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.

Living a Life of Vitality and Might

Matthew 11:28
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

The moment that we receive our salvation the abundance of God’s grace is available to us.  All we have to do is to submit to Jesus Christ and allow His Spirit to guide all that we do.  It is so simple and yet so powerful.

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 half dead state that you are in.  I will pull you from your sins.  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 else behind.

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.

Seeking the Presence of Jesus

Luke 11:9
…seek, and you will find;

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.

Relying on the Grace of God

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.


Blessed Are the Obedient

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 and 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.

The Trust of David

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 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 are so grateful that Jesus stands beside us as we face our giants. We pray that You will teach us to trust in You, just as David trusted in You.


Living in Reverent Awe of Almighty God

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.

The Joyful Life of the Servant

Hebrews 13:6
So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”

Do we see the Lord in all that we do?  If we do, there should be no drudgery in any task.  For in every task we should find 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.  His Holy Spirit is our helper.   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.

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 in our roles as grandparents, parents, children, citizens, employees, friends and neighbors.  Through all these things may we celebrate serving You.

Overcoming Pride

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 a exposition of public hatred 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.

May His Presence Fill Our Lives

Psalm 150:6
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!

Our Lord, Jesus, is the fullness of joy that we have been so graciously provided once we receive Him as Our Savior.  Our lives are never the same once He dwells within us.  We come to realize a joy through His presence that surpasses anything that we can receive on earth.  As we count our blessings and share our good fortune with the world, let us not forget to mention the greatest blessing of all, Jesus Christ.

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.

In Reverent Awe of the 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.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we exalt Your name as the name that holds the highest place in our lives.  There is no name greater than Yours.  We thank You that we can live in the shadow of Your love, Your protection and Your provision.  We seek to deepen our relationship with You.  We pray that the Holy Spirit will help us to understand who You are so that we may live our lives in reverent awe of You.