the least in society, but we don’t have any idea if either had met Jesus before.

Regardless of their past, what we see displayed on the cross from these two criminals is amazing. The first criminal hurled insults at Jesus and he challenged Jesus to save Himself and them. This criminal had a selfish focus and a focus that was only looking at the present world. In an odd sort of way, this first criminal, who may have been thrown in prison for following a messiah who wanted to overthrow Rome now turns to Jesus and challenges Him with the notion regarding Jesus being the Messiah, even though Jesus has never shown any military interests, and He avoided being sucked into political discussion.

However, the second criminal has a different focus. The second criminal focuses not on the present life and present circumstances, but on the future one. I believe that the Godhead chose that weekend for Jesus to die because they wanted this criminal with them in heaven!

But while turning to God at the end of one’s life might seem appealing, it is a very dangerous plan. At the very least, since we don’t know when we will die, or if we will die suddenly or gradually, following a deathbed confessional plan is dangerous because a sudden death means we won’t have chosen God. This plan only works if our life follows a predictable plan, and while some aspects of life are predictable, there are plenty of cases where lives are cut short quickly because of sin.

However, where this criminal is when He comes to Jesus is different than each of us. We have no evidence for this criminal accepting Jesus, then rejecting Him, then coming back to Him here on the cross. It’s possible this is what happened, because God is ready and willing to forgive, but it is also very possible that this criminal had never met Jesus and sharing a cross next to Jesus was the first chance he got to be with Him.

But this conversation while these men were on the cross reveals three amazing things about conversion that we might not realize at first.

First, this conversion demonstrates a fear and respect of God. The criminal opens his mouth by first defending God against the criticism of the other criminal. Verse 40 tells us the second criminal rebukes the first one saying, “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence?” The second criminal defends God and acknowledges God’s right to judge.

Second, the second criminal acknowledges that he deserves the punishment he is being given. Another way to say this is that this second criminal acknowledges that he is a sinner who deserves to die. At the most basic level, everyone who has ever sinned, and this is everyone who has ever lived except Jesus, deserves death. The second criminal acknowledges that his life and his choices deserve death, by saying in the first part of verse 41, “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.”

But thirdly, the second criminal acknowledges that Jesus is innocent and that He is being punished while not deserving this punishment. Verse 41 finishes with the criminal acknowledging, “But this man [referring to Jesus] has done nothing wrong.” This criminal defends Jesus publicly against the ridicule of everyone else present, and he publicly allies himself with Jesus even though they both are facing death.

All three of these themes in these two verses of defense ally this second criminal with God, and the only way this criminal could acknowledge this is if the Holy Spirit had been working on his heart leading up to this moment. Even before asking Jesus for the favor, the criminal displays a relationship with God that shows God has been working on his heart and in his life.

This criminal isn’t doing a 180 turn spiritually while on the cross, but in however long he had been locked up in prison, the Holy Spirit had been working on his heart leading him to realize his sin and his need for a Savior.

The declaration on the cross concludes with a request of Jesus. The criminal asks Jesus in verse 42 to “remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The criminal acknowledges that Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, and that it is of a heavenly nature. The criminal acknowledges the divinity of Jesus in his request.

We could spend an entire other episode talking about the ideas surrounding Jesus’ answer to this criminal’s request and the debates that exist over how immediate Jesus’ promise sounds, but these debates are less relevant than the simple truth that Jesus accepted this criminal and his request. Jesus accepted this criminal’s request because in this request, we see evidence of a changed heart and a changed life, and this sort of change can only come from a heart that has let the Holy Spirit work on it behind the scenes.

Jesus is ready and willing to accept us when we come to Him with a heart that the Holy Spirit has been working on as well. This passage points us to the powerful truth that: Where you finish your life is more important than where you start it – and the only place that is worth ending your life is being allied with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit living in your heart!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always seek God first and choose today to let the Holy Spirit live in your heart and in your life, and publicly ally with Jesus. While it might be easier to hide your faith, a hidden faith is not valuable to others or to God in the big picture. This criminal displays a faith that is public through his defense of Jesus before making his request. God has called us to defend Jesus and to publicly acknowledge Him before others.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do, always pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow your personal relationship with Jesus. Prayer and Bible study are ways of bringing the Holy Spirit into your heart and into your life and God is happy to give you the Holy Spirit when you are earnestly seeking to grow towards Him. Intentionally move and grow towards God today through prayer and studying your Bible.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, chicken out of, or fall away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

On the night Jesus was arrested, as He and His disciples were walking to the garden where He would pray, Jesus began telling the remaining eleven men what they could expect to face in the coming years, and He encouraged them that they would not be alone. Of all the four gospels, only John’s gospel shares in detail the message Jesus told the group of disciples.

Matthew, who was also there, for some reason did not include it in his gospel, and perhaps the reason for this was that Matthew was writing to a different group of people at a different point in the first century. It is likely that Matthew knew that either his audience did not need to hear Jesus’ last message to the disciples before His death, or that something in Jesus’ message would keep someone in Matthew’s audience from choosing Jesus.

While reading what John tells us Jesus said, it’s possible that the part of Jesus’ message we will be focusing on in this episode might be one reason why Matthew chose to leave out this message from his gospel record. Our passage is found in the gospel of John, chapter 15, and we will be reading from the New American Standard Bible translation. Beginning in verse 18, John tells us that Jesus told His disciples:

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. ²¹ But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ He who hates Me hates My Father also. ²⁴ If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. ²⁵ But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’

Let’s pause reading here for a moment to draw our attention onto a really big idea. In this portion of Jesus’ last message, He points the disciples to a powerful idea that the more openly for Jesus that we live, the more opposition from the world we will face.

It is a strange paradox in that we could take the nicest individual, and place them doing one of the most noble acts we could imagine, let’s say saving starving children in Africa. If this is their mission, many people would rally behind it and there would be little to no opposition. But if this person adjusts their mission to include Jesus, while they still would have support, they would also attract hostility from others.

The more openly this nice individual uses Jesus as the reason for his compassion for these children, the more polarizing his ministry will be. Some opposition he might face would be people saying that he is trying to convert or brainwash the children he claims to help into believing what they believe to be the Christian lie. Others might say this nice individual is trying to earn his salvation through what he is doing.

While the actions of this individual never changed, the more openly for Jesus that one lives, the more opposition from the world the person will face.

However, while Jesus shares with us this warning, He also tells us that we are not alone. When we openly increase how we are living for Jesus and including Him in our lives, Jesus continues in verse 26 by promising us a Helper. Jesus tells the disciples:

²⁶ “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, ²⁷ and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

Jesus promised His disciples that a Helper would come from the Father, and that this Helper is also known as the Spirit of Truth. Jesus also says that the role of this Helper-Spirit is to testify about Him. God the Father, through the Holy Spirit – another name for this Helper-Spirit of Truth – will testify and teach the truth about Jesus. The Holy Spirit draws nearer to us the nearer we draw to Jesus – living for Him.

I wonder if at this point some of the disciples wondered why Jesus was sharing this with them. Jesus continues at the start of chapter 16 by saying:

^16:1 “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. ² They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. ³ These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. ⁴ But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

In this passage, we have come full circle. We can see why Jesus shared this message with His followers on the night He was arrested, and we also have a reason why Matthew may have chosen to exclude this info from his gospel letter.

John includes this message from Jesus because he is writing to Christians, giving them a message of encouragement, and challenging them to grow their faith. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are written with the goal of sharing about Jesus with someone who might not yet know who He is.

This message from Jesus in John’s gospel emphasizes that for all of Jesus’ followers living through the centuries, trouble and opposition will come. There is no way around this because Satan opposes Jesus – and Satan is happy to give power, status, and fame to those who do anything to distract people away from who Jesus is and what Jesus would want from us and for us.

The promise Jesus shares is that when opposition comes, we are not alone – we have the Holy Spirit. We should also not be surprised when opposition comes because the leadership and system in place when Jesus walked the earth was opposed to Him. If the world opposed Jesus for living for God, it will oppose us for living for Jesus.

The choice we all get to make from Jesus’ message is whether we will choose Jesus and opposition in this life, with the promise of a new life with God in the next life, or whether we will reject or hide Jesus so that we will be accepted in this life and risk losing the promised new life with God.

Living openly for Jesus is the key to living the Christian life. While the decision to put your faith, belief and trust in Jesus is a private matter, open Christian living is how you know your faith is certain. Facing opposition in this world is one test you can use to gauge whether you are on the right track.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Be sure to decide if you want to live for Jesus and face opposition in this life. While for some making this decision isn’t easy, this decision is the most logical decision anyone can make when looking from the perspective of eternity. After all, what are a few short years of opposition and rejection in the face of a dozen millennia of years with God? If you choose God and eternity, then be sure to seek Him first each day, and then openly live for Him in a practical, loving way.

Also, be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself so you can truly know what God is like. While living for God will be an incredible adventure in spite of the opposition, be sure that you are connecting with Him personally each day. A pastor or a podcaster can point you in a good direction, but only the Bible can teach you about how God has moved throughout history, how He doesn’t change, and how this makes Him trustworthy.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or stumble away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

When we began moving our way through Jesus’ final week, we’ve seen how every one of the four gospels has been building up to the moment Jesus is hung on the cross. For most of the other episodes this year, I’ve picked one or two of the gospels to focus in on, but since this entire year has been leading up to the point when Jesus is hung on the cross, it seems like we should take a little more time on this event. Also, all four gospels share unique details regarding the time Jesus spent on the cross.

While we don’t have enough time left in the year to devote an episode to each gospel for this event while also concluding the year with Jesus’ resurrection, let’s take the next couple of weeks and focus in on some big themes we can learn about Jesus and about God through what is shared about Jesus’ time on the cross.

Since Matthew and Mark are the most similar, let’s group them together in this episode, then in the following two episodes, let’s look at Luke and then John respectively.

With that said, let’s read Mark’s version of Jesus’ crucifixion to discover how he describes Jesus’ time on the cross. Our passage is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 15, and we will be reading it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 25, Mark tells us that:

²⁵ It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. ²⁶ The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the Jews.

²⁷ They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. [^[28]  Some manuscripts add a verse here that says: “And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘He was numbered with the transgressors’”] ²⁹ Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, ³⁰ come down from the cross and save yourself!” ³¹ In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! ³² Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

In Mark’s version of this event, we discover that Jesus faced a different type of temptation during the last hours before His death. Up to this point, the temptation Satan has thrown at Jesus the strongest is the temptation to abandon both the cross as well as the human race. However, now that Jesus is on the cross, the temptation Satan throws at Jesus is one challenging Jesus to come down from the cross.

The only way this temptation makes sense is if it was within Jesus’ power to do. The fact that Jesus received hostility and insults from all angles suggests that this was prompted by Satan because Jesus could come off of the cross if He wanted to. Out of the challenges Jesus receives, the one Mark chose to include hits all the angles of a solid temptation.

Mark quotes the challenge by saying in verses 31 and 32, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.”

The first part of the temptation hits on pride. This angle of temptation challenges Jesus regarding His ability to come down, and it suggests that Jesus doesn’t come down because He cannot come down. Satan ignores the detail, hoping we will ignore the detail as well, that while Jesus can come down, He chooses not to because the cross and death was His mission and the way we can be saved.

The second part of the temptation hits on Jesus’ mission. This angle of temptation challenges Jesus regarding the mission and role He came to the earth to fulfill. Jesus came as the Messiah that was promised, and Satan challenges Jesus that His death is a failure of His role – especially in the eyes of the Old Testament scriptures and the current generation’s understanding of these scriptures. Satan ignores the detail, hoping we will ignore the detail as well, that the Old Testament describes Jesus’ rejection, betrayal, and death, and that His death was part of the Messiah’s master plan for humanity’s salvation.

The third part of the temptation hits on Jesus’ divinity. This angle of temptation challenges Jesus regarding His right to receive worship as a member of the Godhead. Satan challenged Jesus through this temptation that if the Messiah dies, He is not worthy of receiving worship. In contrast, if Jesus displays His divinity by coming down from the cross, He will receive worship and praise from those present. Satan ignores the detail, hoping we will ignore the detail as well, that while Jesus is worthy of our worship, Jesus isn’t interested in receiving our worship or praise. Jesus would rather point all praise and worship to the Father, and Jesus didn’t come with the goal of being worshiped.

Also, it is significant to note that any praise or worship Jesus would have received would mean nothing if He came down from the cross. Either the worship itself would be empty because it was from shallow, unrepentant hearts, or it would be empty because Jesus would have failed His mission and He would have failed humanity.

Jesus overcame this big temptation because His mission was to redeem humanity. Jesus triumphed over every temptation Satan threw at Him from the temptations at the start of His ministry after His baptism, to this last temptation Satan was saving for Jesus’ time on the cross. Jesus overcame temptation and sin to make it possible for us to accept the gift He offers to each of us.

Mark’s gospel tells us that not only did Jesus receive insults and challenges from the religious leaders and soldiers who were present, but also from those who were crucified with Him. However, not all those who were crucified with Jesus were convinced that Jesus deserved these insults or challenges, but we’ll wait until our next episode to discover what happens when one of the people near Jesus decides to ask Jesus for a favor when they are both about to die.

As we come to the end of this episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Be sure to always seek God first. Know that Jesus faced and overcame temptation so that when we are tempted, we can lean on Him for the power to resist temptation in our own lives as well. Also, we can know and trust that when we have failed God, He is more than willing to accept us back and forgive us because that is one of the big reasons why Jesus came.

Also, always pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow your personal relationship with Jesus. Through a personal relationship with Jesus, He helps us overcome temptation in our lives and He helps us live the life He created us to live.

Which leads us into the challenge I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or deviate away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!