The LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you..." (Ex 16:4).
Every day the Lord filled baskets with bread from Heaven while the Israelites wandered the wilderness.
The LORD gave them daily bread.
Whether God gives you bread from heaven, or from the bakery, God provides everything you need. He can provide miraculously, but He normally fills your baskets with bread through the ordinary operation of His creation under His order and His rule.
We pray: "Give us this day our daily bread" (Mt 6:11).
Then the LORD provides.
He provides the wheat seed, the farmer and the tractor.
He provides the rain, the fertiliser and the harvester.
He provides the grain truck, the mill and the miller.
He provides the yeast, the baker and the oven.
He provides the bread tin, the electricity and the plastic wrapper.
He provides your income, your tap-to-pay card and your car to transport that bread home.
And that's just for bread!
In a system of society that is infinitely complex, God provides your bread (and even if you were to grow the wheat, mill the grain and bake the bread yourself, it still all comes from God!). More than that the Lord provides everything that you need and so much more!
Jesus teaches us in this part of the Lord's prayer to look to God for that regular daily provision for what we need, that is, the basics of life to enable us to live. God sustains us and we should look to Him for that sustenance.
Even if we know the way God's world works, with photosynthesis and weather patterns and economics, it is still the Lord who sovereignly rules over all things working through these mechanisms to provide or need. So we thank God for supplying our every need, and we ask him to continue doing it!
The Goldilocks Zone
One of the ways you can translate this part of the Lord's Prayer is "Give us bread for tomorrow". This brings forward the idea that Jesus teaches us to ask for just enough for the next day. Enough for now.
God could have dropped a weeks worth of bread into the Israelites lap in the wilderness, but instead God chose to do it daily to teach continual reliance on the Lord's provision. Hoarding got them nowhere. But God did supply an additional amount to provide for their times of rest on the Sabbath.
They received what they needed for what God asked of them.
In the Lords prayer, Jesus seems to be riffing on Proverbs, where the Wise asks for not too much, and not too little:
This reveals to us the heart of our own nation right now! We have grown fat on the riches of the Lords blessing through time and now we have turned our back on Him and blasphemously ask "Who is the LORD?". Our people are fed by the Lord's hand and they do not even acknowledge Him!
Our nation would be well served to have all our riches and wealth pulled from under us so that we would wake up, and call on the Name of the LORD! It is better for us to live hand-to-mouth and glorify God that to have every worldly thing our hearts could desire.
As God's people, we trust Him to provide enough for what He has asked us to do. We ask for the supplies we need for now, praise Him as that Provider of what we have, and then get on with with our faithful service.
"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." (Lk 12:48).
YHWH Jir'eh
The LORD will provide. The Lord provided the sacrifice on the mountain for Abraham (Gen 22), and He provides our sacrifice on the Mount of the LORD.
The Lord provides our earthly needs, and our needs for salvation. He provided Jesus as the one who stood in our place and suffered for our sins.
Just as the Lord provides our daily food, He provides Jesus, Bread of Life whom we must daily feed on by faith.
Ask for your daily needs, thank God for them and use them to do what He asked you.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided” (Ge 22:13–14).
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (Jn 6:35).
Give us Our Daily Bread
The LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you..." (Ex 16:4).
Every day the Lord filled baskets with bread from Heaven while the Israelites wandered the wilderness.
The LORD gave them daily bread.
Whether God gives you bread from heaven, or from the bakery, God provides everything you need. He can provide miraculously, but He normally fills your baskets with bread through the ordinary operation of His creation under His order and His rule.
We pray: "Give us this day our daily bread" (Mt 6:11).
Then the LORD provides.
He provides the wheat seed, the farmer and the tractor.
He provides the rain, the fertiliser and the harvester.
He provides the grain truck, the mill and the miller.
He provides the yeast, the baker and the oven.
He provides the bread tin, the electricity and the plastic wrapper.
He provides your income, your tap-to-pay card and your car to transport that bread home.
And that's just for bread!
In a system of society that is infinitely complex, God provides your bread (and even if you were to grow the wheat, mill the grain and bake the bread yourself, it still all comes from God!). More than that the Lord provides everything that you need and so much more!
Jesus teaches us in this part of the Lord's prayer to look to God for that regular daily provision for what we need, that is, the basics of life to enable us to live. God sustains us and we should look to Him for that sustenance.
Even if we know the way God's world works, with photosynthesis and weather patterns and economics, it is still the Lord who sovereignly rules over all things working through these mechanisms to provide or need. So we thank God for supplying our every need, and we ask him to continue doing it!
The Goldilocks Zone
One of the ways you can translate this part of the Lord's Prayer is "Give us bread for tomorrow". This brings forward the idea that Jesus teaches us to ask for just enough for the next day. Enough for now.
God could have dropped a weeks worth of bread into the Israelites lap in the wilderness, but instead God chose to do it daily to teach continual reliance on the Lord's provision. Hoarding got them nowhere. But God did supply an additional amount to provide for their times of rest on the Sabbath.
They received what they needed for what God asked of them.
In the Lords prayer, Jesus seems to be riffing on Proverbs, where the Wise asks for not too much, and not too little:
"Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the LORD?”
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God." (Pr 30:8–9).
This reveals to us the heart of our own nation right now! We have grown fat on the riches of the Lords blessing through time and now we have turned our back on Him and blasphemously ask "Who is the LORD?". Our people are fed by the Lord's hand and they do not even acknowledge Him!
Our nation would be well served to have all our riches and wealth pulled from under us so that we would wake up, and call on the Name of the LORD! It is better for us to live hand-to-mouth and glorify God that to have every worldly thing our hearts could desire.
As God's people, we trust Him to provide enough for what He has asked us to do. We ask for the supplies we need for now, praise Him as that Provider of what we have, and then get on with with our faithful service.
"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." (Lk 12:48).
YHWH Jir'eh
The LORD will provide. The Lord provided the sacrifice on the mountain for Abraham (Gen 22), and He provides our sacrifice on the Mount of the LORD.
The Lord provides our earthly needs, and our needs for salvation. He provided Jesus as the one who stood in our place and suffered for our sins.
Just as the Lord provides our daily food, He provides Jesus, Bread of Life whom we must daily feed on by faith.
Ask for your daily needs, thank God for them and use them to do what He asked you.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided” (Ge 22:13–14).
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (Jn 6:35).
Samuel Lindsay