The Lords Prayer 2

The Lords Prayer 2.

"Give us today our daily bread," must be a diurnal request in recognition that we need God in our lifes on a daily basis, to provide us with our physical and spiritual food requirements, as well as other needs like shelter, security, clothing, etc, like an earthly father would his children.

God is pleased to do so because He has made itHis covenant duty to do so out of His love for mankind, His prized creation.

In 2 Peter 1: 3, it is written, 
"His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness."

This is a reminder that everything we need for a godly life can only be experienced through His divine power which is at work in the lives of those who increase their faith and relationship with Him by improving their knowledge of His purpose for their lives through His Word and through prayer.

There is a promise that we must claim by faith in 2 Corinthians 9: 10, where it is written, 
"Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness."

The physical and also the spiritual part of our call on God to "Give us today our daily bread," can be better appreciated when we grasp these truths:

A. Our supply and store of seed, as sowers, that is, a farmer in His vineyard, is Wealth God will endow us with so that we can invest in others in need, and therefore enlarge His kingdom on earth, and by so doing have an enlarged harvest of righteousness, that is, having a greater standing before Him to be entrusted with more of the riches of His kingdom for greater works.

B. Our "bread for food" is God's provision for our own consumption that always comes in these two forms: His spiritual revelation of His Word as well as His physical endowments to meet our daily needs.

4. God forgiving us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors is a double-edged part of the prayer, in which our request that our sins be forgiven by God, must be matched by our own willingness to forgive others who sin against us as well.

This is not a mistake nor is it too far off to ask for or achieve because that is the way God intended it to be, and all we need is to believe, that He who said it is more than able to bring it into fruition in our lives.

This request helps us not to be selfish but to keep ourselves in check by having mercy on others and therefore loving our neighbor as God did for us through the death of His son on our behalf.

As in Matthew 22: 39, where we are commanded by Jesus to Love our neighbors as ourselves, the proof of this can be seen in our willingness to choose to forgive others.

While this is not something we may normally want to do nor is it something we can actually achieve of our own will power, prayer and our reliance on God's grace always makes the difference. 

5. The latter part of the prayer is a cry to God not to allow us face any temptation that is more than we can bare, by making His grace available to bear whatever the evil one tempts or attacks us with. 

It is a salient reminder and our acknowledgment that we cannot outwit or defeat the evil one by our own strength and without God's divine intervention.

An example of this can be seen in Matthew 26: 39 - 41, when Jesus was about to be crucified and he went to a solitary place where he fell with his face to the ground and prayed to his Father, that he may not go through what he was about to suffer, but agreed to submit to God's will nevertheless.

On his return to his disciples, he found them sleeping and asked Peter, “Couldn't you keep watch with me for one hour?” He then admonished Peter saying, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation," with the note of caution that "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”