Ep. 8: Petitioning God for Our Needs

In this episode, we continue our study of the Lord's Prayer by exploring what Jesus teaches us about asking God for what we need. We unpack the phrase "Give us today our daily bread" — examining what daily bread really means (both spiritual and natural), why we must ask for it fresh every day, and how the Israelites' journey through the desert illustrates the connection between daily provision and growing faith. We also look at how lust, idolatry, and misplaced desires can block our petitions, and what it means to come to God in the right spirit — with confidence in His goodness and trust in His Word.

Transcript

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Hey there, listeners. It's so exciting to be back continuing with our studies on the Lord's Prayer. How exciting to follow Jesus's curriculum on prayer because we're not just learning about how to pray, but we're learning about how to fellowship with God. We're learning about what his priorities are. We're learning about how we have to come into alignment so that we can actually pray effective prayers, and also we can receive from God. 'Cause when we're out of alignment, God may be releasing, but we may not be receiving because our pipe is out of order. But when the pipe is in order and there's a flow, you know, when the water's coming through the pipe, it gets through the top. But if the, if there's a, a rapture somewhere or if there's a ship somewhere, then the water doesn't come through to the top. So it's kind of similar when we think about it. So we need to be in alignment. We need to pray to the right address. We need to come in the right spirit, putting God in his proper place in our hearts, in the hallowed places in our heart, you know, on the throne of our heart. Our heart is an altar, so we need to prepare that place for him for worship, that he is our worship, and then the one we reverence. And then we also need to prioritize his kingdom because he says once we're in the kingdom, everything else will be added to us. So there's a verse in John that says, you know, the violent take the kingdom by force because there is contending that happens to get in the kingdom out of the old into the new. There is a struggle. There is conflict that we need to deal with. But once we're in the kingdom, that's why it says seek first 'cause it's not a one-and-done thing. It's a pursuit. Once you're in, everything, the rights of the kingdom are yours. It's like once you're a citizen in a place, the rights of that place are yours. So it co- things come to us naturally because we're in faith. There's no struggle. So we need to get in the kingdom first. We need to prioritize God's kingdom, his reign over us, you know, his rule through faith. And then we also need to put his will before our will because not only have we signed up to die, but once we do that, we find that doing God's will automatically takes care of what we thought was a concern. Like, we also find our satisfaction through satisfying God. So those are important steps to go through. But Jesus also teaches us to ask God for what we need. So today we're gonna talk about that. And in fact, the next two sessions, I'm also going to talk about the spirit in which we need to make our petitions, and also how we can receive our needs, how we can have our needs met through the covenant names of God. So stay tuned for today's session and the subsequent, subsequent ones, because you are going to be nourished and you are going to be blessed. Now, Jesus teaches us not only how to ask God for what we need, but also what to ask for and how often we need to ask. So let's look at that. Matthew 6:11 in the NIV tells us, "Give us today our daily bread." So that's the request we made to God. Give us today our daily bread. This is a very practical instruction. God, give us today our daily bread. Now we need to ask God to give us. That's the first thing. Just analyze this. Give us Give us because we may be experiencing a need and we don't have that need met because we just didn't ask. James 4:2b says, "You don't have because you didn't ask." So sometimes we just need to ask. So Jesus says, "Give us," which means we shouldn't presume that certain things are just going to happen automatically without asking. And specifically our daily bread. We need to petition Him for that. So we need to ask. However, the issue for most people is not the asking. We know we need to ask. We're eager to ask. When we come to God, the first thing we wanna do is ask. You know, we wanna skip all the steps and go straight to, "God, my need, my want help me," you know? But the issue is while we ask, many of us do not see answers to our requests. So hopefully these steps will help us deal with those blockages, those hindrances to seeing our requests answered. Now, in this prayer, Jesus is teaching us to ask for our daily bread. He's very specific. And then be- the fact that it's daily is showing you the frequency. It needs to be what? Every day. So what is daily bread? Daily bread in a natural diet is a staple. It's a dominant food. In most Western cultures, bread is the staple. Now I'm, you know, of African origin, raised in Ghana. Bread is not the staple, so this stands in for whatever the staple is in your culture. In my culture, for some people, rice is the staple. So- for some people tubers, you know, tuber foods like fufu, different kind of foods that People wanna eat every day, and if they don't eat that, they feel like they haven't eaten even if you give them any other food. It's kind of funny, isn't it? But that's the, the real thing that I wanna communicate is this is whatever is dominant in the diet. This is where your main source of energy is coming from because your carbohydrates are coming through this source of food, this staple. You know, it's also bringing you your nu- nutritional needs and, um, it's vital for sustaining your bios life, your natural life. So Jesus is teaching us that we need to petition God for one substance that we need to sustain our lives every day, and it is what? Bread. So every day means it must be fresh. Now, bread, of course, we know is the word of God. Jesus is the word of God, and I'm gonna talk about that, too. But we know from scripture, you know, that He says He's the bread of life. He said that, and the, the leaders of the day wanted to kill Him, the religious leaders, 'cause they're like, "Why are you saying that?" 'Cause Jesus was always speaking from another realm. He was always talking about spiritual things, you know, using spiritual me- metaphors that they didn't understand. And He said, "I am the bread of life." So we know from John that He is the word of life. First John and the Gospel of John, He's described as the word of life. So the life, the eternal life God communicates to us is through the word. It's the word that is made alive by the quickening of the Holy Spirit. The inspired word which brings faith because it's not just something we intellectualize, but it's something God has quickened for you and me. So it brings us a source of strength, comfort for whatever we deal with in our day, you know. So it's something we need to have. And I, I often teach people, you know, put God first by praying first in your day and asking for your daily bread first thing in the morning, or even just praying first because once you do that, then He releases what you're gonna need. He gives you the word that you're gonna need for your day to deal with in your day. So, so you're already armed for your day, already prepared for your day. And it must be fresh bread because sometimes the word that people have is stale bread. It's a word from two years ago. It's stale. You gotta get rid of stale bread 'cause stale bread doesn't bring you nourishment. It doesn't help you in your daily walk of faith 'cause it's stale. You need fresh bread. And this principle is also vivid in the Old Testament. When the Israelites were journeying from being slaves in Egypt to live in the Promised Land as God's people, they got to a point where they were going through, journeying through the desert, and God had to supply them with supernatural food called manna. And that manna was fresh every day. It was bread from heaven. That's Exodus 16. You can find the story there. Also Numbers 18. God supplied them with fresh bread every day. In fact, He told them, He commanded them not to gather leftovers because He wanted it to be fresh. So every day they would get fresh bread. He faithfully supplied them. And they would gather this bread, and they ate this bread until they reached the border of the Promised Land. When they got to the Promised Land, God changed it up. He said, "Okay, now you're in the promise. You don't need, you don't need daily bread anymore," because in this place, a, when you, once you get to the promise, God cuts off the, the daily bread because He has a different kind of provision for you. So once they got that, Joshua said in Numbers 14:8, "If the Lord is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey." So that's also a form of the Word. It's coming in the form of milk and honey. So God brings us to a place of abundance. This is where we journeyed. We've learned to walk with God, and He's matured us, and He's brought us into the promise that He's given us, into the place where Christ is all in all, and Christ is, is, is ruling in our lives, and He has taken over our lives, and we are living out of His abundance. We are living out of the promises. So we're no longer just believing God, but there is fulfillment. We're living in a place of fulfillment, fulfillment 'cause God's covenant with us through the body and the blood of Jesus is actually to live in a place where we are in a, an overflow, a place of abundance. So 2 Corinthians 8:9 says that this, we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, he became poor for our sake, so that through his poverty we would have his riches. And then Paul then goes on to explain in 2 Corinthians 9:8 that God is able to make all grace, every type of grace, increase, flow, overflow to us so that in every situation, every type of situation, we have more than we need and there is some leftover to do the good works that he wants us to do. So it's a covenant that Jesus, it's an exchange that has already taken place through what he experienced on the cross. On the cross, he suffered need, he suffered want, he suffered lack, he suffered humiliation. All those things, there was an, a transaction taking place so that Paul says once we follow the covenant, we come into a place of abundance. And these Corinthians were people of covenant in, in their giving. Their giving was showing that they were living in the covenant. Now, the people who are not living according to God's covenant principles concerning giving. So they're not in this place to experience the blessing that is promised to that giving. Now, these were people who were following that. And Paul says because of that, God is able to do this. And then he also tells them, "The measure you use is the measure you get." You give sparingly, you get, you get sparingly. Like, you know. So anyway, all that to say God has a place he's taking us to. Before we get there, there's a kind of sustenance he gives us in the wilderness, and it's our daily bread Jesus said pray for our daily bread every day, which means we really don't grow out of it. We're still gonna need daily bread. One of the ways that I've, I've seen the Lord explain daily bread to me is as my identity. It's my identity. So every day I need to affirm my identity in Christ. That never grows old. Why? Because there are precious experiences, you know, temptations that attack identity. When Jesus was tempted, his identity was the first thing the devil went after. After God had proclaimed that, "This is the Son in whom I'm well pleased," the devil says, "If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread." So he, he, he challenged his identity. You know, in that temptation, he challenged his identity. He also wanted him to operate independently of God, and you can also analyze that in all sorts of ways. But the point I wanna make is identity is a staple. It doesn't change. That's your staple. That's my staple. We need to affirm our identity. So coming back to the practical making requests and receiving from God, let's continue with that So this example that God meets our needs, you know, that He supplies us with spiritual food. It's not, it's not the only thing. He also supplies us with natural things, with things that we need. 'Cause Paul has already said to the Corinthians that He's able to make all types of graces come so that we can have everything we need. But going back to the spiritual food specifically, Paul writes that he warns the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10:3-5 that these Israelites who had manna in the desert, they all ate the same spiritual food, but God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. The majority of those who left Egypt, who ate this daily bread called manna, they never made it into this inheritance to enjoy the milk and honey, the overabundance that God had promised to them. Why? Because of unbelief. Because of unbelief. So when we're thinking about petitionary prayer, faith is key. It is absolutely key to cultivate faith for petitionary prayer, you know? And as we will see, God purposely made them hungry in the desert to teach them an important lesson, to teach them to depend on Him, to teach them that they needed to live by faith. This whole living on daily bread is an exercise in learning how to live by faith. Because if every day I have to, I have to rely on what God tells me To deal with the issues of my day, I have to rely on hearing from God to receive my spiritual food to sustain me in whatever comes my way, to bring comfort, to bring whatever I need in that day. Then it shows that I, I live by trusting in Him, depending on Him. But the majority of these people who left Egypt, they resisted this teaching. They never learned to depend on God for daily bread. So petitioning God for your daily bread is a way of growing in faith. If every day God gives you a word, and that word is how you live, you l- you learn to cultivate trusting in God so that He can bring you into a place of abundance or a place of freedom, a place of, a place of the promise being fulfilled. But these guys didn't learn that, to depend on Him. So when they came to that place where the promise would be fulfilled, they couldn't take... They couldn't enter because they didn't have the faith in God. They didn't have the trust in God that God would see them through, that God would be able to take down their giants, that God would be able to fulfill what He said He would do. So the, so God is able. It is so highlighted. God is able, but they didn't believe that in their hearts So they couldn't enter. They never had the confidence, so they chose to believe in an evil report. And Paul attributes their failure to, um, to walk in faith to setting their hearts on evil things. And he warns us in 1 Corinthians 10:6-11 that we shouldn't do that. We should learn not to fall into the same trap or temptations they fell into because of their disobedience. He said they desired... Their desires became idols. Their carnal desires, their desire for food, their desire for natural things became idols that stopped them from cultivating the faith, from entering into the kind of faith that they needed. And this reminds me of the scripture that says, "This kind doesn't go out except by faith and by, by, um... Sorry, by fasting and prayer." So instead of when they got to s- a certain point, kicking their plate and fasting and praying for the faith they needed because they were... Of the mountains they were dealing with, they chose to lust. They chose to lust. And so it, it says in the Bible that they elevated lustful desires above the will of God. God's will is to bring us into grace. Another person who did that was Esau, right? So God's will is to give us a grace, and sometimes it, it... Not sometimes, it really all the time calls for some form of self-denial to come into that grace. But these guys were not able to do that. So the faith is not something that we come up with naturally. It's not a natural ability. It's a divine impartation. It's a substance of things hoped for. So it's a divine impartation. So there's a, there is a waiting on God for God to impart faith. There is a training to cultivate faith from the Word. And Jesus warns in the Parable of the Sower that lust for other things entering the heart chokes the Word so that it becomes unfruitful. So when we're talking about these guys who were on daily bread not being able to come into what God wanted to give them, the, the root issue was that they put... They made their own desires idols, and it became perverted desires. It became lust, lust rooted in deception, the deception that makes people lose perspective on the truth about God and, and to trust in themselves, you know? So it's not surprising that Jesus' blueprint for prayer is teaching us that we have to learn to petition God Only after establishing the first things. Only after establishing that His kingdom first, His will first. Going to the right address, His kingdom, His will. Because if we don't put these things in their right place, then our petitions kind of come out of order because we're out of the Kingdom and we're making petitions, and then we're getting frustrated 'cause we're not in ali- alignment. So the sequence of the prayer is very important. It's very, very important, and it shows that our requests are effective, or rather, we can make the petitions effectively when we understand that we have to voluntarily submit to God's will. So having, having gone through all that, worked through all that, now let's come to the practical side of how do we petition God? When we approach God, how do we petition Him? How must we ask for things from God, is really what I'm, I'm talking about. We must make our request in the right spirit and the right attitude. This is so important. So the first thing is we must trust in God's goodness. We must have confidence in God's goodness. It's not by chance that God- Jesus teaching G- teaches us to approach God as Father before He introduces petitioning God for daily bread. It shows you that even in our asking, God will treat us as children. He's going to treat us as children. Just as children depend on their parents to meet their needs, our Father in Heaven has made a covenant with us to meet our needs. And one of our primary needs is what? Is food. So He's s- when He's saying, "Daily bread," once again, we can extrapolate from that to every other need to think, "If God is meeting my most basic need, why would He not meet my other needs?" So it's, it's in this covenant relationship with God as Father. So coming in the right spirit is coming already with an attitude that God is my Father, God is not going to withhold good from me. God wants to do me good because He is a good Father. And if He says, you know, if imperfect parents know how to give their children good things, how much more will He not give to those who ask? You know, the, His Spirit. All good gifts, you know? So every good gift, James tells us, comes from the Father. If it's a good gift, it's coming from Him. So coming in the right spirit is having faith, having confidence that God is a good Father who wants to give me good things. That's the first thing. That's the first thing. So I have to believe that He's a generous Father who delights in answering my prayers. Jesus says, "Ask in my name so that your joy will be full," John 16:24. So He wants us to feel joy. He's not going to keep things from us because He wants us to feel negative. That's not who He is. He actually wants us to feel joy, the joy of having prayers answered So failure to receive is actually not God's will for us. If it's a good, if it's a good gift, if it's a promise He has made, God intends to fulfill that promise. That's another thing. We ask on the basis of faith, which means on the basis of what God has said. So some of our requests are not based on what God has said. God is not committed to give you something He has not promised you. Everything He has promised in the Bible is for you and I. 2 Peter says that. 2 Peter, 2 Peter 1:3-4 says He's already provided everything we'll ever need. And so He's already done that, and it's all through His promises, and they all come through Christ. So we already know there's a package for you and I that we can look into, you know, and there's a... a- and draw from. So f- when we're saying faith, faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. So it's asking on the basis of His promises. Now, when we do that, God's desire is to fulfill those promises 'cause He made them, and they're all yes and amen in Christ. He's the one who says the amen, you know, and it's through Christ. So there is, there is a place where we need to contend to come into faith. Like I was explaining, that this is where the Israelites messed up because they settled for their carnal desires instead of denying themselves to go after fa- the things of faith. Instead of going after God to get the faith that they needed to pursue the promises, they settled for a life of just living at the level of the flesh, satisfying their own desires. So sometimes if you want the promise to be fulfilled, you have to be like Caleb and Joshua, who decided that no, that was not their way. They were gonna believe in God because they had learned their lessons in the wilderness, and they were not just gonna go after their carnal desires and settle for fear and let fear dictate whether they were gonna get what God wanted for them or not. It shows that some of our petitions are not going to be answered overnight. But we have to keep in mind that God is a good God, and we're coming and asking on the basis of faith and on the basis of the covenant from a good God. So coming in the right spirit is important. Now, we also have to trust His Word, that His Word covers everything we'll ever need. His word covers everything we will ever need. So isn't it interesting that the first temptation of Jesus had to do with food? Coming back to this food thing, it had to do with food. Scripture tells us that after he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, he was physically hungry. And Satan approached him, and Satan said, "If you are the Son of God," so challenging his identity, "turn these stones to become bread." And Jesus responded, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." So that's Matthew 4:4. So once again, it's this issue of living by daily bread, spiritual sustenance. Jesus here makes it very clear, very vivid. He says, "Man, humanity shall not live by," what? "Bread alone." Physical bread, obviously. He's saying, "So what do you live by?" This is what the Israelites were living by, the lust. It, it turned into a lust or a, a perverted desire when they were putting that above the spiritual bread. So you and I are called to live a supernatural life, a life of faith. And God is saying that he didn't make us to just live by physical food alone. So if all we're living by are physical things, then we will miss it. So Jesus is saying here to the devil, "We were not called to live by bre..." So what do you live by? By physical bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So when we are asking God for our daily bread, it's not just our physical needs being met, but it is the proceeding word. It is the proceeding word. This is confirmation to what I was explaining. It is the proceeding word from the mouth of God. Proceeding, look at the tense. It's not stale. It's not from yesterday. It's proceeding. It's present continuous. It's the now word that God is speaking. And every day, God wants to give us a word. So every day, we've gotta engage with God in prayer and through our Bible study to hear from God, to find an inspired word that he wants to communicate to us to sustain us. And in fact, Proverbs 4:23 says that, "The word is not only life, but health to our physical body." So the word contains everything we will need. God has packaged every need in the word, in his promises. And this is what Peter also says in 2 Peter 1:3-4. He says, "Everything you'll ever need. Everything you'll ever need." So we're talking about why don't we see it? It's, it's, it's our attitude Number one, the attitude and also the, the lack of contending and settling for carnal things, you know, amongst other things. But these are important things that we need to look at. So are we coming into faith? Is my attitude faith? Have I come into faith yet? Faith is a journey. Sometimes people are filled with a lot of head knowledge, and we think it's faith. And I was recently asking the Lord, "Why didn't I see an answer to this? I asked you for this. You promised me this. I thought I did everything." And he said, "What you were using there was willpower. You don't have the faith yet for it. It hasn't become heart faith. You have the head knowledge, but it's not yet heart faith that moves mountains." So you, you used, you used your willpower to try to appropriate something that can only be received by faith. It's a real thing. Faith is a reality. Hebrews 11:1 tells us it's a substance. So sometimes we experience disappointment 'cause we have not contended to get to that substance, to get to God fully cultivating that substance in us. And so then we end up, if we're not careful, like the Israelites who settled for idols, who settled for lust, who settled for... It says, the Bible says they rose to play. They rose to eat and drink and play and make merry, and they would-- and, and they lusted, and they complained, and they were destroyed as a result. So they missed the riches, the true riches that God wanted to give them because of what they settled for, and they were not able to enter into his promise. It's kind of like Esau also missed it because he settled for a bowl of soup. So we are called to a life of self-denial to appropriate something. It's not just... God's not calling us to be like, you know, um, monks who just practice asceticism. It's not just a life of, "Let me just inflict pain on myself for nothing." No, there is a pursuit. But the pursuit, it's service. Worship involves sac- involves sacrifices. And there is a, a, a life of self-denial w- to contend for spiritual things that we need to be able to practice to see the reality of promises coming to pass. So it's a journey. Abraham went through that journey. And Satan came to tempt Jesus to settle for living by bread alone. Jesus was like, "No, that's not what I live by. I live by higher bread. This is not it. And I'll get to that. Eventually I'll eat bread again, physical bread, but I'm pursuing God for that other bread." 'Cause he lived like a human, like a man, so he depended on God for spiritual food, and he did not let the appetites of his body dictate that spiritual food first. So he prioritized God's Word, and that's another thing we need to look at. So first we're looking, we're looking at, you know, having the right attitude and spirit is really the believing in God's goodness, that confidence of faith. And then secondly, trusting His Word, then prioritizing that Word. Trusting it involves prioritizing it. As I've quoted before, Job said in Job 23:12, "I have not departed from the commandments of His lips. I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food." So it goes to this issue of putting the will of God before our will. He said, "I have treasured God's Word." Do you treasure His Word? Do I treasure His Word? Because that's where we need to come to. We need to come to the point where we see that everything in this physical life is one day going to depart. It's not gonna be existent anymore. But the Word of God will continue to exist. It endures forever. And once we understand that, it, it puts a different emphasis on following the Word, obeying God's Word. And John, 1 John says, "Those who do the will of God abide forever," because the Word of God is abiding forever. So when I engraft it into my heart, I, I am cultivating something that is eternal. It is an eternal inheritance. Satisfying my physical desires is only temporary. But doing the will of God... And there is a contending. So this is all tying into what we've already studied before. So in Gethsemane, Jesus was contending to do the will of God. He was contending. He was sweating drops of blood, not just because he was trying to get out of a calling, no, because he was concerned for that calling to be fulfilled. So how concerned are you and I to see God's promise fulfilled, to see God's purpose fulfilled? Because that has to be our daily bread if we want that to be the case. It has to be our daily concern, our daily focus. It has to be the food. Like Jesus said, "My, my food is to do the will of God," as he said to the woman, uh, the Samaritan woman in John 4:32 So we need to put the word of God in its proper place. Now, coming back to lessons learned in the desert, the lessons that these... God wants to cultivate. God develops our trust in Him through daily bread, through the supply of manna, as I said. So don't get frustrated with your purpose, with your process. Don't get frustrated if God is, is, is trying to teach you with daily bread and it feels like, oh, man, every day a little bit here. I wanna have something else. I wanna already be in milk and honey. Because when you get to milk and honey, you're dealing with giants, and you need to have had your training. You need to have learned that the God who supplied you with daily bread is gonna supply you with what you need. You know? So it's an issue of control. God wants to, wants to kill that self-centered, self-sufficient ego. Do away with that sinful ego totally, and this is some of the ways that He does it. He also wants to remove fear from our hearts, and this is some of the ways that He does it. So like I said, the, the Lord's Prayer is, is really consecration. It's a way of learning how to separate from sin, separate from idols, separate from the world to, to, to cultivate a space for fellowship with God. And it also... This, this learning how to live on daily bread is not only dealing with control, cultivating trust, it's also dealing with doubt. Doubt in the heart which blocks answers from being seen. So having learned our lessons, we have to be like Jesus. We have to. I wanna conclude with this. We have to be like Jesus who said, "Have that childlike faith that overcomes Satan." Quoted the word to him, and you see, he said, "It is written." The only way to overcome Satan is gonna be, "It is written." We need to know that word. He said, "No, I don't live by physical food alone. I live by the word of God." And that's how he achieved victory, through faith. So 1 John 5:4 says- Our faith is what overcomes. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Hallelujah. And so God bless you. Thanks for listening. And next week, I will continue with this same focus on petitioner prayer to talk about reverencing God as our Father in petitioner prayer, because sometimes what blocks the prayer from being answered is our lack of reverence. So we need to understand what that means to reverence God in prayer, in petitioner prayer. And then the following week, subsequent session, not week, I will talk about how we can appropriate God's covenant names to petition him for our needs. So how we can, we can actually appropriate what we need f- through the covenant, you know, by relying on God's names, 'cause each name is a provision. Each name is a form of covenant. Abraham knew God as Jireh, and we need to understand what these names have for us. What are the packages that God has prepared for you and I? So stay tuned. If this blessed you, share, listen again, and, um, and put it into practice. God bless. Bye.