Daily Bread Archives

June 3, 2020May 28, 2020

Death Where Is Your Sting

“³Death wrapped its ropes around me; the terrors of the grave overtook me. I saw only trouble and sorrow. ⁴Then I called on the name of the Lord: ‘Please, Lord, save me!’ ⁵How kind the Lord is! How good He is! So merciful, this God of ours! ⁶The Lord protects those of childlike faith; I was facing death, and He saved me. ⁷Let my soul be at rest again, for the Lord has been good to me.” ~ Psalms 116:3-7

Death has called each of us by name. It had each of us in bondage and prepared a gravestone to mark our eternal prison cell. But LORD God heard the cry of His people and came to us. He got off of His throne, willingly took our abuse, and then died in our place. He took our gravestone and wrote His name. He took our prison cell and He filled it. On the third day, He broke down the prison cell, destroyed the gravestones, and took the keys from Death. Death has been defeated. The Grave has been overcome. We have been freed.

So, when we say ‘Oh Death where is your sting? Oh Grave where is your victory?’ It’s not just something just for so. When we say this statement, we are declaring the victory of our LORD Jesus Christ. Because He was resurrected, so shall we be. Because He lives forever, so shall we. So, praise The LORD for He has given us the ultimate gift, Eternal Life.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Praise Him For He Did Not Abandon Us.

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The Ropes Have Been Cut

“¹From my earliest youth my enemies have persecuted me. Let all Israel repeat this: ²From my earliest youth my enemies have persecuted me, but they have never defeated me. ³My back is covered with cuts, as if a farmer had plowed long furrows. ⁴But the Lord is good; He has cut me free from the ropes of the ungodly.” ~ Psalms 129:1-4

The Church has been persecuted from its foundation, but it has never been and never will be defeated. It will never be destroyed. We have cuts and bruises, but God is faithful. Our God is good. Our God has redeemed us from the world and cut the ropes of our enemies so that they could not keep us in bondage. We are never without Him, for He does not abandon us, nor leave us to fight our own battles. Praise the LORD for He is our great defender.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Praise Him For The Ropes Have Been Cut.

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Conduct The Cross-Examination

“¹⁷The first to speak in court sounds right— until the cross-examination begins.” ~ Proverbs 18:17

Don’t just believe everything that is taught simply because it is the first explanation you hear. Don’t just take people’s word for it, do as the Bereans did, and go and search the Scriptures daily to see if what you are being taught is Scriptural. The Bible promises that the Holy Spirit will guide us and teach us, so, give Him opportunity to do so.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Conduct The Cross-Examination.

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Seek After The Power

“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” ~ Acts 2:1^KJV

The disciples had been praying earnestly for ten days, and when Pentecost came they were all together, in accord, in one place. They were unified. There was no division between them. And as they waited, the Holy Spirit infilled them. They began speaking in tongues, Peter preached a fiery message, and 3,000 got saved. They were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

How many of us can say that their household comes together and prays earnestly? Or comes together and is unified? Or that they come together and wait for the Spirit to come? We pray for miracles, signs, healings, etc. but we don’t do the beginning. We aren’t empowered. Yes, while we are saved, we have the Holy Spirit, but we don’t have the power. The power has to be sought after, waited for, and we have to be in unity to get it.

When we do these things, we will see miracles happening before our very eyes. We will see the healing of the sick, the oppressed finding peace, the depressed finding joy, and the lost being saved. We will be able to preach through the Power of The Holy Spirit and it will quicken the hearts of all who hear the message.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Seek After The Power.

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The Spirit of Laziness

“²⁴Lazy people take food in their hand but don’t even lift it to their mouth.” ~ Proverbs 19:24^NLT

We have been given Salvation, but it doesn’t end there. We don’t just accept Salvation and then stop. Our Salvation is like the ocean, and we are like the White Shark. The shark needs water to live, as we need Salvation to spiritually live. The ocean was given to the shark freely as Salvation was freely given to us, but if that shark stops swimming, it will die. We are the same way, if we stop moving in our faith, if we stop studying scripture, if we stop praying, if we stop having quiet time, if we stop worshiping, if we stop swimming, we will spiritually die.

Salvation was given to us freely, just as the ocean was given to the shark freely. Still, if we don’t swim, if we don’t keep moving in our faith, we won’t get anything out of our Salvation, and we will spiritually die. Many of us have become lazy Christians, God gave us His word as our food, yet we are too lazy to even lift it to our mouths. We’re too lazy to read our Bible. We’re too lazy to pray. We’ve become spiritual couch potatoes and don’t even realize it. We’re drowning in our own Salvation, and we don’t even see it.

God gave us everything we need to live; all we have to do is keep moving. We have to remember Paul’s words, ‘don’t grow tired of doing good.’ Why? Because it is our lifeline. That’s how we get oxygen from our Salvation. Faith without works is dead as works without faith is dead. We need both to live.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Just Keep Swimming.

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The Spirit of Apathy

“¹ What sorrow awaits you who lounge in luxury in Jerusalem,and you who feel secure in Samaria! You are famous and popular in Israel, and people go to you for help. ²But go over to Calneh and see what happened there. Then go to the great city of Hamath and down to the Philistine city of Gath. You are no better than they were, and look at how they were destroyed. ³You push away every thought of coming disaster, but your actions only bring the day of judgment closer. ⁴How terrible for you who sprawl on ivory beds and lounge on your couches, eating the meat of tender lambs from the flock and of choice calves fattened in the stall. ⁵You sing trivial songs to the sound of the harp and fancy yourselves to be great musicians like David. ⁶You drink wine by the bowlful and perfume yourselves with fragrant lotions. You care nothing about the ruin of your nation. ⁷Therefore, you will be the first to be led away as captives. Suddenly, all your parties will end.” ~ Amos 6:1-7^NLT

The people of Jerusalem had become apathetic. Israel had fallen into sin, and the LORD warned them, but the people in Jerusalem continued living their lives as if nothing was happening. The rest of Israel looked at them as leaders, yet they didn’t lead by example. They continued living their lives however they wanted. They didn’t care about what was coming but instead only focused about the present. Today, we focus solely on the present. If it isn’t affecting us at that moment, then we don’t care. We aren’t bothered by it. We ignore it and continue living our lives. We allow people who have no reverence for God to run our countries, our states, our cities, and it is not until the day judgment comes that we care.

God told the people of Jerusalem because they didn’t care, they didn’t try to better the land, they didn’t try to lead by example, but continued in their acts of vanity , they would be the first ones led away as captives. When we stop caring about the laws of the land, and we start placing being Politically Correct above being Biblically Correct, we are dooming ourselves and our nation. And as punishment, we will be the first to suffer. It’s the rights of Christians that will be and have been taken away first. Open your eyes and break from your spiritual chains of apathy, because it only leads to one place, captivity.

As the LORD gave Israel time to repent, God has given us time to repent. So, don’t continue your everyday life as if nothing is happening, instead get down on your knees and pray. Pray for your country. Pray for your president that he may follow the will of God. Pray for your senators, your leaders that they may make just laws. Pray for your governors that they may lead their state in the ways of the LORD. Pray for revival in your cities. Don’t just look blindly away from the warning from God. We have been given time to repent and cleanse our land. The question is, will we repeat history, or will we break the chains of The Spirit of Apathy and cleanse our land of sin.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Break The Chains of The Spirit of Apathy.

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Sound Asleep

“⁹As Paul spoke on and on, a young man named Eutychus, sitting on the windowsill, became very drowsy. Finally, he fell sound asleep and dropped three stories to his death below. ¹⁰Paul went down, bent over him, and took him into his arms. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘he’s alive!’” ~ Acts 20:9-10

While Paul was preaching, Eutychus, the young man, got drowsy and fell asleep. Eutychus was hearing the Word of God but wasn’t engaged. His mind was somewhere else, and he couldn’t keep his focus on the Word of God any longer, and he fell asleep. A lot of us are like Eutychus, we go to Church every Sunday, we read our Bible, but we’re not getting anything out of it. We aren’t growing, we aren’t on fire, we aren’t filled with that passion anymore, so we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we spiritually die, as Eutychus died. But here is the saving grace, even if you have fallen asleep and are spiritually dead, you can be resurrected. Paul simply took him in his arms and spoke, “he’s alive,” and the young man lived.

The key to knowing whether you are spiritually dead or not is by how your Spirit reacts to the Gospel. Your Spirit should be on fire for God, so it should be excited by the things of God since that is its food. Therefore, if you are bored during Church, you no longer feel that excitement you did when you first got saved, or reading your Bible feels more like a chore and you can’t focus, or maybe praying feels impossible because you just fall asleep during your prayers or your mind is always somewhere else, then you are Spiritually Asleep.

But don’t be discouraged, there is hope, you can be revived, all you have to do is rekindle the flame. How do you do that? Repent and return to God. Why? Because if you are spiritually asleep or spiritually dead, then you no longer have a relationship with God and something else has taken His place in your life, which is why you no longer have that fire you once did. Once you repent, your heart will begin to beat in you again, once again igniting the flame.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Ignite The Flame.

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Don’t Just Listen

“¹³For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight.” ~ Romans 2:13

Often times we get caught up in the motions and no longer follow God, we instead simply believe that He exists. Our love for Him slowly dwindles, and we are stuck in a routine. We go to church every Sunday, but we have no relationship with God. We listen to the message be preached, but we don’t take it passed that. But we justify not living a life pleasing to God, by saying we go to church or we read our Bibles.

But what good are those things without a relationship with God? It’s about knowing Him, not knowing of Him. We have to fight daily to do what is right. We have to make time for God. We have to fight to make the right choices day in and day out. Don’t allow yourself to fall into a spiritual slumber because you are spiritually lazy. Fight for your relationship with God as if nothing else matters, because nothing else matters.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Do More Than Listen.

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Cling To The Old Rugged Cross

“¹⁸The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.” ~ 1 Corinthians 1:18 NLT

During chaos, pain, suffering, and fear, we cling to that Old Rugged Cross. The cross that brings us hope. The cross that changes everything. The cross that people look at with disgust, jest, judgment is our saving grace. What was meant to destroy, brought life and we will cling to that cross. No matter the pain that we are in or the fear that overwhelms us can ever take away from the promise and hope that that cross symbolizes. For once our Jesus was dead, but now He is alive forever. And because He is alive, He will one day return for us, and we will be alive forever with Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Cling To The Old Rugged Cross.

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Enter Into His Grace

“¹⁵But the Lord said to him, ‘Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.’ Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. ¹⁶So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” ~ Genesis 4:15-16

Cain killed his brother Abel out of jealousy, then lied to God about it, and even in all of that, God still had mercy on Cain. Before there was The Law. Before there was redemption, Cain sinned, but God didn’t leave him there. He was punished, but God still had mercy on Cain. We live in a time of grace when God can still be found. When God has already paid for your sins and offered you forgiveness. He has paid the price and taken the weight on His shoulders.

Cain lived in a time that had no law. Had no way to be justified, yet God still found a way to give him grace. Don’t be ashamed to come to God. Don’t be ashamed of what you have done, for your Heavenly Father’s arms are opened, and He is waiting patiently for you to return home to Him. There is nothing you can do that is too hard for God to forgive and cleanse you of, so return home for His mercy is great, and His love for is never-ending.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Enter Into His Grace.

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