Lord's Prayer: Lead Us Not Into TemptationНамуна

Here’s another way to get at what Jesus tells us to pray. It may be a litotes.

What’s that? Here’s a technical definition: a figure of speech in which an affirmative is expressed by its negative opposite. Here’s an example that’s far more helpful. If I tell someone “You won’t be sorry,” I’m basically telling them “You’ll be glad you did it.”

Now think of the Lord’s Prayer. When Jesus is telling us to pray “Father, lead us not into temptation,” that may be a way of saying, “Father, may I be holy and righteous!”

This fits a certain logic. Right before the line “Lead us not into temptation,” Jesus tells us to ask for forgiveness. God wants to save us. Forgiveness is central to that. So we pray, “Forgive us our sins…” But God also wants to sanctify us. So then we pray, “ Lead me not into temptation,” or put another way, “Father, sanctify me!”

Discipleship is not just a matter of what God saves us from. It’s also a matter of what God saves us for. Here in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus captures that.

Because each of us is prone to wander. Left to our own devices, we drift. We’re easily diverted, enticed, tricked, and confused. “Lead us not into temptation” is Jesus’s way of reminding us and prompting us to seek God in this. Or as the classic hymn puts it:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

Consider this today…

Where are you prone to wander? Admit it before God, then ask him to do his work in you.