Moving Beyond Temptation to Victory

Featured Image by Jeff Jacobs 1990 @ Pixabay

This is the fourth and final article on the Lord’s Prayer, which is found in Matthew 6 and Luke 11.  If you have not read the previous articles, click here for part 1, here for part 2, and here for part 3.

Picking up where we left off last time:  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.  Amen. 

I’ve often wondered about this verse….lead us not into temptation.  I’ve asked:  would God lead me into temptation?  If so, why would a good God lead me into temptation?  It seems counter-productive and counter-intuitive.  Temptation can lead to sin, so why would God tempt me to sin?  It makes it sound like God is setting me up for failure.

Let’s look at a few other translations besides the MKJV.

The CEV says “keep us from being tempted and protect us from evil.”

The GW says, “Don’t allow us to be tempted.”

The NLT says, “And don’t let us yield to temptation.”

I’ve heard it also translated, “And let us not be led into temptation.”

When we read it in context of the above, we are seeing a different picture.  We are not praying and saying….Oh God!  Don’t lead me to temptation!  Instead, we are praying and asking God:

To protect us, to keep us safe from the wiles and schemes and plots of the enemy.  Ps 91:2-3 (Ampl) says, “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, My God; on Him I lean and rely, and in Him I confidently trust!  For then He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.  Then He will cover you with his pinions and under His wings shall you trust and find refuge.”  Notice the cause and effect:  for then…  God considers the will of man holy. He will not go against your will.  His deliverance and protection comes when we take the actionable decision to trust in and rely on Him, not ourselves.

For help to not get our foot caught in the “fowler’s snare.”  Think about how a snare works.  The trap is set to catch an animal unaware.  Moreover, the snare, once it is set, is covered up, specifically for the purpose of deception.  If you were walking along and you saw an uncovered snare with sharp teeth to bite into your flesh, would you deliberately put your foot into it and let it spring forcefully shut on your leg?  Of course not!  The snare is covered up so that it cannot be seen by the naked eye.

As I write this, I’m reminded of why it is so very important to be led by the Spirit of God.  Romans 8:14 (NIV) says, “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”  The Spirit of God sees the hidden things, the unseen and concealed dangers.  We need to be walking so close with the Holy Spirit and be so sensitive to His leading that when we hear that “stop!,” we stop, even when we don’t see anything and it doesn’t make sense to us.  We have to learn to trust in and rely on the Lord completely to “keep us from being tempted and protecting us from evil.”

We are interceding for ourselves before the mighty Throne of the Living God to not allow satan to tempt us beyond what we are able to bear, and when that great tempter does come to fill us with the power, commitment, dedication, strength, determination, and courage to stand our ground and not yield.

Adam Clarke in his commentary on this verse says, “A man may be tempted without entering into the temptation: entering into it implies giving way, closing in with, and embracing it.”

We can also gain valuable insight into this verse by looking at it as a continuation of the previous verses:

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.  And let us not be led into temptation but deliver us from evil.

Here we have just prayed and asked God to forgive us for our sins – our unrighteous acts, our sinful thoughts, our stubbornness and self-sufficiency, our independence of Him, and our succumbing to temptation; to allowing our flesh to rule supreme instead of our born again spirits ruling supreme.  We follow this by petitioning heaven to help us not to do that again!

Circling back to the question:  does God tempt me?  We can find a little more revelation in Genesis with Adam and Eve and then again in Matthew with Jesus.

Where did the temptation with Eve begin?  Was it simply by looking at the apple?  What if satan, that vile serpent, had never come and whispered in her ear?  Would she have sinned?  Putting it another way, that tree and the fruit it produced was there in the Garden the whole time.  Eve walked by it day after day and was never tempted.  So when did the temptation come?  With the intellectual whispering of the evil one, the anti-Christ, the one against God.

God didn’t tempt Eve.  Adam and Eve were tempted by satan and they failed.  They succumbed to temptation.  They were drawn away, enticed away.  They decided to follow after someone else’s suggestive manipulation of the truth and not follow the command God gave them.  When they made that choice, they stepped out from under the protection of God and sin entered in.

Fast forward to Matthew 4:1 and now we see Jesus being tempted:  “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit up into the wilderness, to be tempted by the Devil.” (MKJV).  It was from this place, from the wilderness, from submitting to God and resisting the evil one that His earthly ministry began.

Luke 4:13-14 (MKJV) says, “And when the Devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him for a time.”  Who was tempting Jesus?  Was it God? No, again we see it was the evil one.

Then look what happened as a result of Jesus’ actionable decisions, His submission to God’s authority, and His resistance to the temptation through quoting God’s word:  “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.”  That word power there is dunamis:  God’s almighty miraculous power – His ability, strength, and might. What a contrast to the failure of Adam and Eve!

The ESV of verse 13 says, “And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.”  There are 2 things to note here:

1)  Jesus was tempted in every way possible to try and trap him, ensnare him, and get him to fail.  Satan wanted Jesus to fail like Adam and Eve did, for he knew that if Jesus failed, there would be no salvation for man and man would forever be his.  Praise God that Jesus did not fail!

How did Jesus do it?  Was it because He was God and man?  Did He have an advantage that we don’t?  Not so!

Romans 8:11 tells us that the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is living inside of each one of us.  Wow!! That same spirit that worked that miraculous dunamis power within the human body of Jesus Christ is available to us as believers. 

Jesus knew that!  In John 16:7 the disciples didn’t want Jesus to go, once He was raised back to life from the dead.  But Jesus told them….it is good – it is beneficial and helpful and necessary that I go so that the Holy Spirit may come.  In other words, if I stay the Holy Spirit won’t come.  I have to go back home but I will not leave you helpless and powerless.  I will send the Holy Spirit to empower you.

When I am going through a difficult time, I sometimes whine and complain and say…you just don’t understand what I’m going through!  When facing Jesus, we can never, ever say that.

I also turn to 1 Cor 10:13 for comfort:

“The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”  (NLT)

“No temptation, regardless of its source, has overtaken or enticed you that is not common to human experience, nor is any temptation unusual or beyond human resistance; but God is faithful to His word—He is compassionate and trustworthy, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability to resist, but along with the temptation He has in the past and is now and will always provide the way out as well, so that you will be able to endure it without yielding, and will overcome temptation with joy.”  (Ampl)

2)  The second thing to note is that once the temptation ended – and ended with Jesus as the victor – satan left him “until an opportune time.”  As long as heaven and earth remain, and as long as we are on this side of heaven, temptation will always come.  And notice that it doesn’t come at an opportune time for us – when we are strong and fit and ready for it.  No, it comes at an opportune time for satan – when we are weak, or not paying attention, or when we are puffed up with pride.

Think about a lion stalking its prey.  1 Pet 5:8 tells us to “be sober, be vigilant, be watchful, be well balanced and self-disciplined, be alert and cautious at all times.”  Why?  “For that enemy of yours, your adversary the devil, your accuser, prowls around like a roaring lion, fiercely hungry, looking for anyone to attack, seize, and devour” (combined translations).  He is going to come in when we least expect it or when we are too weak to flee or defend, or we do not have the word of God in us as Jesus did.  The attack comes for the sake of our faith and is always a homing beacon for the enemy.

Now let’s look at another aspect of Matthew 4:1 (MKJV):  “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit up into the wilderness, to be tempted by the Devil.”  We’ve determined that God was not the one doing the tempting.  James 1:13 (Ampl) confirms this:  “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for temptation does not originate from God, but from our own flaws; for God cannot be and is incapable of being tempted by what is evil, and He Himself tempts no one.”

But Jesus was led by Holy Spirit to a place to be tempted.  For what purpose?  In the case of Jesus, it was to overcome satan and remain sinless and blameless in the sight of God that He might be the righteous substitution for man.  There was Divine purpose in the action.

What about for us?  Will Holy Spirit lead us to a place where we will be tempted?  I think so.  Why?  One reason is that when we are tempted, it exposes the hidden things, the things of darkness that are within us that need to be dealt with.

Being a Christian in this life is not just about giving your life to the Lord Jesus.  That is not the end all, be all.  That is simply the first step.  God expects for us to then learn and grow in His ways, exercising our faith, making decisions that line up with His values and standards, and bringing His Kingdom of righteousness to bear in an unrighteous world.  Remember the first part of the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught?  Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.

As James 1 says, we are tempted by our flaws, our humanity.  When we are tempted, we can either succumb or we can practice resisting.  James 4:7 (Ampl) says, “So submit to the authority of God. Resist the devil, stand firm against him, and he will flee from you.” Resisting strengthens us physically and spiritually.  We grow stronger by exercising our will and our faith.

This is an important concept in the Christian’s life:  through submitting to God’s authority first (as Jesus role modeled) and then actively resisting satan, we also overcome and stand victorious as Jesus did.  Rev 12:11 tells us we overcome satan and his evil hoards by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony.  There is no testimony without a test.    We are to reveal we are of God’s Kingdom, not satan’s, and to reveal the Dunamis power of Holy Spirit working in us and through us, which in turn shows His glory.

This leads us into the last statement of the Lord’s Prayer:  For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

When we pray this, we are praying a prayer of submission and at the same time we are acknowledging and affirming the sovereignty of God over all.  We are proclaiming His supreme rule and authority:  His royalty, His rule, His realm.  We are making an unequivocal declaration that God’s Kingdom is the only true Kingdom and anything else is subservient to it.

In a democratic society, we have lost the understanding and respect of kingship.  If we think back to how and why this nation started, two reasons come to mind.  Our forefathers wanted religious freedom:  freedom to worship God and not the Church of England.  They also wanted freedom from the rule of England. And so we started this nation in rebellion against the king of England.

Our forefathers, when they landed on the shores of Virginia, dedicated this land, this nation, to God.  After three days of prayer and fasting, they erected a cross at Cape Henry, bowed down before it and joined in covenant marriage to the King of Kings instead.  But how much of the rebellious DNA continued, so that as a nation we would even eventually rebel against God’s Kingship as well?

History repeats itself.  It’s amazing the correlation between the story of God’s appointed ruler, the prophet Samuel, God, and the Israelites in 1 Samuel 8 and us today.  How have we been like the children of Israel in the days of the prophet, when they told God – we no longer want to be under Your rule.  We want to be ruled by a man.  What an insult to God!

The evil one will always be there to lead us astray.  He will always be there to subtlety lure us away from the safety, protection, and provision of God’s Kingdom.  He is always there to entice us to rebel against our true King and make him king instead.  In Isa 14:13-14 satan declares, “I’ll climb to heaven and place my throne above the highest stars. I’ll be above the clouds, just like God Most High.”

It is time that we learn once again what an honor and privilege it is to have God as our King and begin worshipping Him from a foundation of awe, respect, and thanksgiving.  The Lord’s Prayer starts with…Our Father in heaven, Holy is Your name.  Let’s turn the sentence structure around and say, God’s name is Holy.  Just as my name is Michele, so God’s name is Holy.

In Lev 11:44, God tells the Israelites to “be holy, for I am holy.”  God is telling the Israelites – as my Kingdom citizens, you are to be like Me.  The word holy means to purify or consecrate, to sanctify.  God is still saying to us today:  You are My people and I am Your God.  Purify yourselves in thought, word, and deed.   You are to be set apart, to be different than the surrounding nations (represented as the world and society).  Dedicate and devote yourself to me.

The dictionary defines holy as “exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness.”  In Is 45:5 (Ampl), God says, “I am the Lord, and there is no one else; There is no God except Me.”  When God says His name is Holy, He is saying…I am to be exalted above all others and all things.  I am perfect in goodness and righteousness. I am worthy of your complete devotion and your first allegiance is to Me and My Kingdom.

It is time that we start living our lives as Kingdom citizens, both in learning and obeying the laws of the Kingdom and enjoying the benefits that come with being a citizen of the Kingdom of God.  Unlike the US, where illegal immigrants are now being given the same rights and benefits of citizens, the rights and benefits of God’s Kingdom belong only to the citizens of His Kingdom – the Children of God; the Bride of Christ.

It is time that we truly start making a heartfelt declaration each and every day:

Almighty God, Yours is the Kingdom, Yours is the Dunamis miraculous wonderworking power, ability, and strength, and to You belongs all the Glory – all the honor, all the praise, all the worship – now and forever.  AMEN!!!!

If you are interested in learning more or need help in making and implementing lifestyle changes, contact me for a free discovery session to see if we are a fit.  You can learn more about me here.