Fighting Temptation, Worry and Anxiety

Matthew 26:41

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Acts 10:1-2

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God.

It seems so simple - watch and pray. Yet even the disciples, when they knew Jesus would be betrayed, couldn’t bring themselves to do it. How many the time when I have neglected to watch and pray. If we can take Jesus words to heart and live them, we will have real strength through him. Cornelius is described as a man who feared God along with all of his household, was generous with his money, and prayed continually to God. That is my desire in this life, to leave a legacy like Cornelius. I pray it is yours as well.

“Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation” (Matt. 26:41). These words of our Savior are repeated with very little alteration in three evangelists; only, whereas Matthew and Mark have recorded them as above written, Luke reports them thus: “Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation” [Luke 22:46]; so that the whole of his caution seems to have been, “Arise, watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation.”

Solomon tells us of some that “lie down on the top of a mast in the midst of the sea” (Prov. 23:34)—men overborne by security in the mouth of destruction. If ever poor souls lay down on the top of a mast in the midst of the sea, these disciples with our Savior in the garden did so. Their Master, at a little distance from them, was “offering up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears” (Heb. 5:7), being then taking into his hand and beginning to taste that cup that was filled with the curse and wrath due to their sins—the Jews, armed for his and their destruction, being but a little more distant from them, on the other hand. “Our Savior had a little before informed them that that night he should be betrayed, and be delivered up to be slain; they saw that he was “sorrowful, and very heavy” (Matt. 26:37); nay, he told them plainly that his “soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (v. 38), and therefore entreated them to tarry and watch with him, now he was dying, and that for them. In this condition, leaving them but a little space, like men forsaken of all love toward him or care of themselves, they fall fast asleep! Even the best of saints, being left to themselves, will quickly appear to be less than men—to be nothing. All our own strength is weakness, and all our wisdom folly.”

Overcoming Sin and Temptation - John Owen