"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us, not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

God delivers us from that "suggestion of the serpent" that there is either something God is not giving us, that He is giving us what we don't want - or even that there is some other "god" ruling our lives called sin, disease, death.

But what about when maybe we're believing that God is holding out on something we not only want, but really need?

Or maybe that we don't need God, or that there's no such thing as God?

Or that we can find the goodness we need on our own? In fact, that we are completely on our own, wandering, naked, vulnerable, needing to be as sneaky as a snake to survive, fending for ourselves in a confusing sometimes-good/sometimes- evil world?

Or maybe that essentially, we can even find something even better than God?

But no matter how far we roam in our thoughts about God, God never abandons us. He speaks to us continuously. His voice is heard when we shut up! or when we cry out! But we can also learn to hear His voice in every intuition of goodness that we feel, every effort to love, every selfless act.

These are points of awakening. If we notice them, listen to their meaning, pay attention to them, begin to embody them, these intuitions of Good wake us up to what is actually real and valuable. We begin to see that "things" are less important than thoughts - than what is in our heart of hearts. And when we come face to face with what is in our heart, we might feel some very strong feelings, sometimes with a flood of tears. But these intutions of Good always work in our favor. They serve to wake us up. If listened to and acted on, they deliver us from the "forbidden fruit" sin, disease, and yes, even death.

That's because God wants you to live! God, Divine Love wants you to wake up! and see yourself the way He sees you: as His image and likeness! not the image and likeness of your human history! God wants you to feel His love for you so strongly that it will overflow your life and spill out to every one you meet.

There is, in fact, nothing "better" than God. In actual reality, there isn't anything other than God and His reflection, Christ and the universe. There is no "other" called sin, disease, death. These are the dark shadows of mortal thought which evaporate in the presence of the Divine Thought: that there is only ONE God and He has made you in His likeness - Good!

And God supplies all your need with everything that is spiritually real and permanent as well as humanly necessary. You are already complete in Him right here, right now. The Truth of spiritual being, the Truth of your status as His image and likeness, and the complete understanding of the fullness of the Christ, are already our actual reality.

And in the beauty of this spiritual wholeness, healthiness, holiness, we discover something wonderful:

"Truth is God's remedy for error of every kind, and Truth destroys only what is untrue."

And "God leadeth us not into temptation [to believe that wily lie] but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death"!

Why?

Because, in absolute reality: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."

Amen!

Let God deliver you today

"And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

God delivers you from all evil, from anything that makes you hurt, be unhappy, uneasy, distraught, anxious, nervous, fearful. God delivers you, not only from evil, but from anything that even makes you anticipate evil, and from all the feelings that that negative anticipation brings.

Instead God leads you into confidence in His will for you, His loving plan for you. So when fear comes calling, let yourself lean on God. Lean on His ability to help you and heal you, to guide you to do the work you need to do, to love the people you need to love, and - maybe the hardest thing of all- to let yourself really love you.

God reflects in you every good thought and quality that you need to meet your day today. He stirs you to hear His intuitions, His guidance. Listen for it. He has already given you the perfect qualities you need to meet the challenges you face today, to help and heal and perform the work that is set before you today.

So relax. Rest in God's love - and in His guidance. And be alert! Watch for what He is doing. Look for it. Witness what God, Divine Love, has prepared for you and for those around you. Yes, really look for it! And you will see it! And it is always always always better than you could have ever imagined.

"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

"The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it."

The completeness of our daily bread

"Give us this day our daily bread"
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.

Give us this day our daily bread, our daily communion with God, our daily grace, our daily experience of His unconditional Love. That Love feeds all famished affections. ThatLove satisfies all our deepest yearnings. That Love supplies all our true need.

And being filled up full with the Love of God, we have the natural ability to reflect His Love to everyone around us. With our famished affections fed, we awaken to our right to love our neighbor as ourself - to reflect the unconditional love of God to all those famished hearts we see around us.

If our famished affections are fed, we can have no sense of debt or lack or burden of owing or being owed. Because God is awakening us to see that Love forgives all debts by proving there actually are none! Love awakens us from our false witnessing of others (or ourselves!) as lacking, as debtors and tresspassers! And when you receive the incredible Love that is the only source of real forgiveness, you begin to learn how to forgive - love- like God does. And all sense of others owing you vanishes.

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

There is no "you owe me" in the recipe of the Bread of Life! Instead God insists we eliminate that ingredient of a personal sense of indebtedness out of Life. God insists on being reflected completely in us, so that we may not only see others as God already sees them, but (usually harder) see ourselves as He sees us. And right this moment, God sees you (and everyone!) as debtless, flawless, complete, with every need supplied by - who? by Him. Always by Him.

"And lead us not into tempation, but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

And once you've awakened to - glimpsed - your true nature as God's loved image and likeness, do you think you'd fall back into tempation again? Well, maybe. But it becomes increasingly harder, especially as you pray, really pray, the Lord's Prayer.

Praying the Lord's Prayer makes you much more aware of the lies of evil. Why? Because you are tasting your daily Bread of Life. You are tasting the Truth. You are learning what the real meal - the real deal - tastes like. And how satisifying it is. And what a contrast it is to the cheap junk-food evil seems to offer up.

And isn't this then how God leads you? Isn't this how God delivers you from all the Liar's lies: sin, disease, even death? By giving you, through the Lord's Prayer, a taste of your daily Bread, your daily communion with God, your daily experience of God?

And once you taste what God, Love, really is - taste that True Bread - and feel it feeding, awakening, and enlivening you, the contrast is so sharp that you can spot the trial, the temptation - the Liar - a mile away.

So "Give us this day our daily bread." Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections - ours and everyone's. And learn how that Grace forgives and teaches forgiveness, how God loves and reflects love in you, as you. And so know that God will always lead you from trails and deliver you from any sense of evil. Why? Because God actually is the only presence, the only power, the only glory of Life, Truth, and Love there ever was, is, or will be. God is not only over all, He is All.

And you know what? He loves you.

Amen.

Deliver us from evil

"And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us, not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

Where does evil come from?

Jesus gives the best explanation when he calls the devil (evil) "a liar and the father of it."

Evil is a lie.

Does a lie have power? Only if you mistakenly (or willfully) accept the lie as truth. Then evil can seem very very real indeed.

And what can save us from sin, disease, and death - especially when they feel so very very real?

Only one thing: the Christ: God's Truth, accepted and understood and demonstrated.

And that is like turning on a light in a dark scarey place. And that darkness is powerless against the light.

Here's a little of what "Science & Health" as this to say about this:

S&H 16:15
"In the phrase, 'Deliver us from evil,' the original properly reads, 'Deliver us from the evil one.' This reading strengthens our scientific apprehension of the petition, for Christian Science teaches us that 'the evil one,' or one evil, is but another name for the first lie and all liars.

S&H 186:17
"Evil is self-assertive. It says: 'I am a real entity, overmastering good.' This falsehood should strip evil of all pretensions. The only power of evil is to destroy itself."

S&H 207:8
"God is not the creator of an evil mind. Indeed, evil is not Mind. We must learn that evil is the awful deception and unreality of existence. Evil is not supreme; good is not helpless; nor are the so-called laws of matter primary, and the law of Spirit secondary. Without this lesson, we lose sight of the perfect Father, or the divine Principle of man."

S&H 285:7
"What, then, is the material personality which suffers, sins, and dies? It is not man, the image and likeness of God, but man's counterfeit, the inverted likeness, the unlikeness called sin, sickness, and death. The unreality of the claim that a mortal is the true image of God is illustrated by the opposite natures of Spirit and matter, Mind and body, for one is intelligence while the other is non-intelligence."

S&H 540:5
"In Isaiah we read: 'I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things;' but the prophet referred to divine law as stirring up the belief in evil to its utmost, when bringing it to the surface and reducing it to its common denominator, nothingness. The muddy river-bed must be stirred in order to purify the stream. In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our ignorance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought to know that God's law uncovers so-called sin and its effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin."

S&H 507:24
"Infinite Mind creates and governs all, from the mental molecule to infinity. This divine Principle of all expresses Science and art throughout His creation, and the immortality of man and the universe. Creation is ever appearing, and must ever continue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source. Mortal sense inverts this appearing and calls ideas material. Thus misinterpreted, the divine idea seems to fall to the level of a human or material belief, called mortal man. But the seed is in itself, only as the divine Mind is All and reproduces all--as Mind is the multiplier, and Mind's infinite idea, man and the universe, is the product. The only intelligence or substance of a thought, a seed, or a flower is God, the creator of it. Mind is the Soul of all. Mind is Life, Truth, and Love which governs all."

"The great fact remains that evil is not mind. Evil has no power, no intelligence, for God is good, and therefore good is infinite, is All."

"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever."
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All.

The joy of the Lord's Prayer

We are so glad that You are our Father which art in heaven.
We are so glad that you are our Father-Mother God, Good, already all-harmonious!

We are so happy to hallow Your name, to recognize Your complete and perfect loving nature as the Adorable One.

We so much want Your kingdom within us to come alive!
We are so amazingly glad that Your kingdom - Your presence - really is already come; that in fact, You are already here, with us, right now. And it is a great place to be!

We so so so much yearn to see Your will done in earth as it is already done in Heaven.
We are so glad that You enable us to know that, as in Heaven, so in earth - right where we are - You are already omnipotent, supreme.

And we are so hungry for our daily communion with You, the Bread of Life that you give us!
We are so grateful for the grace You give us today, for the famished affections You feed - and cause us to feed as Your reflection.

And thank You for forgiving us our debts - as we forgive our debtors.
How grateful we are that Your forgiving Love is reflected in our loving to forgive.

Oh and yes! Lead us! and You never lead us into temptation or firery trials. So we thank You for always delivering us from evil - from sin, disease, death - from every claim of that original lie that we, Your reflection, could ever be separated from You.

And how is all this possible?

Because You are the only Presence, and the only Power, and the only Glory there ever is, forever. Because You are already infinite, all the power there is right here, all Life, Truth, Love there is right now. You are over all. In fact, Father-Mother, You are All.

Hallelujah!

Does God tempt us and try us?

"And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us not into temptation but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

This verse of the Lord's Prayer specifically challenges the old theology that says God is vengeful, capricious; that He throws hurdles - trials - at us to tempt us and test us.

Think how often God is mistakenly portrayed this way in popular theology - not only during Jesus' time, but even in our own! People still hear (and fear) "If you do [fill in the blank] God will punish you!"

But in this verse of the Lord's Prayer Jesus says NO to this way of thinking.

His entire prayer is a radical departure from such a view of God. In Jesus' view, God is "Our Father." And Jesus shows us our Father's name and nature are to be hallowed - adored - because our Father is Good. His all-harmonious kingdom is one you want to be in. You want God's will to be done right here where you are just as it is in Heaven. Why? because His will for you is good! How do we know? Listen to Jesus:

"...what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

And what does God give you?

Your daily bread. Your daily communion with Him. Your daily experience of Him.

And His presence shows you your forgiveness as you forgive others. His Love and forgiveness for you is reflected in your love and forgiveness of your neighbor.

And He leads you - not into temptation - but always delivers you from everything that would tempt you or try to separate you from Him: sin, disease, and even death.

Why? Because that's what happens when you open yourself to the kingdom, the presence, of God. That's what happens when invite His will to be yours. And His is the glory that envelopes you. Here. Now.

And God never leads you into trials or temptation but always delivers you into His presence, His care and authority, His Allness, His glorious Love.

Temptation and human sexuality

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
And God leadeth us not into tempation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

If God leads us away from temptation, if He delivers us from sin, then where does human sexuality fit into the picture?

You could just as easily ask, where do bees and flowers fit into the picture?

Sexuality appears to be a temptation - evil - only when you put moralism first and spirituality last. Putting the letter ahead of the spirit is what corrupts this natural part of Life. Suppressing your natural being through human will or through blind obedience to mortal "morality" invites all sorts of problems, from perversion to self-hate and self-destruction.

Mrs. Eddy doesn't say a lot about human sexuality, but her guidance around eating and drinking may be examined in the light they shed on sexual appetite. See how Mrs. Eddy clearly shows her humanity for the differing states and stages of human consciousness:

"Admit the common hypothesis that food is the nutriment of life, and there follows the necessity for another admission in the opposite direction,--that food has power to destroy Life, God, through a deficiency or an excess, a quality or a quantity. This is a specimen of the ambiguous nature of all material health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-destructive, constituting a "kingdom divided against itself," which is 'brought to desolation.'

"The fact is, food does not affect the absolute Life of man, and this becomes self-evident, when we learn that God is our Life. Because sin and sickness are not qualities of Soul, or Life, we have hope in immortality; but it would be foolish to venture beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop eating until we gain perfection and a clear comprehension of the living Spirit. In that perfect day of understanding, we shall either eat to live nor live to eat. "

So perhaps you can paraphrase it this way:

"Admit the common hypothesis that [sex] is the nutriment of [love], and there follows the necessity for another admission in the opposite direction,--that [sex] has power to destroy [Love], God, through a deficiency or an excess, a quality or a quantity. This is a specimen of the ambiguous nature of all material [moral]-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-destructive, constituting a "kingdom divided against itself," which is 'brought to desolation.'

"The fact is, [sex] does not affect the absolute Life of man, and this becomes self-evident, when we learn that God is our Life. Because sin and sickness are not qualities of Soul, or Life, we have hope in immortality; but it would be foolish to venture beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop [expressing our sexuality] until we gain perfection and a clear comprehension of the living Spirit. In that perfect day of understanding, we shall either [have sex] to [love] nor [love] to [have sex]."

So is human will power going to help you express your sexuality?

No. But your spiritual sense will. Your intuition, your hope, faith, understanding of where God, Love, is leading you - listening to this instead of to your animal urges - is what will really satisfy you.

Is blind obedience to moralism or cultural expectations going to help you? Is peer pressure? Are pronouncements from people too wooden to care anymore about sexual expression, are they going to help you understand your way forward?

No. But your own spiritual growth will. Your own step-by-step demonstration of your true spiritual nature will. Your practicing unselfish love will. Your practicing seeing past just a sexy body to the beautiful spirit of the person who attracts you, yes that will help you grow. And so will practicing loving your *own* beautiful spirit and knowing it's worth sharing - that too will help you embrace your loving sexuality.

Human sexuality is not "dirty" or evil as much as moralistic people might want you to believe. But sexuality can take on unhealthy expression, just as it can with eating or drinking. So let your spirituality inform your morality (and not the other way around). Practicing from that standpoint will awaken you and your spiritual sense will definitely guide you.

And don't be disappointed if you don't succeed at all this spiritual growth stuff right away. It takes practice. And practicing means failing sometimes. Maybe failing a lot of times. But that's how you learn. And you need to have patience with yourself as much as you do with someone you love.

And as you practice (and fail and practice some more), remember what Jesus gave us as the two great commandments that cover all the law and the prophets: Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

Note: this implies that you do love yourself!

And remember Mrs. Eddy's wise counsel:

"Emerge gently from matter into Spirit. Think not to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come naturally into Spirit through better health and morals and as the result of spiritual growth. "

And so do love yourself! Be patient with your human needs. Treat yourself with kindness and understanding as you strive to learn your way to a life of real Love and not just superficial sex. Divine Love wants you to have the full meal, not just mortal junk food.

Divine Love will lead you, and will deliver you. Divine Love will guide you - and your sexual expression - as surely as Love guides you in fulfilling your need for food and drink - or guides the bees to the flowers. Let inspiration and intuition awaken your spiritual nature - and your sexual expression will follow in whole and healthy and loving ways.

Remember:

"Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind. Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds. "

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
And God never leads us into temptation, but delivers us from self-will, self-indulgence, and self-hate and into Love's warm and open and intimate embrace.

The Lord's Prayer & The 10 Promises (Part 3)

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.


"Thou shalt not kill."
"Thou shalt not commit adultery."


This verse of our Lord's Prayer seems especially relevant to these two commandments - or promises - about our relationship with God, and therefore with each other.


God never tempts us to "kill" the pure - unadulterated - sense of ourselves or of others any more than He would tempt us to literally kill ourselves or someone else.

God is Life. His assurance to us is: "I am come that [you] might have life, and that [you] might have it more abundantly." And this abundant Life includes no adulteration and no murder.

Why? because God is Life itself - and you are God's image and likeness.

Think of it:

* God made you inately and completely pure, like Him. God never leads you to be tempted into adulterating that purity.

* And God made you to live and live abundantly, like Him. You are not made to be tempted into murdering that joyous Life, whether with harsh words or a bullet - either yours or anyone else's.

God feeds your famished affections - not your famished lusts - and He feeds you with grace, abundant grace, for today.

God forgives your debts, your mistakes, your willfulness, as you live your practice, as you live His Love and share it with others.

God leads you into "paths of righteousness for His name's sake" and delivers you from sin, disease, and death - because God is love. And "when we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ's."

God leads you - not into trials - but delivers you from the trial of sin, the trial of sickness, the trial of death - and even from the temptation to believe those "trials" are any part of His will or His reality for you. Because they aren't.

Jesus knew this. And Jesus repeatedly proved that God doesn't send us evil by healing everyone he encountered of sin, disease, or even death! And his prayer affirms this: God never leads you into trials and tempations, but always delivers you from every belief of evil, every tempting sense of separation from your true authentic healthy whole and holy being.

Every time you pray the Lord's Prayer, you are praying the spiritual Truth that Jesus actually thought and understood. You are dwelling with the Mind of Christ. You are living at the point of Truth, Life, and Love. You are experiencing God's reality: home & heaven. Here. Now.

And as Jesus' Prayer shows you, you are already purely whole, holy, and safe.

Riff on "And lead us...deliver us..."

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death."

And God does not lead us into:

...unwillingness to work, failure to work, and unemployment - because Principle delivers us into creative purpose;
...disbelief, ignorance, and unconsciousness - because Mind delivers us into intelligent being;
...ridicule, contempt, and ingratitude - because Soul delivers us into deepest bliss;
...restriction, limitation, and materiality - because Spirit delivers us into limitless ability;
...idleness, weakness, and death - because Life delivers us into enduring joy;
...cheating, deception, and corruption - because Truth delivers us genuine reality;
...disobedience, apathy, and hatred - because Love always, always delivers us into wholeness and holiness: Love-reflected-in-love!

"And lead us... And deliver us..."

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

And God leads us...

Just stop for a minute and think about what that means.

God leads us. He's there in front showing us the way, the Good Shepherd guiding and guarding, His staff and rod at hand to comfort and to correct. His watchful eye always and only looking out for your welfare, leading you out of the dream of trials and tempatations - whatever would cause you to stray from Him - to think that you are separated, or ever could be separated, from Him.

And God delivers us...

Think: God actively, purposefully, delivers us from every evil - every lie - about our true nature, our true will, our true identity. God delivers you from whatever would cause you to stray from your true purpose, weaken your true calling, or try to kill off your true likeness to Him.

He delivers you from sin: the mistake of thinking that you can enjoy a lie.
He delivers you from sickness: the mistake of thinking that you can suffer from a lie.
He delivers you from death: the mistake of thinking that a lie can be fatal!

Jesus called Satan - evil - "a liar." A liar would trick you into believing his lie is actually the truth. But it never is. It never has any power. It can only "suggest" its lie. And therefore, it can only seem to be true (i.e., real) if you believe the lie!

But in this verse of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus awakens you to understand that you never have to be tempted to believe evil's lie. Never. Instead Jesus awakens you to the fact that God only ever leads you to, delivers you to, Truth.

And Truth is the antidote - the cure - for every lie. Truth always exposes the lie for what it is. Truth, understood, immediately annihilates the "power" of any lie, no matter how big and scary the lie seems to be - whether it calls itself sin, sickness, or death. It is still just a lie. Without power. Without reality. Without effect. Why? because sin, sickness, and death are evil. They are never from God. And so they can never survive exposure to God's Truth any more than the night can survive the sunrise.

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
And God never leads us into the temptation to believe in - or experience - any evil, any "lie," but already - right now - truly delivers us wholy, holy, healthfully, blissfully, vigorously, at-one with Life!