February 20, 2002

OUR DAILY BREAD, Part I

"Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11, NKJV).

"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' (Isaiah 33:16). 'They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied' (Psalm 37:19). '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?' (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."--Thoughts From The Mount Of Blessing, pp., 110, 111.