PRAYERLESSNESS comes BEFORE a FALL!
October
29 Bible Reading: Luke Chapters 22-24
PRAYERLESSNESS comes BEFORE a FALL!
When He (Jesus) rose up from prayer, and had
come to His disciples, He found them
sleeping from sorrow. Then He said to them, "Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into
temptation" (Luke
22:45-46)
After
Jesus spent some agonizing time at the Garden of Gethsemane in prayer, He returned
to His disciples only to find them sleeping
from sorrowful exhaustion. The disciples were exhausted from the emotional
demands made on them through the prophecy of Jesus’ death and the difficult
future awaiting them. We see that once again
Jesus urged them to rise and pray, because the crisis hour was drawing near,
and they would be tempted to deny Him before the authorities!
When
the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, we see a real
difference between the response of Jesus (who prayed) and that of His
disciples (who did not pray). Because Jesus had prayed and was yielded to the
Father’s will, He was prepared for His arrest, but the disciples were not. In
fact, all the disciples forsook Jesus and fled away to safety (Matt. 26:56).
Peter, who had earlier asserted that he was ready to accompany Jesus both to
prison and death (Luke 22:33) not only distanced himself from Jesus after His
arrest (v. 54b), but denied even knowing
Jesus three times just as Jesus had foretold (v. 34, 57, 58, 60). What a sad aftermath to prayerlessness in
the lives of Peter and the other disciples of Jesus!
Let
us be aware that temptation is an enticement to do wrong. It is attractive
and may entice us with carnal pleasures or, give us a chance to escape risk or,
get us illegitimate gain. However, God’s Word is clear that we sin when we give
in to tempting opportunities. The Bible warns us that repeatedly giving way to temptation can result in falling away
permanently with a total loss of interest in returning to God (see Heb.
6:6–8).
Clearly
we need God’s strength and wisdom to flee
from temptation (1 Cor. 6:18; 1 Tim. 6:11), and this can only be achieved
through spending time close to God in prayer and receiving new strength from
God alone. It is therefore crucial to take time to declare to God our weakness,
weariness, and need for His help in the midst of testing. Even our Lord Jesus
had taught His disciples to pray in that manner: "And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil
one." (Matt 6:13)
Let
us understand that prayerlessness is
disobedience against God since we are commanded to pray (see Luke 18:1;
Matthew 6:6). When we do not pray, it reveals
our unwillingness to let God work in our life. When we do not pray, we are neglecting the divine privilege that
Jesus has purchased for us by giving a great price, even His own life
(Hebrews 10:19-20). Not spending time with God in prayer reveals our thinking that we can handle things on our own (John
15:5), and in fact reveals our unbelief
(Romans 10:14; Hebrews 11:6). When we do not pray, we are making ourselves wide open to temptation and failure. Thus, prayerlessness comes before a fall and is
the cause of a deficient spiritual life!
Today, let’s commit ourselves to spending daily
time with God in prayer. We need to recognize our need for the Holy Spirit
to infuse us with a new passion and a new commitment to spend some time everyday
talking to God in prayer. In fact, God wants us to pray continually to Him as the scriptures declare: "Pray without ceasing" (1
Thess. 5:17). Remember, God is patiently waiting
for us to go to Him now!
