Our Daily Bread

Now we’ve been doing this every week. I hope you’re not getting tired of doing this, but I’m going to invite you to read with me from verse 9 down to verse 13 this entire Lord’s Prayer. Let’s all read it together out loud beginning in verse 9. “After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever. Amen.”

Jesus, in response to the disciples’ question, found only in Luke 11, “Lord, teach us to pray,” has given to us what we commonly call the Lord’s Prayer. And in this Lord’s Prayer, which really is the disciples’ prayer, for Jesus would never have prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” we discovered that Jesus is giving us the priority and pattern for prayer. What is the Lord’s Prayer? It gives us the priorities and the pattern in which we ought to pray. What is the priority of prayer? It starts in verse 9 and 10. It is God’s person and God’s program. Notice that in verse 9 and 10. “After this manner, pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” So the priority of prayer is God’s Name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will.

But now we take a turn in the prayer beginning in verse 11 down to verse 13, where Jesus shows us that prayer moves to God’s provision. So what is the pattern for prayer? God’s person, then God’s program, and then God’s provision. Our daily bread, our sins forgiven, and our deliverance from evil; verses 11, 12 and 13. “God, we pray that You will provide our needs that sustain life. God, we also pray that you will forgive our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us. And God, we pray that You will protect us, and lead us and deliver us from the evil one, for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever.”

The great New Testament scholar, G. Campbell Morgan said, “Prayer fulfills the Master’s ideal only when it begins with the interest of God and flows to the needs of man.” So prayer starts with “Thy Name…Thy kingdom…Thy will.” And then it flows to “our bread…our sins…” and “our deliverance.” So the priority of prayer is God and seeking Him. And later on in this chapter, Matthew 6:33, Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things…”—what things? What do we eat? What do we drink? What do we put on?—“…all these things…”—clothes, drink, and food—“…they will be provided unto you.”

So now we come to the petition—number four—which actually is the petition—notice it in verse 11. Follow with me. “Our daily bread.” Jesus says, in verse 11, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Now here’s the first point, and only main point, I want to make this morning, so don’t miss that. It is okay to pray for your physical and temporal needs. It is okay to pray for your physical and your temporal needs. It is not unspiritual. Another great New Testament scholar, Charles Erdman said, “The petition for bread sufficient for our needs implies our right to pray for all that concerns our physical welfare.” Now I don’t know about you, but I think that’s awesome; that the God of all creation has become my Father through regeneration, I’m born by the Spirit into His family, and this great Father in heaven actually cares if there’s bread, or food, in my stomach. That God actually cares that you have clothes to wear, a bed to sleep in, and a roof over your head. God cares for birds, and He feeds them. God cares for you. God clothes the flowers of the field. God will take care of you. Amen? So there’s nothing unspiritual or carnal, for that matter, of praying for God to take care of our needs.

You say, “Well, John, why do you make that point? Or why do you emphasize that?” And that’s because some have spiritualized this petition. And “some,” meaning some of the early church fathers, even Augustine and Jerome. They felt that it was carnal to go from God’s Name and God’s kingdom and God’s will to “Give me bread.” They were all caught up in the loftiness of the glory of God. “God, let Your Name be considered holy, let Your kingdom come. God, let Your will be done. And oh, by the way, can I have something to eat?” And they thought, this certainly can’t be actual bread or food and that’s kind of—so they interpret bread as being spiritual bread. Now granted, spiritual bread is more important than your physical bread. It’s more important that we have spiritual life than physical life. But it’s not unimportant. God cares about you. When I read this petition, “Give us this day our daily bread” in a very, very natural way, it communicates to me that God cares about my needs. When I eat a bowl of cereal in the morning with strawberries on it—thank God for strawberries. Praise God for strawberries. God gave me that breakfast. God provided for my needs. God gave it to me to give me strength to be able to preach His Word and to be able to serve Him. Amen? God provides for all of our needs. God would condescend to think of my physical and material needs. So it’s not wrong to pray, “Give us our daily bread.”

Now having said that it’s not to be spiritualized, and that it is literal bread, the idea of bread speaks of whatever I physically need, my material and physical needs. It’s not talking—there’s a danger to go the other extreme and to do “hyperliteralism.” I believe the Bible should be interpreted literally, but it does contain figures of speech. It does contain parables and metaphors and similes and those kind of things that—it has all the different figures of speech. So what does He mean by “bread”? He doesn’t mean that we can only pray for actual, physical bread. If you need rent, you can pray for your rent. That’s okay. “Whew! Praise God! I need rent.” Do you need money for your mortgage? If you need a new car, if you need to be healed, if you need a new coat, if you need clothes, if you need shoes, God’s promised to provide them. To restrict it to say it’s only for bread, that’s not what He’s saying. In that case, what kind of bread? Whole wheat bread or Weber’s white bread? By the way, ever taken that white Weber’s bread and smooshed it and made a little dough ball? Throw that against the wall, it’ll stick. Because it’s bad news. I can just see someone at the grocery store standing in front of the bread section, “Oh, God, be it Thy will. What bread shalt Thou give me?” He’s not just talking about actual bread, that we can’t go beyond that. The bread symbolizes my physical needs. And it would include everything we need for our temporal well-being and our physical needs. So it’s okay to pray for those things.

Actually, Jesus instructs us in this petition to do so. In verse 8, He says, “Your Father in heaven knows what you need before you even ask Him.” And verse 26 I’ve already mentioned, that God takes care of the birds. And verse 28-30, He takes care of flowers. So God will take care of you. A little illustration: What was the first miracle recorded that Jesus ever performed? You know what it was? John 2. Water to what? Wine. You know, every wino knows that story in the Bible. “That’s my favorite verse.” Every one of them. Every one I’ve talked to knows. “Yaah, John 2’s my favorite chapter.” Jesus turned water into wine. Why did He do that? To gladden the heart of man. They could have drunk water. They could have done without. Why would Jesus turn water into wine? So that He could make the heart of man glad. You know God loves you. He cares about you. And He wants to bless you. The Bible says, “You have not because you…”—what?—“…ask not.” Ask. Your Father is willing and ready to give to you. He loves you. So Jesus provided at the wedding of Cana.

And then the Bible tells us that two different times at least Jesus fed the multitudes. How about when He fed 5,000 men and not counting women and children? So there were more than 5,000. With just a few loaves of bread—little barley loaves, they’d be round, look like a little rock—and two fish, which would be the size of sardines—they weren’t great big, giant tuna, you know. “Hey, we can feed these people.” Two little, tiny pieces of fish and a couple little pieces of hard bread. And Jesus broke it, and blessed it, and fed the multitude.

Now in the context of that story, the disciples saw the multitude, realized there’s no place to eat out here at the desert place, and the disciples asked Jesus, “Send them away. Lord, the people need to get out of here, they need to go back home and eat.” Sometimes as a pastor, I’m thinking like that; “Lord, just send the people away.” And Jesus is a lot more patient with people than I am. He’s like, “No, you feed them.” “Feed them? How am I going to feed them? All we have is a few pieces of bread and a few little fish. What are they among such a multitude?” And Jesus said, “Put them in My hand.” You see, that’s the secret; little is much in the hands of Jesus. Right? It may seem insignificant to us. What are they among so many? You may open your checkbook and go, “Oooh. Lord, have mercy.” You know that God isn’t limited by your resources? Praise God for that. He’s not limited by your money or by your intelligence. Praise God for that. Or your strength or your ability. Little is much if it’s placed in the hands of Jesus. And so they put the bread and the fish in His hands, He blessed it and broke it and over 5,000 people ate that day. Not only ate, but the Bible actually says they were full. And that word in the Greek, “full,” means “glutted.” They were OD’d on bread and fish. They like “Oooh,” like Thanksgiving, you know. “Oooh, no.” Every notice at Thanksgiving people, “Oooh, man. I ate too much.” “You want desert?” “Oh, yaah. I’ve got room for that.” “Want a piece of pie?” “Yes. Praise God.” It says they were glutted. And then—the story’s not over yet—they took 12 baskets, one for each Apostle, and they collected up leftovers. Why? Wives, if your husbands ever complain about leftovers, tell them Jesus did it. It’s Biblical. And they got 12 basketfuls of leftovers. And they all ate, and what a marvelous, practical thing that is. God concerns Himself with even our daily bread. He takes care of us.

Now, here’s the important part of this message. As we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we must pray cautiously and intelligently. We must have our minds and our hearts engaged. What do we really need to do when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”? If you’re taking notes, I’m going to give you six ways to pray this prayer. Number one, you pray it with moderation. When you say the words, “Give me today my daily…”—and there’s no personal pronouns, so it’s “Give us this day our daily bread,” it’s not a carte blanche. God is not giving you a blank check. I’ve heard some preachers on television say, “Write your own ticket with God.” One of them wrote a book, Write Your Own Ticket with God.” That God gives you a blank check, and you can write in Porsche or Ferrari or Cadillac or Rolex watch or whatever you want. Woooh. You just speak it and claim it and you’ll be rich. They’re the health-wealth preachers. That’s not what this verse is saying. Bread is a necessity, not a luxury. Don’t forget that. Bread is a necessity; it’s not a luxury. Jesus didn’t say, “Give us this day our daily fillet mignon. Give us today our daily caviar.” No. Bread is a basic substance and necessity for life.

This is what the Bible says in Philippians 4:19. Paul, in writing to the Philippians, said, “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Have you ever noticed that that’s “needs” not “greeds”? God will provide whatever it is we need. And by the way, He knows what we need. We don’t know that. In I Timothy 6:6, “Godliness with contentment is great…”—what?—“…gain.” The Bible actually says we brought nothing into this world. You’ve ever seen a child when it’s born? It doesn’t come into the world with a Rolex watch on. Rolex watch on, cell phone, “Hey, what’s happening, doc?” No. Job said it. “Naked came I into this world, naked shall I return from whence I came.” “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” So when we pray for bread, we’re praying for our necessities, our basic, daily needs.

Second thing. Write this down. We must pray with trust. We must pray in trust or faith. In I Peter 5:7, Peter says, “Casting all your cares…”—or worries or anxieties—“…upon Him…”—that is, the Lord—“…because He cares for you.” I love that passage. It actually says in the Bible that God cares about you. Not only does God so love the world of lost sinners, but God knows you, and He cares about you. The Bible says that He has the very hairs of your head all numbered. Every time you run a comb or a brush through your hair and a hair comes out, God changes the number. I’ll stop right there. I’ve got all kinds of bald jokes at this point, but I won’t say anything. You know who you are. I keep making those jokes, I’m going to lose my hair. I actually had a dream the other night I was going bald. Thank God it was a dream. But God knows the hairs of your head. He’s got them all numbered, God will take care of you. What a precious verse that is. But we have to cast our cares on Him. That means we have to trust Him.

So when I pray—here it is—so when I pray, “Give me…”—or—“Give us…”—excuse me—“…this day our daily bread,” I’m trusting God. I’m looking to God. I’m putting my faith in God. So we need to pray that prayer in trust and faith and obedience. And I want to say this. Given that He says, “Give us this day our daily bread,” it means that we can pray for small, insignificant things as well as big—what we deem to be important things. Isn’t it funny that we don’t pray until we’re out of money, or we don’t pray until someone’s about to die or we don’t pray unless it’s like cancer? We don’t pray for little things. God wants us to bring even little things. I remember one time I lost my keys and I was looking for my keys and I was about—I was losing my sanctification looking for them. I’m glad it wasn’t on a Sunday morning; I wouldn’t have been able to preach that day. I’m like, “Where’s my keys? I can’t find my keys!” And I’m tearing doors off and ripping off the drywall. “I can’t find my keys! Ooh.” And my wife—she just said so calmly, she said, “I always pray, and God helps me find my keys.” Oh [grimacing], that made me so mad! I don’t want to hear about that. So I actually—this is not a joke—I said, “Okay, then you pray, because I’m mad right now!” And Kristy goes, “Lord, help John find his keys.” And we open our eyes and there they were on the counter. And I didn’t even see them. It made me madder. That is not right. And she’ll pray about a parking spot. She’ll pray before we go into a store. “Let’s pray and God will help us find a good deal and buy what we need to buy,” and something like that. “It’s just a store. Just go buy it. Whatever you get, you get. Suffer the consequences.” It’s like people praying over a big, gnarly desert. How do you do that with a good conscience? “Lord, bless this to my body.” Just eat it and suffer the consequences. After you eat it, then you pray, “God forgive me,” is what you do. But the little things—I really believe that Jesus is trying to convey to us that God cares about your mortgage. God cares about the heater or the air conditioning, the car that won’t work. God cares about the plumbing. God cares about the family dog. God cares about the children, the needs. He cares about your clothes. God cares about your health. So we should walk constantly praying, “Lord, guide me today. Lord, help me on my job, help me when I’m working. Help me to talk to this person.” Every day we get up we should be praying for our daily bread, that God would provide for us. We should trust Him. And I think that we honor Him as our Father when we come to Him with even the small things.

Here’s the third way we should pray that prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” We must pray it with a daily dependence. The word “daily” is in there for a real reason. “Give us this…”—what?—“…day….” “Give us this day our daily….” It appears twice. Now some of the commentaries I read went on page after page after page on what does the word “day” mean. Seriously. And the reason they did that was interesting, though, because the word “day” and “daily” in this passage is found nowhere else in the Bible and nowhere else in Greek literature. And for years scholars thought that the word was invented by the New Testament writers, Matthew and Luke, because they couldn’t be found in Homer or in any other Greek manuscripts or writings. And it was just a unique word. And they were trying to figure out what it means, and then an archeologist unearthed a piece of papyrus. And on this little piece of papyrus—and it wasn’t an official document, and it wasn’t a piece of literature—a little piece of papyrus. They discovered a woman had written her shopping list. And on the shopping list she wrote down, “This is what I need to buy for today at the grocery store.” Consistent with what they discovered in the Bible, she used the same Greek word found in this verse here in Matthew 6:11. She was going to the store to buy what she needed for the day. And they would do that because they didn’t have refrigerators. So stuff would have to be bought that day for what you would eat that day. So what does the word “day” mean? I discovered it means “day.” Isn’t that profound? And then they go on for pages talking about if you prayed in the morning it means that day, if you prayed at night, it means the next day. But either way, it’s a day, for heaven’s sake.

And what is it trying to convey? It’s trying to convey the idea of a daily—emphasize the word “daily”—dependence upon God for all that is necessary for life; our food, our drink, our clothing, our shelter, our health, our finances, our friends, our family. If you need a car, He’ll provide a car. Bread stands for whatever is necessary for the maintenance of daily life. And I believe that it’s conveying the idea that we must come with a sense of daily dependence. Now to illustrate that, you remember in the Old Testament when the children of Israel came out of Egypt in the exodus and they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. And God provided what for them? Manna; right? Bread from heaven. It’s like a little coriander seed, or like a little loaf, a loaf of bread, a little piece of wafer. And it would be every morning God would cover the ground with manna. By the way, the word “manna” literally means “what is it.” That’s pretty weird. “Could you please pass the what-is-it down the table?” “This is good. What do you call it?” “What-is-it.” “Okay.” So every morning they go pick up the what-is-it, and then they would eat it. But the instructions were very specific. Remember what they were? You only collect enough for one day. One day. If you hoarded and tried to take more and you were saying, “Maybe God won’t bring the manna tomorrow. Maybe the manna’s going to run out next week. Maybe we need to stash a little bit in the tent.” Look what happened. It would grow bad. It would have worms and stagnant and have blue fur growing all over it. Like some of the stuff hiding in your refrigerator.

So God is saying, “Look, I want to provide for your daily needs.” Why? Because God wants us to come to Him every day and tell Him what we need. He doesn’t give us this month, give us this week, give us this year. Are you a little bit worried about the future? The Bible says, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” God has promised strength for the day. Trust Him. Trust Him today for today. Trust Him tomorrow for tomorrow. Now this doesn’t mean you can’t provide for your future. The Bible doesn’t forbid retirement funds, it doesn’t forbid a savings account, it doesn’t forbid that we have life insurance. But it does forbid—listen to me very carefully, child of God. It does forbid that we worry about the future. God says, “Don’t worry about the future. Trust Me on a daily basis.” He will take care of us. And that’s what we should do. Every day say, “Lord, I’m trusting You.”

I love the prayer of Solomon; Proverbs 30:8-9. Solomon prayed, “Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with food that is my portion, not that I be full and deny You and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ nor that I be in want and steal.” Isn’t that good? He says, “Don’t give me so much that I forget about You, but don’t give me so little that I turn into a thief and have to steal.” Keep me in that place of daily dependence. That has always been my prayer for every aspect of my life. “Lord, keep me, John Miller, living in dependence upon You. Thank You for Your blessings, but don’t let me take them for granted. And don’t let them cause me to drift away. If that’s going to happen, Lord, pull back. Don’t provide for me. Help me to stay dependent on You. Lord, if having good health means I’ll forget You, then cripple me, if You need to. ” Jacob was crippled by the Lord. And his name was changed to convey his new life. Israel, governed by God. He went from supplanter, tricker, heal-catcher, to Israel. You know when his name was changed? After he was crippled. And I believe with all my heart that God, in His love, will cripple us. Maybe you’ll lose your health, maybe you’ll lose your wealth, maybe some tragedy will come into your life, because it’s God’s loving stroke in your life of saying, “Don’t forget Me. Don’t forget to depend on Me. Don’t forget to pray. Don’t forget to trust Me. You came into this world naked, you’re going to go out of this world naked. Trust in Me every day.” That’s what this prayer says to my heart. When I pray, I need to remember, “Lord, You give and You take away. Blessed be Your Name. I have to live in a daily dependence upon You.”

And then fourthly—write this down—we must pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” with a willingness to work. With a willingness to work. You say, “Well, wait a minute pastor; you just told us God provides.” “He does.” But sometimes He provides supernaturally/ naturally. There’s two ways that God provides. He provides supernaturally, and He provides naturally. Now the natural is really supernatural, but we don’t recognize that. But there are times in the Bible when God supernaturally provided. The manna from heaven was supernatural. That doesn’t happen. The water from the rock—when Moses took the rod and he struck the rock, and water came gushing out. That’s cool; I could dig that. When they tell us you can’t water your grass, well, I’ll just hit a rock. These beautiful, big rocks we have around here in Menifee—you see some dude out there whacking the rock. “Come on water!” And I can see in my sanctified imagination—I see this torrent of water coming out of the rock, and they’re just like [opening his mouth to catch the falling water]. They’re just like, “Aaah, this is awesome!” You know, everybody’s dancing around in the water. God brought them that water. God provided for them that manna.

And then in the life of Elijah, the raven fed him supernaturally. When birds bring you food, you know God is doing that. Imagine going to the beach and you’re kicking back and a seagull brings you an In-N-Out burger. “Thank you very much, Mr. Seagull. Aaah.” They don’t bring you food, they steal your food. When ravens are delivering bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening—“Yaah, sweet!” And God was giving him the brook to drink from, but then the brook began to go down and down and down and down, and Elijah had to trust the Lord. He probably put a stick in and measured how far it was dropping every day, and by the depth of the water, he knew when it was going to run out. Freak-out time. This is when we’ll be out of water; this is when we’ll need to be concerned. And when the water dried up, guess what God did? He directed Elijah a new way. You know how God shuts a door to give us new direction? God’ll shut this door, and He’ll lead you over here, and He’ll shut that door, and He’ll open doors. God opens doors that no one can open, and God shuts doors that no one can shut. Trust Him.

And Elijah was sent by God to find provision to a widow. I love this story. A widow. There’s no rain, there’s no food, there’s no bread. “Okay, Lord, how’re you gonna provide?” “I’m going to send you to a widow.” “A widow? You sure You know what You’re doing, Lord?” “Yaah.” So he gets down to the widow’s house, and the widow is gathering sticks. Those sticks—and the Bible says she is going to make a fire. She has one last handful of meal. She was going to bake one cake, and she’s going to eat it with her son and die. That’s bad. And this prophet shows up and says, “Hi. I’m here for dinner.” She would have poked him in the eye with the stick. “Get away you prophet.” Poke. She actually said, and I picture this, “You see this stick?” She probably shook it at him. “You see this stick? I’m going to make a little fire, I’m going to eat a little meal, and me and my son are gonna die. And you want me to feed you?!”

Again, can you imagine going to a restaurant and someone is eating his last meal? “I’m just going to eat this, and then I’m gonna go out in the parking lot and die.” I mean, that’s how desperate he was and she was. And then this is what the Lord said through Elijah to this widow. “Feed me.”—This is kind of radical—“Feed me first, and God will take care of you.” So she says, “Okay. I hope you’re really a prophet.” So she baked the cake, and she fed the prophet. And then she went back to the barrel—Remember the story?—and she scraped out the barrel, and there was more meal. And the next day, she went back to the barrel, and she scraped it out, and there’s more meal. And she went back again the next day, and she scraped out the barrel, and there’s more meal. She’s, “I like having this dude in my house. This is pretty cool!” God will provide all that you need. When you’re looking at your checkbook and you think, ”Oh, man. I don’t know how we’re going to pay the bills,” you just scrape the bottom of the barrel and God provides every day. Haven’t you seen God do that? Amen? David said, “I have been young, and now I am old and I’ve never once seen the righteous forsaken or His seed begging bread.” Awesome promise. How awesome that is. God will provide.

But He often provides naturally—That’s supernatural—naturally. And sometimes that’s what’s called the “want ads” in the newspaper. Here’s the verse to back that up. II Thessalonians 3:10, “If a man does not work, neither should he…”—What?—“…eat.” It’s in the Bible. If a man doesn’t work, then he shouldn’t eat. Even the birds that God provides for don’t just sit in the tree and the worms crawl up and jump in their beaks. They don’t just go [holding his mouth open]. “God, give me another worm.” They have to go look, they have to go peck, they have to scratch, you know. God provides naturally supernaturally. We do what we can, and we trust God for the rest. Amen? So if we’re going to pray—what I’m say here is you can’t pray, “Provide my daily bread, in Jesus’ Name,” and just sit there and do nothing. You have to participate in God’s provision.

Let me give you the fifth way we should pray this prayer. We must pray with generosity. When I say, “Give us this day our daily bread,” I need to pray with generosity. Notice it’s in verse 11, “Give us” not “Give me.” “Give us our daily bread.” So the first three petitions say “Thy Name,” “Thy kingdom,” “Thy will.” The next three petitions are “our bread,” “our sins,” “our deliverance.” So it moves from God to our needs. But there are no personal pronouns in these three petitions. “Our bread.” “Give us our daily bread.” What it reminds me of is when I pray this prayer, that I need to think about others. “And God as you provide my bread, help me to take what you give me and to share it with others.” To distribute it to others. If you sit down at your table, and God has provided plenty of food, God has provided plenty of money, God’s provided more than enough for you, then share it with someone else. How can we pray, “Provide our daily bread,” when we don’t participate in helping others who are in need. I John 3:17 says this: “If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but chose no compassion, how can God’s love be in that person?” Good question. “Lord, just give us our bread, and Lord, thank You very much,” but then we forget that God wants to use us to be the answer to prayer for others. If you prayed for bread, and God has blessed you with it, then maybe a portion of that outta go for someone else. Outta go to help someone else.

You know, the prodigal son came to his father. And what’s the first thing he said to his father? Here’s the prayer. He said, “Father, give me.” “Father, give me the portion of goods that is mine.” And guess where he ended up? In a pigpen with no one to help, no friends, no food. He said, “How many hired servants has my father with bread enough to spare and I perish with hunger? I’m going to go back to my father and say, ‘Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and in your sight. And I’m not worthy to be called your son. Just make me one of your hired servants.’” But where did his downward trend start? When he prayed, “Give me what is mine.” So we must pray with a willingness, we must pray with a generosity.

And sixthly, and lastly, we must pray with humility. When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we should pray with humility. We are asking God. We are not commanding God. We’re not telling God, we’re not ordering God. We’re asking God. And when we pray, it is the petition of a lesser to a greater. We come humbly to God, realizing that He is our Father Who is in heaven. Yes, he loves us, but He’s still God. We come humbly and we ask Him. In James 1:17 it says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning.” God provides everything we need for natural life and for our spiritual life. You got that? So when you pray, you must pray with humility, because you’re asking God. And there’s nothing to be ashamed about to realize I need God. Do you know that we all need God? We need God for breath and life and all things.

Now Jesus said in John 6, “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but labor for the food that endures to everlasting life.” Then Jesus said, “I am the Bread of life.” And Jesus said, “Whoever comes to Me shall never hunger, and whoever believes on Me shall never thirst.” Now this petition, this fourth petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” is talking about our physical needs. But Jesus makes it clear; far more important than our physical needs are our spiritual needs. Amen? Jesus said, “What does it profit if you gain the whole world.” You want all the bread in the world, but if you lose your soul and you die and go to hell, what does it profit you? Nothing. Labor for the food which does not perish, which endures to everlasting life. Jesus said, “I am the Bread of God. I’ve come down from heaven. If you eat of Me, you will never hunger, and you will never thirst.”

I want you to know today that your greatest need is not for physical bread, it’s for spiritual bread. And Jesus is that Bread of God that has come down from heaven. And then if you eat of Him, He will satisfy the longing of your soul.

There are some of you here this morning who have never given your heart to Jesus Christ. You’ve never been born again, you’ve never trusted Him as your Savior. The Bible tells us that when Jesus died on the cross, that voluntary death, that it was also a substitutionary death, meaning He took your place. He took my place. And the Bible says that our sin was placed upon the sinless Son of God. And then He actually paid the penalty for our sins. And then when Jesus was buried, three days later He rose from the dead—that He died for our sins, and then He rose for our salvation. The Bible says, “Whoever calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.” God has no grandchildren, only children. You don’t get to heaven because your wife’s a Christian or your husband’s a Christian or your parents are Christians. You get to heaven because you trust Christ. Your sins have separated you from God, but God so loved you that He gave His Son to die for you on the cross so that you might have the Bread of God that endures into everlasting life. Jesus said we must eat of His flesh and drink of His blood. He’s talking about by faith we must trust in Him.

And I want to give an opportunity right now. If you’re here this morning and you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that this morning is the day of salvation. And today is the day, and now is the time. And if Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart, and you hear His voice, harden not your heart. Open that door and invite Christ to come in and forgive you of your sins. And He’ll forgive you and give you the hope of eternal life. Let’s bow our heads in a word of prayer.