“Give us day by day our daily bread.” (Luke 11:3).
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This verse comes from the prayer that the Lord have us. It is a prayer from an eternity of fellowship within the God-head.
Each word in this prayer has been chosen specifically and derives from God Himself who delivers it to us. The timing of these words is also significant. It comes after acknowledging that God is Father and in recognising where He is (heaven), and it also comes after the declaration that His will is paramount (Luke 11:2). Only after these important things do we get this attention to our daily needs.
As a first lesson then, always put God first. When you come to prayer, give attention to the worship of God and remember who He is and what He has done before making any supplications. Joy in the Christian life only comes when we know Him truly through saving faith. The knowledge of God (truly) necessarily leads to the worship of God, for to know Him is to love Him. We worship God for whom He is and not just for what He gives us. To live truly, is to live for God. Job declared: “I have treasured the words of His mouth More than my necessary food” (Job 23:12). When we are absorbed with love for God, food no longer has prime place. When the Lord Jesus was urged to take something to eat by the disciples after He had spoken to the woman of Samaria at the well, He declared: “I have food to eat of which you do not know,” and then when the disciples were puzzled about this, Jesus went on and said: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work” (John 4:32-34). When a young man falls in love with a girl he can barely eat! So, Christians can only be happy if God is first in their lives.
Bread. The small things of life.
The Greek word for bread actually means the basic essentials of life, not just bread. In some cultures that do not use bread as a basic staple in their diet they may well have some other word suggested in this text. The point is that the request is for the basic essentials of life. We are speaking of ‘needs’ here and not ‘luxuries.’ Now this reminds us instantly of how God works. He blesses us through the small things in life. Take for example the wonderful miracle of gathering in the manna as recorded in Exodus 16:14f. The Israelites were told to gather this manna that settled on the ground each day for their needs. They were explicitly told not to gather a surplus and hoard this for the next day because it would go rotten (Exodus 16:16,19). But some ignored the instruction and out of greed gathered more than they needed.
Consider also the story of the widow who had a small jar of oil left in the house as recorded in 2 Kings 4:2f. Elisha the prophet told her to gather lots of vessels and to pour the oil from the jar into the vessels. The Lord blessed this widow from a small jar of oil. Out of the lord’s provision she was enabled to pay off her debts and have what she needed. Or think also of Gideon who had 32,000 men in his army but faced 135,000 men in the opposing force (Gideon 7). Gideon thought ‘we cannot do this,’ ‘we are outnumbered.’ What did the Lord do? He made Gideon whittle down his army to just 300 men!
And then consider the fact that in Bethlehem long ago there was a weak baby boy lying helpless and in need in a manger, utterly reliant upon his teenage mother. How could this work out? And yet this baby boy was none other than Immanuel, God with us, and He broke the curse of sin though His sacrificial death at Calvary.
Bread. Our daily need.
God loves to bless people in the small things. We think we need all sorts of things in life but what we really need is this baby boy and this mighty Saviour whom to the world looks weak and impotent as He lay dying on the cross, but to us He is life! Now the Lord loves to bless not only in the small things but also even in the impossible things too. In Luke 16:10 we hear from the Saviour: “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much” (Luke 16:10). If we had an abundance, we could easily be led astray by our own greed and sin. Those who seek riches are those who “fall into temptation and a snare,” because “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” and some who have gone this way have “strayed from the faith in their greediness,” (1Timothy 6:9,10). A covetous or greedy man has no inheritance in the kingdom of God (Ephesians 5:5). James points out that Christians sometimes “ask amiss” in their seeking for pleasure and the things of this world (James 4:3,4). Thankfully, the Lord mercifully withholds some things we seek for. So, we should ask for our needs and avoid greed. Our joy does not come from what we have, although He is a wonderful giver, but it comes from knowing Him.
We ask for our daily bread but know too that the Lord loves to give! We have abundant testimony to this in Scripture. For example, the Psalmist exhorts us to delight in the Lord:
3 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. 4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4,5).
When we delight in the Lord we find that he will also give us the desires of His heart because our hearts will be in tune with His. James also speaks to us of the goodness of God in giving wisdom:
16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. (James 1:16,17).
How easily we can be deceived by the world’s trinkets! The Lord delights to give wisdom to the lowly and humble, to such as have true faith (Proverbs 2:6,7). What an incredible God who demonstrates His love to us in the giving of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Romans 5:8; Colossians 2:3). If we are overrun with difficulties God gives grace (Ephesians 2:8). If we face times of conflict or anger against us, God gives peace (John 14:27). In those times when we have had enough and want to run away He gives us a new start, a new beginning, a new creation (2Corinthians 5:17). When we are weak, alone, and without strength, He gives us His strength (Philippians 4:13). When we are lost and without hope, the Lord gives us hope (Romans 15:13).
Bread. Communion in fellowship.
To end our message note that the statement we are looking at is: “give us ..” not “give me ..” We are commanded to walk and live in a community with other brothers and sisters in the faith. Our plea for daily bread is a corporate one. As the body of Christ we seek the Lord for all our daily needs, and we do this together in fellowship with one another. Christ, in His infinite wisdom, calls us to make requests in community. The Lord Jesus is not a vending machine. We are not simply to ask and receive blessings and then go off on our own way. We are a family. The world will come to know that we are Christ’s disciples if we truly love one another (John 13:35). Our gathering together draws our focus upon the Lord and not upon our own self-indulgences. We seek what he wants and desires and not what we want.
Penuel Baptist Chapel, Roch 