Mat 6:11; God Alone Provides Food to the World.

Class Outline:

Thursday August 29, 2024

 

We must desire to be supported in this life mainly for the purpose of doing God’s desire.

 

Therefore, this prayer of temporal things becomes a spiritual petition. It represents the world as the godly man sees it. Food and drink coming into view from the heavenly side. 

 

Do we consider how best we can serve God in the livelihood that we choose, and to trust that in doing so, God will provide our needed bread? 

 

1PE 1:12

things into which angels long to look. 

What things? 

Your salvation and the power of the gospel. 

 

This petition cannot be prayed with an earthly mind and at the same time see its meaning and agree in our own minds. It is only truly prayed by those who seek first His kingdom. They see human needs from a heavenly perspective.

 

1CO 7:25-31, life is short and eternity is coming soon. 

 

Curse is lifted in eternity, or rather, no longer exists because the flesh and the old world no longer exist: ISA 55:1-3; 6-13 (already, not yet thing for us in this age). 

 

MAT 6:11; Dos - give! A word that opens the windows of heaven, and with faith, is the power of contentment in your hand. 

 

God gives not grudgingly or out of necessity but freely and liberally (PSA 84:8-12; PRO 2:1-10; JAM 1:5). 

 

We are poor and were always meant to depend upon Him, MAT 5:3; 2CO 9:8.

 

There will never come a time when you should stop asking. God never tires of giving (He is not like men) excusing Himself because He has given so much already. 

 

His past giving instills confidence in us (PSA 78:1-8). 

 

“Give to us” is simplicity (certainly not “many words” MAT 6:7) and without apology. We are like young birds clamoring with wide open mouths around our parent. 

 

Bread - the simplest is what we are most inclined to think can be gotten by our own exertions. 

 

Other things we allow can only come from God, but mankind has a constant capacity to think that if he has a grasp of a certain technology, that the results are all his doing. 

 

PSA 104:14, 23, 24-29. (the whole of the psalm is beautiful). 

 

If man must labor, and yet God provides the food, then man’s labor must have a deeper meaning than food production. If we can find the answer to that, then we can work well and contentedly no matter what we are given and unto the Lord. 

 

Man has to labor because by his fall, the earth (ground) was cursed by God and so he must toil (GEN 3:17-19). 

 

You must labor because you and the earth are cursed, however, you can work as the Lord is your boss, and in this way overcoming the curse. 

 

All the while you know, the Lord alone provides your daily food, and He does so, so that you can do His will. 

 

Those who can work and do not, by Scripture, should not eat (2TH 3:10, 12).  

 

What keeps us alive, must itself receive life from God. 

 

We do not make the corn grow. We must wait. 

 

God provides for a vast number of lives everyday. (Consider the lilies, the birds, and the grass) God provides the sunlight, water, air, soil, fertilizer, seeds (PSA 104:1-6, 14, 24f. last stanza). 

 

Food decays, soil depletes, weather changes - we can depend upon God’s gift of renewal (spring - new life, resurrection). 

 

What must come to us in the future has not yet lived. We must trust the Lord to provide or ignorantly take His provision for granted (at what cost?). 

 

The answer, therefore, to this petition will be, that our spirits will be cleansed from coveting, jealousy, hardness of heart, pride, over self-confidence, and discontent. 

 

It will have us asking to have the energy and power every day for doing that day’s duty to the Lord. 

 

We will commit every day to the Lord - to His will. Not anxious, not worried, but content knowing that no matter what, the will of God is before me in abundance every day. 

 

Bless the Lord O my soul, bless His holy name. Give us today our daily bread that we may serve You.