Ed Christian's World

The Well Insulated Heart…

Have you ever experienced heat loss in your home through an opening, a crack around a doorway or window? You can feel heat escaping and cold coming in. A house that has openings, or doesn’t have enough insulation will always be subject to whatever’s outside.

Luke 2:19 and 2:51 say, “Miriam (Mary) treasured these things in her heart.” She was a deep person, keeping the things of the Lord as treasures in her heart.

We must do the same to have a strong inner life. Like a well insulated house, cultivate a strong sense of the Word in your life and heart as treasures inside you. With no devotional or inner life, you’ll be like a house with no insulation.

When it’s bad, cold, or tough outside, you’ll be depressed, sorrowful, and up and down with the world. But if you keep a strong inner life, an insulated heart, inner treasures, inner relationship with God.

When the storms of life come and the cold winds of life blow in your direction, it’s not going to touch your heart, your peace, your faith, or your joy. Because you have a well insulated heart.

Truly, my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Psalm 62:1

Hide His treasure in your heart today by memorizing a verse from the Bible – and treasuring it there.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Cheap Wine and Priceless Love…

Song of Solomon 1:2 says, “Ki tovim dodecha mi’yayin.” “For your love is better than wine.” What’s the difference between love and wine? Wine is bought and can be expensive, but you can’t buy love, it’s free. The bride’s saying, “nothing I could buy is even worthy to be compared with your love.”

As Jesus’s bride, we’re to have the same heart. Too often, we run after things we can touch, taste, smell, and purchase. But it’s not even worthy of being compared to God’s love. The love of God is always free. There’s nothing we can do to earn it. But don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s cheap.

The love of God is free not because it’s worthless but because it’s priceless. All the worldly treasures we labor after mean nothing, compared to the love of God. The love of God is free because it’s beyond price. His loving kindness is better than life.

So, set your heart on daily receiving the treasures of heaven; the riches of His love that the world can’t contain. Then you, as His bride, can say, “Your love is better than wine.”

Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. Psalm 63:3

Today rejoice in the love of your Beloved. And rejoice in how that love is better than everything else in this world.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Talking to God’s Answering Machine…

Have you ever talked to someone’s answering machine and in the middle of your conversation with their machine, they suddenly pick up and say, “hello?”

Sometimes, leaving a message feels easier than actually engaging in a conversation because it doesn’t require much of your heart. It’s the same with God. Some people would rather talk to God’s voicemail than to God.

To a lot of people, prayer is kind of a routine, a ritual; you just say the words, and it counts. What if you’re leaving your prayer message and God actually interrupted and started speaking with you? Many believers would be shocked because it’s easier to leave your message than actually engage with God.

But God doesn’t want you to leave messages in heaven; He wants you to have Him live. He wants you to be open to hear from Him at any moment, relate to Him, answer Him, and engage with Him.

Stop leaving messages on His heavenly voicemail. Start relating to Him live. God is alive, and He doesn’t want to deal with recordings.

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3

Set aside time today, not only to talk to God in prayer…. but to listen to Him.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Lamb of New Beginnings…

Here in the West, the New Year begins in January. But the Biblical New Year came in the spring Hebrew month of Nisan. Nisan means “the beginning.”

Nisan was the month of Passover; redemption from Egyptian slavery and bondage, and the rebirth of the nation to God, all by the blood of the Lamb. Nisan is also the month of Jesus’s redemption. It’s the month of His death and Resurrection; of His Passover, when the Lamb of God died to make all things new.

That’s the New Year – that’s Nisan – the Beginning. The power of new years and new beginnings doesn’t come from a calendar. It comes from the Lamb.

Do you want a new beginning and the power of newness to fill your life? Then come back to the cleansing mercy of the Nisan Lamb; your first Love.

Come as you did when you first came to the Lord and made new. For renewal, new days, new walks, new lives, new hearts, and even new years only come by the power of the Lamb.

Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Colossians 3:9-10

Spend special time today with the Lamb, and be renewed in your love for Him.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Choosing Your Shannah…

In Hebrew, Shannah means year. It’s also the root of the word second – as in second time or a repeat of the year before.

We often live our lives just this way, continuing to repeat the same mistakes, the same habits, doing the things we know we shouldn’t, not making the changes we know we should.

We don’t go anywhere. It’s just a Shannah – a repetition of what went before. The word Shannah can also mean, ‘new’ or ‘second chance.’

Each year is given to us as an opportunity for a new beginning, to not make the same mistakes, continue the same habits and make the changes we know we should.

It’s up to you to choose which one it will be, a repeat or a second chance for something new. In the power of God he wants this coming Shannah to be something new and different.

It’s given to you as something brand-new for overcoming and for victory. In the new birth, all things will become new for you, but you need courage to break out of the repetition and into the newness of life.

We were, therefore, buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Romans 6:4

Be courageous today and choose newness of life. Leave behind old habits and walk in the power of God.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The First Words of The New Covenant…

The first words of the New Covenant that Jesus gave His disciples after His resurrection was, “Peace be unto you.” But Jesus didn’t speak English, so what He said in Hebrew is “Shalom aleichem.”

Shalom doesn’t just mean peace. It means fullness, well-being, completion, wholeness, perfection, blessing, prosperity, and healing. The Old Covenant was based on trying to get there, trying to live up to the Law, trying to measure up, trying to get to the place God wants you to be, longing for the day of Jesus’s coming.

But the New Covenant is based on Shalom. In other words, it’s here. It’s come. It’s finished. You’ve arrived. You can stop striving. You can rest, be well, whole, healed, fulfilled, and blessed. Jesus began by saying, “Shalom be to you.”

The first thing in the New Covenant is Shalom.” Not just Shalom, but Shalom to you. But you have to receive it and come into the blessings of the new. Receive and experience all Jesus has for you, peace and blessing in Him. It’s as simple as two words. Shalom Aleichem.

The Jews who heard these words were again divided. John 20:19

Today, receive the Peace from Jesus that He has promised you and blessed you with.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Lord’s Fund…

We put our money in banks or investments and they gain interest, but all the money and interest is going to be nothing in the end. There’s another way of investing which gives returns that don’t pass away.

The Lord has a fund. It pays great dividends, a hundred fold or more. It never fails and always pays you back on your investment. It’s eternal riches. Proverbs 19:17 says, “He who gives to the poor lends to the Lord.”

When you give to people who can’t pay you back; the poor, the needy, the hungry, the lost, or when you give to the Lord’s work; the great commission, to spread the gospel, you give to His glory. You’re not just giving to a person; you’re lending to the Lord.

Giving with no thought of getting back anything on earth is an investment in the Lord’s heavenly fund. You’ll receive back eternal treasures. In this life, give abundantly and generously with joy.

Because it’s not only the best thing to do; it’s the wisest investment, and it will be given back to you, pressed down, shaken together and overflowing.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33

Invest your time, talents, and resources in heavenly things today that never rust or fade.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Age of Epiphanes…

The Chanukah story tells of Antiochus Epiphanes, a shadow of the antichrist, who defiled God’s Temple. Epiphanes means, “God manifest.” 2 Thessalonians 4 speaks of the antichrist who will exalt himself over everything, setting himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming to be God.

When man seeks to get rid of God, he makes himself god. When any government denies God, it becomes its own god. This same spirit fills New Age teachings. Even as believers, we can fall into the Epiphanes Syndrome.

When our concern above everything is ourselves, as if we’re the most important thing, more concerned about our reputation than God’s, seeking praise instead of giving it, we’re falling into the Epiphanes Syndrome.

But if you empty yourself of the Epiphanes Syndrome, in true humility and selflessness, then the true God will manifest Himself in your life. Those who empty themselves of self, their life will become a Holy of Holies filled with the presence of God.

Stop trying to be God Manifest, and your life will be filled with the Manifestation of God.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, Philippians 2:3

Empty yourself of selfish thoughts today. Make your focus on serving God and others.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Collaborating With Your Enemy…

The story of Chanukah is about the takeover of Israel and the Temple by a foreign power. But that’s not the whole story. Long before the nation was taken over and the Temple defiled, there were those of Israel who began imitating the ways of the gentiles, brought in the foreigners, and collaborated with the enemy.

The enemy wouldn’t have gotten into the Temple if it weren’t for those who opened the doors and led them in. The desecration of the Temple happened because the high priest guided the enemy into the Holy Place.

The real enemy of our souls can not have a victory over God’s people unless we let him. The enemy can not stop you, defile you, plunder you, or oppress you unless you let him. Don’t let him.

Every time you give into sin, you’re collaborating with and aiding the enemy of your soul to wage war against your soul. In God, you’re on the winning side, and you can’t help but win unless you allow the enemy to win.

Stop giving into sin. Why should you aid your enemy? Instead, aid your friend, and you’ll win.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23-24

Search your heart and see if there’s anywhere you’ve been agreeing with the enemy. Choose to agree with God today and throw the enemy out.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Bethlehem Goel…

The ancient law of the goel said, ‘If a man died without having an heir, his nearest relative would marry his widow and have a child who would carry on his line, redeeming the barren house.

Scripture shows this in the line of Judah with Tamar and centuries later with Boaz and Ruth who had Obed, who fathered Jesse, who fathered David. Later, we come to Miryam; Mary who was born of the line of the Goel intervention.

She gives birth in Bethlehem – the same place the Goel redemption happened to Ruth. The birth of Jesus is the ultimate Goel redemption. Adam’s line had fallen because of sin. We were barren and couldn’t produce life; we were headed to death.

So God Himself intervened that we might be redeemed and bear fruit. That’s what God does for you. He sees your barrenness, comes and puts His life within your heart and your life miraculously bears His fruit.

Receive His life, love, and His Spirit and bear His fruit. Your life will be redeemed and fruitful for God, Himself is your Goel.

I know that my redeemer lives and that in the end, he will stand on the earth. Job 19:25

Share your fruitfulness with others today by being kind and compassionately sharing your Redeemer.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed