Jesus finds his disciples sleeping after He had asked them to watch with Him. He says, “Could you not watch with Me one hour?” And then He warns, “ Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt 26:36-41)

Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows we are likely to enter into temptation when we fail to watch and pray.

He knows we’ve had some good intentions. Anybody already broke a New Years’s resolution?

Yes, our flesh is weak and we’ve been too tired, and too busy, and too distracted, and too bored, to read our Bibles and worship and pray.

Sometimes, we fail to do the things that help us resist sin that hurts us and those we love.

But why??

I think there are many reasons we neglect the disciplines of the faith, but there’s one that I think many of us can relate to — (see video below)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1BFRl5IeTs/?igsh=MThzbHVzb3RvMzNoag==

Clark says in the video that basically when our goal is only some emotional high, “Jesus, make me feel better”, that when our time in prayer or the Word seems routine or dry, we will stop doing it.

He says many are going to God for what He can give us (an emotional feeling) rather than just to be near Him.

When we do this, we are treating Jesus just like every other thing we’ve tried to keep us happy rather than the God of the Universe that He is. And this is when many get disappointed and walk away.

When forget that just to be in His presence is a blood-bought honor and privilege, like those disciples in the garden , we figuratively and literally fall asleep.

We fail to watch and pray and our weak flesh then leads us into temptation… and we wonder why Jesus didn’t work for us.

But when we daily draw near Him and seek HIM through the Word and prayer we find ourselves more spirit-controlled and less flesh-controlled and less impacted by the ups and downs of this life.

You know it’s true and so do I. So, let’s keep encouraging each other to keep seeking Him for HIM!

The Bible tells us the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace (Rom 8:6).

That kind of mind comes from the spiritual discipline of deliberately keeping our eyes on Him, tuning our ears to hear Him, and setting our our feet to follow Him.

And as we do this, we will notice our hearts drawn to worship Him -for Who He is and not just what He can do for us.

readMatthew

seekHim

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