ICS Daily Devotions
Give Us Our Daily Bread
Matthew 6:11 Give us this day our daily bread.
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray “give us this day our daily bread”. This scripture might sound irrelevant to us today as if it is a cry from someone living daily from hand to mouth. However, it serves as a daily reminder that God is the source of all our provisions in life — the source of all forms of blessings, whether it is the job we have or the prosperity that comes about from our businesses.
Matthew 6:8 Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.
You might wonder then if the Father already knows what we need, why do we still need to ask? This is because we need to be reminded to stay humble and constantly depend on God to provide the business contacts or meet the sales targets needed in our workplace — we are dependent on His wisdom and favor with men. Through this prayer, we are acknowledging that it is God who has blessed us with everything in life because He honors His covenant with us — He is the one who has given us the power to get wealth.
Deuteronomy 8:11-12, 17-18 Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them;…then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ “And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
God knows how easy it is for us to forget Him once we are doing well in life; idolatry can creep in in the form of worshipping mammon. One way for us to keep our hearts in check is to honor God with our monthly tithing. The amount will get bigger as our wealth increases and we are blessed, but if we cannot part with 10% and live on 90%, then we ought to ask ourselves whether our trust is really in God.
Proverbs 16:18-19 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.
Men can so easily be deceived into thinking that they are the master of their own destiny and can create wealth independently. Once we feel we have “arrived”, many of us will tend to stop attending church, praying, serving, and distant ourselves from God, and sometimes, it takes a crisis in life to make us come back to God. It only takes a wrong investment, a doctor’s report and death, which are all circumstances beyond our control to remind us we are fragile and finite beings who cannot even give ourselves an extra breath when death calls upon us one day.
Therefore, it is important for us to take time to pause, check our hearts, and remind ourselves not to take God’s blessings and goodness for granted. We need to stay humble no matter how successful we are, by acknowledging that every good and perfect gift is from the Heavenly Father.
Sermon Series: Our Prayer Life
