“but deliver us from the evil one.” (NIV)

“but keep us safe from the Evil One.” (Good News)

Liz Nixon writes:

This verse reminds me that we are in a battle – whilst the war has been won and the victory belongs to Jesus, the devil is still fighting with dirty tactics for every scrap of land he can hold onto. The Bible says the devil is the father of all lies and that he comes to steal, kill and destroy. Asking God to deliver us from the evil one is about the moments of making choices that turn me towards life in all its fullness, or away from God and towards the destruction that is wreaked by the devil.

Galatians 6 says exactly this “The one who sows to please his sinful nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit , from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” We clearly have to take responsibility for the choices we make and the direction it results in.

By asking God to keep us safe or deliver us from the evil one, we acknowledge our dependence on God and His protection whilst also playing our part with what we do. From now on when I pray, I will hold at the front of my mind that this is an active battle and ask Him to keep me safe and give me wisdom to make lifegiving choices.

“but deliver us from the evil one.” (NIV)

“but keep us safe from the Evil One.” (Good News)

This week, we are praying along with the Watts family - parents Jen and Rick with children Abbie and Nathan.

Rick writes:

We discussed that when we see the word ‘delivery’ we instantly think of grocery or parcel deliveries. It’s true that particularly grocery deliveries have been like gold dust over the past 12 months, but God’s deliverance is so much more than that.

It’s easy to read this as ‘God, please keep us safe from all the bad people out there’, but what’s interesting is that this phrase comes straight after asking God to help us with temptation. So perhaps this is at least as much about delivering us from doing evil to others than protecting us from everyone else?

Switching back to the shopping analogy, this deliverance isn’t a one-off action, we need to continue to be delivered each day, asking God to help us make the right decisions when we face difficult situations.

“but deliver us from the evil one.” (NIV)

“but keep us safe from the Evil One.” (Good News)

Eoin Rollins writes:

The conclusion of the Lord's Prayer goes along the lines of "deliver us from evil"  depending on your translation. However, this fully conveys the great mission of God in our lives. We are asking him to protect us and to lead us away from darkness. 

This for me leads very well into the way we finish the Lord's Prayer, where we praise His might and glory: “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever, Amen.”

This reminds me of the sheer glory of God’s power, of His presence, and His creation. There is very little you can say that is not already said here. It echoes everything that been said so far, His divinity, His love, and as he leads us from darkness.

I am also reminded of the eternal nature of God. Time seems so short and fleeting for us, but for Him is means something different. Time does not exist for God, he will not tire and grow lax as we may, but rather he is both with us in a deeply personal sense, and with us in the larger world, guiding our actions in accordance to His plan.

We conclude the Lord’s Prayer with "amen", which translates to "God’s will be done", and symbolises going forward to pursue his work, his kingdom and his message. Thank you all for joining us in our interpretation and reflection on the Lord’s Prayer. Amen.

“but deliver us from the evil one.” (NIV)

“but keep us safe from the Evil One.” (Good News)

Dan Green writes:

A little insight into the way conversations in our household can go… today it took all of about 30 seconds for us to go from reading this verse, to exploring what the word ‘deliver’ conjured up in our minds, to discussing Deliveroo cyclists and then into a full on rendition of ‘Did somebody say, did somebody say, did somebody say JUST EEEAATTT’!!

Once we had calmed down a little bit and gathered our thoughts, we decided to think about what the word ‘evil’ conjured up in our minds instead, and thankfully this one didn’t get anyone started on any TV adverts!

Layla said the word immediately brought to mind ways that people are ruining this planet, conjuring up images of trees being chopped down and people being impacted by climate change. Someone else brought up the topic of modern day slavery, which we’ve been learning about through Slave Free Lent (a lent resource run by IJM – we highly recommend it!) and which we all agreed was evil.

As we discussed these ways that others around the world are suffering, and how they must be so much more aware of evil than we are, it made us really aware of just how fortunate we are as a family. But it also made us wonder if this line of the Lord’s Prayer is one that we can pray in solidarity with others, on behalf of humanity?

Our prayer today is: Deliver us from evil Lord, rescue us and set us free from all of the ways that we harm ourselves one another, and all of the ways in which we harm your creation.

“but deliver us from the evil one.” (NIV)

“but keep us safe from the Evil One.” (Good News)

Andrew Kerr writes:

Have you ever been somewhere and it just didn't feel right? Not that it smelt funny or you didn't like the curtains but that deep down your "Spidey sense" (perhaps better called your spiritual discernment) was tingling and you just had to leave? I've had that feeling couple of times before and it's on those occasions that I have been most aware of the spiritual battle that rages.

Thankfully we know what the outcome of the battle is. Jesus died, defeated death, and rose again.

And we know that we have a loving Father who protects us. As Laura reflected, God is a loving Shepherd who protects us like sheep in His fold.

But He's no snoozing shepherd. As Joanna reminded us as we discussed this section, the phrase "deliver" is often used when talking about being rescued in a battle. Being delivered from the enemy when caught in the midst of the chaos. Jesus is a warrior king fighting for us each day. He's the one dangling from a spiritual helicopter (metaphor gone too far?!), jumping down, saving us, and taking our place in the fight.

The battle is won but each day we remain dependent on God to deliver us. Sometimes it's a nudge to save us from ourselves. Sometimes it's a giant swipe at forces unseen. But it's not something we can do without Him. We need to trust God in the fight.

And that is what has struck all of us from the Lord’s Prayer: in order to honestly pray the Lord's Prayer you need to trust God. We need to trust that He will reveal his character more and more. Trust that He will bring creation to look ever more like His kingdom. Trust that He will provide for us. Trust that He has forgiven. Trust that He will guide us and fight for us. Because that's what we're asking Him to do. And by asking we are acknowledging that we can’t do those things and need Him for everything.

Where am I not trusting God and still trying to fight in my own strength?

For those of you who read the Lectio365 app devotionals, last Thursday's words summed it up well with the chorus of Van DeVenter's hymn:

All to Jesus I surrender
All to him I freely give
I will ever love and trust him
In his presence daily live
I surrender all
I surrender all
All to thee, my blessed Saviour
I surrender all

“but deliver us from the evil one.” (NIV)

“but keep us safe from the Evil One.” (Good News)

Bern Leckie writes:

Talk of the devil! We don’t do this very often, in our family at least. Is Jesus prompting us to start?

This was a tricky realisation, to be honest. We’ve spent a lot of time discussing God as our loving Father, the source of our love and so many good things he has given us in his world.

When I think about how “the evil one” is represented, from high art to cartoons, I’m somehow stuck with this ridiculous image of a grinning, fiery-red villain with pointy horns and a pitchfork that any child would know to stay away from if they didn’t want to get stabbed, toasted and laughed at.

Of course, there are more grown-up stories of devilry, but I don’t think Noah is ready for too much darkness, horror or the subtle deceptions of The Usual Suspects’ Keyser Soze, but this character may have been truthful when he said that “the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

Nevertheless, here he is in the prayer Jesus taught us. We can’t pray this meaningfully unless we can describe evil and “the evil one”. How do we do this truthfully, acknowledging the closeness of evil to us without unnecessary frights and unhelpful cartoonification?

After some thought, prayer and discussion, we landed close to where we began Jesus’ prayer, with a reminder of God as our loving Father and what he wants for us.

We reminded Noah of what we have always chosen to want for him. It’s our parenting syllabus, the only things we need Noah to know as he grows up, the things we believe God wants him to know too:

1. How much he is loved (some of which he should see in us, some he will need to see in God)

2. How good he is at loving others when he practises this (and without practice he will never know)

As simple as this sounds, of course, life gets in the way. Lots of things make us feel unloved or unable to love. We can call these out as opposed to what God wants, the opposite of his goodness: evil. Is anything getting in the way of you or your friends knowing they are loved and able to love? God wants to deliver us from that.

Are there people opposed to God and love that we can recognise in the world? It might look like there are many. Jesus only tells us to pray against one, a source of evil, someone we can’t see in just the same way that we can’t see God. That is not any of the people who hurt us, and that’s very important. Our battle is not with people. It is with an enemy only God can defeat. (And the good news is… he has!)

We live in a culture which encourages us to protect ourselves from harm and accept that we might need to do this by firming up our judgements about people, who is right or wrong, good or evil, safe or dangerous, welcomed or cancelled.

But we want to get better at following Jesus, trusting God for protection, believing that his way of life works, and that Jesus’ prayer is effective. We want to keep praying it and growing our faith that we won’t run out of love, food, forgiveness, protection or purpose. I want us to trust God for these increasingly so that his Kingdom will come, and his will be done in Bristol as it is in heaven.