“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:13, ESV)
For years, I have personally prayed for the wisdom James 1:5 promises: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” (ESV). Studying the Lord’s Prayer has shifted how I understand that request. Before I ask for wisdom to navigate the day, I need to ask who is doing the navigating. That is what verse thirteen is teaching us today.
By this point in the prayer, the one praying has hopefully positioned themself in full understanding of Who sits on the throne. They have hallowed His name, surrendered their own agenda, asked for provision and forgiveness. Now they come to the daily reality of walking out the door into the real world.
The prayer does not say give me the strength to handle whatever comes. It says lead me. The Greek word here means exactly that: to bring into, to lead into, to carry into. The follower is not the one doing the leading. He is submitting to the one who is.
And why does that matter? Because each day we wake up with two choices. I lead, or He leads. An everyday choice and every moment decision on which the balance of your day will depend.
So what is wrong with self-leading? The Bible gives two sharp answers that point directly back to this prayer.
Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV) says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” The instrument we use to evaluate our own spiritual condition is the instrument most prone to self-deception. The heart does not just mislead others. It misleads the man it belongs to.
Paul confirms this from personal experience in Romans 7:15–19 (ESV): “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” He lands in verse 24 with one of the most honest cries in all of Scripture: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” That is the author of the majority of the New Testament arriving at the same conclusion. He is the problem. So are you. So am I.
Before we move past temptation, we need to see its source. James 1:14 (ESV) says, “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” Like a fish drawn to bait it cannot resist, our own desires are aroused, and we sit with a choice. Give in or resist. The first part of this petition is asking God to keep us from arriving at that moment unprepared. Keep us from the terrain where the bait gets set. You play a part in where you walk and where your feet take you. But as Paul makes clear, even with the best intentions, we often fail.
That is why the second half of this petition names what we are actually up against. 1 Peter 5:8–9 (ESV) “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.”
Many men walk around believing they are too small for direct Satanic attention, quietly being carried along by a current they have not identified. Wake up. Stand guard. Be watchful. You have a personal adversary with intelligence and intent who is actively working to bring every form of temptation in front of you. He is not random. He is patient. He studies his prey the way a fisherman studies the water. If one bait does not work, he tries another, each time probing for the weakness of the target. He has studied you longer than you have studied him.
Christianity is not a spectator sport, although many act like it is.
C.S. Lewis warned in the preface to The Screwtape Letters that there are two equal and opposite errors the human race falls into regarding the devil. Disbelieving his existence entirely or developing an excessive and unhealthy interest in him. Both errors serve his purposes equally well.¹ The man who prays “deliver us from the evil one” is making neither error. He is naming the adversary accurately, taking him seriously, and asking God for active extraction.
That word deliver is military rescue language. The Greek rhysai means to rescue, to draw out of danger by force. This is not a passive request for protection. It is a request for active extraction. It is the prayer of a man who knows he is in over his head and is calling for the One who can actually pull him out.
Lord, save me from this pit. From the hollow dark cave of destruction I have dug. Save me from the consequences of my own decisions. That is a prayer most of us have prayed more than once, usually after we needed it rather than before.
Jesus is reminding us in this petition that the same God we have hallowed, Whose kingdom we have invited, Who provides our daily bread and cancels our debts, is the same God who governs the terrain we walk and extracts us when we go down. The fight is real. The adversary is real. And the one standing between that adversary and your soul is praying for your faith to hold.
God help us step not toward temptation, help lead us every day. That Your will may be done in my life and in Your way.
What circumstance are you walking into right now that you have not yet brought to God?
Where are you navigating by your own heart instead of asking him to lead?
Stay on Mission
Footnote:¹ C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan, 1943), Preface.
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