“Be Sober Minded and Watchful”

BIBLE READING:  1 Peter 5

                 In the moments before Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, He encourages the members of His inner circle (Peter, James and John) to “watch and pray”. When Jesus returns, he finds them asleep and continues to admonish them to “watch and pray”; this time He even elaborates that by reminding them that “the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak”.  Maybe Jesus was speaking specifically to Peter?  Just hours before, while they were in the upper room, Peter had emphatically denied that he would ever deny that Jesus was the Messiah.  He boldly stated that he was willing to go both to prison and die if that is what it took. Yet every time Jesus came back from praying, He found them asleep.  Over the next few hours we see that Peter does the one thing he thought he would never do, deny that he ever knew Jesus.  I wonder if those words from Jesus in the garden haunted Peter over the years, “watch and pray…watch and pray”.  Maybe that is what led Peter to write these last words concerning our preparedness of the Devil.  “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” (1 Peter 5:8-9).  Who better to warn us of the dangers of giving in, than Peter?  Maybe things would have been different if he had been more watchful or had prayed more.  In Peter’s condition we will never know, but in ours…there is still time!