Matthew 6:9-13 (NKJV) - “In this manner, therefore, pray: 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 forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. 1For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
In this Model Prayer that Jesus gave to His disciples give us an outline, and a deeper understanding of our ability to talk with the Father. We have come through 7 of the 9 points that Jesus makes. Today, we will briefly look at point #8 – Dependence – (6:13a) “And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.”
Temptation. We honestly cannot go through one single day without facing at some point at least one temptation. It is the bane of mankind. It is a weapon of Satan designed to derail us in our walk with Jesus. When we use the word, we are talking about the trial of man's fidelity, integrity, virtue, constancy. Temptation is NOT sin. However, it is the modus operanti of Satan to lead us into sin.
Satan knows that he cannot take our salvation away from us. But, he works hard to tarnish or destroy our reputation as a Christian in the world around us. Just because we become aware of a temptation, it does not mean that we have sinned, however, Satan will use them to guide and lead us into the act of sin. So, Jesus teaches us to pray that God would deliver us. The term means to be rescued. It might be like being trapped in quicksand and we are seeking Him to pull us out.
In the traditional wording of the Model Prayer, we pray for God to deliver us from evil. Evil is all around us. The better translation is to be delivered from the evil one. The Greek language has ways of making their word show full meaning. In this case, the Greek word – poneros – is set up in a special way. In fancy terms, it is a genitive, singular, masculine adjective. It speaks of a person. This usually denotes a title in the Greek. Hence Christ is saying, deliver us from "The Evil", and is probably referring to Satan.
So, today, train yourself to be aware of the temptations that the Evil One is bringing before you. Then seek God to rescue from succumbing to them.
Tomorrow, we will complete the dissection of this Model Prayer that the Lord gave to His disciples.
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1 Many of the older manuscripts omit this last phrase of the prayer. I am including it because of the popularity of the way we say the prayer.
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