Lead Us, Deliver Us

January 23, 2011
Matthew 6:12-13
God's leadership

We began with a few "leftover comments" from last week's discussion on forgiveness.

• People who are working with non-Christians don't always see the results of their efforts. But God uses whatever we do to help them.
• Our sins put us in debt to God's justice. Forgiveness puts us in debt to God's mercy. In any case, we are indebted to God.
• When we forgive others, we express compassion for them. We can see ourselves in their brokenness.
• Do we wait until someone asks for forgiveness? No. The purpose of forgiveness is to free our own heart, not theirs.
• Forgiveness is not reconciliation. The other person may not even know that you've taken this step.
• Forgiveness puts the issue back in God's hands, so it does help the other person.
• Non-forgiveness may be an issue of pride.

Lead us not into temptation - And do not lead us into the place of testing where a solicitation to do evil would tempt us to sin (Expanded New Testament)

• Temptations are from within. See James 1:13-15. Sin starts with a thought, moves to imagination, then delight in that imagination, and finally consent to the idea. This demonstrates the power of initial decisions.
• "Be not a baker if your head be made of butter." Don't deliberately put yourself in places where you know you will be tempted.
• Hebrew thought: If God permits it, He does it. We (and New Testament writers) tend to think that "God permits" is different from "God does."

Deliver us from evil - A Jewish teaching says "Let it be thy good pleasure to deliver us from impudent men, and from impudence: from an evil man and an evil chance; from an evil affection, and evil companion, and an evil neighbour: from Satan the destroyer, from a hard judgment, and a hard adversary." (Today, impudent mostly means "offensively bold;" it used to mean "immodest," not ashamed of itself.)

"From evil" is actually the same phrase as in Matthew 13:19, 38. There, it definitely refers to "the evil one," as more modern translations put it in 6:13.

• 2 Peter 5:8 begins the passage where we are warned to resist the devil.
• Much of the North American church treats our spiritual life as separate from the rest of life. [Note from Dale: This year's missionary book on Africa showed that this is also true in much of that continent.] Everything we do is interconnected with our spiritual life.

All our discussions seemed to bring us back to God's grace. It calls us into a new life, and then empowers us to live it.