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MATTHEW 6:11 “GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD.” (KJV, NKJV, NASB, ASV, RSV)
“Give us today our daily bread.” (NIV)
LUKE 11:3 “Give us day by day our daily bread.” (KJV, NKJV, ASV, RSV)
“Give us each day our daily bread.” (NIV, NASB)
We started our first book, Hiding the Word, in chapter seven with the model prayer, or The Lord’s Prayer. We memorized Matthew 9:9 with the beginning of that prayer, both because it is important for us to learn to pray as Jesus taught us to pray but also because those words are so familiar to us and, hence, easy to memorize. This passage in verse eleven is the same. Just six words in the NIV, seven in many other translations. We know the words, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Now, just memorize that this verse is in Matthew 6:11. An easy verse for this week!
As I mentioned in chapter seven, most of us might already have the Lord’s Prayer memorized from years of saying it with others in church. If you have never memorized it, I strongly encourage you to do so. As I said before, saying the prayer gives us five verses memorized toward our 100. That is a good thing. Plus, if Jesus thought it was important enough for the disciples to learn and repeat, it probably is equally important for us.
This model prayer is also written in Luke 11:1-4. In this narrative, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray…as John taught his disciples. In just a short prayer, Jesus taught them to pray in a manner that Christians have repeated millions of times in the past 2,000 years.
It is remarkable that Jesus teaches us that it is ok to ask the Father to feed us. This part of the prayer is the only part that tells us it is fine to ask God to provide nourishment to us, to provide our daily need. This is an undeniable reminder of the bread that God provided to the children of Israel as they walked through the desert. We will look at that in more detail in the next chapter.
A million people wandering through a desert would require some supernatural help with just surviving with food and water. God provided that. He sent manna from heaven, enough for every day, for every person alive for forty years. He sent water every time it was needed…in a desert! When they complained about the lack of diversity in their diets, He even provided birds from the sky.
It is not only important to note that He provides the daily nourishment we need, but He also delights in our understanding that we need Him to provide it. Go to other parts of the world where people do not live in the abundance that we do and you will see how desperate anyone can become when no food is available. God provides. We take the ready availability of food and our relatively easy ability to acquire it for granted so much. Yet see how we react the moment we perceive that food might not be available much longer.
Jesus told us to pray, “give us today our daily bread.” That means it is not wrong to pray for the Lord’s provision for what we eat and drink. That should certainly lead us to give thanks for it every time we prepare to eat…hence, prayer before eating and thanking Him for it and acknowledging that He has provided it for us.
I am quickly reminded of a passage in Psalms written by David where he acknowledges that provision for the righteous: “I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread.” (Psalm 37:25)
In a careless manner, one would almost think that, knowing that He is going to provide for us, why should we even have to pray for it? The answer certainly is because He taught us that we should. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He instructed them to say, “Give us this day, our daily bread.”
Don’t take that for granted. Don’t think that we can provide it for ourselves without His help. Don’t forget that in answer to that prayer, He will give us each day the sustenance that we need. It comes from Him. And don’t forget to thank Him for it. Lord, give us this day our daily bread.
Questions to ponder: How does God’s provision for daily bread seem inconsistent when He sometimes allows famine in the land? Do we occasionally need reminders that He is our provision? How easy is it for us to take for granted the food we eat every day in our abundant culture? There is more than just provision suggested in Psalm 37:25. Does the Lord bless His chosen, the righteous more than He does others? If we suddenly experience lack, as many in the world frequently do, does that mean that the Lord is withholding the answer to our request for our daily bread? Have you ever done without/gone hungry? How does that experience differ from starving?
Other Scriptures to Consider: John 6:48, Jesus, the bread of life. How does that differ from “our daily bread?” Matthew 25:34-46 “I was hungry and you gave me food.” How does our provision of food from God affect our decisions to help feed others? Romans 12:20, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him.” Phil 4:12, “I have learned both to be full and to be hungry.”
A Song to Remember: The Lord's Prayer
 
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