Luke 11:4 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 11:4

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‘Forgive us our sins.’ That is the greatest need we have, forgiveness. ‘And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.’ Our greatest need of all is the forgiveness of Almighty God. Without that, we are eternally lost. Without that, we can have no continuing blessing from the everlasting Father. Our second greatest need, if one can even make an order, is for spiritual life. We need his forgiveness and we need to be brought to life spiritually so that our souls function on a spiritual plane or level. We desperately need to be insiders in the kingdom of God. Before we are converted, we are shut out; we are alienated from God; we do not belong to him. His favour is not upon us, and we desperately need forgiveness and spiritual life so that we can be brought to being insiders in God's family, in spiritual experience, under the blessing of God. These are the greatest needs and we do not pray for them as we should do. ‘And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.’ Christ makes clear that if we come to him, we become engaged in a battle against sin, and we must prevail in that battle by his help. We know what it is to be tempted before we are converted, but our efforts to resist temptation are limited and half-hearted. In many areas of life we have ceased to put up any resistance at all. When we come to Christ we must desire to put sin to death once and for all. We must count the cost of losing those sins that were once so dear to us. The new nature which God gives us when we come to Christ is a nature that hates sin. But the old nature is still there in the believer and it loves sin, and a battle commences within us, a battle of desires. Satan will begin to assault us with temptation to bring us back under his control, and we must fight temptation, and ask God to deliver us from our old lusts.

Application

You cannot pray until you want the forgiveness of the Father, until you want him to pardon you. When you really mean that, he will forgive you, says the Lord Jesus. I come to God and I begin to realize there's a great gulf between me and the Lord. There's a great gulf, because I am spiritually dead because of all the sins I have committed in my life, because of my uncleanness, because of my pride and my dishonesty. I realize how much I need the pardon and the forgiveness of the Lord, and I come and ask for God to be merciful to me. I have to do that and I have to mean it, otherwise I cannot draw near to God.

These are the only terms on which he will deal with me. If, before we are converted, we ask the question, ‘Oh God, how shall I come to thee? How shall I pray?’ This is the very answer that God gives. Desire that he will be your Father and that you will have a relationship with him, so that he will lead you and guide you and you will become his child. Reverence him. Desire to be a member of his kingdom and to identify with that and to know its blessings. Desire that it will come into your own life and into your own heart, and that you will be converted. Desire to do his will and say, ‘Oh Lord, I leave behind my life of rebellion’, and then desire all your blessings from him: conversion, strength, help, and most of all, the forgiveness of all your sin. That's how you pray. It is really very simple. The Lord Jesus mentions in this prayer all the things we should be desiring in order truly to come to God.

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Luke 11:4 Commentary and Bible Study