If you grew up praying the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6, you’re familiar with the term “daily bread.” This phrase reminds us of a time in the Old Testament when God literally gave his people their daily bread. The account is found in Exodus 16 at a time when the people of Israel were grumbling against Moses. They were saying, “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Ex. 16:3). So God told Moses that he was about to send bread to the people so that they would see his power and know that he is the one true God. On the very next day, “…when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground… Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat…’” (Ex. 16:14-15). Moses commanded the people to gather as much of it as they could eat, but warned them, “Leave no part of it over till the morning” (Ex. 16:19). The people were supposed to trust that God would provide more bread for them the next day; therefore they were not to try to save any of it overnight to eat on the next day. Some didn’t listen to Moses, and the bread that they saved back for the next day became worm-infested and stinky. God was teaching his people to trust in him for their daily bread. Each day he provided what they needed for that day, no more and no less.

Jesus also taught his disciples that he was the true bread of life that came down from the Father (John 6:48-51). He compared himself to the manna in the Old Testament, pointing out that the benefits of manna were only temporary and physical in nature, whereas Jesus brings eternal and spiritual blessings to those who receive him and ‘feed’ on his words. When we see the parallel between the manna and Jesus (the true bread from heaven), we recognise that the manna is teaching us something about how to ‘feed’ on Jesus. Just as the Israelites had to collect the bread from heaven day by day, so we must feed on Jesus’ word day by day. The incident with the manna in the Old Testament foreshadows Jesus and teaches us that this is the proper way to feed on the bread of life—daily. So, if you wish to receive the spiritual nourishment from Jesus, the true bread from heaven, you have to feed on his word every day. Not once in a while, not even once a week during worship, but every single day. Just as the Israelites had to gather the manna each day, let us feed on the True Bread from heaven daily by reading the Bible every day.

The phrase keystone habit refers to a seemingly small habit that sets in motion a ripple effect, positively impacting many other areas of your life. Keystone habits include things like making your bed, family dinner around the table, and regular exercise. While these daily rhythms may seem inconsequential, these and other similar routines can bring countless benefits to your life. For example, many people quickly find that regular exercise increases alertness during the day and improves sleep at night. Regular exercising is a habit that can make you feel better overall, positively impacting the rest of your day, even when you’re not exercising. Gathering as a family for dinner around the table is so beneficial for children (and the rest of the family) that the American College of Pediatricians recommends that “pediatricians should encourage parents to make every effort to regularly gather around the “Family Table” for meals” (https://acpeds.org/the-benefits-of-the-family-table/). These small keystone habits positively impact your life, making it easier to form other good habits which in turn lead to more good habits.

Keystone habits are just as relevant to your growth as a Christian as they are to other aspects of your life. Just as there are keystone habits that positively impact the health of your physical body and your relationships, there are keystone habits that positively impact your spiritual health and your growth as a disciple of Jesus. Can you guess what the number one spiritual keystone habit is? You guessed it!—regularly reading the Bible. This is the spiritual keystone habit that positively impacts all other spiritual habits. This is the rising tide that raises all the boats. If you are regularly experiencing meaningful time reading God’s word, you are much more likely to participate in other Christian practices too, like praying, giving, serving, gathering for worship, and fasting. But if you do not regularly read God’s word on your own, it becomes difficult to sustain other meaningful Christian disciplines. Just as it is normal for babies to desire milk, so we ought to desire God’s word. If an infant is not eating and is not crying to be fed, something is wrong. If we are not being fed daily with the word of God and we are not crying out for it, then something is wrong with us spiritually. Without reading God’s word regularly, we will become spiritually malnourished. But when we diligently read his word, it will fuel our growth in Christlikeness in so many other ways too.

Are there any keystone habits that you need to form in your day-to-day life? Are there any spiritual keystone habits that you need to form? If you want to grow spiritually in 2026, the first best thing you can do is begin a habit of regularly reading God’s word. That is the first step to take on the path that leads to spiritual maturity.

As Christians, we are called to love one another. But how do we know if we love each other the way we ought to? Our culture would tell us that loving others means that you accept them for who they are and you do not try to change them. While there is a nugget of truth in that (we can and should love others who are very different from us in many ways), it is a weak and watered-down view of love that is not biblical. This worldly view of love essentially says that if an action or belief hurts someone else’s feelings or suggests that someone is doing something wrong, then that action or belief is unloving. This is a very subjective view of love that roots the definition of love in feelings, not in truth or justice. According to John, there is a way to know whether or not we are loving other Christians. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:1-3). The root and foundation for proper love toward other people is love for God and obedience to his commandments. That is to say, if we are not striving to obey God’s commands, we are not ready to properly love our fellow human beings. If we do not submit to God’s rule and authority, we are liable to approve of things that are wrong, all in the name of loving someone.

We can say this another way too. If we love God and keep his commandments then we are on the road to loving others the way we ought to. God commands us to honor everyone (1 Peter 2:17), tell the truth (Col. 3:9), work hard so that we can help the needy (Eph. 4:28), and get rid of wickedness in our lives (James 1:21). Imagine if everyone lived according to God’s commands! We would be so much better off! When we love God and keep his commandments, we are loving others in a way that honors God and is truly biblical love. Our culture has cut God and God’s commandments out of the picture. Is it a great wonder why we are so mixed up now about how to love our fellow human beings? Christian, this week you are going out into a world that is confused about what it means to love each other. Be the voice in the confusion that points people back to a better way, the true way. Point people to our just and holy God who gives us commandments that are true and just and good for us. His commandments are not burdensome; in fact, they give us true life. Let a searching world know that God loves them and that we love others properly when we love God and keep his commandments.

Long ago there was a man named Naaman who suffered from the terrible disease leprosy. When he was told that a certain Jewish prophet named Elisha could heal him, he decided to pay a visit to this man in the hopes of being healed from his disease. As an indicator of how much Naaman wanted to be healed, consider the gifts he took with him to give to the prophet: 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and ten changes of clothing (2 Kings 5:5). He was prepared to pay a fortune to the man who could cure him, but his pride almost got in the way of his healing. When Naaman arrived at the prophet’s house, he received instructions to go and wash in the Jordan river seven times. At this, Naaman was furious. “…Naaman was angry and went away, saying, ‘Behold, I thought he would come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.’ …So he turned and went away in a rage” (2 Kings 5:11-12). Naaman’s expectations for a dramatic healing meant that his pride was injured by what he apparently considered to be an insultingly simple command: go and wash in the little, muddy Jordan river. Only when Naaman’s servants talked some sense into him did he go and do as he was instructed, and to his delight he was completely healed of his disease.

Like Naaman, our pride has a way of getting in the way. Pride has a sinister way of creeping into our lives in very subtle ways. We may comfort ourselves that we are not particularly braggadocious, that we don’t always talk about our own accomplishments, or that we live modestly and below our means. Though all those things may be true of us, pride can still sneak in the back door and wrap its tendrils around our heart. One sly way that pride infects us is through habitual prayerlessness. This manifestation of pride is hard to notice because it shows up not as the presence of something bad but as the absence of something good. When we do not pray, we are essentially telling God that we think we can do life on our own. Failing to ask God for help reflects a misplaced trust in our own abilities and a lack of awareness of our need for God. Prayerfulness, on the other hand, forces us to humble ourselves and confess our utter dependance on God. Prayerlessness, then, is a litmus test for pride. If we are habitually prayerless we are refusing to honor God by asking him for his aid, forgiveness, and guidance. In a word, if we are prayerless, we are overcome by pride. Ask God to forgive you of any tendencies to prayerlessness and ask him to help you increase your commitment to praying daily. When you do, you will be blessed and God will be honored.