Words For Living: Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
- The Rev. Ed Soto/ Pastor, Altavista Presbyterian Church
The following is a serial production of Words for Living on Matthew 6:9-11, or more commonly known as The Lords Prayer.
Give us this day our daily bread. God gives to His people because He is a God of providence. I know when people hear that word they automatically think predestination. Thats not exclusively what providence means. The root word is provide.
Gods provide-ence is intimately connected to His promises. God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation with descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. Gods providence worked out that promise: even though Sarah was barren, she ended up bearing a son.
A few years later, God commanded Abraham, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you loveand offer himas a burnt offering. God had provided this son, but now it seems He wants him back.
But Abraham did not hesitate. He remembered Gods promise. Were told that he rose early in the morning to begin his journey to the mountain.
Here again, Gods providence was at work. And Abraham trusted in it. At a heart-wrenching moment, Isaac notes that one of the elements of the sacrifice was missing. He said, Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
Covenant United Reformed Church
Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread
Confession: Heidelberg Catechism, Lords Day 50, QA 125
Scripture: Matthew 6:5-34
Lords Day 50
Q.125 What does the fourth petition mean?
A. Give us this day our daily bread means: Provide for all our physical needs so that we may recognize that you are the only source of everything good, and that neither our care and work nor your gifts can do us any good without your blessing. Therefore may we withdraw our trust from all creatures and place it in you alone.
A Prayer For Our Daily Bread
Colin Smith
Our Father, we bow before You in worship and gladly acknowledge that every good gift comes from Your loving hand. We thank You today for the beauty of the earth, for the love of friends and family, for our food, for our homes, for our work, for Your church, and most of all for the gift of Your Son.
We confess our impatience, and we ask Your forgiveness. We know that patience is the fruit of Your Holy Spirit, and we ask that You produce this good fruit in our lives. Deliver us from grumbling. May we never despise what You have provided. May Your anger not blaze hotly against us. Use the times when things we enjoy are taken away to increase our gratitude for what we have. Help us to rejoice in what You have given, rather than complain about what You have withheld.
Father, Your Son has taught us to ask You for what we need. Some of us need work, and we ask that You provide. Some among us are sick, and we ask that Your healing hand may be upon us. Some are hungry and we cry out to You, Give us this day our daily bread.
Father, Your world is in trouble. Please, in Your mercy, give us relief. We pray for those who carry the weight and burden of great responsibility. We pray for our mayors, for our governor, and for our president. Grant to those who lead us, strength to bear the burdens they carry and wisdom that will promote our common good.
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In The Lords Prayer We Pray For More Of Jesusthe Bread Of Life
Moses explained the purpose of the manna:
And humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with mannathat he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Jesus quoted these words when the devil tempted him:
But he answered, It is written,
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. .
When we pray, Give us this day our daily bread, we pray not just for physical sustenance but also for Gods word, which strengthens our spirits to hallow Gods name and do his will. We pray above all for more of Jesus, for he said,
I am the bread of life whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread: Prayer For Gods Provision
O Lord, my Heavenly Father, give me this my daily bread. Lord, I pray for your great provision over my daily physical needs. Help me to trust in your provision each and every day. Ease my anxiety and worry and help me to trust in you. Align my heart and my prayer requests with your will, Lord. Hear my prayers, O Lord, as I bring to you my greatest worries, fears, needs, decisions, and cares for others. Lord, hear these prayers and move in my life and in the lives of those I pray for. For you are great and mighty and loving and know exactly what we need. Lord, give us this day our daily bread and help me trust that you know best for my life. Amen.
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In The Second Half Of This Prayer God Is Brought Directly Into The Very Tiniest Details Of Our Everyday Lives
Lets take a look at the second half of the prayer and analyze it a little bit more. It contains three petitions- Our daily bread, forgive us our debts, and lead us not into temptation. That covers provision, pardon and protection. If you think about those three things, they take care of all the needs of life Not only that, it takes care of every part of you personally. Provision takes care of your body. Pardon takes care of your soul. Protection takes care of your spirit.
The second half of the Lords prayer begins with a petition for provision: Give us this day our daily bread. There are two words we need to think about before we consider the deeper meaning of this petition. First, this is a prayer for bread, not for cake. Give us today our daily bread. The Greek word for bread refers to common, ordinary bread. It doesnt mean anything fancy. It just means normal, everyday bread. Jesus is telling us that when we pray, we ought to pray for ordinary, normal, everyday bread.
This is a prayer for food. When was the last time you actually prayed to God, O God, please give me a meal? Most of us ought to pray the opposite, O God, prevent me from eating another meal, I have already eaten too much. This petition sounds like it ought to be a prayer uttered by someone living in Haiti or Bangladesh. Its sad but true. We have so much food we take this prayer request for granted.
1.The First Step to Daily Bread Living is Gratitude to God for All His Blessings.
Look To God For What Is Needed Each Day
In Luke it is recorded that one of His disciples asked Jesus, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples . Jesus then gave a pattern for prayer that has become known as the Lords Prayer. The same is recorded in Matthew as part of the Sermon on the Mount .
Included in the Lords Prayer is the petition Give us this day our daily bread or Give us day by day our daily bread . I believe that we would all readily acknowledge that we have needs each day that we want our Heavenly Fathers help in dealing with. For some, on some days, it is quite literally breadthat is, the food needed to sustain life that day. It could also be spiritual and physical strength to deal with one more day of chronic illness or a painfully slow rehabilitation. In other cases it may be less tangible needs, such as things related to ones obligations or activities in that dayteaching a lesson or taking a test, for example.
Jesus is teaching us, His disciples, that we should look to God each day for the breadthe help and sustenancewe require in that particular day. This is consistent with the counsel to
pray always, and not faint that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.
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When We Pray For Our Daily Bread We Express Our Dependence On God
So every morning the Hebrews left their tents, praying that God had granted their daily bread. In this way God trained his people to depend on him each and every day. We express this same dependence when we pray, Give us today our daily bread:
Heavenly Father, You are the Sovereign Lord. All I have comes from your hands. I so easily forget how I need you for life and breath. I forget to thank you and instead repay your kindness with idolatry and rebellion. Give me today what I need to survive today. And I face superhuman challenges. You must sustain me every second. Give what I need to love you today with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love my neighbor as myself. Tomorrow, I will come to you again. Amen.
Trust In The Lordsolutions May Come Over Time
Some time before I was called as a General Authority, I faced a personal economic challenge that persisted for several years. It did not come about as a consequence of anyones wrongdoing or ill will it was just one of those things that sometimes come into our lives. It ebbed and flowed in seriousness and urgency, but it never went away completely. At times this challenge threatened the welfare of my family and me, and I thought we might be facing financial ruin. I prayed for some miraculous intervention to deliver us. Although I offered that prayer many times with great sincerity and earnest desire, the answer in the end was No. Finally I learned to pray as the Savior did: Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done . I sought the Lords help with each tiny step along the way to a final resolution.
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The Bread God Gives Us
The 4th petition in the Our Father Give us this day our daily bread- is so simple a child can understand it. And yet, the bread God gives us is so rich that it satisfies every human need, both temporal and spiritual.
The first three petitions express our eternal aspirations: Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done. We desire to participate already now in that heavenly union with the Blessed Trinity together with the Angels and saints on earth as it is in heaven!.
In the second half of the Our Father we voice our temporal petitions for those things that we pilgrims need in this life. Although the things necessary to human existence, or, at least, to its comfort, are almost innumerable notes the Catechism of Trent, still, they can be resumed in four simple petitions: daily bread, forgiveness, relief in temptation and deliverance from evil.
The singularity of the 4th petition consists in this: here alone do we express our positive needs of body and soul in this world. This is, indeed, a most extraordinary bread that can meet so many needs.
Looking To God Daily For Our Needs Nurtures Faith
You will remember the great exodus of the tribes of Israel from Egypt and the 40 years in the wilderness before entering their promised land. This massive host of well over a million people had to be fed. Certainly that number in one location could not long subsist on hunting game, and their seminomadic lifestyle at the time was not conducive to raising crops or livestock in any sufficient quantity. Jehovah solved the challenge by miraculously providing their daily bread from heavenmanna. This small edible substance which appeared on the ground each morning was something quite new and unknown. The name manna, in fact, was derived from words meaning What is it? Through Moses, the Lord instructed the people to gather enough each day for that day, except on the day before the Sabbath, when they were to gather enough for two days.
At the beginning, despite Mosess specific instructions, some tried to gather more than enough for one day and store the balance:
And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning.
Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank.
As promised, however, when they gathered twice the normal daily quantity of manna on the sixth day, it did not spoil:
And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein.
And Moses said, Eat that to day for to day is a sabbath unto the Lord: to day ye shall not find it in the field.
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The Bread Of Daily Life
What, we may ask, is included in this request for our daily bread?
a. Basic needs of Life
First of all, we are asking for bread as the basic food of the body. Biblically, bread is a synonym for food . Bread is the modest but sufficient means and measure for a respectable human form of life. In the broader spectrum, it also includes clothing and shelter. St. Augustine points out, we ask for these temporal things not as our goods but as our necessities . We should not be seeking luxuries. Rather, having food and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content . As Solomon wisely prayed: Give me only the necessaries of life .
Our Lord teaches us to ask the Father modestly and with filial trust for bread, assured that He knows best our needs. Surely, a disproportionate concern for our material well-being would distract us from the goal. Moreover, we do not know what best serves our eternal salvation. While we may ask for many things, we should do so in confident surrender to the loving providence of God .
Jesus teaches us this petition, because it glorifies our Father by acknowledging how good He is, beyond all goodness . The Father Who gives us life cannot but give us the nourishment life requires all appropriate goods and blessings, both material and spiritual .
b. The Gift of God
c. Communal Petition
Other Translations For Matthew : 11
Giue vs this day our daily bread.– King James Version – View 1611 Bible Scan‘Give us this day our daily bread.– New American Standard Version Give us this day our daily bread.– American Standard Version Give us this day bread for our needs.– Basic English Biblegive us to-day our needed bread,– Darby BibleGive us this day our daily bread. – Webster’s Biblegive us to-day our bread for the day – Weymouth BibleGive us today our daily bread.– World English Bibleyyue to vs this dai oure `breed ouer othir substaunce – Wycliffe Bible`Our appointed bread give us to-day.– Youngs Literal Bible
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Jesus Christ Is The Bread Of Life
Above all, remember that we have Him of whom manna was a type and symbol, the very Bread of Life, the Redeemer.
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. . . .
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
I am that bread of life.
Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
I bear you my witness of the living reality of the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, and of the infinite power and reach of His Atonement. Ultimately, it is His Atonement, His grace, that is our daily bread. We should seek Him daily, to do His will each day, to become one with Him as He is one with the Father . I bless you that as you seek it from Him, your Heavenly Father will grant you your daily bread, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
1. Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson, Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 , 124.
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C The Bread That Unifies The Body
1. Unity with the Father
2. Unity with the Members of Christ
Furthermore, as members of His Body, we are also joined to one another in Christ: Because the bread is one, we though many, are one body, all of us who partake of the one bread . In a certain sense, therefore, we become bread for one another in this mystical union, since all our good works and prayers are joined in the mystery of the communion of saints and are at the disposition of the needs of all.
This union begins in Baptism, but is consummated in the Eucharist. One of the official catechetical texts in preparation for the Holy Year 2000 teaches:
After the resurrection and Pentecost Christ exists only as a total Christ, head joined to His membersThe Eucharist as communion with the Spirit thus becomes communion with the saints in a twofold way: communion with the holy things and communion with the saints, that is the people sanctified by the Spirit.
For this holy union with Christ and the members of His Body, we also pray when asking the Father to give us our daily Bread.