Contentment for Our Daily Bread – 40 Day Journey with
Martin Luther – Day 32 – Purity 1305
Purity 1305 03/21/2024 Purity 1305 Podcast
Purity 1305 on YouTube: Coming Soon!
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a peaceful forest pathway comes to
us from a currently unknown FB friend who shared this tranquil scene on social
media on or around April 23rd, 2021.
If this is your photo and you’d like the photo credit you so richly
deserve, give me a heads up and I will update the blog after the fact.
It’s Thursday and one of my habits is to share
pathway photos on this particular day of the week in remembrance of the
particular day of the week on which I started really trusting the Lord by going
into recovery for my addiction to alcohol.
I’ll be 9 years sober, since my one and only relapse in my recovery, tomorrow, and I share these pathway photos to visually
encourage myself and others to get on or to stay on the path of Christian
Discipleship because I have learned that the Lord is faithful to help us and
lead us out of the darkness of our sinful pasts when we seek Him, ask for His
help, and make the daily decision to follow Him with the way we live our lives.
Since 2015, the Lord has shown me that He not only calls us to eternal life
through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, He also gives us the power to have a
whole new life right here and right now by walking in the Spirit. And I consider it my purpose in life to encourage
others to discover this truth for themselves.
Last night at the Celebrate Freedom (Recovery/Discipleship)
Growth Group, I was blessed to see that others are experiencing just how good
God can be when you ask Him for help.
Testimony after testimony last night testified to how things are
changing in the lives of those who trust in God. The ability to overcome stress, turn from destructive
patterns of behavior, and to find peace like they never have before were some
of the positive reports spoken of last night, but the struggle is real and as
much as these victories were documented the context for them was in the midst
of the battle. That’s what made these testimonies so inspiring, the people
reporting them were faced with problems or trials and they were amazed by how
they did what their faith in God taught them to do rather than do things
according to their old lives. The people in our group are learning and growing because
they are leaning on the Lord and following His guidance and abiding in His
presence.
So let me encourage you to do the same. It’s the
season of Lent and it’s the time to “repent and believe the gospel” so turn to
God, trust in Him, and see where He will lead you. And speaking of Lent…
It’s the thirty-third day of Lent and so we continue
my personal walkthrough of Gracia Grindal’s 40 Day Journey with Martin Luther
to observe and celebrate the Lenten season.
In this walkthrough of Grindal’s devotional, it is our hope that we will get to know
Martin Luther a little better as we seek to draw closer to the Lord on our
journey to Resurrection Sunday – Easter.
And so we continue.
“Journey
Day 33
Give
us today Our Daily Bread.
What
is this?
Answer:
In fact, God gives daily bread without our prayer, even to all evil people, but
we ask in this prayer that God causes us to recognize what our daily bread is
and to receive it with Thanksgiving.
Here
we consider the poor breadbasket-the needs of our body and our life on earth.
It is a brief and simple word, but very comprehensive. When you say and ask for
daily bread, you ask for everything that is necessary in order to have and
enjoy daily bread and, on the contrary, against everything that interferes with
enjoying it. You must therefore expand and extend your thoughts to include not
just the oven or the flour bin, but also the broad fields and the whole land
that produce and provide our daily bread and all kinds of sustenance for us. For
if God did not cause grain to grow and did not bless it and preserve it in the
field, we could never have a loaf of bread to take from the oven or to set upon
the table.
Biblical Wisdom
Of
course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we
brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if
we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 1 Timothy 6: 6-8.
Silence for Meditation.
Questions to Ponder
· For
Luther, daily bread stands for everything that is necessary for life. How would
you define the word “necessary”?
I would define “necessary” as “the things we need”.
For our lives, we have physical needs – food, water, & shelter – but we
also have emotional needs which include – love, companionship, and a sense of
purpose and meaning to our lives, and spiritual needs – like the assurance of
our forgiveness and acceptance and eternal life through our relationship with
God. As Creator God provides for our
physical needs and through our relationships with Him and others He has put in
our lives, He provides for all of our emotional and spiritual needs as well.
· Luther
says that when we pray for daily bread we also pray “against everything that
interferes with enjoying it”. What does he mean?
Luther means that by asking for something, bread or
otherwise, we are asking God to prevent anything that would prevent us from
receiving it. There are many factors
that are necessary for us to experience the blessings in this life and by
praying to receive them we are asking God to move all those things together to
bless us.
· Luther
says that, “God gives daily bread without our prayer, even to all evil people…”
What does that tell us about God? (Compare Matthew 5: 43-48).
The fact that God provides for all people whether
they are good or evil shows us that God is a good and loving Father who seeks
to bless all of his creation. God is love.
Psalm Fragment
You
visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full
of water; you provide the people with grain, for you so you have prepared it. Psalm
65:9
Journal Reflections
· Make
a list of all the good gifts you receive daily that make life both possible and
good.
God provides: the air I breathe, the water I drink,
the food I eat, the body that receives them, and the mind that helps me to maneuver
through life and that has been blessed with the knowledge of Him. God provides
these and so much more. God provides it all.
· Write
down what you think is really “necessary” to life. Be sure to distinguish
between “needs” and “wants”.
We need Jesus. Yes, of
course, we need food, water, and shelter to survive but ultimately we need
Jesus to live. Without our faith in Him, we perish. Beyond these things, I
would say that everything else is a “want”, except for love I suppose and there
is no love like the love of God that we receive through Christ alone.
· Read
today’s Biblical Wisdom again. With respect to material goods, are you usually
contented or discontented? Explain.
I have lived long enough to experience the fact that
material goods fail to satisfy us ultimately and so I have learned to
increasingly be content with the things I have. I’m still a work in progress of
course but I am content with what God has done in my life and only wish to
follow Him to see if there is anything else the Lord would like to give me.
Prayers for the Life of Faith
Pray
that God will continue to send good weather for the crops and animals you
depend on for life and that you will remember to give thanks for the smallest
gifts.
Lord,
I pray that You will continue to bless us with good weather for the crops and
animals that I depend on for life and that I will remember to give thanks for
even the smallest gifts I receive from You.
Amen.
Prayer For Today
Good
and gracious Lord, I thank you for your constant goodness to me, in providing
me food, clothing, and shelter, all out of the things of the earth.
Amen.
(Gracia M. Grindal. 40-day
Journey With Martin Luther. Kindle Edition.
(We encourage you to purchase Grindal’s book and
take the 40 Day Journey with Martin Luther for yourself by purchasing Grindal’s
book wherever books are sold. You can find it online at many different sites
and purchase it new, used – paper or electronic for less than $15.00).
——————————————————————————————–
For
those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide,
I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .
Today’s
Bible verses come to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By
John G. Kruis.
(
While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick
Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late
author’s work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )
This
morning’s meditation verses come from the section on Contentment, Coveting
& and Priorities.
Proverbs 30:8-9 (ESV)
8 Remove far from me
falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food
that is needful for me,
9 lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the LORD?” or
lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
Today’s
verses fall under the sixteenth point of our counseling reference guide
resource’s section on Contentment, Coveting, and Priorities.
16. Seek neither poverty nor riches.
Today’s
verses remind us to be content with what we have and to remain balanced by seeing
that it is the Lord who provides for us.
We are not to take the good things we receive for granted and profane
the name of God by foolishly thinking we don’t need anything from Him or by
stealing to get what we need when in fact He provides us with all things and
the means to meet our needs. Seek
neither poverty nor riches, but be content with what you have and thank the
Lord for all you have received.
———————————————————–
As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from “According to Your
Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament” By Stephen F. Olford – A
Collection of Devotional Journals: 1940-1941.
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase Olford’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available online
for less than $10 at many sites.
MORNING READING: LUKE 21
“Watch therefore, and pray always
that you
may be counted worthy.” – Luke 21:36
The worthiness of this verse is somewhat different from
the worthiness of Luke 20:35. Here, the conditions are stated as being first,
watchful, then second, prayerful.
Watchful. This is consistent vigilance – the vigilance of
the watchman on the lookout, who is ready to give the alarm or warning
immediately if the enemy is sighted. He who sleeps will never be counted
worthy.
Prayerful. Notice it says, “Pray always.” In other words,
fulfilling such injunctions as “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17), “Men
always ought to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1), and “Praying always with
all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18).
Watching is sighting the enemy. Praying is fighting the
enemy. Only then will I be accounted worthy.
Help me to watch and pray,
And still on Thee rely,
O let me not my trust betray,
But press to realms on high.8[1]
—————————more
tomorrow————————
Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, “Freedom in Christ” series of Discipleship Classes via the
mt4christ247 podcast!
at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts
(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available
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Audible.com.
These teachings are also available on the
MT4Christ247 YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MT4Christ247
Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and
to be encouraged.
My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian
encouragement via her Ask Seek Knock blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/ ), her
Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on
Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)
“The views, opinions, and commentary of this
publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to
reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries,
or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication,
and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the
author may represent.”
Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Stephen Olford and Heather Olford, According to Your
Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament, A Collection of Devotional
Journals 1940-1941 (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2008).
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