Lord’s Prayer
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verily thou shalt be fed.” David says, “I have been young, and now am
old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging
bread.”
Psalm 37:3, 25
. That God who sent the ravens to feed Elijah by
the brook Cherith will not pass by one of His faithful, self-sacrificing
children. Of him that walketh righteously it is written: “Bread shall
be given him; his waters shall be sure.” “They shall not be ashamed in
the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.” “He
that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how
shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
Isaiah 33:16
;
Psalm 37:19
;
Romans 8:32
. He who lightened the cares and anxieties
of His widowed mother and helped her to provide for the household at
Nazareth, sympathizes with every mother in her struggle to provide
her children food. He who had compassion on the multitude because
they “fainted, and were scattered abroad” (
Matthew 9:36
), still has
compassion on the suffering poor. His hand is stretched out toward
them in blessing; and in the very prayer which He gave His disciples,
He teaches us to remember the poor.
When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we ask for others
as well as ourselves. And we acknowledge that what God gives us is
not for ourselves alone. God gives to us in trust, that we may feed the
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hungry. Of His goodness He has prepared for the poor.
Psalm 68:10
.
And He says, “When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy
friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors....
But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame,
the blind: and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee:
for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.”
Luke
14:12-14
.
“God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always
having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”
“He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which
soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”
2 Corinthians 9:8, 6
.
The prayer for daily bread includes not only food to sustain the
body, but that spiritual bread which will nourish the soul unto life
everlasting. Jesus bids us, “Labor not for the meat which perisheth,
but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.”
John 6:27
. He
says, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any
man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.” Verse 51 . Our Saviour is