Daily Bread Archives

August 20, 2022August 3, 2022

Be Filled with Grace and Power

⁸And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. ⁹Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. ¹⁰But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. ¹¹Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” ¹²And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, ¹³and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, ¹⁴for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” ¹⁵And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. ~ Acts 6:8-15

Stephen is recorded in the Bible as the first martyr. He was stoned to death because those around him who refused to accept the Truth could not disprove the Truth he spoke. Stephen wasn’t stoned for the good things he did. He wasn’t even stoned for the signs and wonders he did. He was stoned because of Jesus. Stephen set aside himself, and with great power and authority, he followed in the footsteps of Christ. He made a difference wherever he went to the point that the heads of the synagogues came to disprove all that he said, but because Stephen was a Spirit-filled man of God, they couldn’t. This is what angered them the most. This is what they arrested him for because they couldn’t dispute the Truth.

The Word of God is Truth. It is irrefutable. There is no flaw or contradiction in it because it was breathed out by God-Himself. God authored the entire Bible through the men He used to write the words down. Because of this, we can stand in confidence when we read our Bible. Some will say many are leaving the Church right now because of the flaws in the Bible. This isn’t a flaw in the Bible; this is a flaw in the Church. The Church today is no longer full of grace and power as the early Church was 2,000 years ago. We can no longer defend our own beliefs as Stephen could because we no longer read our Bibles through unbiased eyes seeking the Truth. We no longer fast, pray, and worship as the early Church did. They were Spirit-filled Christians who didn’t just say they were Christians, but they had the power of Christ dwelling in them that manifested in their speech and their actions.

Even though it’s our natural response to being questioned, don’t lean on your own understanding. Listen for the Spirit, and He will give you the words to speak. He will show you what you don’t yet know or understand. Seek God as the early Church did. Study the Scripture as the early Church did. Allow God to use you as the early Church did. If you do these things, when you are confronted, you will be able to defend your faith as Stephen, and the rest of the greats of the early Church did.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Filled with Grace and Power.

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Help Another Human

⁴¹Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. ⁴²For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. ⁴³I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ ⁴⁴Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’ ⁴⁵And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’ ⁴⁶And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.” ~ Matthew 25:41-46

So many of us have become centered around our own needs and our own goals in life. It’s easy to do this in our fast passed society. Unless we focus on our dreams, we won’t ever achieve them, but what if we’re meant for more? The early Church understood something that we struggle with in the Church today. We struggle with having a Kingdom mindset because we’ve grown up in a self-centered world. We’ve been taught evolution and natural selection from elementary school that tries to convince us that only the strong will survive and the weak will perish alone, so don’t help them. We have to allow the natural order of things to take place. The problem with this is that we are blinded by the self-destruction argument of natural selection and evolution. Unless we help each other, then the human race will cease to exist.

No person can succeed on their own; someone had to help them get to where they are today. Why? Because humans aren’t perfect. We make mistakes, we fail, we fall down, and unless we have someone to help us get back up again, then we will remain there. Humanity is a single race of people that are connected to each other by the same flaw that makes us human in the first place. Unless we help each other, we cannot survive. In fact, if Jesus had never taken the form of man and died on the cross for us, then we wouldn’t even have salvation. Jesus got off of His throne to not just help us but to literally do it for us, for we could never pay our own debt. So, why can we not help another human in need? Show the love that Christ has first shown you.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Help Another Human.

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Be Renewed

¹²Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. ¹³No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. ~ 1 Corinthians 10:12–13

Recognizing your weaknesses is the first step to overcoming any sin. The second is to flee temptation. Once you recognize your weaknesses and shortcomings, then you must flee whenever you are confronted with them. Don’t be like your old self and flirt with temptation but flee the other way. You are a new creation in Christ Jesus. The old has passed away, and the new has come.

You can’t outsmart your enemy; he has been around for centuries. Do not think you are stronger than temptation or that you can depend on your own strength, but rather, rely on God. He will provide a way out. Rely on the Spirit of God that dwells inside of you. The Spirit of God that leads you and guides you. Depend on Him, for He will make a way for you to escape all temptation you are faced with. You are not your old self, so don’t conform to your old ways, but be changed by the renewal of your mind.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Renewed.

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Take All Three Keys

¹²Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. ¹³The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, ¹⁴and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.” ~ Daniel 10:12-14

According to Gabriel, Daniel was able to break through the Territorial Spirits in the kingdom of Persia and receive the answer to his prayers because of three things. The first is to firmly set it in your heart that God will answer you. You have to have an unshakeable desire and faith that you will hear from God. That He will answer your call, and nothing and no one can stop your prayers from being answered.

The second key is to humble yourself through fasting. Fasting breaks down spiritual strongholds that we may not see with our natural eyes. It’s only through forcing your body into submission that your spirit can grow and flourish, allowing your prayers to be answered. The only way to truly achieve this is to not only fast food but also to fast the secular world. Your spirit cannot truly grow and flourish unless you are feeding it with the Word of God. Unless you are first tying up the strongman, your flesh, and putting him into submission, can you actually feed your spirit the way that it needs to thrive?

Lastly, the third key is to continue until you see your prayers answered. Just as Jacob refused to let go of God until he received his blessing, so must we refuse to stop praying until we receive our answered prayers. We have to come to God multiple times a day, every day if we want to break through these kinds of blockades. Think of it as going to court because immigration has arrested your answered prayers at a point of entry, and you are your answered prayers lawyer. You have to show up to each court appearance. You have to remind the judge (God) of all of the promises He has given about answered prayers. Remind Him of all the promises He has made you. Unless we show up to each court appearance and defend our case with all that is within us, then we will lose our case, and we will never receive our answered prayers.

Peace. Love Go Forth and Take All Three Keys.

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Don’t Fake Joke

¹⁸Just as damaging as a madman shooting a deadly weapon ¹⁹is someone who lies to a friend and then says, “I was only joking.” ~ Proverbs 26:18-19

Joking is a big part of our society today. In fact, you can make a lot of money just by telling jokes. Making people laugh can be a lucrative business if you do it well. There are some, usually the older generation, who don’t believe in telling jokes because Proverbs warns about an idle tongue, but is that what the Proverb is saying? If joking were wrong, God would’ve instructed the author, King Solomon, to warn against joking entirely, but He doesn’t. The Scripture says that lying or deceiving a friend and then saying it was only a joke is just as dangerous or damaging as a crazy person firing a deadly weapon.

Our character is dependent on the words we say and our actions. In fact, one of the two silver bullets we have against the enemy, according to Revelation 12:11, is compiled of those two things. The word of our testimony only works if we have completed the action of accepting Christ and now have begun changing our lives as we follow Him, as well as proclaiming our testimony. Words and actions. If we deceive or lie and use ‘I was only joking’ as the excuse, then we have become like a madman firing a deadly weapon, for our lies and lack of repentance have destroyed the trust and friendship that we had. And in a sense, it has also destroyed our testimony, and without our testimony, then we have evidence of our salvation. Without the evidence of our salvation, we have no salvation. So, don’t try to cover deception and lies with fake jokes. Don’t believe the lie that you will be fine if others believe it was just a joke. Only the wicked deceive and lie. Lay this stronghold before God that He might wash you in the Blood of the Lamb that you might overcome, that you may receive a testimony to share.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Fake Joke.

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Worship The Creator

²⁰For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ²¹For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. ²⁴Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. ~ Romans 1:20-25

From before Israel even entered the Promised Land, they were mixing the worship of the Creator with the creation. And almost 4,000 years later, nothing has changed. Today Christians see no problem with mixing Christianity with an entirely different religion, such as Wicca because it’s an earth-centered religion. They fail to realize that in digging into another religion to learn how to incorporate it into your lifestyle and beliefs, even if that religion is earth-centered, is no different than the Israelites creating the golden calf on the way to the Promised Land. Instead of worshipping God for what He did, they worshipped a golden calf.

Instead of worshipping God for making the moon to give us light at night, we worship the moon. Instead of worshipping God for making the sun to give us light in the day, we worship the sun. We miss that without God, there would be no moon. There would be no sun. The sun and moon only do what they do because God created them to do it. The sun and the moon have no power on their own; all that they have God has given them. So, why would we worship them? Why would we worship the creation that is nothing without the Creator?

When we fall in this one area, God gives us over to every sin that we struggle with. He stops fighting for us and the sin that was lying wait at our door, waiting for the opportunity to attack us, overcomes us. Don’t allow the enticing rituals of this world to draw you away from God. Don’t allow them to lead you to your own destruction. Worship the Creator who not only has created everything you see and everything you don’t see but the Creator who formed you in your mother’s womb. The Creator that created a way for you to get to Him. The Creator that creates a way for you to escape every temptation. The Creator that loves you more than you’ll ever know.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Worship The Creator.

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Remove The Plank First

¹ Judge not, that you be not judged. ²For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. ³Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. ~ Matthew 7:1-5

Sin will overcome you if you don’t first overcome it. You must first recognize your propensity or your weakness to a certain temptation, whether it is sexual, anger, pride, lying, or any of the other sins.

In the 3^rd chapter of the book of Genesis, God asked Adam and Eve a series of questions:

“Where are you?”
“Who told you that you were naked?
Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
“What is this that you have done?”

He was getting them to admit and see where they were. In other words, to recognize their shortcomings, or their sin, and confess them. Unconfessed sin is detrimental to the soul. Some people are quick to see other people’s faults but not so decerning when it comes to their own flaws.

If you want to overcome sin, you must first take an evaluation of your own words and your own actions and see how you line up with God’s word. After that, then you can begin to help others. You cannot help your fellow Christian with the speck in his/her eye until you take the plank out of your own eye.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Remove The Plank First.

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Take Them Captive

⁴For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. ⁵We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, ⁶being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete. ~ 2 Corinthians 10:4-6

You cannot play around with sin and pull its tail or its ear and think that no harm can or will ever come to you. Remember, its desire is to have you, but you must master it, not by playing with it or trying to befriend it, but by casting it down.

When you play with sin or with temptation, you become familiar with it, and its familiarity begins to break down your resistance to it, and eventually, you will give in to it. Because one thought will lead to another thought, and that one still to another, and soon sin will have its desire.

You!

Sin will overcome you each time if you continue to allow it residence in your mind. That’s how sin gets you. The idea. The fantasy. The repetition. That’s why Paul said we cast down every thought and force it to conform to Christ. Because it’s only God who is perfect, it’s only God that can truly know right from God. And it’s only God that knows what is best for us because even we can/do fall for the lie that some evil isn’t truly evil.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Take Them Captive.

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Awaken The Power

⁵After that you shall come to Gibeath-elohim, where there is a garrison of the Philistines. And there, as soon as you come to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them, prophesying. ⁶Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. ⁷Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. ~ 1 Samuel 10:5-7

Before the Day of Pentecost, where tongues of fire rested upon the believers in the Upper Room, the Spirit of the LORD was not dwelling on earth in mankind. In fact, there were times of silence when the Spirit was not in the land at all. But look at what happened when the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul after he was anointed as king of Israel. The Spirit rushed powerfully upon him, and he began to prophesy. In fact, the Spirit even went a bit farther; Saul was changed into a different person. He became a new creation. Today this should be even more real to us.

Many believe that the power of God no more works through the Church. That the spiritual gifts given to the early Church were somehow only for the early Church. Why would God tell us to earnestly seek the higher gifts if it wasn’t for us? Either all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that we in the Church may be complete, equipped for every good work, or none of it is. We can’t make an entire section of the Word of God null and void just because it makes us uncomfortable or we don’t understand it. Today when we are saved, we should see an even greater change in us than Saul did, for the Spirit, Himself, abides in us. It didn’t just rush upon us; it is living in us, for we have become the Temple of the Living God. So, when we are saved, we should be filled with the very power of God that not only redeems us but awakens the spiritual gift we have been given that has remained inactive in us, waiting for the power of God to awaken it. Not all will prophesy, but all who are willing and who seek it out will receive the power of the Spirit of God, and their spiritual gift will be awakened with that power.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Awaken The Power.

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Choose Your Father Wisely

³⁹They answered Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, ⁴⁰but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. ⁴¹You are doing the works your father did.” They said to Him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.” ⁴²Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. ⁴³Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. ⁴⁴You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. ⁴⁶Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? ⁴⁷Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” ~ John 8:39-47

No matter our age or our experience, we are all children. We are either children of God or children of the devil. Some of us don’t even realize who our father is. Each one of us was born of a woman from the seed of a man. And none of us chose our parents; we were each given to a mother and father by God Himself, for it was Him that knit us together in our mother’s womb. Who our physical, biological parents are wasn’t up to us. We didn’t have a say in the matter, but who our spiritual father is, now that’s all up to us.

So, many of us believe that just by the belief that God exists is enough to make Him our Father. We buy into the lie that as long as I believe in God and pray, I’m a child of God. In other words, we’ve made being a Child of God a religion without a relationship. See, it’s not enough to just believe. It’s not enough to just pray. It’s not enough to just go to church every Sunday. You have to also follow Christ. Jesus said that if you loved Him, you would keep His commands. The word Christian itself means to be a mini-Christ. In other words, you have to walk in the same footsteps Jesus did.

How you act and how you speak will determine who your father is. Why? Because your actions determine where your heart is, and your heart determines who you are. If your heart is only evil, then you cannot be a part of God, for there is no evil in God. Therefore, you would be of the devil, for there is no good in him, only evil. This is the one time that you can choose who your father is, and it’s the most important time as well. Because each child will receive their father’s inheritance. Inheritance doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s good. Inheritance is receiving what was first your parent’s. In other words, if your parent has only punishment and curses, then that’s what you will inherit. If your parent only has rewards and blessings, then that’s what you will inherit. How you live your life matters, for you are a child following your father, and you will inherit whatever your father has.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Choose Your Father Wisely.

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Category: Daily Bread

Be Filled with Grace and Power

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