In three closely parallel examples, Jesus treated the practices of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. In each case the motive for correct religious behavior must be to please God rather than fellow humans.

Jesus did not say, “Pray in these words.” He said, “Pray after this manner”; that is, “Use this prayer as a pattern, not as a substitute.”

From what we know in the scriptural record, Jesus’ two most intense times of spiritual opposition were during His forty days of solitude in the wilderness and during His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night He was betrayed and arrested. On both occasions He was alone praying to His Father. It was in the most private and holy place of communion that Satan presented his strongest temptations before the Son of God.

Greek prayers piled up as many titles of the deity addressed as possible, hoping to secure his or her attention. Pagan prayers typically reminded the deity of favors done or sacrifices offered, attempting to get a response from the god on contractual grounds.

The purpose of prayer is to glorify God’s name, and to ask for help to accomplish His will on earth. This prayer begins with God’s interests, not ours: God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will. Robert Law has said, “Prayer is a mighty instrument, not for getting man’s will done in heaven, but for getting God’s will done in earth.”

6:9 In this manner. Cf. Luke 11:2–4. The prayer is a model, not merely a liturgy. It is notable for its brevity, simplicity, and comprehensiveness. Of the 6 petitions, 3 are directed to God (vv. 9, 10) and 3 toward human needs (vv. 11–13).

If Jesus were forbidding all public prayer, then clearly the early church did not understand him (e.g., 18:19–20; Acts 1:24; 3:1; 4:24–30). The public versus private antithesis is a good test of one’s motives; the person who prays more in public than in private reveals that he is less interested in God’s approval than in human praise. Not piety but a reputation for piety is his concern.

Again Jesus assumes that his disciples will pray, but he forbids the prayers of “hypocrites” (see on v. 2).

and told a parable to show his disciples that “they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1). His point is that his disciples should avoid meaningless, repetitive prayers offered under the misconception that mere length will make prayers efficacious.

“This is how [not what] you should pray.”

As with giving to the needy (6:2), prayer can be perverted from a true act of piety into an act of hypocrisy when the external act masks an inner corrupt motive. As a set time of prayer arrived, pious Jews would stop what they were doing and pray. This could be done discreetly, or it could be done with pretentious display. Some people were sure to find themselves in a place where they would be noticed, such as the synagogue or on a street corner. In those cases, the inner motivation for offering public prayer was public recognition and acclaim of their piety, which has no value with God.

Thus, after recording six representative examples of the way that Jesus’ interpretation and application of the Old Testament is the antithesis of current practices (5:21–48), he records three representative ways that the discipleship of Jesus surpasses the external, legalistic, pious life of the leading religious figures of his day.

The criticism he lodges against the religious leaders is directed at their inner corruption, their hypocrisy, which is the sinful disease of self-glorification. But that corruption was also stimulated by the external reward they received when desire for attention was satisfied by being “honored” by the people and by the religious establishment.

Within church history the expectations of performance often became so demanding within certain traditions that only a few people could really devote themselves to the full practice of the disciplines. This was one of the problems with certain ascetic monastic movements. Some traditions became exclusivistic in the sense that their tradition alone was the primary means of attaining spirituality, so that an elitist distinction developed between nominal Christians and those committed to the practices of a particular tradition. This was surely not the original intent, but it became the unfortunate result, with the average Christian often despairing of being “spiritual.” From there it led to the clergy-laity distinction that the Reformers tried to rectify.

The prevalence of elitism in many traditions partially explains why scores of people are frustrated in their Christian lives. A two-level conception of the Christian life promotes apathy among those who haven’t yet chosen to be committed, and it suggests that the higher level of commitment is optional, which in the daily world of most Christians means that commitment to Christlikeness is optional. One of Jesus’ purposes in the SM, and particularly in addressing the practice of “acts of righteousness” in this section, is to eliminate an elitist conception of discipleship. The practice of the disciplines is a normal outgrowth of discipleship to Jesus. Since all true believers are disciples of Jesus Christ and, correspondingly, all true believers have been born anew to spiritual life by the Spirit of God (cf. Rom. 8:9; Titus 3:3–7), Jesus calls all believers to his form of discipleship, which means faithfully practicing the “acts of righteousness” in devotion to the Father.49

Jesus was not condemning public prayer. He was condemning the desire to be seen praying publicly.

The first saying is aimed not now against the ‘hypocrites’, but against praying as the Gentiles do. Prayer in the non-Jewish world was often characterized particularly by formal invocations and magical incantations, in which the correct repetition counted rather than the worshipper’s attitude or intention. Heap up empty phrases translates the Greek battalogeō, a word otherwise unknown in contemporary literature, and perhaps coined as an onomatopoeic term for empty ‘babbling’; its resemblance to the Hebrew bāṭel (‘vain, idle’) would sharpen the point.

Of its perfection Bonhoeffer said, “The Lord’s Prayer is not merely the pattern prayer, it is the way Christians must pray.… The Lord’s Prayer is the quintessence of prayer.”

As mentioned in the last chapter, the term hypocrite originally referred to actors who used large masks to portray the roles they were playing. Hypocrites are actors, pretenders, persons who play a role. What they say and do does not represent what they themselves feel or believe but only the image they hope to create.

9. Then indicates that the following prayer is an expression of the understanding of God’s fatherly care in v. 8, in contrast with the practice of the Gentiles (v. 7); an emphatic ‘you’ in the Greek points the contrast. The address ‘Father’ found in the Lucan version represents the bold ‘Abba’ which was a hallmark of Jesus’ unique intimacy with God (Mark 14:36). The boldness is blunted in Matthew’s Our Father who art in heaven, a more reverent formula found (unlike the simple ‘Abba’) in some Jewish prayers. This address does, however, express forcibly the tension in the disciples’ attitude to God, who is at the same time in heaven, transcendent, all-powerful, the Lord of the universe and yet Our Father, concerned for the needs of each disciple, and entering into an intimate relationship with them.

In contrast, Jesus directs his disciples, when they pray, to go to their “inner room.” Since most people did not have separate, private quarters in their homes, the meaning is most likely a metaphorical one to emphasize privacy. The saying continues the emphasis on the privacy of one’s heart. The focus is on the intimacy of communion with God in one’s heart, which is at the center of all prayer, whether it happens to be given publicly or privately. That Jesus does not prohibit or condemn any and all public prayer is indicated by his own public prayers (see 14:19; 15:36).

In vv. 1–18 Jesus used the word “Father” 10 times! Only those who have true inner righteousness can address God in that way in worship.)

It is worth noting that there are no singular pronouns in this prayer; they are all plural. It begins with “OUR Father.” When we pray, we must remember that we are part of God’s worldwide family of believers. We have no right to ask for ourselves anything that would harm another member of the family. If we are praying in the will of God, the answer will be a blessing to all of God’s people in one way or another.

Jesus predicates effective prayer on a relationship of intimacy, not a business partnership model, which was closer to the one followed by ancient paganism.

In the present God’s people could hallow his name by living rightly; if they lived wrongly, they would “profane” his name, or bring it into disrepute among the nations (cf. also Ex 20:7; Jer 34:16; 44:25–26; Ezek 13:19; 20:14; Amos 2:7).

This opening designation establishes the kind of God to whom prayer is offered: He is personal (no mere “ground of being”) and caring (a Father, not a tyrant or an ogre, but the one who establishes the real nature of fatherhood, cf. Eph 3:14–15). That he is “our Father” establishes the relationship that exists between Jesus’ disciples and God. In this sense he is not the Father of all men indiscriminately (see on 5:43–47). The early church was right to forbid non-Christians from reciting this prayer as vigorously as they forbade them from joining with believers at the Lord’s Table.

God’s “name” is a reflection of who he is (cf. DNTT, 2:648ff.). God’s “name” is God himself as he is and has revealed himself, and so his name is already holy. Holiness, often thought of as “separateness,” is less an attribute than what he is. It has to do with the very godhood of God. Therefore to pray that God’s “name” be “hallowed” (the verbal form of “holy,” recurring in Matt only at 23:17, 19 [NIV, “makes sacred”]) is not to pray that God may become holy but that he may be treated as holy (cf. Exod 20:8; Lev 19:2, 32; Ezek 36:23; 1 Peter 1:15), that his name should not be despised (Mal 1:6) by the thoughts and conduct of those who have been created in his image.

These first three petitions, though they focus on God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, are nevertheless prayers that he may act in such a way that his people will hallow his name, submit to his reign, and do his will. It is therefore impossible to pray this prayer in sincerity without humbly committing oneself to such a course.

The term “pagans” is ethnikoi, the regular expression for the Gentiles in Matthew, and “babbling” (battalogeo) indicates a person who repeats the same words over and over without thinking.

The priests of Baal continued from morning until noon, crying out, “O Baal, answer us” (1 Kings 18:26), and the multitude in the theater at Ephesus shouted for two hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians” (Acts 19:34). God is always ready to listen, but he cannot be manipulated through ritual prayer. “Babbling” to get God’s attention and to manipulate him to get what we want is foolish, because the Father is aware at all times of his children’s needs even before they ask (Matt. 6:8)

The term for “Father” is “Abba,” a name used by children for their earthly fathers that denotes warmth and intimacy in the security of a loving father’s care. While children may have used it as a form of endearment, similar to the English expression “Daddy,” it had a much more profound use in adult religious life.

God knows our needs, but he has also chosen to grant some things only when his people pray (Jas 4:2)

In light of vv. 7–8 it is highly ironic that this prayer has come to be repeated mechanically in many Christian traditions

The Greek “Father” (pater) probably translates the Aramaic Abba (cf. Mark 14:36). Use of this intimate term for God (almost equivalent to the English “Daddy”) was virtually unparalleled in first-century Judaism. Christians should consider God as accessible as the most loving human parent.

That God should be personally addressed as “Father” may not seem out of the ordinary to those of us who frequent the church and regularly repeat the Lord’s Prayer, but it was absolutely revolutionary in Jesus’ day. The writers of the Old Testament certainly believed in the Fatherhood of God, but they saw it mainly in terms of a sovereign Creator-Father. In fact, God is only referred to as Father fourteen times in the Old Testament’s thirty-nine books, and even then rather impersonally. In those fourteen occurrences of Father the term was always used with reference to the nation, not to individuals. You can search from Genesis to Malachi, and you will not find one individual speaking of God as Father. Moreover, in Jesus’ day, his contemporaries had so focused on the sovereignty and transcendence of God that they were careful never to repeat his covenant name—Yahweh. So they invented the word Jehovah, a combination of two separate names of God. Thus the distance from God was well guarded.

But when Jesus came on the scene, he addressed God only as Father. He never used anything else!

has argued convincingly that Abba was the original word on Jesus’ lips here in the Lord’s Prayer and indeed in all of his prayers in the New Testament, with the exception of Matthew 27:46 when he cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But there, Jeremias explains, Jesus was quoting Psalm 22:1. Of course, Jesus reverted to Father with his final words before his death: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:45, quoting Psalm 31:5). The word Abba was the word Jesus regularly used to address his father Joseph from the time he was a baby until Joseph’s death. Everyone used the word. But as a careful examination of the literature of that day shows, it was never used of God—under any circumstances. Abba meant something like Daddy—but with a more reverent touch than when we use it. The best rendering is “Dearest Father.”

Paul tells us in Galatians 4:6, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father!’ ”

Dr. J. I. Packer considers one’s grasp of God’s Fatherhood and one’s adoption as a son or daughter as of essential importance to spiritual life. He writes:

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God.

All this suggests how we ought to pray. First, we should approach God with confidence. When my children would come to me saying, as my girls sometimes did, “Daddy dear,” they made my day. It was (and is) my delight to do anything for them within reason. Brothers and sisters, God delights to answer our prayers. We can be confident as we come to him.

Second, we must pray with simplicity. God does not ask for eloquent rhetoric from his children—just simple, direct, heart-felt conversation. Let us honor him with our simplicity.

Last, we ought to pray with love. The words “Dearest Father,” “Abba Father” are words of love, and our prayer ought to overflow with love. “Our Father who is in heaven, we love you

But for the Jew a name was anything but a convenient label because names were considered to indicate character. This especially applied to the name of God. The psalmist said, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name [the character] of the LORd our God” (20:7). God’s names revealed aspects of his being. For instance, Jehovah Shalom—“The Lord Our Peace”—was a name that Gideon hallowed by raising an altar to God by that name. Jehovah Jireh—“the Lord will provide”—was the name by which Abraham came to know God on Mt. Moriah when God provided a ram in place of Isaac. Jehovah Tsidkenu—“the Lord our Righteousness”—is the name by which God revealed himself to Jeremiah during the Captivity

What does it mean to hallow God’s name? The root word means “to set apart as holy,” “to consider holy,” “to treat as holy.” The best alternate term is reverence.

In one of the questions of his Greater Catechism (Grosser Katechismus) Martin Luther asked: “How is it [God’s name] hallowed amongst us?” Answer: “When our life and doctrine are truly Christian.” God’s name as Father is reverenced when we lead lives that reflect his Fatherhood.

Many Buddhists spin wheels containing written prayers, believing that each turn of the wheel sends that prayer to their god. Roman Catholics light prayer candles in the belief that their requests will continue to ascend repetitiously to God as long as the candle is lit. Rosaries are used to count off repeated prayers of Hail Mary and Our Father, the rosary itself coming to Catholicism from Buddhism by way of the Spanish Muslims during the Middle Ages.

Prayer is effective; it makes a difference. “The effective prayer of a righteous man,” James says, “can accomplish much” (James 5:16). Abraham’s servant prayed, and Rebekah appeared. Jacob wrestled and prayed, and Esau’s mind was turned from twenty years of revenge. Moses prayed, and Amalek was struck. Hannah prayed, and Samuel was born. Isaiah and Hezekiah prayed, and in twelve hours one hundred eighty-five thousand Assyrians were slain. Elijah prayed, and there were three years of drought; he prayed again, and rain came. Those are but a small sampling of answered prayer just from the Old Testament.

the first section deals with God’s glory (vv. 9–10) and the second with man’s need (vv. 11–13a).

Second, Jesus had just warned His followers not to pray with “meaningless repetition” (v. 7). To then give a prayer whose primary purpose was to be recited verbatim would have been an obvious contradiction of Himself.

our relationship to God, we see: Our Father showing the father/child relationship; hallowed be Thy name, the deity/worshiper; Thy kingdom come, the sovereign/subject; Thy will be done, the master/servant; give us this day our daily bread, the benefactor/beneficiary; forgive us our debts, the Savior/sinner; and do not lead us into temptation, the guide/pilgrim.

His paternity, priority, program, plan, provision, pardon, protection, and preeminence.

It is only to those who receive Him that Jesus gives “the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12; cf. Rom. 8:14; Gal. 3:26; Heb. 2:11–14; 2 Pet. 1:4; etc.). Because believers belong to the Son, they can come to God as His beloved children.

He used the title Father in all of His prayers except the one on the cross when He cried “My God, My God” (Matt. 27:46), emphasizing the separation He experienced in bearing mankind’s sin. Though the text uses the Greek Patēr, it is likely that Jesus’ used the Aramaic Abba when He gave this prayer. Not only was Aramaic the language in which He and most other Palestinian Jews commonly spoke, but Abba (equivalent to our “Daddy”) carried a more intimate and personal connotation than Patēr. In a number of passages the term Abba is used even in the Greek text, and is usually simply transliterated in English versions (see Mark 14:36; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).

Fifth, knowing God as our Father settles the matter of resources. He is our Father who [is] in heaven. All the resources of heaven are available to us when we trust God as our heavenly Supplier. Our Father “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3).

Hallowed is an archaic English word used to translate a form of hagiazō, which means to make holy.

Basileia (kingdom) does not refer primarily to a geographical territory but to sovereignty and dominion. Therefore when we pray Thy kingdom come, we are praying for God’s rule through Christ’s enthronement to come, His glorious reign on earth to begin.

First of all, the kingdom comes in this way by conversion (Matt. 18:1–4). So prayer should be evangelistic and missionary—for new converts, new children of God, new kingdom citizens. Conversion to the kingdom involves an invitation (Matt. 22:1–14), repentance (Mark 1:14–15), and a willing response (Mark 12:28–34; Luke 9:61–62). The present existence of the kingdom on earth is internal, in the hearts and minds of those who belong to Jesus Christ, the King.

7) Believers recognize their spiritual weakness as they pray for deliverance from temptation to evil (cf. James 1:13–14).

The term for “will” is thelema, which can indicate God’s purpose (e.g., Eph. 1:11) and desire (e.g., Luke 13:34). But as here, the term can express God’s will of command, as in the psalmist’s exclamation, “I desire to do your will; your law is within my heart” (Ps. 40:8).

Jesus’ own utmost act of obedience in his earthly ministry was to submit to the will of God the Father. He declared this allegiance at the outset: “My food … is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34), and he faithfully carried it out to the end, as he affirmed in the Garden of Gethsemane: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39, 42).

James Montgomery Boice abandoned his characteristic optimism on one occasion when he told his congregation:

I believe that not one prayer in a hundred of those that fill our churches on a Sunday morning is actually made to Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are made to men or to the praying one himself, and that includes the prayers of preachers as well as those of the members of the congregation.

I believe that not one prayer in a hundred of those that fill our churches on a Sunday morning is actually made to Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are made to men or to the praying one himself, and that includes the prayers of preachers as well as those of the members of the congregation.

Perhaps a few questions would help us. Do I pray frequently or more fervently when I am alone with God than when I am in public? Is my public praying an overflow of my private prayer? What do I think of when I am praying in public? Am I looking for “just the right” phrase? Am I thinking of the worshipers more than of God? Am I a spectator to my own performance? Is it possible that the reason more of my prayers are not answered is because I am more concerned about bringing my prayer to men than to God?

The first half of the prayer thus focuses exclusively on God and his agenda as believers adore, worship, and submit to his will before they introduce their own personal petitions.

How did Jesus Christ bring the kingdom? Primarily by bringing men and women into obedient conformity to the Father’s will. This is the meaning of “your kingdom come” in its context because the immediately following and parallel words are, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Those who are in God’s kingdom strive to do God’s will. In fact, they do it.

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Luther called this a “fearful prayer.” If some people really realized what they were praying, their words would stick in their throats. Considering the petition’s gravity, it is of the utmost importance that we understand what we are praying, then pray it with the utmost sincerity.

Early in his ministry Jesus told his disciples, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me” (John 4:34). If I pray this petition rightly, my food—what I really live for—is not an extra dessert or a bit of religion to decorate my life, but doing God’s will.

How is it done in Heaven? Gladly, with no reservation.

Julian was the Roman Emperor who tried to turn the clock back. He tried to reverse the decision of Constantine that Christianity should be the religion of the Empire, and he tried to reintroduce the worship and the service and the ceremonies of the ancient gods. In the end he was mortally wounded in battle in the east. The historians tell how, when he lay bleeding to death, he took a handful of his blood and tossed it in the air, saying: “You have conquered, O man of Galilee!”

We can say “your will be done” through angry, clenched lips, but that is not Heaven’s tone.

The very fact that Jesus tells us to pray Thy will be done on earth indicates that God’s will is not always done on earth. It is not inevitable. In fact, lack of faithful prayer inhibits His will being done. In God’s wise and gracious plan, prayer is essential to the proper working of His divine will on earth.

Then the next three petitions can be properly focused on the needs of the individual disciples—their sustenance, their sin, and their spiritual battle.

Why should we ask God for what we already have in such abundance? Why, when many of us need to consume less food than we do, ask God to supply our daily bread?

Jewish teaching regarded sins as “debts” before God; the same Aramaic word could be used for both. Biblical law required the periodic forgiveness of monetary debtors (in the seventh and fiftieth years), so the illustration of forgiving debts would have been a graphic one (especially since Jewish lawyers had found a way to circumvent the release of debts so that creditors would continue to lend).

6:12 forgive us our debts. The parallel passage (Luke 11:4) uses a word that means “sins,” so that in context, spiritual debts are intended. Sinners are debtors to God for their violations of His laws (see notes on 18:23–27). This request is the heart of the prayer; it is what Jesus stressed in the words that immediately follow the prayer (vv. 14, 15; cf. Mark 11:25).

7) Believers recognize their spiritual weakness as they pray for deliverance from temptation to evil (cf. James 1:13–14).

The first three petitions stand independently from one another. The last three, however, are linked in Greek by “ands,” almost as if to say that life sustained by food is not enough. We also need forgiveness of sin and deliverance from temptation.

In Matthew what we ask to be forgiven for is ta opheilēmata hēmōn (“our debts”)

The second clause of this petition, “but deliver us from the evil one,” indicates that disciples must be conscious that life is a spiritual battle. The occurrence of the definite article with the word “evil” probably indicates Satan, “the evil one” (cf. 5:37), although it can also be understood to indicate evil generally (cf. 5:39). Satan’s influence is behind every attempt to turn a testing into a temptation to evil, so Jesus teaches his disciples that they must rely on God not only for physical sustenance and forgiveness of sins, but also for moral triumph and spiritual victory in all of the spiritual battles of life.36

“Lead us not into temptation” does not imply “don’t bring us to the place of temptation” or “don’t allow us to be tempted.” God’s Spirit has already done both of these with Jesus (4:1). Nor does the clause imply “don’t tempt us” because God has promised never to do that anyway (Jas 1:13). Rather, in light of the probable Aramaic underlying Jesus’ prayer, these words seem best taken as “don’t let us succumb to temptation” (cf. Mark 14:38) or “don’t abandon us to temptation.” We do of course periodically succumb to temptation but never because we have no alternative (1 Cor 10:13). So when we give in, we have only ourselves to blame. The second clause of v. 13 phrases the same plea positively, “Deliver us from evil” (or “from the evil one” [NIV marg.]

The point is not so much that forgiving is a prior condition of being forgiven, but that forgiveness cannot be a one-way process. Like all God’s gifts it brings responsibility; it must be passed on. To ask for forgiveness on any other basis is hypocrisy. There can be no question, of course, of our forgiving being in proportion to what we are forgiven, as 18:23–35 makes clear.

St. Augustine called this request “the terrible petition” because he realized that if we pray “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” with an unforgiving heart, we are actually asking God not to forgive us, for “debts” here really means “sins.” “Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.” Jesus does not want anyone to misunderstand here, so he states it categorically in verses 14–15: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Charles Spurgeon stated, “Unless you have forgiven others, you read your own death-warrant when you repeat the Lord’s Prayer.” And in our own time C. S. Lewis wrote:

No part of his teaching is clearer: and there are no exceptions to it. He doesn’t say that we are to forgive other people’s sins provided they are not too frightful, or provided there are extenuating circumstances, or anything of that sort. We are to forgive them all, however spiteful, however mean, however often they are repeated. If we don’t, we shall be forgiven none of our own.

We are not talking about people who are struggling with forgiveness. It is those who have no desire to forgive who are in soul danger. There may also be some who have been recently offended and are still in emotional shock and so have not been able to properly respond with forgiveness. The point is: If we are Christians, we can and will forgive!

We are never closer to God, or more like God, than when we forgive! When we forgive, we are like the Father and like the Son, who prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). We say “to err is human,” and that is true. But the last part of that couplet is, “to forgive is divine,” and so it is.

Forgiveness is not a psychological trick. It is a miracle! And God can help you do it.

That is what the sixth and final petition of the Lord’s Prayer is all about: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one [some translations: “from evil”]” (Matthew 6:13).

The abiding reality is that temptation is good for us. Temptation molded the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. His ministry began with his epic temptations in the wilderness. Satan came at him with the most elaborate and insidious psycho-spiritual attacks ever made.

Satan is the common Hebrew word for “adversary,” as in 1 Samuel 29:4 where David is called a satan (“adversary,” KJV) to the Philistines. Devil is the common Greek word for “slanderer,” as in 1 Timothy 3:11 where Paul says women are to be serious-minded, not diabolous, “devils, slanderers.”

the substance, the source, the supplication, the seekers, and the schedule.