EXPLANATION OF THE LORD'S PRAYER
"Give us this day our daily bread." Matthew 6:11
The first half of the prayer Jesus has taught us is in regard to the name
and kingdom and will of God --that His name may be honored, His kingdom
established, His will performed. When you have thus made God's service your
first interest, you may ask with confidence that your own needs may be
supplied. If you have renounced self and given yourself to Christ you are a
member of the family of God, and everything in the Father's house is for
you. All the treasures of God are opened to you, both the world that now is
and that which is to come. The ministry of angels, the gift of His Spirit,
the labors of His servants--all are for you. The world, with everything in it, is yours so far
as it can do you good. Even the enmity of the wicked will prove a blessing
by disciplining you for heaven. If "ye are Christ's," "all things are
yours." 1 Corinthians 3:23, 21.
But you are as a child who is not yet placed in control of his inheritance.
God does not entrust to you your precious possession, lest Satan by his wily
arts should beguile you, as he did the first pair in Eden. Christ holds it
for you, safe beyond the spoiler's reach. Like the child, you shall receive
day by day what is required for the day's need. Every day you are to pray,
"Give us this day our daily bread." Be not dismayed if you have not
sufficient for tomorrow. You have the assurance of His promise, "So shalt
thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." David says, "I have
been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor
his seed begging bread." Psalm 37:3, 25.
That God who sent the ravens to feed Elijah by the brook Cherith will not
pass by one of His faithful, self-sacrificing children. Of him that walketh
righteously it is written: "Bread shall be given him; his waters shall be
sure." "They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of
famine they shall be satisfied." "He that spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us
all things?" Isaiah 33:16; Psalm 37:19; Romans 8:32. He who lightened the
cares and anxieties of His widowed mother and helped her to provide for the
household at Nazareth, sympathizes with every mother in her struggle to
provide her children food. He who had compassion on the multitude because
they "fainted, and were scattered abroad" (Matthew 9:36), still has
compassion on the suffering poor. His hand is stretched out toward them in
blessing; and in the very prayer which He gave His disciples, He teaches us
to remember the poor.
When we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," we ask for others as well
as ourselves. And we acknowledge that what God gives us is not for ourselves
alone. God gives to us in trust, that we may feed the hungry. Of His
goodness He has prepared for the poor. Psalm 68:10. And He says, "When thou
makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither
thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors. . . . But when thou makest a feast,
call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed;
for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the
resurrection of the just." Luke 14:12-14.
When we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," we ask for others as well
as ourselves. And we acknowledge that what God gives us is not for ourselves
alone. God gives to us in trust, that we may feed the hungry. Of His
goodness He has prepared for the poor. Psalm 68:10. And He says, "When thou
makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither
thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors. . . . But when thou makest a feast,
call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed;
for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the
resurrection of the just." Luke 14:12-14.
"God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all
sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." "He which soweth
sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall
reap also bountifully." 2 Corinthians 9:8, 6.
The prayer for daily bread includes not only food to sustain the body, but
that spiritual bread which will nourish the soul unto life everlasting.
Jesus bids us, "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat
which endureth unto everlasting life." John 6:27. He says, "I am the living
bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall
live forever." Verse 51. Our Saviour is the bread of life, and it is by
beholding His love, by receiving it into the soul, that we feed upon the
bread which came down from heaven.
We receive Christ through His word, and the Holy Spirit is given to open the
word of God to our understanding, and bring home its truths to our hearts.
We are to pray day by day that as we read His word, God will send His Spirit
to reveal to us the truth that will strengthen our souls for the day's need.
In teaching us to ask every day for what we need --both temporal and
spiritual blessings--God has a purpose to accomplish for our good. He would
have us realize our dependence upon His constant care, for He is seeking to
draw us into communion with Himself. In this communion with Christ, through
prayer and the study of the great and precious truths of His word, we shall
as hungry souls be fed; as those that thirst, we shall be refreshed at the fountain of life.
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