There are many things we can pray about today. If we use the Lord’s Prayer as a pattern for prayer, some of the themes we will address are:
- God’s reputation: His name or reputation should be equal to His character.
- God’s kingdom: We invite God to exert His power and authority in our lives and in the world.
- God’s will: Heaven is heavenly because God’s will always is accomplished. We pray the same for ourselves and others.
- Daily bread: We ask for the word of God to feed us, and we ask God to provide daily physical needs for ourselves and others.
- Forgiveness: We ask God to forgive our debt of sin, and we ask Him to help us forgive others.
- Deliverance: We pray for deliverance from testing, temptation, evil, and the evil one.
Deliver Us
The most familiar rendering of the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer is: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible translates the passage like this:
“And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6:13)
I think the NRSV is the preferred translation for a couple of reasons:
(1) We may wonder why we need to ask God not to lead us into temptation. James makes it clear that God tempts no one to sin:
“No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13).
Asking God to spare the world a time of trial is more understandable. The record of history is an account of trying times. How do we pray about the difficult times we are living in?
O. Hallesby, in his book On Prayer, makes a poignant observation. He uses the invitation of Revelation 3:20 as a central reason to pray:
“Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me” (Revelation 3:20).
Hallesby asserts that the needs we sense are actually from the Lord knocking at our door. God wants to enter the world and spare humanity from the horrors of war, famine, oppression, and the ravages of sin. Our prayers open the door and welcome His activity.
As humans, we grieve over the loss of life and the profound inequities in the world today. However, we are not God, who knows every human on earth intimately and loves them equally. As the passage in Revelation makes clear, our prayers open the door for God to intervene.
With this in mind, when we pray, “And do not bring us to the time of trial,” we are asking God to come into our world and rescue us from the impact of the world’s systems, human failings, and the devil’s influence.
(2) When I pray this portion of the Lord’s Prayer, I paraphrase the last phrase and say, “Deliver us from evil and the evil one.”
It is hard to keep up with the enormity of evil taking place in the world. Watching world events is like drinking from a fire hose of slime, death, and horrors. These issues should be great motivations to pray.
Again, using Hallesby’s illustration, when we ask God to deliver and rescue us from the evil that stems from the evil one’s influence, we open the door for God to act.
We don’t have to wonder if He will act in response to our prayers. After all, Jesus gave us this prayer. Just as the Father answered Jesus when He prayed this model prayer, we can count on our prayers being answered, too.
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross, Bruce Kirby, and I discussed this portion of the Lord’s Prayer on YouTube today.
Real Voices 