ELECTION REFLECTION - 2020
November 2
Q. 106. What do we pray for in the sixth petition?
A. In the sixth petition, which is, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”, we pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin, or support and deliver us when we are tempted.
Reflection:
I will never deny you, Lord!
Now, can you imagine Peter, face to face, looking into Jesus's eyes as he said this with a passion that surely filled the room?
But then...reality hits as the Lord of creation said it would. Inserts the girl who recognized Peter as a Christ-follower, which then immediately placed him in a situation of temptation and ultimately doing the very thing Peter said he would never do.
Peter denied his Lord and in doing so, there's always a witness. Maybe they're right there in front of us and we don't care, perhaps we don't notice them or the damage being done, or worse, maybe we fail to remember and recognize that they're always one standing in our midst watching...namely our Lord God!
Now, to be frank, we all fail at this, in some shape form, or fashion. The reality of temptation is something that I can guarantee will happen to every person at New City Fellowship and beyond. We all will look at it face to face. So the question is, how might we prepare for the snares within ourselves, in our world, and from our great enemy?
In this season of the election in our country, falling into temptation is ripe for the picking. But, as much as it may be pressing in on us, this petition from the Lord's prayer encourages us to take our cues from Jesus. In the midst of temptation in the garden of Gethsemane, what do we see Jesus doing? Desiring that the cup might pass from him, we see Jesus praying against temptation! If the God-Man, the sinless Lamb prayed in a season and hour of temptation, how much more should we be doing so? For it is there that we find support when we are being tempted to stray.
Lastly, many of us, if we're honest, may have found ourselves tempted to the point of functionally denying our Lord Jesus and failing to love others well in such a season as this. Perhaps we see no good in our trials of testing that might have revealed all types of things within us. Well, oftentimes our failures reveal that our perspectives are flawed and that Christ wants us to follow his way instead of ours. In Matthew 26:41, notice how Jesus actually gave Peter the tools to fight against his coming temptation, because Jesus knew that the previous boastful confidence from Peter would never be enough. “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." We (just as Peter had to learn), must continually follow our Lord in learning how to intentionally watch and pray against temptation, even when we think we have the best intentions.
So, when we find that we have faltered under temptation, let us not despair without hope, for our denial can be another opportunity to show us the vast measure of God's grace, and the ongoing commitment of his sanctifying work upon us.
In this election season and beyond, may we be guided by our Lord Jesus to show great love...and let us remember...there's always a witness watching.
Elder Darryl Bradford