dickbraswell

January 15

What are you Looking at?   (not good English, but a profound truth)

Psa 119:37 ¶  Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless (empty, vain, lying)  things, And revive me in Your way (Word).   NKJV

How amazing that we seem to always look at and get deeply concerned about “worthless things.”  Things that are totally carnal, natural and temporal.  This is the stuff that worry is made of.  God spoke this verse to me while I was ministering in Ghana, West Africa a while back. The psalmist is asking God to help him turn his eyes away from the carnal, worthless and mundane things of the world and then to “revive” (awaken, renew) him in the Way (Word) of God. 

What a simple and never-failing solution!  Get your eyes off the world and Get into the Word.   Do not be “moved” by what you see but be “moved” only by the Word of God.  How often we forget this.  This is the very place we need Revival and Renewal.   “Things” get blown totally out of proportion and overshadow the Word.  Jesus warned us about this.  He said that the “cares of this world” will “choke” the Word and render it unproductive.

Mr 4:19  And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke (press around) the word, and it becometh unfruitful (worthless, barren).

Saints, we are no longer carnal.  We are Spiritual.  The natural, worldly, temporal things of our senses and reasonings MUST be overshadowed by the TRUTH of the Word.  What we see, hear, feel, taste and smell is not what drives the Spiritual Man.  It is the WORD and only the Word that matters.  Everything else is worthless.  Temporal.  Unimportant.  Seeing with the Heart is faith.  Seeing with the eye is reasoning. 

We walk by Faith (seeing with the heart) and not by sight (seeing with the head).  2Co 5:7  (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)  The only things the Eyes of the Heart will ever see are the Things of the Word.  Not the “things” of the world.  Pray with me that God will “revive” and “renew” our Trust in and Reliance on His Word.  As we do this, the “things of this earth will grow strangely dim….” 

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus…

Look full into His Wonderful Face

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His Glory and Grace…”

Word for Today:  January 13

When Joshua was at Jericho, victory did not come until the 7th Day.  (Josh 6:15).

I’m sure many would like to have the victory on the first circuit.  If it was five miles around the city, I’m sure many were ready to quit the first day.  But then there was the second. Another five miles.    And the third.  Another five miles.  The fourth.  Another five miles.  Fifth.  Another five miles.  And the sixth.  Another five miles.

How many grew weary in the process?  This has been a thirty mile ordeal.  After all, how much does God expect of me anyhow?  There must be an easier way.  I think I have a “better idea.”  Who has a “new revelation”?   And now it is the Sabbath and seven times around… that’s thirty-five more miles.  Unreasonable.

A total of sixty miles.  Utterly ridiculous.

No wonder others had a “better idea” or a “higher revelation.”

Obedience means sacrifice.  No Cross means no Crown.  No diligence yields no victory.  Many have grown weary and have tired along the way.

When victory is one day ahead and one lap away

Word for Today:  January 12

God’s heart has never changed.

His heart has always been inclined toward man.  It is now and it always has been.  Man was originally created in order that God might have a family.  God wanted companionship.  God wanted fellowship.  God wanted relationship.  God wants to love and He wants to be loved.    God wanted to have a family to love and to bless and to keep unto Himself.

This is the Heart of God.

God wants to have children that will reciprocate His love.  God is Love, God loves and God wants to be loved.  Do you realize that God made the heavens solely for the benefit of earth? Do you know that God made the earth solely for the benefit of man?  Can you believe that God created all animal life and plant life solely for the benefit of man?  Everything and all things that God created by His power, were and are created for the benefit of man.

And God made man for Himself.

All of creation is designed to sustain human life.  Scientists are now beginning to recognize that the entire universe has been created and calibrated to support and sustain human life right here on earth.   The original Plan God had is still the same.   Even though satan entered and Adam sinned and death was brought into the earth, God has Eternally Purposed for Man to be His Own.

You belong

Word for Today:  January 11

Most Believers give up too soon.

Christianity has not been weighed in the balances and found wanting, it has been TRIED and found to be too difficult and rejected.  Patience and Endurance and Persistence are necessary… Quitters never win and winners never quit.  Many are lacking right now because they got tired and discouraged and gave up.   Crybabies do not win great battles.  Wimps never take home the Gold.  Cowards quit because they lack resolve to press through.

All the Heroes of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11 did not have access to a complete Bible.  They did not have the freedoms we enjoy.  They did not live in the comfort and security we have.

Today we have God’s complete revelation in the Word of God.  We have nearly 2000 years of historical experience as the victorious Body of Christ.

The heroes in Hebrews accomplished their mighty works through a persistent faith.  A faith that did not quit.  A faith that did not ease up, let up, back up or give up…  They endured as seeing Him Who is Invisible… Heb 11:27

When you see the Invisible you can to the impossible

Word for Today:  January 10

There are signs everywhere.

There is a witness in the heart of every turned-on believer.  God is moving.  The earth is responding.  The world is waiting.  All creation is anxious… The church is being revived.  This is the hour.  Something BIG is about to happen.

There is a drawing toward God.  The Holy Spirit is reaching into the hearts of men (all kinds of people) and drawing and attracting…   inexorably, as a magnet draws iron, pulling them toward God.  It is relentless.  It is miraculous. It is supernatural.   There is hunger.  And this hunger is indicative of the Divine Plan and Purpose of God manifesting in this hour.

You feel the drawing.  Right now.  There is a Divine Stirring deep down inside your spirit.  It (your relationship with Jesus) is not like it used to be.  It is changing.  There is a dissatisfaction, an urgency, which is driving you to seek His Face and a determination to be conformed more and more into His Image.

The things of the world are becoming less and less important to you.   The reason for your very existence is coming into focus.

You are being drawn into the Glory of God…

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.  2Co 3:18

Word for Today:  January 8

Words are carriers.

We speak words and the words we say become carriers.  When our words agree with God’s Word they will carry God’s Power with them.  When our words agree with the negative world system, they will carry the power of the world system with them.

If we could ever learn to talk right, speak the Word and only what the Word says instead of what we see and feel and think, we could experience a radical transformation in our situations and circumstances.

The Devil and his demons must submit to the Word of God that we speak.  When we realize that all the death stuff that is happening to us is caused by the devil and his demons and then get a real revelation of the Power of the Word of God we will be on the road to recovery.  We will be positioned to change things in us and around us.

But as long as we set our tongue in agreement with death, we will have what we say.

We can Search out and find those God Words that contradict our particular problem.  They are in the Bible…. Find them!   If we are sick, look up scriptures about healing.  If we are afraid and depressed, look up scriptures that promise peace and assurance.    If we are struggling financially, look up scriptures that promise God’s provision for us.  If we are held captive by habit or addiction, look up scriptures that promise us deliverance and freedom.  Then we make those scriptures a vital and strategic part of our language.  We begin to articulate audibly and forcefully with our mouth what God has already said about us in His Word.

When we do this, we will begin to see immediate changes.  God honors His Word above His Name.  God sends His Word to accomplish and create His purposes.

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish (create) that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Isa 55:11

Word for Today:  January 6

Go means go.

Go means to not stay.  Go means to not be still.  Go means to not retreat.  Go means to move.  God says go.  God is a Go God.  Not a stop God.  Not a stay God.  Not a retreat God, but a Go God.  Two-thirds of His name is GO.

Go means to do something.  Go means to start.  Go means to begin.  Go means get up.  Go means to move on.  Go means action.

You will have to have a special calling and a special revelation to stay because God has said “Go.”

If God says nothing, that does not mean stay.   He has already spoken and He has commanded us to GO.

He does not need to say it over and over again.

Let’s do this…

And he said unto them, Go…  Mark 16:15

Word for Today:  January 4

The dynamics of our contemporary mode of living tend to keep us ignorant of the Move of God.

Most are looking everywhere and seeing everything but God and what He is doing.  If we talk about the New Thing, the Move of God and the coming End Time Harvest most will think we are in too deep.  Too far.  Too much.  Too radical.  Too spiritual.  Too serious.  Too wild.

But don’t be surprised… they were acting the same way in Noah’s Day.  And Jesus said:

But as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man…  Luke 17:26

For 120 years they rejected Noah’s radical preaching.  They laughed at his “foolish” construction project. They ignored his warnings.  They refused to listen and heed.  They waited and debated.  They considered but refused to consent.

Then IT happened.  And when it did it was too late for them.  They got left out. They got shut out.  They got locked out of safety, security and life.  They were lost.  Forever.  Eternally.

Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.   Mt 24:44

Word for Today:  January 3

Truth in the head is not enough.

Truth in the Church is not enough.  Truth in the world is not enough.

Truth must be in the heart and our entire being is to be motivated, instructed, guided and led by it.

We can stuff our heads with instruction.  We can train our brains with right things to do.  We can believe sincerely with our heart.  The need is for God’s power to flow through us.

• We can be clean on the outside and be dead.
• We can be correct and be dead.
• We can be religious and be dead.
• We can be sincere and be dead.
• We can be right and be dead.
• We can even have faith and be dead.
• We can be in the right place at the right time in the right manner and be dead.
• You can make all the right confessions and be dead.

And you know whether you are dead or alive!

The Scribes and Pharisees were right, religious, dedicated, obedient, faithful, consistent, committed, and unashamed.   Jesus said our “righteousness” would have to exceed theirs or we would not make it to heaven. They needed a Heart Experience instead of a head experience.

They were shallow, external, legalistic, arrogant, and self-centered.  They were “clean” on the outside but Jesus said they were full of dead men’s bones.  They looked good, but Jesus said they were dead and filled with corruption.

If they were around today, they would be sitting on the front row (or the platform) of the church.  They would be the loudest prayers, and the biggest givers.  They would be seen and heard and admired and recognized.  They would have a “form of godliness” but they would be dead inside.

For the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. 1Sa 16:7

Word for Today:  January 2

Stay on course

As we enter this New Year, STAY on COURSE.

We cannot afford to deviate.  Even a little bit off course at the beginning will calculate to a huge error at the destination.  It will make us miss our Mark.   There must be constant corrections and adjustments along the way.  The course must be updated and upgraded constantly.

The limits are set.  The boundaries are there.  The way is plain.  It is the Narrow and it is the Straight.  As we stay tuned to the Word and as we remain in the presence of God, we will stay on course.  When we listen to men and go by our opinions and lean on our feelings, we will get off course.  When we get lazy and lukewarm… when we become entangled with the World, we get off course.  When we take our Eyes off the Prize we lose ground and veer off course.  When we take on added and unnecessary baggage, and fool around with flesh we are hindered and held back in our pursuit of the Prize.

Here’s what will keep you On Course:

• Stay in the Word and live by the Word
• Function daily in an aggressive faith position
• Let Agape be your motivation for everything you do
• Live to give and not to get
• Hunker down in the Secret Place and stay under the Shadow of the Almighty
• “Attempt great things for God and Expect great things from God” (William Carey)

Stay the course