How
Much Should I Ask?
Give
us this day our daily bread.
Matthew
6:11
There
was a collection in one of the churches I served before. The assigned person
was asked to give a small introduction about the mission work and ask for
generous donations. He began his introduction about mission work and then said
that you will get only if you give. He again said strongly that “if you give to
the Lord He’ll return, press down, shaken together and running over. If you
give thousand rupees he will return ten thousand to you.” Many of us treat God
in this manner.
David
Meyers says, "When prayer is sold as a device for eliciting health, success,
and other favors from a celestial vending machine, we may wonder what is really
being merchandised, is it faith or is it faith’s counterfeit, a glib caricature
of true Christianity?"
We
need to look at prayer with the right perspective. What does Jesus want to
convey when he asked us to pray in this manner: ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ Bread is a basic need of man. It
is not simply the prayer of a beggar, it is also the acknowledgement of all of
us that it is God who is the source of every physical provision.
The
exact meaning of the concept Give us this
day is simply bread for the coming day. It’s an expression that says one
day at a time. It stresses the contentment that comes when we live with a day
by day confidence in God and don’t worry about the future.
Now
when we see the word give this does not mean that our only responsibility is to
pray. This does not mean that we say, “I am going to quit my job and go into
deep prayer and ask God to provide everything.” Prayer is never a way out of
responsibility. We work and we seek the kingdom and God graciously provides.
When
we explore our lives, we see that we worry a lot. And we worry mostly about
things that hasn’t happened. Why is it so? It’s because we are not sure God’s
going to provide our daily bread. But does this prayer mean that we don’t have
to save. I don’t think so. In Proverbs, it says that we have got to be like the
ant and plan for the future. This prayer doesn’t mean that we don’t plan, but
it does mean that we are content to trust God to meet our need in the future.
This
part of the Lord’s prayer has a sense of humble dependence. There’s nothing
here about Jesus making us healthy, wealthy and prosperous. Charles Spurgeon says, "This
prayer is not a gimmick that works. In fact, it is the humblest and most basic
affirmation that God is the supplier of what we most desperately need. We can’t
live without food. We can’t live spiritually without forgiveness. And we can’t
sustain that life without divine held. That’s all we’re asking and nothing
more"
Let
us pray – Dear Lord you have given us so much more than so many. Teach us to be
humble stewards and lay our treasure back in heaven. Help us realize it all
comes from You. We want to return back to You what is rightfully Yours.
:)
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