Give us this day our daily bread.
And of course you easily recognize this
as a part of that prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.
Give us this day here now on earth today.
Look at your calendar.
That's right. Look at the calendar in that room where you are now sitting.
Give us this day now our daily bread.
Do you want to know something?
The most wonderful thing in the world is to know that God is your Heavenly Father.
You talk about riches.
You talk about an inheritance.
The greatest riches any human being can know,
the greatest inheritance that any one of us can experience
is the inheritance and the riches in knowing that here and now we are the sons of God.
And all that is His is ours.
And because we are the children of the loving Father,
we are entitled to expect that God will provide us fully with everything that we need.
That's right.
Before I get through with my little heart to heart talk with you today,
I pray you'll just be so sorry you ever worried.
I pray that you'll say to yourself, well, why didn't I go to bed and sleep last night?
Why did I roll and toss and worry and...
Six o'clock this morning I was all tired out, haven't slept a wink.
I just rolled and tossed and worried about how everything was going to come out.
Remember something.
Because we are the children of the loving Heavenly Father,
you and I are entitled to expect that God will provide us fully with everything that we need.
Now, children just naturally, just spontaneously look to their human parents to supply all of their wants.
Your child did not lose one wink of sleep last night, worried about his food today.
He knew that when he would get up in the morning it would be there.
He never introduced mine.
He knew that Dad would have it there.
Dad would bring it in.
Mama would have it on the table.
That's the reason children sleep so well.
They don't worry because children just naturally look to their human parents to supply all their wants, all their needs.
And in exactly the same way we should look to our Heavenly Father, to God, to supply all our needs.
And He's promised.
And if we do, in faith and understanding, I'll promise you something we'll never expect in vain.
We'll be no more disappointed than your youngster was disappointed when he came down to the breakfast table this morning
and the cereal and the milk and the egg and the juice was right there.
It is absolutely the will of God that all of His children should lead healthy, happy lives, full of joy, full of joyous experiences.
We should live a life of expectancy, of adventure.
We should develop freely and steadily, day by day, week by week, as our pathways unfold more and more unto the perfect day.
To this end, we require such things as food and clothing and shelter and means of travel and everything that we need down here in an old material world.
Above all else, we require freedom.
And in the prayer, all these things are included under the heading of bread.
And by the way, that bread can be literal too.
Bread and butter.
Sure. But bread, that is to say, means not merely food in general, but all things that you and I need for a healthy, happy, free life.
But in order to obtain these things, we've got to remember our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
We've got to believe Him for it. We have got to claim these things.
We've got to recognize God and God alone as the source and the fountainhead of all our good.
Lack of any kind is always traceable to the fact that we've been seeking our supply from some other source, some secondary source, instead of from God.
But you must remember that God is the author and the giver of life.
And every good and perfect gift comes from Him.
I want you to consider something in this little heart to heart talk.
And it is the most practical thing that I could talk to you about because I don't care how spiritual you may be.
You're still in the flesh. You're still human.
The material needs must be met and must be supplied.
There is still, must be, the money to pay for the groceries.
You've got to pay the milk bill. You've got to pay the rent.
There's gasoline to buy for the car. There's a car to be bought.
There's taxes to be met. We're still human.
I don't care how spiritual you are.
You never can get to the place spiritually where you don't have to pay these things.
It's like that.
Now, most people think of their supply as coming from certain investments or from a business or from some employer.
Whereas if you could only realize that these things are merely the channels through which it comes.
God being the source.
The number of possible channels is infinite.
But the source is just one. And God is that source.
Now, the particular channel through which you're getting your supply is quite likely to change.
Because change is the law for manifestations.
Now, remember something.
There is one heavenly Father who has promised to supply the need.
Everything else that concerns you in the supplying of that need is nothing more or less than a channel that God uses.
And if you read the Word of God, He used angels.
Oh, you'd be amazed the different channels that God uses. Sure.
Now, you take a man, for instance. He thinks of his employment as the source of his income.
And then for some reason or another, he loses his job.
Maybe his employer goes out of business.
Maybe they cut down the staff.
Or maybe, well, one or a thousand different reasons.
He loses his job.
Now, all these years, he has always thought as his employment as the source of his income.
And after he's lost his job, he becomes very depressed.
He becomes very despondent.
Now, if such a man only realized that God is his supply and his job was only the particular channel through which it came,
then upon the closing of that channel, he looks up and he says,
Now, Lord, what's the next channel that you're going to open up for me to supply my need?
And maybe the next channel that God opens up will be a better channel than the channel that God used prior to that one.
It's like that. I always think of that.
When I see some man who's lost a job, my word, you would have thought that the bottom had dropped out of everything.
He comes home, he might just as well have opened that back door and said, Mary, God just died.
That's the way he looks. That's the way he acts.
He is so despondent, so dejected.
Why, listen.
The real source of your supply is God.
There is only one fountainhead of every good and perfect gift.
There is only one giver of every good and perfect gift.
If you are his child, if God is your heavenly father, remember something.
He is the source of all that you need.
Your employer is just a channel.
Your position is just a channel, the place where you work.
Whatever God uses in the flesh is just a channel through which God is supplying the need for you and your family.
And if your belief had been in God, then since God cannot change and God cannot fail, then believe me, you will look up and say,
now, Lord, where is the next channel through which my need will be supplied?
And he will not let you down. I promise you, he will not let you down.
Now, our daily bread signifies the realization of the presence of God, an actual sense that God exists, not merely in a nominal way,
but as the great reality, the sense that he is present with us, the feeling that because he is God, all good, all powerful, all wise, all loving,
we have nothing to fear, just to know that we can rely upon him to take every possible care of us,
that he'll supply all that we need to have, that he'll teach us all that we need to know, that he'll guide our steps so that we shall not make mistakes.
All that is what the scripture means when it says, God with us.
This is Emmanuel, our God, God with us. If you live in that constant realization of God with us, God ever present,
God the fountainhead, God the source of all that you need, you'll go to bed at night and sleep
and not worry about how things are going to be taken care of tomorrow.
That's it. You know, years ago, I found something in the Bible, and I always remember it as Second Kings, the last chapter, the last verse.
It has meant so much to me through the years. I give it to you. As I give it to you, I pray that it shall mean as much to you as it has meant to me,
because you see, I'm human too. Oh, so human.
And the reason I can talk to you about these things is because I've experienced these things too, and you can never give to anyone else any more than you have experienced yourself.
I've had to learn these very things that I'm giving to you. That's the reason I can teach you.
That's the reason I can assure you that what I'm telling you works. It works.
Believe me, if more of you preachers who spend so much time begging for money would get your eyes off of money and on the source of the supply, you wouldn't have to be beggars.
It's like that. If some of you folk who are living such defeated lives would lift your eyes up and fix your eyes on the source of the supply, fix your eyes on your heavenly father,
get a realization of his power, his presence, and your relationship to him, you would be living in the glory instead of defeat.
All right, here's the scripture. Second Kings, last chapter, the last verse.
Was a continual allowance given him the king, a daily rate for every day of the days of his life.
I lived by that. Do you want to know the real secret of my every day fellowship with him?
Here it is. It's found just in those words. And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day.
You see, the reason we worry is because we want more than just the daily rate. We want a whole year's supply, well, at least six months.
And we can't possibly be satisfied. We have to have more assurance than just one day at a time. Oh, my goodness of life.
You know, the government has spoiled us, I think. I think the unions have sort of spoiled us.
But God's plan is a day by day proposition, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.
And the art of life is to live in the present moment, to make that moment as perfect as we can by the realization that we are the instruments and the expression of God himself.
And the best way to prepare for tomorrow is to make today all that it should be. Amen.