THE LORD’S PRAYER
PART 3
God will meet all your needs. Philippians 4:19
The Lord’s Prayer can be divided into sections. Following the Address to the Father, we have seven petitions, or supplications. The first three (“hallowed be your name,” “your kingdom come,” and “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”) reflect the glory of God as he acts on his own behalf. The next four petitions (“give us today our daily bread,” “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” “lead us not into temptation,” “and deliver us from evil”) are more straightforward requests for God to act on our behalf.
Unlike so many of our personal prayers, of the seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer only one asks for earthly blessings. Thus when Jesus taught the disciples to pray the Lord’s Prayer, he made certain to include one petition that deals with our daily blessings. Jesus calls it our daily bread. We notice in those words that twice Jesus mentions the word day. He didn’t say, “Give us our bread,” but, rather, he said “this day” our “daily” bread. Why? Jesus wants us to know that we only need to pray for his blessings one day at a time. When tomorrow comes, he wants us to ask again for his blessings just for tomorrow.
When the Israelites were in the desert, God provided manna. Each morning the people gathered the manna off the ground for use during that day. They could only take as much as they needed for one day. If they kept it overnight, it spoiled. God was teaching his people to trust that every morning their next day’s ration would be there for them. Likewise, God wants us to rely on him for our blessings every day.
Of course this petition asks for much more than food. We pray that God would also provide all we need for our daily lives. As Martin Luther put it, “Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”
Remember that since the Lord’s Prayer asks for but a day’s worth of blessings, we should come to him every day with this petition.
From The Gift of Prayer