How not to Fail

Friday 11 November
READ: Luke 22: 31 - 34
MORE LESSON: Luke 22: 39 - 46

We must learn to ask God for strength and not assume that we can survive by our own strength. Jesus once told Peter that the devil wanted to sift him like wheat. The Lord told him that he would deny Him but instead of praying to God to help him stand, Peter said that he was ready to go with Jesus both to prison and to death (Luke 22: 33). He had forgotten that it is not by power or by might but by the Spirit of the Lord (Zech 4: 6). After this incident, Jesus went to pray and took Peter and some other disciples to pray but Peter started sleeping. How do you imagine a man that has just been told that the devil is planning to deal with him and he goes to sleep? That was born out of assumption and carelessness.
Many today also claim new creation and go around assuming things without praying. You confess that you are filled with the Holy Ghost and nothing can touch you but you are not praying. The outcome of Peter's assumption was that he fell to the devil and denied Jesus. It was the prayer that Jesus prayed for him that restored him and delivered him from being utterly lost.
The following are the reasons Peter fell to the enemy’s plan to sift him.
1. He overestimated his strength: he was told that the devil was planning his downfall and instead of praying, he felt that nothing would happen.
2. He slept in the hour of prayer. Jesus took him to the place of prayer so that he could pray through for strength but instead of praying, he slept off along with others.
3. Finally, after Jesus was arrested Peter followed Him but the Bible says, ‘he followed from afar off’.
This last point is one of the strategies of the devil when he wants to sift a man away from the faith. He removes him from godly company. He isolates him from the brethren, the church and godly counsel. He keeps him far away from godly attention. Peter followed Jesus from afar off until the devil finished with him. If you must not go weak in faith, stay close to your brethren; stay where you could be noticed if anything is going wrong. It is important to stay where you could be corrected and lifted in times of weakness. Thank God that Peter rose from the fall, but his fall is a lesson for us to stand. You will not fall, in Jesus’ name.

Prayer/Action
* Father, keep me from falling, let your grace be sufficient for me, in Jesus’ name.
* In the name of Jesus, I shall not be ignorant of the devices of the devil.

TODAY'S PROPHETIC PRAYER
Father, all my glory that has been plugged to the socket of non-achievement, today, I unplug them by the mercies of the Lord, in the name of Jesus.