John 18:11
Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?

Now was not the time to be aggressive, but submissive—not to the whims of the people, but to the will of God.  Jesus was willing to go wherever God’s will would take Him.  He was willing to endure whatever that entailed in order to obey completely.  He surrendered to the Father’s perfect plan despite the pain it would cause Him.  And even though Peter meant well when he drew his sword, nothing and no one was going to keep Jesus from going forward and seeing this through to the end.  He would not call down the angel armies to fight on His behalf, and He would not allow a man to prevent God’s plans from coming to pass.

Are we also willing to humbly accept God’s will for our lives?  Will we drink the cup He’s given to us without fighting against it?  Will we be willing to submit no matter what it will cost us and do nothing to hinder His plans for us?  Sometimes the time will come when we’ll be tempted to draw our sword and try to fight off whatever is coming against us.  But if God has asked us to put our sword away, then let us not hesitate to do so.  Let us take whatever comes our way with faith and confidence in the God who has led us there and trust Him to work out His plan through us.

Sometimes it will be right to fight against some injustice or some attack.  Sometimes we’re supposed to go on the offensive as God leads us.  But let us never fight against God.  Let us not go against Him and oppose His plans or His purposes.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in the moment, so concerned about our safety or our comfort or our stuff that we lash out almost instinctively against Him.  Sometimes what we see on the surface is too limited a view of what God is working out and we’ll unwittingly try to hinder something that He wants to work through.  So let us listen for His voice to guide us if we are doing something that we shouldn’t be.

How willing are we to surrender?  At this very moment, it looked like Jesus had lost.  All the good work He had done, all His teaching and the miracles, His perfect obedience and righteousness, and here He was being taken away like a criminal.  The very ones He had stood against before He now allowed to lead Him away bound.  But when we know the rest of the story, we see how critical this moment was and how important it was that Jesus go willingly to what awaited Him from this moment on.  So while we may not understand what is happening in the moment, let us trust that God knows the outcome, and that is what will enable us to submit to Him when we may be tempted to resist.