Our Daily Bread
Matthew 6:11
Intro
Jesus taught his disciples that God the Father is interested in the bodies as well as the souls of humans. Neither is to be neglected or ignored. Between the prayer of surrender and the prayer of confession, the heavenly Teacher placed the prayer for physical necessities.
Our prayer is to be directed to the heavenly Father whose love wants the best for his children. His wisdom knows what is best for them; his power does that which is best for them.
By this petition Christ encourages us to bring all our needs to the Father, things small and large, things secular and sacred, things material and moral. The particular emphasis in this petition is on physical needs.
READ TEXT
I. This petition recognized God as the giver of daily bread.
a. We often boast of our high standard of living.
i. We give constant praise to our American system of free enterprise.
ii. We often forget that the Giver of all good gifts is our heavenly Father.
iii. We are all debtors to the generosity of God.
b. It is easy to deprive God of the glory that belongs to him at this point.
i. We are not very thankful because we are not very thoughtful.
ii. If we sincerely offer this petition, we pledge thankful recognition to God for our blessings.
II. This petition requests God’s presence in our daily work.
a. The prayer for daily bread is not an encouragement to idleness, for it does not rule out human effort.
i. Jesus did not encourage anyone to be a parasite.
b. God is vitally interested in our economic life.
i. Daily bread, and all that this signifies, is necessary if we would have the strength for kingdom service.
ii. All prayer would die on our lips if it were not for bread.
c. The pursuit of bread can cause people to lose sight of the true ends of life.
i. We are to live for the advancement of the kingdom of God rather than for piling up a huge supply of bread.
ii. As a Greek proverb says, “We do not live in order to eat, but we eat in order to live.”
III. This petition recognizes our brother’s need for bread
a. Eight times in the prayer we find the words, “our,” “we,” or “us.”
b. We are to remember God’s children everywhere when we pray.
c. This petition requires that we volunteer to refrain from greedily grasping after that which belongs to another.
Closing
By this petition the Savior encourages us to trust our tomorrow into the hands of our heavenly Father. He is capable of providing for us adequately. This wonderful truth could relieve many of our fears and anxieties. The psalmist has said, “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteousness forsaken, nor his seed begging bread” (Psalm 37:25). The heavenly Father will surely be in our tomorrows even as he was in our yesterdays.
