We have been looking at the Lord’s Prayer and we have been trying to practice praying as our Lord outlined for us. We have come to the part where it says, “And lead us not into temptation…

So, after we have prayed for daily bread and forgiveness, we are made clean and strong, ready for duty and for battle.  But before we go out into the world we must pray that God would lead us and protect us.

The petition here for leading is really a plea for mercy—that God would not lead us into situations where it would be too difficult for us to bear under trials, so that we would give into sin.  The second part, that He “deliver us from evil,” is the answer to the first part.  That is, if He does not lead us into temptation, what He does is the opposite—He delivers us out of…