The final verse of the Lord’s prayer, as recorded by Matthew, reads like this (Matthew 6:13): And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Whereas the previous verse was a plea for God to forgive us for the things we’ve done wrong, this one shifts focus to ask for God’s help in our decision-making moving forward.
The two are, of course, linked together. Genuine repentance for your sins must include a commitment to change your life, to stay away from that particular sin in the future.
Sometimes that’s not a problem. There are some sins that you might only do once and then manage to stay away from for the rest of your life. That could be because it was something you were only ever tempted to do once, or because the outcome of it was so painful or distressing that you never want to do it again. Or it could be because you felt a deep sense of guilt and shame that you never want to experience again.
David
King David, for example, was very far from God when he seduced the wife of one of his closest friends and then, in an attempt to cover it up when she became pregnant, arranged to have that friend killed. You can read about this in 2 Samuel 11 and 12 if you’re not familiar with the account.
It’s almost incomprehensible to think that one of the most faithful men who ever lived could possibly do such things. This was an unfathomly deep moral abyss into which David had sunk. Nevertheless he was saved from that abyss when he repented and God forgave him. The sense of guilt that washed over him like a tidal wave when Nathan called him out, and the subsequent death of the child he and Bathsheba had made, ensured that David would never, ever do anything like that again.
You may have had similar experiences – though almost certainly not on the same scale as David – mistakes you made which had such awful consequences that you know you’ll never do them again.
Then again
Then again there are sins which are nothing like that. Sins which may seem small and inconsequential. Sins that don’t cause any pain or distress. Sins that are pleasurable and satisfying, sins you keep wanting to come back to. Sins that you’re so used to committing that you maybe don’t feel guilt or shame any more. Sins that are so easy to justify with “it’s not that bad” or “it doesn’t really matter” or “at least I’m not doing such-and-such.”
They could be different things for each one of us. Gambling. Alcohol. Pornography. Reckless driving. Always having to be right. Speaking harshly to put other people in their place. Always having to have things your way. If yours isn’t one of those, what is it?
These are the things you find yourself coming back to time after time because they’re familiar and comfortable and it’s much easier to just give in once more. Maybe you’ve tried to repent in the past and stop doing them, maybe you’ve even succeeded for a while, but they’ve always come back again.
Now it is true that we cannot save ourselves by our own goodness and we are never realistically going to reach a point in life at which we have stopped sinning – avoiding sin doesn’t actually get easier as you get older! – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Repentance is only genuine if we try. Forgiveness is always available if we’re truly sorry, no matter how many times we come back to the same old familiar sin, but only if we try.
So how do we do that?
James explains the life cycle of sin as follows (James 1:14-15): …but one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.
Desire (or temptation) gives birth to sin, and once sin has grown up, it condemns us to death.
You can try to fight temptation and sometimes you’ll succeed. But sometimes you’ll fail too. And if it’s one of those sins you keep coming back to time after time, there’s a real danger you’ll get so used to it that you’ll put up less and less of a fight each time, until eventually you’ve stopped fighting altogether and just accepted it as part of your life.
Why not go back a step and try to avoid having to fight at all?
What do I mean by that?
I mean that you can be proactive and plan ahead to avoid the temptation altogether, or to back away as soon as you first encounter it, rather than trying to engage it in an uphill battle.
You need to know yourself well enough, and be sufficiently honest with yourself, that you can identify the sins you’re regularly tempted to commit. Not only that, but you need to identify the circumstances in which those temptations are likely to occur, and what steps you can take to ensure they don’t occur.
Do your temptations occur when you’re alone? Or with certain people? At home? At work? In the car? Online? When you’re feeling depressed? Angry? Overconfident? Your triggers could be any combination of these or something else entirely.
This could mean, for example, blocking certain websites from your computer. Or avoiding having certain things in the house. Or avoiding driving on roads where it’s easy to get carried away. Or avoiding being alone with certain people. Or avoiding getting into certain conversations.
It may not always be possible – you may not always be able to control who’s with you or where you’re required to go – but you’ve got to try to whatever precautions you can to avoid having to fight temptation in the first place.
Not all of them
Some temptations you won’t be able to avoid. Jesus certainly didn’t achieve his sinless life by simply avoiding temptations for thirty or so years. Some of them he had to face and overcome. Some of them he may even have sought out in order to strength himself against similar temptations in the future (see Matthew 4:1-11). And the same may be true for you. But you must do what you can to ensure that you only face the ones that are truly unavoidable.
James said that temptation gives birth to sin. Think about it this way: if you don’t want to sin, don’t get temptation pregnant. Ideally don’t start a relationship with it at all!
Today
One reason it’s difficult to do this in our day and age is because the Western world largely subscribes to the secular humanistic view that human beings are basically good, and that it’s negative outside influences and experiences that cause us to do wrong.
That is not what Jesus taught. He taught that temptation and sin come from inside a human heart. In Mark 7:20-23 he said: It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.
Do not fall into the trap of thinking what the world around us thinks, that these things only come from outside, and that you only need to avoid bad influences and painful experiences in order to be a good person. It’s very easy to absorb that view and live your life accordingly without even realising you’re doing it.
When Jesus said “deliver us from the evil one” (it could also read “deliver us from evil“) he was probably referring to the same thing as in Mark 7. Not an external person or ideology or event, but what’s inside you – your natural human instinct to put your own survival and pleasure above serving God and serving your fellow humans.
It’s not evil to want to survive or enjoy your life, but when you put that ahead of God or ahead of the needs of those who are relying on you for their own survival – that’s when it becomes evil.
When you hear the word “evil” you might think of dictators and war criminals and huge numbers of people being killed. Evil can certainly take that form: acts of intense malevolence that cause suffering and injustice on a massive scale. But evil can also take the form of small and seemingly inconsequential things too – those little sins that you keep coming back to time after time because they’re pleasurable or you think you can’t live without them.
People who only value their own survival and pleasure may well achieve both of those things in this life. They may live much longer and happier lives than you or me. But that’s all they’ll get. When Jesus returns and judges humanity by the standard of his own perfect life, those people will miss out on the incredible gift he brings: life and pleasure that will last forever and are of a far, far higher quality than anything we can even conceive of right now.
God will never lead you into temptation. If you ask him, he can help you avoid it entirely. If you fail, he’ll always be ready to forgive you. God loves you. Sometimes it’s hard to grasp that, but as long as you continue to come to him in genuine repentance and asking for help, it will never ever stop being true.
Nihilist to Christian 