Our Daily Bread

As we near the end of 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, we continue through the Lord’s Prayer. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shares revolutionary and life-changing principles with His disciples. He outlines what God’s kingdom will actually be like and gives us examples for how to live out the kingdom each day.

Read Matthew 6.9–13.

The Lord’s Prayer is unique because it offers us a pattern for our prayer life. The pattern we find in the Lord’s Prayer provides us with an identity in Christ, generates praise towards God, calls us to a life of obedience, and exercises our trust in God.

“Give us today our daily bread” is a declaration of complete trust, humility and dependence on God; an affirmation that we look to Him and not ourselves for provision, answers, direction, or purpose in life. The idea of “bread” used here doesn’t only mean physical bread, but all of our needs—both physical and spiritual—that we have on a daily basis. God is a good King and a good Father who desires to meet all of the needs of His children.

Question: Is there an aspect of your life that you have trouble trusting God with?

God wants us to depend daily on Him, without fear. God doesn’t want us to worry about the future and the best way to prevent anxiety and fear over the future is to trust God daily as we pray, “Give us today our daily bread.”

As we go to God in prayer, there are several attitudes of the heart that are critically important to have.

1. Pray dependently

Read James 4.6.

Praying dependently requires an attitude of humility. Dependence is a need to rely on or trust in somebody for help or support. Scripture tells us that God gives grace to the humble and—just like the Israelites learned as they wandered through the desert—we need to learn each and every day how to approach God with humble dependence. When we’re depending on the God who can do anything and everything, we can have peace and freedom from worry. That’s a gift of God’s grace that we can experience when we give up control and put all of our trust in Him.

2. Pray confidently

Read 1 John 5.13–15.

Praying confidently is a matter of identity and relationship. Our ability to approach God in prayer with confidence is tied to our ability to recognize ourselves as beloved children of God. When we know that we’ve developed a deep, loving relationship with Him and are rooted in all that Jesus Christ has done for us to be reconciled to God, the way we pray changes. We feel empowered to pray bold prayers. We live with expectation and trust that God loves us and will respond.

Question: How do you think you can grow in your identity as a child of God? Are there any unhealthy thoughts or habits that stop you from fully accepting this title?

3. Pray specifically

Read Mark 10.46–52.

Jesus said to be specific in prayer. Praying specifically helps us define our needs. Praying, “Lord, bless me” won’t help us recognize that we don’t need a raise as much as we might need to say no to buying things we don’t need. Or that we don’t need a new co-worker, boss or spouse, but rather the wisdom, love and humility to resolve our conflicts with the one we have.

Praying specifically also makes us more alert to God’s answers. We can see God’s faithfulness more clearly when the specific prayer request is answered—and recognizing God’s faithfulness increases our faith.

Question: Share a specific prayer you’re currently seeking God for.

4. Pray expectantly

Read Mark 11.24.

Praying expectantly means that we believe God’s promises over the circumstances. Faith provides us with a confident and expectant hope that He is working on our behalf in and through all things. It creates in us a healthy and holy expectation that God’s promises will come to pass in our lives. We believe in a God who is above any circumstance that may come our way and He is always faithful.

Philippians 4.6–7 tells us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” A faith-filled heart believes it receives when it prays. This kind of heart thanks God for the answer before it can see it, because it is fully convinced that our God is faithful. When we pray in line with God’s Word, we should keep an expectant focus on God’s promises and refuse to allow the circumstances to take our eyes off of Jesus.

Question: What tactics have you used in the past when you felt your focus was drifting away from God?

5. Pray First

Read Matthew 6.33.

As disciples of Jesus, prayer should be our first response, not our last resort. We exercise daily dependence by inviting God into every area of our life and trusting Him with our needs. When we make God and His way of doing things the highest priority in our lives, we grow in our relationship with God and our dependency on Him instead of being ruled by worry. Worry changes nothing, but faith in God’s promises changes everything.

We can pray with dependency and confidence because there is no greater name than the name of Jesus Christ. As God’s children, we have the promise that we aren’t alone in this journey of life and that God Himself is our daily bread for every physical, emotional, and spiritual need.