NEEDS AND WANTS

It’s amazing how much our needs and wants occupy our prayers. We even come to God with our ‘prayer lists’ in case we forget to remind the Lord of this and that need!

Imagine if that were the way we treated our earthly fathers. Once a day, in the morning, our ‘quiet time’ with our dad would be taken up with our needs for the day. “Amen” would signal that we were finished with him, and we would run off to play, confident that dad would take care of everything! No need to talk to him again until tomorrow morning!

How foolish we are! Jesus taught us by His life and actions, that we are intimately connected to a heavenly Father who cares for us as His beloved children. No need to nag or beg. He knows us, and He knows our needs before we ask Him.

So, why pray if prayer is not about needs and wants? In His model prayer, Jesus elevated our thoughts from our selfish preoccupation with our needs and wants to the Father’s rule on earth. Jesus came to restore God’s kingdom to the earthly realm. Sin had intruded to disrupt His plan for a human family to live with Him. He died to forgive and remove our sin, to reconcile us to our Father, and restore fellowship with Him.

God’s rule implies that we learn to do life together here on earth God’s way. He sets the standard for our interaction with Him and with one another. Love, joy, and peace are the flavour of His kingdom, and pervade all our relationships when we live under His authority. In His kingdom, our daily needs are included in His provision.

We must overcome selfishness, self-interest, and self-sufficiency, which dominate our ungodly old nature, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us. Jesus taught us to focus our attention on God’s rule in our hearts, and in the people in the world around us to extend His kingdom in earth.

So, what must we do about our own needs? Jesus gave us a simple solution.

‭Matthew 6:33 NLT‬
[33] “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

Change your focus from your needs to God’s kingdom. Learn to do the right thing, to take care of the needs of others, for this is the way of the kingdom. Then God will take care of you.

” But,” you ask, “didn’t Jesus teach us to ask for our daily bread?”

If that’s what He meant, He would be contradicting Himself.

Jesus was a Jew, raised from birth to know and recite the Torah, the five books of Moses. He would know the meaning of daily bread… God’s provision of manna for His people in the wilderness.

However, He also knew the deeper implication of that provision. After He had fed the five thousand with bread and fish, they went after Him again, probably hoping for another free meal.

‭John 6:26-27, 30-33 NLT‬
[26] “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. [27] But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”…
[30] They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? [31] After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” [32] Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. [33] The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Our preoccupation with ‘daily bread’ indicates, like those in the story, that we are selfish and earth-bound in our thinking.

What was Jesus’ solution?

‭Matthew 6:25, 31-33 NLT‬
[25] “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?….
[31] “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ [32] These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. [33] Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

‘Daily bread’, then, is not about daily needs but about what matters most, Jesus, the ‘bread from heaven’ who nourishes our souls when we feed on Him.

This is the way God’s kingdom works on earth. We create a current when we care for others. God’s provision flows back to us. We feed and nourish our life in Jesus as we gaze at Him and learn from Him how to be true sons of our heavenly Father, reflecting Him in what we say and do.