dickbraswell

Word for Today:  December 7

Jesus breaks the shackles of dead religion.

In spite of the horror of a world without God, Religion flourished.  Religion does not need God to flourish.  Most religion is without God anyway.  It is true today and it was true 2000 years ago.

In the Inter-biblical Period, (the time between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament) the Judiastic system continued on its path of rule and regulation and legalism.

Jesus makes us free.

• Free from dead religion and man’s traditions and denominational customs.
• Free from laws and rules and regulations.
• Free from bondage to carnal deacons, elders, ungodly church leaders and unscriptural church government.

Jesus said that we would and could know the Truth (the Gospel) and the Truth would make us free.   John 8:32

The Jews in Jesus’ day lived in total subjection to:

• The Law of Moses
• The sayings of the Prophets and
• The Writings that had been handed down from generation to generation.

There were 613 separate laws, commandments, rules and regulations that every Jew was required to obey and keep.   Every day.   That is why Jesus said of the Scribes and Pharisees:

“They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born and lay them on men’s shoulders: but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers…”  Matt. 23:4

Jesus came from heaven to earth to break the shackles of dead religion.

• Religion builds walls. Jesus builds bridges.
• Religion separates. Jesus joins together.
• Religion kills.

Jesus gives Life

Word for Today:  December 6

The Heart of Scripture.

The heart of revealed Scripture is prophetic and messianic in nature.  God promised our deliverance from sin’s control and dominion in the first Book of the Bible.

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Gen. 3:15  

The moment Adam sinned, God immediately set in motion a Plan to redeem His Dream.  Here God promises to do Something to bruise the head of satan.

The “It” that will bruise satan’s head is the seed of a woman.  That Seed is Jesus.  The bruise that satan renders to the Seed of woman is the Crucifixion of Jesus.

Here in the very beginning of the written Word, God accurately prophecies that Jesus will come to earth and do something about the devil.

It will take God’s immeasurable Grace and the Obedience of His Immaculate Son…

It will take a Calvary and a Cross

Word for Today:  December 5

The Real Jesus

I have tried to notice some characteristics in His Life that probably would not be accepted in the life of any preacher in our society today.  He is not who most people think He is.  He was not what most people think He was.

• He was Radical.
• He was outspoken. He pulled no punches.  He shot straight and true.  He did not “beat around the bush.”
• He was transparent. Who you saw was Who He was.  No pretense.  No hypocrisy.  No make-believe.  No disguise.
• He was non- religious. Did not run with the ministerial crowd.
• He was fearless.   He did not mince His words.  He did right with no fear of possible consequences.
• He was an iconoclast. A Non-conformist.  He kicked over sacred cows.
• He violated traditions and He shattered customs.
• To the religious world He was a troublemaker.
• He was controversial.
• He took sides with the underdog and challenged the respected.
• He was a friend to the sinner and the profane.
• He embraced the simple and rejected the complicated. He spoke so little children could understand and confounded the wise with Wisdom and Truth.
• He was Uncompromising. Even when He could have won friends in high places and ultimately saved His own life, He refused to compromise.
• He was Anointed. And this is what drove Him to the Cross…

He is The Anointed One.  The Messiah.  The Christ.

Word for Today:  December 4

The Pre-Incarnate Christ.

The pre-incarnate Jesus is clothed in the Splendor and Glory of the Omni-powerful God.  He is shares co-equally with Him in all things.

He is Omniscient and Omnipresent as well as Omnipotent.  He is immutable.  He is not just a “babe born in a stable and wrapped in rags”… He is God.  Almighty God.  He is the Eternal LOGOS.  He is the Creative Agent of all that came into being as God Spoke:  “Let there be…!”

Jesus is the Force and the Power behind Creation.

He was in the world, and the world was made by Him… John 1:10.

Heaven is His Domain and the earth is His footstool…  By Him and through Him all things consist (hold together).

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Col 1:17

In order for us to really behold His Glory, we have to transition from our “Bible Story” concept of Jesus…  “Meek and mild…” as a “Helpless child…”  Our early concept of Jesus has, for the most part, remained unchanged.  We have greater revelation therefore we must leave the “principles” and move on into the “perfection” of our knowledge about Him.

Some see Jesus as broken and bleeding and dead… impaled on a cross… the victim of hatred and religious prejudice.  Some can only behold a Dead Jesus.  They see the Crown of Thorns and the Bleeding Side and the Beaten Back.  They are moved to pity Him and feel sorry for Him.  They have developed a concept of His Human Limitations and see Him as weak and helpless.

The Jesus of the Word is All-Powerful.

• He is Deity Personified.
• He is the Face of God.
• He is Majestic, He is Awesome,
• He is Full of Power.
• He is Originator, Creator and Sustainer.
• He is the All in All.
• He is the Great I AM.
• He is LORD OF ALL

And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.  Rev 19:16

Word for Today:  December 3

Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise…  Luke 23:43

Here a guilty criminal simply asks Jesus to:  “Remember me when You come into your kingdom…”

• He was not a “church” member.
• He had not been baptized in water.
• He had no character and no good reputation.
• He had run with the wrong crowd.
• He had broken the Law.
• He had violated decency and destroyed that which was innocent and good.
• He was guilty.
• He was worthy of death.

And justice had caught up with him.

Now… this common criminal understood and received what the Jewish Nation and organized religion was blind to comprehend.  Jesus is no respecter of persons!  He loves criminals and drunks and prostitutes and homosexuals and thieves and robbers and murderers… He is color-blind!  He is LORD OF ALL!  He is compassionate and kind and loving and forgiving.  His kingdom is open and available to “whosoever shall call on the Name Jesus…”

How odd that God would choose a murderer as the initial trophy of Divine Grace… cleansed, restored and made acceptable by the Blood of Jesus.

“Grace, Grace, Marvelous Grace…”

Word for Today:  December 2

Forgive.

Father, forgive them… they don’t really know what they are doing…  Luke 23:34

The Revelation of the Person of Jesus in this statement is a Revelation of Forgiveness.  “Forgive them…”

Can you forgive?  Have you forgiven?  Do you have anything against anybody?  Are you holding a “grudge”?  Are you not speaking with someone?  Have you “written off” a previous personal relationship?   What right do you have to harbor unforgiveness in your heart?  Have they done to you what these individuals did to Jesus?

Notice that Jesus looks beyond the outward act into the intents of the human heart… “They do not know what they are doing…”

In essence Jesus is saying “They are not responsible for what they are doing… they are being driven by a force they do not understand… it is the nature of satan in them….Father… be merciful to them… they do not realize what they are doing…”

The force driving of any unforgiveness in your heart is not God.  If it’s not God, then it is pretty obvious who it is…

Love forgives

Word for Today:  December 1

The Word declares:

Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith:  Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God…  Heb. 12:2

How could Jesus possibly have “joy” before Him in the midst of such torture and agony?  How did this “joy” give Him strength to “endure” the cross and bear the shame connected with it?

Why did He not call for “10,000 Angels” to come and loose Him and rescue Him from such pain and shame? He could have!  He willingly laid down His life… for He had declared that

…no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself…  John 10:18

Why?  How?  Because Jesus looked through His Eye of Faith and saw into the future… He saw the time when you and I would hear the Word and Believe it, Act on it, and make it a part of our living and our breathing.  He knew by His death and obedience to the Father, that He would become the Firstborn of many Brethren… that He would establish a New Race and New Breed and New Creation that would crush the head of satan and trample demon powers underfoot.

That is the reason for His Joy in the midst of His suffering, His agony and His death

Word for Today:  November 30

What really happened at Calvary?

We have read about the Crucifixion, heard sermons on the Crucifixion, studied about the Crucifixion, but in reality very few know and understand what happen on the Cross.  What we believe about the Cross will determine the depth of our Revelation of Jesus.

Justice had decreed that sinful man must pay the penalty for his transgression.  The Human Race stood guilty before God of Spiritual High Treason.  Man had turned away from God and embraced the devil.  However, the human race was impotent, helpless and incapable of meeting the demands of justice.

“I owed a debt I could not pay,

He paid a Price He did not owe,

I needed Someone just to wash my sins away,

And now I sing a brand new song:  Amazing Grace!

Christ Jesus paid the Price that I could never pay!”

And so out of the Heart of God comes the solution to the human problem.  Jesus steps forward and declares:  “Here am I, send Me…”  And so toward the Cross He goes.

Calvary is center stage for the entire human race.  What happened there is the pivotal point of all history.  Calvary is more than the death of Jesus at the hand of His enemies.  Calvary is more than the suffering and horror of such inhumanity and torture.

• Calvary involves Jesus and it involves God.
• It involves man and it involves sin.
• It involves time and it involves eternity.
• It is the place of a divine Exchange

Here, Jesus became what man is in order than man can become what Jesus is.

“God made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him…”  II Cor. 5:21

What a Deal

Word for Today:  November 29

Behold Jesus as a Perfect Man

ALL the miracles that Jesus performed while He was on earth were performed by a Human Being Full of the Holy Ghost and Power.  What He did… we can do.  What He accomplished as a Man, we can accomplish as men and women full of the Holy Ghost and living in that anointing.

He spoke to storms and they stopped.  He spit and made mud from it, put it on blind eyes and they were opened.  He confronted demon powers and they feared and trembled and begged for mercy.  He touched crippled and broken bodies and they were made whole.   He spoke healing to the sick and diseased and they were healed.  He received sinners and had mercy on the guilty.  He loved the unlovable and had compassion on the masses.  He raised the dead… cleansed lepers… resisted the devil… opened graves… interrupted funerals and restored the dead to their families…   He made wine out of water… friends out of enemies… peace out of confusion and torment… joy out of sadness and Heaven out of hell…  And then He told us that:

greater works than these shall ye do; because I go unto my Father… John 14:12.

Jesus is our Example.  Jesus is our Pattern.  Jesus is the guarantee that we can overcome the devil and take dominion over the powers of darkness.

What He did… we can do

Word for Today:  November 28

Jesus’ self-emptying.

(Jesus) Who existing in the Form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation (Kenoo) and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross…  Phil. 2:6-8

Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call His name Immanuel…  Isa. 7:13

The Kenosis of Jesus is a Foundation Truth that many have failed to grasp.  Kenosis or “self-emptying” simply declares that Jesus willingly “emptied” Himself of His God Characteristics and condescended to the stature and state of a man… a human being… born of a woman… and came to earth to live and die as part of God’s Plan to Redeem Man from Adam’s failure.

Jesus laid down and left in heaven certain characteristics and privileges He exercised as God.  He willingly emptied Himself of His God Form… His God Power… His God Knowledge… His Eternal Life.  He became subject to sickness, disease, death, failure, sin and any and all human liabilities and limitations imposed by Adam’s sin and failure.  The Scripture tells us that:

He was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin… (Heb. 4:15)

Jesus willingly and obediently subjected Himself to the possibility of sin and the possibility of failure when He put off His God Characteristics and took on Himself the form and limitations of humanity.

But He was Victor over temptation.  He was Victor over sin.  He was Victor over every human weakness.  He was Victor over all…

Even death and the grave