Christ prayed in agony

Taking yesterday's excerpt and expounded on it--

'True prayer, must be aflame.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 19)

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A prayer of desperation certainly seems to contain the fire we are talking about, however is all prayer, prayer of desperation? Should it be? Seriously. A lot of people, people who aren't even prone to praying will find themselves calling out to God for help in time of need, you know what I'm talking about. And yet people who are prone to praying, those who are truly seeking a daily, living, breathing walk with their Savior, do they pray with intensity, with desperation?  When we have a desperate need, such as an medical emergency where a lot of non-praying people begin to pray, they are invoking God's mercy because they recognize He has power, they are hoping He has power to intervene on their behalf. We who daily strive to be Christ's during times of no emergency, shouldn't we still be desperately seeking our God's intervention in this world on behalf of everyone. I say everyone because how could we leave even a single person out of the desire for them to find salvation in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and for those who have found Him already- to keep strong in Him while the enemy attacks them with subtle and not so subtle desperation of his own. True prayer being aflame, is something real. Our Savior taught us how to pray and it was with sincerity, it was in truth. When our Savior prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane he sweat blood!

Luk 22:44  And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Such prayer!

Truly this was the time of the greatest temptation of our Savior. Facing the great temptation to save Himself, to call ten thousand angels to His aid, He knew He had to resist the temptation. The temptation is NOT the sin! It's consenting to the temptation, it's giving temptation a realization, making it something desired, something desperately wanted more than to obey God! 

Our Savior prayed so desperately, He prayed in agony! He knew what was to come, He knew the worst thing imaginable in all of mankind and He was a man, was to happen to Him. It wasn't the torture to come, it wasn't even the physical pain of death He was going to face, it was the separation from His Father! To be separated from God, this was the agony He faced!

Do we realize how horrific it truly would be to be completely and utterly separated from God?!  This is what we all face should we fail to accept the great sacrifice made by our Savior. Is it any wonder we too need to pray with a flame, with a fire, with a desire for salvation?  Are we desperate to be saved from sin's evil? Are we? Shouldn't we be?!  This is REAL.  Salvation and damnation are REAL, and we must pray as if they are real and not some mere possibility of being real, with the equal chance of it not being real.

Please, LORD, please help us to comprehend the enormity of what is at stake here. You prayed in AGONY, You sweat great drops of blood, all because You knew if You did not give into temptation then You were going to be separated from Your Father, Our Father, God. That temptation had to be more than we can imagine, more than anything we'll face in our entire lives. Help us LORD, help us to pray with a fire, pray with desire, pray with true heart conviction and not by rote, not without the love we need to truly have in our hearts for You. Please, let the Holy Spirit be in us when we pray because we truly do not know how we are to pray acceptably to You.

All in YOUR LOVE! Your amazing, amazing love!