March 13-19: Praying for God's Help Against Sin

For most of these 40 days of prayer, we've been using the Lord's Prayer as our guide. We're continuing this week with the last line, "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Here's the full prayer that Jesus taught us:

Our Father in heaven, 
hallowed be your name. 
Your kingdom come, 
your will be done, 
on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread, 
and forgive us our debts, 
as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9-13)

(If you need help knowing how to use this prayer guide, see our brief overview to our 40 days of prayer that has some tips on praying.)

Sunday March 13

Since Lent is associated with fasting, sorrow, and death, and since Sundays are associated with feasting, joy, and resurrection, Sundays have never been counted as part of Lent. In keeping with that, even this guide won't give you an assignment on Sundays. Pray anyway! Pray in joy for the resurrection of Christ that guarantees our resurrection, and join us for worship. 10a every Sunday.

Monday March 14

And lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil.

Jesus is praying that God would help us avoid being further entangled by the sin and brokenness of the world. Perhaps more poetically, this has been phrased as, "Keep us far from our vices and deliver us from these prisons" (listen or watch here). It's a prayer both that we'd be protected from our own participation in sin as well as being protected from sin's grip and effects.

So let's pray with Jesus today. Pray that God would help you stop sinning. Pray that He would protect you from further contributing to the brokenness around you. Boldly confess to Him your past disregard for His ways and your past participation in the dysfunction that has ensnared us all. Pray for His strength to help you break out of those former patterns.

Tuesday March 15

And lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil.

The last line of this prayer from Jesus could also be translated "but deliver us from the evil one." In other words, Jesus is likely praying for us to be kept out of the power of the devil. As scary (or unrealistic) as that may sound to our modern ears, this request isn't one made with crossed fingers. It's one made with confident expectation that it's being done. In fact, Jesus' friend John closes one of his letters with the assertion that this prayer is already being answered:

18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. 

19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 

20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:18-21)

Let's pray with John this morning in thanks to God. Pray with thankful hearts that we are being delivered from the evil one, though the whole world may lie in his power, because of Christ protecting us. Pray with thanks to God that Jesus is greater than any devil our world has ever seen. Pray with thanks to God that this world is being taken back from evil and brokenness. Ask that this all would be a little more true for you today.

Wednesday March 16

And lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil.

One of the best parts of this prayer is that it's Jesus who teaches it to us and it's also Jesus who enables us to do it, all because He did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. Jesus was led into temptation and conquered the devil, and that's the very thing that now allows us to pray "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one" with confidence.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit came down out of the sky on Him and resided on Him in power from then on. And the very first thing that the Spirit does, in Matthew 4:1 is this:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

This is when Jesus went into the desert for 40 days to be tempted by the devil and to overcome him. Yesterday we mentioned that "deliver us from evil" could also be translated as "deliver us from the evil one", so both of these stories share these same two key elements—temptation and the evil one. Throughout those 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus fasted and prayed and did the things that the church has traditionally imitated in the season of Lent. And by the end of it, He had been tempted in every way as we are, yet remained without sin, and He had done irreparable harm to the grip of the evil one on this world. The things He taught us to pray for are the very same things He did on our behalf.

So let's pray today in thanks for what Jesus has done for us. Thank Him for taking our temptation on Himself. Thank Him for empowering you to overcome temptation. Thank Him for overcoming the evil one. Thank Him for empowering us to stand firm on the side of love in the midst of a world filled with hate. And praise Jesus that His conquering has made a way for us to be conquerors alongside Him—conquerors for good, with God, for the sake of this world.

Thursday March 17

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

The reality is that we often find ourselves in temptation, sometimes happily so, wallowing in the enslavement we thought Jesus had conquered for us. That's what Paul wrestled with in Romans 7:

15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

If this is where you find yourself today, take comfort—even authors of the Bible have experienced the same thing. You can cry out to God in the midst of your struggle. Whether that struggle is something you're ashamed of, something you're indifferent to, or something you're hardened by, you can cry out to God. Wretched person that I am! Who will save me? Pray to God in this. Pray to Him with full honesty. Tell Him of your desire to be freed from temptation and the evil one. Pray for His mercy, His help, His power, and His healing. Pray for yourself, and pray for the people around you who are struggling like this too. Pray for us to all know freedom and forgiveness in the midst of community. Pray that we'd know the transformative power of Jesus, starting right now.

Friday March 18

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Today let's pray a prayer of  praise to God for answering this prayer. One of Jesus' brothers, Jude, has one of the most beautiful declarations of praise in the New Testament:

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. 

Praise God for having the power to protect us from ourselves. He is the only God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and He's worthy of praise precisely because of His intention to keep us from temptation and to keep us out of the hands of the evil one. We may stumble, but He will not ultimately let us stumble. We may not be blameless, but He is making us blameless. He will present us in His presence with great joy. Praise be to Him!

Saturday March 19

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

As we finish the week and finish Jesus' model prayer, take some time to pray through what is perhaps the high point of the New Testament's challenge to us to fight sin in our own lives, Romans 6:

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. 

We believe deeply in grace. Pray today that grace would be a spur to fight sin and not an excuse to live with it. Pray for God to convince you of the deadliness of sin, the helplessness of your former enslavement to it, and the terror of the reign of sin that continues breaking and rotting this world. Pray that you'd be united with Christ, given the new life and freedom that He Himself enjoys. Finally, pray that your life, your body, and your mind would all be used as instruments for God's kingdom and not any kingdom fighting standing in opposition to it.