April 23

Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26:41.

A true believer remains a sinner as long as he lives. When a Christian through his old Adam daily falls short of his high calling; when a man out of sudden fear is led to sin; when a quick-tempered man in a fit of passion does a wrong in word or action for which he at once is sorry, we may say he sins from weakness of his flesh, unwillingly.

Against these sins the Christians daily fight and pray the reconciled Father to forgive them. This they do daily because they have a general knowledge of their weakness and sinfulness. And they do it in every case where they know that they have committed a special sin. Listen to the rueful complaint of St. Paul over his sins of weakness in chapter 7 of his Epistle to the Romans, which will show you the nature of these sins in the children of God. The apostle says: "To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not, but

the evil which I would not, that I do. Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find, then, a law that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the Law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So, then, with the mind I myself serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin."

Such sins of weakness are not premeditated, deliberately planned and executed. When people sin knowingly and wilfully, they have the best proof that they are no Christians, no matter what office they hold in the church, or what liberal church-dues they pay, or how often they go to church and pray.

Prayer.

Merciful God, loving Father, I thank Thee most heartily that Thou hast graciously kept me to this hour from all harm of body and soul, and I pray Thee, for the sake of Thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, graciously to forgive all sins which I have committed against Thee in thought, word, and deed, and to remember them no more in all eternity. And now I commend my body and soul, my heart, mind, all my thoughts and meditations and imaginations, all that I am and do, to Thy protection. Guard me with Thy almighty arm that no foe will be able to pluck me out of Thy hand. Amen.

Not from my foes without, but those within, I pray to be protected hour by hour; For that aggressive self that leads to sin And lures to pleasure with seductive power Stands over by the portal of desire And mocks my spirit when it would aspire.