Category: Daily Bread

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He Disciplines His Children

17 But consider the joy of those corrected by God! Do not despise the discipline of the Almighty when you sin. 18 For though He wounds, He also bandages. He strikes, but His hands also heal. ~ Job 5:17-18NLT

When God disciplines us, it isn’t to destroy us. God corrects His children with love. He may take away, but He also gives. If God disciplines and corrects us, it’s out of love. God doesn’t just leave us in our sin; He corrects us. Then when we are corrected, He brings us back into His presence.

Jesus came that we may be perfected and made whole so that one day we may be brought before Him. Sometimes, our sickness causes us to need surgery. The surgery sometimes takes hours; it’s painful and uncomfortable when we wake up. We feel stiff and sore, but God gives us the medication we need to ease all of that. He gave us His very Spirit to dwell inside of us so that when we’re healed and we can help someone else who’s going through the very thing that we once did.

The only way for us to be children of God is for us to be disciplined. Sometimes it feels difficult, sometimes it feels frustrating, but if we take hold to His promises and put our trust in Him when we make it to the other side, we will be completely changed. We will be made new.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Disciplined.

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Pant For God

1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. ~ Psalms 42:1

David compared his desire to God to a deer panting for water. Is that the Church today? We get so caught up in the tv shows, Hollywood, and the rich and famous that we seem to think that they are our best friends, and we are prepared to fight tooth and nail to defend them.

Christians are prepared to get up at 3 O’Clock in the morning to watch the royal wedding but can’t get up at 10 a.m. to go to church. The world and all of its delicacies are constantly trying to woo us over. We see them driving the nice cars, and some have their own Learjet. They live in huge mansions with exquisite Olympic pools and beautiful gardens. And it’s easy to get lost in all the noise.

Our soul often pants for the world instead of for God. We allow our flesh to guide us instead of the Holy Spirit. When we seek after the world, it’s like running miles and miles on end for life and then stopping to drink poison from the person you’re running from. The world doesn’t want what’s best for you; it takes evil and dresses it up as beauty. Everything we do here on earth decides where and how we will spend eternity. Don’t allow the world to deceive you; only God has the living water to end your thirst.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Pant For God.

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Follow His Ways

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. ~ Isaiah 55:9

God is not limited by our limitations. He’s the God that spoke life into being. He’s the God that created the Heavens, the Earth, and everything in between. Even though He is God of the entire Universe, He takes the time to make a plan for our lives. He knows the beginning and the end. He guides us through life so that we can avoid pain and suffering.

Oftentimes, we feel like we know what’s best for ourselves. We allow our fleshly desires and feelings to control us. We look inwardly for guidance instead of looking upwardly to God. Sometimes His plan doesn’t always look safe. It doesn’t always look easy. Sometimes it even looks impossible, but if we trust in God, He won’t let us down.

If we allow God to guide us, we wouldn’t have so much pain and suffering in our lives and in the world. He wants what’s best for us. He doesn’t change. He was love, and He still is love. Our God has done great things, and He is still doing great things. He is doing great things in us and through us. If we follow Him and listen to His instruction, God will guide us into our promised land. We have to set aside our fleshly desires and feelings in order to follow the plan of God.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Follow His Ways.

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Be The Light

58 Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep. ~ Acts 7:58–60

Over here in the West, there isn’t much persecution against Christians. We have so much freedom, yet we lack so much love. When someone wrongs us, we want revenge. When we see someone doing wrong, we want to send them to Hell ourselves, but is that how we are to live our lives? Look at the men of the Bible; they didn’t call for instant judgment; they pleaded for mercy on behalf of the men who were persecuting them.

The men whom Stephen was witnessing to dragged him outside the city and began to pelt him with rocks. I’m sure he was trying to dodge a few, but they hit him in the stomach and in the head, and in his face when his hand would try to protect one part of his body, ten more rocks would hit him in another part of his body, until he was full of blood. Bleeding from the hits he received from the stones.

And what did he cry out? LORD save me? Or LORD, where are you? NO! He cried out, “LORD, do not hold this sin against them.” In other words, please forgive them; they know not what they do. He learned and understood from his Savior, Jesus Christ. Were his eyes on the temporal? NO! His eyes were on the eternal. This world held nothing here for him. He understood that there was something bigger than him and all of them at work. He understood what was in store for them if they didn’t repent. Stephen looked at his murderers with only love.

When we look at the world, do we look at them with love or with hate? Do we want God to show them mercy and soften their hearts, or do we want the wrath of God?

LORD God, help us to look at the world with love. Help us to pray for our enemies and bless those who curse us. Fill our hearts, oh LORD, with compassion. Help us to be the light in this dark world. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.

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Our Sun and Our Shield

11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. ~ Psalms 84:11

God is our sun and our shield. Every morning the sun rises to shine His light to overcome the darkness of the night. It’s another chance for us to overcome because God’s mercies are renewed every morning. Each and every day are reminded that we can overcome the darkness that tries to overcome us.

Our forerunner, Jesus Christ, went before us and defeated the darkness. He overcame the entire world, and because He overcame, we can also overcome. We overcome through Christ because He is our shield. His blood covers us and protects us from the enemy. We don’t have to fear. We don’t have to be intimated. We are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Overcome Through Our Sun and Shield.

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Hold To The Blessed Hope

11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. ~ Psalms 84:11

It’s easy to take our eyes off of the hope of the return of Christ and focus on a world that’s filled with gloom, dread, and hopelessness. There’s so much hate, division. Lying, stealing, and cheating. There’s fearmongering and deceit. Sickness and disease.

Fear of the day and fear of the night. Rising prices, lower wages. It seems like every day, the price of gasoline is rising. In with the new and out with the old has caused people to lose hope. It feels almost impossible to focus on the coming of Christ when the world seems to only get worse. When we’ve hoped for the return of Christ for over 2,000 years, it feels as if God has forgotten His people, but is that true? Has God forgotten us?

No matter how long the night feels, we always have the hope that the sun will rise in the morning, on time. It won’t be delayed, nor will it forget; we have hope that the sun will rise every morning. God is our sun. The night feels long. It feels like it may never end, but our joy is coming in the morning. Our joy is on the way. We know that Christ will return. We know that Christ will not be late, nor will He be hindered from His return.

Peace. Love Go Forth and Hold To The Blessed Hope.

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Set Your Mind On God

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ~ Galatians 5:22–24

The Spirit does not bear all these fruits unless the flesh has been crucified. Which means it is no longer in charge. It does not dictate anymore. We are no longer feeding our own egos, but we are seeking to please God.

The spiritual Spirit is not concerned with the things of this world. It is the spirit of the world that is concerned with such things. Therefore, we have to set our minds on the things of God so that our spirit may be after the Spirit of God. Why?

Because the mind nurtures the heart, the heart nurtures the soul, and the soul nurtures the spirit. So, in order to overcome, we have to renew our minds because the heart is deceitful above all things. Therefore, we cry out, as David did, to create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Set Your Mind On God.

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Which Leper Are You?

11 As Jesus continued on toward Jerusalem, He reached the border between Galilee and Samaria. 12 As He entered a village there, ten men with leprosy stood at a distance, 13 crying out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 He looked at them and said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.”And as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy. 15 One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, “Praise God!” 16 He fell to the ground at Jesus’ feet, thanking Him for what he had done. This man was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus asked, “Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 And Jesus said to the man, “Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you.” ~ Luke 17:11-19

As Jesus walked along the border, He was met by ten lepers who were separated from their families because of their leprous disease. They cried from a distance, wanting to be healed. We are like those lepers. We were separated from God and needed cleansing. Sin had us separated from God, and the only thing that could bring us back to God was a blood sacrifice. Without this sacrifice, we would be condemned to spend eternity in a place called the Lake of Fire, a place of torment and agony, but where could we get such a blood sacrifice? 

Jesus made the sacrifice 2,000 years ago when He was crucified on the Cross, once and for all. All we have to do is call out to Him as the Lepers did, and He will cleanse us and make us whole again as He did for the 10 lepers.

When we refuse to acknowledge or accept Jesus’ sacrifice, we are like the 9 lepers who did not come back to give thanks. The problem with that is, if we don’t, we will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire in those eternal flames. But if we do, we will spend eternity with Him in a place of peace, joy, and happiness. Never again be hungry, thirsty, rejected, bullied, or teased. Never again will we have sad goodbyes.

Jesus is our sacrifice, and we no longer need to be separated from God. Jesus has made a way for us. All we have to do is ask Him into our hearts; it is that simple.

LORD God, thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for taking our place on the Cross. I’m sorry for every sin I’ve committed. Please forgive me. LORD Jesus, please be the LORD of my life. Cover me in Your precious and Holy blood. Please take charge of my life and guide me as I run the race set before me. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.

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Unite

11 Now on His way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ~ Luke 17:11-19NIV

Jesus was in Galilee and was on His way to Jerusalem to actually die on the Cross. A huge crowd was following Him; after all, He fed them with five loaves of bread and two fish. He also healed their diseases and raised their dead. Now He was at the end of His earthly ministry and on His way to Jerusalem to be crucified for the sins of the world. But He comes to a problem. The Jews with Him do not pass through Samaria, so He travels along the border between Samaria and Galilee.

The people who lived in Samaria were Jewish people who intermarried with non-Jews and were considered half breeds. They hated each other to the point that Jews would rather walk around the border of Samaria than to take the shorter route through Samaria.

We have that seem divisions today in our culture. We have the black people not wanting to mix with the white people and the white not wanting to mix with the Spanish and Spanish only wanting to hang out with other Spanish people. But that is not the way God intended it to be. And as Christians, we are determined to break down those walls that separate the cultures.

There is a Latin term ‘Divide et impera.’ It means ‘Divide and Conquer,’ or ‘Divide and rule.’ It is a military tactic but just as effective when applied to a political strategy designed to keep the people separated and fighting amongst themselves while the ruling class gain more and more power. And that is what is happening right now. We are so busy at each other’s throats that the real plan is virtually going unnoticed. The majority of people spend the majority of their time sitting in front of the tv being indoctrinated by the same media companies that are keeping us divided. But if we would only put our differences aside and unite, we can say enough is enough. United we stand, divided we fall.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Unite.

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Hunger and Thirst For More

2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. 4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. ~ Revelation 2:2-5

They were doing all the right things, but it was more out of routine, a ritual even, not out of love. From the outside, they looked like the model church, but from the inside, they had lost the hunger for more. We have to hunger for more; we can’t become satisfied with where we are at and what we are doing. We must keep on expanding our borders, stretching our limits, and come out of our comfort zones. It is those who hunger and thirst for righteousness that will be filled. If you don’t hunger…you won’t be filled, simple.

Jesus loves those who hunger and thirst for more. When we get to the place where we say, “The same old is not good enough any longer; I want more.” That is when we begin to get Jesus’ attention. He looks at us with love, and His heart swells with pride, and He says, “Yes, that’s my boy, that’s my girl, and I am proud of you.” So, why do we need a continual hunger for more? Because Jesus wants and even expects us to always be panting for more. As we said earlier, it is those who hunger and thirst that are filled.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Hunger and Thirst For More.

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