Jesus commissioned three men to pray along with Him. When He came to check them out, He saw that they were soundly asleep. (By the way, not all the people you ask to pray for you do so! If you leave your life to people’s prayers, you put yourself in danger. You must learn to pray for yourself). Anyway, when he was to reprimand them, He singled out Peter. Why was this so? Jesus’ action can only be understood in the context of Peter’s earlier boast that he was going to die for and with the Master. In Peter was the will but not the power to execute. Indeed many people fail not because of a lack of focus but because they lack power.

Prayer bridges the gap between purpose and power. This was the message that Jesus taught Peter and his sleeping colleagues. No one can stop temptations from coming and it can be difficult to recognize them without discernment. Also, it takes the power of God to stay free from the influence of temptations. We receive both discernment and power through prayer. In summary, the only way to beat the devil’s devices is to be prayerful. It is not a matter of whether we should pray; the severity of Satan’s devices demands that we pray. If we play instead of praying, we make ourselves prey to the devil.