DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS

does god tempt me on purpose?

After Jesus was baptized, the Bible says, “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” (Matthew 4:1) After resisting the devil’s temptations for 40 days, Jesus later taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer including, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” (Mat 6:13)

God the Father had a reason for leading his Son into Satan’s influence to be tempted. Have you ever puzzled over those words in the Lord’s Prayer? “Why would God have a reason to lead me to be tempted by Satan? So do I have to ask him not to do it?” How well is your record of successfully resisting temptations to believe a lie about God (remember how Satan tempted Eve), to hate yourself or God because of your guilt or extreme suffering (how Judas despaired and hung himself) and finally to give into your sinful desires and commit a shameful sin (how David committed adultery and murder)? Satan – 99 wins; Me – one win? Maybe for you it’s 0!

Jesus teaches in the Lord’s prayer to not only pray daily that God would forgive you and assure you that because of Jesus you have been forgiven, he also has us pray that God’s will be done, which happens when the Holy Spirit uses God’s word to bring us to faith in Jesus and helps us use that faith to live a godly life. Because your faith is not perfect or invincible and because your faith so loves God that you don’t want to give into Satan’s temptations or turn against God when he allows a test or trial of your faith come, you pray for God’s help.

Because Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, yet was without sin, he not only can sympathize with our weaknesses, his victory over Satan in that time of temptation and when he completed his mission to be punished for our sins on the cross is the reason why your failures to resist temptation have been forgiven.

So what are you praying for in what we Lutherans call the Sixth Petition? Jesus teaches us to pray that God would guard and keep us, so that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us or lead us into false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins; and though we are tempted by them, we pray that we may overcome and win the victory. We might be surprised that the actual record of resisting Satan’s temptations is higher than we thought, because God answers our prayers, sometimes in ways we didn’t notice at the time.

And can God in a malicious way want to purposely lead us into temptation? “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” (James 1:13) He does keep from us situations where our weaknesses would fail us, as we prayed.

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