Ed Christian's World

Your Fallow Ground…

Paul said “I am determined to preach the Gospel where it has not been preached.” The results are usually more dramatic where the Gospel has never been preached, rather than in places where the Gospel has already been heard.

When you sow seed, consider the fallow ground principle. The fallow ground, the place where the ground has not been sown before; when broken up, usually produces the most fruit. The ground that has not been touched produces the greatest reaction.

We are to spread the Word to those who have not heard. You can praise the Lord in worship service and talk of God, but when you praise the Lord and talk about Him to those who do not know Him, the reaction is going to be dramatic.

In your life you want miracles; apply the Word of God to untouched lands in your life and your heart. That is where the miracle is. Look for the untouched lands in your world, your workplace, your home, your life, your family, and your heart.

Bring the Word, truth, love and power of God into those parts. They will be transformed with miracles when the Word comes.

He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” Mark 16:15

Choose an area in your life left fallow and start letting it be touched by God. Apply His Word and will to it.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Soak It Up…

Did you ever make tea? You put the tea bag in hot water and let it sit. It takes time. Believers treat God like fast food. You run in and have His presence and Word and then run out. You put the tea bag in, you take it out, and then complain there is no tea.

That is how we act with the Lord. We come in and out of God’s love, word, and prayer quickly. God’s love is not fast food. His love is more like the tea bag principle; it takes time.

We are the water; His love, truth, and presence are the tea bag. His righteousness is the tea. You have to let it soak in through the junk of the past – the emotions, all the scars. You need to be touched deeply.

Spend time in God’s presence. Let God’s presence dwell and remain in your life. Let the peace, love, joy, and purity of God soak into and penetrate your heart and emotions.

The love, word, and presence of God are so good; you need to give it time. It’s like tea, and you need to soak it up.

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. Colossians 3:16

Come into the presence of the Lord and practice the art of soaking.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The New Testament Sacrifices…

The Old Testament is filled with sacrifices, guilt offerings, sin offerings, trespass offerings, peace offerings, and thanksgiving offerings…so many offerings in the temple. We are glad that the sacrifices are over, right? No more temple, no more sacrifice. Wrong!

The New Covenant requires higher standards and deeper sacrifices to God. You are called to bless God with your gifts and offerings of thanksgiving, praise, love, obedience, and your life…sacrificial gifts.

In the Old Testament, they gave up things that cost them, meant something to them, something they did not want to give up. That’s precious to God. Romans says that your life, your body, is a living sacrifice.

Bless God today and give Him an offering, a gift, a sacrifice because your very salvation came to you through the sacrifice of Messiah. That’s God’s gift to you. Every joy, every good thing is in His sacrifice to you.

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Psalm 51:17

How can you repay? You can’t, but you can bless the Lord, and that is the only proper thing to do, with a greater covenant, a greater salvation, a greater sacrifice. Bless God with your sacrifice today because God has blessed your life with His.

Plan today to offer sacrifices for God – then, in faith and joy, offer them to God.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

A Footstool World…

It is written in Isaiah 66:1, “Heaven is My throne and earth is My footstool.” Psalm 110 says, “Sit down at my right side until I make your enemies a footstool.” This is also speaking about Jesus.

Hebrews says in Jesus, “You are to share in this blessing.” God wants to make your enemies a footstool. In New Covenant, your enemies are spiritual, those things that come against you. You deal with a million conflicts, problems, anxieties, principalities, fears, and sorrows in your life.

But, God promises victory and peace. The key is to sit down at His right side and trust in the Lord. God is in the heavenlies, so you sit down in the heavenlies. Ephesians says He has seated us in the heavenlies in Messiah Jesus.

Instead of dealing with our problems from the level of our problems, sit down and dwell in the heavenlies, and your problems will be below you.

Sit down, trust, and rest in Him. And He will take care of it, but you first have to sit down in the heavenlies. Your enemies won’t be your problem anymore; they will be your footstool.

Nothing says it better than the 23rd Psalm: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Practice sitting in the heavenlies with Jesus and placing your feet over those problems.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Dwelling And The Glory…

Have you heard the word “Shekinah?” Shekinah glory speaks of the glory of God that dwelt with His people. The glory was so great that sometimes the priests couldn’t even minister in the Holy Place.

In Hebrew, you use the word Mishkan for the Tabernacle. Both Shekinah and Mishkan come from the same root word Shekan. It means to dwell, to stay with, to reside. The Lord told Moses to build a Tabernacle so He might dwell among them in the Mishkan.

You see, the glory of God stayed in the Tabernacle, a place of abiding. The Hebrews experienced His glory that dwelt with them every day in the Tabernacle. His glory is very powerful and is about God dwelling with you every day.

Do you want the Shekinah glory of God in your life? Then prepare Him a place of residing. Give Him a place to dwell in your life. Every day, give Him room. Prepare a place, quiet time, devotion time, and secret time. Prepare Him a Mishkan, a tent of meeting, and He will meet you with His Shekinah, glory of the Living God!

Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, and who speaks the truth from their heart. Psalm 15:1-2

Set your daily devotion time in the quiet part of your day when you can focus just on Him. Spend time in His presence and dwell there.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Dream Harvest…

Shav’uot, an amazing feast that Israel has been celebrating for thousands of years as the harvest festival. But, the Jewish people haven’t had any harvest; they’ve been scattered from the land that was a wasteland.

There was no harvest, yet they celebrated it. After 2,000 years, God brought them back to their land. They planted fields, the land blossomed; the harvest does exist. Most nations celebrate harvests after they happen. Israel celebrates them before.

Learn this profound secret of abundant life. Don’t wait to see your harvest, your blessing, before you celebrate. Celebrate before you see it. Give thanks before you see the blessing in God, and you will see the blessing.

Celebrate the victory before you triumph, and you will have a victory to celebrate. Rejoice now over the blessing you don’t see, and you will see it. Celebrate when you have no reason except God, and you will have more than enough reason afterward.

Don’t wait for everything to be right. Rejoice now, and it will be all right. Don’t wait for that harvest to have your harvest festival. Have your harvest festival now, and you will have your harvest sure enough.

I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. Isaiah 61:10

Practice celebrating before you see, rejoicing before you know, and living in victory before you have it.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Heart of Peace…

The secret for a heart of joy and peace in God: “In joy, you shall draw water from the wells of salvation,” Isaiah 12. The Hebrew word salvation here is identical to the name Yeshua/Jesus. The water of Yeshua/Jesus of salvation.

He says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink, for out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” From the inside out, like waters of a well. God’s joy and peace come from the inside out.

Learn the secret; live from the inside out. Don’t base your life on the outside, the circumstances, or what’s changing, but on the inside, the spiritual. The things of the Spirit of God, His Word, His presence, His Spirit, His love that never changes.

These are the waters of the wells of Yeshua, the blessings coming from the inside out. Draw from the wells of Yeshua, salvation, from Jesus. The waters of joy and peace, hope and life will come from the invisible to the visible, the inside out.

The greatest blessings of your life and the waters of Yeshua or Jesus only flow one way, from the inside out.

Reference: Isaiah 12

Today, wherever you are, don’t focus on the outside, but draw water of life, fullness, and refreshing from the waters of the Spirit.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Sunday Equation…

Algebra is the search for X, the missing factor. There’s one side of the equation and there’s the other; then you have to find X. 2 + X = 4. X has to be 2. We search for X Friday night. There’s a band of followers following the Rabbi and they’re hiding.

They’ve witnessed the violent bloody end to everything they’ve hoped for. They’re disillusioned, depressed, mourning, and in fear. That’s Friday night but then there’s Saturday. Friday is one side of the equation.

But Sunday begins the greatest movement the world has ever known. This despondent movement on one side of the equal sign and the most confident band of people the world has ever known on the other. What is X, the missing factor that explains it? X can only equal – the resurrection.

The only thing that could turn those followers into the victorious apostles is the resurrection of Jesus. It’s so powerful. It divided the age on the calendar.

The same X factor can change your life. It doesn’t matter what’s on your side of the equation or what the situation is. Take that X factor, the resurrection of Jesus, and you’ll have victory.

Reference: Luke 24:13-53

No matter what you deal with today – deal with it in the power of the resurrection – the X factor!

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Forgiveness and Sabbath…

Jesus died on the sixth day on purpose because it was the eve of the Sabbath. He died on the very eve of the Sabbath because He was bringing in the Sabbath. He was ushering in the Sabbath peace of God.

On the cross, He shows us how to enter the Sabbath. The secret and the key of entering the Sabbath peace for your life is in Luke 23:34, which says, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”

He’s dying, He’s in pain, He’s bleeding to death, they’re killing Him wrongfully, they hate Him; yet amazingly He’s thinking of them. He’s asking forgiveness for them. He’s entering the Shabbat, the Sabbath, and teaching us how.

How do you enter the Sabbath? How do you have peace in your life? Forgive. The heart will never have peace if it holds on to self-pity, anger, and complaint. He’s forgiving those who crucified Him.

If He can do that, how much more can you? Forgive those that wronged you. Pray for their blessing. Take some action of forgiveness. Sabbath is about refreshing, restoring, and healing. Enter the Sabbath. Forgive them, and you’ll enter.

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. Mark 11:25

Who from your past do you still need to forgive? Don’t hold off any longer — forgive them, pray for them, and, if you can, bless them today.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Rock House…

The Lord gives a parable of the man who builds his house on the rock, and the other one who builds it on sand. The one who builds on sand has the easier time at first. It’s easier to move the sand around. And that’s the point, it’s moveable.

It represents the one who builds his or her life on what’s moveable, what’s changing – everything but the things of God. It’s building your life on your popularity, what people think of you, your reputation, your intelligence, job, house, situation – even good things like marriage and family which are gifts from God.

These aren’t the foundation ground. The foundation ground is God. Are you building your life on moveable things, temporary things? It’s harder to build on rock, because rock is the immovable unchanging word of God – but it lasts.

The wise man builds everything on the rock. Because when you do that, when you build your life on the rock, your joy, well-being, plans, marriage, house, ministry, all these things become immovable. All these things will become solid as a rock.

As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it because it was well built. But, the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed, and its destruction was complete. Luke 6:47-49

Pause and ask yourself what you’re truly building your life and your actions upon – the sand or the rock. If change is needed, start today.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed