“Pray for Protection” The Battle Plan: Week 4 (Matthew 6:13)

Amen. If you have a Bible this morning, of course I pray that you bring it with you every week, let’s turn in it to Matthew chapter six. Matthew chapter six, one more week in the Lord’s Prayer. We’re going to be looking at verse 13. If you know me at all, you probably know that I love the outdoors, and it doesn’t really matter what we’re doing outdoors except, I guess, work would classify on the bottom, but I even like to do that outside. I love to go hunting, I love to go fishing, I love to go hiking, and sometimes I just love being out, like a day like today, just out in the sun, just soaking up the rays that God has provided for us.

I have many friends that think the same way that I do. I have this one friend named Paul, and we love to do outdoors things together. One crazy year, about 2012, we thought, “Let’s go hiking together, as our families are taking a vacation together to Colorado, and let’s go hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park, and we’re going to enter into Estes Park, and we’ll try to do three peaks in one trip.” Okay, it’s a pretty big accomplishment, but we thought we’d give it a shot. So we plan it out, we put it on the map, we pack our packs, we get the right boots, we get the pulls, we do all of that, and here we go. We enter into the woods, and day one, we get so far, didn’t do any peaks.

And we said, “Okay, we’re going to get a good night’s rest, we’re going to camp out here, we’re going to wake up early and hit three peaks in one day.” So that’s what we did. We woke up early, no bears got our food, everything was great, and we take off before daylight. And here we come to Flat Top Mountain, just a little over 12,000 feet, and by the time we got to the top, we’re like, “I don’t know if I want to do two or three,” right? “One may be good.” But we caught our breath, it was beautiful at that particular spot, and we say, “You know what? We can do at least one more.”

So we see Hallett Peak off in the distance, and we say, “It’s a little taller, but I think we can do it.” It was miles and miles away, and it got harder and harder the closer we approached, and the last few hundred feet was all rock. We’re just climbing and climbing, and we get to the top, and we’re exhausted, and I want to show you some pictures here. As we looked over the Continental Divide … We’re still breathing pretty heavy, right here, we’re just smiling. It’s fake. We’re like, *heavy breathing* Smile, here comes the camera. We said, “You know what? It’s worth it.” It was beautiful, it was fantastic. But we also said, “Three peaks? I don’t think so.” We were completely wiped out.

So then we started thinking, “Okay, this is beautiful and all, but we want to get back home to the ladies and the children. What’s the quickest way down?” And about that time, before we start looking for the trail, the long road down, there’s these college students. And they swing by, and they said, “Hey, some of our friends have told us that there’s a glacier on the back side of Hallett Peak, and what you can do … I know it’s May, but it’s going to still be snow and all that. You can slide down the glacier to get to the bottom.” We’re like, “We’re just tired enough to try it.” So we walk up to this glacier, sure enough, although the valley looks nice and dry, there’s still snow.

But here’s the problem. As I’m looking past Paul, what I’m looking at through the lens of the camera is like, okay, I can see where the snow stops, but how far does it go? Turns out, at the bottom of that glacier was this beautiful lake. And so I kind of scoot up on my hiney. We were planning to take off our rain gear and slide down on it, but … And I get to the edge, and sure enough, it’s kind of like a black, right? If you’ve ever been skiing, you got green, you got blue, you got black. It wasn’t like a double black diamond, but it was like a black. It was like, “I can slide down here on my hiney no problem.”

So I take off my jacket, I put it on, and here we go. And I have a picture of the long slide. Now, that’s my buddy. That’s not a speck on the lens, that’s him at the very, very top. And so we slide all the way down. We both just have a great time doing it. We’re screaming. I have a video I don’t want to show you, we’re like, “Woo!” We get up, we high-five, and we head back towards the trail. But we turn around, and we see this. At the bottom of that glacier was this lake that’s beautiful, but you notice what’s at the end of the glacier? Yeah, the snow. What does it do? It caves down. We didn’t see that. And actually, you have air between where we were sliding in the snow and the lake. If we would’ve gone like six feet further, we would’ve been right there and fallen into the lake. We were sliding down this mountain with smiles on our faces, not knowing the danger that was below us.

Here’s the point: Matthew chapter six. Many of you right now, some of you have smiles on your faces, some of you don’t, you’re sliding through life unaware of the spiritual dangers that are waiting for you just a few feet, in life, in front of you. The spiritual dangers, in fact that surround you right now. Church, what I’m talking about, what Jesus is trying to make you aware of in Matthew 6:13 is something called “spiritual warfare.” Your enemy, his name is Satan. He has put out snares, and pitfalls, and traps, and every other analogy you can use of, that he wants to set out before you, and he wants to use them for your destruction.

Now, I know what’s going on, and most of the audience right now, when I start talking about spiritual warfare. Well, usually we don’t talk about it in Baptist churches because we’re so polarized on the issue. There’s some of you, right now, that are rolling your eyes. I can see you right now. “Oh, here we go. The spiritual warfare crazy guy, here he comes. Next thing you know, we’re going to be talking about the Devil, and Hell, and demons, and how they’re out to get you.” And you don’t even think it’s real, so you cast it off. You got problems because there is a realm that’s now, but you can’t see it, that’s all around you, that it’s surrounding you, where Satan and demons are fighting for your soul.

Maybe not for eternity, if you’re saved, but they are trying to throw you off track and distract you. This is just the reality. But the reason some of us don’t think about it because then there’s the other side. I want to try to get us somewhere in the middle this morning, by the way. On the other side of this conversation are most of those who realize that the spiritual warfare battle that we’re in is real. But they get all crazy, right? They start going like Dungeons & Dragons stuff, and that’s all they want to talk about. And what happens is sometimes those on the other extreme, that are too into the spiritual warfare, it’s off-putting because they try to absolve themselves of any human responsibility.

Anything that’s bad, or any trouble that they’ve ever had, is not their fault. It’s whose fault? Satan’s fault. Well, that’s not where we want to be either. We’re going to be somewhere in the middle, where you’re aware that there’s Satan, and a Hell, and demons, and a spiritual battle going on, but it’s not all that consumes you. This is a daily prayer, where Jesus wants you to know that you have an enemy, his name is Satan, and he’s setting up pitfalls for you. That’s why he says here, in Matthew 6:13, what does he say? “Deliver us from evil, and lead us not into temptation,” or “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” or the Evil One.

This is the reason that Paul wrote Ephesians 6:11 and 12. Look what he says here. Because there’s this spiritual battle that’s occurring, because Satan is your enemy, because there are these temptations, these pitfalls that are waiting for you to fall in, he says, “Put on the full armor of God.” Not just once, but daily, just like this model prayer is daily to happen. “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes,” of who?

The Devil. The Devil’s real. Satan is real. He’s in dominion over this earth. He wants to mess you up.

Verse 12, Paul clarifies it, just in case there’s some confusion. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood.” Now, you may have someone in front of you, that you think, “Okay, they’re my enemy.” But behind them, the power, the evil behind them, is not flesh and blood. But against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Church, as Christians, we must realize that not only are we in a spiritual battle, that our enemy, his name is Satan, and he wants to destroy you.

What I want to help you with today, is I want to equip you with this reality. I want you to own this reality. Then I want to equip you so that you’re able to fight this battle against your enemy, the Devil, to avoid these traps, these snares, these pitfalls that he’s set up before you. And how you do this is through prayer every single day. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This will be our final message on the Lord’s Prayer as we’re putting together a battle plan. And with this final piece, this model prayer, if you would commit to putting your life inside of this model prayer, God will help you to have a battle plan so that as we come together next week, and we kick off our 35 days of prayer together as a church, you’ll have this battle plan to enter into your prayer closet, to fight this daily battle with Satan and start winning.

Let’s stand together as we read Matthew 6, verses 9 through 13, and we’ll focus on verse 13. You can read it with me because I know that you know it. “Pray, then, in this way: Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” Please be seated. This is the Lord’s model prayer.

Today, when you pray, I want you to pray for protection against temptation and Satan, and then I also want to teach you at the end, how to end your prayer with glorious praise. A worthwhile task, let’s get started. Let’s start with praying for protection against temptation and against Satan. Let’s start here with temptation. This is basically a prayer that is making you aware or shining the light on these pitfalls that Satan wants you to fall into, in which you fall into sin. Some of these spiritual dangers that are all around you can be defeated by you simply not ignoring them any longer.

For many of you, the greatest battle that you can start fighting and winning today is just the reality that these pitfalls are there. Many of you ignore them. You think, “I’m not the one who’s going to be tempted.” Or you do one step worse: “Satan’s not real. He’s some mythical figure that we made up to obey, so preachers can make us obey the Lord.” Or if you do believe that Satan is real, I know how you probably picture him: as this red devil with horns and a pitchfork, right? No, no. You need to start picturing Satan for who he is: a beautiful angel, mighty, powerful creature that is the master liar and the master manipulator.

What I want you to see today, church, is that Satan would much rather manipulate you into sin than for you to star in his next horror film. Most of you think of Satan as this big creature with these fangs, that is out to destroy you like some horror movie that you watched last week. Satan, yes, he loves evil, and he loves fear, and he loves destruction, but I’ll tell you what he’s good at. He’s good at manipulating you into sin. This is Satan. He doesn’t want to scare you into sin; he wants to draw you into sin. You’re much more likely to be led into sin by manipulation than to be scared into it.

Now, to better help you understand this, I want to talk to husbands for a second. Wives are like, “Finally. You called my husband ‘The Devil.” No, no, I’m not going there. But because, as married men, we’re master manipulators. I want to kind of give you a scenario to better help you understand Satan. Guys, if you’re married, let’s say that you want to get something from your wife. Let’s keep it clean for a second, but let’s say that you want to get a weekend away with the boys, right? You want to have a guys’ weekend out. You want to go hunting; you want to go fishing, you want to go hiking, you want to do whatever. Or let’s say you want to get that new toy that you’ve been wanting. And yes, you should run it by your wife. Don’t hide it, and don’t have your own special little account. You need to be open and honest. Let’s just assume that. But maybe it’s the gun, or for me, it’s the knife, or maybe it’s the whatever toy you want to get to float your boat.

How are you more likely to convince your wife to let you get that, or let you to go with the boys? Is it A, by bringing her flowers, buying her candy, buttering her up, doing the dishes, giving her a spa day? Or standing outside the shower so that when she steps out the door, you got a ski mask on and a chainsaw? I’m going to tell you; fear will not cause her to give in to you. And I hate just to say it out loud, but manipulating her is going to get her to be much more likely to give in to you. Now, I’m not saying manipulate your wives. I’m just using it as an illustration of something that I know that you already do.

And again, I hate to keep relating husbands to Satan, but this is how Satan is. Satan knows he can get you a lot sooner and a lot further into his plan by manipulating you instead of scaring you. Start seeing Satan for who he is: the one who is laying the pitfalls down, covering it with camouflage, and luring you into it so that you fall into sin, so that then, he can control you. Not only do some of you misview Satan, and so, therefore, you’re more likely to fall into his pitfalls, but some of you, he’s convinced you’re that person that’s just not tempted. Right? I’m just not tempted by Satan into sin. I’ll tell you what you’re doing right now. You’re walking through a minefield in Afghanistan in the black of night without a flashlight.

If you think that temptation can’t touch you, it’s coming for you. If you think you can’t fall, I’m the one person that can’t fall into this temptation of sin, or this pitfall of sin, oh, you’re blind, and you’re about to fall into one very soon. What a prayer like this does, when you’re consistent with it every day, Lord, lead me not into temptation. You’re asking him to make those pitfalls aware to you. It’s basically like Jesus turning the lights onto the temptation that has waited for you to fall into sin. Some people would say, “Well, doesn’t that mean, if God’s not going to lead me into temptation, that God can tempt me into sin?” No, no, no. That’s a wrong view of Scripture.

God does not tempt anyone into sin. God does not want you to fail. God does not want you to fall into sin. That’s Satan’s job. Go back and read James chapter one, verses one and two. Now, God may test you to purify the faith in you and to make it stronger. Satan is the one who wants you to be tempted into sin so that he can control you through it. Now, I will say this: Although God doesn’t want to tempt you into sin, that is Satan’s job, God knows you’re going to be tempted. This is not a prayer to ask God to remove all temptation from your life. That’s impossible. There will always be temptation in your life. What God wants you to do is to be like Jesus. To walk through this world, and what does Hebrews chapter four say? Like Christ, he was tempted by Satan in every way, just as we were, yet was what? Without sin.

God knows that temptation is there waiting for you. He simply wants to turn the light onto the trap, so that you can see it and avoid it. See, by being tempted, and yet not fall into sin; it builds character qualities that God wants in you, like the character quality of endurance. The character quality of dependence on Him. The character quality, according to Romans chapter five, of perseverance. So a prayer like this will help you not avoid temptation, but to better not fall into sin through temptation. But he goes on, not only to show me the temptation, that’s what your prayer should be, but also deliver me from evil. Literally, this could be translated, “Deliver me from the Evil One.” Sometimes your prayer is to avoid falling into sin, and then sometimes your prayer needs to be, “God, I need you to fight my battle against Satan for me.”

Church, if you do not believe Satan is on the prowl to destroy you, you’re simply mistaken. And here’s probably the main idea that I want you to get from this text. Whether it be temptation, to fall into sin, or having God fight Satan for you, I want you to see that you cannot do it on your own. Notice the prayer: Lead me not into temptation. Who’s doing the work there? God, you’re simply following. Notice what it says here: Deliver me, or deliver from the Evil One. If you try just to be strong enough to avoid temptation on your own, you’re going to fall into it. You need God fighting for you, to show you. If you think, mistakenly, that you can stand toe to toe with Satan, he will knock your teeth in every single time. You cannot defeat Satan on your own.

God has to do it for you and through you. This is not a prayer of self-reliance at any part. This is a prayer of total Christ dependence, and that’s why I will tell you again, for maybe the hundredth time: Prayer is a gospel issue. Because what you say in this prayer, at this point, about God showing you the temptation, about God fighting Satan for you, is really the base idea of the gospel. See, the gospel is not you earning God’s favor. The gospel is not you earning God’s forgiveness. The gospel is relying on Christ, who earned God’s favor and your forgiveness for you when he absorbed God’s wrath as your substitute on the cross.

It’s not you who says, “God, I’m reserving my seat in heaven.” No, you can’t do it. It’s you depending on Christ, who reserved your seat, your house, your place for you. Church, if you get nothing else out of this prayer, know that you cannot do it on your own. You need outside help. It’s a daily prayer, so you daily depend on God, and not your own ability to fight temptation. You daily rely on God to fight Satan, not your ability to fight the Evil One on your own. Say, “Pastor, okay, I’m starting to get this. This is good. I need to rely on God to show me the temptation, so I don’t fall into it. I need to rely on God to fight Satan on my behalf. But what does this look like in my daily life?” I’m glad you asked. I’m going to walk you through it.

Let’s say you’re consistently praying that God delivers you from the Evil One. You might not even know that He’s doing it. God might go before you and deliver you from the plan of Satan that day, and you not even be aware of it. But some of you are getting your tail whupped every day by Satan because you who do not ask, do not have. Because you’re not daily praying this prayer, you might be trying to fight Satan on your own, a battle, if you’re trying to do it, of which you’re losing. Not only that, more often than not, God will use this prayer to equip you, when you insert your temptation to this section of the prayer.

That’s why I call it “the model prayer.” This is not for you just to repeat these words, right? “God, lead me not into temptation, deliver me from evil.” That’s not going to do it. No, insert your temptation into this prayer, to be delivered from that particular temptation. For example, let’s say you struggle with lust. Let’s get personal for a second. It may be a prayer like, “Lord, turn my eyes from evil and lustful things that I see walking before me or I see on the screen, on my phone, or on my computer.” That’s a real prayer, if you struggle with lust, because that’s where lust is: It’s all around you, it’s on your screens, it’s walking out before you. And God might answer that prayer by helping you see the pitfall that lust is.

For example, if you consistently pray this prayer, and you’re struggling against lust, you’re like, “Lord, deliver me from the temptation of lust,” he might help you see that image on the screen the way you should’ve always seen it. I’m going to talk to guys for just a second. Women, you may struggle here, too, but guys, let me just kind of hone in for a second. God might help you, if you’re consistent in this prayer against the temptation of lust, God might help you see that woman as not an object of your selfish gratification, but as a woman who’s somebody’s daughter, a girl that’s somebody’s sister. She’s not there for your selfish sexual fulfillment; she’s on this planet to be respected. Your response might be, “Well, she put herself into that situation. She’s getting paid good money to do it.” Don’t buy that lie. It’s a fraction of a percent of the children and the women that are in the pornography industry that make the serious money.

You might go to that pornographic film, a “Fifty Shades” of nonsense, and those actors might be getting paid some money, but a vast majority of the women and children in the pornography industry are there because they feel like they have to be. They were groomed for that position as a child, they were told lies as a child, and they find themselves there because of financial burden. And what God may allow you to see, for the very first time, is this broken young woman who is pleading for help through her depravity. And for the first time, instead of seeing it as a sexual satisfaction, you’ll have a disgust in your eye. But you may never feel that feeling if you don’t pray, “Lord, lead me not into the temptation of lust.” Because you’re trying to fight it on your own.

Okay, we rabbit trailed there, but it’s a serious one. For you, it might not be lust. It might be greed. Same prayer. “Lead me not into the temptation of just going to work to be greedy.” For you, it might be pride. If you’re sitting there right now, thinking, “Well, this doesn’t apply to me because I don’t really have a temptation,” put pride there, like I told you last week. Because all of you have these pitfalls that Satan is customizing just for you. None of you are absolved from this temptation idea. Maybe for you, it’s a negative attitude, and so your prayer needs to be, “Lord, show me how dissension and negativity is not positive in my world today. Show me that it’s the poison that I know You see it as.” This can happen in your home, as you’re having a conversation with friends or family members. Oh, yes, it might even happen at church.

So your prayer, “Lord, deliver me from the temptation of always being negative and divisive.” Therefore, when you enter into that conversation, and the temptation to gossip and to be negative comes up, God will help you to see: Keep it to yourself. Or go to the person that you have the problem with, instead of being negative and sharing the gossip. I don’t know where your temptation is, but I know where mine is, and I’m pleading with you, put it in this section of your prayer time, and do it every day because you need to see these traps that Satan has set out before you. Or otherwise, you’re just going to keep falling into it. “Lord, deliver me from this temptation. Lead me not into it, and also, fight Satan on my behalf.”

But before we leave here today, we also need to see this prayer in the context that the victory is already won. Therefore, we can say this doxology at the end in verse 13, “with joy.” I want to help you this morning, not only to pray for protection against temptation, pray for protection against the Evil One, but I also want to help you end your prayer with glorious praise. From the bottom of your heart, to truly to be able to say, “Yours is the kingdom. I don’t want my kingdom anymore. Yours is the power in which you accomplish it, and Yours is the glory forever and ever, amen.”

Now, as I say this, this doxology, this response to this prayer, some of you are looking in your Bibles going, “Wait a second, Pastor. That’s not in mine. I grew up memorizing the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever and ever, amen.’ But why isn’t it in my Bible?” Here’s why. Or even if it is in your Bible, it’s probably in brackets, because most scholars believe that this is not a part of the original prayer that Jesus gave us as the model. It’s not in the earliest of Greek manuscripts, nor is it even commented on by old church fathers, the first of them, like Tertullian, Origen, or even Cyprian. But that does not mean that this doxology, or this response, isn’t biblical, and it also doesn’t mean that it’s not helpful, because it is.

After you finish praying this prayer, the reason it was likely inserted is because of all the awesome you feel after bringing this prayer to God, and your natural response is to give Him glory. And in fact, this doxology, or this natural response, was probably taken from a biblical passage. Look with me at 1 Chronicles 29:11, and see if you don’t recognize these words in the Lord’s Prayer. This is David. He says, “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness.” He could’ve easily said, “The kingdom.” “And the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.” Look at verse 13: “Now, therefore, O God, we thank You, and praise Your glorious name.”
This is a doxology. This is David being overwhelmed by the glory of God, and just giving the praises back to Him. Notice the context of 1 Chronicles 29, first, second. This is David just finishing what we might call a capital fun campaign, or maybe let’s make it a little bit more personal. He just finished a building the future funding initiative, except his building, was the temple. Remember, David wasn’t the one that was allowed to build the temple, but what? He collected the money for the temple and all the supplies, and his son, Solomon, built the temple. And David here is praising God through prayer because God allowed him to participate in this great task.

You can do the same thing, and it would be totally appropriate, at the end of your model prayer. To have a time where you glorify God because of what He is doing, and just because of who He is, and you proclaim His kingdom, by His power, for His glory, and you say, “I praise Your name forever and ever and ever, amen.” It’s totally appropriate, but don’t just be a mindless robot saying these words. Let it be a true expression and a reflection of the prayer that you just prayed. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to end like this, if you start in verse 9 and 10, you think about how awesome he is as a personal, powerful, and a God who is worthy of praise.

Why wouldn’t you end your prayer like this when you have all of these things that you want to see His will accomplished in? Why wouldn’t you praise Him like this, as you’ve thought of all these things that you can seek forgiveness on, and he forgives you every time? All these people that he wants you to forgive, as I forgive those who’ve sinned against me. Why wouldn’t you end your praise like this, after a reflection on the reality that He is delivering you from temptation and delivering you from the Evil One? It’s a natural thing to put into your prayer.

Church, there it is the model prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. And what a wonderful outline it is. I’m going to ask you now, this week, to formulate this in your own life as some model that you pour your life into, so that next week, you can take this battle plan and fight Satan daily, in your prayer closet, as a whole church together. Because next week’s the week where, if you come, and you say, “Yes, I’ll take it,” we’re going to give each and every one of you a copy of a book called, “The Battle Plan for Prayer.” And we’re going to do this together, as a church. I pray that there would be nobody that says, “No, I don’t want to participate.” I pray that everybody will take a book.

Now if you’re a couple, just take one book if you’re going to do it together. Or if you’re a couple and you spend some time apart, take two. We don’t care. Take whatever you need, and then let’s commit to take a prayer like this and pray together every single day for 35 days. Now we’re asking you, in addition, to just saying a prayer, to have five requests. It’s just a number; you can have six, you can have seven, 30’s probably not going to work out for 35 days, but come up with a number. As a couple, this week, finalize your own list and then bring it together to create five or more, and if you’re doing this as just an individual, do the same thing. But wouldn’t it be neat if your five requests, your six requests, your seven requests, came from ideas that you got from God after studying the model prayer?

For example, in verses 9 and 10. What if one of your spots was reserved for just praising God for who He is? For just saying, “Hallowed be Thy name.” But be specific: “Hallowed be Your name for the creation that we get to enjoy.” “Hallowed be Your name.” Just think of an idea and reserve a spot for that. Wouldn’t that be neat? You might want to reserve two or three spots for areas in your life where you want to see God’s will be done in. Or if you move down the prayer, what if number four was always a sin that you needed to seek God in forgiveness over, so that your relationship could be restored, because that sin has caused a separation? It may be spot number four, but you may have one confession, and the next week erase it and put another sin in there, and another sin in there, and another sin in there. What if what would …

Just reserve a spot for confessing your sins to the Lord, as he tells us to do in 11 and 12. Some of you’ve already told me that God has given you a name of somebody who you’ve yet to forgive, that God wants you to offer forgiveness to. What if spot number five was that name? What if spot number five held that name until you truly could forgive them because of what Christ has paid for them? And then the next week, you erase that name and put another one in there. What if, at the end of this 35-day prayer challenge, you have forgiven one, two, five, or even six or seven friends or family members that you’ve been harboring bitterness towards? That right there would be a victory on its own.

Or maybe for you, a spot needs to be reserved for a temptation. Maybe there’s a temptation of lust, or greed, or pride, or negativity; I don’t know. Put it on there. Create your five requests based off the model that Christ has given you for His glory, and see if He does not honor it. Next week we’re going to start. Also next week, I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to kind of pull out of the Lord’s Prayer, and I’m going to give you one more example, Psalm 23, of a passage of Scripture that you can pray over your life, and I’m going to show you how you can insert yourself not only in the Lord’s Prayer, which is the best spot. This can be your lifelong prayer, but on occasion, I’m going to show you how you can insert yourself into passages like another prayer like Psalm 23.

Church, here’s the reality: All of you, like me, are sliding through life. Be aware of the pitfalls that are waiting for you. Ask God to defeat Satan on your behalf. Make this a regular part of your life, and just watch what He does.