Short articles of the, "Yes Jesus" Book on prayer. # 87

 

Repeat after Jesus

“Our Father who art in Heaven.”

 

Our Father in heaven does not treat his children as beggars, even though we have the tendency of a crybaby who is always begging as if God were negligent and irresponsible in providing for our needs. Jesus educates us to ask our Father in heaven, in nearly the imperative form of the verb, to “GIVE” us this day OUR daily bread.

 

I believe the language to be deliberately chosen by the Lord to teach us that once God in Jesus adopts us, we have the right to live a life of expectation for the provision of our needs.

 

Sonship has its privileges as well as fatherhood has its responsibilities.

 

The alternative conclusion is that God begins to heat up the oven to bake bread only at the moment we are asking for it. That would cast God as constantly improvising, a busy mother cooking as fast as she can in direct proportion to the timing of the petition and prayers.

 

The answer to our petitions does not start the moment we finish the prayer. The warehouse of God’s supplies for our every need is always abundantly stocked, and our puny demands are but a bucket drowning in a vast ocean.

 

Therefore, a man does not live by bread alone but by every word that cometh from the mouth of God. To love God properly we need all our heart, soul, strength and mind. No amount of wheat bread can accomplish that, but only Jesus, the bread of life.

 

As children, our Father in heaven lets us feed from His body and His blood until His Kingdom comes.

 

This is the teaching elder on duty in matters of Prayer.

Gerry Gutierrez.