Lead Us Not Into Temptation

We casually pray this phrase, as if ‘of course, lead me away!’ It’s often one of the throw-away lines. But really . . . we have to think this one through. The things we are praying about are temptations to us because we love them, we are drawn to them. And we don’t like to stay away from the things we love. We hover around them, and come back to them time and again because we find such a natural comfort in these things.

So when we pray this, we are asking Him to get us away from everything – people, places, things, thoughts – that we are drawn to. It’s easy to proclaim victory over the things that don’t draw us. I don’t smoke, so I can proclaim victory over cigarettes! – and feel pretty good about myself. But in this phrase, we are asking Him to unbend us from the things that we love, that we are naturally leaning toward. Let’s be honest – we often will spend nights wrapped in our bitterness, envy, lust – rocking ourselves to sleep as we allow them to turn over in our brain. When left to our own devices we turn to these things – because in our natural man, we love them and find great comfort in them.

When we pray “Lead us not into temptation” we are saying “Take me away from the things I love.” Talk about radical! It’s not as simple as saying “Take me away,” however. That’s not victory, that’s avoidance. What we are really saying is ‘Change me so that I don’t love these things anymore.” We have a bent toward things that will eventually kill us, driving us face first into the mud, if we would let them. This ‘bent’ must be removed. We must be straightened out or we will die as our organs are crushed beneath the weight of our body bending lower and lower to the things of the world.

Don’t Give Me a Cane – Straighten Me Out!

In Numbers 22, Balak sends messengers to the prophet Balaam, asking him to curse the Israelites. Balaam wanted to – he wanted the gifts that would come by doing this, he wanted the honor that would come by being with these princes. So he asked them to “Spend the night,” probably hoping for permission from God to go with them. However, in the night the Lord told him that he couldn’t do what Balak asked and the next morning Balaam reluctantly relayed this back to the messengers. He told them, “Go back . . . for the Lord has refused to let me go with you.”

Thus his bent was revealed. He desperately wanted to go – and it was only because God said ‘No’ that he didn’t. Balak, like Satan, was smart enough to see through this, and he sent more men, more money, more pressure. Balaam had revealed his heart’s true desire, so Balak kept hammering away. Eventually God did allow Balaam to follow his ‘bent,’ as He will with us as well. (Romans 1:24 – 26) If we push hard enough away from Him, He will sadly give us our way, along the broad road to destruction.

The only true victory over these desires is found in a complete change of heart. We must come to a place where we honestly pray, “God, don’t give me a way to cope with this desire, take it away from me.” Most of the time, we’re simply praying for a cane to help us with our bent. This prayer demands more – it demands an inner change.

In Psalm 73:22 the writer says that when he lusted and envied after the things of the world he was like an animal. “Senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before You.’ In our natural state we gravitate, like an animal, to the things of the world that tempt us. So when we pray this phrase “lead me not into temptation” we are asking God to change us from the inside-out. We are asking Him to change our desires so that they are no longer temptations. We are not simply asking to be kept away from them, for that is not true victory. We are asking Him to transform our mind from that of an ignorant, lust-driven animal to a Christian with a sanctified mind who is no longer drawn to them.

Many of us settle simply for some techniques that will allow us temporary victories in our walk. But this prayer asks for much more than that. It asks for a release from the things that bind us, not a way to get through it. Our goal, as stated in I Thessalonians 5:23, is that we are sanctified “through and through.” That our “whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So how is this accomplished? By trying extra hard? By making a checklist each morning and keeping it to the best of our ability? By a technique? No – we must be changed.

We Need a “You Turn”

If you continue reading through I Thessalonians 5, you will think that you are reading a checklist: “Live in peace . . . warn the idle . . . be patient . . . try to be kind . . . be joyful . . . pray continually . . . give thanks in all circumstances . . . avoid every kind of evil . . .” And on and on. It sounds like a to-do list. To-do lists are Christian killers, as they make it seem like our success is up to us.

But when you get to the end, to verse 24, we are given the answer: “The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it.” There it is. All that He asks us to do – He will do for us. In fact, He must be the one doing it or we will fail. We need a “You turn.” By that I mean, we need what the psalmist prayed in Psalm 119: 36, 37: “Turn my heart toward Your statutes . . . turn my eyes away from worthless things.” He must turn us, we cannot turn ourselves. And it must be a complete u-turn, 180 degrees. Anything less, even 179 degrees, still allows us to head back in the direction of the world. We must be turned around and changed by Him.

But many may ask, “How do we know that He has changed me, that He has given me the victory, that He has turned me?” The answer is simple: Take Him at His word. One of the most important moments in my own spiritual walk came when I simply said to God, “Okay – I believe You.” He told me that if I confessed my sins, He would forgive me of them and cleanse me. So I believed Him. He told me that I was a new creation and that the old things had passed away. So I believed Him. I took Him at His Word.

Psalm 130:5 says, “In His Word I put my hope.” He has made promises in His Word and I believe them, and so I am finally able to move ahead. Pressing forward, forgetting what is behind me. Satan wants to focus on all the stuff I used to do, what I used to be like, how I used to think – he can have it. “Get behind me, Satan.” You can have your fill of all that’s in back of me. And anyone else that wants to dig through that trash, you can have it, too. I’m moving on. Or more appropriately, I’m being led away.