By Andrew Williams
Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!” Matthew 26:41 NLT
Good morning fellow disciples.
Jesus’ instructions are life changing. If we follow them, we will live the God ordained life and we will live forever with Him. In this passage, Jesus tells His disciples to watch and pray so that they would not give in to temptation.
Jesus had just come back from praying to God for the first time and had found His disciples asleep. Take a moment to reflect on the times when you yielded to temptation. Were you tired? Were you sleepy? Were you exhausted mentally or physically?
One of the strategies of the enemy is to overwhelm you so that you become tired and unfocused, and then he tempts you. It is in times like these that we yield to temptation quite easily. But Jesus tells us to watch and pray.
Watch: exercise care, caution, or restraint about.
Pray: to address God with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving.
When the first temptation comes, do you just let it linger in your mind, or do you promptly go to that place where you exercise care, caution, and restraint, and then begin to address God in prayer?
The usual progression is we get the temptation, we entertain the thought, we think deeply on it, we sin, and then we pray the prayer of confession. This is totally opposite to what Jesus says!
Let us be disciples who watch and pray. When we do so, we will not fall into temptation.
Prayer: Father God, I will exercise caution, care, and restraint. I will try not to yield to temptation. I will consistently pray to You so that the devil will not get a foothold in my life. Help me to remain focused on You, in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.