Please Watch And Pray

Focus: Mark 13:33 - KJV

33. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.

Mark 14:32-42

The instruction of our Lord to us is to watch and pray for no one knows when the time of the taking away shall come. Those who are not attentive when the time comes are likely to be left behind. It is the way of the flesh to refuse to watch and pray. We all should however, know that the flesh profits nothing. When it was about the time to go to the cross, the Lord requested His companions to tarry, watch and pray. Rather than do so, they slept while the Lord was agonizing. Yet the Lord kept coming back to nudge them out of their sleepiness asking them to do watch and pray, still, they slept. A time was when the Lord left them to their folly to sleep on. Had it been they did watch and pray, the burden of being separated from their master might have been lighter for them to carry and they would have been in better standing to face the challenges of the time. How is it that as men, we often assume we know better than the author of life, to do what He says?

Christ is back in Gethsemane: it is about time to take up the saints and condemn others to the second death. As God is not wicked, He is agonizing about the number of souls that are about to perish whom He volunteered to die for. To forestall the destruction of such multitude, he is asking us to watch and pray: first that we may also not fall into temptation, and next that many more may be ransomed before the time. But what is our response? The church and its leadership are asleep like Peter, James and John and they refuse to wake up despite all the nudging of the Lord. They prefer to be wealthy here on earth, acquiring to themselves sums that they can never spend in a lifetime and neglecting the poor in the midst. They will rather pray for longer life when in old age because to them life (their sleepy state) is sweet. Meanwhile, unless the Lord returns to offer the saints a new heaven and a new earth, there is really not much to enjoy on this present side of eternity. Everyone who sleeps at this time is in danger of being left behind as the rapture is really imminent right now. Stop the folly, wise up and be alert. The Lord is nudging you.

May the Lord find us righteous and standing when He returns in Jesus’ name. May we never sleep the sleep of death and be on the prowl watching and praying as the Lord has demanded of us in Jesus’ name. May the Lord, by the reason of our yielding His call, bring many more to salvation and preparation for the taking up, in Jesus’ name. May our efforts in evangelism never come to waste over the people whom God loves and gave His only begotten son for, in Jesus’ name. May the Lord be pleased with us and never leave us to our folly to sleep on, in Jesus’ name.

SOLUTION: Be on the prowl for Jesus. The answer is to seek first, and where possible only, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. When all “these things” are then added, they will not take away our focus. Watch and Pray. Stop sleeping.

If you are blessed by this post, kindly share with your contacts, as well as others, that they may be blessed also. Thank you and may God bless you abundantly as you do so, in Jesus’ name.