Mark 14:38
Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
At the close of Jesus' earthly ministry and just prior to the crucifixion, Jesus takes the disciples into the garden to pray and prepare, privately, for His death. The disciples, still, really had no clue what was about to take place. Christ was trying to prepare them, but they failed to capture the intensity of the moment. Christ was trying to equip them for what was about to happen to Him and their dreams for an immediate new kingdom, but they were flesh and the flesh would take over. As they reached the garden it must have been late in the evening. Christ wants them to join Him in prayer. Having set the stage, Jesus goes off alone to pray. When he returns the disciples are fast asleep. This patter repeats three times. They are so exhausted they fall asleep instead of pray. Or, they are so numb to the things of Christ they fall asleep instead of pray. After Jesus goes away and returns a third time, the above verse captures Christ's words to them. In doing so, He gives them and us a formula for success in the Christian life. He tells them that their spirit might be willing (by here we mean that they had a willing attitude or a willing motivation, or even a willing mind), but they are in the flesh and that flesh is not always able to carry out what they will. Our "wills" can have one desire but our flesh has another. You can will to lose weight and quit eating unhealthy food, but the flesh craves what the flesh craves. In this case they had a will to follow Christ and to join Him in prayer about this moment, despite their lack of understanding. But, the heaviness of the eyes trumped their will. Earlier in this same chapter Jesus told them they would "all" run away from Him when He would be crucified. Peter (his will) said he would "never" deny Christ. Later in the chapter Peter denies Jesus three times. Peter had the will but the flesh was weak. If the disciples can fall into this trap, so, too, can we. What is the solution? The solution Jesus gives, is to "watch and pray" and that will allow us to "not enter into temptation." Of all the words Jesus could have spoken to them at this time, he tells them that vigilance and prayer are the two areas of importance in the Christian's life that we need to be armed with, if we wish to avoid temptation, and thus enable the will and control the flesh. When you take the context of what is happening in this entire chapter into consideration, the temptation Jesus is probably warning them about is to not fall away when He is taken captive (only minutes away at this point). Jesus had already told Peter, the strongest of all them, they he would deny Christ. Jesus is telling them that the spirit is willing to follow but the flesh will fall back. Our solution is that yielding to God in prayer can prepare us for and strengthen us against our own flesh. Jesus isn't worried about Satan here, although Satan obviously uses our flesh against us. Jesus is telling them that their biggest enemy right now is themselves. The truth is we all have fears and struggles in our flesh and we deny Jesus, either verbally or behaviorally. The solution is spending time in prayer. Prayer is a powerful tool. When we pray we admit we CAN'T do something. When we pray we recognize God CAN do something. We put ourselves at the mercy and grace of God and that gives us strength. When we are weak, He is strong in us. We take prayer so lightly in the Christian faith. The disciples did, here. We, too, do here. Pray ... it gives us strength because it calls upon the one who wants to strengthen us.
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