Tag: Devotionals

Posted on

Have The Faith of The Centurion

5 When He had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to Him, appealing to Him, 6 “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” 7 And He said to him, “I will come and heal him.” 8 But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” ~ Matthew 8:5-8

Look at the faith the centurion had. And he wasn’t even a Jew. He wasn’t even a follower of Jesus. Yet he put his hope completely in Jesus. His servant was sick. He heard all about Jesus and His mighty acts of healing. So, he himself went to see Jesus. He didn’t send someone else. Many Christians won’t pray for themselves, and others won’t even pray at all. They would rather someone else to labor in prayer on their behalf.

Now, I want to be clear. I’m not in no way discounting asking for prayer. Please, pray for me. If you can do anything, please remember me in your prayers that the LORD will open up doors and opportunities for us. That the LORD will always lead us in all things. But that doesn’t release me from the necessary task of praying myself. Jesus prayed for Himself. Paul prayed for himself. Both changed the entire world.

We have to be like them if we want to see a change in our lives. We have to be like the centurion who didn’t rely on someone else to do what he knew he ought to do if we want our loved ones healed or saved. We have to take it upon ourselves, just as that centurion did, if we want to see miracles, changes, and answered prayers in our lives. He wanted his servant healed, and he believed, and he knew Jesus could do it, so he himself went to ask.

  • Your children aren’t serving the LORD?
    • Ask Jesus
  • Are your children in unhealthy relationships?
    • Take it to the LORD in prayer
  • Someone you love or know is sick?
    • Pray the prayer of faith
  • Are you called to do something? And you sure it is the LORD and not the enemy distracting you?
    • Ask for confirmation from the LORD.
      • Remember, not every opportunity is of God.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Have The Faith of The Centurion.

Back to Faith?

Back to Daily Bread?

Similar Content

Like and Share This:
Posted on

Believe With Everything In You

27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? ~ Matthew 6:27

6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ~ Philippians 4:6-7

Oftentimes, the Church falls for the lies of the enemy. How? This is what we say, “Well, I did everything I know to do. I guess the only thing I can do now is to pray.” Prayer, or seeking Jesus, is not our last resort. It is not the thing we can do after all else fails. No! Prayer is what we do first. Our attitude should be:

Let me take it to the LORD in prayer, first.

But instead, we wrestle with things that we could give over to the LORD. We stay awake all night worrying about things that we can’t control and things that will never happen. There are studies that show that anywhere between 85-91 percent of what we worry about never comes to pass. I even saw a post where it basically said something like, “Worrying works because 90% of what we worry about never happens.” This is one of the biggest lies of the enemy.

Worrying is counterproductive, not only from a physical standpoint but a spiritual one. Because when we worry and refuse to go to God, we are calling Him a liar. We’re saying that He won’t protect us. He won’t rescue us even if He’s promised that He will. Even if He’s never failed before. Why do we do this? Because we know that God can do all things, but we don’t fully believe it. We don’t believe it in our hearts, only in our minds.

In order for faith to overcome fear, we must believe the Scripture with all that is in us, even if it doesn’t happen overnight. Even if it takes constant prayer. Even if it takes reciting the same verses over and over again until we believe it with all that is in us.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Believe With Everything In You.

Back to Fear?

Back to Daily Bread?

Similar Content

Like and Share This:
Posted on

Be Thankful For The Scars

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ Romans 6:20-25

We all have a past. Some of us have a past that we feel is worse than others’ pasts. In fact, many of us don’t like to even think about the past that we have been redeemed from because of shame and guilt, but what if remembering the past isn’t always a bad thing? When we accept our Salvation, and we begin to follow Christ, we are washed clean by the Blood of The Lamb. We, in that moment, are no longer slaves to sin, but now we are given the opportunity to overcome that sin that once kept us in bondage, and we can overcome it through Christ. When we remember all that Christ saved us from, our love for Him grows. Our desire to grow closer to Him grows. It’s only when we forget all that God has done for us and begin to take it for granted that we fall into our old ways and choose our past over our future.

There’s a song by I AM THEY called Scars. The premise of the song is that they are thankful for the scars that they have because, without those scars, they wouldn’t know the love of God. If they didn’t have those scars. In other words, if we didn’t have scars, we would not only have the memory of what God has done for us but we also wouldn’t have been saved. We’re human, so we’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to sin.

Sin causes cuts and wounds upon our souls and our spirits. Some of us have been broken and shattered because of the poor decisions we’ve made. So, when God picks up that broken vessel, He reworks it into a new creation. You can see that it’s gone through hard times and, at one point in time, was chipped and shattered, but the new creation it is is more beautiful than ever. We shouldn’t dwell on our past and let guilt or shame overcome us, but we also shouldn’t try to forget it. We have to remember where we have been so that we might know where we are going. We were once slaves to sin, and now we are free in Christ Jesus. A new, completely different creation that is beautifully remolded and sowed back together by God Himself. Why would we want to forget that?

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Thankful For The Scars.

Back to Thankful?

Back to Daily Bread?

Similar Content

Like and Share This:
Posted on

Never Forget Whom You Serve

28 And Peter answered Him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” 31 Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” ~ Matthew 14:28-33

Sometimes we are in that same boat. Life’s fierce winds are howling all around us, blowing over 100 miles an hour. The waves of the cares of this world are crashing against our ship and breaking over the bow, threatening to sink our ship. The lightning is flashing across the night sky as the deafening thunder crashes all around us. The ship is filling up with water faster than we can bail.

  • Of course, we are saved
  • Of course, we are serving Jesus
  • Of course, we know He is our all sufficiency
  • Of course, we depend on Him
  • Of course, we know He is all powerful
  • Of course, we know He can do all things
  • We know the Scriptures we can quote
  • We have the head-faith
  • What we don’t have is the faith of a mustard seed
  • We must get it from our heads and into our hearts
  • We can confess it with our mouths, but until we confess in our hearts, there is no true faith

The thing is, when life’s storms begin to rage, our boat threatens to sink, and there is no land in sight. It is not that easy to put down the bailing pan and cast our cares and worries and fears on Jesus.

It’s just not that easy.

In times like that, we forget that He is all-sufficient. We forget that He is Almighty God. Why? Because we are looking with our natural eyes. So, we have a need to control the situation ourselves instead of casting our cares and burdens on Him because He cares for us. In other words, we have to stop looking with our natural eyes and start looking with our spiritual eyes. Sometimes it needs prayer in order to open our spiritual eyes, just as Elisha had to pray for his servant. Sometimes it just takes a change of focus through reciting Scripture. Either way, we must focus on God, for the waves cannot overtake us as long as our focus is on Him because what we focus on is whom we have our faith in.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Never Forget Whom You Serve.

Back to Faith?

Back to Daily Bread?

Similar Content

Like and Share This:
Posted on

Go To The Elders

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. ~ James 5:13-15

James tells us that if we are suffering, being oppressed, then we should pray that we might be freed from this suffering. But when it comes to being sick, James tells us that we need something a little more. Why? When the disciples couldn’t cast out a specific type of evil spirit causing an illness in a boy, Jesus basically told them that they were too childlike in the faith. Not that they had childlike faith, but that they were children in the faith. They weren’t mature Christians. They were children, not elders. Their faith and relationship with God weren’t where they needed to be to have the authority and power to heal this boy.

Many of us miss out on our healing because we aren’t elders in the faith. It’s not about the length of years you’ve served Christ but what you’ve done in those years of serving Him. The disciples of Christ were serving Him the longest; nevertheless, Paul (who persecuted them and other Christians) was the greatest apostle who ever lived, doing things and understanding things that they didn’t. Though their relationship with God was longer than Paul’s relationship with God, Paul had to correct some of them as well as some of their followers. So, I said all of this that you might understand that just because by Jesus’ stripes we have been healed unless we or the person anointing us and praying for us is an elder in the faith-filled with power and Truth, we just might miss out on our healing.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Go To The Elders.

Back to Growth?

Back to Daily Bread?

Similar Content

Like and Share This:
Posted on

Be Filled with Grace and Power

8 And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. 9 Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. 10 But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. 11 Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” 12 And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, 13 and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, 14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” 15 And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. ~ Acts 6:8-15

Stephen is recorded in the Bible as the first martyr. He was stoned to death because those around him who refused to accept the Truth could not disprove the Truth he spoke. Stephen wasn’t stoned for the good things he did. He wasn’t even stoned for the signs and wonders he did. He was stoned because of Jesus. Stephen set aside himself, and with great power and authority, he followed in the footsteps of Christ. He made a difference wherever he went to the point that the heads of the synagogues came to disprove all that he said, but because Stephen was a Spirit-filled man of God, they couldn’t. This is what angered them the most. This is what they arrested him for because they couldn’t dispute the Truth.

The Word of God is Truth. It is irrefutable. There is no flaw or contradiction in it because it was breathed out by God-Himself. God authored the entire Bible through the men He used to write the words down. Because of this, we can stand in confidence when we read our Bible. Some will say many are leaving the Church right now because of the flaws in the Bible. This isn’t a flaw in the Bible; this is a flaw in the Church. The Church today is no longer full of grace and power as the early Church was 2,000 years ago. We can no longer defend our own beliefs as Stephen could because we no longer read our Bibles through unbiased eyes seeking the Truth. We no longer fast, pray, and worship as the early Church did. They were Spirit-filled Christians who didn’t just say they were Christians, but they had the power of Christ dwelling in them that manifested in their speech and their actions.

Even though it’s our natural response to being questioned, don’t lean on your own understanding. Listen for the Spirit, and He will give you the words to speak. He will show you what you don’t yet know or understand. Seek God as the early Church did. Study the Scripture as the early Church did. Allow God to use you as the early Church did. If you do these things, when you are confronted, you will be able to defend your faith as Stephen, and the rest of the greats of the early Church did.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Filled with Grace and Power.

Back to Growth?

Back to Daily Bread?

Similar Content

Like and Share This:
Posted on

Help Another Human

41 Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. 42 For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. 43 I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ 44 Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’ 45 And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’ 46 And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.” ~ Matthew 25:41-46

So many of us have become centered around our own needs and our own goals in life. It’s easy to do this in our fast passed society. Unless we focus on our dreams, we won’t ever achieve them, but what if we’re meant for more? The early Church understood something that we struggle with in the Church today. We struggle with having a Kingdom mindset because we’ve grown up in a self-centered world. We’ve been taught evolution and natural selection from elementary school that tries to convince us that only the strong will survive and the weak will perish alone, so don’t help them. We have to allow the natural order of things to take place. The problem with this is that we are blinded by the self-destruction argument of natural selection and evolution. Unless we help each other, then the human race will cease to exist.

No person can succeed on their own; someone had to help them get to where they are today. Why? Because humans aren’t perfect. We make mistakes, we fail, we fall down, and unless we have someone to help us get back up again, then we will remain there. Humanity is a single race of people that are connected to each other by the same flaw that makes us human in the first place. Unless we help each other, we cannot survive. In fact, if Jesus had never taken the form of man and died on the cross for us, then we wouldn’t even have salvation. Jesus got off of His throne to not just help us but to literally do it for us, for we could never pay our own debt. So, why can we not help another human in need? Show the love that Christ has first shown you.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Help Another Human.

Back to Growth?

Back to Daily Bread?

Similar Content

Like and Share This:
Posted on

Be Renewed

12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. ~ 1 Corinthians 10:12–13

Recognizing your weaknesses is the first step to overcoming any sin. The second is to flee temptation. Once you recognize your weaknesses and shortcomings, then you must flee whenever you are confronted with them. Don’t be like your old self and flirt with temptation but flee the other way. You are a new creation in Christ Jesus. The old has passed away, and the new has come.

You can’t outsmart your enemy; he has been around for centuries. Do not think you are stronger than temptation or that you can depend on your own strength, but rather, rely on God. He will provide a way out. Rely on the Spirit of God that dwells inside of you. The Spirit of God that leads you and guides you. Depend on Him, for He will make a way for you to escape all temptation you are faced with. You are not your old self, so don’t conform to your old ways, but be changed by the renewal of your mind.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Renewed.

Back to Cleansing?

Back to Daily Bread?

Similar Content

Like and Share This:
Posted on

Take All Three Keys

12 Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. 13 The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, 14 and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.” ~ Daniel 10:12-14

According to Gabriel, Daniel was able to break through the Territorial Spirits in the kingdom of Persia and receive the answer to his prayers because of three things. The first is to firmly set it in your heart that God will answer you. You have to have an unshakeable desire and faith that you will hear from God. That He will answer your call, and nothing and no one can stop your prayers from being answered.

The second key is to humble yourself through fasting. Fasting breaks down spiritual strongholds that we may not see with our natural eyes. It’s only through forcing your body into submission that your spirit can grow and flourish, allowing your prayers to be answered. The only way to truly achieve this is to not only fast food but also to fast the secular world. Your spirit cannot truly grow and flourish unless you are feeding it with the Word of God. Unless you are first tying up the strongman, your flesh, and putting him into submission, can you actually feed your spirit the way that it needs to thrive?

Lastly, the third key is to continue until you see your prayers answered. Just as Jacob refused to let go of God until he received his blessing, so must we refuse to stop praying until we receive our answered prayers. We have to come to God multiple times a day, every day if we want to break through these kinds of blockades. Think of it as going to court because immigration has arrested your answered prayers at a point of entry, and you are your answered prayers lawyer. You have to show up to each court appearance. You have to remind the judge (God) of all of the promises He has given about answered prayers. Remind Him of all the promises He has made you. Unless we show up to each court appearance and defend our case with all that is within us, then we will lose our case, and we will never receive our answered prayers.

Peace. Love Go Forth and Take All Three Keys.

Back to Spiritual Warfare?

Back to Daily Bread?

Similar Content

Like and Share This:
Posted on

Don’t Fake Joke

18 Just as damaging as a madman shooting a deadly weapon 19 is someone who lies to a friend and then says, “I was only joking.” ~ Proverbs 26:18-19

Joking is a big part of our society today. In fact, you can make a lot of money just by telling jokes. Making people laugh can be a lucrative business if you do it well. There are some, usually the older generation, who don’t believe in telling jokes because Proverbs warns about an idle tongue, but is that what the Proverb is saying? If joking were wrong, God would’ve instructed the author, King Solomon, to warn against joking entirely, but He doesn’t. The Scripture says that lying or deceiving a friend and then saying it was only a joke is just as dangerous or damaging as a crazy person firing a deadly weapon.

Our character is dependent on the words we say and our actions. In fact, one of the two silver bullets we have against the enemy, according to Revelation 12:11, is compiled of those two things. The word of our testimony only works if we have completed the action of accepting Christ and now have begun changing our lives as we follow Him, as well as proclaiming our testimony. Words and actions. If we deceive or lie and use ‘I was only joking’ as the excuse, then we have become like a madman firing a deadly weapon, for our lies and lack of repentance have destroyed the trust and friendship that we had. And in a sense, it has also destroyed our testimony, and without our testimony, then we have evidence of our salvation. Without the evidence of our salvation, we have no salvation. So, don’t try to cover deception and lies with fake jokes. Don’t believe the lie that you will be fine if others believe it was just a joke. Only the wicked deceive and lie. Lay this stronghold before God that He might wash you in the Blood of the Lamb that you might overcome, that you may receive a testimony to share.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Fake Joke.

Back to Strongholds?

Back to Daily Bread?

Similar Content

Like and Share This:
Proudly powered by WordPress