Author: Charlie Brignac

I am forever a student of the Word and a disciple of Jesus Christ, finding life applications in Scripture. I write about Christian themes, including bringing others to Christ, the matchless name of Jesus and various spiritual concepts like a penitent heart and overcoming darkness. I focus on Christian teachings, personal faith and reliance on the Holy Spirit. I invite you to read through my daily writings. Think them out for yourself through your study of God's Holy Word. Pray on the meaning of the message. Then let the message come alive in your life.

No Service is Too Small

2 Chronicles 27:6
King Jotham became powerful because he was careful to live in obedience to the LORD his God.
After the Jews were freed from bondage, they made their way to the holy land that God had set aside for them.  Moses sent twelve men to scout the land.  All but two returned with fearful stories.  As a result, the Israelites rebelled against Moses and refused to take the land that was prepared for them.  God punished the Israelites by condemning them to wander the desert for forty years.  None of the men over the age of twenty were ever allowed in to the holy land because of their disobedience.
On the other hand, Jotham became king at the age of 28.  He was obedient in all things.  Because of his faithfulness, he was given victory in all of his battles and a resting place of honor when he died.
We can miss out on the promises of God in our lives simply by not complying to the small things of life that the Holy Spirit may place on our hearts.  How many times have we passed up the opportunity to assist a testy neighbor, lend a helping hand to a needy stranger or respond politely and with love when receiving poor service?  Each time we passed on one of these or numerous other Holy Spirit led opportunities, we deprived God of His glory and we halted or limited the release of His power in our lives.  It is important that we seek and give full consideration to the will of God concerning all elements of our daily lives.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us the opportunity to bring honor and glory to Your Name when we allow the marvel of Your grace to be exhibited in our lives.  Teach us, Father, to recognize You and Your love in the simplest of tasks that are performed in service to others.  Lord, we pray that You release the fullness of Your power in our lives as we learn to share Your perfect love and forgiveness with the world around us.  We ask all these things in the name of the Lord of Our Lives, Jesus Christ.

Shielding Our Children from the Enemy

Isaiah 44:3
For I will pour out water to quench your thirst and to irrigate your parched fields.  And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your children.

As mothers and fathers, we must be diligent in praying a hedge of protection around our children.  Satan is viciously consistent in his efforts to destroy our families and in his efforts to destroy the lives of our children.  As parents, we have the power of protecting them through our prayers.  Our Heavenly Father promises us that He will pour out His Spirit on our descendants and pour out His blessings on our children.
No matter what circumstances that our children may be in, we must not believe the lies of Satan.  We must hold to the promises of Our Father.  We must never give in to the work of the devil who will urge us to give up on our children.  Satan will do all that he can do to discourage our efforts to pray for our children because he knows the power that we access and release when we pray for our children.
We must fight the good fight on the behalf of our children.  We must continously pray a hedge of protection around them.  The Lord promises us that He will reward us for our efforts.  He will return our children to us.  Most importantly, He will return our children to Himself.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for hearing our prayers of protection for our children.  Thank you for providing a way for us to shield our children from the enemy who is set on destroying them.  Strengthen us, Lord, that we may never falter in covering our children with our prayers.  We rejoice in knowing that You will reward us for our diligent, prayerful efforts on behalf of our children.  We cling to Your promise to return our children to the land that You have set aside for them.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Refuge from the Storm, Jesus Christ.

He is Waiting to Intercede for Us

Ephesians 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
We are the handiwork of the creator of the entire universe, but not merely as creatures, but as new creatures in Christ.  We were prepared before hand with the capacity to perform good works for the pleasure, the praise and the honor of Almighty God.  We were created not just to perform one good work but to continue to walk in a series of good works.  We were created to perform righteous and holy work as visible representatives of Our Savior.
There is nothing that we will face in life that is too big or too small for Jesus to overcome for us.  He is waiting to comfort us and guide us and intercede for us in every minute detail and in every seemingly insurmountable circumstance in our lives.  Once we receive Jesus as Our Savior, it is His promise that He will insure that we are successful in carrying out His plans for our lives.
Why should we try to rely on our own power when we have the power of the creator and sustainer of the universe available to us?  We should rejoice and seek Jesus in every element of our lives.  We should submit every breathing moment to Him.  He awaits!!
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Son, Jesus, who comforts us, guides us and intercedes for us.  We pray that You teach us how to put all of our trust in Him.  We ask that You shield us from all the distractions that we bring into our own lives.  May we learn to walk in the ways that Jesus shows us.  May the Holy Spirit guide us and strengthen us as we seek to endeavor in the righteous and holy work of Your kingdom.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Righteous and Holy King, Jesus Christ.

Opening Our Access to All the Treasures of Heaven

Matthew 25:18
But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.
What a shame it is to accept our salvation and then to remain mostly unchanged by the Holy Spirit within us.  In doing so, we are like the servant that took the talent from his master and buried it in the ground without doing anything with it to increase its value to the master.
When we do not access all that is available to us through the Holy Spirit, we cut off the flow of the gifts from God, denying ourselves the opportunity to reap from all that God has stored up for us.  Remember Jesus Christ gave everything for us.  He held back nothing.  He expects the same from us in return.
Also remember that Jesus rewards those who are faithful in their service to Him.  If we look for and seek the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we open our access to all the treasures of heaven.  We enable God to prepare us to serve Him and bear fruit for Him in the manner that He planned for us.  Often we will find that our harvest for the King is well beyond the limits of our imagination.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the gifts and talents that You have given us.  We call on Your Holy Spirit to take us beyond what we see and understand about our own capabilities to a place where we are releasing things in our lives that are not even imaginable to us now.  May all the gain we see and all the fruit we bear be for Your honor and Your glory.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Bountiful Lord, Jesus Christ.

All Burdens Be Gone!

Matthew 11:28
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
At some level, we all take on the heavy burdens of this world.  Without a doubt, we all seek to escape from the stress filled grind that most of us wallow in each day.  Jesus invites all of us who labor and are carrying burdens to come to Him.  He promises that He will provide us with the rest that we need.  
But be assured that “I will give you rest” does not mean “I will hold your hand while you lay in bed languishing in your burdens”.  It means “I will pull you out of the darkened state that you are in.  I will pull you from the depravity of your sins and the oppression of the enemy.  I will give you the spirit of life.  You will find your rest in vital and sinless activity.”
Why do we insist on hanging on to the old things that do nothing but hinder our progress toward finding the rest that is promised to us?  Why do we accept anything less than the full measure that God has set aside for us?  It is all about our commitment.  When we come to Jesus, we are committing to leave everything of this world behind in exchange for a personal relationship with Our Savior.

The moment that we receive our salvation the abundance of God’s grace is available to us through His Son, Jesus Christ.  All we have to do is to submit to Jesus Christ and allow His Spirit to guide all that we do.  Our peace awaits us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing a refuge for us – a place where we can be free from the burdens that the world tries to lay on us.  We praise You for providing the comfort that we can find nowhere else except through our relationship with Your Son, Jesus.  May we be drawn by the Holy Spirit to respond to the words of promise, “Come unto me.”  May we learn to live our lives in the vitality and might that You offer us in Christ.  We ask all these things in the name of the One who provides our comfort, Jesus Christ.

Preparation for Being in His Presence

Luke 11:9
And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
In Luke 11:9, we find a solemn declaration and promise made by Jesus Himself.  The declaration rests on His authority.  He makes the statement with the boldness of knowing it is true.  He opens the way for us to ask for food for the body and nourishment for our souls and He promises that for those that act in accordance with His counsel shall find their requests satisfied.
When we knock at Jesus’ door, seeking Him, our lives are changed forever.  Once we have accepted Him as Our Savior, we are new men and women in Christ.  We are new people who are faced with the eye-opening need to let our old selves die, so that our new selves are properly prepared to be in the presence of Our Lord.
Once we establish our relationship with Him, we will be in a place that is greater than anything we have ever experienced before.  We will never want to leave that relationship.  To stay there, we will find that we are forever humbled by our need to cleanse ourselves.  We will find that the experience of first meeting Him is the beginning of our preparation for being in His presence for all eternity.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we humbly bow before You.  We thank You that we are allowed to approach Your throne because Your Son, Jesus, has prepared the way for us.  Make us forever mindful of His sacrifice which washed away our sins for all eternity.  Open our eyes to see the sins that remain in our lives so that we may ask forgiveness of them and repent of them.  May Your Holy Spirit guide us in continuously seeking the presence of Your Son in our lives.  May we find all we need in Him.  We ask all these things in the name of the Lord God Omnipotent, Jesus Christ.

Aligning Our Prayers With God’s Will for Our Lives

Luke 11:10
For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
Whether we lack food, shelter, finances or wisdom, the Lord promises to provide us with our needs.  He also promises to provide us with the desires of our hearts.  But in all these things, He provides according to His perfect timing and His will for our lives.
There is almost always a delay between our prayers and the answers to our prayers.  There are a number of significant variables that require that there be a delay.
Because of the delay, we learn to go to the Holy Spirit to get help with our prayers.  We learn that our prayers are too often coming from the desires of our flesh and not the desires of our spirit.  By turning to the Holy Spirit, we learn to put our prayers in line with God’s will for our lives.
If there were never any delays between our prayers and God’s provision, we would lose sight of the fact that God is controlling the process and not us.  We would also lose the perspective that God wants us to rely on His grace for all things.  We would lose the fervency of our prayers.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your grace that is the source of all of our provision.  We thank You for the perfect timing of Your answers for our prayers.  We thank You for providing the Holy Spirit to help us pray properly for the things that we need.  We pray that You show us Your will for our lives so that our prayers will be in accordance with Your plans for our lives.  May You teach us how to pray without stopping as we learn to rely on Your grace for all things in our lives.  May our prayers touch Your heart so that You release from Your hands all that You have set aside for us.  We ask all these things in the name of the Power of God, Jesus Christ.

Are We Missing Our Promised Land?

John 13:17
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
God told Moses to speak to the rock, but Moses in anger struck the rock. Water came forth for the people to drink, but God was not pleased because Moses had disobeyed, and he later suffered the consequences of his disobedience. He was not permitted to enter into the land of Canaan with his people, and Joshua became their leader at that point.
What “promised land” are we missing because we are not being perfectly obedient in what God is asking us to do?  God allows us much room for choice in our lives, but He also changes His rewards when we make poor choices. This is especially true if God has laid out a path for us to take, but we choose to take a different path.
Moses missed going into the promised land because he was not perfectly obedient to God’s direction in his life.  We certainly risk missing our promised land when we are anything less than fully submitted to God’s direction in our lives.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You that You direct our ways through the urgings of the Holy Spirit in our lives each day.  Prepare our hearts, Lord, so that we may be alert and obedient to Your calling on our lives.  Teach us how to hear and respond to the Holy Spirit so that we may know the things that You ask of us.  We pray that we will have the strength and wisdom to comply in accordance with Your plans for our lives.  May we receive the fullness of the blessings that You have set aside for us.  We ask all these things in the name of the Lamb without Blemish, Jesus Christ.

Mighty in Battle

Psalm 27:1
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
Many of the Psalms were written by David.  David was proclaimed by God to be “a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do”.  Because David proved himself to be obedient to the Lord’s calling on his life, sought God in all things and trusted God in all things, God made him king of Israel.
The first we read about David, we see him as a young man who believed God would give him victory over the giant, Goliath, when everyone else cowered in the face of the giant.  The men of the day tried to provide David with their armor to fight the giant.  David refused.  He knew he only needed God on his side.
The same God that helped David slay Goliath is the God that helps us to slay the giants in our lives.  The giants in our lives are not named Goliath.  They are named such things as addiction, fear, worry, depression, confusion, manipulation, control, bitterness and anger.  We do not need to turn to the world to defeat our giants.  We only need to go to Our Heavenly Father in the name of His Son, Jesus.  He will give us the victory, just as He gave David the victory.  He will also give us a kingdom, just as He gave David a kingdom.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us Your Son, whose death on the Cross gave us victory over all things.  We exalt the name of Our Savior King who opened the gateway to heaven for us.  We are so grateful that Jesus stands beside us as we face our giants. We pray that the Holy Spirit will teach us to trust in You, Lord, just as David trusted in You.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Lord Mighty in Battle, Jesus Christ.

Overcoming the Whims of Our Flesh

Philippians 2:12-13
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he knew that they were struggling with sin in their lives just as we all are.  He knew that they found it easier “to behave” when they were in his presence, just as we are more on guard in the presence of others.  He exhorted them to be constant in their battle against sin whether He was there or not.
He was not telling them that they were working to earn their salvation.  He was telling them how to overcome the ongoing attacks of the flesh which would try to lead them back to the sin that had been washed away forever by their Savior.  He was reminding them that their victory has already been set aside by the One who had died for their sins and dwells within them.  He was emphasizing that they must live in reverent awe of their Savior and not be lead by the whims of their flesh.
So it is with us.  We do not work to earn our salvation.  If we have received Jesus as Our Savior, we have been redeemed and washed clean of all of our sin.  The work of salvation that Paul speaks of is really the work of sanctification.  It is the process that we go through as we learn to lean on Jesus and not our own strength to overcome the work of the enemy in our lives.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we proclaim our sin before You and ask for Your forgiveness. We thank You that this issue has been settled on our behalf for all eternity.  We pray that we may be continually washed by the blood of Your Son and strengthened daily by His presence in our lives.  We ask to live in reverent awe of who You are so that we will come under the purifying conviction of the Holy Spirit.  We ask all these things in the name of the Tower of Salvation, Jesus Christ.