The cry of the Seventh Petition is, “Deliver us from evil!” Our God does this in a few ways. There is the general protection and providence that supplies for his children. However, for this post I want to focus on how God delivers us from evil that is already in our lives. In other words – God has given you lemons. How does he empower us to make lemonade?
Consider someone diseased. Let’s use cancer as an example. What good could there possible be from the evil of this disease that ravages the body of a loved one? Just to be clear – what makes some of this a challenge is that these are personal, emotional examples. It’s easy to say that there is good that can come out of cancer in the abstract, but when it’s your child, all of the abstraction melts away. It’s all too real.
So jump into the hospital bed. Far too many of you know what it feels like to be stricken with cancer. Even more know of a loved on who is fighting that battle with this terrible disease? Have you seen the good that God could bring?
For starters I think it’s important to remember that this is not a curse. Jesus was the lightning rod for God’s wrath. As he hung on the cross he punished all the torment of hell for us. There is nothing left for us to do. The debt that we owed to God has been paid in full by Jesus our Savior. So that means even cancer isn’t a punishment for the Christian. Somehow, our almighty God will make it a blessing.
One way that cancer is a blessing is because in general, the disease progresses slowly. Folks have an opportunity to make peace with loved ones and their God.
Want to hear more? Watch this week’s Bible study, The Seventh Petition, from our series on the Lord’s Prayer.