Not with Strength, but by the Holy Spirit

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."
(Luke 22:42, NLT)

Sacredly, I knocked on the front door of the Free Grace Church parsonage. Sister Christine opened the door and said, "Brother Kerry, Danny will be so glad to see you." To her, his name was Danny, because he was her husband. But to me his name was Pastor LeRoy.

At the time of this emotional visit, I was married, the father of two children, and studying for full-time ministry. However, Pastor LeRoy had been my childhood hero-pastor when he served as the local shepherd of the Free Grace flock in the 1970s. He was the kind of pastor I prayed I would be, someday. Now, Pastor LeRoy was in the sunset of his life, and after 25 years serving other places, he had returned for a second assignment at my childhood church. It would be his final pastorate.

Visiting my island home while on vacation from Nazarene Bible College in Colorado Springs, I stopped by the parsonage to pray for my childhood hero. Now, he was now in the final stages of cancer. As I followed Sister Christine to the back corner bedroom, I had all intentions of encouraging Pastor LeRoy. But when I saw him lying there, all I could do was cry. Finally, after catching my breath, I blurted out, "Pastor LeRoy, I came to pray for you, but I don't think I can." As he reached his trembling hand towards me, he smiled with the countenance of Christ and replied gently but confidently through joyful tears, "Brother Kerry, no need to worry. I don't need you to pray because I have already prayed the perfect prayer."

Entering the final stage of cancer is grounds for what I would call desperate faith. Also, the final stage of cancer is grounds for desperate faith to find its footing. Hebrews 11:6 helps us to find the footing for desperate faith: "And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him" (NLT).

In Hebrews 11:6, we discover that we must have a basic faith, a faith that believes God exists. The verse also implies we must go beyond this to a devoted and desperate faith in that we must not only believe God exists, but also that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.

Basic faith believes God lives, while devoted and desperate faith rises higher to believe God loves.

Basic faith can be just a general opinion of God, while devoted and desperate faith speaks more to the specific level of our trust in God. So the question is: Do I only basically believe that God lives, that God is real? Or do I also desperately believe that God loves-that God rewards?

I love the week that leads up to Resurrection Sunday; Passion Week. A while ago I was reflecting on the suffering of Jesus that preceded His glorious exit from the tomb. As I thought, a question had my mind in a maze: What one moment of Passion Week was the pivotal point when Jesus relinquished His all to pardon and sanctify you and me?

Suddenly, the answer was very obvious. The pivotal point peaked in the place of pressing, Gethsemane.

As Jesus agonized in fervent prayer beneath the olive branches, real Christianity suddenly crystallized. I believe immediately after the Son of God spoke one single-syllable, three-letter word to the Father—the word "yet"—pardon and sanctification went into full motion.

I picture the holy hosts of Heaven, with tear-filled eyes, leaning over and gazing at the agonizing, praying Jesus as they anxiously asked one another, "Has the Son of God reached 'yet,' yet?"

Have you reached "yet," yet? If you have, you already know the words to the "perfect prayer" that Pastor LeRoy prayed in those final stages of cancer.
"Yes," he said to me, as I sobbed silently, "Brother Kerry, no need to worry. I don't need you to pray because I have already prayed the perfect prayer." Pastor LeRoy had reached "yet!"

In the dim light of that back, corner bedroom, I asked anxiously, "Brother LeRoy, will you please share the perfect prayer with me?" Then, with feeble tones of devoted and desperate faith, my childhood hero and pastor said, "Brother Kerry, you have heard the prayer before." It was the same prayer Jesus prayed after reaching "yet" in Gethsemane: "Not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42, NIV).

In Gethsemane, as soon as our Savior reached the pivotal point and relinquished His all to pardon and sanctify you and me, as He reached "yet," that's when the perfect prayer flowed from the deepest places of His being: "Not my will, but yours be done." The Son of God's desperate praying gave way to desperate trusting!

If we have reached "yet," undeniably we know it, because we are beginning to breathe that same perfect prayer. Once we say "yet," all our desperate praying for immediate, visible, and personal rescue gives way to desperately trusting God's ultimate, invisible, and perfect will for our lives. Do we desperately believe that God lives and God loves? Do we devotedly declare that God is real and God rewards? Is our faith devoted and desperate?

During days of desperation, it's paramount to remember one encouraging reality. This reality is proven again and again in the pages of God's Word and across the generations of lives lived by God's faithful people: Desperate faith honors God and God honors desperate faith!

Do you suppose that the hymn writer who penned He Never Has Failed Me Yet really meant 'God has never failed me, because I have reached "yet"?

Kerry W. Willis is pastor of Harrisonburg, Virginia, First Church of the Nazarene.

Holiness Today, July/August 2010

Please note: This article was originally published in 2010. All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at that time but may have since changed.