Daily Bread Archives

July 12, 2023July 12, 2023

Answer His Call

²⁶ Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷ When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met Him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before Him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” ~ Luke 8:26-28

When wolves are separated from their pack, they howl out in pain. They howl because they’re separated from their family and loved ones. This is like us.

Our soul howls for God when we’re away from Him. We’re depressed, angry, broken, diseased, and in pain. Our soul is howling out in pain because it’s separated from God, just like that wolf.

The man with Legion was fully demonized and couldn’t even speak, but yet when he saw Jesus, He ran to Him and fell at His feet. His soul was howling for freedom.

Our soul cries out for God and gives us each day as a new opportunity to run to Him and throw ourselves down at His feet as the man with Legion did. And as our soul cries out, God calls back to our soul. He knocks on the door of our heart day and night.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Answer His Call.

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Build Up Your Spirit Man

⁸Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. ~ 1 Peter 5:8

Have you ever played any type of Mario game? Ever noticed the little boos, the circular ghosts…? Ever noticed when they attack? The only time they will approach you is when your back is turned to them, making your character unaware of their presence. As soon as your character turns around, they will back away, slowly fading so you no longer see them. This is the same way the enemy works.

You will never be attacked while you’re on guard, ready for him to come your way. Instead, he will only come when your guard is down; when you’re unknowing; when you’re confused; when you’re preoccupied with other things; when you’re weak.

Matthew 4 speaks of Jesus being tempted. Remember when He was tempted? It wasn’t right after praying. It wasn’t when He felt strong, powerful, and filled with the Holy Spirit. It was after fasting for forty days and forty nights. He was hungry. He was tired. He was weary.

Have you ever gone all day without eating and then felt so weak you couldn’t walk, talk, think, or focus, and you’re all confused…? Imagine not eating for forty days and forty nights. That was Jesus. But Jesus relied on His spirit man who was well-seasoned and prepared for defense.

We are each Mario in this scenario, and our spirit man is the player controlling Mario. The spirit man can see the enemy attacking, but we can’t. If we build our spirit man up, as Jesus had done through prayer, worship, reading and studying the Scriptures, and fasting, then our spirit man will be able to guide us through our attack.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Build Up Your Spirit Man.

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Meditate

⁸ This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. ~ Joshua 1:8

You know, when it comes to meditation and Christians, there are really only two main groups. The Christians that look at meditation as pure Satanism and want nothing to do with it. Then there are those Christians that just embrace anything that is the new popular. The everything goes Christian. I think that they’re both, in a way, wrong. I think that every Christian should embrace and focus on meditation. But only Christian meditation. What do I mean?

I’m not talking about yoga or any other Eastern meditation. I’m talking about Christian Meditation. This is very important for a person to grow as a Christian. Why? Because the Bible tells us so. If we have to meditate, but only Christian meditation, how do we do that? Three words.

Worship. Seek. Listen.

First, you worship. How do you worship? Well, worship can be defined as a few different things. According to Reverend Kenny and Celia Yates, worship is:

Acknowledgment and exaltation of who God truly is.

¹Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship.

Romans 12:1

In other words, you have to bring forth a sacrifice. Back in the day, the Israelites had to kill a lamb, a goat, a cow, etc. But now you sacrifice yourself. Not your literal physical self, you’re your spiritual self.

You set a specific time for God and stick to it no matter if there is a new episode of your favorite show on TV, or you just don’t feel like it, or you’re too busy, etc. It’s about shutting out the world and focusing on God. Once you set a time and you’re about to start your quiet time, try playing worship music so that you can get your mind prepared.

This a time when you invite the Holy Spirit into your home. This is the time of humbling yourself in the astounding presence of God and truly acknowledging Him as the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent Jehovah-Yasha (LORD my Savior). So your worship can be seen kinda like opening a door to go somewhere. When you start worshipping and singing and praising God, that’s opening the door, but you still gotta walk through the door.

This is where seeking comes into play. You cry out to Him. You pray. You SEEK after Him. A lot of times, as Christians, we wonder why stuff happened the way it did and why we didn’t get this or why this happened. It’s because, for the most part, we didn’t put it in His hands.

² You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.

James 4:2

If we just put our desires before the LORD with good intentions, we’ll receive what we have asked for. So now we’ve reached our destination. We’ve walked to the door. We’ve knocked on the door. Now, all that’s left is to wait for someone to open the door. This is where we listen.

Sometimes, we forget to listen. Listening is more than just sitting there and waiting to hear the audible voice of God. Because for the most part not saying He wouldn’t, but for the most part, He speaks to us through His word. So you read your Bible, and when you read, really think about what the verse is saying. If you focus and pay attention to the words instead of what you’ll be doing after this, you’ll hear from Him. I’ll leave you with this,

⁷ Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 7:7-8

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Meditate.

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Battling Sin

¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, ²⁰idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, ²¹envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. ²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ²⁴And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ~ Galatians 5:19-24

Many of us have the desire to know how to battle sin so that we can begin to dive into spiritual warfare, but we don’t want to lay the foundation in order to be successful. Before we can battle sin, we have to make the conscious decision to carry our cross and follow Jesus regardless of what the world says or does to us.

If we decide to follow Jesus, we must understand the difference between right and wrong. They’re broken up into the desires of the Spirit & the desires of the flesh. Galatians 5 explains that we have both flesh and Spirit. The Spirit is our desire for God. The flesh is our desire to sin. But over the years, the majority of us have built up our flesh and starved our Spirit.

This is why when we become convicted of our sins, it’s so hard to break free. We have this idea in our heads that once we accept Jesus, all desires of the flesh will be gone, but that’s not the way it works. We have to go through trial after trial, battle after battle, until we have finally crucified our flesh.

After we make that decision to follow Jesus and carry our cross regardless of our situation, circumstance, surroundings, etc., we have to do an honest self-evaluation. But because we’re human, we’re going to overlook certain things about ourselves. So, what are we to do? Pray and ask God to search us. To show us anything that is in us that we need to change. Anything in us that we need to remove. When God shows us something, then we go into battle and take each fleshly desire down one desire at a time.

We fast. We pray. We read our Bibles and memorize verses that build us up and defend us against temptation. Then we make sure we don’t give the Devil a foothold into our lives. We stop going to places, hanging out with people, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, etc., which caused us to sin in the past. We change our lifestyle to match the commands of Christ Jesus.

This is a lot easier said than done, and it’s not going to happen overnight. But if we continue, we are promised that we will overcome sin because Jesus has already overcome the world. We can’t just pray and expect God to do all of the work; we have to meet Him halfway. We have to do something. We have to fight.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Battle Sin.

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Think of Others

³⁶For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen. ~ Romans 11:36

All things were created by Him and for Him. Jesus is the Creator, and it was for His glory that He created everything. So, don’t get caught up in this neo-pagan idea of we are little gods and everything revolves around us. God said He will not share His glory. When interpreted correctly, that means: We, God’s creation, are not partakers in the glory that belongs to Him alone.

So, we are to value others above ourselves in all humility. That means we are to stop looking out for number one. Stop investing in our own best interests only. Why? Because we become selfish. If we aren’t the ones benefiting, we don’t want to do it. “Let me pray about it” becomes our freedom chant. It becomes our words of wisdom, Proverbs 32:1 “Leteth thou me, prayest about it.”

Each one of us is to take our eyes off of our own interests and place them on the interest of others. If the Church of Jesus Christ would only do that, we would not have all the division in our churches. But the problem, at least it seems to me, is that we believe that it’s our life and we have a right to feel this way or think this way. We have a right to look out for our own best interests because, after all, nobody else will.

But think of it this way. If Jesus bought and paid for you with His own blood on the Cross of Calvary, then you belong to Him, and you are no longer your own. And if this is the case, and we believe it to be, then do you not think that Jesus knows how to look out for the best interest and will look out for the best interest of what belongs to Him?

He does not need help taking care of what belongs to Him. Therefore, if this is the case, and your life is indeed not your own, then it is not about you. If you are going to grow in the LORD, you must understand that it is no longer you that lives, but Christ who lives in you, as the Scriptures teach us.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Think of Others.

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Convict Me LORD

⁴³ Why can’t you understand what I am saying? It’s because you can’t even hear me! ~ John 8:43 NLT

Jesus sounds befuddled, if not frustrated. I can imagine Jesus throwing His hands up into the air and sighing deeply, “Why can’t you understand what I am saying?”

Jesus was trying to explain the way to eternal life. Jesus is the only way to eternal life. He is explaining deep, spiritual things to them and was amazed that although they heard the words, they could not, or would not comprehend them. Jesus soon realized that it was because of the hardness of their hearts, which were blinded by sin.

Sometimes it’s the same with us. We read the Bible, and the Holy Spirit will try to get our attention on something that we just read, but we’re too preoccupied with reading and getting it over and done with that He can’t penetrate our focused attention. Or we sit through a sermon that is aimed directly at us, but we look to the left and the right, and we point our finger. And Jesus replies, “Why can’t you hear what I’m saying to you through the preacher? You’re not even listening to my Spirit. You’re not even feeling the conviction.”

We have to be vigilant and pay attention to what the Spirit is saying. It’s not always the person next to us but the person looking back at us from the mirror.

Heavenly Father, it is not my brother or my sister, but it is I who is standing in need of prayer. Help me to feel conviction and be ready to change so that I can be a better servant, LORD Jesus, for it’s in Your name I pray, amen.

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Dwelling in The Shadow of The Almighty

¹ He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. ~ Psalms 91:1

The word dwell means: To make one’s home; reside; live. And the word shelter means: Something that covers or protects; protection, or place affording protection, as from the elements or danger. Then lastly, the word abide means: to stand fast; remain; go on being.

Therefore, what this Scripture is saying is that the one who makes his or her home in the covering protection of The Most High will stand fast and remain in the shadow of the Almighty. Now this phrase to abide in the shadow of someone is an undesirable place to be. Why?

Because if you “live in someone’s shadow,” you will feel hidden, cut off from your own substance. You will feel as if nobody notices you and like you can never measure up. Well, when you’re talking about mere people, it is an undesirable place to be, but with God, it is the only place to be. For no one can pluck you out of His hands. No one can harm you, and no enemy can attack you when you are dwelling in the shadow of the Almighty.

There is no place you would rather be but in the great protection of the Almighty. But in order to live constantly in His protection you must first dwell in His shelter by being obedient to His word and to His commands. So, do not let the devil fool you into thinking or believing that the shadow of the Almighty is a belittling place to be. Like a place to avoid at all costs. Because every Christian, indeed, every soul on earth, should be straining toward that goal. That is our primary goal while here on this earth.

Father, please help me to dwell in Your shelter so that I can live in Your place of protection, so that old Satan cannot touch me or harm me without Your permission. Thank You for giving me the opportunity to live in Your presence. I love You, LORD. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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We Are Called To Freedom

¹³ For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. ~ Galatians 5:13^NASB1995

We were all called to freedom in Christ. Meaning we are no longer bound by the chains of sin. Because Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price for us when He hung on the tree in order to pay our debts. But did you know He also wants us to be physically free also?

Your physical freedom is also important to Jesus. That is quite evident when we consider the amount of moral freedom He has placed at our disposal. But just as there are those who sneak into the Church to spy on our spiritual freedom, there are those who secretly hate our physical freedom, and their desire is to place chains of tyranny on each one of us.

Freedom is never free. Someone, or someones, has to pay the price for it. Jesus was the only One that was able to pay the price for our sins and break the chains of sin and death and offer us life and spiritual freedom. Our founding fathers and their families, for the love of the country, paid the ultimate price to give us physical freedom through the providence of Almighty God. And it is the brave men and women who, because of that same love, have fought, and many of them have given their lives to keep it.

Now it’s up to us to continue in that God-given love for God and country to continue to protect what cost others so much to give us and protect for us. Because once it’s gone, it’s gone. Three saying is true, “You don’t know what you got until it’s gone.”

Don’t let that be the lament of you and your children. Fight to keep what you have. Be vigilant. Be prayerful. And watch. Love God and love country. God bless you, and God bless America!

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Pray Freedom Will Ring

¹⁷ For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ~ 2 Corinthians 3:17^NLT

Today is Independence Day, a day when we come together as a nation of patriots to celebrate our freedom. Freedom that was purchased for us by men who gave everything up for the better good of all the people. Today is the day that we should truly be patriots of this beautiful country.

We Christians should be the biggest patriots of all. Why? Many reasons. The prophets have prophesied that tribulation is coming. Never has tribulation come on a people that didn’t bring it on themselves. When Sennacherib came against Israel, it was because of their idolatry. When Nebuchadnezzar came against Judah, it was because of their idolatry. When the love of many grows cold, the beginning of the end will come upon us as well.

Today, the Church is weak. It has no spiritual discernment nor power, or authority. It’s lukewarm and filled with sin. I heard a quote once that said, “Our actions define who we are; what we love will define who we become.” Our actions are no longer focused on God. Our love is no longer for the things of God. A time of great Tribulation is coming upon the Church, and we don’t even believe that we will go through it because God loves us too much to allow us to go through any hardship, yet every prophet was murdered. The early Church was persecuted and executed. The underground Church today is persecuted and executed. The great Apostle Paul warns us that Jesus will not return for His people until the Great Tribulation has come and the Man of Lawlessness is revealed. Jesus Himself told us that He would not return until the end of the Great Tribulation. This tribulation is coming, not because of God’s wrath, but because of the Church refusing to stand for righteousness.

We currently have freedom. The majority of us were born and raised in a country that was built on Christian values, so we take the freedoms that come with that for granted. It’s difficult for us to imagine a world where we can’t pray in public before we eat, can’t go to church on Sundays, can’t read our Bibles, can’t talk about Jesus in public without the fear of being arrested and sentenced to death. But a time is coming when there won’t be freedom anymore. When freedom will no longer ring. When freedom will no longer be something we can take for granted because it will be taken from us.

A patriot is one who loves his or her country. A Christian patriot is one who loves his or her country by praying for his or her country. One who doesn’t take those freedoms for granted. Those freedoms were purchased for us by someone else. We pray for the leadership so that it might go well with us. We pray that Godly men and women will stand up and make a change in government. Light can’t come from darkness. Light can only come from the Light of the World. Therefore, pray that Christian Patriots would come forth to make a change in our society and that the LORD might intervene on our behalf and push back that quickly coming flood of Tribulation.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Pray Freedom Will Ring.

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Seek The Truth of God

21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. 22 As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. ~ Romans 1:21-22 NLT

Sometimes, as humans, we forget our role in the world. We forget who we are. We aren’t the Creator; we’re the creation. What does that mean? We don’t get a say in who the Creator is. Why? Because we didn’t create Him. He created us.

Oftentimes, we get so caught up in our own ideas and biases that we miss the Truth that’s staring us in the face. It’s not our truth that sets us free. It’s not society’s Truth that sets us free. It’s The Truth that sets us free. What is The Truth? Jesus. And Jesus does not change. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If He doesn’t change, then neither will The Truth or The Word.

Therefore, seek the LORD with all your heart and humble yourself before Him that He might show you who He is. When you truly learn who God is, that’s when you truly learn who you are.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Seek The Truth of God.

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