Give us this day our daily bread. MAT 6:11

This is not a selfish prayer seeking something for me or my family, but it is a desire for something for us. "Give us this day our daily bread" is plural; it is a family prayer with concern for others as well as for ourselves. When I say family, I mean the family of God.

All men were created in the image of God; if we see starvation anywhere in the world, it should cause us to pray for them even though they don't come to our door. We should be praying for us.

This runs in the same vein of thought as MAT 6:9, "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name." The Lord's Prayer begins with "Our Father." The Lord Jesus was the author of that prayer, and He was speaking of His Father. It is a family thing, "Our Father," not "my Father." We are not to pray, "Give me my daily bread," but "Give us our daily bread."

"Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets," MAT 7:9-12. We must come before God, asking to receive.

Our work must be mingled with faith. In JAM 2:15-16 we read, "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?"