Today, we’re continuing our study of Jesus’s model prayer. If you missed any of the others, here are the links: “Hallowed Be Your Name,” “May Your Kingdom Come,” and “May Your Will Be Done On Earth As It Is In Heaven.” As mentioned in those posts, we find versions of Jesus’s model prayer in two gospels. In Matthew, it’s part of the Sermon on the Mount when He’s talking about good and bad examples for how to pray, and that’s the one we’ve been focusing on (Matt. 6:5-15). In Luke, He uses a similar prayer to respond to a disciple’s request that Jesus teach them to pray (Luke 11:1-13).
So pray this way:
Matthew 6:9-13, NET
Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored,
may your kingdom come,
may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one
You don’t have to repeat this prayer word-for-word to pray correctly, but it’s a very helpful outline for our own prayers. The first personal request included in this prayer is, “Give us today our daily bread.”
Daily Bread
One of the things we need to remember when reading the New Testament is how profoundly connected it is to the Old Testament. For the people of Jesus’s day, these weren’t two separate books. All they had was what we call the Old Testament. It was the the holy scriptures, and anytime Jesus or His followers reference the word of God that’s what they’re talking about. Even when they don’t reference these writings directly, chances are their listeners would have stories and principles from the Old Testament in the back of their minds. Everyone in Jewish society studied the scriptures as children and heard them read each week on Shabbat for the rest of their lives. When Jesus said, “Give us today our daily bread,” I imagine it would have been almost impossible for people not to think of the Exodus story.
They took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt. The whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness; and the children of Israel said to them, “We wish that we had died by Yahweh’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from the sky for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. It shall come to pass on the sixth day, that they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.”
Exodus 16:1-5, WEB
When Yahweh miraculously provided manna to feed ancient Israel, He gave them bread day-by-day. He didn’t dump a week’s worth of bread on them all at once, or give them extra that they could keep on hand “just in case.” The manna even rotted if they tried to save it over, making it impossible to eat anything but “daily bread.” The only exception to this rule was extra manna on Friday that would stay fresh until Saturday, so no one had to work to gather bread on Shabbat (Ex. 16). Ancient Israel had to trust God would provide for them each day, just like we still need to today even if it’s not as obvious as it was for them with the manna.
New Bread From Heaven
Later in His ministry, Jesus discussed manna directly. After miraculously feeding 5,000 people, Jesus tried to travel to a new place but the people who’d eaten the food followed Him. Even after partaking of that miracle, they had the nerve to ask, “what miraculous sign will you perform, so that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’” (John 6:30-31, NET, quoting Ps. 78:24). It appears that they were challenging Him to keep providing physical daily bread for them, but Jesus redirected their focus.
Then Jesus told them, “I tell you the solemn truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but my Father is giving you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread all the time!”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.” …
“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person may eat from it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
John 6:32-35, 48-51, NET
It’s very possible that when Jesus told His followers to pray, “Give us today our daily bread,” He meant both physical necessities and spiritual ones. We need Him every day even more than we need actual food. Just like Jesus cared about providing food to the 5,000 AND teaching them about Him as the Bread of Life, so we should care about asking God to provide our daily food AND asking for the Bread of Life to feed us every day.
Don’t Worry About The Bread
You might say that I’m reading too much into “give us today our daily bread” to say that it’s spiritual food as well as physical food. On the surface, it’s just a simple, straightforward statement: “Please provide the food we need for today.” But as Jesus points out just a short while later in this Sermon on the Mount, God already knows that we need things like food and clothing. He doesn’t really need the reminder, and we don’t really need to worry about it.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than they are? … So then, don’t worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the unconverted pursue these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But above all pursue his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So then, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:25-26, 31-33, NET
There’s nothing wrong with asking for day-to-day necessities. Just because God already knows something and intends to provide it doesn’t mean He won’t appreciate us asking rather than taking His provision for granted. But we shouldn’t spend time worrying about what we’ll eat or drink, and especially not worrying about it long-term and borrowing trouble from tomorrow. And even if we’re famished, there’s still something more important than physical bread to focus on.
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After he fasted forty days and forty nights he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Matthew 4:1-4, NET (bold italics mark a quotation from Deut. 8:3)
Jesus was in a unique situation here, but the principle in the verse He quoted still applies to us. Like ancient Israel did with manna, we’re supposed to learn to rely on God every day and we’re supposed to learn that listening to His words sustains life. Food isn’t the only thing we need to keep us alive, at least not to give us the abundant life that Jesus wants for us (John 10:10). We also need the Bread of Life and the words of God.
Featured image by Couleur from Pixabay
Song Recommendation: “Word of God Speak” by MercyMe
Like An Anchor 