“Pray then like this:
‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.’” Matthew 6:9-13
Good Morning y’all. I pray that you are becoming more and more “impressed” with this little prayer that is large in what is communicated. As I have said, more than once, this prayer as we have seen is a “full” prayer. My other prayer is that this prayer would become precious to us and to our families for it along with all the other prayers in the Bible are given to us to teach us how to pray but also to be incorporated into our hearts for the times when we do not know what to pray.
Today we look at the 6th petition, “And lead us not into temptation…” This could easily be translated… “And lead us not into the place of testing”… or “And allow us not to be led into temptation.” To be clear, this is NOT saying, not to decree temptations or testing’s but praying that when they come that He will be there to lead us through them. As our good shepherd positively, we would pray, “He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name sake.” (Ps. 23:3) The forgiven pray this because we trust God and distrust ourselves. We are not to think too highly of ourselves to be sure…for when we do …we fall. Instead Jesus commands us in Matt. 26:41- “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”.
But look, this petition also begins with the little word “and” requiring us to consider the relationship with the 4th and 5th petitions. Since God provides for our daily bread we must seek to repent and remember that without pardon all good things in life will not be a benefit to us. And, since these past sins have been pardoned we should pray earnestly for the grace to prevent us from repeating them. A.W. Pink says here, “We cannot rightly desire God to forgive us our sins unless we sincerely long for grace to abstain from the like in the future.” Yet there is another reason why these three are linked, we pray for God’s provision and we pray for God’s pardoning of our guilt, but here we ask also for the deliverance from the power of sin for if Christ be with us, who (or what) can be against us?
One may ask a simple question here, Why does God allow us, His children, to be tempted? According to the Word and the activity of God…to try us…to reveal our weakness and our deep need for His grace. “And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” (Duet. 8:2) It has been said, he who is never tempted is never tested…and the one not tested never knows for sure God is with him. Each test …each discipline strengthens us against the next…Job’s sincerity of faith was tested…each time the devil comes tempting us with something and we look him in the eye and walk on it is a severe test of our love for the Father…and to be sure He tests our courage as well. So it is part of our ongoing sanctification that God has set before us for His glory and our good.
From what has been said, we need not think that we are to pray against all temptations/testings. After all Christ Himself was tempted and was definitely led into the wilderness by the Spirit for that expressed purpose. Rather, we are to pray to be spared from the evil of temptations as the next petition will clearly do, “…but deliver us from evil.” So we pray that we may not be led into temptation, or if God sees fit for us to be tempted/tried that we may not yield to the temptation or when we do that we not be totally overcome by the sin. We are not to look at these trials the way we often do, but through the grid of Scripture, James 1:2-4- “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials (temptations- Gr.) of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
With all of this in mind, listen to the exhortation of Scripture, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His (own) good pleasure.” Philippian 2:13
God Bless y’all.
In His Grip,
Pastor Mike
