Watch and Pray
They accompanied Him to Gethsemane. He asked Peter, James, and John to come aside. They followed him and He asked them to pray. He asked them to wake up, to watch, and to pray just for little while and He warned them that they could fall into temptation without it.
They were near Him when He sweat blood from distress, was asking to have the cup removed from Him, and when He surrendered to the cross that lie before Him. He warned them, but they just couldn’t stay awake, couldn’t watch, and couldn’t pray.
Not For One Hour
They were with Him when the soldiers came to take Him. Standing in awe that He asked them not to defend Him. As He was taken away they ran. They had followed Him all this way and now fear and doubt were breathing upon them in a way they could not understand. Why was the One they had waited for all their lives, the One they thought they knew, the One who had called them by name, not who they expected Him to be?
Why had they fallen asleep?
As The Cock Crowed
As Peter watched on, Jesus was taken to trial. He followed the innocent to the crowd who wished Him slaughtered. Denying one, twice, thrice that he knew Him. Astonished that he did in fact deny the Lord, he was distraught beyond comprehension. He had forgotten that Jesus had prayed for Him. The words rang in His ears, “that your faith would not fail”.
Pressing of the Mind
Imagine the days that followed. As Peter knew of his death. As the temple had fallen just as He said. The weight of his grief and his sorrow of sin unmatched. He had been told to go and preach the gospel to every creature. Instead he returned home, not to fish for men, but to what he had known before.
Beloved, in a pressing place Jesus knows that we will fail. He knows that we will deny Him. He knows that His prayer was the only one that would prevent our faith from failing. Our faith in Him. Not us.
He was in the garden alone, temptation and the pressing of what would ensue beating through His brow in drops of blood. His blood, the very same blood that redeemed us. Satan continually desires to sift us as wheat, but faith in the blood of Christ is our refuge.
Are you in a pressing place? Plead the blood.
29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, 31 even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. 32 For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all. Romans 11:29-31
Another Samaritan Woman 