SUNDAY 2nd
John 6:22-35
NIV (v35) – ‘Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’
ESV (v35) – ‘Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.’ John 7:37-39
We continue again today with the subject of bread and take todays thought from the prayer our Lord taught his disciples to pray. Todays devotion is a deviation away from John’s gospel and the purpose for it will be at the end.
Luke 11:1-4 ‘Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.’
‘Give us each day our daily bread.’
Last Friday in our devotion we saw that Jesus described himself as ‘the bread of life’, here in this prayer which he taught his disciples to pray, he encourages them to ask the heavenly Father for daily bread. As the bread of life, Jesus satisfies our spiritual need, but our heavenly Father is also the one who satisfies our physical need or our daily requirement for nourishment for the physical.
In what we call his ‘sermon on the mount’ in Matthews gospel, Jesus made it very clear that not only are our spiritual need met through the good news of the gospel, but our God also provides for us in the natural. He has placed the seasons into place, springtime and harvest, the rains that soak into the ground and the sunshine to enable the planted seed to grow, for the earth to produce our daily bread. In the sermon, Jesus tell the listeners and it applies to us as well today ‘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?’ (Matthew 6:25-26)
There is so such going on in the world today that could cause us to be anxious, as we see the ongoing threat of the Covid-19 virus and the complication arising from it in regard to the worlds economy affecting jobs and in turn peoples financial security. We need to remind ourselves that our security is found in the Lord Jesus Christ and he knows what we need, and as we remain constant in our walk with him, he will provide our daily bread. (As I am typing this devotion I am listening to a pre-recorded service and the song being played is ‘You’re a good, good Father’) and he is our Father, ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread . . .’ He is faithful. Faithful forever you will be, all your promises are yes and amen.
The purpose of this devotion is twofold, to firstly remind us of the faithfulness of our heavenly father in his provision toward us the children of men and secondly, as we see the combine harvesters beginning to roll out into the fields to harvest the grain, let us give thanks from grateful hearts for the daily provision we have.
Perhaps in the western world we too often take so much for granted, we need to continually come back to the Creator and the Sustainer with thankful hearts. Remember the story in Luke 17:11-19 where Jesus healed ten lepers, yet only one returned to give thanks. As we continually give thanks for our great salvation, so we also need to continually give thanks for his daily provision, give thanks for the ‘bread of life’ and for the ‘daily bread’.
‘Great is thy faithfulness,
great is thy faithfulness;
morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed thy hand hath provided –
great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!