4-27-20 Lord, Deliver Me From Evil Mt 6:13

Hi Friends,

     As God convicts our hearts and converts our minds, we can live according to His Perfect Will, more and more. As we live this Abundant Life, God delivers us from the evil that used to be part of our old, sinful nature. The sad thing is that most born again Christians don’t understand that we can, and should, pray for this deliverance. Listen to the words we are all so familiar with right from the mouth of our wonderful Lord:

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Mt 6:13 ESV

     Once we become born again, a battle begins within us. Our heart wants to follow God, yet our old way of “I think, I feel, I want” still defaults to acting opposite God’s Way. This is one of the many reasons why it’s so vital that we keep growing in Christ. We are more easily tempted by the old selfish nature. We are weaker when we lean on our brokenness. We cannot fight falling into sin when we still act like we have not been transformed and that the Holy Spirit does not live in us. But the more we mature in His Grace, the more He renews our minds to live by “God thinks, God feels, God wants.” It becomes our habit to pray and trust that God will not lead us into temptation. Praying connects us with God so we can be strong enough to make the right decisions that will lead us away from the things that used to cause us to fall. 

     Just being with God leads us away from temptation because that path is opposite God’s Holy Will for us. As I often say, we cannot walk both North AND South at the same time. Similarly, we cannot be with God and sinning at the same time. We will be in one or the other, but not both at the same time. We unconsciously, and sometimes consciously, make a choice to turn away from God and run towards that temptation…and down we go! We do the things that our hearts no longer wants to do, but as Jesus said: the spirit is willing, but the Flesh is still so weak! It is God’s desire to lead us towards Himself, NOT the opposite direction towards temptation. The first step to transformation is to be aware. Pay attention to when you are turning away from being godly minded and towards being self minded. In other words, think about what you are thinking about! The moment your thoughts move inward, that “I think, I feel, I want” or what I call MMI mentality, is the moment we have an opportunity to make a vital decision: do I continue down this line or do I return to God? Obviously, the quicker we place our thoughts back on God and godly things (see Php 4:8), the less of a chance we will fall into the temptation and into sin.

     First step: be aware. Second step: connect with God. If we will do these two things, then God WILL deliver us from evil. Again, think North OR South. If walking towards God leads us not into temptation, then it will also lead us further from sin and evil. The opposite is also true though: when we stay in that realm of temptation and walk further towards it, we will be walking towards sin and evil too. Is this not what happened in the Garden of Eden, my Friends? If Eve had turned to God instead of standing under that forbidden tree talking to the serpent…and if Adam had not let her…we would be in a completely different world! Here’s the biggest lesson we can take from The Downfall: don’t talk to the serpent, run to God instead! Same here though: don’t think about the temptation, run to God instead. 

     I know exactly how hard this is, believe you me! Oh the struggles I have daily! But the good news is this is a process with a very forgiving God! Keep growing, keep becoming aware and keep learning how to turn to God instead of sitting with our three enemies. In our broken immaturity, we are just not strong enough apart from God to fight this good fight. We must connect with Him more and more for the strength to say, “NO!” This corrupted world system will lie to us and say, “It’s ok! Do whatever feels good to you!” We cannot count on society to lead us toward righteousness. Once more I say: connect with God more and more for the strength to say, “NO!” And then there is the worst enemy of all, the serpent! He is still attempting to confuse us, to awaken that old selfish default within us. While our hearts have been cleansed, this spirit is still immature, still growing into who we were always meant to be and the enemy knows this. He knows we are weak and preys on that. He knows we get distracted easily and counts on that. He knows we still do not understand so much about life, that there are so many unknowns, and he uses that to cause us to fear. But remember the word “opposite” here. Fear is opposite Faith. Again, we can walk North OR South, fear or Faith. The enemy knows all about our fallen nature because it is HIS depraved nature! So if we want to be led away from temptation and delivered from the sin it can bring, then we must learn to walk away from those three (Self, Society and Satan) and run towards God! 

     God desires to deliver us from all evil: from our own broken, selfishness; from the lost and corrupt society we are surrounded by; and, of course, from the evil one who has his filthy hands in everything wrong with this world. Jesus would not have told us to pray for deliverance if God was not willing, and able, to grant it to us. So let’s pray, my Friends, for God to deliver us from every negative thought, every hurt feeling we’ve experienced, every desire that ultimately leads to destruction and every bad habit that is stealing our peace, killing our joy and destroying our witness to others about the Abundant Life we are supposed to be living. That is the “thief’s” daily agenda: steal, kill and destroy. But Jesus has come that we may have life and have it abundantly! (Jn 10:10) First we must be aware that God desires to deliver us. Second we must connect with Him and walk away from the temptation and sin it will bring. Pray with me: Lord, deliver me from (fill in the blank with the evil you need deliverance from). 

     My Friends, sometimes this deliverance comes instantly, praise God! But many times it comes in stages, so keep praying, keep believing and keep being set free. I thank God for the many things that no longer tempt me because I have been delivered and continue to pray for the others that still trip me up. Life is a journey and Sanctification is a process and the more I engage in both, walking towards God and so automatically away from temptations, the more abundant my life gets. Want that? Then won’t you join me?

     Until we meet again, keep lifting your eyes to God, He’s closer than you think!

<>< Peace, Diane