Daily Bread

Good morning,

We continue on into The Lord's Prayer with the next phrase/petition:

"Give us this day, our daily bread."

Matthew 6:11

After the portion of the prayer that aligns our will with that of our Heavenly Father, we are then allowed to ask for Him to meet our needs.  The first one is, on the surface, representative of our physical needs.

Obviously, we need more than bread.  We need clean water, clothing, shelter and basic resources. However, "bread" is representative of basic, physical needs.  In that day, the bread consumed was freshly made, with non-GMO wheat or other grain, with all-fresh ingredients, with no added gluten, and it was healthful.  In fact, it was the most fundamental food of all.  This is why I am unable to agree with folks today who argue that "all wheat is bad".  Non-GMO wheat is most certainly NOT bad for most humans.  There are a very small few who truly have a gluten allergy.  The rest of us eat bread products which, although tasty, have become so terribly perverted our bodies react to them in a negative manner.  Well, enough about that.

In comparing Himself to the manna that God provided in the wilderness for the Hebrew people (Exodus 16) Jesus called Himself  (John 6:32, 58) "the true bread from Heaven".  Therefore, there is a double-meaning in this prayer for daily, physical sustenance.  Having our physical needs is not enough.

This morning, I slept uncharacteristically late and was very tired upon arising.  (I taught a lengthy class last night and ate a late dinner.  I guess that was the cause.)  One of the first places I went after awakening was the kitchen to get some "physical sustenance".  Our bodies let us know when we need it, don't they?

Our souls need regular, daily sustenance also, in order to be healthy.  As Father provides for us physical "bread", He also provides through the Person of His Son and Holy Spirit spiritual bread.

In John 6, Jesus had just fed over 5000 people by miraculously multiplying 5 small loaves of bread and 2 fish, humbly donated by a young boy.  The people were so excited over this miracle they were ready to crown Him as their king, right then and there.  Their attitude was somewhat analogous to people today who get so excited over a politician who will give them "free stuff".  Jesus even escaped to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (Capernaum) to distract them.  However, they followed Him! The lure for free goods is great.... They were making that miraculous bread their "gospel".  They didn't care if Jesus took away their sins.  They merely wanted Him to meet their needs.

In Capernaum, then, Jesus began to reveal to them, in a rather cryptic yet graphic fashion, who He was/is.  See John 6:26-55.  Most of the crowd did not understand such bizarre statements and, predictably, began to leave, shaking their heads in amazement.

In The Lord's Supper, Jesus gave a visible demonstration of the meaning behind these bizarre statements.  The ingestion of the little piece of bread and the sip of juice/wine symbolize our taking Jesus into our souls as Savior.  We commemorate that decision we made, every time we "take communion" (eat The Lord's Supper).  It is like...celebrating our spiritual anniversary!

Jesus Himself is our daily bread.  He is the true bread, and all the fulness of the Trinity abides in Him (Colossians 1:19; 2:9).  We need to feast on Him daily. This is why I routinely eat from His Word and break bread with you in this blog.  His words are Spirit and they are Life!  In Matthew 4:4, Jesus said,

"Man shall not live by bread alone,

but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God."

Jon Bloom says, "He {Christ} did not come to save us from starvation, but from damnation."1
Do we feed our bodies and not our Spirits?  Or, rather, do we feed our Spirits "junk food"?  Don't be fooled....you ARE feeding your soul something.  

Lord Jesus, please give us our daily portion of Yourself, so that we may grow spiritually, as well as physically. Teach us to pray, to seek Your face in everything, to "pray without ceasing".  Thank you for providing just what we need, when we need it, and through Your provision teaching us to trust in You for all things.  In Jesus name, amen.

Source:
1 http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/don-t-miss-the-true-bread

Genie God

Good morning,

After yesterday's exhaustive post, we are going to change gears a bit.  I'm reading (for pleasure) a book by a man named Derek Prince, a saint who has gone on to be with Jesus.

In his early years, Dr. Prince was a professor of philosophy at Oxford University, in England.  Then, he got conscripted into the British military service.  A scholar of Plato, he had read all of Plato's works, in the original Greek.  Dr. Prince was a very learned man.  He had been meaning to read the Bible, simply because so much of philosophy made little sense intellectually, in answering the big questions of life, such as "Where did I come from?"  "Where am I going?"  "Why am I here?"  So, when he packed up his battle gear, he took a copy of the Bible along.

"Through reading the Bible, however, I met the Author.  And once I met the Author the book made the most wonderful sense to me.  I found there the answers that I had not found in philosophy.  I found a description of the beginning of things that explained me to myself.  When I read the story of the creation of man in Genesis 1-3, I understood what was going on inside of me."

Hallelujah!  Derek Prince went on to become a great prayer warrior.  He wrote a book, the one I'm now reading, called Secrets of a Prayer Warrior.  I began to read this book a few years ago, but never finished it, for some reason.  It is easy to read, but hard to digest.  Do you know what I mean?  There are things about prayer that I don't think I'll ever truly understand, no matter how well explained.

At any rate, in chapter 5, Dr. Prince shares his thoughts on The Lord's Prayer, one of my most favorites.  So, we are going to deconstruct it here.  Some of these thoughts are his and some are from other sources.  First, the passage itself - - Matthew 6:5-15 (NKJV)

5 “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place;and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. 7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.

8 “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. 9 In this manner, therefore, 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 this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
13 And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.[c]

14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Verses 5 and 6 remind me of the prayer habits of the women in the movie War Room, which I've mentioned here recently.  Of course, we can pray anywhere, but going to a special place repeatedly to pray and doing so diligently with faithfulness is often helpful in order to maintain a consistent, effective prayer life.  Whether we clean out a closet and literally pray inside of it or not, it is absolutely vital that we pray consistently and fervently.  (1 Thess. 5:16-18)

The main point Jesus was making in those two verses in Matthew 6, though, was not to pray in order to "show-off" in front of others.  On the other hand, I've been in small groups as well as large groups of Christians who, when given the opportunity to pray out loud, decline to do so.  That is not what the Lord wants either.  Some of us are so timid about the very important function of corporate prayer (several believers praying together) that they simply will not do it aloud.  Dr. Prince makes the following comment about persistent prayer, using as an example the church of Jerusalem who prayed for Peter's release from prison in Acts 12.
"Sometimes God will not work merely through the prayer of an individual.  It takes the corporate prayer of a group of committed believers praying together."  Most Christians instinctively know this through the Holy Spirit, and that is why we ask other believers to pray for us about various things.

There is an important principle in verse 8.  What do we usually do when we pray?  We go straight to "Gimme, gimme, gimme", don't we?  It is as if we think that God somehow does not know what we need or that we think he is some sort of magic genie!  Some have described this as "vending machine prayer".  Jesus, in His example of how we should pray, points out that this is clearly "not cool".  It's not that we should not lay our needs at God's feet.  It is just that it is irreverent and disrespectful to ignore the praise, thanksgiving and worship aspects of prayer.

Jesus began, "Our Father, who is in Heaven, Your name is hallowed."   That is adoration, a statement of faith, an exclamation of praise, an attitude of submission and worship.  You might find it helpful to begin your time of prayer with a psalm or with a collection of praise verses.  Beth Moore has written a book called, Praying God's Word.  The subtitle is, "Breaking Free from Spiritual Strongholds".  Wow!  Her assertion, a biblical one, is that when we pray back to God the promises and truths of His written Word, we are breaking Satan's strong chains that have attached themselves to various aspects of our lives.  Amen to that!  Back on point, however, this book contains many compilations of scripture on various topics.  One such chapter concerns overcoming idolatry.  The scriptures compiled in that chapter are scriptures that exalt the name and glory and various attributes of God. These are wonderful to pray back to our Father, in worship, to exalt His magnificent, matchless name.  There are other, such as Baillie's A Diary of Private Prayer.  I was bemused to see that, when I took a break and went to read aloud the morning prayers for Day Eight (I did this after having started to blog about The Lord's Prayer) that very prayer was featured.  God makes no "coincidences".

Have you ever been confused about which Person of the Trinity to pray to?  Sometimes I am.  On the one hand, I think you can pray to any of the Three or to all at one time.  Perhaps it is a moot point. Usually, I pray to the Father, as Jesus did.  It is only through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that God becomes our true Father.  I only mention this because it is a matter I find a little confusing...

"Hallowed" - - what does that mean?  It means "holy".  When we pray this, we are acknowledging the utter perfectness, the holiness of our Father.  That realization and acknowledgement should bring us to our spiritual "knees" in reverence.  His name is completely holy.  Matthew Henry has this to say about that:

1. Hallowed be thy name. It is the same word that in other places is translated sanctified. But here the old word hallowed is retained, only because people were used to it in the Lord's prayer. In these words, (1.) We give glory to God; it may be taken not as a petition, but as an adoration; as that, the Lord be magnified, or glorified, for God's holiness is the greatness and glory of all his perfections. We must begin our prayers with praising God, and it is very fit he should be first served, and that we should give glory to God, before we expect to receive mercy and grace from him. Let him have praise of his perfections, and then let us have the benefit of them.

We'll continue our study of prayer tomorrow.

O Lord, my God, You re very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty.  You wrap Yourself in light as with a garment.  You stretch out the heaves like a tent and lay the beams of Your upper chambers on their waters.  You make the clouds Your chariot and ride on the wings of the wind.  You make winds Your messengers, flames of fire Your servants.  (Psalm 104:1-4)

Sources:
http://www.lords-prayer-words.com/meaning_commentary_matthew_henry_2.html#ixzz3l9ynPJC5
Moore, Beth. Praying God's Word. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2009. Print.
Prince, Derek. Secrets of a Prayer Warrior. Grand Rapids: Chosen, 2009. Print.
Bailie, John. A Diary of Private Prayer. N.p.: Charles Scribners & Sons, 1949. Print.

The ACTS of Prayer

Good morning!

Yeah, that's a weird title for the post, right?

Many people, both Christian and non-Christian, are intimidated by prayer.  Let's break this down.

First of all, the unbeliever, the non-Christian:
God promises to hear only one prayer from the unbeliever and that prayer is the prayer where the person confesses his/her sin and invites Jesus in as Savior.  At that point, of course, the unbeliever immediately, supernaturally, eternally becomes a believer, a child of God.
Does God hear other prayers from unbelievers?  Yes, of course He does.  Does he answer them by granting the petitions/requests?  Yes, sometimes, He does.  However, He does not promise to do so.

For the Christian, you are His very own beloved.  He not only hears you but he answers you.  It may not be the answer you were expecting.  We'll talk more about that tomorrow.

But, what are the ACTS of prayer?  These letters represent an acronymn which reminds the believer of the key components of prayer.  You will find all of them in The Lord's Prayer, in Matthew 6:9-13.  This was a prayer that The Lord gave to us as a model for us to use; but, there was one of the letters He never had to pray.  Can you guess which letter it is?  :)  Let's see.

The A stands for adoration.  We should spend some time in our day adoring our God, praising Him for who He is, for His various characteristics/attributes such as:  holy, unchangeable, unchanging, all-knowing, ever-present, merciful, loving, just, indescribable, unfathomable!  Our God is amazing!  He loves to be praised!  I believe that God has given us many prayer models for this in the book of Psalms.  Some of the best examples are:  Psalms 100, 103 and 104.  Jesus modeled this in The Lord's Prayer when He prayed:  "hallowed be thy Name" and "for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever!"

The C stands for confession.  We should regularly be examining our heart before God and confessing our shortcomings to Him.  "Why should we do this", you may ask, "when all of our sins are forgiven?"  There are several reasons, which could make an entire blog post.  So, I am not going to go off in that direction this morning.  But, let me give you just one reason, for now.  God calls us to confess our sins to Him on an ongoing basis because doing so acknowledges our dependence and constant need for more of Him.  Although the believer's sins are forgiven - - - past, present and future - - - we cannot achieve our goal of becoming more like Christ on our own.  We still dwell in our mortal bodies for now.  The Apostle Paul was so anguished over his sin that he exclaimed, "O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from this body of death?"  (Romans 7:24)  Our flesh still wars continually with our redeemed spirit.  We get dirty, spiritually, and need to "get clean"!  Only by confessing our sins to Father and by receiving His assurance of forgiveness can we walk in true freedom, pressing on to become more and more like our Savior.
By the way, did you guess it?  This is the only one that Jesus did not have to pray, because He was perfectly sinless.  However, He modeled it for us when He prayed:  "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us".  The ancient word "trespass" basically means "wrongs".  We should ask to be forgiven of our "wrongs" as we forgive those who "wrong" us.

The T stands for thanksgiving.  There are also many psalms of thanksgiving (#s 111, 113, 138...), which goes hand-in-hand with adoration.  It just naturally follows.  Also, the apostle Paul is always thanking God for the young churches, to whom he writes his letters.  We must always be mindful to thank God for everything.  Yes, you read that right.  We sometimes forget to thank Him for the "good gifts", but almost never want to praise Him for the not-so-"good" gifts, right?  What does the Scripture say, though?  In  I Thessalonians 5:18, we read that we are to "give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God concerning you."  That really flies in the face of popular wisdom, doesn't it?  The natural tendency of humans is to rail against God when things don't "go our way".  Remember Job's wife?  She unwisely recommended that he go ahead and curse God for his misfortunes and then just die.  This is recorded in Job 2:9-10.  Instead, he told her that she was talking like one of the godless women, and he responded by making a strong statement of his faith in God, thereby maintaining his integrity as a Jehovah-follower.
Even though it does not always seem like it, God brings all things to us for our good AND for His glory!  We, at those difficult times, must trust Him as Job did, because we never know what is going on behind the spiritual scenes.  Our job is not to know all or to understand all; our job is to trust and thank Him in all things.  God IS good, ALL the time.

The S stands for the most "popular" aspect of prayer and that is the big, fancy word "supplication".  (Well, "gimme, gimme, gimme" just did not fit in the acronym!)  Most of the time, when people pray, they are praying out of desperation:  "God, please deliver me from this awful situation!"  They treat God like some big "genie in the sky".  Even some Christians make this the cornerstone of their prayer life, and this does dishonor to our great God!  It is not wrong to ask God for things;  but, it is wrong to limit your prayer life to this aspect.
Now, on a more positive note, Jesus said that "it your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom". (Luke 12:32)  In other words, God wants to give us good things.  And, He wants us to ask Him.  Again, Jesus said, "ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you..."  In another place, He said, "if you ask anything in my name believing, you will receive it"  (Mark 11:24 and similarly Matthew 21:22.)  This is why Christians often close their prayers with "In Jesus' name, Amen".
There is one important thing to remember here, in conjunction with these verses. Jesus gave us the key in the Lord's Prayer when He prayed, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven".  The umbrella overarching and undergirding all of our prayers of supplication should be that God's will will be done in any given circumstance, that He will receive the glory and honor in every situation.  This desire should supercede any other earthly desire for which we pray.
Supplication does not mean only asking God's favor for ourselves, but also for others and their needs.
Jesus modeled this in The Lord's Prayer when He prayed:  "Give us this day our daily bread", "and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil".

I hope that this little ACTS tool will help you as you live out this admonition from Paul:

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 ESV "

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
Dear Jesus, I praise You today for who You are, although my understanding of you is so grossly imperfect and incomplete.  The fact that You chose to love us poor, lowly people amazes me.  Thank you for your incomprehensible love, made manifest in your redemption of us, The Otherwise Irredeemable..  Thank you for redeeming me, so unworthy.  Thank you for using me and my brothers and sisters to expand Your kingdom, Father!  May Your will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven! O Lord, you know our needs even before we ask, but I ask that You meet our every need today, beginning with our extreme need for "more of You".  Let every word we speak, every move we make today be done as a praise offering to You.  May every thought we think today be brought into conformity with Your will, and may every action we take today glorify You!  I lift up to You today, Lord, all those who are in need of a direct touch from You, whether that be a rescue, a healing, or whatever the need may be.  In particular today, I pray for the persecuted church around the world, but particularly in the Middle East, as they find themselves in the nexus of  jihad.  I also pray for Israel, even at this moment being attacked by rockets, fired from Gaza and other Palestinian-controlled governments.  Supernaturally protect those who are Your own, and call out of blindness and apostasy Your chosen people, Israel.  Teach us to pray, Lord!  Teach us to pray!  
In Jesus' name, Amen.