And when He was at the place, He said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. Luke 22:40
It was a hot summer day, and a bunch of the neighbourhood boys were headed for Byers’ Hole to go swimming. They stopped in at our place on the way by, to see if I wanted to go along. Of course, I did, but it was a Sunday, and there was a very strict rule at our house: No swimming on Sunday. My parents were away, but Grandma Mac was looking after us. I asked her if it was OK to go with the boys, and she declared, ‘You are not going swimming!’. I tried to tell her that I had no intention of swimming, I just wanted to go along, but she remained firm, ‘You are not going swimming’. Grandma Mac knew all about boys and the temptation that I would be under when I arrived at the swimming hole. I was prepared to risk the temptation, but she wasn’t. How many times do we run into problems because we are still too willing to risk the temptation, and Grandma Mac is not near enough to stop us?
We are bombarded every waking hour of the day with temptations. Most of them have no effect on us, although the devil keeps trying. But he also knows our weaknesses, and he makes sure to target those every day. We really need to heed the words of the Lord Jesus in today’s text, and be constantly in prayer that we don’t enter into the temptation. Did you pray that prayer today? Did I? How did we stack up against the temptations of yesterday? It was not without a reason that the Lord told us to pray this prayer. He was constantly under temptation, too, and knew the value of prayer at such times. We need to heed His words.
It was temptation that caused our first parents to fall. The devil trotted out the big three: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Today, he will bring the same three before you, to see if you will succumb. Your likelihood of doing so is inversely proportional to the amount of time you spend on your knees praying for deliverance from the temptation. -Jim MacIntosh