As we reach the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, we are confronted with one of the most honest and searching petitions we could ever bring before God: lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This final verse pulls back the curtain on the true nature of our spiritual struggle, and what we find there is both humbling and clarifying. The battle is not simply out there in the world around us -- it begins inside our own hearts. Drawing on James 1, we are reminded that temptation takes root because there is something within us that desires the very thing we are being tempted by. This is a radical departure from the way our culture tends to think about human nature, which so often locates the source of evil entirely in our circumstances, our upbringing, or our environment. The biblical picture is far more searching: the heart ...