PrintToday's "Moment with Mark" (99)
28 February, 2013
Keep alert and pray. Otherwise temptation will overpower you. (Mark 14:38 NLT)
This directive of Jesus is a timely reminder that we are engaged in warfare - spiritual warfare. That is certainly what was happening in the Garden and on the Cross that day. Over the next 72 hours that battle, which had been non-stop since it began in another Garden (Eden) many hundreds of years previously, would now come down to this ultimate and decisive battle.
"Keep alert and pray!" This is the language of warfare. The three disciples were doing neither of those things. Jesus' concern is that, if they don't stay alert and if they don't pray, they will be overpowered by temptation.
Our enemy rarely makes a frontal attack. Rather he infiltrates our perimeters by stealth - something like the Trojan Horse. In that account the Greeks made a huge wooden horse and left it outside the gates of Troy. Inside the horse they had secreted a small task force. When the Greeks appeared to sail away, the citizens of Troy took the horse inside the city gates where, under cover of darkness that task force was able to open the gates of the city and the Greek army which had returned secretly was able to capture the city.
"Overpowered by temptation". Temptations will come in all shapes and sizes. There is no room for complacency. We can stay alert and pray or we can be overpowered. The choice is ours.
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