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Part 17 OUR DAILY BREAD
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in
heaven...Give us this day our daily bread” (Mat. 6:9).
What meaning do you attach to the word “daily”? For what is it
that you ask, exactly, when you pray, “Give us this day our daily
bread?” What is “daily bread”? Around the Greek word translated
“daily” (EPIOUSION) much controversy has circled. The word is a coined
word. It is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. It is not found in
the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It is not found in Greek
literature. The early Church Father, Origen, less than two hundred years
after our Lord spoke, reported that he could not find the word either in
the works of classical writers or in the common speech of the uneducated.
It is not likely that in this prayer, intended by our Lord to be a model
for His disciples, He would introduce an unknown word manufactured by Him
for the occasion. Jesus never did that. It looks as though our Lord had
indeed spoken in Aramaic, the common language of Galilee, and that when
the apostles began to write their Gospels in Greek they coined this word
to represent what Jesus said — sort of a transliteration, and yet not
that. The phrase “daily bread” comes to us from the Latin; it was
adopted by Tyndale and Luther, and so passed into the King James Version.
Scholars suggest various shades of meaning for the word, and each
has his reasons. The four primary ones are: (1) daily bread (2) necessary
bread (3) dependable bread (4) bread for the morrow. While different
scholars give different theories or evidence for their particular
interpretation of the term, the fact is, there is merit in all of them! As
we meditate upon these significant words of our Lord it will, I believe,
become clear that each of these meanings is in one way or another
contained within the idea of “daily bread”. Whether it means “daily
bread” or “necessary bread”, or “dependable bread” or
“tomorrow’s bread”, the fundamental principle is the same —
everything comes from Father’s gracious hand as needed and we receive it
humbly and thankfully out of a heart of absolute trust; but prayer is not
to be turned into a mere instrument for obtaining everything our carnal
hearts may desire. DAILY BREAD
The type is in the natural, physical bread for the body; the
substance and reality are in the living bread in the spirit. Let us look
at the type for a moment. I draw your mind to the people to whom our Lord
first taught this prayer — the people of
The day’s wage had to buy the day’s food. It is easy to see why
people tended to be anxious about “tomorrow.” In our modern world
where wages are paid weekly and sometimes bi-monthly or monthly we are
most often anxious about next week or next month — not tomorrow! It
becomes extraordinarily difficult for people to lift their thoughts to the
higher things of the spirit while they are obsessed by these haunting
worries, and have nothing laid in store for the future, and nothing to
fall back upon. It is this they crave — to have some security, to feel
that, whatever tomorrow’s need, they have provision for it safe in
store.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” This petition shows itself
to be a divine revelation of reality, a principle of the
Consider exactly what it is that the firstborn Son of God would
have us learn from the birds: it is not their idleness or lack of
forethought; it is their freedom from worry, anxiety and concern. How
utterly unanxious these birds of heaven are! Did you never hike through
the mountain trails, and feel yourself inspired by the carol of the forest
warblers? What hymns of content and joyful praise sweep through the aisles
of their forest cathedrals! Neither sowing nor reaping nor garnering —
your heavenly Father feeds them. Think of it — our heavenly Father is a
feeder of birds! And are not the sons of God of much more value than many
sparrows? If, then, my heavenly Father feeds birds which are not His
children, will He not much more feed me who am His offspring? Oh ye sons
of the Most High — fear not, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to
eat and drink with you in the
Jobs, money, possessions are not security — our heavenly Father
who feeds the sparrows and clothes the lilies is our Source, our real
Security. No man can know the Father without this blessed knowledge.
Therefore pray, “Our Father...give us this day our daily bread.” There
is the formula for divine provision! In I Chronicles 29:14 we read that
“all things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.” When
Jesus said, “Give us this day our daily bread,” it was an
acknowledgment of the Source and a statement of His expectation to receive
from that Source. In perfect harmony with the Father, He was in perfect
harmony with the laws of supply and demand. It is an interior relationship
that manifests itself in outward provision. It is one of the laws of the
realm of sonship.
Hudson Taylor had opened up
You see, beloved, GOD IS OUR SOURCE! Oh, how the Lord’s people
need to learn this one sublime truth! I’m here to testify to its
reality. All through the years of our walk in the Kingdom realm God has
not permitted us to ask for money, or send out letters to solicit funds.
And we have no gimmicks, no miracle envelopes, no book offer for an
offering of ten dollars or more! We neither have to ask or beg for money,
because our heavenly Father has revealed to us a higher law. Yes, God uses
people, but we look not to the people, we look to God our Source. When I
was in business, God was my Source. Many years ago in my business, if
things weren’t going well, I kneeled down in front of my desk and prayed
— and my Father answered! He showed me what to do. He put me in contact
with the people who needed my service, and were glad to pay for the
quality of work we did. God blessed the business because we trusted in God
our Source. We have never gone hungry. We have never been stranded
anywhere, though in years past we traveled extensively, often with our
whole family, at home and abroad. We went to the mission fields for
several years with no committed support. We took no pledges. We joined no
organization. And in twenty-six years of publishing
Norman Elliott records how Alan Redpath tells a wonderful story of
his life. He had started a fund which he called “God’s Fund.” It was
money which people had given him to help others. During the days of World
War II this fund was at the lowest point it had ever been. Alan Redpath
was an air-raid warden, and one morning at dawn he was walking his area
and thinking about “God’s Fund.” He was carrying on a conversation
with God about it. Somewhere in the conversation he was asked why he
thought the fund was so low and he gave all kinds of reasons for it: the
war was on, people had their minds on other things; so and so, who was a
good contributor to the fund, had died, and so on. Then the word of God
burst within his spirit with forceful clarity: “So you have come to rely
upon people instead of Me!”
Immediately Alan Redpath knew it was right; he was convinced by the
wrongness of it. Right there, on the street, he got down on his knees and
asked God to forgive him, and promised God that from then on he would
never take the eyes of his expectancy off Him. Within a very short time
there was more money in the fund than it had had for years. Money came
from all over the
Many people shake their heads when one begins to talk about
trusting God as our Source, and asking for the supply only for the day.
“Aren’t we supposed to plan for the future?” they ask. Within
reason, I’m sure that we are, but WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO PREPARE FOR
THE FUTURE? By learning to truly know and trust our heavenly Father as the
Source and Supply of all things! Our Father always has the means to supply
our needs, natural or spiritual. In the desert the rock becomes a fountain
of living water, and the sparkling dew-drops daily bread. His prophet
Elijah may be exiled from friend and foe, yet the Lord will provide for
him. In that rocky gorge the very birds of heaven become the hands of God
and in the widow’s house the cruse of oil never fails and the meal
barrel never runs out. You see, dear one, GOD HIMSELF IS TOMORROW!
To be anxious about tomorrow is to be anxious about our heavenly
Father. “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the
Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come” (Rev. 1:8).
Tomorrow is not a day — tomorrow is a Person. Tomorrow is reality.
Tomorrow is the supply in God of all we have not yet received or attained
to. Tomorrow is God our warehouse, God our goal, God our substance.
Tomorrow is all that is ours in the THE BREAD FROM HEAVEN
When Moses was leading the children of
Praying that God will give us our daily bread may at first seem
irrelevant to us. When was the last time you pleaded with the Lord,
“Father, please provide me with a meal!” In most cases we should
rather have prayed, “Lord, please prevent me from eating another meal
— help me to discipline myself!” It does seem a little strange in our
modern world, does it not, this asking for daily food? We could
understand, no doubt, this prayer being made in
But this prayer has for you and me a higher meaning than that which
is earthly. For the sons of God it has a deeply spiritual meaning. It is
more than food for the belly, for man shall not live by bread alone, saith
the Lord. Man has been created for something greater than that, though
this little poem does portray a lot of folk in this world: Into
this world to eat and sleep And
know no reason why he was born Save
only to consume the corn, Devour
the cattle, flock and fish, And
leave behind an empty dish.
That is about all the masses of the world today do, just satisfy
their physical needs and live like animals. But no son of God is here
today to live in that manner. We are called to something higher and
grander than that, and the food the Lord Jesus points us to is spiritual
food, for this prayer is the prayer of sonship. It cannot concern physical
bread alone, for the prayer is given to sons, and our prayers are offered
not to a celestial shopkeeper or a heavenly Santa Claus, but to the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our heavenly Father, and our
main need as sons is not for mortal food, but for the bread that comes
down from heaven, from the Father above. “Labor not,” says the Lord,
“for the meat which perisheth, but for the meat which endureth unto
eternal life” (Jn.
There was a time when doctrine was the passion of my life. I was an
avid student of theology and meticulously examined various doctrinal
systems. Some of them I rejected, and others I embraced. I thought it was
most important to search the scriptures and, from the letter of the Word,
to determine what is the truth about a great number of things. Then I got
into the gifts of the Spirit and for a season miracles were happening and
wonderful healings and deliverances, and the gift of prophecy gushed forth
like rushing streams from the mountain tops. Then God began to open the
realm of sonship to my wondering spirit, and He has brought me to the
place over the past many years where my one and only desire is to SEE HIM,
KNOW HIM, and PARTAKE OF HIM who is the living reality. I am telling you
that the living substance of Jesus Christ is exciting me more than
anything else that I have ever found in the scriptures or in the realm of
experience! The words of the hymn writer have become gloriously alive
within my heart: Break
Thou the bread of life, Dear
Lord to me, As
Thou didst break the loaves Beside
the sea; Beyond
the sacred page I
seek Thee Lord; My
spirit pants for Thee, O
Living Word!
Man is not designed to live by bread alone, but by every word
proceeding out of the mouth of God. To live by material bread is to abide
in death, for all who eat thereof are dying. Whenever the petition is
made, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we should mean the
incorruptible bread of life. Man eats to live, but to live rightly and
eternally he must eat something more than bread that perishes. Man can eat
the best “health food” available but he will continue to age and die.
Moses and the children of
The following words of Phillip Keller give precious insight into
the meaning of “daily bread”. “Our Lord made it very clear that as
with manna so with Him, we have to come regularly, daily, to derive
nourishment afresh from God. To partake of His resurrection life is to
feed on heavenly bread. There is a bit of mystery to all this. Yet it is
not really surprising, for, even at our best, we can scarcely grasp the
unique and wondrous ways of God. In His mercy and generosity, He has used
temporal concepts to explain spiritual truth so that our understanding of
what is involved will be clear. What is bread? It is the living kernels of
grain, broken, crushed, bruised, and ground into fine flour. This flour is
mixed with salt, water, and yeast. It is kneaded, shaped into loaves, then
allowed to rise. After that, it is baked to a beautiful brown. In this new
form as bread, the life of the grain provides life to those who eat it.
The life of the wheat is thus transmitted to man through the process of
bruising and death and subsequent assimilation.
“By a similar series of processes, the life of God in Christ has
been made available to us. Our Saviour became God’s grain. It was He who
was broken and bruised at
“The special responsibility of the Spirit is to take the things
of Christ, the life of Christ, the attributes of Christ, the character of
Christ, the mind of Christ, and transmit them to us. It is in this way
that His life is made real in me and becomes part of my life. He becomes
my life — the very life of sonship. With this then as a background, we
can comprehend Christ as the bread from heaven. The prayer He taught us to
pray becomes a most potent and powerful plea for the very life of God
Himself. This is no mere, casual request for just ordinary food. It is a
deep, desperate yearning to have the risen Christ made real in me each
day. ‘Oh, Father, give me this day my daily bread!’ Such a petition,
such a prayer, such a desire could and does originate only with God
Himself. It is not the sort of thing to spring from any self-centered,
self-satisfied heart.
“If I, an ordinary man, am nourished daily with the very life of
Christ, what happens? Do I remain the same sort of person I was before I
was given this bread from above? The answer is a very positive no. There
will gradually but surely steal over my life some amazing changes. My
character will become like that of Christ Himself. My conduct will begin
to resemble His conduct. There will be formed in my mind the sort of
thoughts that are in His mind. There will be born in me the same attitudes
which He bears to others. There will be powerful and compelling motives
produced within my being that have as their source the sort of love and
understanding that He has in His heart. It has been said, ‘You are what
you eat.’ If we feed our souls and spirits on God’s bread from heaven,
it follows that is what we shall become. This is a powerful principle. It
explains why the Master included this apparently earthly petition in His
noble prayer for sons of God” — end quote.
So, again I ask, What does “daily bread” mean? Recall some of
the many times Jesus spoke of bread and eating and drinking. He said, “I
am the living bread that cometh down from heaven.” What is Jesus saying?
If we ask God to give us bread, then the bread must come down from heaven.
There is a great reason for this. There are two strong forces in nature
that influence human life and determine what a person will be. These two
forces are HEREDITY and ENVIRONMENT. Neither one alone is sufficient to
mold a full and useful human life. Heredity is a word used to mean the way
in which certain characteristics are passed from parents to children,
generation after generation. Because of heredity, each baby is born with
human characteristics that make him distinctly human. Not only is he
distinctly human, but he is also very much like his parents or
grandparents or other family members in special ways. Heredity is the
internal power that determines what a person is. Environment, on the other
hand, is a word used to stand for all the external conditions and
influences that become a part of a person’s life and affect his
development. Included in a person’s environment are the food he eats,
the liquids he drinks, the air he breathes, the place he lives, the home
he is brought up in, the diseases he may have, and the people, ideas and
education he is exposed to. Thus it can be seen that environment is
altogether as important a factor in what a person will be as is heredity.
Perhaps even more so!
It needs to be very clear in our minds that the nature of man is
received through heredity, but the sustenance and development of that
nature depend entirely upon the environment. The first and primary
function of the environment is to sustain life. The environment is that in
which we live, move and have our being. Without it we would neither live,
move, or have any being. Within every living organism is contained the
principle and power of life; but the environment is the power to sustain
and develop that life, ordering the conditions of life. Every living thing
requires for its development an environment containing air, light, heat,
water and food. When we simply remember how indispensable food is to
growth and work, and when we further bear in mind that the food supply is
contributed by the environment, we shall realize at once the importance,
the meaning, and the truth that without environment there can be no life!
You may have the best genes a person could ever have, but without the
environment those genes will never have the opportunity to produce that
wonderful person you were meant to be.
Matters not how much life you have in you, you must assimilate your
environment to live. The environment is really an unappropriated part of
ourselves. We and it must be one. We and it are one. Life depends upon
that union — the organism united with its environment. An organism in
itself is just a part; its environment is its complement. Alone, cut off
from its environment, it is not. Alone, cut off from my environment, I am
not. Without food, I am not. Without air, I am not. Without water, I am
not. I continue as I receive. My environment may change me, but first it
has to sustain me. Its secret transforming power is directly molding body
and mind and is sustaining the very life itself.
This is a great truth in the physical world, established by our
Creator. It is but a wonderful picture of the greater realities in the
SPIRITUAL WORLD! This is a truth of so great importance in the spiritual
world that we would be remiss not to pursue it. In the spiritual world he
will be enlightened and wise who understands this one great truth: without
environment there can be no life! I speak of course of the spiritual
environment of the spiritual realm of the
There is now within us a new principle and power of life —
God’s very own divine life, the life of heaven. But let every man
consider this that I now propose: even in this, our divine nature, we
require a second factor, a something in which to live and move and have
our being — an ENVIRONMENT! The
The great Pattern Son walked in the full and enlightened
consciousness of this inter-relationship between organism and environment.
He did not live independent of that spiritual environment that surrounds
and envelops a son of God. Jesus declared, “Believe me that I AM IN THE
FATHER, and the Father IN ME” (Jn.
As the natural man must have sustenance from his environment, so
the spiritual man. The spiritual man must come to know how to live by his
environment. After he has got life you must give him food. Now, what food
shall you give him? Shall you feed him with knowledge, or with beauty, or
with prosperity, or with blessings, or with religious exercises, or with
commandments, or with gifts, or with power, or with doctrines, or with
experiences? No; there is a rarer luxury than all these — so rare, in
fact, that few have ever more than tasted it; so rich, that they who have
tasted will never live on other fare again. It is this: “I am that
living bread that is come down from heaven.” Who can but marvel at the
proclamation of the Son of God, “I am the bread of life...that a man may
eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from
heaven; if any man eat this bread, he shall live forever” (Jn. GIVE US THIS DAY...
Now let us consider some significant statements that Jesus made
about Himself. He said, “I am the light of the world; He that followeth
me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (Jn.
When God separated the light from the darkness in the beginning, He
called the light DAY, and the darkness He called NIGHT. We are also told
that He made two great lights, one to rule the Day and the other to rule
the Night. Man with his limited carnal understanding has restricted this
to our solar day and lunar night, and to the sun and the moon. But our
almighty Father has something infinitely higher in mind than this! These
are mere types and shadows of reality. There is a great spiritual meaning
to all this. There is a REALM OF LIGHT and a REALM OF
As we consider this world in which we live, we see that all the
physical light we have springs from the sun in our sky. Take away that orb
and darkness would soon cover the earth. All vegetation would droop and
die as it turned yellow, then brown and black and crumbled into the earth.
Soon after that all animal and human life would have the same fate. The
verdant creatures which grace the surface of the earth have been created
to live in light. No one who has ever seen the sickly color of some plant
that has struggled for life in semi-darkness can fail to miss the contrast
between the green thing which grew in the sunshine, and the pale travesty
which grew in the shade. In total darkness every man would become blind
within three days, and death would follow shortly after. The life that we
know comes from the sun. In the same way, Jesus Christ is the Sun of
Righteousness! He is the illumination of our Day, the life of our lives!
Again, this speaks of the environment of the Kingdom realm of God. The
sun’s rays are the vital life in the environment of earth; the light of
God in the face of Jesus Christ raised up within us is the vital life of
the heavenly realm of the
The sweet singer of
From the above scriptures we know there are TWO KINGDOMS: the
Darkness is but the absence of light, or the lack of understanding.
Christ Himself IS THE LIGHT OF
It is in this spiritual enlightenment that we step into GOD’S
DAY. It is in this Day that Christ is and that Christ brings, and in which
we now walk, that we may receive our “daily bread”. Can you not see
it, my brother, my sister? The “Day” of the Lord is not a date on the
calendar, not a period of twenty-four hours or a number of years. THE
LIGHT OF CHRIST IS THE DAY! This is our Day. We are children of this Day.
The strength of God Himself that comes by illumination of His spirit is
what God gives us when we pray for daily bread. “Give us this day...”
“This day” is this new Day of God in which we now live and walk. The
bread for “this Day”! We ask for the continual, unfailing
strengthening in this Day of God. He gives us the Christ. How can that
prayer be answered if Jesus Christ is only coming physically some day in
the future? How can Jesus, the bread of heaven, all come down in one
little human loaf sometime in the future? My deepest prayer is that the
spirit of wisdom and revelation from God will give understanding to all
who read these lines that the bread of life is the distribution of the
spirit of Christ, the word of Christ, the power of Christ, the wisdom of
Christ, the mind of Christ and the nature of Christ within His body of
sons. It is the spirit of Christ that sustains our spiritual man, feeds
our inner man, and grows us up into the full stature of the Son of God.
He has come in the foretaste of His omnipotence, working all
through this present age in the hearts of the remnant, gathering out of
each generation a firstfruits, in preparation for the times of restitution
of all things. Then He shall be released, breaking forth in visible
manifestation of the fullness of His nature, power and being. This is OUR
daily bread, the necessary bread for this day, the bread of our spiritual
existence, the bread that cometh down from heaven, the environment of our
spiritual life. How we yearn for that fullness! How our souls pant after
Him! How we groan within ourselves, waiting for the glory that shall be
revealed! How we hunger and thirst after His righteousness and His
Kingdom! He shall continue to come unto us until we have eaten the whole
Lamb and the whole Loaf and stand in the absolute fullness of His strength
and might. Yes, “Give us this day our daily bread!”
Jesus Christ is Lord, but He is not yet the Lord of lords,
exhibiting fully that Lordship in His body, to restore creation,
delivering all from the bondage that brings corruption. If you don’t
understand that there are some things waiting to be accomplished, then you
need help in the scriptures. There are those who would try and claim and
appropriate to themselves the fullness and perfection of God and their
sonship right now. They are already perfect, mature sons, manifested sons,
filled with the fullness of God, immortal and incorruptible, ruling and
reigning with Christ — so they say. Would to God that it were true, that
we might stand in that fullness and live and reign with them! Their boast
is louder than their living, and their claims exceed their experience. The
reports of their great power and authority over creation are highly
exaggerated. But there is a humble, obedient people willing to wait upon
reality while they continue to pray, “Give us this day our daily
bread.”
God has been gracious and faithful to give us our bread from day to
day, from dealing to dealing, from realm to realm. He has called us to His
feasts and has abundantly fed us in each. We were called to the spiritual
feast of Passover in our salvation experience. There we began to eat of
Christ the living bread and were quickened unto God. Then He called us to
the spiritual feast of Pentecost in the baptism in the Holy Spirit. How
wonderfully He fed us there! We feasted at His table and partook of His
power and glory in divers gifts of the Holy Ghost. But there is a third
dimension in God where we move beyond new birth and gifts into the very
fullness of God. The sons of God are now called to the third spiritual
feast, the feast of fullness, the feast of Tabernacles. Blessed are they
who are called to this great feast, that which supersedes Pentecost, that
which is the BALANCE OF THE
Great were the glories seen by men like Noah, Moses, Joshua,
Gideon, David, and Solomon. Glorious were the manifestations of God’s
power that swept the Judean and Galilean hills when our Lord spake as
never man spake and healed, cast out devils, and even raised the dead to
life again. Sublime beyond explanation were the holy visitations at
Pentecost and in the years that followed as multitudes, both of men and
women, were brought to the feet of Jesus Christ, and by the hands of the
apostles God wrought mighty miracles and special signs and wonders until
the world was turned literally upside down with the glory of the heavenly
visitation. It would have been wonderful to have dwelt there then and to
have rejoiced with them for all the wonderful works of God. Marvelous
beyond description were the works of God as He birthed His infant Church!
Blessed as were all those things and marvelous as were the results,
yet more glorious still is the hope pulsating within the breast of all
creation as they wait in earnest expectation for THE MANIFESTATION OF THE
SONS OF GOD. After all the mighty works of God in all previous visitations
the sad fact is that the world is still filled with pain, sorrow and
death. Though some have been healed, all men continue to die, saint and
sinner alike. For this reason “the whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain together until now, for the earnest expectation of the
creation waiteth for the MANIFESTATION OF THE
The supernal glories that lie like the towering Give
us this Day our daily bread, Lead
us to pastures where we may be fed; Take
us to heights never known by man, Give
us this Day our daily bread!
This has a deeply spiritual meaning for those called to sonship,
for they have not been promised merely physical blessings. Material
blessings are very secondary to the sons of God today. But if you, as a
chosen one of God, have received temporal blessings, then thank God,
remembering that they are extra. Beloved, may I say to you, God has not
promised to us those physical blessings. He has promised us spiritual
blessings. Material blessings were promised under the Old Testament and
given to the nation
If you want another distinction between
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