Daily Devotional

January 16th 2026

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FRIDAY

While He lived on earth, anticipating death, Jesus cried out in pain and wept in sorrow as He offered up priestly prayers to God. Because He honored God, God answered Him. Though He was God’s Son, He learned trusting-obedience by what He suffered, just as we do.—Hebrews 5:7, 8 (MSG)

“How can Jesus understand our pressures, if He has never sinned?” The answer to that leads us into the dark shadows of Gethsemane. There is no other incident in the Gospel accounts that fits the description of this passage.

Amid His bafflement, puzzlement and distress of soul, Jesus does an unusual thing. He asks His disciples to bear Him up in prayer as He went to pray before the Divine Parent. There He prayed three separate times, and each prayer is a questioning of the necessity of this experience: “Father, if it’s possible, deliver Me from this.” He was pleading with the Divine Parent to make clear to Him whether this was a necessary activity. So deep was Jesus’ suffering, and so suddenly had it come upon Him that it left Him baffled, confused and bewildered—just as sudden catastrophes can bewilder us.

To deepen the mystery of this, it is implied that Jesus faced the full misery which sin produces. “By suffering He learned what it means to obey.” Though every cell in His body wanted to disobey, He obeyed, trusting God to see Him through. He learned what it feels like to hang on when failure makes us want to throw the whole thing over, when we are so defeated, so utterly despairing that we want to forget the whole thing.

Jesus placed Himself in the Divine Parent’s loving, tender care and looked to God to sustain Him. And when He did, He was brought safely through. “So let us boldly approach God’s throne of grace. Then we will receive mercy. We will find grace to help us when we need it (Hebrews 4:16).” No matter how deep, how serious our need may be, He can fully meet it.

Jesus entered into the full force of two of life’s greatest mysteries—obedience and suffering. Where on the spectrum of obedience do we pray, “Not my will, but Yours be done”?

Prayer: Lord, we thank You that Jesus’ Garden experience was not merely pretense—that He did not come simply perform a role—but He fully entered life. He went the whole way, bearing the full brunt of our experience. As we go today, help us to learn to trust and obey, even when faced with personal suffering. In Christ’s name, we pray. AMEN!

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