March 9

Numbers 11:24-13:33, Mark 14:22-52, Psalm 52:1-9, Proverbs 11:1-3

Pray: Lord God, teach me, train me, direct me, and correct me. Help me to delight in what You say rather than to camp out around what the world about me is saying. Remind me that Your manna is the true bread from heaven and Your provision for me. Help me not to cry out after the meat of Egypt. Help me to understand that as good as the quails seemed to be… the result of Egyptian meat was a plague and much death.

Read: In Numbers 11:12 we read that Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses. They went on to say, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us, too?” Our leaders are not perfect men. They have faults and failings. And sometimes we fail to understand that God made them our leaders and as such we must honor them in spite of their shortcomings. God dealt severely with Aaron and Miriam by striking Miriam with leprosy. We need to be very careful how we speak about our leaders. God is well able to deal with those in authority. We are called to pray for and honor our leaders. When we do so the Lord will deal in a mighty way with those in authority.

Edify: Mark 14:38 finds Jesus saying to His disciples something very profound but often missed. “Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Jesus had been alone with His heavenly Father just before His betrayal. He had asked His followers to watch and pray with Him. Rather than doing so they had fallen asleep. The possibility of overcoming temptation is real when coupled to PRAYER. Jesus did overcome temptation that night. His followers did not. PRAYER is a huge weapon. SLEEP is an enemy of prayer.

Practice: Peter knew he was about to be tested. Yet he failed to prepare for the temptation that was just ahead. Peter went to sleep. Peter did not pray. Meanwhile, Jesus was not sleeping and Jesus was praying. Temptation rarely sneaks up on us. More often than not we see temptation coming. But choosing to do something about it…well, it is on us. Do we pray before we choose to watch a certain tv show? Do we pray before we decide what to order off the menu? Do we pray before putting ourselves in a one-on-one situation with the opposite sex? Watch and pray. It makes all the difference!