Words of Warning

 

Words of Warning

Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Mark 14:38

Even in the hour of His greatest heaviness, Christ had thoughts for the spiritual development of His disciples.  Our Lord was in the Garden of Gethsemane, pouring out His great heart in prayer to God His Father.  In a brief moment of respite He returned to His now sleeping inner circle of followers.  Speaking directly to Peter, the boldest professor, the Savior addressed to him a word of warning which would have been intended as a lesson not only for Peter or even just the other two, but also for us all.  For all of us who face temptation, Christ’s comment to the disciples serves as a word in season.  Christ issued a twofold command to Peter, the others and us.

In the one case He exhorts us to ‘watch’ and in the other to ‘pray.’  The first part of the command requires alertness; the second, activity.  We will never succeed against temptation so long as we abide in a spiritual torpor of prayerlessness.  To this twofold command Christ adds a word of caution as to the results of failing to ‘watch and pray.’  He implied to Peter that a failure to watch and pray would result in a succumbing to temptation.  Lack of watchfulness, combined with prayerlessness, results in defenselessness.

To close this brief lesson to Peter and the others, Christ added a foreshadowing comment.  He said, ‘The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.’  Peter would prove the truth of Christ’s comment within hours, and so perhaps have we on more than one occasion.  How often is our testimony set forth in the terms of Romans 7:19, ‘For the good that I would I do not:  but the evil which I would not, that I do.’  Let us today heed Christ’s words of warning.  Let us arise from our drowsiness to watch and pray.  Only by spiritual strength, sought for and received, will we be able to resist temptation.

Father in heaven,

Our spirit longs within us to commune with You,

yet our flesh is weak.

Help us, strengthen us, enable us

today to be steadfast, to watch and pray.

Where the Bush is Burning

Tomm Tice