Daily Bread Archives

October 2, 2022October 7, 2022

His Sprinkled Blood

¹¹But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) ¹²He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. ¹³For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, ¹⁴how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. ~ Hebrews 9:11-14

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is easily Israel’s most High Holy Day. It is a day of fasting and mourning. The Scriptures say it is a day to afflict yourself. It was the day that the sins of the nation were atoned for with the blood of bulls and goats. The High Priest presented this sacrifice in the Most Holy Place once a year before the LORD. They had to repeat this every year because the blood of bulls and goats could never cleanse us of our sins. It could never redeem us from death and give us life. So, God got off of His throne and presented His own blood on the altar for our sins so that we might be washed clean. So that we could be forgiven. The LORD Himself shed His blood for us. Never forget that. Never overlook that. God Himself died for us so that we might live.

How often do we spend time with God? How often do we pray and seek Him? He paid our debt, yet the majority of the time, we would rather spend time watching tv, reading books, playing games, and almost any other distraction the world has to offer than spending time with God. How can we expect to accept Jesus’ sacrifice and then keep living our lives as if He doesn’t exist? Jesus did all of the heavy lifting; the least we can do is spend time with Him and show Him that we are thankful for His sprinkled blood.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Thank Him for His sacrifice.

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Prepare The Way

³ The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God.” ~ Isaiah 40:3^NKJV

2,000 years ago, John the Baptist proudly went before the LORD, preparing a way for Him. When Jesus came, He brought with Him salvation, healing, peace, and life. Today, the world is getting darker and darker. It’s time we took up the mantle. The darkness is so thick that even the Church has begun to accept that this is just the way it is, but even though Sodom and Gomorrah’s sin was great and plenty, God was willing to spare the nation and all the wicked for just 10 righteous men for the sake of Abraham’s request.

Too often, we, Christians, accept defeat. We accept that things are just the way they are, and there’s nothing we can do to change it. But our voice is greater than even that of John the Baptist, for when we don’t know what to say, the Spirit speaks on our behalf. He speaks for us and through us. The time for silence is no more. Now is the time to prepare the way for the LORD and cry out like a voice in the wilderness.

We have the very Spirit of God Himself dwelling in us. Prepare the way with His light as it shines through us, piercing this present darkness. Prepare the way for the LORD and His Holy Spirit to melt the heart of the people who hear you speaking the Truth. The LORD hasn’t returned yet. There’s still time to change the course of the world. There’s still time to cry, just a little while longer, Jesus, so that we might get our loved ones in. There’s still time to shine the light in the darkness and prepare the way for the LORD to work in the lives of people. No one is too small or unimportant to do something. It only takes one straw to break the camel’s back. It only takes one pebble to start an avalanche. Only one domino to know over all the dominoes. So, use your voice while you still can to proclaim righteousness, speak Truth, and expose the darkness.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Prepare The Way.

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Pray For The Forgotten

⁴⁴ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ ⁴⁵ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. ~ Matthew 25:44-46

As the Church, we are called to be prayer warriors, each and every one of us. We’re supposed to pray for ourselves so that we might not fall into temptation. For our loved ones so that they might be saved or faithfully run the race set before them. But often times we leave out the forgotten. We forget about those Christians in the persecuted Church. We forget to pray for their strength and endurance. We forget them altogether.

This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but this is one of the reasons that Jesus separates the goats from the sheep. Jesus isn’t just talking about physically visiting the saints in prison, but spiritually visiting them. When we pray, we are spiritually seated with Christ in Heavenly places (Ephesians 2:4-7). Therefore, wouldn’t it stand to reason that when we pray for others, we are spiritually with them as well? Paul even writes to the Corinthians that he’s with them in spirit in 1 Corinthians 5:3. We are all one in Christ Jesus, connected by one Spirit; therefore, when we pray for each other, we are connected by that same spirit.

Don’t let anyone be alone in persecution. Pray for the forgotten in those persecuting nations for strength and endurance. Pray that their hearts might not fail them, and that love may encompass them.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Pray For The Forgotten.

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Walk Through The Fire

³⁶ And Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me.” ~ Genesis 42:36

Jacob, after losing his favorite son, Joseph, lost Simeon, and then he felt like he was about to lose Benjamin if he sent him down to Egypt with his brothers to buy grain. He did not realize that by obeying, by going through his Ziklag, he would have all of his sons back from the dead, including Joseph.

Sometimes that which looks like it will destroy us is exactly what God uses to give us back all that the Devil has stolen from us. The key is that we have to face it. We have to endure it. We have to remember what Joseph said about his Ziklag, about his mountain. What [the Devil] intended for our evil, God uses for our good.

So, if you’re going through a trying or difficult time. Hold on to the LORD. Walk boldly through the fire because the LORD is with us, even in the flames.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Walk Through The Fire.

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Only Take Back The Good

¹²Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. ¹³You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. ~ Jeremiah 29:12–14

This is a call for the wayward Israelites to return to God, and God will come to them and save them and take them back to the place He had promised them. We have a promise from God. One day Jesus will split the eastern sky and come back to get us, that where He is, there we will be also. Therefore, all men ought to pray and seek God before that great and terrible day for all who are left behind because great and small will cry out in fear as they see the Lamb seated on His glorious throne.

Let today be a day to seek the LORD so that He might restore you to all that the Devil has stolen. All of your hopes, dreams, promises, and, most of all, your peace. Let today be a day to return to the LORD all that you’ve taken from Him. All of your fears, worries, anxieties, and strongholds. Lay all of that at His feet. He paid the price for your freedom and for you to live life more abundantly. Don’t take the heavy yoke back from the LORD when He promised He would carry it for you. Leave it at His feet and take love, joy, peace, and every good gift the LORD has for you.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Only Take Back The Good.

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Prepare For The Trumpet

¹ Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, ~ Joel 2:1

If we look around at all that is going on, we’ll see good is called evil, and evil is called good. The Name of Jesus is being blasphemed even in His own Church. Members of the Body of Christ are living according to the flesh. They’re living as if they will not have to give an account to the judge of the whole world. People care more for trees and animals than they care for human life. Little babies still in the womb are being murdered daily because they are not even seen as human, and it’s all done with the approval and encouragement of world governments. They call it a woman’s right to choose, while God sees it as child sacrifice. We are sacrificing our children just as those ancient civilizations sacrificed their children.

The warning blasts of the trumpet of God are sounding in the spiritual, warning His church to get ready to meet Him in the air. As a matter of fact, there are reports worldwide of people hearing the sound of trumpet blasts. So many people have reported the strange sounds that it has even made the news. We are closer now more than ever to the return of Jesus. There’re signs all around that His return is soon at hand. Are you ready for His return? Is your family ready for His return? As the Ten Days of Awe continue, take today out to pray and intercede on behalf of your unsaved loved ones so that when Jesus returns, they might be caught up to meet Him in the sky as well.

LORD God, I stand in the gap for each and every one of my unsaved loved ones. I pray that You would unveil their eyes and unclog their ears so that they might hear Your gentle knock at the door of their hearts. I pray that You might hear my plea for them and answer my prayer as You promised that You would throughout the Scriptures. I pray that You might replace their heart of stone with a heart of flesh and renew a right spirit within them. Awaken their sleeping spirit within them. I pray that when You return, all of my loved ones and I might be doing the work You have called us to do. Please guide and protect each one of us. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Seek In The Days of Awe

²³And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁴“Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. ²⁵You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the Lord.” ~ Leviticus 23:23–25

It’s believed that today, Rosh Hashanah, God looks down on all of mankind and takes special note of our behavior, attitude, and our relationship with Him. It’s also the day when He decides who will live and who will die that year.

Therefore, the next ten days, the Days of Awe, which will culminate on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), is a time of reflection and self-evaluation. It’s a day of paying special attention to things you have done that aren’t right. People you may have hurt and need forgiveness for. Areas where you need improvement. In other words, it is time for spiritual realignment with God. It would do us well to do the same, not just on this day alone, but every day of the year, to make sure we are living right and the way God expects us to live.

It’s so easy for us to get caught up in the world because the grass tends to look greener on the other side. We often feel like we’re missing out on something but let these next 10 days (starting today) be days to truly seek the LORD and all that He has in store for each and every one of us because there is nothing on God’s beautiful green earth that can compare to what God has for us in eternity with Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Seek In The Days of Awe.

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Don’t Leave The Way You Came

⁹When the people of the land come before the Lord at the appointed feasts, he who enters by the north gate to worship shall go out by the south gate, and he who enters by the south gate shall go out by the north gate: no one shall return by way of the gate by which he entered, but each shall go out straight ahead. ~ Ezekiel 46:9

In the days of Ezekiel, the people were required to leave the Temple through a different gate than they came. In fact, they were to leave in the exact opposite direction they came. The Scriptures tell us that the Law and the Prophets are just a foreshadowing of good things to come. Then wouldn’t it stand to reason that this is also a foreshadowing of things to come? So often in the Church today, we leave the presence of God the way we entered. We don’t leave changed.

See, today isn’t like the days of Ezekiel when they had to go to the Temple to worship and commune with God. Today, the LORD Himself dwells in us. Jesus lives through us. His Spirit dwells, guides, and transforms us into the image that was lost so many years ago. Therefore, we should never leave the presence of God, worship, the same way we entered. We should always be leaving the presence of God changed for the better. We should always be leaving His presence transformed.

We have the LORD God dwelling in us like never before; take advantage of that. Don’t allow the cares of this world to pull you away from all that God has in store for you. They can’t compete with His plans for your life. Cling to Him. Grow in Him. Be transformed in Him so that one day He’ll come back to take you home to Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Leave The Way You Came.

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Tear Your Hearts

¹² That is why the Lord says, “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. ¹³ Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish. ~ Joel 2:12-13 NLT

Joel prophesied to the people of Israel that the LORD was coming, so repent because that day will be a horrifying and dark day. It will be a day of great sorrow and fear, for the LORD’s wrath was coming. Today, it’s no different. The LORD is coming. He is on His way. He is preparing to come for His people to bring them to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, but for the wicked, those who refuse to bow their knee to the Almighty, He is treading the great wine press of the Wrath of the LORD.

Many of us believe that we will escape this great wrath because we’re Christians, but that word no longer means what it did so long ago. There’re Christians that don’t stand for righteousness and believe they’re okay because God loves them, but they’re not the only ones deceived. There are Christians who lack love. Paul said if you can speak in the tongues of man and of angels but don’t have love, you are like a noisy gong. You can even move mountains, prophesy, and understand all the secrets of God, but still be nothing if we lack love. There is nothing greater than love.

So many Christians lack love today. We feel no sympathy or empathy for those who we believe deserve what they get, not realizing that we ourselves deserve to burn in the Lake of Fire for all eternity because of our sin. It’s only because of grace that we are saved by faith, not because we are better than anyone. We don’t deserve this gift of God. We don’t deserve life, but God graciously gives it to us because of His great love for us. So, love others with the same love God has loved us so that when Christ returns, we might escape that wrath and be welcomed into the rest of the LORD.

Don’t just treat your outer garments so that people think that you care or that you’re a good person. Don’t just retweet or repost a post. Don’t just comment praying hands. Get down on your knees and pray. Don’t just make it an outward appearance, but an inward appearance. Let it tear your hearts enough that you cry out to the LORD for mercy and grace over the lost, hurting, angry, and deceived. Let the love of God perfect you in every way possible. Let Him turn your heart of stone to a heart of flesh so that you might not be lost with others.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Tear Your Hearts.

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Choose Life More Abundantly

²For He says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. ~ 2 Corinthians 6:2

As a child, I remember one of my friends explaining to me that his grandmother didn’t want him to get saved yet and become a Christian because he was too young. She said his whole life was still ahead of him, and she wanted him to be able to enjoy it, and that came with it. So, she told him to wait until he was older, after he’s already lived and enjoyed his life. How can the author of life and life more abundantly remove any enjoyment from our life? This is the problem with Christians today.

Christians don’t know the Word of God. Therefore, they don’t know the God whom they claim they serve. My childhood friend’s grandma, like many Christians today, didn’t take into consideration that to refuse to serve God is to willingly serve the Devil. It’s to willingly serve the author of sin and death. Jesus describes the Devil as the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. This was whom this grandmother encouraged her 10-year-old grandson to follow because she didn’t want her grandson to be a slave to righteousness so early in life. Little did she realize, like many others, that she was encouraging him to be a slave to sin, which leads to death. We all serve a master. None of us are completely and entirely free.

This is where his grandmother made her fatal mistake. Your childhood dictates your adulthood. This isn’t even just a biblical belief; this is a scientific fact. What happens I’m your early years of development determines the way you will think the way you will act; it will even impact your sexual indulgences. It’s much easier to get saved the younger you are than it is the older you get. Proverbs even warns us to raise up a child in the ways of righteousness so that when he or she is older, he or she will not stray from it. I haven’t seen my childhood friend in over 6 years, but a mutual friend showed me some photos. And to my sadness, he seemingly has no desire to know the LORD. He looks like he’s fallen into the generational curse of drug addiction. He looks like he has become another statistic of growing up without God and continuing without Him in adulthood.

Procrastination is a virus that kills ambition, success, and even life. Don’t allow procrastination to keep you from anything, especially salvation. When it comes to procrastination, tomorrow never comes. Make the decision today whom you and your household will serve. Make the decision today to follow Christ Jesus, the author of life and life more abundantly.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Choose Life More Abundantly.

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