Deliver us from evil

Jesus’ disciples came and asked Him to teach them how to pray resulting in what has become popularly known as the Lord’s prayer in Mathew 6:9-13.

I would like to focus on two key verses for the purposes of this discussion. These are, verses 11 and 13. Verse 11 states “Give us our daily bread” while verse 13 states “deliver us from evil”.

God is our provider, source, sustainer, defender in our life. He is the one who supplies our daily bread. Bread means all that is necessary for our sustenance and livelihood. This bread comes as a result of God opening doors for us in our lives.

There are three ways through which doors are opened. They can be opened through using the right keys. They can also be opened through knocking or they can be opened supernaturally like what happened when Paul and Silas were praying in jail in the middle of the night.

When doors open in our lives and God blesses us with His “bread”, it is very important for one to realise that usually the arrival of this bread attracts certain battles in our lives from the enemy. This is why we need to cry out to God to “deliver us from evil”. There are troubles that come on account of the daily bread coming your way.

When you rise to certain dimensions that are visibly outstanding, there are certain battles or attacks the surface. The nature of fallen man and believers who are not fully transformed by the Word of God will always react negatively to growth and lifting. This has absolutely nothing to do with good or bad. There is always a tendency enshrined within fallen men who haven’t been transformed to react negatively to growth and excellence. Your rising in life will usually have repercussions. Most of us human beings are jealous, envious and selfish. You should always pay attention every time the moment your “bread” arrives. You need the spiritual intelligence to be able to navigate in that new terrain.

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Apostle Paul speaks about “a great door has opened to me and there are many adversaries” (1 Corinthians 16:9). This confirms that usually open doors attract adversaries hence we need God to deliver us from this evil.

There are three categories of evil. The first category is represented by Satan and wicked spirits. Apostle Peter warns us in 1 Peter 5:8 to “be sober and vigilant. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour”. The devil is perpetually seeking him or her he may devour. The devil is a bad devil. He is never your friend so be warned.

The second category of evil is found in wicked and unreasonable man as we see in 2 Thessalonians 3:1-3 — “Finally brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honoured, as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men”. There are such people in this very world we live. I have encountered many of them in my life. You should never ever be as naïve as I was believing that every human being is sincere. I have paid a lot of fees in that regard. Most of us believers are very naïve and it comes as no surprise when Jesus in Luke 16:8 tells his disciples that “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light”.

We have a great case study in Genesis 37:3-18 where we read a story about Joseph and his brothers. The young man had a great dream which he innocently shared with his brothers. Little did he know that his brothers hated him so much because he was his father’s favourite son. “When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers they hated him even more. His brothers said to him “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.” The situation deteriorated to a point where they plotted to kill him in verse 19 “They said to one another, Hear comes this dreamer. Come now and let’s kill him and throw him into one of the pits”. 

Imagine these were his brothers plotting such evil against their own brother. Never take for granted the reality of success in the face of people who are not saved or transformed. There are wicked people out there. It is important to note that most of these battles have nothing to do with you as an individual but the mantle upon your life. The prophecy, anointing or gift upon you, is what will attract those battles.

As long as you have this anointing or gift or favour of the Lord upon your life, you have to learn how to fight otherwise some doors will become a curse. You can only win these battles if you involve God because He is the one who “will always cause you to triumph”.

The third evil is found in your own flesh. This is the worst of the three evils. There are many instances where the flesh will lie so low that you can be deceived that you will never do those things. If you are not yet King David, you have no business with Bathsheba. You are an innocent shepherd. It is so easy to criticise other people and label then with all sort of names. You can even write books on the evil of corruption, sexual immorality etc. Wait until you get promoted in your life. You will be shocked by your own behavior. This is why we need to “crucify our flesh” like Apostle Paul says.

As you rise in life, your flesh has ways of reinventing strategies that will challenge you at the level of that growth. There are many believers who believe that they have attained a certain level of maturity that act as an immunity against these challenges. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your flesh lies low waiting for an opportunity to activate it.

Open doors create challenges and this is why it is important to be spiritually fortified. You will never win this war if you are spiritually bankrupt. You need that spiritual stamina and fortitude that only God can provide, hence the need to ask Him to deliver you from evil. Usually the moment you rise up there, you become extremely obsessed with titles. You can’t just call me Doug, I am Dr Doug Mamvura. You can’t just call me Prophet, I am Major Prophet, I am not Bishop but Archbishop. This is all about egos. Sadly, most of our congregants feed our ego. Isn’t it amazing that we see most people worshiping the man of God instead of the God of men. All this is caused by this worst evil called the flesh. You and I should beware!

The flesh is the vulnerabilities and negative tendencies that come with the fallen nature of man and these can be activated in the presence of abundance and promotion. Temptations always follow the daily bread. The key is to crucify the flesh and have an intimate relationship with God. Who would have thought that David was a murderer? David was the epitome of innocence a great shepherd who was faithful at looking after his father’s flock. He could only kill animals before he became a king but everything changed the moment he became a king. The beauty about David though was that he was a repentant man.

Man of God, you never know that you love money until you have a millionaire as a member of your congregation. That is when all the compromise starts if you are not careful. He gets promoted to the position of leadership in church and yet he is still a novice in the things of God. Your eye is on his tithes and offerings. May the Lord deliver us from all this evil!