The scene in Gethsemane is one that I visit often. On Sunday mornings especially, I reflect on the sacrifice of my Savior, dying a painful, gruesome, humiliating death of a criminal, even though He was the perfect Son of God. A lot of the time it brings me to tears, thinking about the agony of Jesus; knowing He did it for me. Sometimes, though, I think about God, and what the cross looked like from His perspective. How could you love a people so much that you would send your Son to them, knowing He would be mocked and tortured? What amazing love God must have for you and for me.

That love is what prompted our Father to tell Jesus no.

In the garden, Jesus prayed this prayer three times: “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will (Matt. 26:39).” The cup He was referring to was the cross, and the answer He received from God Almighty was no, there is no other way.

What must it have taken for God to answer Jesus with a no? It was through Jesus that the world was created. Jesus was in the beginning with God; the only One to ever truly know the Father. For God to allow Him to leave heaven, then to suffer so much, how much does God love us that He would not spare Jesus that pain?!

Why, then, do we choose to say yes to sin? Why do we, when faced with loving the world or loving our God, do we choose the world? John penned in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” James would write in James 4:4 that friendship with the world is enmity – hostile opposition – with God. Yet time after time, when the point of temptation comes, we say yes to sin and no to God.

But the Almighty said no to Jesus so that we could say no the world! He said no to Jesus, God in the flesh, so that we, a sinful humanity, could be saved! In order to take hold of that salvation, we must say no to the world. And what an easier choice we have!! We say no to a world that wants to use us and abuse us and hurt us in order to say yes to a God who loves us and protects us and has established an eternal home for us. God, on the other hand, chose a sinful, adulterous, fallen humanity over a perfect Son who’d been with Him from eternity! Surely, if God can say no to Him, we can say no the world.

Yes, it will be hard at times. But nothing in this world – no person, no riches, no anything! – will be harder for us to say no to than it was for God to say to Jesus. Surely we can let go of a sinful habit, sinful relationship, sinful idolization of riches, for a relationship with the Creator of the universe.

Let us all, as we count our blessings this week, praise and thank God for saying no to Jesus in the garden. May we fall on our knees in humility, graciously thanking our Father for sparing our lives and allowing His Son to be murdered. And above all, may we say yes to God. Whole-heartedly say yes to Him by saying no to all of the things we need to.

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”