When I read the Lord's Prayer, there is something I have wondered about.  Temptation.  Christ says for us to ask God to, "Lead us not into temptation".  I have a hard time thinking that God would lead us into temptation.  But I am reminded of Christ's temptation in Matthew 4: 1-11.  "Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil."

It was the devil who was doing the tempting, but the spirit that led him up into temptation.  In the Lord's prayer,  Christ is saying that we should ask God not to lead us to the place where Christ had been led.  The place of temptation.  He knew what He was talking about.  He wanted to spare us what he had been through.  So he told us to pray for ourselves that God wouldn't lead us into temptation.

There are those who would tell you that Christ wasn't capable of being tempted since He was God.  But that point of view is not scriptural.  In Hebrews 4: 15 we find, "For we don't have a high priest (Christ) which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."  He was tempted.  God chose to limit himself in every human way when he came to earth and took up residence in the body of Jesus.  Jesus was God.  Jesus was man.

It is very interesting to note that the way Jesus resisted Satan was to quote scripture.  He was ready for the battle because he had memorized scripture.  In verse Matt. 4:4  when Christ was tempted to use his power to turn stones into bread, he quoted this verse from the old Testament: "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." (Deuteronomy. 8:3)

A few years ago, I decided to take a class called the 'Mind of Christ'.  I memorized a section of scripture (Philippians 2; 3-11), by pasting it on my dashboard where I could review it as I drove the 116 mile round trip to work and back.  It was harder to do than when I was younger.  Two of those verses came to mind as I was writing about Christ's temptation.  Verse 7-8a.  "But (he) made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.  And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself…"  I bet it was humbling to become a man when you were God, and to allow yourself to be limited to our likeness.  Just so he could die for us.