Written By Sheila Schuller Coleman
Today, I'm continuing with number three in a series of five messages on "Spiritual Sustainability: Living the Lord's Prayer." As I've mentioned before, about two years ago I started praying the Lord's Prayer as a template every single day. Soon I noticed that, not only was I praying the Lord's Prayer every day, I was living it. Those principles that Jesus gave us in the Lord's Prayer are principles that can sustain us and help us through the toughest times. You can have spiritual sustainability that will carry you through any storm, any challenge, any trial. And the principles are found in the Lord's Prayer.
It begins with praise. We begin our prayers, we begin our days, and we continue all day long praying, praising God with a God-can-do-anything attitude. Think of it. How will that change your life if all day long you're reminded that God can do anything, no matter what you face? That's why Jesus taught us to begin our prayers and to begin our days with "Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." He is an awesome Father, a wonderful Father, a loving Father, an all-powerful Father.
And, as such, He is a Father who knows best. We can trust Him with everything. We can trust Him with our very lives. Therefore, we can submit to Him. We can tell Him, "Lord, You have Your way with me. 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,' in my life, 'on earth as it is in heaven.' You do what You want to do. I trust You because I've just praised You. I've just remembered what an amazing, awesome God You are."
Okay, now that we have submitted, now that we've praised Him, now that we've given Him permission to use our lives, now we can ask something of Him. He says, "Petition Me. I will give you provision. 'Give us this day our daily bread.' Ask. The Bible says, 'Ask.' Over and over again, ask Me," says Your heavenly Father.
I want to add to that this little caveat: But be careful what you ask for.
A husband and wife and were celebrating their 30th anniversary, so they decided to go out and have a wonderful, romantic dinner, just the two of them. So, they went to a lovely, quiet restaurant. They had just sat down and were opening their menus when all of a sudden there was a bright light, as dazzling as the one Paul encountered in Damascus. The voice of God came from the heavens, saying, "My son and My daughter, I am so pleased with you. You've been faithful to each other for 30 years. In fact, ask Me for anything. I'll give it to you as an anniversary gift tonight!"
The woman thought for a moment and said, "I would like to take my husband on a trip around the world." Poof! God gave her tickets to take her husband on a round-the-world trip.
It was the husband's turn and he said quickly, "I would like a wife 30 years younger." Poof! The husband turned into a 90-year-old man.
Be careful what you ask for. Be very careful.
Jesus said in the Lord's Prayer, His model prayer for us, "Give us this day our daily bread." It does not say, "Give us this day our daily candy." If you prayed, "Give us this day our daily candy," which many of you children (in the sanctuary) would love to do, would your parent - if they were a loving parent who cared about you - want you to ask them for candy every single day? No. God doesn't encourage us to say, "Give us this day our daily candy." He says, "Give us this day our daily bread."
I have four sons who have often asked me to make them sandwiches or snacks or meals. They still do, are you kidding? They come by all the time. They're grown men and they knock on the door, or they text me, and they ask, "What's for dinner?" And I give them food. I bake them pies. I make them cupcakes. I love to cook for them. If they ask me for a pie, if they ask me for a cake, if they ask me for bread, would I give them a stone? Heavens no. I love them.
God loves you even more. In the Bible, Jesus said, "…if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?" (Matthew 7:9). Your heavenly Father loves you so much. He wants to give you something wonderful and awesome. When you ask Him, He's not going to give you a stone. It doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily candy." It doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily stone." So what should you ask for? "Give us this day our daily bread."
It's very interesting that Jesus would use that one word - bread. Bread has been around since prehistoric times. It is one of the oldest prepared foods known on the face of the earth. There are so many different names for it - pan, pita, ciabatta, focaccia, tortilla, and more. Whatever name you use for it, ask God for your daily pita. Ask God for your daily ciabatta. Ask God for your daily focaccia. He doesn't want you to ask for moldy bread. He doesn't want you to ask for stale bread. He doesn't want you to ask for day-old bread. He wants you to ask for fresh-from-the-oven artisan daily bread. Not day-old bread, but daily bread.
Your heavenly Father is the King of kings and so what does that make you? It makes you a prince. It makes you a princess. Do you know any prince or princess who eats moldy, stale, day-old bread? God wants you to have daily bread, fresh bread, fresh from the oven. The best bread money can buy. He says, "Ask Me boldly. Ask Me because I want to give the best to you, My children." Only God can provide bread.
It takes seeds, it takes water, it takes soil, it takes the sunshine just to grow the grain, and only God provides those things. Nobody else can provide that and I think that's why God said to pray for daily bread. It doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily candy." Don't pray, don't ask for that. Don't pray, "Give us this day our daily stone." Think beyond that. Think that you're worth the best! It says, "Give us this day our daily, beautiful, lovely, fresh bread," because your Father cares about you.
Bread is also money. It can also mean that. Bread is the staple of life. It's a provision of what we need to survive. And that's what Jesus meant. He didn't mean just the literal interpretation of bread; He meant whatever it is you need. "What do you need? I want to provide and I will provide. Ask Me and I will." Ask boldly, ask bravely, ask every day, ask Him.
However, it's not enough just to ask. After you've asked, you need to seek and knock. We need to do our part because it also doesn't say, "Give us this day our daily orange." Now, what do I mean by that? Well, you could sit underneath an orange tree and, if you sat there long enough, an orange might very well fall into your lap. Jesus said, "Give us this day our daily bread." Bread needs all these different ingredients in order to make it. You can't just go out, find a bread tree, and pick it as you could an orange. For bread, you have to go and get some salt, which God provides, and you can get some olive oil, which God makes. You can't make olive oil and you can't make salt. You can get some flour from the grain, which God provides, and you can get a little sugar - or if you like sweet bread, a lot of sugar - and you have to do your part. Metaphorically speaking, you have to make the bread. You have to build the fire. You have to do your part. You ask, but then you seek and you knock. Seek and knock. "Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7b).
So, if you need financial aid, if you need provisions in order to live, if you need anything, ask God. Ask Him. Say, "Lord, where shall I look? On which door should I knock?" Then, when He gives you some kind of guidance, do it. Go looking for jobs online. Look in the job classifieds in the newspaper. Talk to people and ask them, "What's available? Who's hiring?" Then fill out those applications. Go out there. Do it. Do your part.
Ask, but also seek, knock, and then trust. As my dad says, "Trust for the crust." Once you've asked the Lord boldly, then Jesus says (in Matthew 6:25-27), "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink… Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" He will provide.
The Israelites were wandering around in the wilderness after they'd been delivered from Egypt. They'd been in slavery and, oh, how they hated that slavery. Who wouldn't? They were beaten, and then they were delivered. They made it safely across the Red Sea, but then there was nothing to eat in that wilderness - nothing at all to eat. In their hunger, many said to Moses, "I'd rather be back in Egypt being a slave. I'm starving, I'm hungry, this is terrible." So God saw His children needing food and what did He do? He gave them manna from heaven. They woke up in the morning and there was manna on the ground. We know it was like coriander seed. However, to eat it, they actually had to do some work. They couldn't just open their mouths and let the manna fall in. They actually had to gather it, make little patties out of it, and cook it over a fire.
God had warned them not to store the manna. "I'm not giving you yearly manna, I'm not giving you monthly manna, I'm not giving you weekly manna, I'm giving you daily manna, daily bread, every day. And don't store it." However, some of the Israelites thought, "I don't think I can trust God. He gave me manna today and I'm going to hoard it because tomorrow God might be sleeping. Tomorrow God might not be powerful enough. Tomorrow God might forget all about me. So I'm going to take that manna that He gave me today and I'm going to store up as much of it as I can."
God had told them not to do that. He wanted them to trust that He would do it every day. Do you know what happened to those people when they stored the manna? The next day it was full of maggots, spoiled. It only lasted for one day - that was it. So, they learned they could trust God. Did they ever wake up any day to no manna? Never. Not one single day.
Every day God provided daily bread for them and every day God will provide for you. Just because He's given you something today doesn't mean that He won't tomorrow, and He won't the next day, and He won't the day after that. God doesn't provide for you today and then forget about you. He doesn't provide for you tomorrow and then fall asleep. He doesn't provide for you the next day and then lose all His power. He provides for you today. He will provide for you tomorrow. He will provide for you every day of your life. He provides daily bread, daily provisions because He knows you need it. Your Father is the King of kings. Ask boldly. Ask bravely.
Be careful what you ask for. Ask for the best. Ask not for just any bread, not just daily bread, but daily bread of life. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. He who come to Me," any of you, "if you come to Me, you'll never, ever, ever go hungry again." He was talking about how, spiritually, you will never, every, ever go hungry again. "I will fill you with My life. I am the bread of life; your spiritual sustenance, your spiritual sustainability."
So, I ask you today, what are you hungry for?
Are you hungry for food? Some people are. That's why we have our Monday Meals here each week to feed the hungry.
Are you hungry for finances? Do you need financial help? God cares about that. He does. It's okay to ask Him. He wants you to ask Him for help.
Are you hungry for companionship? Do you know what companionship means? The Latin "com" means "with," and "pan" means "bread." With bread. Breaking bread with people. That's companionship. Pray for your daily companionship.
Are you hungry to make a difference, to make your life count? Ask God for the daily bread of life, for Jesus, every single day, to fill your life to overflowing so that, not only can you be filled yourself, you will have enough to share with others around you who truly are hungry in many ways. They may be spiritually hungry, emotionally hungry, socially hungry, and even physically hungry. You can be filled to overflowing and make a difference.
I'd like you all, now, to stand. We're going to close in prayer. We're going to continue where we left off last week. So, everybody stand if you're physically able to do so. We're going to take a posture of praise. You're going to take your hands and reach them up to the heavens because it's a way of saying, "We love You, Lord. We praise You, God." Lift your faces up to the heavens and keep them up there. Keep looking up to Him. Repeat after me with Crystal Cathedral gusto: "Our Father who art in heaven (Our Father Who art in heaven)." Okay, let's do that again. That was without Crystal Cathedral gusto. Let's do it again with Crystal Cathedral gusto. "Our Father who art in heaven (Our Father Who art in heaven), hallowed be Thy name (hallowed be Thy name). You are a great Father (You are a great Father). You are a wonderful Father (You are a wonderful Father). You are King of kings (You are King of kings). That means I'm a prince or a princess (That means I'm a prince or a princess). You will provide generously (You will provide generously)."
All right, we've begun with the praise. Now, take your hands and put them this way, open them palms out because this is an open posture of submission to God, giving Him permission in our lives. We've praised Him, so we can submit to Him. Again, repeat after me: "Thy kingdom come (Thy kingdom come), thy will be done (thy will be done), on earth as it is in heaven (on earth as it is in heaven). You are a loving Father (You are a loving Father). My heavenly Father knows best (My heavenly Father knows best), so I can trust You completely (so I can trust You completely). I trust You with my life (I trust You with my life). Work in me to do (Work in me to do) Your will and Your purpose (Your will and Your purpose)."
Okay, now that we've praised Him and we've given Him permission, now we're ready to ask for provision. We have been careful about what we ask for because we've given Him praise and we've given Him permission. Now, when we ask, we know we are asking the way He wants us to. So put your hands together; we're going to ask God together. Repeat after me: "Give me today my daily bread (Give me today my daily bread). I ask You, Lord, (I ask You, Lord,) to show me what to ask for today (to show me what to ask for today). Give me my heart's desires or take them away (Give me my heart's desires or take them away). I ask You today and every day (I ask You today and every day) to provide everything I need (to provide everything I need). I ask You today and every day (I ask You today and every day) to increase my hunger for You (to increase my hunger for You), my desire to serve You (my desire to serve You), and to live for You (and to live for You). Amen (Amen)."
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