Give us today our daily bread – Terry Nightingale
As we have said, we are currently slowing down our journey through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and spending some time in the prayer that has become known as The Lord’s Prayer.
So far, Jesus has taught us to pray,
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt 6:9-10)
Notice that his prayer doesn’t begin with our personal needs. The Lord knows what we need but, in His wisdom, he instructs us to start with a focus on the bigger picture. The bigger picture is the One who is our Father, seated in the heavenly realms, holy and sovereign.
And in that context, Jesus teaches us to pray that God’s will comes to pass. His loving and powerful kingdom must be the primary concern of our hearts. Yet God knows we have needs and things that can cause us to worry. He will address some of those things later in the sermon, but for now he simply continues the prayer with:
“Give us today our daily bread.” (Matt 6:11)
In a way, Jesus is encouraging us to pray something like this: “Lord you know all things I need. You know my immediate needs (“give us today…”) and you know what my needs will be in the future (the prayer talks about our daily bread, so it must refer to tomorrow as well, and the day after, etc etc). You, Lord, created and grew the wheat that made the bread. You gave us as humans the ability to form bread out of a variety of different crops, so we can trust you to provide for us”.
We can describe “bread” as referring to everything that we need to live and thrive as people made in the image of God. This may be material needs – food, shelter and clothing – or spiritual or emotional needs. “Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matt 6:8)
God has always promised to take care of His people. He provided a land “flowing with milk and honey” for the ancient Israelites and in the beautiful Psalm 84, the Lord promised:
“For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
the LORD bestows favour and honour;
no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.” (Ps 84:11)
No good thing does He withhold. Our God is not a mean God. We may go through barren times for a season so that we might learn trust and dependence, but our Father in heaven has a generous heart.
He wants us to depend on Him every day. “Give us today our daily bread.” The Lord is looking for a continual, ongoing relationship with us. One that seeks His presence and His will between every sunrise and sunset.
