Daily Bread Pastor Mike Anderson

Verse of the Day: 1 Peter 5:8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. As Peter concludes his comments to the young church, which is under persecution for their faith in Jesus, he says the above words. First, he urges them to be alert and sober. Why? Because they are under attack. As they seek to bring God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, there is a spiritual battle going on that has been going on since the beginning of time. We have an enemy, the devil, who is opposed to and will try to stop the spread of the Gospel being preached, and the spiritual growth that starts ...

Verse of the Day:“‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God." Reflection: This verse from Ezekiel is one of the key verses, as we move from the old covenant through Abraham and Moses to the new covenant through Jesus. The people in Ezekiel's day had fallen away from living a life for God and gone after idols and reckless living. We see some of this theme in 1 Peter 4 as well, so we know just because someone is a follower of God that ther...

Verse of the Day: 102 I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me. 103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! 104 I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path. Reflection: As we have said before Psalm 119 is an acrostic with the Hebrew letters of the alphabet with the theme being the psalmist's love of the Word of God, or as they would call it the Law. The Law was the first five books of the bible called the Pentateuch, or also called the Torah. Since it was all they had it was akin to what we would call the bible. Notice the devotion and love for the word of God which the psalmist says tastes like honey to his mouth. From the love of the Word and the Law, the writer gains understanding and develops a distaste for every wrong path. He has become so immersed in the Truth and the freedom that comes by living according to it, that to live otherwise seems silly. Notice as well th...

Verse of the Day: 11 “‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. Reflection: As we have been reading all along in Ezekiel about the downfall of the Jewish people, today we get a glimpse of why this has occurred. If we read the verses before the verse of the day, the basic problem was that the shepherds only cared for themselves. Instead of making sure the sheep were fed, they made sure they had enough to eat and were well clothed, but the sheep had no one to tend them. Instead of going out and finding the stray ones and binding up the broken ones, they were content to be unharmed and sitting at home. A shepherd's job is to care for the sheep, and the shepherds of God's flock had missed the mark badly. So what did God decid...

Verse of the Day: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. Paul, in his second letter to Timothy, gives the above instructions. Notice the priority of preaching the Word. And then we see some idea of what this means. Paul says to correct, rebuke and encourage. It is important for us to understand the meaning of each of these words if we are to be balanced in the approach of our teaching and preaching ministries, which are all based on the Word of God, God's unchanging truth. To correct, which is also translated reprove, means to bring back in alignment. Specifically this dealt with false doctrines that were a...

Verse of the Day: 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. There was a theme in the Protestant Reformation that Martin Luther and the other reformers gleaned from passages like this. It was called the "priesthood of all believers". The idea is that we are all "little priests", as Luther called it. Meaning rather than having to go through a mediator, the priest to relate to God, Jesus has become our high priest forever and reconciled us back to God through His work on the cross. This relates to our being chosen by God in Christ to be His representatives to the world offering what 1 Peter calls, "spiritual sacrifices to God". Paul also refers to this in Romans 12 when he states, "In view of God's mercy offer yourselves as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of ...

Reflection: There is often lots of confusion over the concept of holiness. In the passage today the writer reminds the early Christians that part of their call is to be holy. And further it says to be holy in all you do. What does this mean for us? First of all to be holy means to be set apart for God's purposes. There were holy things set apart in the temple in the Old Testament like the altar, the basin, and the Book of the Law held in the Ark of the Covenant. These things were all made holy so that people could enter into God's holiness in worship in the ways God prescribed. Most important was the blood of the innocent lamb which washed away the sins of the people as offered up by the high priest on the Day of Atonement. This was all part of the old covenant God had made with the people through Abraham and Moses. In the New Testament, Jesus the word made flesh, came down and offered himself as the innocent lamb of God on the cross. Those who put their faith in the only ...

Reflection: Today we begin the book of 1 Peter written to the scattered exiles throughout Asia Minor, where many of the first New Testament churches will sprout up. The situation is similar to the Old Testament, where the people of God were also taken from the land and dispersed throughout the region. In this case the Christians were being persecuted by the Roman Emperor Domitian (AD 81). The Roman Emperor demanded the citizens of the Roman provinces worship him, which caused the early Christians a huge dilemma. Worship God through Jesus Christ their living hope, or obey the demand to worship the earthly ruler. The writer could either be the apostle Peter, though the later date would not support this, or the letter was penned in Peter's name to assure apostolic authority. Either way it is included in the canon of scripture so it really doesn't matter. The writer assures the believers that though they will face fiery trials, the testing of their faith will refine them as fire ...

Reflection: James, in his letter to the early church, ends with several practical admonitions. It is important to point out what these verses say and what they don't say. Sometimes a biblical text can be taken and meant to mean all kinds of the things it didn't originally mean. And this is the role of good biblical interpretation done in the power of the Holy Spirit. So what is this passage saying?? Well clearly it is saying if someone is sick or needs healing they should call on the church to pray for them. James says the elders, or the spiritual overseers (pastors,staff, and/or spiritually mature lay persons), should anoint them with oil as a sign of the Holy Spirit's presence and pray for them in faith. There is nothing magical about the oil but it was a symbol of the Holy Spirit's anointing and healing power. Then it says to offer the prayer in faith. All prayer is in faith because by praying you are going to God in. Jesus' name and offering the request to God...

Reflection: The writer of Psalm 119 continues to reflect on God's Word and it's trustworthiness. He insists that he can trust God's Law and will do everything in his power to obey, for in this pursuit he will find freedom. There is only one problem without God's power to help us carry it out, we fall short. In one of the bible passages chosen today from Ezekiel 36, we see the promise of that power being made available to us. The Psalmist says God will put His Spirit in us which will make us obey his statutes and commands. And of course this was realized at Pentecost when the disciples were gathered in the Upper Room and the Holy Spirit was breathed on them. It was in this new power that the disciples carried out the Great Commission, Jesus gave them before he left. Notice as well that when Jesus gave them the commission to go and make disciples of all nations he said something very important. He said, "And Lo, I am with you until the end of age." One of ...

Reflection: James describes two types of wisdom today. Ordinarily we think wisdom is all about being smart and more of an intellectual matter. But today James makes an important statement "wisdom is known by her deeds". What does this mean?? It means that wisdom is about how you live out your life. Wisdom is about choosing to live your life by God's Word, which leads to life and peace Or, by our desires which lead to strife, anger and quarreling to name a few. As James says, most fights are a result of not getting what you want, or how you want, and or when you want. It is about a desire that is unfulfilled and you are ticked off about it. Because what usually happens at the end of a fight and quarrel? Both people are still angry, they are probably emotionally worn out and spiritually depleted. And there is usually collateral damage involving other family and friends right? Not very wise, and not a very smart use of our time and energy,the most precious commodities w...