DEVELOPING A PROPER PRAYER LIFE, PART VI

Matthew 6:9-13 — “After this manner therefore pray you: Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”

DAILY BREAD
As we begin this section, I want to focus on one word here just for a moment, and that word is “daily.” The word daily is used here by Christ and not without purpose and meaning. Daily means every single day, so what He is speaking of, which is prayer, is not an option or something to do when you feel like it, but something that we as believers should do on an everyday basis.

Dear reader, I want you to please understand that what we are writing about and what Christ is speaking of here is not an option, but rather something that must be done in order have proper and right relationship with our heavenly Father. Without a daily communication with our heavenly Father, we will only go so far in this Christian life, which won’t be very far, spiritually speaking.

MANNA
Many of us have read in the book of Exodus about the wandering of the children of Israel in the wilderness. God purposefully led them through the wilderness to teach His people to trust Him in every situation. But as we know, they complained just about every chance they got. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? On their journey, they had nothing to eat, and they began to complain to Moses, and Moses took this problem to the Lord in prayer.

God, in turn, would respond to Moses by giving the people of God food every single day and twice on the day before the day of rest—the Sabbath—and was called manna. Manna is a type of Christ. As the manna came from heaven, so did Christ. As this bread satisfied the hunger of His people, so does Christ.

God would send the manna everyday, and the people were to take as much as they needed for that day, and not take less or more than what is needed, with the exception of the day before the Sabbath. This means that we are to look to Christ for what we need for that particular day, and nothing more or less. We are to trust Him to meet our needs for that day, and we are to do this daily. Now, there were some of the people of God who refused to take what they needed for that day, as there are many Christians who don’t believe God to meet their needs for that day, and they either tend to look forward, or they continue to look to the past. Believe Him to meet your needs for today, and trust Him to provide for tomorrow.

HIS MERCIES ARE NEW EVERY MORNING
Too many Christians are trying to live off of the manna from yesterday, or last year, or what have you, and then are completely dumbfounded at how their lives are an utter mess that day. Quit living off of yesterday’s blessings and believe God for today’s blessing. Jeremiah would say “They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness” (Lam. 3:23).

This means that His mercy is a product of His grace. He—God—chose grace in His dealings with man as the vehicle of communication, with grace being presented as a choice by man as to whether or not he will accept and receive such grace. If grace is not given by choice, then it ceases to be grace.

At the very moment when grace was chosen as the means by which God communicated with man, mercy was a natural result of grace. Grace is the goodness of God given to undeserving man, and mercy is God’s faithfulness to a person despite his unworthiness and affection. It’s the gracious favor of one who is superior to an inferior, and all unmerited, which is something one can’t earn. As the grace of God cannot be exhausted, neither can His mercy. That’s why we must believe these words—that His mercies are brand-new every single morning.

Whatever is needed by the believer should be asked for on a daily basis, and done so by faith, believing that God is able to meet his every need, no matter how great or small. As natural bread is needed for daily sustenance, so is this spiritual bread needed for daily spiritual sustenance.

So, ask Him for those things that are needed by you every day, and believe Him that He is able to bring those things to pass in His will and in His timing. God is able; never forget that! God is able to do all things, for He said, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). He would also say, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believes” (Mark 9:23).

We must believe this, that whatever is needed by us on any given day, He is able to do what we need Him to do. Never limit God!

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