Prayer Daily Bread

I will never forget a Summer Bible study that some friends and I started at my parents house. We were home from college for the Summer and started to me and study the word together.

Before the study started a few of us got the idea to do some prayer working through our community. We all gathered at my parents house and were preparing to leave. My sister JoHana was 6 or 7 years old and she heard that we were going to prayer walk.

She started doing what little sisters do she began to beg to go with us.

I tried to shrug it off. I said we are walking and praying. It won’t be fun. It will be boring. You are not going to like it.

What do you think her response was?

I want to go

I finally after some back and forth decided to let her go. I said fine you can go.

We got to the spot where we were walking and praying.

My friends and I were praying some beautiful prayers. They sounded so amazing and so religious.

Lord break down the bondage of sin behind those doors

Lord share you wonderful, matchless love to the people in these homes

Lord save our city bring repentance and revival.

We just kept praying and praying.

We ran out of big pretty words to say.

So 6 or 7 year old JoHana started in.

She prayed, “Lord thank you for the trees, Lord I like that bunny rabbit right there, thank you for the bunny rabbit, It is nice outside Lord, thank you, Lord the flowers are so pretty, thank you”

Her prayers were so simple and yet so moving and so powerful.

When I read the Lord’s prayer

Matthew 6:9–11 NIV

9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread.

we get to verse 11 of this model prayer. Jesus says give us today our daily bread.

Today I want us to talk about daily bread prayers.

As I thought about daily bread prayers, JoHana’s example of praying that day was a beautiful example of a daily bread prayer.

(Pray)

We have looked at Defiant Adoration Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name

Your name be honored as Holy, set apart, consecrate as Holy, or dedicate. To honor God’s name reminds us of who God is and how GREAT God is.

Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.

We have spent a significant amount of time talking about the Kingdom of heaven coming to earth. Jesus here in the model prayer prays that the Kingdom of heaven and God’s will for heaven would be carried out on earth.

Then Jesus prays Give us today our daily bread

The book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools says this,

The hinge point of Jesus’ instructive, exemplary prayer is the phrase “on earth as it is in heaven.” Two claims are hidden in this turn of phrase. The first is that heaven is the engine room for our prayers. Everything we can think to ask for finds its source in heaven. The second claim is that earth, the very ground we stand on while uttering our requests, is where the action happens.

Daily Bread prayers are grounded in simple language.

They are the here and now prayers.

This word for Daily is not found anywhere else.

Lots of Discussion around this word

Daily:

(a) ‘For the day (in question)’, hence daily, possibly with a reminiscence of the daily provision of manna in the wilderness.

(b) ‘Necessary’ for survival, ‘feed me with the food that is needful for me’; in the account-book fragment it probably referred to a daily ‘ration’.

Proverbs 30:8 HCSB

8 Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me. Give me neither poverty nor wealth; feed me with the food I need.

Daily bread prayers are inviting God into the concerns of today

What I’ll eat, who I’ll meet, what I’ll do, what I’ll wear, and how I feel about it all along the way.

It is easy to reduce prayer down to only the big things we need from God...

Praying for the person with cancer, a job change, should we move, who do you want me to date or marry, God I need more money, or God be with my children in the big decisions.

Daily bread prayers are the everyday concern. It is the simple things.

These daily prayers help us to know God more.

Daily Bread Prayers lead to a closer relationship with the Lord

They create intimacy or closeness to God.

They draw God and you closer together.

Imagine in a marriage relationship if the married couple only talks about the big things and never speaks about the small daily things.

Don’t you love it when someone doesn’t come to you when the problem is small. They wait until the problem is big then they come to you.

Think about your children. You don’t want them to wait until their problem is big and out of control to come to you. You want them to come when the problem is routine or daily.

Daily Bread prayers are coming to the Lord in the everyday moments.

It is the daily interaction that draws us closer together.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 HCSB

17 Pray constantly.

Daily Bread prayers are to pray constantly or without ceasing

I like the example of Abraham’s prayer on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah. You can see how this prayer brings Abraham closer to the Lord

Genesis 18:22–33 HCSB

22 The men turned from there and went toward Sodom while Abraham remained standing before the Lord. 23 Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will You really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are 50 righteous people in the city? Will You really sweep it away instead of sparing the place for the sake of the 50 righteous people who are in it? 25 You could not possibly do such a thing: to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. You could not possibly do that! Won’t the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” 26 The Lord said, “If I find 50 righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” 27 Then Abraham answered, “Since I have ventured to speak to the Lord—even though I am dust and ashes— 28 suppose the 50 righteous lack five. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” He replied, “I will not destroy it if I find 45 there.” 29 Then he spoke to Him again, “Suppose 40 are found there?” He answered, “I will not do it on account of 40.” 30 Then he said, “Let the Lord not be angry, and I will speak further. Suppose 30 are found there?” He answered, “I will not do it if I find 30 there.” 31 Then he said, “Since I have ventured to speak to the Lord, suppose 20 are found there?” He replied, “I will not destroy it on account of 20.” 32 Then he said, “Let the Lord not be angry, and I will speak one more time. Suppose 10 are found there?” He answered, “I will not destroy it on account of 10.” 33 When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, He departed, and Abraham returned to his place.

Look at the closeness that is developed in this prayer before the Lord.

Abraham learns that God is approachable and can be questioned

Abraham learns God’s heart to save the righteous

God welcomes Abraham’s questioning

God accepts Abraham

Daily Bread prayers battle against control.

We want to be in control. We want to be in control of our day, our time, and our future.

It is this desire of control that causes us to be exhausted, overwhelmed, and constantly anxious.

We feel it is our responsibility to make the world go round.

We must ensure that we make all the right decisions daily in order to get the perfect outcome.

Notice how Jesus phrases this in Matthew 6:11

Matthew 6:11 HCSB

11 Give us today our daily bread.

He says give us. For someone else to give the daily bread means that you are not in control when you get it. Someone else that being the CREATOR of the universe is in control to supply you with the daily bread that you need.

Daily Bread prayers are a reminder that we are not in charge and we are not in control.

Daily Bread prayers empower us.

In some cases, daily bread prayers empower us to be the answer to the prayers we pray.

Prayers throughout scripture move the heart of the father.

In Genesis 19 at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah we see that Lot is saved from the destruction that takes place.

He was in the city. Abraham interceded on behalf of the city and said Father if there are 10 left will you spare the city.

God does not spare the city. He rains down sulfur and this is what scripture says

Genesis 19:27–29 HCSB

27 Early in the morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain, and he saw that smoke was going up from the land like the smoke of a furnace. 29 So it was, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the middle of the upheaval when He demolished the cities where Lot had lived.

We are tempted to not pray daily bread prayers because we don’t really think it matters.

We think that all the decisions have been made and so our prayers before the Lord don’t matter.

The Lord desires that we come to him and the Lord desires that we ask him.

Jesus knows what we need before we ask but he wants to hear us ask.

He then sometimes empowers us to be the answer to the prayers that we pray.

Amy and traveling with an individual to a conference.

They stopped for lunch. They chose to go to McDonalds. They ordered their food and sat down to eat.

Before they ate the other lady on the trip prayed.

She blessed the food and said thank you for this food you have set before us and now God I am asking you to remove all the toxins from the food.

We laugh because here you are at McDonalds asking God to remove the toxins.

In Daily Bread prayers, God wants us to come to him for everything.

In Daily Bread prayers, God might empower you to make a better decision for lunch in the future.

He might lead you to a place without the toxins. (That is quite the challenge these days)

I close with this (invite the worship team to come)

Right after the Lord’s prayer in the Gospel of Luke, the Lord gives us this story about bread.

Luke 11:5–13 HCSB

5 He also said to them: “Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I don’t have anything to offer him.’ 7 Then he will answer from inside and say, ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he won’t get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his friend’s persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. 9 “So I say to you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

Jesus wants us to come to him with DAILY BREAD prayers.

It is amazing the God of the universe wants us to bring to him the small daily things of life. He wants us to talk with him

He loves us that much.

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