Bread of Life

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

BREAD OF LIFE

Matt 6:9-13

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. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'

NIV

Having looked at the holiness of the name of God and that we are wanting the reign of God in our lives, submitting our will to Him. We now consider what Jesus meant by telling us to pray that He gives us this very day our daily bread. We know that Jesus also refers to himself as the Bread of Life, which is recorded for us in the gospel of John. This is one of the seven “I AM” statements of Jesus. “I AM the bread of life”. It is interesting Jesus used the very same word that is used for a loaf of bread. It is also interesting that bread is the basic substance of life. A person can life for a long time only on bread and water. God brought down bread from heaven for the Israelites when they were wandering in the wilderness. Jesus referred to himself at that last meal with his disciples as bread, when he took a loaf of bread, broke it and said that this is his body and told his disciples to eat all of it. The point being that when we ask for our daily bread, we could see this as asking the Father to provide our basic needs of material food. Of course, we can go buy all the food we want, so why would we ask the Father for something we can go buy, unless we have no money at all and are completely destitute. But that is rarely the case, we are also have been told, as descendants of Adam, that we will work the ground by the sweat of our brow all the days of our life for our sustenance, which implies we work, and we get paid, and we buy food. Therefore, we are left with seeing this daily bread as Jesus. We should pray to God that he gives us our daily supply of Jesus, the food that does not spoil, but food that leads to eternal life. If the physical bread can sustain our physical life, then our daily bread, Jesus, sustains our spiritual life. It is also interesting this is a daily experience. We want a daily portion of Jesus, every day, all day long. It is not just those once in awhile times when we take the elements of communion that we are to remember that Jesus, the bread if life, was broken for us and that we are to eat it all. However, that also implies that we want all of Jesus in our lives. Father, give us our daily bread.