Following up on Jesus as the Bread of Life that came from heaven… The bread (His body) had been broken, as symbolized during The Last Supper, but the Bread was also risen with a new body, and raised us with Him. Some assume The Lord’s Prayer is a model for us today and that it encourages us to ask God to meet our daily needs of food, drink, etc. However, shortly after providing this prayer to His disciples, Jesus told them not to worry about such things nor to seek after them, as non-Jewish people would do. God knows we need food and clothes! Instead, it would become their mission to seek the Kingdom of God, and the gift of His righteousness. As believers in a New Covenant, we no longer seek the kingdom and His righteousness, because we have received them through Christ, who now abides in us, and we in Him.
If we try to make an Old Covenant prayer relevant for us today, it results in all kinds of different and varied interpretations on how it should be applied to our lives. In spite of the repetition with The Lord’s Prayer, very few people can assert with much confidence what it is they are praying about. As we begin to understand the context of why it was given to Jesus’ disciples to pray before the cross and not after, we’ll realize why there was never any instruction to pray this prayer from the apostles who wrote epistles in the New Testament… not once. This week, on the subject of our daily bread, we’ll cross-reference John Chapter 6, where Jesus identified Himself as the living bread that came from heaven to do God’s will. What specifically was the bread that would give life to the world? Jesus said it was his flesh (body). Bread that would be broken through His suffering, but would rise when made new, and we were raised with Him. In a new and better covenant, there is no longer the need to ask for what God has given (Jesus, His Son).
