dickbraswell

Word for Today:  January 24

The Glory of God.

The GLORY of GOD is the atmosphere of heaven.  You breathe it but you also absorb it.  It is the sustenance of your spirit.

AIR is the atmosphere of earth.  You breathe it and you absorb it. It is the sustenance of your natural life.

When we come into the Glory of God we are raised up into the atmosphere of heaven.

To come into God’s Glory is to come into His Literal Presence… to be Engulfed and Exposed to the Brightness and Effervesce of His Person.

The Glory of God has a destination.  It has a purpose.  It has an objective.  It will accomplish something.  There is a story behind the glory.  And we must go all the way to Genesis to find the beginning of that story.  Creation is crowned with the Glory of God.  Creation declares the Glory of God.

And God desires to share His Glory.  His Glory is the epitome of all that He is and all that He has done.  You cannot separate God from His Glory.  God and Glory are inseparable.  Where God is His Glory is.  Where His Glory is God is.  And God wants to share His Glory.  This is the reason behind Creation.  He created the Heavens and the earth as a demonstration of His Glory.   They are crowned with His Glory.  The Work of His Hands demonstrate His Glory.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.   Psa. 19:1

The heavens and the earth and all that is in them can declare and demonstrate the Glory of God BUT they cannot share His Glory.

Only Man can share His Glory.

Word for Today:  January 23

What we desire, we acquire.

Our life is governed and controlled by what we value.  Those things we value most occupy most of our time and energy.  Those things we value least are things that are generally ignored.  I am assuming that everyone has placed a very high value on Knowing God.  Notice the extremes in the Scriptures regarding things we value (love) and things we devalue (don’t care about).

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ…   Phil 3:8

When Paul explained his Value System, he said compared to Knowing Christ, everything else he counted as loss and considered them nothing more than dung (nice word for a commonly used expletive).  Jesus touched on the vast chasm between Loving God and even loving family members…

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Lu 14:26

Compared to the Value placed on Loving God, the value placed on loving family members is almost off the page in the opposite direction.  Knowing God (really “knowing” in an intimate, intense and complete way) is the key to receiving and releasing the Gifts and Callings that have been given to us.

Knowing God is the way to receive “all things that pertain to life and godliness…”

According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge (epignosis: knowing with understanding) of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: 2Pe 1:3 

He made known his ways (methods) unto Moses, his acts (deeds) unto the children of Israel.  Ps 103:7

Understanding the “Ways” of God comes from Knowing God.

Understanding the “Acts” of God comes from Knowing About God.

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation (a disclosure of Truth) in the knowledge (epignosis: knowing with understanding) of him. Eph 1:17

Word for Today:  January 22

Faith produces Resurrection Life.

It produces the same kind of Life Jesus had (and still has) when He came out of the grave.

But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal (death-doomed) bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you…  Rom 8:11

Supernatural Faith moves the believer into the realm of Resurrection Life.   We are no longer in the grave-yard stage or the mortuary stage, we are in the Life Stage… the Supernatural Life stage… The Eternal Life stage!

Supernatural faith negates the power of death and energizes the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (Rom 8).

It is by this law that every believer should live.  And if they do, they will be continually swallowed up in victory.

… Death is swallowed up in victory.   1Cor 15:54

Word for Today:  January 21

It’s up to you.

• You will never do what you do not decide to do.
• You will never get what you do not decide to get.
• You will never get what you do not make up your mind to get.
• You will never receive what you are not committed to receive.

It is up to you.   God has given it.  Jesus has paid for it with His Blood.  Now, refuse to waver, to be moved aside, to take your eyes off your goal.  Refuse to back down. Refuse to compromise.  Refuse to be nice to the devil.

Refuse to “calm down” or “understand”… Be determined… get mad and be violent.  The “Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force…”   (Mat 11:12).

Just how mad are you at the devil?  How determined are you to take back what he has stolen?  How ferocious are you in this pursuit?  How enraged are you at the deeds of the devil and the kingdom of darkness? How much do demonic forces fear your resolve to overcome?

“Let not the sun go down on your wrath…”  In other words this can mean “Never let the sun go down on being mad at the devil….”

The ONLY legitimate avenue to release your wrath is to release it on the powers of darkness.

Word for Today:  January 20

There is a much broader dimension of the Word than most people realize.

The Word of God is not just the Bible.  The Bible is the written inspired, infallible document that is the written Word of God but the Word of God existed before there was a written document called the Holy Bible.

John writes that “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…”   God’s Word transcends the Bible.   God’s Word was existent before there was a Bible.

How can we know what God said if it is not written down for us to read and know?  We can know what God said by knowing what God would say.  We can know what God would say by knowing the Nature and Character of God.

God speaks in agreement with His Character, His Nature, and His Personality.   If we know His Character, we will know what He will say or did say…  And we discover and know His Character by receiving revelation knowledge regarding Christ.   Because Jesus is the Perfect and Completed Revelation of Who God is, What God is like and What God does and will do.

if you have seen me, you have seen the Father…  John 14:9

Word for Today:  January 19

Faith produces Resurrection Life.

It produces the same kind of Life Jesus had (and still has) when He came out of the grave.

But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal (death-doomed) bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you…  Rom 8:11

Supernatural Faith moves the believer into the realm of Resurrection Life.   We are no longer in the grave-yard stage or the mortuary stage, we are in the Life Stage… the Supernatural Life stage… The Eternal Life stage!

Supernatural faith negates the power of death and energizes the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (Rom 8).

It is by this law that every believer should live.  And if they do, they will be continually swallowed up in victory.

… Death is swallowed up in victory.   1Cor 15:54

January 17

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 16

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 13

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 9

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