Petition: “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread.”

Lord’s Prayer Devotional, Part 5

Consider: Your Father knows that you have desires and needs, and He invites us to bring our requests to Him. Thank Him for that!

Think: Why do our requests come after perspective, praise, longing for the Kingdom, and prioritizing His will? 

Ask: What is the priority, role and impact of my desires in my life? 

• From Tim Keller: “Is my aim ultimately that God would bend himself and conform to my will/desire, or is my deepest prayer that He would bend my desires according to His will?”
• Jesus says in John 4:34: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”
  • The Father’s will > Daily Bread. 

Our needs and desires stem from good things and are even necessary to live. But when given the ultimate priority in our lives, they become dangerous. Like Esau, we can trade birthright for appetite. 

• We can sell ourselves short of God’s will for our lives in exchange for temporary sustenance.

Pray: “Lord, free me from the tyranny of my desires.” 

1. See the giver through the gift. 
   1. Read James 1:14-18. Desire can lead to death, but what is the answer? To stifle all desire? No. Instead, remember that every good and perfect gift comes from above. Every good desire points to an ultimate good. 

“Father, help me see through my desires to their source. Let them paint a picture of who you are, so that I might not live for bread alone, but instead turn to the source. Help me to make your will my ultimate desire and priority.” 

2. Acknowledge HIM as the true source of bread.

“Father, ultimately YOU are my source of bread, not my strength, wisdom or abilities. Help me to look to you as my source for life.”

3. Trust that your Father is a God of abundance, NOT scarcity.
   1. Reflect: Do I live as though God can be trusted to provide, or do I take, horde and/or stockpile?
   2. Is the belief that God is an abundant giver evidenced by my lifestyle of abundant generosity/sharing towards others?
   3. Meditate on Matthew 6:24-34. 
4. Investigate the substance of my desire.
   1. Genesis 3:19: ¹⁹ By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
   2. We spend our lives toiling for “bread,” but in the end it’s all dust. Our desires don’t deliver the life they promise, the life we all yearn for.

Jesus, by contrast, calls Himself the bread of life, and offers Himself to us freely: John 6:58: ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”