Ed Christian's World

The Little Red Riding Hood Deception…

One of the first stories I ever learned was Little Red Riding Hood. She encounters a wolf posing as her grandmother. After a short talk with the wolf, she begins to suspect something’s amiss. She calls in some hunters and they kill the wolf.

There’s a biblical principle in this story. Yeshua, Jesus spoke of wolves, He spoke of the enemy as wolves. He spoke of wolves in sheep’s clothing. The principle here is that evil never comes as evil. It always disguises itself as good. No temptation comes to you in its actual form.

It doesn’t show you all the ugliness that it’s going to do with the big teeth it has. It comes to you as a grandmother with a bonnet on. It seems harmless and good, but remember, whenever you’re being tempted, behind that bonnet, there’s a wolf wanting to devour your walk, your family, and everything in your life.

Don’t give it any room, don’t approach it, don’t engage it, just get out of the room. Call the hunters and be done with it. When temptation comes, resist and don’t engage in conversation with the enemy today. Call on the name of the Lord.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7

When temptation comes, resist and don’t engage in conversation with the enemy today. Call on the name of the Lord.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Magdalene…

Many think Mary Magdalene was a prostitute who came to the Lord. Pope Gregory the Great was the first to link her to the prostitute who wept at his feet. All we really know is that Mary Magdalene had demons and was delivered by Jesus.

We don’t know whether she was a prostitute or sexually immoral. But no one questions it. She’s become the world’s most famous prostitute. Imagine that you come to the Lord, and for generations, you’re known as the world’s most famous prostitute.

It doesn’t matter what people think of you. Most of the time, they’re wrong anyway. It only matters what Jesus thinks of you and that you’re with Him now. Start rejoicing with what God thinks.

Get away from caring about what people have in their minds. It doesn’t matter. It means nothing. Get close to God like Mary Magdalene. It’s all that’s going to matter in the end; getting close to Him. Because when all is said and done, Jesus is enough.

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. Galatians 1:10

Don’t be concerned today with what others think about you, but rejoice in His thoughts toward you.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Breaking The Jim Crow Laws…

The Civil War was won, slavery was abolished. But in the South there were, “The Jim Crow laws,” by which Black Americans were still degraded and deprived of their rights. It wasn’t until the Civil Rights movement, that these laws were challenged and changed.

In the same way, Jesus has won the war against sin, the flesh, the devil, and bondage. He did it on Calvary. But many believers are still living in the same old laws of sin and death, even though they’re free. You have to challenge that old law, just like the Jim Crow law. Defy that old law in your life.

When the enemy says you have to fall, backslide, fail, or mess up, you say, “No, I won’t! I’m not subject to this anymore! Jesus set me free, and I’m free indeed. I will not obey, submit, or give in anymore because greater is He that’s in me than you in the world.”

Break the law today. I’m not speaking of the laws of the state but the laws of the enemy that have no place in your life. It’s time to be free!

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:13-14

Break the laws of the enemy today and walk in the freedom of Jesus.

Walk daily with God at your side side!

Love always,

Ed

Th Incense Cloud Of Busyness…

The cloud of incense is what the high priest would burn when he came into the Holy of Holies because he had to cloud it up to not die from seeing the glory of God. You might be doing the same thing.

One of the most popular incense that we burn to keep us from God’s Glory is our incense of busyness. We distance ourselves from God by creating busyness. We come home, turn on the television, the internet, cell phone or something else. We cloud out devotion, prayer and worship. We cloud Him out.

Our schedules are filled with things and no time to really enter His presence. You can be ministering for Him, but you have a cloud of busyness that is keeping you from really knowing Him and being intimate.

In the New Covenant, there’s no more veil or cloud. So start unclouding your life. Start clearing out space for God. Make time every day when you’re just alone with Him.

Make time for living in the reality of God’s presence without the cloud. Live unclouded. Live cloudless.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Put aside your busyness today and spend time alone with Him.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Be Ye First Fruitful…

We’re called to be fruitful. But did you know we’re called to be first fruitful? In Hebrew, bikkurim means “first fruits.” The day of bikkurim is when the first fruits would be lifted up from the earth.

Jesus rose on “first fruits” because His resurrection is the first fruits from the dead. It had never been done before. Jesus gives you the power not just to be fruitful but to be first fruitful. That means you can bear fruit when you have never born fruit before.

When nobody loves you, you can bear the first fruit of love. When no one’s reaching out to you, be first fruitful and reach out to them. When everyone’s negative, where there’s no reason to rejoice, you be first fruitful and rejoice. Have peace and praise anyway.

Our new life begins in the tomb, when there was no reason for Jesus to come alive. So you have the same power to bear fruit when there’s no reason. You’ve heard, “Be fruitful;” but now I give you a new commandment.

Don’t just be fruitful; learn the secret of becoming first fruitful. Bear that fruit anyway.

So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, Colossians 1:10

Look for opportunities today to be first fruitful for the Lord. Don’t react but act upon. Don’t wait for the good, shine the good.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Saved For Joy…

According to Exodus 5:1, God brought the Hebrews out of Egypt to hold a feast for Him. In Hebrew, “chag”, “feast” means to be giddy or joyful.

If you’re saved by Jesus, it’s a Passover salvation through the Lamb as well. The reason we’re saved is to glorify God and have joy. God brought you out of the old life so you could bless Him and be joyous.

It never says be miserable in the Lord. It says, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!” God didn’t go through coming to earth, suffering, dying and overcoming death so that you would be miserable, depressed, live in compromise or failure, and be down.

God saved you with a Passover salvation so you would be celebrating His presence, rejoicing, praising, glorifying Him, and being exceedingly glad in Him. That’s the power of the Passover Lamb, of Jesus in your life, to live joyously.

You can overcome all gloom, all sorrow, all despair, all depression to rejoice in Him. He’s given you the power. So rejoice, be exceedingly glad, for God has done it. You have been saved for joy.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song, I praise him. Psalm 28:7

Celebrate His presence today. Rejoice in the Lord today at all times and in all things.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Seeing With the Eyes of Hebrews…

In the book of Hebrews, the author quotes from the Scripture but doesn’t say who it’s from; Moses, Jeremiah, or whoever wrote it. He just attributes it all to God. Because it wasn’t from those people. It was through them from God. Everything is from God.

We need to learn this secret that can change our lives. Stop looking at circumstances, people, problems, or blessings. Start looking at God and realize that He’s behind it all. If you love the Lord and are in His will, then all things are being worked out by God for good.

God’s not using our problem with evil intent, but for good. So if a problem is from God’s will, then it’s not really a problem. All blessings also come from God. Did someone encourage you or reach out to you or love you in the name of the Lord?

Take it as God encouraging, reaching out, loving you, and working all things for your good. In the end, that’s exactly what it’s going to turn out to be. So receive all things and do all things in love and in blessing back to God, for His glory.

And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Look at all the circumstances in your life today as God working it out for your good.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The City and The Dead…

In Israel, you’ll notice that graves are outside the city. The dead were placed outside the camp in the wilderness and outside the cities in the promised land.

In Mark 5, you read about the demoniac; the man who was possessed. He hung out by the graves, the dead and the unclean. But when God delivered him, he moved away from the graves to the living.

Before you knew the Lord, you hung out with the dead, lived in dead places, handled dead things, talked and thought about dead things. But once you’re saved, you have to leave the dead things and get into life.

One of the signs of being saved is that you can distinguish between the living and the dead. When you get saved, you leave dead things. So if you’re saved, stop handling dead things. Gossip, old sin, old indulgences, old lust, envy, addiction, idolatry, and selfishness are all dead.

You’re not dead. You’re a child of God and alive. So put away that dead habit, whatever it is. Because God has called you out of the tomb and into the land of the living, into life.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. 1 John 2:15-17

Put away any dead habit today and declare that you are alive in Jesus.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Caterpillar Lipstick…

Imagine a caterpillar that spends its life trying to be the prettiest most popular caterpillar around, or trying to be the most successful by gaining money and caterpillar riches? The point of the caterpillar’s existence isn’t to become beautiful, popular or successful as a caterpillar. It’s to die as a caterpillar and be born as a butterfly.

So with us. You’re not on this planet to look the prettiest, become the most popular, successful, or wealthy. This whole life is a caterpillar life. You’re here to exchange it for a butterfly’s life; to die to the old life so that you can live the greater life.

That means letting go of this caterpillar life, dying to self, the flesh, to ego, dying to the caterpillar life, giving instead of taking, letting go, decreasing.

Don’t lose sight of why you’re here. This is what it’s all about. Don’t get caught up in caterpillar stuff. Look beyond, press beyond, let go of that caterpillar life.

Enter the realm of the butterfly so that you can become that beautiful, heavenly creature that God calls you to become in Jesus.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Colossians 3:2

Ask the Lord to show you an area of your life that you need to die to. Let Him transform you.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Wise Old Ant Leaders…

In an ant colony, the work is initiated by servant leaders who lead by example so the younger ants imitate them. By the time a worker reaches the age of five or six, it’s considered to be a wise servant leader. The greatest of them is the servant of all.

Proverbs 6 says, “Go to the ant and learn.” This can change your life. Do you want your spouse, your children, your employees, your congregation, your pastors, or your other brothers and sisters in the Lord to change? Well, go to the ants. They want the younger ones to do a lot. So they are examples. That’s the secret.

How about you? Do you want others to change, to be more loving, more spiritual? Then, you be more loving and spiritual. Parents, do you want your children to be godly? Set your heart on being godly.

Ministers, do you want your congregants to be more like apostles? You be more like Jesus. Be more like whatever you want from others. Become that person first. Because it all starts when we start learning how to be as wise as an ant.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways, submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

Set today to be an example of Jesus to all those around you.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed