No Disappointment

On December 8, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 10: 11

For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.”

You never have to be disappointed. Now wouldn’t that be great to live a life where you are never disappointed? Do you believe that possible? Probably not, and that is where we all lose it. It is a challenge believing we can live a life without disappointment. There is the rub; if we can’t believe it, we can’t achieve it. Anything we cannot believe for, we cannot attain. God works through our faith to bring those things to pass that we need. He performs the miracles but He needs us to do the believing.

We all need to work on our belief level. We need to trust God with some small matters so that we can prove to ourselves that He is true to His word. We need to hear about the miracles He has performed in other people’s lives, and, we need to become familiar with the promises He has made us. If we can really “believe” in Him, then we truly can live without disappointment.

Back to Top

Plague Barrier

On December 2, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 91: 10

No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent.

Do you believe this scripture? To whom do you suggest it is directed? Is it for you, or for someone else? Yesterday’s Word of the Day holds the key to making this verse real and viable in your life. The key to having no evil befall you and to keeping all plagues at bay is belief. Do you believe this verse is for you? Do you believe it speaks truth? Do you believe God is able to make this a reality in your life?

Psalm 91 is truly one of the outstanding chapters of the Bible. It is rich with the promises of God. What good does any of this do, though, if we do not understand that these words were written for each one of us individually? God has provided protection for you among His many gifts. You need to understand your rights as well as other allowances God has already made for you. There is chapter upon chapter of Bible promises, all meant for you. The activator for each and every promise is your belief. If you believe a promise is for you, then you activate it in your life. If you believe today’s verse, that no plague can come near your dwelling and that no evil can befall you, then it’s true. If you really want to add power to your punch, start saying what the Bible says, “No evil will befall me.” When people at work begin talking about all the sickness and disease you say, “No plague shall come near me or my household because we are a household of faith.” Then, you shall have what you say.

Back to Top

 Believers?

On December 1, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

John 2: 22

When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had spoken.

Believing Jesus; believing in Jesus, ultimately should bring a person to believing the Scriptures.

We are called “believers”, but what do we believe. There are some basic tenets of the Christian faith which we are all expected to believe: the virgin birth, the resurrection, etc. surprisingly, one of those basic tenets isn’t that Jesus is the Word of God. people are taught to believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God but if you listen to them, most do not actually believe what they read in the Bible.

Once, when I was a guest at a church, I heard a sermon on Jesus feeding the 5000. To this day I almost regret that I did not stand up and shout, “Blasphemy!” The pastor taught that feeding the 5000 was not a miracle of Jesus. Instead, he posited that women in the crowd fed the people. The women in the congregation appreciated his comment because good church women, especially from the south, do feed the multitude. None the less, can you see that this Pastor is not truly a believer? He does not believe what he reads in the Bible. I wonder, sometimes, how that church is doing. If the pastor teaches unbelief, what expressions of faith can you expect from the congregation?

I want to challenge you to read the Bible and then to believe what you read. Third, I want you to believe that what you read there can happen today and can happen in your life. Do you need food? Read 1 Kings 17. Do you need money? Read Matthew 17: 27. Then believe what you read. Believe that what God did for someone else, He is willing to do for you. Believe the Word of God.

Back to Top

Believe It

On October 19, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 10: 11

 

For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.

I believe the above yet I know many disappointed Christians. For years I have wondered why we are not living in more victory than we are. I have found one reason even if it may not be the definitive answer. When we read a passage like the one above, most of us are initially excited by it. Within seconds, though, doubts come. We don’t know if we can really believe this or not. Right then we begin to compromise the Word of God. We don’t like to think that we do that but the truth is, unfortunately, that we do. The next thing we do is wait for God to prove that this word is true. We have all done it even though we all want to be faith giants. We adopt a “wait and see” attitude. To do otherwise is like stepping out on the edge of a cliff.

I am coming to believe, though, that God’s miracles are out there on that cliff. I believe He wants us to accept His word as truth and act on it rather than waiting to see it proved out in our experience. He wants us to learn to have faith and trust in the words we read and put our reliance in them. What would it mean to you if you really, really believed the passage above? What if you knew beyond any doubt that you would not be disappointed in whatever you do? Would it change the way you approach some situations? I know it would change how I deal with situations if I could jump all the way into radical belief and radical trust. Join me! Let’s step one step further out on that cliff and try to believe God the way He says things. Let’s try to accept Him where He is instead of making Him fit into our limited thinking. Let’s just inch one bit further into trust and acceptance. It could make for a very radical experience indeed.

Back to Top

Believe It

On September 20, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Exodus 15: 26


I am the Lord that heals you.

That is short, sweet and to the point. You would need help in confusing this scripture because it is so simple. And yet, we really are not walking in this simple belief. Most of us believe that God heals. All you have to do is go to a hospital to see that truth. People will receive prayer when they are sick even if they have refused God all of their lives. Why do we ask people to pray for us if we do not believe God heals? Well of course we do believe. Then why are we not all walking in health? Somehow in the body of Christ we have let this simple truth slip away from our daily walk. We know that He is our Lord that heals us. We know it! But I think we only know it with our minds. We don’t believe it with our heart of hearts. We pray for healing when someone is seriously sick hoping that God will heal them rather than believing that God is going to heal them. Then in our daily lives we receive all manner of sickness, pain and suffering. We do not mean to. We have just been led along by the world; by those who do not have a hope of healing. We have started acting like them instead of acting like children of the great healer.

It might be a great task for all of us to get ourselves turned back around but we can do it because all things are possible in Him and to those who believe. We just need to take one small step and then another. We need to encourage one another and we need to keep on praying as we have been but now with greater expectation that the God of miracles really is present for us and that He really will show up on the scene. Help your friends increase their expectation and demands on God’s promises. Encourage them and when you have a sickness or a disease attack your body, ask them to pray for your health too. Working together we can turn around the body of Christ and reclaim the promises of God in our life.

Back to Top

The Facts Don’t Count

On September 12, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 4: 19

And without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

If you want to know one of the secrets to living successfully in the Spirit it is this, don’t let the facts interfere with the truth. Abraham had a promise from God that not only would he and Sarah have a child but that he would be the father of nations. How does an old man whose body is as good as dead and whose wife is not only elderly also, but who has always been barren, have a child? Well, in the natural, and according to the facts, they don’t. But, you see, that is where we must depart from the reasoning of this world and move over in to Jesus thinking and Jesus faith. 
Abraham did not become weak in his faith. Now what is faith really? Sometimes I think we make it too hard a concept. Here is a simple illustration. If I tell you that I am going to give you a pen when I see you will you be expecting to receive a pen? How confident are you that you will be given a pen? That is the measure of your faith in me? If you have a high expectation, even an assurance, then you have a lot of faith in me. That is all faith is, believing. You believe that what I say, I will do. Now, how assured are you that Dad is going to do what He has said? Somehow, Abraham was able to believe God’s word over the evidence which he saw in the world. Which one do you think you would have a tendency to believe? When you believe God, then that belief turns into trust. In the example of the pen, do you trust me to give to you what I promised?

Verse 18 says that Abraham believed even though there seemed no cause for hope. He saw the evidence that the world presented to him and chose to instead believe what God said. That is so hard for us to do but it is a super-key to living in the supernatural blessings of God. If we want to walk on the water, and who doesn’t, then we have to renew our minds with this kind of thinking. We have to ignore the facts. We don’t deny their existence we just deny their power. Abraham decided that God’s word was the final word, that it superseded the physical facts. That is the way we need to be, the way we need to think if we wish to walk in the kind of miracles that Abraham did, the kind of miracles that God wants to be our everyday experience.

Back to Top

Stormy Waters

On August 16, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Mark 4: 35 – 41

35 On that day, when evening came, He said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.”

36 Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him.

37 And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up.

38 Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”

39 And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm.

40 And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

41 They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

Don’t you just love this story? It is so out of our realm of experience. The storm they encountered out on the sea was obviously a big storm because waves were crashing over the boat and filling it with water. There were gale force winds. That is not the time most of us want to be out on the ocean. First of all, Jesus was just sleeping through it. That is amazing enough but then when his disciples awoke him, he actually rebuked them for their lack of faith. He was disappointed that they were afraid. Now how many of us would also have been afraid if we were in that kind of storm while on the sea? And yet Jesus tells us that we should not be afraid nor should his disciples have been. We are supposed to counter frightening circumstances with faith instead of fear. Isn’t that remarkable? Jesus did not even seem to think that the storm required a lot of faith to overcome. He accused his disciples of having no faith. You would think that hanging out with Jesus would cause his disciples to have great faith but they were even more afraid of him than they were the storm. They began to learn what he could do but they were not learning yet that it was his faith in the father that was the source of it all. Jesus expected the disciples to take care of that storm using the same faith that was available to him. What does that say for us? 

We must all learn to utilize that same faith that has been given to us through the son and the Holy Spirit. First by reading and meditating on this story and others like it, we can begin to become familiar with the level of faith that is available and even expected of us. We cannot begin to walk in this level of faith until we accept the idea that this kind of faith is possible to us. You cannot have what you cannot believe for and you cannot believe for that which you cannot fathom. Therefore, the first thing for us to do is to begin to wrap our minds around the concept of an enlightened faith walk. That is a harder task than it may first sound like because there are so many people who just cannot believe past the end of their noses. They won’t want you believing big either so they will attempt to discourage you. My advice is to follow Jesus example rather than theirs. I just think that you would rather walk like he did than anyone else you know. Set your eyes on him as your example and begin to tell yourself that all things are possible to those who believe.
Back to Top