Jesus, help me show my friend that they are now asking God to take leadership in their life. They are asking Him to not lead them into things that would cause them to sin. But, since God is a good God, help me be able to explain why they would need to ask Him to not lead them in the direction of temptation.

Jesus, help me teach my friend that there are two ways for them to learn life lessons. The best way is for them to give God permission to teach them the things they need to know without them having to learn them the hard way. But, if my friend is pretty hard headed, help me explain that they may have to learn some things by going out and committing sins and paying the consequences. Help me teach them that through God’s leadership, He will ALLOW them to go into temptation so they can learn, not so they can be destroyed by it.

Jesus, help me teach them that God wants them to have a teachable attitude so He can just tell them things. He would like for them to take His new training information and start praying and asking for the power to be able to get it into their lives. But, if they just can’t learn certain things the easy way, help me pray for them that God will not allow them to go into temptation that will destroy them.

Jesus, empower me to teach my friend that God has committed Himself to honoring their decisions. He is determined to maintain their freedom of will. So, He will allows them to take themselves into a tough situation where the temptations to sin and do wrong are strong. Help me teach them that God, Himself, will never tempt them to sin; however, He will allow them to go their own way for a time. During this time, they will experience what it is like to start running their own life again. Help me show them that it helps them see how important it is for them to allow God to do His will in their earthly life like it is done in heaven.

Jesus, help me use the example that helps them see that God wants to completely deliver them from the sins of life. Let my friend and I suppose for a moment that God provides them with the principles and the power to stay away from certain things that are the root causes of these failures in life. But, let us suppose that they decide to go ahead and involve themselves in those root causes anyway. Even though they know better, instead of praying and asking God to help them make the right decision, they go ahead on their own strength and expose themselves to things that bring the mistakes, failures, and sins of life back.

Jesus, help me take this example further and illustrate that while still under God’s leadership, my friend can be allowed by God to experience old temptations. Because of their lack of a teachable attitude, they will be allowed to experience the root causes of the sins of life that they are having the most difficulties with. God would rather that they just learn how to avoid these temptations through prayer. But, since they CHOSE to learn this lesson the hard way, God’s leadership allows them to enter into temptation. But, help me teach them that all during this time, God is controlling the circumstances and leading them away from anything that could destroy them. But, He will allow them to experience enough for them to learn from it.

Jesus, help me teach my friend that in this example they could have prayed and asked God to “lead them not into temptation;” and He would have protected them. Help me make it clear to them that this request will always be available for them to use; but, it must be used on a case by case basis. Help me teach them that when they find themselves being faced with the “opportunity” to get involved in things that cause them to go back to having struggles with the sins of life, they need to pray this prayer and it will save them a lot of pain.

Jesus, help me teach my friend that the temptation to do the wrong or evil thing is strong inside them. Help them understand that addictive pleasure comes their way, when they yield to temptation. They get pleasure from simple things such as talking about someone or bawling them out. It is hard to explain why humans get pleasure out of hurting people’s reputations or feelings. But, help me make it clear to them that it can all be traced back to the spiritual disease of sin. The sin disease pushes them toward making themselves look good at other’s expense. Help me show them that other sins involve them in hurting themselves.

Jesus, help me also show them that drug and alcohol abuse can tear away at their body and brain. Help me show them why they sin against their body and hurt their own life. Let them see that Satan is willing to give them extreme pleasure that exceeds the normal pleasures humans typically get. Then once they experience this extreme pleasure, it has a tendency to addict them and force them to repeat the process for the rest of their lives.

Jesus, help me show my friend that they need this prayer to help keep them from hurting themselves and others. Help me find out if my friend is ready to be set free from yielding to these and other temptations to hurt themselves and those around them. If they are, then let me have them pray this portion of this prayer. Let me have them say: “Lead me not into temptation.” Then let me have them say: “Lead us not into temptation.”