Now we come to the next portion of this prayer. Some translations say, “Give us this daily our daily bread.” I kind of paraphrased it, “God, give us today what we need for today.” This is an acknowledgement that God is our source. We shouldn’t look to government. We should not necessarily look to our jobs for what we need. We need to look to God and realize that God is behind government. God is behind the resources in our country and even behind what kind of work we have. This prayer is an acknowledgement that God must provide what we need today and every day.

Along with this I would also mention a place in the book of Philippians that says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but take everything to God in prayer.” A lot of times we worry about things. We worry about how we are going to meet a deadline for payment this month and the month afterwards. We are worried about our house and worried about maintenance on our house and all kinds of things like that. But there it says, “Don’t be anxious, don’t worry, but take it to God in prayer.” For example, if you have a payment that needs to be made, take it to God and say, “God, I am looking to You to be my source. I am looking to You to provide for this need.” In this way we acknowledge God as our source and we are taking everything to God.

The opposite of this is to worry about things. Is this going to work out? No, don’t be anxious. God is going to take care of you. You just need to take it to God in prayer. We can also look at John 6, where Jesus presents Himself as the bread of life. Here, in this model prayer, He says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” In John 6 it says Jesus is our bread. So not only are we praying for what we need physically but we are praying for what we need spiritually.