Today we will study “Give us this day our daily bread.” In this prayer, God wants us to acknowledge and thank him that it is he who gives us our everyday food. At the same time, look around; today millions are celebrating the Pongal festival. What a sadness. Pongal is a thanksgiving festival for the year’s harvest—”pongi” meaning to overflow. Who gives that harvest? It is God who gives the harvest, and he should get all the glory. But look at the dishonor the sinful world does to him. They worship the creature rather than the creator. On the day of Bogi, they will worship rain and burn old items. It is God who gives rain to both the good and the bad. On Thai Pongal, they worship the sun as it moves to the north side, marking the end of winter and the beginning of spring, by making rice and milk boil over. It is God who raises the sun every day. He does not get the glory. As if that’s not enough, there’s also Mattu Pongal, where they worship cattle, sheep, and cows. It is God who made all animals. What a culture we live in, to see all this and not be burdened by it. It is a terrible, dark world. Romans 1 says that is why the wrath of God has already come on this culture, and God gave them up to a depraved mind. We have to be careful that this doesn’t happen to us, that we are not grateful and do not honor him for our bread. May today’s message not make the rice pot, but our hearts, overflow with gratitude for the bread he gives us. That is true Pongal.
What a prayer this is. So simple even children can pray it, so deep even the greatest wise people cannot understand its full depth. Not all can pray this truly. One person said, “I cannot say ‘our’ if I live only for myself in a spiritually selfish world. I cannot say ‘Father’ if I do not endeavor each day to act like his child. I cannot say ‘who art in heaven’ if I am focused always on worldly things. I cannot say ‘hallowed be your name’ if I am not striving for holiness. I cannot say ‘your kingdom come’ if I am not doing all in my power to hasten that wonderful event. I cannot say ‘your will be done’ if I am disobedient to his word. I cannot say ‘give us this day our daily bread’ if I get money through dishonest or unjust gain. I cannot say ‘forgive us our debts’ if I harbor a grudge against anyone. I cannot say ‘lead us not into temptation’ if I deliberately place myself in its path.” It is a great blessing to start learning to pray like this. Just the prayer itself gives purpose and meaning to life and a direction for every day. It reminds us what is important and why we live. I find myself running my prayer along the skeleton of this passage, touching base with each one of these principles. And I hope that’s happening in your prayer as well. Our prayers should follow Christ’s prayer pattern. This is praying according to God’s will.
In this prayer, there are two sections: the first one dealing with God, and the second one dealing with people. The first one deals with God’s glory, and the second one deals with people’s needs. First, we saw three requests: “Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. And your will be done,” and those focused on God and his glory. Then we see three other requests focusing on people and their needs: “Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” God, then, is the supreme issue here, and not until God is in the proper perspective can people pray properly about their own needs. Keep that in mind. We have learned the three top priorities of prayer: his name, his kingdom, and his will. These should be our top concerns. It is a principle in God’s kingdom that he who saves his life will lose it. He who will lose it for the kingdom will gain it. If we lose ourselves for these three things, we will gain life. “Seek his kingdom first, and all things will be added.” God’s glory is more valuable than heaven, more valuable than the salvation of all people’s souls. It is better that kingdoms be demolished and people and angels be annihilated than that God lose any part of his glory. The natural person seeks their own secular interests before God’s glory. Let them have peace and trade, let the rock pour out rivers of oil, and let God’s glory go wherever it will; they do not mind it. A worm cannot fly and sing like a lark, so a natural person, whose heart creeps on the earth, cannot admire God or advance his glory as a person elevated by grace does. A sign of a born-again person is living for God’s glory. For Jesus, God’s glory was more important than his own food.
We come to the section of the Lord’s Prayer which covers our three basic needs. It is amazing how comprehensive this prayer is. First of all: “Give us this day our daily bread,” speaks of physical life. Secondly, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” speaks of the mental life, and we will get more into that next time. Thirdly, “Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil,” is for the spiritual life. Bread takes care of our physical life. Forgiveness frees our mind from the anxiety and pain of guilt and the burden of sin. And being led and directed away from evil is our spiritual direction. By the way, bread takes care of the present, forgiveness takes care of the past, and help takes care of the future. So, all the dimensions of life are covered, and all the needs of life are covered. It is amazing, the marvel, the wonder of how God’s infinite mind can reduce all human need to three simple, profound statements.
What greater needs does a Christian have on a daily basis than these? To meet all their physical needs—”give us our daily bread”—to have a fellowship with their God unhindered by a nagging conscience because of sin—”forgive us our sins”—and to have the power to live a life well-pleasing to God—”do not lead us into temptation.” What more does a Christian need? If a person has those three needs fully met, they are the richest person in the world. They have all their basic needs met, up-to-date forgiveness so they can look up to the face of their God without a nagging conscience, and they are experiencing the grace of God that would not hinder their fellowship with God and his blessing. What else does a person need?
Now, may I hasten to add this: when we get to the second part of the prayer, it doesn’t set God aside. Even though God is primarily exalted in the first half, the second half also exalts him and does not set him aside. For example, the fact that God gives us our daily bread, forgives our debts, and leads us not into temptation is an expression of his power and his grace. Now note this: “Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done,” where? “In earth, as it is in heaven.” How does God hallow his name, bring his kingdom, and do his will on the earth? By giving us our daily bread, by forgiving us our debts, and by leading us in our lives. We are walking in close fellowship with him. We are saying, “God, glorify yourself in our daily provision. God, glorify yourself in our constant forgiveness. God, glorify yourself in the leading and the directing of your Spirit in our lives.”
Some of the most miraculous days in the church, apart from the sovereign will and history, you will notice, have always been when the people of God were absorbed with the first three petitions. Most of today’s miracles are false because most of them start with “give me bread.” The curse of our day’s prayer groups is that there is so much prayer. It is so grieving in Christianity that in the name of prayer, people go about demanding things from God. “In Jesus’ name, we command. We take it.” Forget for a moment all the wrong things people are praying for; even when praying for the right things, they have the wrong motive. We pray for a nation’s prosperity, for health, for disease, for people with addictions. We pray for this and that for Christians. For what? For India, for souls, for Christians? No. We should pray for God’s glory, his kingdom, and his will. India will be here today and gone tomorrow. His kingdom is eternal. In all our requests, we are to give God the privilege and opportunity of revealing his glory through the meeting of the deepest of human needs. But it is because we want God to be on display, not because we make demands on him for our own benefit. If prayer becomes person-centered, if prayer becomes self-centered, if prayer becomes selfish in any sense, it ceases to be the kind of prayer our Lord said should be characteristic of his kingdom. And yet so many people approach God that way.
“Give us this day our daily bread” may at first seem a little irrelevant to us. How many people pray like this, daily hungering for food? I mean, when is the last time you prayed, “Lord, I plead with You to provide me a meal”? I dare say some of our prayers may have been more like this: “Lord, please prevent me from eating another meal. Teach me self-discipline. Lord, I must lose weight.” It does seem a little remote, doesn’t it? I mean, when is the last time we really got desperate about our food? You might say this message ought to be preached in Somalia, Africa, where there is a lot of famine and people live on daily wages. But when I pray, it will not be a ritual, hypocritical prayer. This only illustrates our lack of understanding of its marvelous truth. What does this mean to us, then? What is this text saying to us? Let’s find out.
Each word is a heading for this sermon. We will look at three things:
- What substance are we praying for?
- How we pray
- The great benefits of praying this daily
What Substance Are We Praying For?
We are praying for bread. For Eastern cultures, bread is the mainstay of life. Jesus said people shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Bread was as important in Jesus’s day as rice is for us. It is the main substance of our food. So, in this request, we are asking for the basic, necessary food that would sustain us in our physical life as we seek to hallow his name, bring his kingdom, and do his will as it is in heaven.
But bread is a symbol for all of our physical needs. Martin Luther had it right when he said: “Everything necessary for the preservation of this life is bread, including food, a healthy body, good weather, a house, a home, a wife, children, good government, and peace.” He saw all of the physical necessities of life, but not the desires or luxuries. Even today, we say “bread and butter” to mean all our needs. I don’t think that we can ask God for the luxuries of life based on this verse, but we can ask for the necessities. What he chooses to give us by way of luxury is from his gracious hand. But he promises to give us the necessities. Do you remember back in Proverbs chapter 30? In verses 8 and 9, Agur says, “Lord, don’t give me so much that I forget You, and don’t give me so little that I steal and dishonor Your name. Just give me food that is convenient for me.” I think that’s the heart of this. It isn’t self-seeking, saying, “Give me more and more and more.” It’s just saying, “Lord, give me what I need.”
It is God who gives us our daily bread. When it says “daily,” it means we have to pray this prayer daily. But why should we pray this daily and not just once in a while?
How We Pray
“Give us.” Why do we pray in the plural, “give us”? Why is it not said, “give me”? This is to show that we are to have a public spirit in prayer. We must not only pray for ourselves but also for others. Every good Christian has a fellow-feeling for the wants and miseries of others. This also serves as a rebuke to narrow-spirited people who only care about themselves, who look only at themselves and do not care about the needs of others. If they have daily bread, they do not care if others starve. If they are clothed, they do not care if others go naked.
It seems so simple. There are so many spiritual needs, the kingdom, and other spiritual things that I can pray for, but I don’t like to pray for such a simple need. Let me tell you the great benefits of praying this daily.
The Great Benefits of Daily Prayer
This prayer will remove two sins from our life: unnecessary worldly worry and covetousness. It will also cultivate two important graces in our life: gratitude and dependence.
- This will remove unnecessary worldly worry from our life. You see, people can’t even be a spiritual being unless they are a physical one, right? God has to begin with the physical. It thrills me to know that God, the God who is the God of infinite celestial epochs, God who is the God of space, God who is the God beyond time, the God of eternity, the God who is the infinitely holy God of the universe who holds all the whirling worlds and the spinning stars in the palm of his hand—that same God cares that my physical needs are met. He is concerned about whether I ate every meal. What a Father! That same God is concerned with the fact that I have a meal to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to rest.
This will remove worry because it will make us acknowledge the concern of God in the small area of life that is basic bread. If he will do that, won’t he take care of other worldly things for me? Here we move from such lofty concepts as hallowing God’s name, a great purpose of God to bring his kingdom to earth, and the great model of our obedience being the obedience of angels in heaven. Then we move from such big things as the name of God, his kingdom, and his great will to something so ordinary as bread. I felt, what a letdown!
Why? The Lord wants to teach us that just as we recognize God as the great, majestic, transcendent, lofty God before whom the Seraphim cry, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” he is also the God who is concerned about the bread on my table. Isaiah 40 is a wonderful chapter. You should read it. It tells of the greatness of God. Verse 9 says, “See your God,” the omnipotent God, the ruler of God, the judge of the world. But look at verse 11. What a weight of contrasts! It’s the same kind of contrast as here.
Do you remember Elijah on Mount Carmel? The great issue was who the true God was before the prophets of Baal. Israel had forsaken him; the great issue was God’s glory and his kingdom. Elijah prayed, and fire came and burned up the sacrifice to glorify God and vindicate his name. It is the same great God who prepared a raven to take a piece of bread to Elijah. It is the same God who was concerned about his glory on Carmel before thousands of people who was here concerned about the hungry tummy of his prophet, so he sent ravens, and they came with a piece of bread to sustain the prophet through those years of famine. The God who did great wonders in Egypt and parted the Red Sea is the God who brought his people to the wilderness and daily sent them manna from heaven to feed them. The Father knows. So God wants us to acknowledge this concern. When we pray and realize God is concerned that I have rice on my plate every day, or if rice is not good, chapati, then that God will take care of all the other worries I have.
- Praying this will remove covetousness. Therefore, covetousness is called a radical vice, “the root of all evil.” 1 Timothy 6:10. Covetousness is not getting riches unjustly, but loving them inordinately, which is a key that opens the door to all sin. People are not content with what may satisfy nature but are insatiable in their desire. The Israelites murmured and perished for this reason, as did Achan, Judas, and Demas.
The third word in the petition is “this day.” We pray not “give us bread for a month or a year,” but for a day. “Give us this day.” Is it not lawful to lay up for the future? Does not the apostle say that he who does not provide for his family “is worse than an infidel”? 1 Timothy 5:8.
True, it is lawful to lay up for posterity, but our Savior has taught us to pray, “Give us this day our bread,” for two reasons: (1) That we should not have anxious care for the future. We should not set our minds on the rack or torment ourselves with how to lay up great estates. If we do live for the day, if we have just enough to provide for the present, it should suffice. “Give us this day.” “Take no thought for the morrow.” Matthew 6:34. God fed Israel with manna in the wilderness, and he fed them from hand to mouth. Sometimes all their manna was spent, and if anyone had asked them where they would have their breakfast next morning, they would have said, “Our care is only for the day. God will rain down what manna we need. If we have bread today, let us not distrust God’s providence for the future.” (2) Our Savior wants us to pray, “Give us bread this day,” to teach us to live every day as if it were our last. We are not to pray, “Give us bread tomorrow,” because we do not know whether we shall live until tomorrow. But, “Lord, Give us this day,” for it may be the last day we shall live, and then we shall need no more.
If we pray for bread for a day only, then you who have great estates have cause to be thankful. You have more than you pray for. You pray but for bread for one day, and God has given you enough to suffice all your life. What a bountiful God you serve! Two things should make rich people thankful: God gives them more than they deserve, and he gives them more than they pray for.
We have to die to an inordinate desire to have more than what we really need. We are taught not to pray for oil or wine, but for bread—not for luxury, but for necessity. It is the staple food, the basic necessity. He did not ask for biryani, ice cream, KFC, or Domino’s cheese-burst pizza. If he gives us that, that is fine. But we are praying for bread.
So, we become accustomed to luxurious living and forget that there is a standard of Christian frugality. Every Christian is to live in the light of eternity. So, when I pray, I have to bring control into my life beyond what I need, and the love of unnecessary luxury.
The psalmist’s prayer is to be neither poor nor rich. Proverbs 30:9. We also have to kill the itch to build for the next 20 years. This is a terrible curse in our culture. Some of us cannot honestly say that we do not have bread for at least the future years, with insurance and property. In a way, I feel bad that I cannot genuinely pray this.
There were days when I lived on a very low salary and did not know how next month’s food would come. There were some days when I did not know how food would come that day. What a blessed experience. In a way, I miss that now. There was something blessed about literally having to look to the hand of God for every meal. We had needs, and then suddenly, as a miracle, the need was met. What a joy and thrill, instead of having enough money, without any gratitude, just eating and yawning and burping.
We have to die to the itch for something more than bread, and also for the itch for things beyond today. Yes, for the future, we have to pray and plan, but we should not be worried. We should not rob ourselves of the blessing of having to believe God for meeting our needs. There is a school that actually sets the salary of its staff just a little bit below what is needed for their basic needs so that the teachers constantly learn and live the truth of this prayer and teach it to their students. Yes.
It will keep us from the desire to have our security lined up for 50 years. The flesh doesn’t like that. It wants to be secure. “What will happen to my future, in my old age?” The flesh doesn’t want to be shut up to God for the present moment. But is it not the most blessed place to be? God is teaching his people that they have to look up every day for their daily needs.
- These two things—no worry and no covetousness—are what no sinner has, and that is the curse of all sinners’ lives. The root of all sin and the curse from Adam to this day is a lack of dependence and gratitude. The greatest curse of sin is that the creature is self-dependent, cut off from the creator, living independently. This is sin. In redemption, God brings us back to the place where we know that day by day, without him, we can do nothing. We pray. Pride is a curse. It has affected us so much that even after conversion, it is very difficult to grow and cultivate those two graces. This prayer will teach and develop those two graces. It will teach us that the source of our provision is God. This will increase the grace of gratitude and make us very grateful people. That is what I want to make you realize today.
The first thing as we pray is that we are acknowledging God as the source of all our temporal needs. One teacher asked his students, “That food you had, where did you get it?” “My mother gave it to me.” “Where did she get it?” “From the shop.” “Where did the shop get it?” “From the farmers.” “Where did the farmers get it?” “From the ground.” “Where did the ground get it?” Then they said, “From God.” See, we are slow to acknowledge the source and praise the source, but we only think of the means that God uses to get us the bread. Our hearts are dull and lack gratitude because we don’t realize this.
You know, we tend to think that we provide everything for ourselves. “I make my living. I earn my wages. I buy my bread. You know, what do I owe God?” Right? “I’m carrying my own load, frankly.” Even if we don’t say that, that’s kind of the way we operate. For example, when is the last time you said, “Lord, for my daily bread I thank You, for the fact that I have food to eat and clothes to wear and a shelter over my head, I thank You. That I have a bed to rest in, that I have enough physical strength to know You, to perceive You, to live life in a way that is rich and meaningful”? Well, that’s what he’s after here. God cares about the little things. God is involved. God knows when a sparrow hops. God knows the number of hairs on your head. And everything there is in this world, he knows and controls and orders for us, so that we are always to be thankful.
And it’s God. Everything we have is from God. It is God who brings the rain to make things grow. It is God who cycles the seasons. It is God who produces the minerals in the soil to make the earth fertile. It is God who gives us the natural resources to propel ourselves around. It is God who provides for us the animals from which we make our clothing and the synthetics that come from petroleum, and so on, that once came from animals. It’s God who made it all.
Let’s do a small exercise to realize something. Take rice. We went to our village and saw how difficult agriculture is. First, they plow the ground, water it, and make it soft. They buy the seed, sow it, water it, and watch the small plants grow. Then they plant each one individually, fertilize and take care of it daily, and protect it. If it doesn’t rain, the whole crop is gone, and they cannot even travel. After that, they harvest, cut the grain, and tread on the harvest to separate the grain. They take the grain, put it in a machine, polish it, transport it, and bring it to a retail shop. Then we go to the store, buy it, and bring it home.
For this, we need water. We won’t even wash the rice in borewell water, only river water. We take water, but where does it come from?
The next time you let tap water run to waste while washing your vehicle or use extra liters flushing your toilet, it is worthwhile to keep in mind the mind-boggling journey every drop of water makes before it reaches your tap.
The source is Talacauvery, located in the Coorg district. The river then flows through the Mysore district, where two islands, Srirangapatna and Shivanasamudra, are formed. At Shivanasamudra, the river drops 98 meters, forming the famous falls known as Gaganachukki and Bharachukki. The Shiva Anicut flows for 150 km. The Cauvery River flows through the Mandya district to Torekadanahalli (T.K. Halli) in the Mandya district. From here, since Bangalore city is located 3,000 feet above sea level, Cauvery can never flow from Mandya to us. The only way to get water to the city is by pumping it upwards of 1,500 feet from T.K. Halli. It is then pumped 85 km through an incredibly complicated process to reach Bengaluru. “Every day, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) performs Asia’s biggest pumping exercise to lift 1,400 million liters of water upwards to the city.”
Water comes to the Cauvery Water Supply Scheme in stages I, II, and III. Think of the canals, pipelines, and security. The water that enters the plant goes through a process of oxygenation and oxidation to remove bacteria. Chlorination removes any harmful organisms in the water. It is further subjected to Alum Dosing, whereby Aluminum Sulphate is mixed to ensure the right turbidity (clarity) levels of the water. A filtration process follows, where sand is used as filters. Water thus treated and filtered is dispatched from T.K. Halli through mammoth pipes 500 feet upward to Harohalli. From Harohalli, water is again pumped 500 feet to the Tataguni pumping station. Water from Tataguni finally enters Bengaluru after it is pumped another 500 feet. The water is distributed from here to the 56 Ground Level Reservoirs, from where it is distributed across the City and surrounding areas through water pipes laid to your doorstep. Unlike major cities in India, which either have a water source nearby or have developed on a river bank, Bengaluru’s main water sources are all in the neighboring districts, making the supply of water a highly complicated affair.
And here we are, flushing and pouring and using 10 buckets of water as we like! Okay, you take the water and clean that rice, and then should I tell you how the gas cylinder is manufactured with steel, copper, and titanium lining for corrosion resistance, then filled with liquefied petroleum gas from oil and gas wells, pressurized in vessels, and transported? Then there’s the gas stove, how it was manufactured so it would burn food for you. And the vessels, how they were made. Then take the salt, how it is made, how it came into our food; how spice is made… what is the process?
Think of vegetables. You plant the seed, water it, the plant grows, and then the vegetable appears. You pluck it, transport it, buy it, bring it home, wash it, and cook it. Chicken comes from an egg. The chicken eats, grows with no disease, and then is cut, dressed, brought home, and made into a nice kebab.
There are hundreds of things working together when we sit down and have rice with curry poured over it. What a complicated process. We just eat nicely, burp, and do not even give one thanks. So much has happened behind this. The God of providence was involved in each small step in the network to bring that food to us. Do we think about it? We just eat and grow. He gives all this to satisfy our tongue and mouth.
Think about the varieties. Ungrateful people. Let them eat only mud. Mud for breakfast, mud for lunch, and mud for dinner, all our lives and everything was grey. No, let them eat “filth,” then they’ll learn. What variety! It’s endless.
- Plants: rice, wheat for bread, finger millet for porridge, cornmeal, chickpeas. If you want to lose weight, eat oats or noodles. And in rice, what a variety: parboiled rice, raw rice, steamed rice, red rice for people with sugar problems.
- Grains: lentils, black gram, green gram.
- Spices: for taste, cumin, black pepper, fenugreek, mustard, chickpeas, black-eyed peas, green peas, kidney beans.
- Dry fruits: pistachio, almonds, dates, dried grapes.
- Vegetables: carrot, bitter gourd, drumstick, eggplant, radish, beetroot, beans, cauliflower, tomato, bottle gourd, cabbage, capsicum.
- Greens: green amaranth, drumstick leaves, coriander, curry leaves, mint for fry, for curry.
- Fruits: apple, banana, grapes, guava, jackfruit, mango, watermelon, sweet lime, pomegranate, pineapple, papaya.
He made all this. “Give us this day…” See the care and love of God. When have we thanked Him for all of this?
And then, there’s very loving food: non-vegetarian. What if that was not there? Mutton, beef, goat, sheep, chicken, fish. What a variety in fish! How many fishes: salmon, pomfret, and cutla.
Dairy products: milk, curd, butter, buttermilk, cheese, coffee, it’s endless. And, it is the height of indifference and ingratitude not to be daily recognizing that, and affirming that God is a God who is active daily in upholding His world so that it supports our physical needs. How grateful we should be for God’s gracious daily loving provision. Did you know that God has even set up a network that’s so incredible? God has to have in His whole system food for man, but in order to have food for man, He has to feed the food that feeds man, do you realize that? And so, God has to feed the animals and the plants, and there have to be minerals, and other animals, and other plants, and the whole cycle is just to provide for man. And by the way, rain is a gift from God, did you know that? And if God shut off the heavens, nothing would grow. And if the grass didn’t grow and the plants didn’t grow, the animals wouldn’t eat. And if the animals didn’t eat, you wouldn’t either, and we’d all be dead. So if it doesn’t rain, the whole thing goes down. But God upholds the world and keeps the rain falling. All we have is from God’s hand.
Where did all this come from? “And God saw everything, and said it’s good.” Good for food, good for man’s physical life. He created all this and said it was good. Like a mother who sees and feeds good things to her child. God created all this for our good. Take our clothes. Where did they come from? A plant, an animal, a skill, silk saree, synthetic clothes, and petroleum products. Everything He has. Take anything. Take the furniture in our house: the bed, table, sofa, and chair. Brick, cement, take the car or bike we drive: metal, plastic. He created all of it. All we see was created by Him. And the eyes we see all those things with were also made by Him. All came from His loving hands. How ungrateful are humans. We enjoy all this and have no gratitude for this God. What ingratitude. He gives all this, and we eat and take all that and worship the sun, rain, and animals. That is why man should go to hell. His hands of providence, like a mother, feed us every day. We eat that and kick His face and breast by sinning. That is man’s terrible ingratitude.
“Oh, I go and work, get a big job, and earn.” Oh, to earn that money, when you bend down, He created that bone. When you go to work and open your mouth, He created a mouth that can open. And if sound has to come out, He created vocal cords and a tongue. If you speak with meaning, He created a brain to think. When you get a salary and take the cash from the ATM, the paper for the cash was created by the tree or plant He created. The coins are from the metal He created. What is it that God did not give? All we see, experience, and feel was made by Him.
You don’t have anything. Nothing. You don’t eat anything, you don’t wear anything, and you don’t live in anything that didn’t come from this earth, and every element of it came from the creative hand of God. Therefore, men, how ungrateful we are. We have enjoyed so much for so many years. How indebted to Him. How much we should have praised. The more we age, the more gratitude we should have, but the more ungrateful we become. What a life. We sin against Him more. It is all a gift, a blessing, the grace of God. He has given that to me for 40 years. There is no one time where there was no food. He has given. What gratitude do I have? Very little. I am ungrateful.
So, what do we learn? It is God who gives. You see the problem. The more God blesses us, the more ungrateful we become. The more we have, the more ungrateful we become. Maybe, if we were in places like Somalia, or in a slum, struggling for food with every meal, maybe we would be more grateful. Every time we got food, we would thank God with tears. “Give us this day…” But He gave and gave. “Jerusalem, I gave, you fattened, and you forgot me.” Are we like this? May God make us realize our ingratitude. This is more applicable to us than to the slum people.
Because, now I want you to get this: this petition for us, while not the desperate cry of one who is starving, is a prayer that says, “God, every time I eat, this meal comes from you, and I recognize that.” So that the essence of the prayer is really an affirmation that all our substance comes from God. It is saying, “God, I want to let You know that I realize You are the source of my life, my food, my shelter, my clothing.” Not only does this fill us with gratitude, but it glorifies Him. He wants me to affirm that confidence because that exalts Him and it makes us realize the great truth that all we have comes from Him and fills our heart with gratitude. I may not have to say, “Oh God, I don’t have any food for my family, where is it going to come from?” But, I will ever and always say, “God, everything I have and all that I share with those I love comes from Your good and gracious hand.” By doing that, we acknowledge that the one who gives us bread is not our employer, not our own hands, or primarily our parents, but God. And so, our daily bread, the necessities of physical life, are all from God. And so, part of my prayer should ever and always be, “Give us this day our daily bread.” God, we recognize You as the giver of all physical necessity. The world doesn’t recognize that and blasphemes me, but He continues to provide while they continue to celebrate Pongal. Read 1 Timothy chapter 4, “God has created these foods, to be received with thanksgiving by them who believe and know the truth.” God has provided this incredible world of food for us to express our thanks to Him, we who believe and know the truth. The rest of the world just indulges itself without any gratitude at all. Now watch. “For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” Now, what does that mean? When we believe the truth of God’s word that He created all this and He is the source, and thank God in prayer; it is sanctified. When it is received with thanksgiving, verse 3. Do you really thank God for your food? We shouldn’t have a meal without thanking God.
1. Teach the next most important Christian grace – Dependence Do we realize we are dependent on God for every breath? Why are you not lying paralyzed somewhere in a coma? Regardless of the means God uses, it is God who gives us our physical needs. It may come from your employer, your hard work, but the source is God. We have to acknowledge this every day. As we do this, it will truly cultivate two wonderful and important graces in us: conscious gratitude, as we saw, and secondly, dependence on God. Honestly, tell me how many get up and say, “Lord, if you don’t give me breath, or move my hands or legs, I cannot do anything, O Lord.” We just get dressed and keep walking and go to work. There is no grace of conscious dependence. No. Some of you have had very deep physical trials, some kind of sickness or pain for years; you have experienced it. Think about why there is so much suffering. There is a precious lesson God wants to teach you. You have known what it is to have continuous pain and sickness for many days or months, with no relief even for one hour, or very rarely a day without any kind of pain. Perhaps you have realized your conscious dependence on Him for the health He gives you every hour, as your blood runs, your body moves, and you can go here and there and do things without pain or sickness. What a blessing. Then bless God that He has taught you that lesson. For some, God may have to take 5 or 10 years to teach them that, even 40 or 50 years. Many do not learn that lesson of dependence. And then He gives them a month or a year of good health, and we forget those lessons.
Danger of not praying this regularly. One cause of all worldly worry is terrible ingratitude; we will never grow in dependence. Another danger: Some may say we have an estate already, and what need we pray, “Give us daily bread”? Supposing we have a plentiful estate, yet we need to make the petition, “Give us daily bread,” and that on a double account. (1) That we may have a blessing upon our food and all that we enjoy. “I will bless her provision” (Psalm 132:15). “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). What is that but a word of blessing? Though the bread is in our hand, yet the blessing is in God’s hand, and it must be fetched out of His hand by prayer. Well, therefore, may rich men pray, “Give us our bread,” let it be seasoned with a blessing. If God should withhold a blessing, nothing we have would do us good; our clothes would not warm us, our food would not nourish us. “He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul”; that is, they pined away, and their meat did not nourish them (Psalm 106:15). If God should withhold a blessing, what we eat would turn to bad humors and hasten death. If God does not bless our riches, they will do us more harm than good. “Riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt” (Ecclesiastes 5:13). So that, even if we have plentiful estates, yet we had need to pray, “Give us our bread”; let us have a blessing on what we have. (2) Though we have estates, yet we need to pray, “Give,” that we may hereby engage God to continue these comforts to us. How many casualties may fall out! How many have had corn in their barn, and a fire has come on a sudden and consumed all! How many have had losses at sea, and great estates have boiled away to nothing! “I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty” (Ruth 1:21). Therefore, though we have estates, yet we need to pray, “Give us”; “Lord, give us a continuance of these comforts, that they may not, before we are aware, take wings and fly from us.” So much for the first word in the petition, “Give.”
If all be a gift, see the odious ingratitude of men who sin against their giver! God feeds them, and they fight against Him; He gives them bread, and they give Him affronts. How unworthy is this! Should we not cry shame on him who had a friend always feeding him with money, and yet he should betray and injure him? Thus ungratefully do sinners deal with God; they not only forget His mercies, but abuse them. “When I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery” (Jeremiah 5:7). Oh, how horrid it is to sin against a bountiful God—to strike the hands that relieve us! How many make a dart of God’s mercies and shoot at Him! He gives them wit, and they serve the devil with it; He gives them strength, and they waste it among harlots; He gives them bread to eat, and they lift up the heel against Him. “Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked” (Deuteronomy 32:15). They are like Absalom, who, as soon as David his father kissed him, plotted treason against him (2 Samuel 15:10). They are like the mule who kicks the dam after she has given it milk. Those who sin against their giver and abuse God’s royal favors, the mercies of God will come in as witnesses against them. What is smoother than oil? But if it be heated, what is more scalding? What is sweeter than mercy? But if it be abused, what is more dreadful? It turns to fury.
Or, we often ascribe the praise to second causes and forget God. If friends have bestowed an estate, we look at them and admire them, but not God who is the great giver; it is as if one should be thankful to the steward and never take notice of the master of the family that provides all. Oh, if God gives all, our eyesight, our food, our clothing, let us sacrifice the chief praise to Him; let not God be a loser by His mercies. Praise is a more illustrious part of God’s worship. Our wants may send us to prayer; nature may make us beg daily bread; but it shows a heart full of ingenuity and grace to be rendering praises to God. In petition we act like men, in praise we act like angels. Does God sow seeds of mercy? Let thankfulness be the crop we bring forth. We are called the temples of God, and where should God’s praises be sounded forth but in His temples? (1 Corinthians 3:16). “While I live will I praise the Lord; I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being” (Psalm 146:2). God gives us daily bread; let us give Him daily praise. Thankfulness to our donor is the best policy; there is nothing lost by it. To be thankful for one mercy is the way to have more. Musicians love to sound their trumpets where there is the best echo, and God loves to bestow His mercies where there is the best echo of praise. Offering the calves of our lips is not enough, but we must show our thankfulness by improving the gifts which God gives us and as it were putting them out to use. God gives us an estate, and we honor the Lord with our substance (Proverbs 3:9). He gives us the staff of bread, and we lay out the strength we receive by it in His service; this is to be thankful; and that we may be thankful, let us be humble. Pride stops the current of gratitude. A proud man will never be thankful; he looks upon all he has to be either of his own procuring or deserving. Let us see that all we have is God’s gift and how unworthy we are to receive the least favor; and this will make us much in doxology and gratitude; we shall be silver trumpets sounding forth God’s praise.
When we pray for things pertaining to this life, we must desire temporal things for spiritual ends; we must desire these things to be as helps on our journey to heaven. If we pray for health, it must be so that we may improve this talent of health for God’s glory and may be fitter for His service. If we pray for a competency of estate, it must be for a holy end, that we may be kept from the temptations which poverty usually exposes us to, and that we may be in a better capacity to sow the golden seeds of charity and relieve those who are in want. Temporal things must be prayed for for spiritual ends. Hannah prayed for a child, but it was for this end, that her child might be devoted to God. “O Lord, if thou wilt remember me, and wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life” (1 Samuel 1:11). Many pray for outward things only to gratify their sensual appetites, as the ravens cry for food (Psalm 147:9). To pray for outward things only to satisfy nature is to cry like ravens rather than Christians. We must have a higher end in our prayers; we must aim at heaven while we are praying for earth. If we must pray for temporal things for spiritual ends, that we may be fitter to serve God, then how wicked are those who beg temporal mercies that they may be more enabled to sin against God! “Ye ask that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3). One man is sick, and he prays for health that he may be among his cups and harlots; another prays for an estate. He would not only have his belly filled, but his barns, and he would be rich that he may raise his name, or that, having more power in his hand, he may now take a fuller revenge on his enemies. It is impiety joined with impudence to pray to God to give us temporal things that we may be the better enabled to serve the devil.
God can bless a little. “He shall bless thy bread and thy water” (Exodus 23:25). A blessing puts sweetness into the least morsel of bread; it is like sugar in wine. “I will bless her provision” (Psalm 132:15). Daniel and the three children ate pulse, which was a coarse meal, and yet they looked fairer than those who ate of the king’s meat (Daniel 1:12, 15). How did this happen? God infused a more than ordinary blessing into the pulse. His blessing was better than the king’s venison. A piece of bread with God’s love is angels’ food.
God, who gives us our allowance, knows what quantity of outward things is fittest for us. A smaller provision may be fitter for some; bread may be better than dainties. Everyone cannot bear a high condition, any more than a weak brain can handle strong wine. Does anyone have a larger proportion of worldly things? God sees he can better manage such a condition; he can order his affairs with discretion, which perhaps another cannot. As he has a large estate, so he has a large heart to do good, which perhaps another does not. This should make us content with a shorter bill of fare. God’s wisdom is what we must acquiesce in; He sees what is best for everyone. That which is good for one may be bad for another.
To be content with daily bread, though it may be sparing, keeps us from many temptations which discontented persons fall into. When the devil sees a person with Israel’s temper, not content with manna, but must have quails, he says, “Here is good fishing for me.” Satan often tempts discontented ones to murmuring and to unlawful means, cheating and defrauding. He who increases an estate by indirect means stuffs his pillow with thorns, so that his head will lie very uneasy when he comes to die. If you would be freed from the temptations that discontent brings, be content with such things as you have; bless God for “daily bread.”
To make us content with “daily bread,” though God restricts our allowance, think seriously of the danger there is in a high, prosperous condition. Some are not content with “daily bread,” but desire to have their barns filled and heap up silver as dust, which proves a snare to them. “They that will be rich fall into a snare” (1 Timothy 6:9). Pride, idleness, and wantonness are three worms that usually breed from plenty. Prosperity often deafens the ear against God. “I spoke unto you in your prosperity, but you said, ‘I will not hear'” (Jeremiah 22:21). Soft pleasures harden the heart. In the body, the more fat there is, the less blood in the veins and the less spirits; so the more outward plenty, often the less piety. Prosperity has its honey and also its sting; like the full of the moon, it makes many lunatic. The pastures of prosperity are rank and surfeiting. Anxious care is the main evil spirit that haunts the rich man and will not let him be quiet. When his chests are full of money, his heart is full of care, either how to manage, how to increase, or how to secure what he has gotten. Sunshine is pleasant, but sometimes it scorches. Should it not make us content with what allowance God gives, if we have daily bread, though not dainties? Think of the danger of prosperity! The spreading of a full table may be the spreading of a snare. Many have been sunk to hell with golden weights. The ferryman takes in all passengers, that he may increase his fare, and sometimes to the sinking of his boat. “They that will be rich fall into many hurtful lusts, which drown men in perdition” (1 Timothy 6:9). The world’s golden sands are quicksands, which should make us take our daily bread, though it be but coarse, contentedly. What if we have less food, we have less of a snare; if less dignity, less danger. As we lack the rich provisions of the world, so we lack the temptations.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 