The Lord’s Prayer | Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

We’ve been looking at how Jesus taught his followers how to pray, specifically looking at what has become known as the “Lord’s Prayer.” When Jesus gave his followers this prayer, he was giving them a part of himself; for this was his prayer. This prayer summed up how Jesus understood his Father’s purposes and the way he understood his mission here on earth.

Jesus invites us to share in his Father’s kingdom and to play our role in God’s unfolding mission to redeem, reconcile, and restore all that is broken in this world. This prayer helps shape our priorities and goals, hopes, and passions to do just that.

Last week we talked about the second line of the prayer (or second petition) that says, “Your kingdom come, your will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” When we pray, “Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we must realize that his kingdom is coming whether we pray for it or not. His will is done on earth with or without us.

The second petition is designed to open us up to His kingdom agenda – in our hearts, the here and now, and in the future. We are saying in effect, “Lord, I want to serve your kingdom purposes. I want to be part of your plan and serve you with all the energy, enthusiasm, and excellence of the angels themselves.” Again, we aren’t asking God to give us anything at all. Instead, we are offering God something. We are offering our lives. That’s how Jesus taught us to pray – to start with offering our praise in worship and our lives in service. And then we are to add:

¹¹Give us today our daily bread.

This request has much to teach us. First, notice that Jesus didn’t teach us to pray that God would sell us our daily bread or render it to us in exchange for our service; instead, in it, we ask God to give.

James’ words in 1:17 remind me of this:

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

The Bible teaches that God is the giver of every good thing, whether food, clothing, career, or intelligence. God is the gift-giver who provides for the needs of his people.

Later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said this about prayer:

⁹“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹ If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)

How amazing that we can come to our heavenly Father and ask him to give us what we need! Children do it when they love and trust the one they call ‘Father.’ We are utterly dependent on God’s good gifts; in this prayer, we depend on God to give us what we need to survive. “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Second, notice that when we ask God to give us our bread, we are not to request that he provide it weekly or monthly, but daily.

The word translated as ‘daily’ occurs very rarely in Greek. It seems to be an adjective meaning “of the day that is coming.” If we ask for our food in the morning for the coming day, we mean today’s food. The point here seems to get lost in our modern western society. In Jesus’ day, workers were commonly paid for the work they had completed that day; the pay was frequently so low that it was almost impossible to save any of it. Therefore, the day’s pay purchased the day’s food. So, to pray “give us this day our daily bread” wasn’t empty rhetoric for these workers. It was a prayer for God to provide what was needed at the right time.

To pray ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ was a prayer for God to provide what was needed at the right time.

To pray this petition is to acknowledge our dependence on God every day. Jesus was saying that we should live in daily dependence on the provision that God gives and that we are to trust God to provide as needs arise, and not necessarily in advance. To pray for God’s glory to be made known, for his kingdom to come, and for his will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven is not simply to pray for food for ourselves. We must pray for the needs of the whole world, where millions go hungry, and many starve. To pray the Lord’s Prayer, as part of the Christian family and human family, is to stand alongside the hungry and to pray on their behalf.

This week, remember that your Creator sustains you, and be thankful for what you have to eat and your ability to secure it. As we come to the Lord’s Table as a church family, be grateful for the bread of life that sustains you eternally. Jesus teaches us that hearing God’s Word and doing God’s will becomes food for us. Even more, he feeds us with himself: his flesh is true food, and his blood is true drink. Indeed, each time we partake of the bread and cup, we mysteriously “feed on him in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving,” according to the Book of Common Prayer.

Jesus, feed us with yourself today so that we may abide in you and you in us, for your flesh is true food, and your blood is true drink. Amen.

–Wade