Today Our Daily Bread 2 Corinthians 10 ++

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

If the e-mail text you receive is encrypted at all, just scroll down to the end of all of the text and click on Lena’s Journalin’, which will take you directly to the web-page where you will be able to read the text quite clearly in it’s purposed form.


2 Corinthians 10:1-18
Paul Defends His Authority
1Now I, Paul, plead with you. I plead with the gentleness and kindness that Christ himself would use, even though some of you say I am bold in my letters but timid in person. 2I hope it won't be necessary, but when I come I may have to be very bold with those who think we act from purely human motives. 3We are human, but we don't wage war with human plans and methods. 4We use God's mighty weapons, not mere worldly weapons, to knock down the Devil's strongholds. 5With these weapons we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God. With these weapons we conquer their rebellious ideas, and we teach them to obey Christ. 6And we will punish those who remained disobedient after the rest of you became loyal and obedient.
F32 You must recognize that we belong to Christ just as much as those who proudly declare that they belong to Christ. 8I may seem to be boasting too much about the authority given to us by the Lord. But this authority is to build you up, not to tear you down. And I will not be put to shame by having my work among you destroyed.
9Now this is not just an attempt to frighten you by my letters. 10For some say, "Don't worry about Paul. His letters are demanding and forceful, but in person he is weak, and his speeches are really bad!" 11The ones who say this must realize that we will be just as demanding and forceful in person as we are in our letters.
12Oh, don't worry; I wouldn't dare say that I am as wonderful as these other men who tell you how important they are! But they are only comparing themselves with each other, and measuring themselves by themselves. What foolishness!
13But we will not boast of authority we do not have. Our goal is to stay within the boundaries of God's plan for us, and this plan includes our working there with you. 14We are not going too far when we claim authority over you, for we were the first to travel all the way to you with the Good News of Christ. 15Nor do we claim credit for the work someone else has done. Instead, we hope that your faith will grow and that our work among you will be greatly enlarged. 16Then we will be able to go and preach the Good News in other places that are far beyond you, where no one else is working. Then there will be no question about being in someone else's territory. 17As the Scriptures say,
"The person who wishes to boast should boast only of what the Lord has done." F33
18When people boast about themselves, it doesn't count for much. But when the Lord commends someone, that's different!
FOOTNOTES:F32: Or Look at the obvious facts. F33: Jer 9:24.


Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living TranslationCopyright © 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved. For more information about the NLT, please click here.

~ Lena’s Journalin’ ~
I’m going to expose an enemy of the soul today. Remember the “soul” is the mind will and emotions of a human being. We are Spirits, who live in a body and have a soul. The enemy is after our bodies and souls, this is the way he can get to our spirits. If he is allowed by willful disobedience or unbroken generational curses, or whatever to bring illness & disease on our bodies, than he has made entry to torment our souls, even turn our thoughts against God, and voila, he’s gained ground into our spirit’s which were designed by God for fellowship, communion and eternal life.
One deception from God’s and our enemy is that a mere human man or woman cannot have words that are directly from God for us. I mean, we think that when people tell us of God’s words to or for us, we look at the person after the flesh that is on their bodies and we look at any previous actions we may have seen them do before that we didn’t like or agree with and we say to ourselves, “No it’s just so and so and their mighty opinions again!”
I want to show you a scripture today that I’ve been rehearsing over and over again. (by the way I’m showing you about spiritual warfare here)

2 Cor 5:16(Amp) Consequently, from now on we estimate and regard no one from a [purely] human point of view [in terms of natural standards of value]. [No] even though we once did estimate Christ from a human viewpoint and as a man, yet now [we have such knowledge of Him that] we know Him no longer [in terms of the flesh]. 17 Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come! 18 But all things are from God, Who through Jesus Christ reconciled us to Himself [received us into favor, brought us into harmony with Himself] and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation [that by word and deed we might aim to bring others into harmony with Him].
And again, 2 Cor 5:16 in the New Living Translation
So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, as though he were merely a human being. How differently I think about him now!

Please do not be tempted here to use these scriptures to defend yourself and the thinking that you were raised with. We are talking about the work of God in our lives, the word that works change in our lives. What is hindering the word’s change of us? Our souls and the way we’ve thought all of our lives, right? Right.
So God send messengers our way to help us move towards the fulfillment of change in our lives, to help us hear His words to us personally, to help us see what we did not understand ( like right now) and we feel this temptation or hear a voice inside of our heads saying, “we’ll that’s just “Lena” talking”.
Do you realize people did that to Jesus? Why do you think the Bible tells us they did that to Jesus? Because our enemy has been around a lot longer than we have here and he’s the same enemy.
Wisdom listens to the word and the history of it. If we disregard God’s words to us and especially if we disregard the messengers, even in our own homes, sent to us by God, we will go NO where. No advancing.
Do you know what happens when there’s no advance? Think warfare….the enemy is coming, the Chief knows it, he says to the peoples of the villages- Go, he says to the troops- advance, and -Go, he tells people to - move out, and they do not listen, they choose to stay put. What happens? Maybe they didn’t like the commander himself, he wasn’t very nice or gentle? Maybe they knew him in the past and he was a sinner, or did bad things. SO what! Go! Why? Who cares, Go. Well…? No “wells” here, if you stay there or refuse to move on, you die. Your faith dies, your purpose dies, your physical body gets sick and weak and comes under curses and dies. God’s vision for the whole of the army dies, because you were in His army, you were a part, but you are out now. Yeah, he goes on, but not with you. We don’t go on together and we’re not as strong as we were because you are not with “us”.
Do you remember a time where a man would not listen to or obey God and God tried to speak to his heart first and again and then what happened, who spoke next? An animal spoke to him. What kind of animal? A jackass (sorry kids) did the speaking to the man of God. Why? He was stubborn, disregarding, explaining away, reasoning etc. God didn’t send a bunny rabbit to speak to him, He sent a mule! This may sound funny, but maybe God tried to speak to us directly to our hearts, but we were stubborn and added reason to His words to us, we tried to figure out how we’d implement the change He was asking for. We made excuse after excuse, disregarding the messengers. When we figured we couldn’t really follow through successfully with His request to us, we became stubborn and added excuses to our reason, and he brought offers to us through other avenues, other vehicles, maybe not in a form we liked, maybe our stubbornness brought a person to us in a form we would not choose, but it is still His grace, His last “ditch” efforts to save us from our own ways and plans and from staying where we are and being killed off. Maybe our disobedience to His words, through whatever avenue caused a donkey to come our way as a messenger. That donkey is our last change call to obey God, to save us.
Forget the messenger, take His words as from God, as God Himself giving the words. 2 Cor 5:16! THIS will save your soul, your walk with God, your family, your blessings, your positions, your health, your life! All of it is a test, Do we pass? Have we been listening to the ones God has sent our way to help us study? Or are they mere men? Another lie the enemy uses is judgment and condemnation. I believe in this passage it speaks of that, anyway, the judgment IS upon those who will not hear and do the word that God has spoken. The enemy wants to tell us men aren’t supposed to judge us. BUT If we will not put ourselves in the merciful hands of men and allow them to judge us for God (God has set men as judges in the earth) we ourselves unexcused selves will stand before God Most High in judgment and we will be condemned for not obeying His words, His voice, His messengers. The condemnation is avoided here by an obedient heart. There is NO condemnation to those who obey God. Romans 8.
The word clearly says, if you love Me you will obey Me. What does that mean? If we will not obey Him and heed His messengers set in our lives, we do not love Him. We can say we do all we want, but the love of God is evidenced inside of obedience to Him and His words, no matter what form they show up in.
Let the words of humans, or even animals bring conviction to your heart. If you convict yourself, you can stand under His blood and ask for help. Ask Him to convict you of sin, don’t wait to get convicted! Find more and more places to become like Him, He is holy. The point is not how much of my old life can I keep, it’s how much of all of my life can I continue to give over to Him. What means the most to us, if we give it away it is worth the most of all.
It is not wisdom to say,” but that Christian doesn’t do that or get rid or that” don’t even say, “I’m not convicted…” If there is a comparison at all, compare with the word, compare with the spirit, compare with the holiness of God, as we do that we will press on, not stay where we are. We will Go, Advance,Live etc.
Increase in conviction, increase in hearing His voice in any and every form it appears, increase in the word, increase in conviction. Ask for it, What a thought, huh? A God thought at that.

Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.