SA Ep72 - Becoming a Prayer Warrior (Part 6)

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (The Provision of the Father)

In this episode we examine the phrase “Give us this day our daily bread,” where Jesus teaches believers to bring their daily needs before God. While prayer is not meant to be reduced to asking for things, this request reminds us that God cares about the practical needs of our lives.

This episode addresses the tendency many have to treat God like a transaction, only speaking to Him when something is needed, much like going to a bank. Jesus presents a better picture. God is not a resource to be used but a Father to be known. At the same time, Scripture recognizes the reality of human need. There are moments when physical necessity dominates our thinking, and God understands that. He knows our frame and invites us to bring those needs to Him.

Using both biblical examples and observable human behavior, this episode highlights the importance of daily dependence on God. Just as God provided manna one day at a time, believers are called to trust Him for daily provision. This request becomes a declaration of dependence, gratitude, and trust in the faithful care of the Father.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelster from Iliad Baptist Church. You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. What if the only time that I called you was when I wanted something? What if the only time that we spoke was whenever I needed something and didn't really take the time to listen to what you had to say, but only if you were going to do what I asked you to do? There are a lot of people who treat their prayer life with Christ the same way. They only call him whenever they're needing something. Now I understand that there are times when things happen and we are in dire need, and we'll discuss that momentarily, but there are some people who only speak to Christ. They only go to the throne room whenever they find themselves in need. We want to look at that today a little bit. I'm so glad to be back with you. We were on our uh break last week, and uh I didn't have my microphones uh with me, so they're they're all attached to wherever I'm usually at during the week. And so I just took a I took a week uh just to focus on some other things. Um I still have uh had work to do uh with my remodeling business and uh spent most of the week in a in a hot attic for a family that is uh turning their attic space into a beautiful master suite uh office. Uh so it was a gonna be a wonderful space for them. But it was hot up there last week and uh spent about three and a half days uh installing in insulation. Uh we'd done the I say we, I done the electrical work a couple months ago for them, got the insulation ready, and then we'll be going back to do sheetrock here in uh in a few months for them. They're doing it in phases. Beautiful young family. So I'm glad to help them out. And then I had a bathroom project I had to get finished up that I had started uh back uh a couple weeks ago. So anyway, the Lord is blessed. It was not much of a vacation, if that's what you want to call it, uh, but at least we had uh some time to get things uh off of our plate. But I'm glad to be back with you here uh this morning and dealing with becoming a prayer warrior, this spiritual giants that we want to become in our prayer life. And one of the things that we must do if we are going to become prayer warriors is we must understand our place in prayer. And using this uh the model prayer, the Lord's prayer in in Matthew 6, we don't start with what our needs are. We don't start with who we are, we don't start with, well, God, you owe me, or God I need. Uh we start by exalting him and lifting him up. And we've we've walked our way through now in these last few episodes, uh, getting to this point, and now we finally get to the provision point of the prayer. And this provision, there is a portion where Christ will give us this in the model prayer where we can pray for things that we need. And we're we're told to bring our supplications and our petitions to him. Those are the things we are needing. And uh the problem is we often will lead with that. And when he gave us this prayer, he didn't begin with the needs, he began with the relationship, the authority, the worship, the surrender of ourselves, you know, not my will, but thy will be done. Give us this day now. Give us so there's a lot to be said in this little clause of give us this day our daily bread. The first thing is that the order of this is not accidental. He didn't just say this, you know, he wasn't just sitting on the mountainside or uh in the grassy uh uh field or in under a shade tree as he would stop and teach his disciples. This is how the the uh the master would uh would have you know teach the the followers uh in in this uh time frame, in this era of antiquity. They would just they would walk and they would talk and that their classrooms were moving and and they would have them in different places and locations. And so wherever he was, he didn't just randomly sit down and say, Well, why don't you tell God how good he is first? No, there was this is very intentional. And it shows that that while God He does care about us and He cares about our needs, He knows us, He knows our frame, He knows who we are, but it doesn't start there. It's not prayer is not meant to be reduced to a list of requests or in some cases demands. Think about our our earthly relationships for a moment. Um What about your bank? What kind of relationship do you have with your bank? You ever call your bank and just uh talk to a random teller? Maybe you just you know have you know talk to one and then say, well, can you know, pass the phone down to the next one, pass the phone to the next one, and you tell each one of them how much you love them and and you care for them, and you're thankful for the work they do for you and for keeping your money safe, and you tell them your problems and your cares and things like that, or do you only contact your bank whenever you need money? You got a check on your money, you want to see where your money is at, uh, you need money, you want to request a loan for more money. Um I would say most people, their relationship with their bank is they only contact the bank when they need something. It's here, hold my money for me, or I need my money back. And the unfortunate thing is most people's relationship with God is no different than their relationship with their bank. Matter of fact, most people probably got a better relationship with their bank than they do with God, if we're going to be honest. And that's a sad place to be that we have we have a God who has invited us to come boldly before the throne, invited us to bring our supplications and prayers, but he's only asked for a couple things. Number one, he wants us to recognize who he is. Number two, he wants us to recognize who we are, and not in a in a sense of lifting ourselves up, but surrendering ourselves. Number three, he wants us to come with with in in in spirit and in truth, with a broken and contrite spirit, not one of haughtiness and pride and arrogance. He wants us to come humbly and and and and to to seek his face. So when Jesus says to give us this day or daily bread, he places that request in the context of a relationship with a father, not a bank. Coming to him in in need of something um in the moment. Now, there are times when that happens and people will uh come in in dire need. There's um there's a I guess a portion uh of science and let me say this, I I'll speak of science uh from time to time. That was that is where in my undergrad uh where a lot of my my schooling was at, it was in science. And I don't believe that science proves the Bible. The Bible does anything to prove it. I think the the Bible proves science, true science to be correct. I think the Bible proves true science to be correct. But I do think that the Bible and true and and true science will line up together. And we could look at many things. Um we could go back and look at uh you know, Andaluvian writers who was writing about constellations that we have today that we can still see. I mean, there's there's so much truth in all of it. But um there is this uh there's a thing called the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You can look it up sometime. I mean, I'm not I'm not gonna um go through every bit of it. Uh it's it's a theory, it's not uh it's not something that you know we can say, you know, yep, that's uh you know, that's golden, we'll we'll take every portion of it. Uh but there are there is some some portions of it that uh I do like. And um when studying this hierarchy, it's kind of a triangle uh looking deal, almost like the food pyramid, where the bottom, the base of it is the more important part, and you work your way up. Well, what this means, what this Maslow's hierarchy of needs is is showing us is that uh we have a there's certain things that motivate us in life, and these needs must be met in order for the next set of needs to be met. And if those needs are not met, then we drop back down to the ones that haven't been met, and then we can work our way back up. And um it starts with psychol psychological needs. That's the the the lowest point on the list, and then it goes to safety and security, then love and belonging, then self-esteem, and then self-actualization. Now, we get it, you get into some crazy stuff when you get into self-actualization, so I'm not saying that I agree with all this, but I do like the theory. I do like what it what it means because you can see this played out in different areas. So the psychological needs, the first thing that that this this uh hierarchy of needs will show us, you need breath, you need to be able to breathe. That's number one. Um gotta be able to breathe. You've got to have food, you gotta have water, you gotta have shelter, you gotta have clothing, some sort of warmth and and uh covering, and you gotta have sleep. Those are some of the most basic needs, psychological needs that must be met. Now, some people might be skeptical, but if you think about in like warfare in prisoners of war or people who have been captured and held against their will, a lot of times when trying to get information out of someone, they will alter those psychological needs. Uh they they won't let people sleep in in a normal pattern, they try to keep them awake, interrupt their sleep constantly, get them tired. Um they'll they'll take away their food, they'll take away water, they'll take away their breathing. They do that, that the old waterboarding treatment is, I mean, it's a terrible thing, but that's basically when you're pouring water, you have someone kind of on an inverted plane, you know, laying on a uh, you know, like a plank or a board or something, and they're kind of inverted a little bit, and they basically just take water and pour it over your nose and mouth, or you can't you can't breathe. If you do, you're gonna be breathe, you know, sucking in water. So they take away your breath. So basically what they're doing is they are altering your psychological needs. And in order to meet those needs, we'll give you your breath back, tell us what we want to know. We'll give you your food back, tell us what we want to know, and so on. And there's an old saying, I think I can I can't remember how it goes uh uh right off, but it's something I can go uh six days uh without food or um I can't remember how it goes. Uh or it goes, I go uh I can go three weeks without food, three days without water, uh three three seconds without or uh uh uh thirty seconds without breathing, and three three seconds without God, or something like that. You know, if if if they know the things I'm gonna die without them. Um but I mean there there's some truth to this thing. So let me get back to what I'm saying. This this hierarchy of needs, whenever something is is taken away from us, whenever we have some basic fundamental need in our life, it can cause our mind to get solely focused upon that need. And there are times when we when we go to God, the only thing that we can think of is God, I need you today. God, I I need this, I need help, I'm I'm in a I'm in a terrible situation. I, you know, my life is being threatened by some disease or or whatever it might be. Um God understands that. It's not that we have to sit down in the midst of a uh some you know tragedy that's going on and recite, okay, uh God, you're you're high and lifted up, you're uh uh you are in heaven and your name is hallowed, and you know, he understands it that there are times like that. So I'm not harping against those times, but in our everyday prayer life, when things you know are you know somewhat in order in our life, if that's ever a possibility, but when they're you know as normal as they're gonna be, we must we must remember that prayer is more than just a list of needs, it's about a relationship. The Bible gives us a very clear example of someone who got lost in their needs and forgot the relationship they were supposed to have. That was with Esau and Jacob. Esau had been out, he was a he was a hunter, he was a he was a he was a gatherer, Jacob kind of it was a more, you know, I guess you might want to say he's he's a he's he was a stay-home. And in Genesis 25, Esau comes in from a hard day, and and there's I mean, Jacob's there making some food. And uh Esau said, Jacob, I feed me. I think it's I think it's actually what he said, feed me. And uh he had that um that pottage that he had. And Jacob was I mean, Esau was just he was to the point that he was needing food, and he forgot about his relationship, he forgot about all the things that were important that that God had laid out for him, his birthright, being the firstborn, and he just but he just needed that food. Jacob said, Okay, I'll give you food, but let me have your spot in line, let me have your birthright, let me let me basically be replace you as the firstborn. And because he was in so bad a dire need of food, Esau said, Yeah, fine, it's great. And he forgot everything. He allowed the situation to take over his mind. And if we're not careful, we'll allow our situation sometime to take over our mind, and which will alter our prayer life. And it will become a habit that the only thing that we'll ever do is to come to Jesus with with need, with want, with desire. But prayer is meant to move beyond that. If we want to be prayer warriors, we've got to have a relationship. Every meal, every opportunity, every everything, uh every move that we make should come through prayer. James tells us that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights. Everything comes from Christ, everything comes from heaven. There's not one thing that we do that that we have done on our own with our own hands. You know, I'm a self-made man. People say that I'm a self-made man. That's not true. Everything comes from God. And so as we're as we're working our way toward becoming this uh prayer warrior, this giant in the prayer life that people need. People need prayer warriors in their life. And if we're going to be there for people, we need to have our self in line first, and we need to bring uh our uh daily concerns to God, but we also need to bring it to God in the order and the timing in which he has told us to. We must live one day at a time. We must trust in God, but we must also understand that we've got to have a relationship with God, and that God does care about our daily living. He cares about our needs, he cares about what we care about. He careth for you. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from Seeking Approval at Gilead Baptist Church.