It does not take much scanning through the news or around our communities to hear about both natural evil and moral evil. Natural evil is generally that which is not caused by human actions directly. Things like storms, earthquakes, tornadoes and other disaster type events are called natural evil. Moral evil is where people make choices that inflict harm and suffering on others. Some examples are those who break the law, commit crimes against people and place others in harm’s way.
Since my premise is that this prayer (the Lord’s Prayer) is forged from Jesus’ temptation experience recorded in Matthew 4:1-11, I believe that Jesus was rescued from the temptations through the Word of God. Three times Satan tempted Jesus to act on His own accord to prove He was the Son of God and receive those He came to save. Each time Jesus responds to the temptation with quoting God’s Word from the Old Testament and rebuking Satan’s attempts to lure Jesus into making choices outside of God’s purpose and design.
Think on Jesus’ responses: “It is written….”
- “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (4:4)
- “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” (4:7)
- “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.” (4:10)
Notice how each of these responses build a spiritual infrastructure that provides us with His design: God’s Word is indispensable for life; we should never test God; He alone is worthy of our praise, worship, and service.
Herein lies the foundation of our relationship with Him. If we want to know God’s will for our lives it is bound in the pages of Scripture. His Spirit is our teacher, mentor, and leader and He will continually keep imprinting the truth and wisdom of God’s Word into those lives that are humble enough to receive it and apply their lives to it.
Secondly, we may have questions for God but we are not to test God. Doing things that force God to prove His existence, faithfulness and truthfulness to His Word is dangerous. It would be like a five your old telling the parent they must prove their faithfulness and character to be good parent. Unfortunately Israel is the typical example of what not to do. They complained and argued and were upset at God for the way He was working. God is one who loves us, brought us into His family, and cares for us as a Father cares for his children. Even when times are difficult, we must trust His wisdom and way of doing things.
Finally, God alone is the one we are to worship and serve. There must be nothing that we allow to compromise our relationship with Him. The hard part is that we can never evaluate properly the implications of how we often ignore His Word to indulge our desires to do what we want instead of worshiping and serving Him.
All this to say that God’s Word is critically important for us. If it was good enough for Jesus, it is certainly adequate for us. Peter said in His epistle that, “God has provided everything we need for life and godliness”. His Word is the foundation for that life. If you are neglecting His Word (as a Christian) then you are very vulnerable for evil. By the way, we may find ourselves in harm’s way if we refuse to obey His truth, but we may find ourselves capable to doing evil things in this life if His Word is not the foundation for how we think about life.
Sincerely,
Pastor Brad
