Daily Bread Archives

August 4, 2020August 3, 2020

Take It By Force

“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²‘Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. ³You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes.’” ~ Leviticus 18:1-3

A lot of times as Christians, we expect that when we are brought into our promise, that everything will be perfect and dandy. But that’s not the way things work. We have to continue to fight. We have to realize that with each step we take to get closer to fulfilling our calling, there will be a bigger obstacle in our way. Just because we reach our promised land, it doesn’t mean that we have fulfilled our calling. There is always something more for us to do until we are taken up, whether by death or by rapture, but until then we are to keep going. We are to keep fighting.

Why? Because we are in a real war. We are in an unseen, for the most part, war. We are in the middle of the supernatural, spiritual war. The enemy doesn’t want to see us do the will of God, so with every step, we take closer to God, the Devil throws something harder for us to overcome. We don’t just walk into paradise, and that’s it. We march into paradise as a warrior ready for the battle ahead of us. That’s why Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:12, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.”

We can’t expect to be passive and see the Kingdom of Heaven. We have to take it by force. We have to fight for it. Just as God had to tell the Israelites to leave behind the bondage of Egypt and not get into bondage in the new land He promised them, so does He say the same thing to us today. We have to let go of our past and be careful what we allow into our future.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Take It By Force.

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Fulfill Your Promise

“¹⁵And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven ¹⁶and said, ‘By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, ¹⁸and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.’ ¹⁹So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba.” ~ Genesis 22:15-19

This promise was already promised to Abraham before Isaac was born. A lot of the time we assume that when God promises something to us that we don’t have to do anything to get it. We don’t have do anything to fulfill it, but in actuality, God has promised every one of us something, but only few of us actually see the actual promise fulfilled.

Why? It’s not because God is unwilling to fulfill His promise, but because we are unwilling to give up something. We are holding back something from God. We are placing something above God. If we hold on to other things that separate us from God, we will lose out on our promise. If we put something, even something good, above God, we will lose out on our promise.

For instance, if we are blessed with the gift of music, but we only use this gift to make us famous, or we use it for anything else than to glorify God, we will lose out on our promise. If we have been blessed with athletics, but put sports above spending time with God, we will lose out on our promise.

These things in themselves are not bad, but the way we use them will determine whether we will lose out on our promise or not.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Fulfill Your Promise.

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Follow

“¹On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, ²and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. ³Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. ⁴And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.’

⁵And Simon answered, ‘Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word, I will let down the nets.’ ⁶And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. ⁷They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.

⁸But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.’ ⁹For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, ¹⁰and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.’ ¹¹And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.” ~ Luke 5:1-11

Jesus came down to their level. Jesus grew up studying in the Temple around Rabbis learning and teaching, but He came to lowly fishermen. He made His message simple and to the point that they would be able to understand. When He spoke in parables, He took the time to explain it to them so that they wouldn’t be left in the dark. He took them from being slaves to being His friends.

Jesus doesn’t try to trip us up. He doesn’t try to make the question so hard that no one passes. Jesus comes to us with something that we understand, and He turns it into something so much more. He doesn’t discriminate against your sin, your ethnicity, your race, your beliefs, your desires, your job, He comes down to all of our levels, so that He may make Himself known to us. But it’s up to us to put down our nets and follow Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Follow.

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August 1, 2020July 26, 2020

Find Your Identity

“¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ ¹⁹The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” ~ Matthew 11:18-19

Isn’t that the world? No matter what you do, the world is going to find fault with it. With John, he didn’t drink or eat, and they said he was demonized. Jesus came eating and drinking, and they said he was a gluttonous drunk. The world is not your friend. It will never be there to lift you up but to only accuse you and watch you fall.

We can’t find our identity in the world, because the world will never accept us no matter how much we change for them. But instead, we need to find our identity in Christ Jesus, for it is Him that we are molded after. We have to find our identity in the one who lifts up, instead of puts down. The one who rejoices in our successes, instead of condemns. The one who picks us up when we have fallen, instead of the one who kicks us when we’re down.

We cling to the world because we desire confirmation from those we can see. From those that seem to have it all together. From those who we look up to. In doing so, we forget that we are not a part of the world. We are not of the world. So, the world will never accept us. We have to seek acceptance from only one, Jesus. For it is better to be an enemy of the world, than an enemy of God. Why be afraid of offending he who can only kill the body, when we should be afraid of offending he who can kill the body and then the soul in the eternal flames of Hell. Find your identity in He who does not change. So that you may change for the better.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Find Your Identity.

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Eternal Praise

“¹³So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, crying out, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!’” ~ John 12:13

The LORD Jesus came to Jerusalem on a donkey. He was greeted with shouts of acclamation. He was greeted with love and acceptance. On this day He was chosen as the perfect sacrificial lamb of God. He entered Jerusalem as a King but would be crucified as a sinner before the week was over. Yet Jesus boldly entered Jerusalem fully knowing what would be the end result for Him. He fully knew that the same people who were blessing Him and loving Him today, would be the same people prepared to crucify Him the next, yet He continued. He didn’t stop because He knew that they needed Him. He knew that there was no other way for them to enter life unless He did this. This was the only way for the world to be saved, so Jesus continued on, and boldly entered Jerusalem.

The times have not changed in the last 2,000 years. We get really religious and love Jesus when everyone else does. We get really religious and love Jesus when we need a healing or a miracle. We get really religious and love Jesus when it’s Sunday morning, but as soon as the world turns on Him, so do we. We go from shouting ‘Hosanna. Hosanna.’ to ‘Crucify Him. Crucify Him.’ And Jesus knew that. 2,000 years ago Jesus knew we, in today’s world, would crucify Him, as they did in His day. Jesus knew 4,000 years ago that we would crucify. He knew 6,000 years ago. He knew before He even created Earth, yet Jesus still entered Jerusalem and accepted the praises of those who would soon be crucifying Him.

Today we have the chance to change our paths. We don’t have to continue the cycle of praising Him, then crucifying Him. Today we can choose to praise Him, and when He is crucified, we can take Him down. When our media, our city, or our government crucifies Him, we can take Him down by defending Him. We can take Him down by living like Him. Don’t let this day continue as just another symbolic day, let today be the day that begins your eternal praising.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Praise.

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Draw Near

“And through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.” ~ Colossians 1:20

During this Passion Week, we remember the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for all of us. We were once separated from God, by sin, but Jesus made a way for us through the shedding of His blood. We were destined for an eternal death with no peace, no rest, no hope, no God, but Jesus got off of His throne, set down His Godliness, and came to Earth as man.

I urge each of us this week to draw near to God. Don’t allow the things of this world to make Jesus’ sacrifice worthless to you. Don’t allow the temporary things of this world to draw you away from the eternal presence of God Almighty.

Jesus felt so strongly about us being separated from Him that He was whipped and beaten until He was unrecognizable. Jesus looked down upon us and saw that we couldn’t bear the punishment that we deserved, so He bore it for us. Don’t allow the things of this world to cause you to miss out on receiving your free gift of salvation. Your debt has been paid in full, don’t try to change that. Don’t stay stranded at sea, when God promised to pull you to shore.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Draw Near.

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Bring Your Petitions

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? ¹²I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”

¹³But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, ¹⁴and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, ¹⁶‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’ ¹⁷And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, ¹⁸‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’¹⁹Pleasepardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.” ~ Numbers 14:11-19

How many times has God said He would blot out those wicked Israelites and start over through Moses? Yet each time Moses pleads with the LORD and is able to change His mind. Here’s the thing, we do not serve a God who changes. But we do serve a God who will change His mind depending on how well you argue your case. Why? Because God isn’t a malevolent dictator. If God wasn’t interested in Moses’ opinion, He would have never told Him what He was going to do. We see this all throughout the Bible that God will tell His plans to one whom He trusts, with whom He has a strong relationship with. And they will defend a case for why He shouldn’t do it. Moses did this must’ve been 10 times at least. But what we don’t understand is how to be a good lawyer.

We have to learn how to be a good lawyer. In order to be a good lawyer, we have to learn how the courts of Heaven work. We have to understand that the Court of Heaven has rules and specific procedures we have to follow. We can’t just speak random words of foolishness and expect God to overturn His initial ruling. Instead, we have to know the Bible. We have to know how to go before God. We have to know how to enter His courts. We have to know how to petition Him. We have to know how to quote scripture. We have to know how to defend. But how do we learn these things? We read our Bibles. We pray. We worship. Psalms 100:4 “Enter His Gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.”

How many of our prayers start with petition instead of thanksgiving? Instead of praise? How many of us actually take the time to thank Him for what He’s done, instead of continuously just asking. I’m not saying we shouldn’t ask. I’m saying we need to understand how to ask. We need to understand how to petition. Derek Prince, one of the greatest prayer warriors of our time, said in his book, ‘Secrets of a Prayer Warrior,’ unless we first give thanks for someone or something, we have no right petitioning God for them. If we want to see something take place, we must first thank God for what He has already done. We can’t expect to say, ‘gimme gimme gimme,’ and never once take the time to say thank you.

God is not a dictator. He doesn’t want to just do things, He wants input. If He didn’t, He wouldn’t have a divine council that He speaks with. He wouldn’t come to us and tell us of His judgments. We have to understand that we are in the gap. We have to stand in the gap and petition for others. Just as Moses stood in the gap. Just as Abraham stood in the gap. Just as Derek Prince stood in the gap. We have to stand in the gap. We have to be prayer warriors, so that we may change the mind of God that He may not bring judgment on those who deserve judgment. But instead that He would show mercy. We must remind Him of His word, as the others did. We must remind Him of His character as the others did. Not because He forgets. But so that you may build a case before Him and He may see your heart through your prayers.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Bring Your Petitions.

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Clear The Room

“²³And when Jesus came to the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, ²⁴he said, ‘Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him. ²⁵But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. ²⁶And the report of this went through all that district.” ~ Matthew 9:23-26

Even Jesus needed to remove the naysayers in the room. Even the Son of God needed to have the room cleared of all doubters. If Jesus needed it, why don’t we? Why don’t we clear the doubters from the rooms? Why do we allow them to stay, slowly feeding on their doubt, until we have started to doubt, ourselves?

We expect a miracle to happen, but we are without faith. We want it to happen, but we don’t truly believe it will happen. Our faith is weak, and our doubt is strong. We hold to things that don’t help us when God is saying just clear the room. Don’t look at the current circumstance, look at what could be.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Clear the Room.

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Bless

³⁰As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, Esau his brother came in from his hunting. ³¹He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, “Let my father arise and eat of his son’s game, that you may bless me.” ³²His father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.” ³³Then Isaac trembled very violently and said, “Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all before you came, and I have blessed him? Yes, and he shall be blessed.” ³⁴As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me, even me also, O my father!” ³⁵But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.” ³⁶Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” ³⁷Isaac answered and said to Esau, “Behold, I have made him lord over you, and all his brothers I have given to him for servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?” ³⁸Esau said to his father, “Have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. ~ Genesis 27:30-38

The blessing of children was very important, so important that Esau wept when his brother got his blessing. Keep in mind that Esau is not a child, he is not a teenager, he is not a young adult. Esau is a grown man, and he wept when he did not receive his blessing. They knew the power of the tongue was great and mighty. They knew that life and death were in the tongue and they used their words very carefully.

When they blessed their children, they had no doubt in their mind that that child would be blessed according to the blessing that was spoken over them. They held to it. But today, in our culture words mean nothing to us. We say whatever we want, not realizing that even though we can’t see our words there is much power in them. We should bless our children daily. We should have faith in that blessing and as children we should receive it.

God spoke many blessings over anyone who would just accept His Son and receive the blessing, but the sad truth is many of us who are saved don’t hold to the blessings that were given. We don’t receive them. We don’t accept them. These blessing came from God Almighty, yet we don’t fully believe they will come to fruition. Imagine if we did. Imagine if we all fully accepted and held onto the blessing in the Bible. Imagine the amount of blessings that Heaven would pour down upon us.

Three things to take from this:

Stop using your words lightly.
Bless your children.
Hold onto the blessings that have been given to you.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Bless.

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Be Silent

“Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and there came a messenger to Job and said, ‘The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.’ While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, ‘The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.’ While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, ‘The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.’ While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, ‘Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.’ Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.” ~ Job 1:13-22

“So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.’ But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” ~ Job 2:7-10

Job lost everything he had. He lost his earthly possessions and every one of his children. He even lost his health, but in all of this Job did not sin with his lips. See I had this bad habit of speaking out of anger. I would say things I probably wouldn’t mean later on, but yet in the heat of the moment my mouth just started running, and I couldn’t seem to shut it up.

Proverbs 18:21 tells us that “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” Matthew 15:11 says “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” If we allow wickedness, hatred, evil to come out of our mouth, we have to check our spiritual temperature. Luke 6:45 explains it like this, “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Think about it like this, if evil things are coming out of your mouth, then there is a lot of evil in your heart that you have to get rid of. There is a lot of hurt and hatred that you just have to give to the LORD so that while you are in a fit of rage, you won’t sin.

Here’s one of our biggest problems, we don’t have control over our emotions. When one thing goes wrong, everything goes wrong, and our countenance drops. We allow our situations to dictate our attitude, to dictate our lives, to dictate who we are. If Job a man who lost everything he held dear to his heart could keep his mouth shut and not sin with his lips why can’t we do the same? When in the heat of the moment when your really angry quote Proverbs 4:4 “Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.”

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Silent.

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