Pray Like This: Give Us Today Our Daily Bread

I love how God blesses us in unexpected ways to reinforce His truth. Today, while writing this devotional, I went downstairs to eat breakfast in the Mobile, Alabama Marriott.  I gave the hostess my room number so she could charge me.  (Actually, my expenses were covered by the church that invited me to speak.)  But she declined to do that. Instead she gave me an extra coupon and insisted that I eat at no cost.  God gave me and the church blessing me a reminder that our daily bread was indeed a gift from Him.  
 
Meditation
Matthew 6:11—Give us today our daily bread.

There is a certain elegance to Jesus’ teaching regarding this portion of the Lord’s Prayer that shifts to man’s concerns. Jesus could have taught us to ask for any number of things. Instead He taught a humble request for daily provision. Verse eleven can also be translated to say, “Give us our necessary bread,” or “our bread for tomorrow.”Faith that is settled on what is necessary is not stressed about what is unnecessary! This is an in-the-moment faith and contentment to trust God.

Beware of complacency!  Most of us have refrigerators full of food.  We don’t ask God for our daily bread because we have taken care to ensure we are stocked. There is no need to ask God for daily bread that is already present in abundance. Or so we think.  Taking for granted what we havejeopardizes what we don’t have.  We don’t see God working miracles and doing a marvelous work through us if we are decidedly secure without Him.  For example, are we willing to give from our surplus to those who are homeless and hungry? Are we even willing to go without to bless someone who is destitute?  If not we miss two opportunities: first, to be a blessing to struggling fellow believers; second, to share the gospel with those who do not know the Lord.

Every day there are hundreds of millions of people who are not sure if they will have food to eat.  Without Jesus this is an incredibly depressing condition.  With Jesus it is a walk in faith—trusting that He will provide exactly what is needed.  We who are fat (spoiled) forget what it means to be so richly dependent upon our Father.  In the process, we lose our spiritual vitality.  This is why fasting from food is such a great spiritual discipline.  

“Give us today our daily bread” is a prayer of trust based on the recognition that all we have comes from the Father.  It is a Lordship statement.  Too often our prayers are heavily weighted with a litany of give me this and give me that.  In the context of the Lord’s Prayer there are four God-focused statements and only three people-focused requests.  Let us be more concerned with recognizing what we truly need so we can correctly utilize what we really have.  Something to think about . . . in reveration!
 
Inspiration
Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.—Nikolai Berdyaev
 
©2017 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box. Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)