Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

   I want to look briefly at this phrase from the Lord's prayer. It is interesting that the verb here is aorist tense imperative mood which is to say , "Give us today's bread, now." Now I think there are far too many people trying to tell God what to do. I don't much believe in giving God commands unless He commands me to and in this case Jesus said to pray this way. Daily bread speaks of provision for the day we are in, not tomorrow's bread, but today's bread today. You, remember in the wilderness they were to gather bread for that day only, except the day before the sabbath when they gathered two day's worth. God wants us to trust Him on a daily basis. I believe the phrase concerns our daily provision, but I believe it is much more than that.

    Bread is often likened to the word of God. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4  Gathering the bread daily is a picture of getting fresh revelation and instruction from God. Jesus only said what He heard the Father saying and only did what He saw the Father doing. We need to hear from God on a daily basis. We cannot live off yesterday's manna.

     When the Syro-Phoenician woman tried to get Jesus to heal and deliver her daughter, he made an interesting statement."It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to little dogs." Dogs was a reference to Gentiles. Jesus was sent first to lost house of Israel, but He had healed others. Jesus showcased this woman's persistence and faith for our example, but let's look at His statement. Simply put He was saying healing and deliverence were the children's bread. I believe we can believe for healing even as we ask for our daily bread. We have become God's children by faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. Jesus said healing and deliverence are our bread.

     Then finally, Jesus is the bread of life.  Jesus said, " I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." John 6:51   When we pray for our daily bread we are acknowledging our need for His life to be manifested in us on a daily basis. He is our daily bread.