Devotional #125

Question 125. Which is the fourth petition?

Answer: “Give us this day our daily bread”; that is, be pleased to provide us with all things necessary for the body (a), that we may thereby acknowledge thee to be the only fountain of all good (b), and that neither our care nor industry, nor even thy gifts, can profit us without thy blessing (c); and therefore that we may withdraw our trust from all creatures, and place it alone in thee (d).

(a) Psalm 104:27-28: These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
Psalm 145:15-16: The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
Matthew 6:25-26: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

(b) James 1:17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Acts 14:17: Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”
Acts 17:27-28: that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

(c) 1 Corinthians 15:58: Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Deuteronomy 8:3: And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
Psalm 37:3-5: Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.
Psalm 37:16: Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked.
Psalm 127:1-2: Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

(d) Psalm 55:23: But you, O God, will cast them down into the pit of destruction; men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days. But I will trust in you.
Psalm 62:11: Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God,
Psalm 146:3: Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
Jeremiah 17:5: Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD.
Jeremiah 17:7: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.

For your personal reflection:
Truly, how many of us really pray with concern for our daily bread?  I would say very few folks who are a part of St. Andrew’s sweat their daily bread.  So, what does this mean for us?  Here Jesus teaches us that our trust is to be in God.  If anything good has come out of the economic shake-up it has been the revelation of the true source of our hope and trust.
Where is your trust?  How do you know?
Do you look to God for daily provision?  Or, general provision?
What does it mean to look to the Lord daily?