Tomorrow’s Bread Today

Dear People Who Keep Company With God, There is an old song from the 1950’s that illustrates the mindset of many believers. “Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera, sera, what will be, will be.” That is the song of people whose dreams seemed to have died, but it is not the song of the kingdom of heaven. God created each of us with a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11) that He expects us to live from. The Wuest Expanded Translation of the New Testament, which is considered to be a very accurate translation, gives us some insight from the Lord’s Prayer. “Our bread, that for the coming day, give us today.” Matthew 6:9 Jesus told us to pray for tomorrow’s bread, provision to be given to us today! That is living from the future. Although there are many examples of people in the scripture who lived from the future, King David being one of the more notable, Jesus Himself is the greatest example. Jesus’ entire ministry of healing and deliverance was based on an event that had not actually occurred in time yet, the cross (Matt. 8:16-17). The Christian life is a life of faith from start to finish. The interesting thing concerning faith is in order to even have faith you must see into the future. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1. So what is hope? Hope lies in the future. Hope is what you see in the future, what is supposed to come. Something positive in your future is the definition of hope. Faith is not about the past. Since faith consists of the substance of things hoped for, then you need hope in order to have faith. The amount of faith we potentially can have depends on how much hope we have. The amount of hope we have depends on how much of our future that we see. We need a glimpse of the future before we can have faith and Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would give us those glimpses (John 16:12-15). By omission Paul warned us of the dangers of living from the past. He tells us that the love of God is so great that not even death can separate us from His love (Rom. 8:38-39). However, in terms of the love of God, our past has more power than death. The past has no power to change us, but it has great power to bind us. Our past can hinder us from receiving the love of God so we must deal with our past in order to live from the future because the past can affect the present, which affects our future. In the natural the past impacts the present, but in the spirit the future impacts the present. So, a key to living from the future is dealing with your past. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14 Paul learned to lay down his past, to forgive himself and others, to let the failures and successes of yesterday go and keep reaching into the future. That is how he lived his Christian life. We are living in a time where everything is in flux, the natural world and spiritual world we have been living in is shifting. Everything is changing. If there ever was a time to reach forward to those things God has for us in our future that time is now. Many Blessings, BW