The Greek word for temptation is “peirasmos,” meaning to be “put to the test” and “to prove”. Temptation in the Bible is someone facing a decision to go against God and his will or to obey God’s will and trust in his love. When tempted, I am on trial. A person’s faith and patience can be put to the test. The disciples were going to be put to the test in around an hour. On trial was their faith in Jesus.
Jesus often prayed. When in Jerusalem, he prayed on the Mount of Olives, a quiet place less than a mile from the city. Jesus’s disciples followed him. Their hearts would have been downcast from all that Jesus had told them. Their bodies would have been exhausted from a week full of activities. They would not get a weekend’s rest.
Jesus told them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” Here lies a secret. Temptation comes to all. Temptation, if not today, will come soon. Someone once said, “Two things in life are sure: death and taxes.” This, too, is sure: temptations will come.
Yet, here Jesus tells me that when I talk to God in a quiet, lonely place, I can pray to be relieved of temptation. Jesus elsewhere told his disciples to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
However, I consider this too. Temptation is not easy. Yet, it can be profitable. Overcoming temptation is the soul’s exercise. As the body needs exercise, so the soul is exercised through temptation. Resisting the test to sin makes the soul better. Many temptations are hard to resist. The natural body is addicted to one form of devolution or another. Overcoming a soulful addiction can be harder than overcoming a physical addiction. However, if I pray as Jesus instructs, God can help me to not fall when tempted.
