Jesus taught his disciples to pray for “our daily bread.” Whether we are struggling to make ends meet, or comfortably off, we are all entirely dependent on God’s goodness for getting by each day. We will never find a reason which will let us demand God to provide for us. The reasons He gives anyone anything are in His own goodness, unconstrained by anything about us or our circumstances. Reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer along these lines, Thomas Manton points out in the following extract that when we consider what God is, in His abundant generosity and mercy, we can take encouragement to continue praying every day, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

The Lord gives good things to us freely and graciously, that is, merely out of His bountifulness and goodness. It is not from His strict remunerative justice, but out of His grace. The very air we breathe in, the bread we eat, our common blessings, be they never so slight, are all from grace, and all from the tender mercy of the Lord.

You have in Psalm 136 the story of the notable effects of God’s mercy, and the psalmist concludes it thus: “He giveth food to all flesh; for his mercy endureth for ever” (v.25). Note that the psalmist not only ascribes those mighty victories, those glorious instances of His love and power, to His unchangeable mercy, but also our daily bread. In eminent deliverances of the Church we will acknowledge mercy — as we should, but we should do the same in every bit of food we eat, for the same reason is given all along. What is the reason His people smote Sihon, King of the Amorites, and Og, King of Bashan, and were rescued so often out of danger? “For his mercy endureth for ever.” And what is the reason He gives food to all flesh? “For his mercy endureth for ever.”

Mercy not only gives us Christ, and salvation by Christ, and all those glorious deliverances and triumphs over the enemies of the Church; but it is mercy which puts our food on the table, it is mercy that we taste with our mouths and wear on our backs. It is noteworthy that our Lord Jesus, when there were only five barley loaves and two fishes, “He lift up his eyes and gave thanks” (John 6:11) Though our provision be never so homely and slender, yet God’s grace and mercy must be acknowledged.

Here is some further evidence that it is certainly of the mercy of the Lord that He gives bread to the creatures. Consider who it is to whom God gives these mercies. He gives them (1) to those who cannot return any service to Him, and (2) to those who will not return any service to Him. Then, (3) when we are at our best we cannot deserve them, and (4) we deserve completely the opposite.

God provides for those who cannot return any service to Him

This includes the animals, and birds of the air, “the young ravens” (Psalm 147:9). As it says in Psalm 145:16, “Thou openest thy hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.” What can the animals, or fish, or fowls of the air deserve at God’s hand? What honour and service can they bring to Him? It’s only that they have a bountiful Creator, from whom they receive their allowance.

So as to infants. Alas! what can they deserve at his hand? When God rocks their cradles, and nourishes them from their mother’s milk, what service can they do to God? “By me,” says the Lord, “you are borne from the belly, and carried from the womb; and even to your old age, I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you” (Isa. 46:3–4) It is not only in old age, once we have done God service, that He maintain us, but from the womb, the belly. Before we could do anything for Him, we were tenderly cared for by Him. He alludes to parents and nurses, which carry their younglings in their arms. In infancy we are not in a capacity to know the God of our mercies, and look towards Him, yet He looked after us then, when we could not perform one act of love and kindness to Him. The psalmist takes notice of this in Psalm 22:9–10, “Thou art he that took me out of the womb; thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother’s belly.”

Christians, before ever you could do anything for him or yourselves, before you could make use of His mercy, when you could not know who was your benefactor, who it was that nourished and cherished you, yet then God rocked your cradles, kept you from many dangers, nursed you, and brought you up, and carried you in the tender arms of His providence.

God provides for those who refuse to serve Him when they can

“I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me” (Isa. 1:2). There are many in the world whom God protects and supplies and for whom He provides all necessities, yet they return Him nothing but disobedience, contempt, rebellion, and unthankfulness.

The sun does not shine by chance, but by God’s arrangement. “He makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). Most of those who are fed at God’s table, and maintained at His expense and care, are His enemies. Many times, the more they receive from Him the worse they are. Just like when animals are in good condition they grow fierce towards humans, and are ready to destroy those who nourish them, so, when we are plentifully supplied, we kick with the heel, we wax wanton, and become forgetful of God. As if we would scratch the breast which suckles us, so we rebel against God who nourishes us, and has brought us up, and dishonour our heavenly Father who provides these blessings for us. Parisiensis records a saying, “They which hold the greatest farms many times pay the least rent.” So the great ones of the world, who have most of God’s bounty, give Him the least acknowledgment.

God provides for those who do not deserve His mercies

Even when we do our best, we cannot deserve these mercies, or merit anything at God’s hands, for all we do is already due to God, as we are His creatures, and paying new debts will not quit old scores.

The question is propounded, “Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself?” (Job 22: 2) The answer is in chapter 35:7, “If thou be righteous, what givest thou him? or what receiveth he of thine hand?”

And how is God profited if a man’s ways are perfect?

Whatever God does for creatures, He does it freely, because He cannot be obliged by any act of ours. Adam in his created state of innocence could not obtain the blessing except by virtue of the covenant, nor merit anything at God’s hands, that is, put any obligation on God. Therefore, certainly now we cannot.

Also, whatever we do, it does not carry a proportion with even these common mercies. We are proud creatures, and think of a condignity of works [an intrinsic proportion between the work and the reward], thinking to merit these mercies from heaven. But, alas! there is no comparison, and if God were to deal with us on the basis of merit and strict commutative justice, we cannot give him an equivalent compensation for temporal mercies. “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies which thou hast showed unto thy servant” (Gen. 32:10). None of God’s mercies can be said to be little in themselves, for whatsoever comes from a great God should be great in our value and esteem (just as a small memento from a great person is much prized); yet this is speaking of mercies comparatively. Some have the least mercies, and others the greatest, in temporal things. When we are put into the balance, we and all our worth and deservings cannot counterpoise the least mercy, or merit so much as the daily bread we have from God.

And then, the little good we do, is merely by the grace that we have received. If one man differs from another, who made him differ? It is but a new gift! And so he is the more indebted to God.

God provides for those who deserve the opposite

By sin we have forfeited our lives, and all our comforts, and we have put ourselves out of God’s protection. Death waylaid us when we were in our mother’s womb, and as soon as we were born there was a sentence in force against us. “Death came upon all, for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

And still we continue the forfeiture. We provoke God to cut us off. It is a kind of pardoning mercy by which we subsist every moment. We may become conscious of this in case of sickness, when our lives and comforts slide from us, when there is but a step between us and death, when the old covenant makes itself felt, and when God seems to be executing the sentence of the law.

That is the reason why the temporal deliverance of the wicked and impenitent is called a remission, or forgiveness, as in Psalm 78:38: “But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not.” Also in Matthew 18:26–28: “Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And the lord of that servant was moved with compassion. and forgave him the debt.” It is called a remission loosely, or improperly, because it was a reprieve from the temporal judgment for a time, it was not an executing the sentence which was in force against us, and it was not from anything in the sinner, but from God’s pity towards His creatures.

A godly man, every time his life and comforts are in danger, has a pardon renewed at that time. “Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back” (Isa. 38:17). They are loved out of danger, and loved out of sickness; the pardoning mercy of God is indeed renewed to them.

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