Rescue Us From The Evil One

January 5, 2016

Rescue Us From The Evil One

And don’t let us yield to temptation,

    but rescue us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:13

What temptations do you have the most difficulty resisting? Dark chocolate is right up there near the top of my list, but that isn’t what our Lord had in mind when he included this line in the Lord’s Prayer. The key to his thinking lies in the last few words, “. . . rescue us from the evil one.” These words connect Jesus to his own temptation in the wilderness when the devil, the evil one, tried unsuccessfully three times to tempt Jesus away from his mission.

Each of the three temptations can be seen in the light of something good. With the carnal mind, it would have been good to turn stones into bread so that Jesus could feed the poor. It also would have been good to create a spectacle that would draw the attention of the masses, or avail himself of the wealth of the nation’s so as to fulfill his purposes. But none of those were in the mind of God and thus were summarily dismissed by Jesus.

In our journey through life with Jesus, we too will face spiritual temptations. Our spiritual temptations are not that we will steal from our neighbor, or eat too much chocolate (is that an oxymoron?). Rather our temptations will be to focus on the seemingly good virtues of life, while missing the only good we will ever know: Jesus Christ. The evil one is not trying to convince us to rob a bank; he is trying to get us to invest ourselves in anything other than Jesus. That’s why Saint Paul said he had discarded everything so that he could gain Christ. That’s what I want also. This desire leads us to the most vicious spiritual battleground, which is why we desperately need Jesus to rescue us from the evil one.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.