Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
The background of this text is the occasion when Jesus prayed His prayer of submission to the Father, because He knew that he was about to be arrested, tried and crucified. When Jesus went apart to pray, He took what is called His “inner circle” of Peter, James and John with Him to watch while He prayed. They were exhausted and fell asleep while on watch. Peter had just declared that he would stand up for Jesus under any circumstances, but here he was sleeping while he was supposed to be watching. The final time that Jesus came upon them while they were sleeping, He spoke the words of our text above. I want to share with you some thoughts that I had about this text when I read it this morning. When Jesus told Peter, James and John that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” He was asserting that He understood their humanity as He understands ours. He knows that the flesh is weak and that we will not always do that which is right. Though Jesus was not weak in the flesh as we are, He still understood that people do get exhausted. He had been exhausted at times Himself as He ministered to people for hours and hours. The weakness of flesh goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve succumbed to the allurement of the serpent. Jesus knows that while we are in our human flesh, we are weak at best. Some people are stronger than others, but we all have weaknesses of some kind. Even the most holy among us have weaknesses. If nothing else, there might be a weakness to be self-righteous and look down our noses at “lesser” people. (The Pharisees come to mind.) So we can be assured that Jesus understands our weakness, or weaknesses. But that is not the whole story. Read on: Jesus will not allow us to appeal to our fleshly weaknesses. Notice that He said to Peter, James and John, “watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.” Jesus understood their exhaustion, but He did not excuse it. He gave them the remedy for giving in to their weaknesses, and this is a lesson to us as well. We need to “watch and pray” because the devil knows our weaknesses and will exploit them. That is why Jesus told them to watch and pray, and why it is a message for us as well. The devil will lull us to sleep, so to speak, and tempt us in our weakest moments; therefore, we need to be alert to his tricks and pray that God will make us more aware of the devil’s tricks. It was the same Peter who was in the garden with Jesus that day who later wrote, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Yes, our flesh is weak, but Jesus has gone to great lengths to help us overcome our weaknesses. He understands that we will not always overcome; that is why He is willing to forgive us when we succumb to our fleshly weaknesses. His preference, however, is that we “watch and pray, that we enter not into temptation.” If we are honest, we will confess that we know our weaknesses as well. When we are tempted in those weak areas we need to immediately “watch and pray.” Some of our weaknesses may be subtle and not seem like sin. For example, it was just natural to Peter, James and John that when they were exhausted and sleepy that they go to sleep. The problem was that Jesus told them to watch. It was wrong for them to go to sleep because they were supposed to be on watch. When a soldier is on watch duty, he or she could be court martialed for going to sleep. Jesus died on the cross, defeating the devil, and arose from the grave, defeating death, hell and the grave. He has given to us the Holy Spirit to help us overcome our weaknesses. Jesus will forgive us when we succumb, but it is preferable that we “watch and pray” and not succumb. I certainly have not written this to judge you. I have the proverbial three fingers pointing back at me, but we do well to heed what Jesus told Peter, James and John. Bro. Joe
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|