Jesus prays on the Mount while the Followers Sleep

Verses: Luke 22 : 39 - 46

My thoughts about the verses:

Jesus knew that the time was upon him.  He wanted to go alone on the mount so that he could pray to God alone.  He told the disciples to pray that they would not fall into temptation.  The disciples heard but they fell asleep because they were grieving Jesus and their relationship with him.

Jesus is on the mount and he starts praying.  He asks God if there is another way for salvation without his death.  As he prays an Angel is sent to comfort him.  His sweat begins to flow like the blood that soon would flow from his body.  He accepts his calling and returns to the disciples.

There the disciples are asleep and not doing the one thing Jesus asked them to do.  They needed to pray to avoid temptation so that they could handle the next few days.  Jesus knew that prayer was the answer to the problems that they would face.  Yet, the disciples fell asleep and did not pray.

So you may be asking how does this story apply to me.  Simple the only way to avoid temptation is to pray.  When you pray you are summoning the presence of God to enter your life so you will not do things that are against the will of God.  See when you pray you have a shield of protection that surrounds you.

Yet, what do a lot of us do.  We only pray after we get in trouble.  We pray when things are already going wrong.  We do not pray to God when things are going good.   We think that we can handle the situations that we are in.  Since we ignore to pray for protection before things happen we are shocked when we start doing things that are against God.

We are more like the disciples in our way of thinking.  We have a tendency to put the thought of prayer behind other needs.  We see our day to day living as more serious.  Yet, when we open our hearts to thank and praise God we receive God's presence.

You can almost see the look on the disciples face when Jesus returned to where they were.  They had disappointed the one that they were following.  Is this not the same for us?  We are to pray to God without ceasing.  Yet, when we fail to do this we are disappointing God.  When we put Jesus second we are opening ourselves up to the temptations this world offers.

Prayer:

Dear God we thank you for everything.  We thank you for protecting us in the hard times of our life.  We thank you for answering our prayers.  Help us to put you first.  Help us pray to you without ceasing.  We ask you to forgive us when we put the world before you.  In the name of the One Who Died to make us Free pray.  Amen

Questions:

Do you pray to God when things are good?  Do you pray to God to protect you from the temptations of the world?  Is today the day that you put prayer into your day to day living?