Posted on by intentional4christ

Give us this day our daily bread

Manna. The bible describes manna as a white flaky substance that looked like coriander seeds, and tasted like wafers made with honey. Manna was the heavenly food that God provided for the Israelites during their forty-year sojourn through the wilderness. God spoke manna into being, and for 6 days/week, this food from heaven never failed to appear with the morning dew. Manna sustained the Israelites for decades, providing them with all the nutrition they needed on their pilgrimage to Canaan, their promised land.

Manna was physical evidence of the word of God that was manifest daily for the Israelites. They literally lived and survived on the words that had proceeded from the mouth of God- fresh manna almost every morning. That was the lesson of manna for the Israelites: that their daily survival depended on God’s word being activated as physical food (manna) to feed them.

Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 

Deuteronomy 8:3 NLT

You see, in the desert, God cautioned the Israelites not to save manna overnight but to expect a new batch everyday (except for day 6 where they would have to take extra to account for not working on the sabbath). Those who did not believe God’s word stocked up and the next day the manna became maggot-ridden. Those who also went out to gather manna on the sabbath were sorely disappointed. The Israelites had to rely on the very word that came out of the mouth of God. Any deviation from those words led to epic disappointments in their daily sustenance.

Fast-forward to the New Testament and we see Jesus teaching the disciples to pray. He taught them to pray thus:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.

Matthew 6: 9-11 NLT

This statement would have resonated with the disciples who would have been familiar with the story of their ancestors eating manna in the desert. Jesus was teaching the disciples that just as the Israelites depended on God then for their daily bread (manna), so were they to depend on God for their daily sustenance. Manna was not about physical food only; it was about learning to trust in the word of God as what sustains life.

When we pray, “give us this day our daily bread,” we should not only be concerned about our physical and material needs. We need to be asking God for his life giving word, our manna, for the day. We ought to be praying, “God, what word do I need to survive the day?” We should be connecting to the source of life, which is the word of God. Jesus reminds us that the words he spoke (and continues to speak over us) are spirit and they are life (John 6:63 KJV).

So instead of only making a barrage of requests to God to meet our physical and material needs, would you consider thinking of your daily bread as a life-sustaining word from God? If so, then next time when you pray, ask God to give you a word for the day: one that would not only nourish your body but will also feed your soul. Perhaps you might want to pray:

My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word!

Psalm 119:25 ESV

Now lets take this a little deeper. John 1:1 tells us in no uncertain terms that Jesus is the word of God personified. And if Jesus is God’s word, then He is the manna I have been talking about so far. Jesus is the life sustaining word we need on a daily basis. Jesus Himself confirmed this to over 5000 people who had just witnessed Him perform an epic miracle of providing food for them. They said:

Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 

John 6:31-35 NIV

Jesus is our Manna and our daily bread. So when Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray “give us today our daily bread,” He was essentially saying to them just ask for more of him. Earlier I challenged you to pray for a word from God everyday. Well, if you are unsure how to pray for this, then just pray for more of Jesus everyday. He is the word of God, and your daily bread of life.

I encourage you to pray “give us our daily bread” every day throughout the month of March and see how God answers that prayer. I can guarantee that you notice a difference in your month: You will experience more of Jesus!

Yours truly.

Posted on by intentional4christ

Our Daily Bread

Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6:11 NIV

I have spent almost a month pondering over what this scripture means to me and I learnt two lessons from this line of the Lord’s prayer.

Lesson 1

Many times in my life when I have prayed about my needs and wants, there is some measure of extravagance to it. I am asking God (with all earnestness) for some really big things… we are talking lots of moolah and always for many good causes but in the course of thinking of this scripture, there was a paragraph from the book I am reading, Pursue Overtake Recover, that really struck me. The author, Kerry Kirkwood said:

Many of us pray big prayers and yet prepare little for the answers. Without wisdom from above, the answers to some prayers would be destructive. For instance, you may ask for a million dollars to flow through your hands and yet are not prepared because you have not been faithful and responsible handling hundreds of dollars… The receiver of the gift must be equal to the size of the gift so as to contain the answer when it comes.

That really hit home for me. so what has this got to do with my daily bread? Everything. I am learning to ask for my DAILY bread. Not more than what I need but exactly what God knows I need each day. Since I learnt from Psalm 23 about not wanting because God is my Shepherd, god has proven Himself to me and my family. We have had enough to get us through every day. Some days, this means we have enough to give generously to others and other days it means we have just enough for our family unit. Regardless of the day, whatever God blesses us with is enough for the day. It is our DAILY BREAD. I am 100% in agreement with the prayer of the wise man:

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonour the name of my God. Proverbs 30: 8-9 NIV

Lesson 2

A lot of times when we think of daily bread, we think of our physical and financial needs and while that is all well and good, bread in scripture represents far more than that! let’s look at these scriptures together:

Yes, I am the bread of life! I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” John 6: 48, 51, 58 NLT

Jesus contrasts two kinds of bread. One is for physical sustenance and the other is only found in Him and it gives life, even eternal life. Because it is Jesus himself. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world (John 6:38 NIV).  So when Jesus is teaching us to pray for our daily bread, we are asking God to give us enough of Himself for another day; enough presence, enough power, enough revelation, enough of His spirit for the day.

So how do I access this bread and how does it give me life? Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” (Matthew 4:4 NIV). The Word of God is key and when God Himself inspires us with the exact Word we need for the day, how blessed will our day be! We will experience the life-giving power of God’s word. The same breath of life that was breathed into the first man’s nostrils making him a living creature is manifest in every word in scripture because All Scripture is God-breathed… (2 Timothy 3:16 NIV)

So if you have been following along in this series, we start by acknowledging who God is as our Father and identifying our place in His kingdom and the next step is to ask for God’s enablement by asking for enough of God for the day. Perhaps if I start my day with a measure of God’s spirit, I may not struggle as much with my thoughts, with what I say, with my actions, and with my motives and motivations throughout the day! So:

This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence living in me
This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word spoken to me
And I’m desperate for you
And I’m lost without you

Yours Truly.