First Sunday in Lent
Mark 1:9-15
“Lead us not into temptation,” we pray, and God tempts no one. Yet every one of us has been tempted, even the God-man, Jesus Christ. When we pray the petition, we’re not praying that temptations be done away with, but that they would not lead us astray, into “false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.” Many a theologian has also suggested that temptations are beneficial, that God allows them for our benefit; after all, “[A]ll things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)