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| Today |  | August 16 - August 22 2026 |  |
Aug16
Clothed In Power
Luke 24:45-46 | |
| 45 | Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and He said to them, NASU The connection between how well you know the Word of God and how well you know the God of the Word is hard to divide with any scissors, knife, or even fine laser cutting tool. If you don’t know the Word of God, as a follower of Jesus you will be weak. If someone says they are a follower of the Way of Jesus but never read His Word, then they are spiritually starving. Have you ever been to a nation or even a place where people are starving? When you are healthy you eat natural foods and avoid processed junk that was made by some machine and altered from its original state. That food is fuel for your body. When you eat, your natural body takes in these foods such as breads and grains and breaks it down and turns it into energy, takes the nutrients and spreads it through your body via your blood stream. When you eat right, the proteins you take in through meat, dairy products, beans and other sources is used to rebuild your muscles after you exercise, making you stronger after each time you work out. Eating right and exercise makes your body stronger so that when sickness comes you can fight it off even better. The body God gave you is amazing! In nations or areas where there is an issue with starvation, people are not able to take in the good food they need, nor get the nutrients to make their bodies strong. With poor nutrition usually comes sickness and disease. Why? The people’s bodies are not being built up with the food they need to create the energy, strength, and health that is required. Starving people are weak, malnourished, and very susceptible to whatever comes along. Praise God, we don’t have to be that way spiritually. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 which says, |
| 3 | ...that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. NKJV Spiritual people are people who are spiritually hungry. It sounds so simple but it is so true. People that are not spiritually hungry are starving. They have no power, they have no endurance, there prayers are abysmal. They pray but nothing happens because they have none of the energy of God flowing through their spirit. It is interesting in Luke 24 how Jesus met His friends and as He shared with them, their eyes were opened to the scriptures. Evidently they knew the scriptures, but once you have the baptism of the Spirit and the power of God on you, things open up even more. Before King Jesus ascends to heaven, He tells them not to disperse yet. In Luke 24:49 He says, |
| 49 | "And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." NASU I love that! If you want to be clothed with power, there is a connection between your knowledge of Jesus, the Word, and the power of the Holy Spirit. You’ve got to understand that. Hallelujah! When you discover this, you can be “clothed with power from on high”. Just as a garment covers you, like clothing covers you from a hat on your head to the shoes on your feet, you can be covered in the power of God. Surrounded. Good clothing doesn’t just cover your arm or legs. It covers you completely all away around your arms, legs, torso, neck. You are covered. As you read the Word today, ask the Holy Spirit to teach you. Ask Him to reveal to you more about how that reading today applies to you now. Then get ready because His mercies are new every morning! Great is His faithfulness! Today’s Reading- Revelation 2,3 |
Proverbs 18 | |
Aug17
Reaching Faith
Mark 6:56 | |
| 56 | Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well. NKJV The story of the woman who got her healing through the power of faith in Jesus after spending all she had on doctors was beautiful. I love how she just said to herself, if I just touch the edge of His clothes I will be made well. When she touched Him, in the crowd of people all around Him, that healing power ignited with her faith. Her faith reminds me of a lighting rod high on the top of a building. Like a little needle pointing high in the sky, a lightning rod is designed to catch the lighting in those high places and bring it down to earth. The higher the rod is above the building, the better chance the falling lightning will hit the rod, and be routed down to the grounded wire all the way down in the base of the building. Although it is heigh-related, it is like that rod draws it and conducts it down to the earth. Isn’t that just like faith? Jesus told so many people, “YOUR faith has made YOU well”. No faith? Then you can know that beyond a shadow of a doubt, things are not going to get better. Why? You are likely living in fear. An insightful thing about the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is that you can see the same eye-witness accounts of the great works of Jesus. Although, they share the same stories from the eyes of a tax collector, fishermen, and doctor, you can also see other things that were going on from the four gospels. When I read Mark 6:56, the Holy Spirit spoke to me. I realized that the woman with the internal bleeding that received her healing when she touched King Jesus’ clothing was not the first person to experience the power of touching someone with faith. Evidently other people had been doing the same thing, and that is why she did it. |
Mark 3:10 | |
| 10 | For He healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed about Him to touch Him. NKJV There were certainly other people who experienced similar stories of victory. What made King Jesus so different? He was baptized in the Spirit, and He spent time every day going off to the quiet places to spent time with the Father. If you want to have the power of God in your life, you’ve got to spend time with Him. That is what happened in Acts. |
Acts 5:15-16 | |
| 15 | so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them. NKJV Just the shadow of these believers, who followed Jesus with everything they had, falling on people brought healing. THAT is the anointing that comes from daily time in His presence. We serve an awesome God. Not only was He out there meeting people where they were at, He also reached out to touch them. Things happened. Luke 6:19 says, |
| 19 | And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all. NKJV He healed them all. Are you reaching for God today or are you distracted by the cares of life? If you reach out in faith to touch God by the power of the Name of Jesus, you will be changed. Reach out in faith right now. Today’s Reading- Revelation 4-5 |
Proverbs 19 | |
Aug18
Worldly Wisdom
1 Cor 1:25 | |
| 25 | Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. NKJV Have you ever met someone who thinks they know it all. They try to explain God away because they don’t know Him. I have met plenty of people like this. When you got to a public university you have all these teachers or professors who try to impress each other and express their great sense of knowledge. From my time in High School, I always started carrying a Bible in my backpack or bag. I knew that God’s Word was treasure and I wanted to keep it near me. Unfortunately, it was not until University that I discovered that I had to get God’s Word from those pages and into my mind. There it would filter into my spirit and change me. There is vast wisdom in the Word of God. We know that if we read Proverbs we will get insights into life. Reading Proverbs every day for that day (12th day of the month, read Proverbs chapter 12 for example) really helps you to understand people, life, the world, why certain things are done. People have not changed. There are good people out there, but there are a lot more cheaters, thieves, sneaks and all sorts of others that you can better understand if you have the wisdom of the Word. There are also some very smart people out that accomplish some amazing things. In my home state there is a bridge called the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It is a very high suspension bridge connecting to land masses in Washington. The platform of the bridge is suspended high above the waters of the Puget Sound. It is amazing that they were able to connect these two places so people can travel from directly from point A to point B without a big detour to follow the land. The engineering, the mechanics, and the construction skill to build the bridge was amazing. One small calculation error and the bridge would become a dangerous death trap for the cars traveling across. The current bridge is not actually the first time it was built. There was a previous bridge that collapsed in 7 November 1940. A wind storm had come and it was thrashing in the wind as the storm blew between the two sides of land over the water of the Narrows Straights. The bridge collapsed and fell into the water near 60 meters below (about the height of a 20 story building). The new bridge was completed in 1950 and was later expanded in 2007 to add another bridge next to it. It is an important bridge today and demonstrates what you can do with human wisdom. Although, I believe that a large majority of intelligent people building bridges, tall buildings, sending rockets to the moon, design satellites and so on are people who love Jesus, I am sure there are people who don’t Him as well. However, the point is that there is a lot of wisdom out there to do some amazing things. It is pretty impressive what humans can do. However, that wisdom is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to Yahweh. Nothing can come even close to Him. Man’s greatest wisdom is foolishness to Him 1 Cor 1:25 shows us. The funny thing is that just a couple verses farther we see that God even uses the simple things to show everyone He is the Creator and that even thing will be accountable back to Him at the judgment. 1 Cor 1:27 says, |
| 27 | But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; NKJV It is great to study and become a master at engineering, art, science, or some other area. However, we have got to remember that we are nothing compared to Him. He is more brilliant that the greatest anyone can offer. There is none like Him. Won’t you give Him the glory today! Today’s Reading- Revelation 6-7 |
Proverbs 20 | |
Aug19
Consumerism And What Really Matters
Mark 13:31 | |
| 31 | Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. NKJV If you have ever followed around a Japanese or Korean you’ll often notice one thing. They love to shop. After World Word II in Japan in the 1940s and after the Korean War (which technically never finished) in the 1950s, the people had to rebuild the countries. They had to reach out and rebuild all that was lost in war. War is definitely not a good thing, but it has been used to stop evil people from doing more evil in the world. Walking the streets of Seoul, you can speak Japanese to many of the shop keepers because the Japanese are heading over to go shopping. Buying brands of leather goods, watches, clothing, and various other items. All the brands have a name...and a price. The owners of these brands have paid huge amounts to advertising firms to creatively get your attention. They tell you have to have a certain watch, car, dress, handbag, glasses, necktie... whatever they can get you to believe you need. They are trying to create consumption. The purpose is to make you consume their product to ‘feel good’ about yourself; to be a consumer. This is consumerism. Consumerism isn’t limited to the streets of North Asia. We find consumers all around the world. Companies trying to influence or motivate you to buy their product because it is Swiss, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, etc. If you have every been to a shopping mall in the US or even the Philippines you see people trying to sell all sorts of things. Consumption is a world-wide trend. Consumption changes, fads change, fashion changes. God’s Word will never change. It is always the same. Literally, everything we have before us is going to pass away. That is everything, including these things we are consumed. It does not matter what car you drive, purse you have, watch you sport, pen you use. It really just does not matter. Consumption is just now. It does not matter into the future. The Bible is God’s Word. Jesus is the Word. Jesus is God. Do you know Him? How well do you know Him? He is forever. Only by really knowing Him will you be forever. Isaiah 51:6 says |
| 6 | Lift up your eyes to the heavens, And look on the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish away like smoke, The earth will grow old like a garment, And those who dwell in it will die in like manner; But My salvation will be forever, And My righteousness will not be abolished. NKJV Of course, if you want to talk about how long God’s Word is going to be around, you must read Isaiah 40:8 which says, |
| 8 | The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever." NKJV As a teenager, most of us think we know more than our parents. We wonder, “What does my father think that I don’t already know about that?” As you get older, you realize how much you have learned and can learn from your father and mother. My father has been a wonderful blessing to me. The greatest thing he did for me was to get me to that church in Oregon in 1978 where as a young boy where I repented, accepted the work of King Jesus, and turned to God. Zech 1:6 sums it up beautifully. |
| 6 | Yet surely My words and My statutes, Which I commanded My servants the prophets, Did they not overtake your fathers? NKJV My heritage of faith, was something he and my mother helped to connect me to. The responsibility of you and your spouse is to make sure our children have the opportunity to know Jesus for themselves is up to them. Once they get to the age of accountability, they are responsible for themselves. Don’t be consumed with things or just trying to live. Be consumed with going for a deeper relationship with Jesus. Today’s Reading- Revelation 8-9 |
Proverbs 21 | |
Aug20
What To Do First
Luke 5:15-16 | |
| 15 | However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. 16 So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. NKJV Have you ever felt tired as you prepare for work? You get towards the end of each week and if you are working hard, by Friday you are definitely ready for the weekend. The most challenging work I have ever done was working on a farm. In the Summer, there were no weekend. We worked all the time. I remember working 17 hour days as we had to keep the crops watered as well as work on harvesting things. For people who work on a farm, I have great respect for these folks. That is real work. Even working with the enterprise (business ventures) in a large city around the earth, you find yourself working very hard. The business manager, exerts a lot of energy to sell their products, manage their team of people, maximize their systems to support the business, and network with various business professionals. It is easy to get so busy and by Friday you are feeling it. The Messiah Jesus was ministering to many people. The Word says he went about doing good, preaching the Kingdom, healing thousands, feeding thousands multiple times, and teaching the scriptures. We know that He taught with such authority that people had never seen before, they knew there was something different about Him. We must remember that King Jesus came into the earth as a human to show us that is possible to live and anointed and victorious life even as a human being. What an amazing example He is to us! We are to live like Him. With all the demand Jesus still demonstrated that even in all the busyness, we are to run to the Father every day and get into His presence. From Luke 5:16, we get the impression that not only did He spend time fellowshipping with the Father, He would often completely retract Himself from society to be able to go off and spend time with the Father. Although, I need to pray more every day, I really look forward to our time in God’s presence on Saturday mornings at our church. As a praying church, you can really make a difference. If we are not praying, then we cannot expect anything to happen. If the Messiah went off to energize Himself in the presence of God, who are we to think that we don’t have to do the same thing? Read through these various eyewitness accounts of the lifestyle of our Messiah. |
Matt 14:23 | |
| 23 | And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there. NKJV |
Mark 1:35 | |
| 35 | Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed. NKJV |
Mark 6:46 | |
| 46 | And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray. NKJV |
Luke 6:12 | |
| 12 | Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. NKJV |
John 6:15 | |
| 15 | Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone. NKJV After reading this, aren’t you inspired? Jesus did powerful signs and wonders. When He taught the Word He had learned it was backed up with signs and wonders because He was spending time in God’s presence. What are we to do first every day? Let me inspire you. As you head to work today, praise Him for the great job you have. Not so great? Praise Him anyhow and ask Him for promotion in what you are doing. Thank Him for His goodness, thank Him for His peace. Make time to get away from it all, pray in the AM before you leave for work, go to a meeting room, or a park nearby the office and turn on some good worship music, praise Him, thank Him, and then just pour out your heart to Him. He will give you the wisdom you need for today. Jesus is Lord! Today’s Reading- Revelation 10-11 |
Proverbs 22 | |
Aug21
Filling Up The Emptiness
2 Cor 13:11 | |
| 11 | Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. NKJV Some days you just wake up and feel like you have no sense of direction. You feel empty, like you are missing something. Like you need something, but you are not sure what it is. Now that you are a follower of Jesus and The Way, you know that substance abuse, physical relationships, and other actions of the sort are just actions of ‘the flesh’. These things are only a temporary fix that does not last a day, if even that long. The strength, and the weakness, of human beings is that we are emotional. We can go up or go down based on our emotions. We have a choice. We can either live on the emotional mountain tops, or we can allow the situation, the weather, the people around us, to bring us down to the emotional valleys as well. When you turn to Jesus, you are saved but you have to change. Beyond a shadow of a doubt we are connected to the Kingdom of God. However, for a long as we live on the earth, we need to work towards completing ourselves. Romans 12:2 tells us to renew our minds, our way of thinking. In 2 Corinthians 13:11, we believers are encouraged to ‘become complete’. How are we to become complete? Completeness is something we get through a combination of things. Marrying a spouse that encourages us to go deeper with Jesus, cheerfully sowing our tithe into the church each month, setting aside time each day to soak in God’s Word and His presence, telling people about what Jesus is doing for you and leading them to King Jesus, praying for friends and watching them recover... these are all things that lead towards our spiritual completion. That completion is not based on one thing that happened in the past. It is based on what we are doing now. God wants you to be complete and full. It is interesting that when you look at other versions, they translate this completeness as ‘perfection’. |
2 Cor 13:11 | |
| For the rest, brethren, rejoice; be perfected; be encouraged; be of one mind; be at peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you. Darby Translation When you feel empty, there are two things you should be doing. The first thing to do is to get into your prayer closet (the place you pray) and begin to just thank Him for His goodness. Read through your list of answered prayers and just thank Him for bringing them to pass. When there is emptiness, fill it up with the power and presence of Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Secondly, when we feel empty most people tend to start to focus on themselves. There lies the problem. When you feel empty forget about yourself! Start to focus on others. | |
Rom 12:18 | |
| 18 | If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. NKJV |
Rom 15:5-6 | |
| 5 | Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. NKJV When you start to feel empty, start to pour yourself into others. Encourage them, pray for them, drop them a quick line to let them know you are praying for them. People are not going to always like us (especially if they are denying to drawing of the Holy Spirit). But we are to do our best to get along with other believers (and unbelievers). Don’t focus your emotions on yourself. Focus your emotions on others. When you care for others in your church family, you can watch and see that emptiness that you once had will flee. Today’s Reading- Revelation 12,13 |
Proverbs 25 | |
Aug22
A Name Like No Other
1 Cor 12:3 | |
| 3 | Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. NKJV He had just been carried out by some of the Japanese pastors and a couple of the Americans that were on a short term missions trip to Japan. He was screaming as if he was in pain. The Brazilian Japanese guy was in trouble. During the powerful worship at the ski lodge in Nagano, he had freaked out. The power and the presence of God was so strong that something on him couldn’t stand to be there. Once out of the main meeting room they took him to a side room. Due to the language differences I had just gone along to help with the communications. Little did I know I would be dealing with the demonic. What had happened was the guy who was carried out was dealing with demons. He had been abused by his uncle back in San Paolo and unforgiveness had come in. Besides that demon of unforgiveness there were others. We dealt with those demons and they had to go in the Name of Jesus. You see, when you give the enemy a foothold through lust, jealously, violence, homosexual activity, drugs and other things, they try to come in and control you. In that little room in Nagano with the Americans who couldn’t speak Japanese, and the Japanese pastors that didn’t know what to do, somehow I ended up in the spiritual drivers seat. I knew that you don’t glorify demons, you deal with them and get rid of them. You don’t have to study how they are organized, their names or anything else. Just get rid of them. That name I learned that when I used the Name of Jesus, these demons could do nothing but submit. They had to listen to me because I represented the King and that had to obey. It took some time but we got 4 types of demons off this guy and he left that weekend free from bondages that the enemy had used to entangle him for years. As I was dealing with the situation 1 Cor 12:3 came to mind. Those demons have sworn their allegiance to hell. That could not say “Jesus is my Lord”. As the guy was laying on the floor I quickly learned to determine what was demon and what was his personality I could see it with the Name of Jesus. I could do this because I knew the Word in that area. We use the Name of Jesus and it is easy to sometimes forget what we are engaging. We are engaging the most powerful Name in the universe that moves the host of heaven. There is a lot behind that. It is like one of those dog whistles that when you blow you don’t notice too much. With your ear, it doesn’t seem to have sound. However, the dogs around you start howling because to them the whistle’s sound is loud and clear. When I use the Name of Jesus, I am seeing more and more of the power and authority I see behind it. You must use the Name of Jesus, and you must make sure you know what spirits you are dealing with it. The best way to test is to see what people (and the spirit behind them) says about Jesus the Messiah. Is He their Lord or not? That is what it all comes down to. |
1 John 4:2-3 | |
| 2 | By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. NKJV Know Him today. Don’t just go about your business accepting whatever happens. Become sensitive to the spiritual around you. Bind and loose spirits in Jesus’ Name. Today’s Reading- Revelation 12,13 |
Proverbs 26 | |
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