HYMN: Lead Us Not Into Temptation

In my handy dandy notebook (thank you, Blue's Clues) I've made notes about a number of Scripture texts for which I would like to write hymns. One that's been on the back burner for a long time is the Gospel appointed for Invocavit--the First Sunday in Lent: Matthew 4:1-11. (That's today, by the way.) On Friday a verse popped into my head. Unfortunately, it was the last verse. That's not usually how I write. I'm a front-to-back kind of person, and I'm a bit OCD about it (and about a lot of things, actually). I spent about 4 hours yesterday trying to work out the rest of it. Here's what I came up with: mostly Matthew 4 and Luke 4 with a little Genesis 3 and a hefty dose of commentary built in--not to mention the Sixth Petition of the Lord's Prayer or a head-nod to Luther.

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

1. Lead us not into temptation,
Loving Father, God of grace.
Satan seeks our soul's destruction.
Weak, our flesh would fear Your face.
Devils all the would would fill,
Coaxing us to hate Your will.
Temper us with ev'ry testing.
Thus refined, grant us Your blessing.

2. Lead us not into temptation
As the Spirit led Your Son.
Let Christ's blood be compensation
For the evil we have done.
Let Your mercy overflow
On Your children here below.
Grant that we would trust You solely
That our yearnings may be holy.

3. Lead us not into temptation.
Jesus, tempted in our place
Through His holy incarnation,
Gave the vict'ry to our race--
Trusting God for daily bread,
Living on Your Word instead,
Testing not His holy Father,
Serving Him and not another.

4. Lead us not into temptation
For the sake of Jesus Christ
Who, for us and our salvation,
Faced temptation and sufficed.
Through the water and the Word,
By His body and His blood,
Blunt the power of the devil
And deliver us from evil.


(c) Alan Kornacki, Jr.
87 87 77 88
Tune: DER AM KREUZ (LSB 421)