Daily Bread Archives

March 29, 2022March 28, 2022

Thankful For Every Gift

¹⁵Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; ¹⁶and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? ¹⁸Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹And He said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” ~ Luke 17:15-19

Jesus had just healed ten lepers, yet when one returned to Jesus and thanked Him, Jesus told him his faith made him well. Keep in mind the man was already healed, so what healing was Jesus talking about? If we go to the original Greek, we get the word SOZO, which means delivered in every way. The man wasn’t just physically healed; he was emotionally, spiritually, psychologically healed. He wasn’t a Jew, yet because he saw the miracle he received, he went back and thanked Jesus, and he received even more than before.

Sometimes, when we have been in Church for a long time, we forget to be thankful for the little miracles. We forget to take time out for God just to thank Him for all that He’s done for us. We become like the nine Jewish lepers, becoming almost entitled. We forget that God has saved each of us from the same filth. We didn’t deserve it. We weren’t entitled to it. We did nothing to earn it. It was a gift of grace from God, and each and every day is a gift. When we forget to thank God for the little things, we miss out on experiencing the big gifts of God.

LORD God, please forgive me for overlooking Your great unfailing grace and love that I don’t deserve. Thank you for each and every gift, blessing, and miracle that I’ve received, known and unknown. Thank you for keeping me safe each night and waking me up each morning. Thank you for giving me life, and please help me to run the race set before me that I might enjoy eternal life with You one day. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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But of Love

¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. ~ 1 John 4:18

We were never created for fear nor in fear. Fear entered the world the moment Adam sinned. We were created in love and for love. Love is our greatest weapon against fear because when we understand the love of God, we understand that we have nothing to fear. So then why is it so hard to not be afraid? Because the enemy knows that if he can get us to be afraid, we stop having faith. And if we stop having faith, then we aren’t dwelling in God’s love. And if we aren’t dwelling in God’s love, then we aren’t saved.

So how do we combat fear? We read our Bibles daily and memorize Scripture so that when we are afraid, we can quote our Scripture. When we pray, we specifically pray about fear and, dare I say, cast out the spirit of fear. For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

LORD God, please strengthen my faith as I read Your Word. Strengthen me in Your love that I might better know who You are. Rebuke the spirit of fear on my behalf in the name of Jesus and set up an impenetrable hedge of protection around me as You once did for Job. Fill my spirit with Your love, power, and sound discernment as You intended me to be. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Praise His Name

¹ Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heavens!²Praise Him for His mighty deeds; praise Him according to His excellent greatness! ³Praise Him with trumpet sound; praise Him with lute and harp! ⁴Praise Him with tambourine and dance; praise Him with strings and pipe! ⁵Praise Him with sounding cymbals; praise Him with loud clashing cymbals! ⁶Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! ~ Psalms 150

There may be people that tell you that you have to praise the LORD one way, but there is more than one way to praise the LORD. When we use our talents to the glory of the LORD, then we are praising Him with our talents. There’re also people that say that you can only praise God in Church, but we can praise God anywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I believe all believers should go to Church and praise God, but that’s not the only place we can praise God. When we’re at home, we should take time, daily, to praise God. When we take the time to show people the love of God every time we meet someone, we are praising God. Praising God is simply giving Him glory and praise.

So, as you go through your day, remember to do everything to the glory of God. Remember to constantly give Him praise, for He is more than worthy of our praise.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Praise His Name.

Even though the people of Israel grumbled before the LORD, accused Him of evil, and even created and worshipped new gods, the LORD still did everything for their good. Today we’re the same.

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Put Your Faith Into Action

²⁵Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ~ Matthew 6:25-26

When we read that we shouldn’t be anxious about anything because God will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory, we think that means that God will just pour out blessing after blessing on us without us having to do anything, but that’s not how it works. I read a quote once that said, ‘God feeds the birds, but He doesn’t throw the worms into the nest.’ James puts it this way, ‘So also faith by itself if it does not have works, is dead’ (James 2:17).

We often think that all we have to do is have faith, and everything will work out. All we have to do is pray, and God will supply everything we need. All we have to do is believe, and God will save us, but that’s not what God promised us. God promised that if we have faith and speak to the mountain, it will move. We can’t live by faith alone. We have to put that faith into action and do something. You have a dream? Work for it with faith and prayer as your foundation. You have a lost loved one? Show them the love of God as you pray in faith that they will be saved. You have bills to pay? Search for jobs as you pray with faith that you will find a job.

Don’t allow obstacles that the enemy has placed before you to keep you from receiving your answered prayers. It took Daniel 21 days to receive an answered prayer. It took Abraham 25 years to receive his promise. Hold on to your faith, and keep fighting for your answered prayers and promises.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Put Your Faith Into Action.

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With All Your Heart

⁵Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. ⁶Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take. ~ Proverbs 3:5-6

Sometimes it’s hard to have the faith needed to trust God instead of ourselves. We’ve never gotten to physically walk and talk with Jesus. We see little to no miracles. All we have is the faith that the Bible really is the Word of God. The only way we can strengthen our faith is to read our Bible, so that God can reveal Himself to us through His Word.

So, how can we be sure that God’s understanding is better than ours? Proverbs says that God established the Heavens and the Earth by His wisdom and understanding. How many of us can even understand how big the Heavens are, much less create something out of nothing from our own understanding. This is why the Scripture says that man’s wisdom cannot even compare to the ‘foolishness’ of God.

This is the reason we can’t depend on our own understanding. Our own understanding comes from or is influenced by sources other than God, such as secular education, biased news, anti-Christ sources, etc. We can’t trust our own understanding, nor can we trust the understanding of others. We’re all equally flawed full of the lack of understanding and wisdom, but when we depend on the understanding and wisdom of God, He directs our paths and guides us in all we do.

LORD God, help me to have the faith to trust You above myself. Help me to seek Your understanding instead of my own. Teach me to weed out the lies of the enemy and harvest the Truth of Your Word that I might know who You are and that my faith might grow stronger in You. Guide me in all that I do and lead me into paths of righteousness for Your sake. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Cry Out

³⁷As He was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of His disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, ³⁸saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” ³⁹And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” ⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” ⁴¹And when He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it, ~ Luke 19:37-41

Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem when His disciples began to praise and rejoice because of Him. They weren’t just praising God for a good teacher; they were praising Him for their Messiah. This angered the Pharisees, and they wanted Jesus to rebuke them for praising God for Him. They wanted to silence the disciples, and nothing has changed to this day.

When we praise Jesus, we’re told to be silent. We’re told the Church isn’t essential. We’re told to keep our beliefs to ourselves. But how can we not speak of what we have seen and heard? And how can we not praise the Savior of the whole world? Jesus was, is, and always will be so much more than a good teacher. Jesus is so great that if we are silent and refuse to praise Him, the very rocks would cry out. Why? Because Jesus is God, and God is more than worthy of praise.

Jesus is coming back very soon. The signs of the times are appearing everywhere. Are you ready for His return? Are you praising Him as He deserves? Or will you remain silent and allow the rocks to praise Him?

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Cry Out Before The Rocks Do.

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Praise in Every Circumstance

¹⁸While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, ¹⁹and 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.” ²⁰Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. ²¹And 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.” ²²In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. ~ Job 1:18-22

Job lost all of his children in one single day. He could have easily looked up to Heaven and cursed God, but he didn’t. What would you have done? Most of us would have gotten angry at God. We would’ve blamed Him. It’s easy to blame God for every problem in our lives, especially the big life-changing ones, but it’s hard to praise and thank Him for the good in our lives during those times.

Job is a great role model for those who love God. When you love God, you know His love, and you understand that the horrible things in your life aren’t from God. When we blame God for all of our problems, we take our focus off of fighting our true enemy, the Devil. God isn’t our enemy. We have to remember that if God is good, that means He is good in every circumstance regardless of how we feel. And if He is good, He is worthy of our praise in every circumstance regardless of how we feel. Because when we praise God in the bad, He sees our heart’s desire for Him, and He draws nearer to us to comfort us and get us through all trials and tribulations that might come our way.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Praise in Every Circumstance.

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Awaken To The Filth

¹ Sin whispers to the wicked, deep within their hearts. They have no fear of God at all. ² In their blind conceit, they cannot see how wicked they really are. ~ Psalms 36:1-2^NLT

The book of Proverbs says that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. Sometimes we overlook this because we think it’s the beginning of understanding the deep things of God. But in reality, it’s the beginning of the knowledge of right and wrong.

See, when we have no fear of God, we have no knowledge of what God considers to be right and wrong. We have a tainted view of Him. We become wicked, and we don’t even realize it. We may even think that we’re saved and that we’re fine, even though we’re living in complete and utter filth.

We become like pigs. Pigs don’t realize that they stink, or that they smell, or that they’re rolling around in filth. They have no knowledge of this. That’s how we become when we don’t fear the LORD. Why? Because the fear of the LORD is to respect the LORD. You learn His likes and dislikes. You learn what pleases Him and what hurts Him. It’s to love the LORD with everything in you.

So, awaken from your filth. Don’t be as a mindless pig enjoying the muck. Return to the LORD. Run home to Him, and He will clean you off. He will redeem you, and you will be His, and He will be yours.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Awaken To The Filth.

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Be Ready

²² The people gave him a great ovation, shouting, “It’s the voice of a god, not of a man!” ²³ Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness, because he accepted the people’s worship instead of giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died. ~ Acts 12:22-23 ^NLT

John writes in his letters about different sins. In fact, he even writes that there are sins that lead to death, and there are sins that don’t. He goes on to clarify that all wrongdoing is sin, but not all sin leads to death. In today’s society, it’s easy to get confused about what sins lead to death and what sins don’t. It gets even more confusing because we don’t want to even label sin anymore. In the Church today, we’re no different. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that even though we are great men and women of God, we still have strongholds in our lives that need to be broken. The main one is pride.

Pride is always knocking at the doors of us who receive revelations, prophecies, words from God, etc. Those of us who work in the supernatural can fall easily to this stronghold. Even the great apostle Paul prayed three times for the removal of a thorn in his side that was given to him to keep him from becoming prideful because of the exceedingly great revelations God had given him. But God refused, saying, “My grace is sufficient for you.” Paul acknowledged that he had strongholds in his life that he couldn’t overcome without God. In our world today, that’s hard to do. It’s hard to be a leader of a church or a spiritual leader in your community or home and acknowledge to yourself or even to others that you have strongholds in your life that need to be broken.

Christians are expected to be perfect, especially if they are in a role of authority or influence. While we should always aim for perfection and never settle for less, we should always remember that until we have received our imperishable body, we’re still just a man. We still sin. Because the moment that we forget that, that is the moment we fall prey to spiritual slumber that numbs us to the sins that we commit. That numbness can cause spiritual death. Don’t let pride or any other sin lull you to sleep. Stay awake. Our Savior will soon return.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Ready.

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Repent, Learn, and Help

⁸ And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. ⁹ I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.” ~ Genesis 43:8-9^ESV

Sometimes it feels like we’ll never be able to make up for the wrong that we’ve done, but God always makes a way for us. Reuben (the eldest) was the firstborn and the first to offer to take Benjamin (the youngest) to Egypt under his watch, but Jacob (their father) told him no. It wasn’t until Judah promised to watch him that Jacob agreed to allow Benjamin to go to Egypt so that they could buy grain. Why is that so significant?

It was Judah’s idea to sell Joseph into slavery. If Judah had never come up with the idea to sell Joseph, then they probably would’ve just left him in the pit, and Reuben would’ve been able to save him and bring him back to their father. Judah’s hatred for his brother was his downfall, but it wasn’t his destruction. We all make mistakes. All of us have regrets, but if we repent and can learn from them and grow, God will give us a way to redeem ourselves. Whether it’s helping someone going through the same thing or in another way, God always gives us the opportunity.

Judah not only was able to take Benjamin safely to Egypt, but when Joseph tested him, unknowingly, he was willing to take Benjamin’s place and punishment. He had learned from his past actions and had overcome that root of rejection and envy that had a hold on him. That caused him to betray his baby brother and his father.

Think about a regret you have in your life, dig until you find the root, and then set it before the LORD. He already paid your debt; He’s just waiting for you to come to Him with your burden. Then once you have repented and have given Him your burden, learn and help someone else.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Repent, Learn, and Help.

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