Page 33 - The Importance of Prayer Student Textbook

God about His calling upon his life and he felt very unqualified to be a prophet to the nations. But God
quickly reminded Jeremiah that He always calls the unqualified and qualifies. Let’s take this journey
together into the omnipotence of God and pray, not my will, but thine be done.

Next we are instructed to pray, Give us this day our daily bread. When we pray give us this day our
daily bread, we are asking for more than bread. Bread is a symbolic word that stands for money and any
material need we may have. It stands for a roof over our head, clothing needs, and any support that
would be needed to take care of our family’s needs. God is extremely concerned with the poor and
according to The Poverty and Justice Bible there are over two thousand verses in the Bible that deal with
the issue of poverty and justice.

Realistically, most Americans and even AIU students do not need to pray for your next meal as we have
experienced an abundance of provisions. Therefore, praying for daily essentials is our opportunity to
thank God for supplying our needs and rejoicing in His mercies towards us. I Timothy 6:17-19 teaches us
the following; teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money,
which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.
Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in
need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a
good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life. According to I Timothy 6 God
increases our standard of living so that we may increase our standard of giving. The whole gospel is a
call to self-denial, not a call to self-fulfillment.

Does this mean that if we have enough funds for two loaves of bread, we are to give one to someone
who has nothing? Timothy seems to indicate that it is ok to enjoy creaturely comforts when he says,
God, richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. However, I want to repeat myself when I said, God
increases our standard of living so that we may increase our standard of giving. Proverbs 30:8-9 gives us
further guidance when we are taught to pray; give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough
to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” And if I am too poor,
I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name. Therefore, everyone will need to pray that God would guide
our conscience in our giving, as He entrust us with more than our daily bread. God’s call upon our lives is
to a place where our deep gladness and the worlds deep hunger meet. If money be not thy servant, then
it will become thy master. And never forget that a child dies every 5 seconds from hunger related
causes. (The Hole in Our Gospel, PP 134)

Our Lord now begins to deal with forgiveness and instructs us to pray, and forgive us our debts, as we
forgive our debtors. The NLT translates this verse this way, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven
those who sin against us. Right from the start you need to realize that God’s goal for all of His children
can be found in Romans 8:29. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to
the image of his Son… God is relentless in His effort to mold us into the image of His blessed Son and this
pursuit is a lifelong endeavor. I believe we can accelerate this goal if we are willing to pray the
dangerous prayer, I spoke about earlier in this lesson that is found in Psalm 139:23-24.

There are two aspects to this verse. The first deals with the guilt that we experience when we sin against
God. The second deals with issues of unforgiveness when people sin against us. Let’s look at the first
issue of forgiveness when we sin against God’s commandments. First there is a Godly sorrow we
experience which brings us to salvation. 2 Corinthians 7:10 For the kind of sorrow God wants us to
experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But

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