Lead us not into temptation

\”And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.\” Luke 11:4 (\” …from the evil one\” Matt 6:3)

Praying is what releases the power in the Word of God to cleanse you. If you wonder that you are reading the bible but your failures seem unaffected; and it\’s as if your ability to sin or appetite for sin is growing side by side with your bible knowledge, then you might be missing the crucial converter of knowledge to power – prayer.

One temptation you must keep avoiding when you read the bible is the temptation to read/study mentally and theologically without reading/studying prayerfully and experientially. But even if you read to apply the Word of God to your life and you still omit definite, secret praying, the knowledge you gained will only give you an awareness of a possibility, it will not be converted into the power/reality that is needed in your life.

Now, why is the LORD asking us to pray, \”…lead us not into temptation…\”? It is not that God will lead us into sin, but the learning outcomes of our walk with God demands that we go through practicals – testing situations that require us to apply what we are learning in the Word of God. The Holy Spirit \”took Jesus by the hand\” into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil (Matthew 4:1-2, Luke 4:1-2).

That was the scheduled time for Jesus to be tested to verify His authenticity and to establish His authority. Similarly, your tests have been scheduled, and even if you don\’t keep up with the Curriculum of Heaven for your life, the day of the test will still come. If you are prepared, it is a test for you; if you are not, then it is a temptation for you. While God comes to test, the devil comes to tempt.

Whereas the intention of heaven is to give you an opportunity to glorify God by obeying God (and applying what you have learnt), the sinister plan of your adversary is to ensure that by the time you face your scheduled test, you are unprepared. And your unpreparedness points mainly to your prayerlessness.

The aim of testing is a promotion while the aim of tempting is demotion and destruction. So, the LORD is teaching us to pray like this so that we are never compelled to discredit God because we find ourselves in a difficult and tempting situation that the enemy is using to blackmail God. So, \”lead us not into temptation…\” is asking the LORD to keep us in step with Him, to help us walk in the light as He is in the light, and to give us a prayer life that is at least commensurate with (but preferably ahead of) His scheduled tests for our lives.