Life can be confusing at times with all the choices that we may have to make. Take a look at these road signs! I cannot remember where I first saw these signs but I am glad they are not near where I live! We need clarity on the public highway from the signage.
If I was to ask –have you ever been tempted? This would be a foolish question because everyone would give the answer ‘yes’!
Anyone who said ‘no’ had either misunderstood the question or deliberately giving the wrong answer. It is a universal human experience, a part of daily life that we cannot escape from our earliest years to our final ones.
This is the third petition Jesus invited His followers to use to gain assistance from God. Matthew 6:11 was concerned with our physical needs –give us this day our daily bread;
Matthew 6:12 was concerned with our spiritual needs –forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Here Matthew 6:13 is concerned with our moral needs. We need His help because without it we would fail time and again. These words are for disciples of Jesus who have made mistakes but who want to do better; to please Him more in our daily lives.
This is a humbling petition because it implies that I am naturally weak, that I need help. The tragedy in both secular life and in spiritual matters many people can make much bigger mistakes than needed to be the case because they were unwilling to admit that they needed assistance.
Stop for a moment and ask yourself: when did I last pray these words about a specific situation? What was it I was asking God to do? What difference did it make?
Anyone involved in living in the real world will need to come to God time and again and offer this plea: God keep me out of the pathway of serious temptation to dishonour You. Help me to make the right choices for myself or for my family; or in my workplace or in my local church, or wherever it may be.
The English-language wording here: Lead us not into temptation is slightly ambiguous, because someone might think that without our plea to God that He might let us go in the wrong direction in our lives.
This is not what Jesus intended us to understand here. Jesus is actually asking us to pray: ‘please direct me in the opposite direction, out of any place where I could be tempted to dishonour God’. Effectively, God please help me to stay alert in my thinking, words and actions to make the best choices for my life and for the other people impacted by my decisions.
Now life at times can be very hard, but with God’s help we can make good choices and in particular avoid making many of the more serious potential mistakes. Paul, in the New Testament gives us this assurance:
13No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it (I Corinthians 10:13).
This is a verse from the Bible worth memorising. Whatever you are going through just now and whatever we may experience in the future this is God’s guarantee to us –what a blessing!
Our song for reflection is: ‘Though trials will come’ by Graham Kendrick
Brian Talbot