Lesson 6: R – Raise

“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

As we grow, our parents teach us, train us, help us to grow up to be people who are able to do what is needed to live, have a job, and be able to care for others who are our responsibility. This is called raising us to be adults. They make sure we learn to read and write in school, and they teach us things they know about cooking or making clothes or fixing a vehicle or farming ground or any number of things they have learned in their lives.

God does the same for us; He teaches us how to deal with things we encounter in this life. Jesus said in John 16:33 that in this world we will encounter trouble, but we are to be of good courage because He has already overcome the world. We need to learn from Him how to be courageous in the face of great trouble.


We read in James 1:13 that God never tempts us to do evil, so we cannot read this verse as if it is saying God could lead us into such temptation or in fact into any temptation at all. Rather, the word “temptation” should read “testing” – and the testing that we ask God to deliver us from is that testing which leads us to presume we can win this battle in our own strength. Therefore when we pray this, we are asking God to help us submit to His Word, which is our protection against sin. James 4:7 says if we resist the devil, he will flee from us. Ephesians 6:17 tells us our only weapon by which we can attack is the Word of God – just as Jesus used the Word of God to defeat temptation in Matthew 4. Psalm 119:11 says His word in our heart (memorized) is a safeguard for us against sin. Jesus’ prayer for us in John 17 was that we would be kept from “the evil one” rather than from evil.

These things are important for us to learn as we “grow up” in Jesus because they help us to learn the truth of how Jesus uses trials and troubles in our lives – to grow us up and build into us the strength to be able to rejoice when trouble comes, because we know He will work all these things together for good in our lives (Romans 8:28).

In this evil world we cannot ever presume we are strong enough to win the battle on our own. In fact, the moment we believe that, we have yielded to the temptation of pride! These words of this prayer could say, “Do not let me fall into the temptation of believing I have all the answers but deliver me from the evil of trying to live my life in my own strength.”

*When do you call on Jesus to help you in times of testing – when you have fallen to the temptation, or when you recognize the temptation for what it is?