In light of the events of this week, as we come to this part of the Lord’s prayer, we are starkly aware of how very fragile life can be. It brings to light even more to the words of Jesus in Matthew. How crucial it is for us to trust Him daily for every need.
As we come to the line today in the Lord’s prayer, “give us this day our daily bread,” there is a shift in the prayer.
The first three areas we have covered have had to do with being centered on God. Our Father—recognizing our intimate relationship with Him.
Hallowed be your name—recognizing that God is holy and that we are to be holy in our own lives.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done—understanding that God is sovereign and that He is to be glorified on earth as He is in heaven—and is to be glorified in each of our lives as we yield our will to Him.
We are reminded that God is not an absentee God! His hand is always on the controls of human affairs. He is present everywhere in the concerns of our times.
In light of what is important to God—throughout biblical history, prayer has been the #1 avenue to meeting with God and receiving from Him. If prayer is important to God, then we can understand how crucial it was, as the disciples observed the life of Jesus, that they asked him to teach them how to pray.
A life-style of prayer needs to be as important to us as it is to God. Failure to pray is failure in all of life. It is a failure of duty, service, and spiritual progress. It is only by prayer that God comes to help us. The person who doesn’t pray robs himself or herself of God’s help and places God where He cannot help.
All the things that God desires to form in our lives—faith, hope, love—will die in us without a vital prayer life. Your individual prayer life, your salvation, the working of God’s grace in your life, have their being, their blooming and fruit in your life through the aspect of a vital prayer life.
Remember—no prayer for one week, makes one weak!
The cries of our hearts are to have the best of God working in and through our lives!
In the first half of the Lord’s prayer, we are telling God we want His name glorified on earth as He is the center of worship in Heaven. You tell God we want His principles to rule on earth and that we want to submit to His plan and purpose through His will in our lives. And now—because we desire for God to be glorified in every aspect of life—the Lord’s prayer transitions to “give us this day our DAILY bread.”
Bread is a symbol word that stands for all the physical and spiritual things that we need in this life.
As we begin to look at the last half of the Lord’s prayer, we will begin to understand that these petitions: give us daily bread, forgive as we forgive, lead not into temptation etc. consist of prayer for our spiritual walk with God.
We can ask for “bread” after we have worshiped His holy name, live by His rules, and submit to His plan and purpose for our lives.
When we ask for bread, the provision is to have the physical ability to fulfill a spiritual walk with God on earth.
Elmer Towns writes: “We must pray as though it all depends on God. We must live as though it all depends on us.”
When we pray, “give us this day our daily bread,” we are asking for more than “bread”, although the petition includes our daily food. “Bread” is a symbol word that stands for all our physical needs. Bread gives us strength to walk, work, dig, or work in front a computer all day. Bread gives us the stamina we need to help us through each and every day—no matter what we are doing. Give me strength to work in the garden, in the yard, to think clearly, to make good decisions, and whatever else you can add to the list!
Breads stands for more than food—it stands for the results we get from eating that food. It stands for all the physical things we need in life—money, time, material things to live, a roof over your head, clothing, transportation, and yes, heat in the winter and air-conditioning in the summer. It stands for fuel in the car and what you need to support yourself and your family. It stands for every physical thing we need in life.
When we pray this aspect of the Lord’s prayer, there are a number of things we are recognizing in our lives.
The first is that we have daily needs. It is very easy to take “bread” for granted because it is plentiful. Go into Harter House to the bread area and look at the variety that you can choose from! In America we have more physical bread that probably any other nation in the world! But what about spiritual bread?
Which comes first—physical hunger or spiritual hunger?
Jesus wanted His disciples to live in a state of constant dependence on the Lord and His provision.
We need to understand that God did not create us to be self-sufficient people. He created people to need air to breathe and food to give them energy. We need shelter from the elements and clothes to keep us warm We need love to make us whole and relationships to make us happy.
God created people, you and me, to have needs. The need for food, shelter, clothes, and many other things.
Perhaps God created us with needs so that when we would stray from Him, our needs would make us turn back to Him??
The first questions in the Westminster Catechism is: What is the chief end of man? The answer” The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
This is the basic question of life. Why am I here? We are on earth to glorify God and we do this in several ways. One of those ways is how we take care of ourselves and provide for our needs. God made us to have needs so we would look to Him to supply them.
Most people eat bread to satisfy their personal needs…but there is a bigger goal. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether therefore you eat, drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
You should eat your bread to glorify God because He provided everything. He is glorified every time you eat! That is because He created it and gave it life to grow. He gave people the strength and intelligence to harvest it and He is glorified when we cook it and bow our heads before a meal to thank Him for it. Eating is for the glory of God; as a result, we need to remember where we got our bread, who gave it to you, and what its purpose is for.
Give us this day our daily bread is a faith statement because you are asking God to bless every single aspect of your being. When you are talking to God about your needs, you are asking him to take His rightful place in your life.
Prayer is the platform used to glorify God in every aspect of our being.
When you pray the first three petitions of the Lord’s prayer, you are setting God in His rightful place in the heavens and in your heart on earth. In the first three petitions, you are praying that God’s name would be hallowed, that His kingdom principles would come and that His will would be done in heaven and on earth.
We might ask ourselves then the question, how can these three first petitions be done on earth? First, when you pray, give us bread, you are asking for bread that is grown on the earth. So, when you ask for bread, you are recognizing that God is its source, and you are worshiping His name for supplying you with bread.
Secondly, you are asking God for kingdom principles to be realized on earth by the provision of food. When you pray, thy will be done, you ask God for God’s plan in your life, which is working for bread, cooking bread, eating it to be strong so you can do His will and sharing it with others who are in need.
You do not approach prayer to just get something for yourself; but you ask for bread to allow God to glorify Himself through supplying your needs.
Too often prayer can get like going to a vending machine—we pop in a coin or dollar bill and out comes a drink or a candy bar! Daily bread, however, does not come from a vending machine! We don’t drop prayer in some slot and expect daily bread or anything else we want from God to pop out automatically. Some people think we can demand things from God. Some say we should fast to get things from God; others say we should name it and claim it from God. God, however, does not operate by the vending machine strategy. The bottom line is always, “hallowed be Thy name.” Prayer is not what we do…what we ask…what we need. Prayer is a way to glorify and worship God. Prayer recognizes His sovereignty in every aspect of our being—including our daily bread.
We cannot manipulate God to get the right thing or what we want. When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we are bringing His glory into our lives and it is the platform by which we worship the Lord!
We need to understand that prayer is more than what you ask…more than what you do…more than what you say. Prayer is your way of living.
Jesus says, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.” God’s plan is for us ask!
Remember when the Children of Israel were in the desert and God provided manna for them on a daily basis? If they gathered more than enough, thinking they would save some for the next day—it would be full of maggots! In Deuteronomy 8:3 we are reminded that humans do not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God!
The petition, give us this day our daily bread, has a very simple yet understandable truth. We live from day to day, we eat from day to day, because we have needs from day to day. So, when we pray this, we are telling our Heavenly Father that we will walk with Him one day at a time.
“This day” stresses for us the daily patience that should characterize our lives. It encourages us to understand that we live one day at a time. We are expressing confidence in God and recognizing that He is your Father and you are His child.
Remember our Scripture…seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these things will be added to you? But the final verse says, don’t worry about tomorrow because today has enough worries of its own?
We need to quit worrying about what has not happened yet because worrying about tomorrow is telling God that you are not sure He can provide for you tomorrow. It causes us to doubt God’s care for us.
Understand, there is a difference between worrying about tomorrow and planning for tomorrow. Proverbs tells us that the ant is exceedingly wise because they prepare their food in the summer. Ants don’t worry—they prepare—and so should we.
There is another kind of bread that we cannot ignore this morning that is also very much a part of this prayer—and that is the need for our spiritual bread. People can starve in other ways—we are starved in our souls and starved in our character, when we compromise our standards and deny God’s rightful place in our society and in our lives. We are starving our families, friends, and those we encounter throughout our days when we deny love, respect, and fellowship to one another.
Remember that song…one day at a time sweet Jesus, that’s all I asking from You.
Jesus said, I am the Bread of Life—it is Jesus first that we need each and every day! To partake daily of the love of Christ. To partake daily His care and compassion for us. To partake daily of His Word and to spend time in His presence—soaking in all that He would have for you on a daily basis.
Even though Jesus talks about daily provisions from His hand, we are reminded that the Lord knows what we need. Because of this truth, we are to FIRST and foremost seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Why? We need to value the reign of God in our lives and we are to diligently pursue righteous living showing our deep trust in the Lord who alone can satisfy our needs.
It's amazing that in the strength of this portion of Scripture that Jesus ends with the idea of not worrying about tomorrow. What is the cure for anxiety and worry—prayer and trusting the Lord to meet every need. Like I said before, it doesn’t mean we don’t plan for tomorrow, but we place tomorrow in the Lords hands.
E.M. Bounds writes: “Prayer cannot be retired as a secondary force in this world. To do so is to retire God from moving in our lives. It is to make God secondary…Prayer is the sense of a need for God and the call for God’s help to supply that need. How we estimate and place prayer is how we estimate and place God. To give prayer a secondary place is to make God secondary in life’s affairs…Prayer is absolutely necessary if we want to carry on God’s work properly.”
Friends, it is taking one day at a time, trusting our Abba Father for our daily bread—the sustenance that we need to get us through each moment of every day!
Nobody can care for us like Jesus!
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