Thursday, August 8, 2013

Our Daily Bread

The assigned reading this morning was found in Matthew, the sixth chapter, verses nine through fifteen.

A very familiar passage; one I knew before I ever actually opened a Bible.

“The LORD’s Prayer: or as I knew it,  “The Our Father”.

Yes, so very familiar.  Yet, as in all of God’s Word, there was something fresh for me in this reading.

Give us this day our daily bread….

As I read this line the question came….is this solely speaking of food for the body?
 Is it simply physical nourishment that I need to receive each day?
 Absolutely not, but it is a matter of recognizing and admitting my need.

What do I hunger for?

In one chapter earlier Matthew records these words from Jesus:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
Righteousness…virtue…justice…a sense of being right with God Himself.

In each and every heart there is a longing for Him; for many it stays buried.  It is a dull, hungry ache that we attempt to satisfy with any and all things but the One who will satisfy.

Bread has been referred to as “the staff of life”, which means a staple of life, something basic to sustaining life.

Jesus spoke of Himself as “the bread of life” in the Sixth chapter of John, the thirty-fifth verse.
“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life, he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”
He is the bread that thoroughly satisfies all our hunger.

I hunger for a number of things.

You will find one topping the list:  All I know and love to be whole and set free from addiction.

This will only happen if they “Taste and see that the LORD is good.”
Psalm Thirty-four, verse Eight ends with a promise…
“How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
Blessed.
Happy…Full….Satisfied.
Satisfied by the Bread of Life.

In the Seventh Chapter of Revelation we find another promise.
“They shall hunger no more…”
 Oh, my Father, who is in heaven...satisfy my hunger!

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