CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE DAILY DEVOTIONAL ON YOUTUBE
Matthew 26:40-41
As Jesus returns to His disciples from praying in the flesh that God may have another way than for Him to experience all the pain and suffering for all the sins of humanity, but yet for God’s will to be done (Matthew 26:39), He finds His disciples sleeping. Jesus calls out Peter, James, and John for their lack of obedience and dedication to Him as He declares in Matthew 26:40b-41 (NKJV), “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
This is an example of the weakness of living in the flesh/our physical weaknesses.
This is a promise that God’s Holy Spirit gives us strength and guidance, but we have to be obedient and dedicated to following the guidance that we are given along with utilizing the strength God gives us to succeed in His plan for our lives.
At first glance we may be prone to look at Peter, James, and John and see only the obvious: they fell asleep while Jesus – their Savior and Teacher – had given them instructions to keep watch while He went away privately to pray. They should have been excited and alert in that Jesus had picked them from the rest of His disciples to go with Him and have an experience with Him that the others would not. We may be harsh in our views of them in this moment. But if we look at the facts of the evening, I believe that we too would find ourselves in the same predicament if we were there with them.
It was evening, after a big supper – the Passover Feast – in which they were required by God’s direction in Exodus 12 to eat everything and leave nothing. I believe that it is safe to say that their stomachs were full – they would have had heavy eyes ready for a nap; or better yet, ready to go to bed for the night. Jesus then takes them on a journey to Gethsemane and has them sit in a solitary place and keep watch – in a solitary place – there was nothing to watch – it was dark and quiet. Peter, James, and John fell asleep. Can we blame them? I cannot. But they did not realize the importance of the moment as Jesus was preparing for His arrest, conviction, being beaten, abused, found guilty by man, crucified, and buried in death for things in which He was clean, pure, and without. But that God’s will be done was His final words of His pleading and praying with His heavenly Father (Matthew 26:39).
We are all weak in the flesh; that’s why we need God’s Holy Spirit indwelling us – to help us through the tough times, along with celebrating the good times. But we must also understand that Peter, James, and John did not yet have the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit as Jesus Himself was with them. God’s Holy Spirit was not yet given, but would be promised by Jesus after His resurrection in Acts 1:4-8. We might say that Peter, James, and John were more weak than we are because we have God’s Holy Spirit dwelling within us through our faith in Him and professing Him our Lord and Savior. And yet, even so, our flesh is weaker than our spirit filled life. We fall back and forth in our focus on Jesus and striving to follow Him as we get caught up in the physical fleshly ways of this world. This is the struggle that we all face in striving to follow Jesus. Satan is always trying to make us fall away from Jesus through the temptations and struggles of this world, but God is always there waiting for us to call on the name of our Savior Jesus to help us successfully through them. I urge you today to call on the name of Jesus and believe in Him to help you through this physical fleshly life and into a spiritual life that is set free from sin – in Christ!
Dear LORD,
We are fortunate to live when we do – as we do not have to strive in false hope of ourselves being good enough for salvation, but that simply by believing in Jesus – that we can obtain a righteous life through believing in Him – that He paid our price to death so that we may live eternal in heaven in His righteousness that saves all who will call on His precious name – the name of Jesus. In Jesus name I pray, amen.