Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Spiritual Warriors Prayer, Part 6
This is week six in a seven-week study on the Lord's Prayer, or as Pastor Ricky Jacob likes to call it: the Spiritual Warriors Prayer. Need to start at the beginning? Read Part 1 here.
Listen to the devotion:
Do you ever get angry, and then you stop and begin to think: why am I so angry? It appears to me that people are so quick to become angry these days. Little things can set one off and BIG THINGS can move one to go on a rampage! You sport’s team loses; your car breaks down, again after just getting it fixed. Things do not go your way. You fall on the ice. Someone teases you after you have asked them not to do that again. Anger can easily get the best of us.
There once was a warrior by the name of Naaman who had a skin disease. He is told to go to the land that he had just raided and see a prophet of God to be healed. Eventually, Naaman shows up at the house of the prophet with his war horse and chariot. The prophet of God sends word for him to “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
What is the warrior’s response? Anger. He says, "I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.” So he turned and went off in a rage.
Naaman was tempted to have things done his way. He would get his way or else... or else what? He would head back home with his leprosy. I wonder how many times you responded to God not doing things your way with anger and cutting Him off! How is that working out for you?
In what I refer to as the Spiritual Warrior’s prayer, Jesus taught: And lead us not into temptation.
God tempts no one. We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.
Jesus was tempted in every way, but he did not sin. He never cursed his Heavenly Father. He gave the ultimate warrior’s price, His life, so that you who trust in Him would be assured of victory. Jesus’ victory is now your victory through faith in Him!