Give us this Day our Daily Bread Matthew 6:11
The Lord’s prayer is both simple, and deep. It is all the above.
Previously we covered:
* Our Father
* Who Art in Heaven
* Hallowed be thy Name
* Thy Kingdom Come
* Thy will be done
* On earth as it is in heaven
Notice the Lord takes His sweet time thinking on who His Father is and what HE wants before, finally, coming to our need!
“Give us this day our Daily Bread”
Lately, I have become very aware of this human “neediness” that plagues us all. I have spent gazillions of minutes asking God for help, a job, and direction for ME. Slowly, as I gaze deeply into the Word, it is dawning on me that the MORE important aspect of prayer is what God is doing! It is exciting to connect with the very heart of God and join Him as a partner on His adventures. That’s what the first half of the Lords prayer centers around. And why it comes first.
Now we turn to our personal need in Matthew 6:11
“Give us this day our Daily bread.”
I will start with my friend, Eilene’s, vision:
A few decades ago, I lived in the robust western town of Ramona California. I began meeting once a week with two friends from my church to pray. I still remember pushing my first born in a stroller down a dusty street and through a steep ravine each Tuesday morning enroute to our prayer date.
One morning, during our prayer time, one of my friends said she was having a vision. Now this was 1986 and my church did not really embrace the idea of visions. We are praying together and she halts us all to say she sees:
A loaf of bread. Not just any bread, no sirree, but Wonder Bread! Is Wonder bread still around? That pure white, super soft, processed bread families devoured at every lunch time. I know I grew up on it.
“And I feel,” Eileen went on, “that this is for you, Joni.”
“Ok” I said, dubiously.
Even Eilene looked confused for a moment. “I think,” she said feeling a bit foolish but doing her best to understand what the Lord was saying, “It’s packaged, and it’s ok packaged, but it is never as fresh as the first day. I believe God is saying to quit using “packaged” truths, but seek God for a fresh truth every day. Every single day.”
Oh. Now that was muse-worthy.
In fact, I have thought about that loaf of Wonder Bread, picturing it wrapped in a see-through plastic package, colorful dots at either end, many times through the years. The image and the truth stuck. In fact, in todays whole grain world, it resounds even stronger.
Just because the Lord met you in a place of prayer and/or Bible reading one day, it’s still important to go back the next and next. Get fresh bread from heaven every day, and avoid the packaged, preserved, stuff.
This picture can also speak to the fact that sometimes we gather our truths second hand. Maybe from someone else’s YouTube video, Sunday message, or, dare I say… podcast? Those forms of media can be wonderful, and meaningful. I certainly hope so, obviously, I say as I podcast.
But no packaged bread can compare with fresh-out-of-the oven bread, and no shared truth can compare with receiving a revelation or insight yourself, right from the throne of God.
God wants us up and out there gathering our own bread for each day!
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Let’s take a look at Exodus 16:14-20
14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. 16 This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’” 17 The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed. 19 Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” 20 However, (Uh oh!) some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.
How interesting that Jesus said “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:51)
The manna is meant to be a picture of Jesus!
And what were the Israelites told?
Go and gather the “bread from heaven” every day. You. Get up. Go. Don’t try to store it. Start fresh again the next day, gathering what you and your family needs. He will provide just enough.
When we consider that this bread represents Jesus and our spiritual bread.. mind blown!! I’ll spell it out for us all, We are meant to be with Jesus every.single. day.
It is actually a command. Look at Matthew 6:34:
“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it’s own.”
Why does the Lord tell us not to worry about tomorrow? He wants our minds and hearts to be at rest. Are you worried about tomorrow? Take a look at today. How is today going? Can you get through today? What needs your focus in prayer and in your mind today? Isn’t that enough? Jesus thinks it is. Don’t pile tomorrow’s burdens onto today.
Take His yoke and learn of Him, for he is humble and gentle of heart and you will find rest for your soul. Rest. Does your soul need rest? Let Jesus take today’s burden and walk alongside you. Then, He will greet you in the morning with thoughts and plans for your new day.
This has been especially true the last few months. I found the Lord placing a simple “to do” list in my mind as I prayed. I would write it down, and then accomplish these items. One was “take the grand sons swimming.” So I did! It was a huge blessing. Recently he reminded me to pay for an item that was accidentally sent twice. I was NOT allowed to keep it without paying. The company would not know, but God does. I put that off, but today I felt that sterness from the Lord. I took care of it right away!
When the Israelites kept this bread what happened? Maggots!! Oooo. I can think of nothing more gross than smelly, squirmy, slithery maggots in my house! I to this day cannot eat deep fried shrimp, because at the age of 21 I once I left some in my kitchen. The next day there was a terrible, terrible smell. When I opened the shrimp container: Maggots!!
Who wants maggots in their soul? Blech!
Yesterday’s time with Jesus is for yesterday! Today you need to go out into the fields, and gather the fresh word for your day.
The one exception is, of course, Sunday. But on SATURDAY, they gathered twice as much. They worked more so that on the sabbath they could simply rest and enjoy the bountiful life God provided them.
Yesterday’s time with Jesus is for yesterday! Today you need to go out into the fields, and gather the fresh word for your day.
The one exception is, of course, Sunday. But on SATURDAY, they gathered twice as much. They worked more so that on the sabbath they could simply rest and enjoy the bountiful life God provided them.
The phrase, “Give us this day our daily bread” also speaks to the idea of provision.
The Lord has promised over and over to provide for us.
It that something we should pray for?? Even though provision is promised, Jesus tells us in the Lords prayer to ask for it.
Which reminds me:
I had the oddest experience today..
As a school bus driver I tend to get a good deal of gift cards for Christmases and end-of-school appreciation. I treasure each one! Not nearly as much as I treasure the handwritten notes and cards, but pretty close!
Four days ago, I went through a short stack of gift cards, in order to move them from my wallet to a pocket in my purse, so my slender wallet could stay slender. I meticulously went through each card, choosing which ones I wanted in my wallet and which ones would be placed in the archives. That is why, when I was shuffling through my “archived” group for a coffee card, I was stunned to find a perfect, crisp $100 bill!
I turned it over a few times, stunned.
Recently, the Lord impressed on me to give away a $100 bill that someone had given ME last Month. I was happy to use it towards a friend’s ministry. And now… here it was. Back again! I would not even share this story except, since I planned to write on provision, it seemed God wanted me to use this as an example of His willingness, eagerness, and I want to add, His joy, in providing for us!!
I have heard “You can’t out-give God.” That is a concept I believe we should all get a hold of. It’s the one place God says (and I believe with a hearty, fatherly laugh) TEST ME on this one!
Listen to Malachi 3:10:
“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”
And Jesus reinstates this by saying in Luke 6:38
“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
There was s a time someone in need at church asked my Mom for $5.00 for gas to get home. My Mom, ever the woman of faith, did not hesitate for a second, giving away her last $5.00.
When she got home that day, she realized one of us kids needed the money for an outing at school. My Mom wondered, as she stood in her bedroom, if she had made a mistake, giving her precious $5 bill away. She was looking to heaven for an answer as she stood in her bedroom, and heard the words “Give and it shall be given” inside her soul. She opened her top dresser drawer, and there, as crisp as a starched dress shirt, was a $5.00 bill.
“I know it was not there before!” She told us kids that day. “I had to get socks out of that drawer twice today!”
I suppose $5.00 then would be worth $100 today. Or close? Lol. Maybe at least a carton of eggs…
But I digress…
God promises to provide for his kids over and over:
Psalm 37: 25: “I have been young and now I am old and yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread.”
Psalm 34:10 “The young lions may grow weak and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”
Philippians 4:19 “And my God will supply all your needs (those who assisted him) according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.”
Notice that these promises are for Gods KIDS. The righteous, those who seek God, those who give.
Let me talk for a minute for those of you looking for provision and it seems it is just not there.
“Hang in there.” Do not let go of God’s hand or your confidence in Him.
Years ago, my husband and I had moved to what I called “The little city in the big woods” to start a church. The first two years we faced rejection, loneliness, and utter poverty. I often had no idea where a box of diapers or heating oil would come from.
Before we moved there, the Lord gave me a vision: In the vision I saw our family: myself, husband, and two littles, going through a door in heavenly places. Like a door in the middle of outer space. And I heard “You are about to go through a door (entering a new ministry in an unfamiliar place) and there is no turning back. You have prayed and I have answered.”
Then He gave me this warning: “Once you go through that door you must pray every single day. If you do not, the enemy will toss you around like a rag doll.”
And I did pray, daily, gathering my manna as I knelt on a thread bare rug in a cold house. Each day, no matter how fearful I was of the future and my ability to care for my little ones, God gave me a verse, or something, that was just enough to enabled me to stand back up and face the day.
I am very sad to say a time did come when I began to I think I no longer needed such prayers… and maggots infested my soul… but that is now another story of, and for, another time.
God has restored my soul.
We can be certain: God’s Word is truth!
And you, my friend, can bank on it!
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