How to Pray Give Us Today Our Daily Bread

How to Pray

Give Us Today Our Daily Bread

Bread a simple staple of life

A basic need of survival

So common we don’t always think about it

How do I introduce this part of prayer into my life?

“Give us today our daily bread.” 

Is it natural or is it spiritual bread?

 

Give Us Today Our Daily Bread

Bread – a simple staple of life.

A basic need of survival.

So common, we don’t

always think about it.

How do I introduce this

 part of prayer into my life?

“Give us today our daily bread”

 

John Chapter 6 may hold

the greatest answers for us.

The chapter starts with

a great crowd of people.

Jesus asked Philip a question

only to test him…

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him,

he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?"

 He asked this only to test him,

for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

John 6:5-6

I think God puts questions in

our minds in order to test us.

These questions are always bigger than us.

It might have been an answer of bread,

 but a need for more than we can meet.

Jesus does one very simple thing…

Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks,

and distributed to those who were

seated as much as they wanted.

 He did the same with the fish.

John 6:11

He “gave thanks”.

Jesus gave gratitude to the Father for

a boy’s small meal of loaves and fishes. 

As the story unfolds, Jesus takes this simple

thing of a need for daily bread to another level…

Do not work for food that spoils,

but for food that endures to eternal life,

which the Son of Man will give you.

John 6:27

Jesus reminds us of the Father’s provision

of bread from heaven in the wilderness…

"I tell you the truth, 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.

John 6:32

Earlier in Jesus’ instruction on prayer,

He encourages us to pray “your will be done”.

 Here in John 6:40, we see the Father’s will…

For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son

and believes in him shall have eternal life,

and I will raise him up at the last day."

John 6:40

Here in John 6, Jesus says…

“I am the Bread of Life.”

 I am the Bread of Life.

Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.

But here is the bread that comes down from heaven,

which a man may eat and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.

 This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 

John 6:48-51

You and I will work all our lives to provide

bread for us and our family’s daily needs.

God gives us the strength and provisions

and at each meal we should give

Him thanks for the bread we eat.

As I get older, I realize the bread I eat

each day will not keep me alive forever.

I need bread that will last for eternal life.

Just as I need daily bread

to sustain my natural life…

 I need daily Spiritual bread

to sustain my eternal life.

We, like those in John 6, can get caught

up in asking the Father for our daily

natural needs and miss our real need of

eating the spiritual, Bread of Life, Jesus.

 

Scripture Reading

Matthew 6:9-13 NIV

9 "This, then, is how you should pray:

"'Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

10 your kingdom come,

your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today our daily bread.

12 Forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.'