PONDERING... Praying for Carbs (Matthew 6:11)

Teach Us To Pray: A Brief Series Dissecting the Lord’s Prayer

Praying for Carbs

GIST: We need to have the right attitude, which produces the right requests everyday for everyone.
SCRIPTURE: Matthew 6:11

11 Give us this day our daily bread,

Moving forward with our discussion of the Lord's Prayer, we come to the first request which seems, for lack of a better word, earthly. Up until this point, our focus has been entirely on God the Father--remembering who He is, seeking to honor His name, submitting to His control. Now we move toward asking for our needs. There is actually a lot we can learn simply from that ordering of things. Too often in prayer we tend to camp out solely in the "give me what I need" section. Yet, in Jesus' model prayer this isn't the case. Before we can really ask for what we need, we have to be looking at the world the right way--through God-centered, God-seeking, God-honoring lenses. 

Now to break this sections down, I actually want to take the English phrase and look at it in reverse order--Bread, Daily, Our--in an attempt to help us understand this point: When we pray for our needs, we need to have the right attitude, which produces the right requests everyday for everyone.

Bread

Let's start by establishing that to ask for bread is to ask for our most basic, physical needs. Bread is good, but not excessive. Jesus didn't tell us to pray 'Give us this day our daily t-bone steak'. Most of us are familiar with this concept. We've been raised on it. Needs and wants are two different things. The problem is we're still terrible at distinguishing the two. They tend to get a little cloudy, especially in areas like America where most of our truly basic needs are met almost as a given.


To help understand this better, I actually want to look at a few separate passages of Scripture. I know for some of you who might be reading this (which could be entirely a figment of my imagination), it might appear daunting to see such long passages of scripture. In fact, you might not have even made it to this line because you clicked off the second you saw a sequence of quotes. However, interpreting Scripture by Scripture is essential, so skip my words, but read His. 

1. We need to have the right attitudeJames 4:2c-3 "...You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions."

James points out two reasons why we don't get stuff.

• 1. We are not praying for it at all. Now that's something to let sink in. How often do you pray for the things you really need. Like, salvation for your kids. Opportunities to share the Gospel with your colleagues. Wisdom in financial endeavors...etc. You have not because you ask not... We can't afford not to be asking for these things! Do we doubt He can provide them?
• 2. We are asking for the wrong reason, or the wrong stuff. Now just to clarify this is not about "forgetting to say the magic word" or "using the right order". Likewise, this doesn't mean that God won't blow your mind with how He chooses to bless you. Asking wrongly is all about having the wrong attitude. Again, we cannot pray selfishly and expect those prayers to be answered. Praying for legitimate needs is not selfish, but using God as a magic Genie...is. And there is a difference. Are we coming to our Father seeking His will and trusting in His provision, or our we just telling Him all the stuff we want for our own gain.

Proverbs 30:8b-9 "...give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, 9 lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God."

Matthew 6:25-33 "25 "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (Emphasis added)

• These verses really go together, and tie back with what we were talking about in the opening request. We submit to God, in part, because we trust Him. He is our Father. We also submit to His will because...
• We really don't know what we need. I really love Proverbs 30:8-9. We get this great example of where we often mess this thing up. In these verses, we are instructed not to ask for either poverty or wealth. Why? Because you don't know what you can handle. If you're rich, will you rely on and worship your riches instead of God? If you're poor, will you fall into despair and curse God for your circumstances, or turn to a life of crime in distrust? We don't know. Maybe you can be super rich and use that to honor God. Maybe you can rejoice in the midst of extreme hardship. Again, you don't know.
  
• BUT, God does. God knows what He needs you to do, and will equip you to do it. I love, love, love Matthew 6:25-33, and quote it often...because I need reminded of these truths. We can worry all we want, but it accomplishing nothing. My grandma actually use to have a picture hanging up in her kitchen (one of many, many things hanging on her walls) which read: Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but doesn't every get you anywhere. So true. And Jesus tells us not to worry, but to seek Him (Just like in the opening lines in the Lord's Prayer). Why? Because He knows what we need. Trusting God for provision is not some form of stoicism in which all desire is inherently evil and, therefore, should be thrown off, and all needs are ultimately selfish. God knows what we need and died so we could have life, eternally, as He, the ultimate designer, intended.

2. Which will produce the right requestsWe need the right attitude so we can start asking the right questions. Submission to God's sovereignty reveals our needs in the right light.

Daily

3. Every dayFurthermore, this bread is daily bread. That might seem trivial, but there are some important truths to remember here. For now, let's just consider this one:

• 1. This isn't an every once in a while prayer ... because we are fully dependent upon God for our daily needs...daily.
• Remember the "manna" during the wilderness? God fed His people by sending them a mysterious substance from heaven. We don't know what it was exactly, and neither did they, but clearly it was exactly what they needed...though not always what they wanted. And they were given specific instructions concerning it. Except on the day before the Sabbath, they could only collect enough for the current day. Anything left over was to be tossed out, or it would be rotting and disgusting by morning. About this, Moses writes in Deuteronomy 8:3 "3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." Like the Israelites, our existence hinges on God's moment-by-moment provision. It's easy to forget this in modern America. Don't.
• Just a side note, because I'm sure this question is being asked by someone, this does not mean work and savings are sins. I had a friend once who needed a job, but she wouldn't apply for any because she thought that would be stepping outside of God's will for provision. Employment is good, we see the disciples working throughout the New Testament. Worshiping work is bad. Again, it's all about attitude. Do you work for the Lord, or for yourself? Do you trust Him, or not? What if you lost your job? Examine your heart to see where you're at. I know I need to, every day. Jesus knew we'd all need to...every day. That's why this is here.
• Supplemental reading for further study: James 4 "13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil." Note that it is the boasting that is evil, not the making of God-honoring plans. Again...right attitude...right life. It all ties back to God transforming us. We are truly new creations.

Our

4. For EveryoneIn the interest of time, I will keep this last point brief. However, it is by no means less important. Again, all of the pronouns are plural. Yes, this implies we should be praying this together, but, as I've mentioned before, I also believe it means we should be praying it for each other. Two points:

• Pray for the world. This is something we could and should talk about at further length, but look at the prayers in the Bible. Pay attention to how people pray for one another. It goes far beyond the reactionary intercession we have all mastered--and I could myself amongst that number. We pray for health...when people are sick. We pray for jobs...when they are lost. We pray for happy marriages...when there is conflict. We pray for world peace...when we're not complaining about its absence. We pray for poverty... or do we? Do I? Let's just make this one simple. This is a prayer for Christians. Jesus is love. Our prayers should reflect that.
• Pray to be used to help the world. I know these past few lessons have been fairly bad about having two points which essentially look the same, but sometimes I have to do this so I don't miss out on an important distinction. When we pray for our needs and the needs of the world, there should be an overlap. Pray that as God meets your needs, He also equips you to meet the needs of those around you (however near or far that may be). James 2 "15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?"

So, in closing, though this line is short, there really is a lot packed into it. We need to have the right attitude, which produces the right requests everyday for everyone. Do you?


Let's pray.