keep Watch

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

KEEP WATCH

Matt 26:40-41

40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. 41 "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." 

NIV

The flesh is weak indeed. How well we know it. We make all sorts of effort to live a life worthy of the Lord, and live uprightly. Our Spirit is absolutely wanting to do that which the Lord would have us do, and not do those things we should not do, but the flesh struggles with the Spirit. Paul makes that clear it is one of his struggles and we think how impressive a disciple of Jesus that Paul was. Yet he confesses the same thing, that those things he does not want to do, he does, and those things he should do, he does not do. There is this war that wages within, and that is what Peter, James, and John were struggling with. They were aware that Jesus was going to be betrayed and now they knew it was Judas who was going to do the betraying and Jesus had already told them that he was troubled in his spirit. We would think that for one hour, they would have been able to stay awake and pray for him, but alas, they were mere humans, just as we are. We know all the things we should not do and those we should do and yet we fail at both all too often. We are blessed to have the grace of God upon us, for otherwise we would be in a very sad position. It is not that we go forward looking for ways to sin, we don’t have to, it just happens, it comes to us. Oh, sure, we are not talking about murder, stealing, or some other hideous social crime. But envy creeps in, or we find ourselves being a little jealous, or maybe a little bit boastful, or prideful. It is so easy to boast and not even realize it with all the social media platforms available to share our lives. We can post all sorts of achievements of new possessions and think nothing of the fact it could be boasting or causing others to be a little envious, and that would be causing a brother to stumble. The flesh is weak, we are weak in so many ways it is almost like we are asleep. Jesus admonished them to keep watch, so they did not fall into temptation. That is the problem right there, temptation. How do we avoid it? It seems to be everywhere, yet if we are on guard, keeping watch, then maybe, just maybe we will not fail too often, for to say we would not fail, or fall at all would be way too prideful and then that would be a failure. So, let us just keep on keeping-on-keeping watch as best we can, with the Spirit's help.