For sunday school:

Luke 22:39-46

Twice Christ told his disciples to Pray, lest they enter into temptation. You will note that Christ is not commanding his disciples to pray and ask God to keep them from temptation. He is commanding them to pray, because He knows if the disciples are busy in prayer, they will not have time to be tempted.

I think there is a principle here.

If you go back to Luke 21:34-36 you find Christ enjoining His disciples to watch and pray, that they might be accounted worthy to escape all those things he listed before. The principle here, I think, is that if we will go about doing what God commands us, we will not fall into temptation. I think that often times we find our selves tempted needlessly because we have already failed to be about our Fathers business. It’s always easier to prevent hardship than deal with it.

The old saying, “idle hands are the devils workshop”, like most old saying, captures so well the truth of this scripture. What I think so often gets missed is that it isn’t just enough to be busy, but we must be busy doing what we are told.

In Heb 12, Paul talks about running a race with purpose, and laying aside distractions. Christ, who is our example, suffered in the garden of Gethsemane so much He bled drops of blood as he prayed. The phenomenon, known to the medical profession, occurs during periods of extreme stress when capillaries in the sweat glands will break mixing blood with sweat. Not too long after, he submitted to humiliation and death. When Paul says that we have not yet resisted unto blood in verse 4, he points to Christ’s example on the cross, but by inference, he points to Christ’s example in Gethsemane, a place of submission by Christ to God’s will at a moment when He was vulnerable.

We should apply that same focus to being obedient, why? Because obedience prevents us from many of the temptations we would needlessly face, and saves us much of the hardship we would otherwise have to experience.