What is it about temptation that leads us to believe that it is some force outside of ourselves that attacks us? Certainly Satan is called the Temptor, but his temptation is only in the suggestion. He is an accuser. He levels the charge at us and leaves our flesh to keep working on us.

He accused God of hiding the truth from Eve. When he tempted Christ he presented the sin to him, but when Jesus responded with scripture he had to move on; there was nothing else for him to say!

And so it is in our own lives. As we pray for God to deliver us from evil, not leading us into temptation, we are in fact turning our hearts toward the one who counters our accuser. In the very act of praying we refuse the attacks of Satan, for the prayer which we pray is not our own, but the words of Jesus, the living word who intercedes for us before the Father on our behalf.

Satan knows that sin is slavery, and thinking of sin is slavery of the mind. When we refuse to dwell on the temptation, either its attractiveness or the despair that its guilt drags us into, and turn our eyes on the deliverer of sin and death, the battle is already won! For the word is active in every way; it is active through the promises in scripture to reassure us, it is active in revealing the nature of temptation and how our flesh is what gives it real power (James 1). And it is also active in its meaningful repetition as we pray the words that our savior taught us to. We are not repeating an ideal situation, a Daddy-do list, a statement of what should be if we were spiritual enough. No, when we approach our God in faith and adopt his words as our own, the request that he gives us to pray is already answered and being answered!

Is not the deliverence from evil in turning from our sin in humble repentence and relying on the grace of God poured out to us through faith in the death and ressurection of his Son for the salvation from slavery to that sin? Is not the very request “Do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil” that very thing; a turning from the power of sin and death and relying on our maker for all spiritual provision? Know this: the power for the salvation from sin is not just in the acknowledgement of God and Christ, but in the abiding in Christ. This abiding comes about when his word dwells in us. When you pray, speak to God what he has spoken to you, and you will have eternal life.