Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

I think that the plea for God to deliver us can be either in a temporal or eternal sense, as well as either (from a temporal standpoint) in a physical or spiritual sense.

For example, in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus included a petition for God to deliver us from evil. To me, this could mean both physical danger (either evil that we encounter just in the course of life -- whether through our own actions or not -- or evil that others actively devise to bring upon us (such as David's repeated pleas (as in Psalm 59, for example) to God for deliverance from his enemies such as Saul); and spiritual danger in temptations or hazards that the world, our flesh, and the devil present that seek to draw us away from God. As long as we are in this life and world, we will never be totally free of conditions from which we need such deliverance.

Short of actual physical danger, we could also ask for God's deliverance from situations that are causing us worry or stress, either by resolving them or completely removing them. (However, in my opinion, that does not relieve us of the responsibility to make our own full contribution (to the extent that we can) to that resolution or removal.) 

Requesting God to deliver us can also mean that, when God brings our earthly life to a close, He will grant us the full and final deliverance from sin that Jesus died and rose again to gain for those who place their faith in Him, and that He will bring us to eternal life in His presence.

September 23 2016 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report