Daily Bread Archives

August 27, 2024August 27, 2024

Have Faith And Works

¹⁶ Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁷ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? ¹⁸ And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁹ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? ~ Matthew 23:16-19

The word sacred is actually the word for sanctified. Therefore, we can understand that to be sanctified means not only that we are set apart, but we are set apart because we have been welcomed into the Kingdom of God. We no longer dwell in the world but in the arms, the hands of the Almighty.

This is why there are goats in the sheepfold. They accepted salvation, but they didn’t allow Christ to sanctify them because they refused to be set apart from the world and their own sin, taking up their cross and following Christ. Therefore, allow the LORD to sanctify you and set you apart. Salvation is more than just belief and acceptance. Salvation has to be held on to. The race set before you has to be run. Battles have to be fought. Strongholds have to be torn down. Salvation is only acquired through faith, but it is kept through our actions.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Have Faith And Works.

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Your Decision, Your Choice

¹⁹I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, ²⁰loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. ~ Deuteronomy 30:19-20

God does not send anyone to hell. Each one must choose for their own selves where they will spend eternity. Either they will spend it in the Lake of Fire or in eternity with Jesus in blissfulness, with every need and desire supplied.

With no more fear, worry, hot sun burning you up, hunger, thirst, weariness, lack of anything because all poverty will be vanquished, all hate and deception gone, all wars will cease, and eternal peace shall reign. All oppression will be a thing of the past. Imagine a place where you are free and truly loved for who you are. No hidden agendas, only truth and love. This is a true utopia promised to those who God and follow Him.

I know it is a hard concept to imagine (for some), but God has promised an eternity of love, joy, and peace, never again knowing pain to those who believe in His name, have held on to His promises, and have obeyed His commands. It’s an eternal paradise or eternal damnation. It’s your choice. How? Because we choose with our actions, our words, our decisions, what we support and don’t support. The way we live this life on earth will directly affect the way that we will live our lives in eternity.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Make Your Choice.

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Look To That One Day

¹⁷ For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. ~ Isaiah 65:17

All of this suffering, aches, and pains. The sorrow of death shall not enter into the eternity of those who love God. Why? Because death will be swallowed up with life, and not just life, but abundant, eternal life. It does not matter how much the nations rage, or how its leaders plot and coerce, nothing can change, or disrupt God’s plans for His people, those who call upon His great and mighty Name.

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August 24, 2024August 23, 2024

See Change

¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. ~ Matthew 5:16

In the movie The Little Mermaid, Prince Eric drives his ship into Ursula and kills her. After they defeated Ursula, King Triton was released from his imprisonment, but he wasn’t the only one. All who had been deceived and held captive by Ursula were freed. This is a beautiful and touching scene to watch. They didn’t intend to free all those people, but they did. Imagine, their efforts to save themselves for Ursula led to the freedom of all captives.

This is the same in our lives. When we strive to overcome, defeat, and remove a stronghold, burden, etc. from our lives, it will positively affect those around us; how? One of my favorite quotes is,

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

When you change, it affects everyone around you.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and See Change.

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They’ve Been Abolished

¹³And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, ¹⁴by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. ~ Colossians 2:13-14

Ariel signed away her soul to Ursula (the sea witch), not fully realizing all that entailed. By the time her father found out, it was too late. His youngest child, his baby girl, was held captive by the sea witch, and there was nothing he could do to destroy the contract. The contract was valid, and he couldn’t break it no matter how much power he had. So, what does he do? He takes her place. Our relationship with Christ is very similar.

The main difference, though, is that when Christ died, He defeated sin. He took our sin away and defeated what once held our souls captive. He abolished death. We were once slaves to sin, unable to control our flesh. We were once hopeless, but just as the characters in the movie killed Ursula and made the contract null and void, so sin and death have to be overcome and abolished.

Because Christ overcame, through Christ, we are able to overcome as well. There may be generational curses, strongholds, depression, oppression, etc. that plague your life. It may feel overwhelming, but there is hope. Our God has overcome the world. He’s made these contracts null and void. They no longer have any hold on us. It may not happen overnight, but it will happen.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Claim The Abolishment.

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Look At Your Relationships

³⁷Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ~ Matthew 10:37

One of my favorite TV shows as a child was Avatar: The Last Airbender. During the series Aang is told by Guru Pathik that he has to let go of his earthly attachments in order to allow the cosmic energy to flow through him from the universe. Now, I don’t want you all to misunderstand; I don’t believe in allowing cosmic energy to flow through you and connecting with the universe. However, I do believe there is a lesson here though. See, like Aang, I didn’t understand what Guru Pathik was saying. It sounded like he didn’t know what he was talking about, but today, randomly, it came to mind, and I think I understand what he was saying.

We aren’t supposed to just throw people away. No, as Christians, we’re called to love people and let the Light of God shine through us. I believe he was saying we have to learn to let go of attachments. Our relationships with people shouldn’t affect our salvation. They should never affect our peace, joy, and especially not our love. We have to learn to separate ourselves and let go so that the main relationship we are worried about is our relationship with Christ.

See, so many of us allow our relationships with our fathers, mothers, mentors, pastors, teachers, siblings, or friends to affect our relationship with God. When we view certain relationships with others in such high esteem that it begins to negatively affect our relationship with God, then our relationship with this person has become more important than our relationship with God. We have to build our relationship with the LORD on His love for us and our love for Him. It can’t be built on anything else. We have to grow that relationship with the LORD separately from our other relationships so that they don’t have any weight on our relationship with the LORD.

This is what Jesus is telling us in these verses. Our relationship with Christ should thrive and grow regardless of what is going on in our other relationships around us because our relationship with Christ is based on His love for us and our love for Him regardless of what is going on in our lives.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Look At Your Relationships.

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Do Not Bow To It

¹⁷ So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. ~ James 4:17

I recently started watching the series The Mandalorian. The series starts out with a solo bounty hunter (a Mandalorian) going to obtain an asset. When he finds the asset, he realizes that it’s a small child. Conflicted, he still goes through with delivering the child to the man who hired him to do the job.

After he does, it messes with his mind. He tries to start on the next job, but he just can’t let it go, so he goes back for the child. He risks everything, including his honor, to retrieve the child. This leads to his previous employer and all the other bounty hunters under his previous employer to turn on him. They attacked him mercilessly in order to get the child back. Thanks to other Mandalorians who came to his rescue, he and the child escaped without being harmed.

So many of us today are tasked to do something that goes against our faith, yet so many times, we still go through with it. Why? Fear. Fear of being rejected or shunned. Fear of losing our jobs or getting docked pay. Sometimes, the fears are more serious. These fears are real and valid, but nevertheless, no fear should ever force us to go against our faith. Our faith is our connection to God. If we allow anything to break that connection, then we have willingly separated ourselves from God.

Even though the Mandalorian went against his conscience, he went back to make it right no matter the cost. The same is true for us today. Even if you give into fear, there’s always a chance of redemption. There’s always another opportunity to make things right. You just have to put your faith in God and trust that He will send you aid when you need it.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Do Not Bow To It.

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Crucified With Jesus

²⁰I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ~ Galatians 2:20

Paul said he had been crucified with Christ, not at all meaning literally crucified, but spiritually crucified. His life now belongs to Christ, that is, all of his desires, his wants, and his ambitions. It is no longer his life because his old life had been crucified with Christ. He goes on to say that the life that he now lives is by faith in Jesus, the Son of God. And why? Because Paul is convinced that Jesus loves him and died for him, now he has no other choice but to faithfully serve Him.

Over this past weekend, I went to the grocery store with my wife to pick up a few items. I placed my phone and my glasses on the little stand next to the credit card machine. I thought to myself, I better not forget these here, and so said, so done. I walked right out of that grocery store, leaving my phone and my glasses sitting right there on the little stand.

When I went to drive out of the parking lot, the radio came on because it could not connect to my phone, which alerted me that I had left my phone in the store. I quickly parked again and ran inside. The nice lady who had checked me out had my phone and glasses, and when she saw me looking for them, she came over and said, “Are you looking for these?” I felt a real relief that she had found my phone and glasses and held them for me. I felt much appreciation for her kindness of holding them for me.

Have you felt indebted to someone? Paul is feeling that way. He said, I have chosen to be crucified with Christ by my own free will, and now He lives in me. Therefore, I no longer live for myself; I live to please Christ because He loves me so much that He freely chose to suffer and die for me, and because of that, He has given me eternal life.

Jesus did not just do that for Paul alone, but He did it for all of us as well. Each and every one of us. In turn, we must now live for Him.

Father, thank You for sending Your Son Jesus to die for me. Help me to live as if I have been Crucified with Christ so that He can live in me. Thank You for loving me and caring for me. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Works Or No Works

¹⁶ yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. ~ Galatians 2:16

So, is it works or no works? Should we be concerned with works at all since it doesn’t profit anything? Woe! Just hold up a moment. Paul did not say that works profited nothing, he said that we are not justified by works. Meaning that we cannot achieve salvation by doing something.

We receive salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and our believing that He is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. But it goes a little deeper than just that. Once we have accepted Jesus as LORD and Savior, then we must start living for Him. We must build a relationship through prayer and worship and learn about Him through the reading and the studying of His Word.

Think about this, if you walked into one of Walmart’s stores and begin bagging, that does not make you a Walmart employee, you would not even get paid. Matter of fact, management will probably ask you to leave the establishment. But if you filled out an application and went on an interview and you were successful and therefore hired, then you would become a Walmart employee, and then you would be allowed to bag groceries or whatever else Walmart patrons would purchase. It is the same with Jesus.

You do not become a Christian by doing good things, no matter how good the works are; if we are not doing the good works through Jesus, then it does not count towards salvation. But once we are saved through faith in Jesus, then we are expected to do good works, and if we do not do good works, then we will be in trouble and may even be in jeopardy of being disqualified from the race. Because it is a race and not a spectator’s sport, we cannot sit on the bench; we must participate; we must run the race.

Heavenly Father, please forgive me of my sin, and help me to live for You from now on by doing good works. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Stay On Your Guard

¹²… woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short. ~ Revelation 12:12b^NIV

Satan is filled with fury. He is totally and completely angry; one could say he is filled with hatred. Who does he take it out on? The inhabitants of the earth and the sea.

Now, is it at all possible that Satan has ‘little helpers’ that help him achieve his dark agenda to destroy and not build up? To kill and not save. To destroy and annihilate without mercy.

Many preachers will tell you that the devil is a toothless lion walking around roaring. They claim he is a defeated enemy because Jesus defeated him on the cross. And believe me, that part is true.

There is no doubt that Jesus defeated Satan when He disarmed the powers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, according to Colossians 2:15.

But the truth is, for us, Satan is still a formidable foe. So-much-so that Peter warned us to be watchful and to stay alert because he (the devil) prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).

So, be on your guard. Your enemy isn’t a toothless defeated foe. He is always seeking someone to devour. Someone to conquer. Someone to overcome and lead away from Christ. Therefore, always stay awake, watching and praying that you might not be devoured.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Stay On Your Guard.

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