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.

Finding Victory in Our Lives

Hebrews 13:6
So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
The Lord is our helper.  He is our mighty King, but He is also our humble servant because of His promises to us.  He is able to help in ways that we cannot imagine.  He is our helper when there is no one else there to help.  His help is always suitable, seasonable and sufficient.
Do we see the Lord in all that we do?  If we do, there should be no doubt or drudgery in any task.  For in every task we should find the power and the joy of Jesus.  If we are experiencing a lack of joy in our circumstances, then we are not believing Jesus for His promise to take our burdens.  If we are doubting the outcome of our efforts, then we are not believing Jesus for His promise to never forsake us.
Throughout life we must make Jesus Christ our foundation.  We must learn to trust in all the promises that God has revealed to us that confirm that He is working out all things for our eternal good even when it seems man is working against us.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for loving us so much that You promise never to leave us or forget about us.  We rejoice in knowing that You know every single thing that is going on in our lives and that You are working out all the details necessary for us to experience the fullness of joy through our relationship with Your Son.  Teach us, Lord, how to rely on the Holy Spirit to be our helper in every element of our lives.  Through our reliance on Your promises, may we find joy and find victory in our roles as grandparents, parents, children, citizens, employees, friends and neighbors.  Through all these things may we celebrate serving You.  Through all these things may we be light to the world around us.  We ask all these things in the name of the One who is faithful and true, Jesus Christ.

So That We May Have Life

Philippians 2:8
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
The fact that Jesus left His divine state to become a man illustrates an act of humility that surpasses anything that any human could ever imagine.  Accepting the lowliness of man, it would have been reasonable by any human standard that He would a least appear as a king. Not so for this divine man, He took not a royal station but accepted a position in a lowly manger.  His state within humankind never advanced to any level above the lowest elements of society.  He worked His entire ministry in the streets and hillsides among the common people.
His splendor was never to be seen by man until He ascended to His seat beside His Father in Heaven. In the meantime, He endured a life of poverty and suffering which ended in an exposition of public hatred, ridicule and scorn.  Then, having no place for personal pride, He accepted death so that we may have life.
Let us lie before His Cross each day and learn from Our Savior King.  May our personal pride dissolve in the face of knowing why He made these choices – to save us from our sinful and prideful nature.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we humbly bow before Your throne, asking Your forgiveness for our sins.  We thank You for providing the way for us to overcome our sinful nature.  May we cling to the Cross of Our Savior.  May we learn to set aside our pride and serve those around us in the manner that You call us.  May we ignore the scorn of the world as we are obedient to Your calling on our lives. We ask all these things in the name of The Captain of Our Salvation, Jesus Christ.

May We Praise the Lord with Every Breath

Psalm 150:6
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!
We are stirred up in our hearts to praise God.  We praise Him because of His power and His glory.  We praise Him for His holiness and His love expressed through the redemptive work of His Son, Jesus.

Let us praise God out of the faith that He has built in us through His Holy Spirit.  Let us praise God with the love and delight that He has placed in our hearts.  Let us praise God as we are comforted by His goodness and His grace.  Let us praise God with the joy of the expectation of life in His eternal kingdom.  Let us praise God with the unshakeable confidence that the victory is ours through God’s greatest gift to us, His Son, Jesus.  

Our Lord, Jesus, is the fullness of the love and forgiveness that we have been so graciously provided by Our Father in Heaven.  Let our every breath be filled for praise for Our Savior.  May our lives be living testimonies of the Son of God who has come to dwell within us.
  
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we lift our voices up in high praise for Your precious Lamb, Jesus.  We proclaim His holiness and His righteousness.  We give thanks for His presence in our lives.  We pray Father that You open our eyes so that we may see His presence in the tiny things in life as well as the large things.  May our every breath praise Him as we come know just how dear He is to us.  We ask all these things in the name of the One whose steadfast love never ceases, Jesus Christ.

Living in Awe of Our Heavenly Father

Psalm 25:12
Who is the man who fears the LORD? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
Fear of God can be compared to fear of one’s earthly father.  While we fear punishment from our earthly father, it is the fear of offending the one we hold dearest that is so powerful.  It is the fear of disappointing the one that we want to please the most.  It is the fear of not living up to the expectations of the one that we hold in the highest place in our lives.  It is the fear of losing closeness with the one we desire to be closest to.  It is this fear that holds us in line when the world is trying to pull us out of line.
As good sons and daughters, we live in awe of the highest authority figures in our lives – Our Heavenly Father and our earthly father.  We are shaped through our entire lives by these relationships.  Our earthly fathers take us through the follies of our youth as they provide for us in our formative years.  

Our Heavenly Father provides our every need in preparing us for our eternal lives with Him.  He makes us aware of our sinful nature.  He calls us to repentance.  Through His mercy and His perfect love, He gives us His Son as our Redeemer.  To those of us that humble themselves before His Son, He sets aside a path of sanctification.  He guides us and provides for all our needs in accordance with His promises.  He gives us rest in our souls as He leads us to our journey’s end.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we exalt Your name as the name that holds the highest place in our lives and we exalt the name of Your Son, Jesus, who shed His blood for our sins.  We thank You that we can live in the shadow of His love, His protection and His provision.  We seek to deepen our relationship with Your Son.  We pray that the Holy Spirit will help us to understand who He is so that we may live our lives in reverent awe of Him. We ask all these things in the name of Our Refiner and Purifier, Jesus Christ.

Putting Our Trust in Jesus Christ Alone

John 2:24
But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people.
Jesus knew that He could not put His trust in any man.  He knew their nature, their dispositions, their affections and their evil schemes.  Jesus knew what we need to know.  Simply put, man cannot be trusted.  The evil within the heart of each man is a snare that cannot be overcome without the grace of Our Savior.
We must put our trust in Jesus Christ alone.  If we put our trust in Him, we will find it easy to love Him above all things, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to tell others about Him and to give Him all the glory.  If we put our trust in Jesus, we will live according to the plans that He has set aside for us.
If we doubt the Lord in any area and put our trust in man instead,  we will fall short of God’s plans for our lives.  For the fullness of life, we must trust the grace of God in all things.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we praise You and thank You for providing Your Son, Jesus, to be the foundation of our trust in You and Your promises to us.  May we live each day in complete faith that Your Word is the foundation upon which our lives are built and sustained.  May we face each day knowing that Your Son is the source of everything we need.  May we never seek anything from man, but seek everything from Your grace.  We ask all these things in the name of our all-sufficient Lord, Jesus Christ.







Cleansing Through Confession

Psalm 32:5
I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
In the flesh, it is very difficult to deliver a full confession of the sin in our lives.  We simply are not equipped to deal with self-condemnation without the aid of the Holy Spirit.  Our carnal minds are not able to fathom the real joy in the forgiving mercy of Jesus Christ.
It is very important that we confess our sins and repent of them quickly.  We should not hold on to them for any reason – not even to punish ourselves.  We must take God’s merciful grace and cleanse ourselves of our sins.  We must recognize that Jesus Christ has atoned for all of our sins for all eternity.  To hold on to any sin, even its guilt, is to continue to unnecessarily suffer its destruction in our lives.
Once we have cleansed ourselves of our sins through confession, the Holy Spirit will come along side us and lift us to a new, higher level relationship with the Father.  Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.  Psalm 32:1-2
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your loving kindness, Your mercy and Your grace that has provided a way for us to be cleansed of our sins and freed from its destructive power in our lives.  We thank You Jesus for settling our sin debt for all eternity.  We exalt the name of Our Savior.  We pray that the Holy Spirit will help us to uncover all of the sin in our lives so that we may quickly confess it with our mouths.  May we escape the darkness that has overcome us and live in the precious light of Our Redeeming King.  We ask all these things in the mighty, holy and precious name of Jesus Christ.

Our Faith Trumps Our Ability

Luke 9:61
Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”
In the final passage in Luke 9, there are a number of verses which point out the costs of following Jesus.  In essence, each cost mentioned really applies to the type of excuses we will come up with to delay following what the Lord is calling us to do.
One of the most common excuses for many of us is “I am not capable or I am not ready to take on such a task.”  There is a faith gap that prevents us from believing that we can do what the Lord is asking of us.  We question the calling because it goes against our natural instincts.
Other common excuses seem to come from our friends and our family.  The world is eager to step in and divert us from any calling of the Lord.  It is remarkable how quickly those around us can cause us to step away from what God has ordained for us.
When we finally move forward with what God has asked us to do, we find out it never was about our ability nor about our worldly affairs.  It was about our faith in God.  When God calls us to do anything, large or small, we should leap into action with confidence in the One who called us.  It is through Him that the good work is done.  We are only instruments of His love.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for choosing us to be instruments of Your good work.  We rejoice in knowing that we can share Your love with the world around us in so many different and powerful ways.  We pray that You open our eyes and prepare our hearts so that we do not delay any good work that You have set aside for us.  We ask all these things in the name of the One that determines our steps, Jesus Christ.

We Are Commanded to Be of Good Courage

John 16:33
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
Jesus spoke directly to the apostles before He left the earth.  He wanted the apostles to know that even though He would be leaving them in the flesh that He would still be with them in spirit.  He wanted them to understand that He would be with them always as He is with the Father always.  He wanted them go forward in peace, without fear, having faith that the victory was theirs through Him.  He wanted them to be empowered by knowing that He had already overcome all the tribulation that the world and Satan himself had to offer. Through His indwelling with them, they would have the power that they needed to endure all things.
And so it is with us.  When we accept Jesus as Our Savior, His Spirit indwells with us.  We become one with Him as He is one with the Father.  We receive all that the apostles were told that they would receive. 
Unfortunately, one facet of the things to come for us is the fact that we will face tribulation.  We will encounter the fierce opposition of the evil one and of those who represent him.  And we will certainly face the persistent opposition of our own flesh.  But Jesus wants us to be of good courage and hope for He promises to provide all that we need to overcome anything that is thrown at us.  When we surrender to Jesus, we have all that we need to overcome the temptations of Satan, the infirmities of our own flesh and the carnal offerings of the world.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we humbly come before You in thanksgiving for the power that You have granted us through Your Son, Jesus.  We pray that You teach us how to develop and enjoy our relationship with Jesus.  May we find our strength in Jesus, just as Jesus found His strength in You when He was in the flesh.  May our victories over our tribulations bring honor and glory to You, to Your Son and to the Holy Spirit.  We pray that our victories become living testimonies that will draw others to Jesus.  We ask all these things in the name of the Upholder of All Things, Jesus Christ.

In His Name All Prayers Are Answered

John 16:23
In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.
Why is it that we do not have enough faith to believe in all the promises that God has given us through His Son, Jesus?  There is certainly an overwhelming amount of evidence to prove that God has power over all things.  Why can’t we believe in His simple promises to meet our every need and to work out all things for our eternal good?

The medium of access to the Father is Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the mediator between Almighty God and man.  The sacrifice of the life of Jesus and His righteousness speak loudly in heaven.  The account of His blood pleases the Father, thus His mediation is powerful and guaranteed.  In His name, all prayers are heard and all blessings are bestowed.
When we fully surrender our lives to Jesus, we will have all the faith that we need to go boldly to the the throne of Our Creator.  We will ask for things with confidence in the power and the promises of Our Mediator.  We may find a number of things we do not fully understand, but we will never find our prayers unanswered.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we come before You in the name of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  We thank You for every blessing that we receive in His holy, mighty and precious name.  We pray for the wisdom and the strength to surrender all that we are and all that we have to You in His Name.  We rejoice in knowing that we will serve You for all eternity with never a need again.  We ask all these things in the name of the Mediator of the New Covenant, Jesus Christ. 

Noah Teaches Us About Waiting on God

Genesis 8:1
But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.
Genesis 8:1 might seem to suggest that God had let His promises to Moses slip His mind for some period of time before He fulfilled them.  That interpretation would be inconsistent with who God is.  God had not forgotten Noah for He does not and cannot forget His promises to His children.
But it is quite possible that Noah, a man of extraordinary faith, may have been wondering if God had forgotten about him and his family.  Surely Noah had a few anxious thoughts when he and his family spent year upon year working on the ark with no sign of rain except the ridicule that was raining down upon them.  Surely Noah was getting a bit on edge after spending seven months on the waters before the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.   Can you imagine the anxiety waiting another three months before any other mountain tops appeared above the water?  Surely Noah was beyond frustration when the doves he sent out returned to the ark without having found a landing place.  But God in His faithfulness remembered Noah and the promises that He had made to Noah.  On the twenty-seventh day of the fourteenth month, God told Noah that he and his family could now go out from the ark.  Noah finally took his family and all the animals out to the earth that was perfectly prepared for them.
It seems reasonable to assume that Noah and his family surely wanted off the boat before it was time.  But God was not going to let them leave the boat until the earth around them was properly prepared.  As we go through life, our expectations often lead us to question whether God has remembered us.  We are simply placing our desires ahead of God’s perfect plan for our lives.  The God of Faithfulness never forgets us or His promises to us.  We must have faith in His perfect timing. 
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your faithfulness to Your promises.  We rejoice in knowing that You will not let a single promise return void.  We pray that You will give us the grace we need to build our faith when we are waiting on Your perfect timing for our lives.  May we never doubt You.  We ask all these things in the One who is faithful and true, Jesus Christ.