Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Nine months ago my son Joshua was born.  Before he was born we needed to pick out a name.  Now, naming a human being is a big deal.  We thought about what sounded nice, what nicknames might come from it, what his initials might spell and what it meant.  The meaning of his name was very important to us.

Joshua means the same as Jesus: "God saves".  We pray every night that God would make his name true for him.  So, Joshua means "God saves", Matthew means "Gift of God" and Christine means "follower of Christ".

One man in the Bible with an interesting name is the Apostle Paul.  Paul is the Greek name for the Hebrew name Saul and Saul/Paul was a man of importance in the world of Judaism.  As you can read in Acts chapter 9 and in some of Paul's letters he had a dramatic conversion experience.  Saul the Christian killer is Paul the Christian martyr.  Saul did not exactly have his name changed but God made him use a name that would forever teach him about grace.

The name Paul in Greek means "small".

God, through the naming by his parents and the use of language gave him a name that would remind him and announce to all he met that he was small.  The great church planter of the Greek speaking world introduced himself to Greek speakers by saying, "Hi, I'm small."  The greatest evangelist in the Bible's name means small and I think that tells us something about the Gospel.  Prideful Sauls need to be reminded they are small Pauls. 

Christians must be people that remember their personal smallness and announce it to all they meet.  Christians are small people with a BIG God.  This isn't about self-esteem; this is about the Gospel.  The Gospel tells us we are small but God loves us anyway, we are unimportant but God lavishes us with love anyway, we are sinful yet Jesus died for us.  We aren't saved because we're worth it, but we're saved because God wanted to save us.

Oftentimes we forget our petite nature and magnify ourselves and forget the majesty of our eternal, infinite, all-powerful, Triune God.  This self-over-evaluation  keeps us from enjoying more fully our salvation.

"Give us this day our daily bread" Matthew 6:11

Jesus taught us to pray for our most basic needs.  He taught us to pray for what we need to sustain us today.  Many of us never think about whether we have bread for today.  Many of us worry about the distant future but hardly ever today.  Most of us feel pretty confident about our own ability to take care of ourselves today.

We need to remember how small we are and in the Lord's prayer Jesus helps remind us of that.  Jesus instructs us to ask God for the very thing that we may have already bought ourselves.  Jesus instructs us to pray in a way that makes us announce our smallness to our BIG God.

This reliance on God.  This recognition of the infinite difference in size and ability between us and God is necessary daily.

"... give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God." Proverbs 30:8b-9

Sustained but not fat.  This must be the spiritual condition of the believer.  Saul was capable of being a "great man" in his "own right" and Jesus sent him to the Gentiles a people group with which he'd be wildly successful and yet always reminded of his size relative to God's.

Humility is a beautiful gift.  Learn humility and put it into practice.  Remember that we need God for everything from our breath to our bread. 

Jesus, give us our daily bread today.