My Daily Bread

 When I really set my heart to study the Bible for myself, I immediately began to fall in love with the written word of God. I had been a Christian since I was 5 years old, but it wasn't till my 31st year that I decided I needed to know that Bible for myself.  Until then, most of my knowledge of scripture and doctrine was based on other people's understanding of scripture. I read my Bible, but not daily and not in depth. I read enough to ease my conscience or to get what I needed for that day, most days.  But I began to hunger to know Jesus intimately for myself, leading me to study His book to me for myself.  And I fell in love—not just with the Bible, but with Jesus!  But about 4 years into my study of the Bible, someone told me one day that the only version we should be studying was the KJV... and I was devastated.  I had grown up with the KJV and didn't even realize there were other options out there until I was 18 years old and discovered an NKJV Bible...

The single greatest lie in the world is when the serpent deceived the woman into thinking she could disobey the voice of God and continue to live. His lie was very subtle, less outright and more a twist (perversion) of words to hide the truth. In the Hebrew, the word for "surely" (muth) is the same word used for "die"(muth); so the sentence would read something like: "You shall not DIE die." Sound familiar? "It's not really a LIE lie..."  "It's not REALLY stealing to take home office supplies..." No, she didn't die instantly, which is the only death she was knew existed. But she did die that day, in more ways than one.  Because Adam followed her into disobedience to the Voice, death entered into the DNA of all mankind. From that day on, they began to die a slow physical death. Their bodies began to decay slowly over time until eventually both bodies died... and all bodies thereafter.  But the greatest death that day was the ...

A sweet friend, Shana, gifted me with this tee for my birthday last week, knowing its message has a special place in my heart.  My entire life, until 5 or 6 years ago, I could look you in the eye and confidently tell you how much God loves you... but I couldn't look in the mirror and confidently tell myself the same thing Many many times I looked out into an audience and thought, "You love them SO much!" I could *feel* His heart for them and it was beautiful and full of love. But I did not feel that deep love toward me personally. I also could not confidently tell Him that I loved Him. I felt like I loved Him in a general sense—I loved His goodness, His kindness, even His justice and rebuke—but I really struggled to sing the songs that told of my great love for Him or His great love for me. Something just felt off enough that it didn't feel true. I can't and won't lie, especially to the One who knows all my thoughts before they're even coherent! (Psalm 139...

  " For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the 'rulers of the darkness' of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12 Remember when Jesus said, "Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." (John 14:30) Jesus spoke those words to a group of men that still had unbelief in them ( verse 29 confirms that), fear (Peter is about to exhibit that by denying he knows Jesus 3 times in one night to save his skin), jealousy (who's the greatest of us all, Jesus?!), greed (looking at you, Judas)... and probably so much more. The prince of this world had places of darkness in these men that he could still rule from. Anything of the dark realm that is allowed to live in you is a place the devil can rule. Jesus, knowing that, basically said, I can't tell you any more because you're full of fear, unbelief, doubt, discou...

  Oh, the power of perspective! How many times have we quoted "The rain falls on the just and the unjust" when something bad happens? But ask a farmer how they feel about the rain... a farmer knows rain is necessary to grow crops and produce a harvest. NECESSARY. Ask a who's never grown a plant in their life the same question and they'll see less value in rain, seeing it more as an annoyance to be avoided or endured. Most likely they'll tend to prefer sunny days that don't encroach upon their own comforts or change their sunny day plans. Perspective. JOB pitifully asked: Why am I suffering for a sin I did not commit? Job's FRIENDS asked: Why else would you be suffering so much if you are so innocent? But GOD answered no one's question and instead asked one of His own: "You cannot understand or control the things you can see... why would you presume to understand or try to control things too big for you to comprehend?" Go...

I absolutely love testimonies of the power of God. They are monuments to the power of God, builders of faith, and how we keep our eyes focused on our great big God over these little bitty giants in our land. I've sat on this post for 2 weeks, till I could verify the info myself... so here goes! Here's the story of the night two weeks ago that Jesus raised a 5-year-old little boy from the DEAD. Tuesday, September 1, 2020, Clifton Potter (my evangelist brother-in-law) drove about an hour away to preach for a little church in the country. In fact, there were initially only 6 people at church that night, including the 2 that came with Clifton. Before church started, the pastor told Clifton that one of his friends, Isaac, would not be at church that night. His 5-year-old son Zachary got into the medicine and drank most of a bottle of liquid Sudafed. The paramedics had visited the home, checked the boy out, and just warned the dad to keep his eye on him for the next 24 hour...