The Gospel comes in two forms: words and actions. I recall what Henry Ford, the great auto industrialist, said to the preacher after one Sunday morning at church. “Preacher, that was a great message, but if you worked for me I’d fire you.”  “Why??” the preacher asked.  Ford replied, “You prepared us all for action, but left us with nothing to do.”

God is dependent upon us to carry out His plans in the earth. Acts 13:6 says David fulfilled his purpose in his generation. I see two things in this passage. One, David knew his purpose; and two, he fulfilled his purpose! My prayer is that each one of us would discover our purpose, find our team, and then pull together for fulfillment in God’s plan!

If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,000 that carried over no balance from day to day, allowed you to keep no cash in your account, and every evening cancelled whatever part of the amount you failed to use during the day, what would you do?

You would draw out every cent every day, of course, and use it to your advantage! Well, you have such a bank, and its name is TIME!  Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it rules off as lost whatever of time you failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balances and allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account with you. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow.

“See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Ephesians 5:15

The good news is that each morning you are also given a basket of seeds called seconds, another basket called words, and another basket called thoughts. You can pull out of these baskets all the seeds you want for the harvest you want. The future is yours to sow for!

When I was a young boy, an old Ford factory shift worker came to my grade school looking for boys who wanted to learn to play tennis. The idea jumped in me so I pursued it—despite having a bad case of pigeon-toed feet and starting the game with the racket in the wrong hand!

The coach made an instant determination that I wouldn’t make it. He devised a tournament to eliminate some of the boys he thought were hopeless and wouldn’t make the grade. I was scheduled to play the best player. I was facing immediate termination and it was assumed I would quietly disappear into the night.

However, the day before the tournament began, the star player was hit in the head by a baseball and knocked unconscious. He couldn’t play, and I ended up winning the tournament, which turned the thinking of everyone upside down! Where they had seen no promise of success, they were now forced to acknowledge more than a promise!

Well, that first tournament victory was followed by over 100 more! Those days prepared me for the challenges of today. Follow your dream! Don’t let your pigeon-toed feet or lack of knowledge hinder your opportunity for victory!

Your were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom (Galatians 5:7-8 NLT).

King David was not even considered by his own father or family to be thought of as a prospect for anything other than a shepherd. Yet the prophet Samuel singled him out as the one with the destiny to be King of Israel.

What did he do when he received this great announcement and anointing? He went back to shepherding. The difference was, the idea was now birthed in his heart and he began to dream of himself as a king!

But it was neither the prophet nor the dream that made David a king. It was the victory gained through the challenge of Goliath that put him on the path to kingship. Confronting this giant was a decision he had to make alone, but something within him rose up and moved him to face Israel’s enemy. Where others saw a young boy tending sheep in the present, the Lord saw a mighty man leading Israel to greatness in the future.

Search your heart, seize the moment and be bold because of the Greater One living within you!

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have an answer for every situation that you face? Could it be possible to have a good response to every worry or fear that you might encounter? The truth is that you DO have the answers! The challenge is that those answers are in seed form.

Imagine this: You enter the Superstore of God and walk down the aisles of goods and products, looking at everything you want in life. What would God say when you pulled up to the checkout counter with your cart full of everything you desire? He would say YES and fill your cart with all the seeds that would produce what you said.

The problem is that most people wouldn’t walk out with any seeds, because they would rather have the results immediately. But if you want things immediately, you will have to produce them yourself without the supernatural seeds of God’s supply.

Seeds have wonderful characteristics in that they have creative life within them. They have the ability to multiply and produce more than planted. They have durability so they last for ages.

But seeds require time!

What you put in the soil is not what you will be seeing in 24 hours, but you will see it. Only after the farmer tills his ground, fertilizes it, and waters it does he plant the precious seeds. He heads down to the local coffee shop and talks with the other farmers and relaxes. Why isn’t he walking the fields praying for a harvest? It is because he knows his job is done and the job of the seed is beginning. He knows that seeds always produce. He trust his seeds. Seeds always do their part if they remain planted.

The seeds that Leslie and I planted years ago for a world ministry that will effect positive change in millions of people still are producing. The desire of leaders worldwide to hear and experience the miracle events has not waned over time, but continues to grow.

What seeds are you planting? If you don’t know, check the words you’re speaking, the thoughts you continue to repeat over time, and the strong feelings you have in various areas. Therein lies the seedbed of your future!

You might feel that something disqualifies you from leadership because of age, education or experience, but there is hope. Jesus was the best example to even simple fishermen, giving them ability to lead nations of people. What made Him the leader of a third of the current world population and all of creation? The secret lies in a simple statement that is often overlooked.

“Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from and where I am going’” (John 8:14).

The secret of your leadership lies in 3 simple facts. The same facts that made Jesus admired also inspired great feats of courage in his followers.

First, Jesus knew who He was. He had a sense of His oneness with the Father. He said, “I know where I come from.” He knew His identity and was comfortable with it. He knew His origin in God and rested in that relationship.

Second, Jesus knew His purpose. He said: “I know where I am going.” He was not a guy floating around with a question mark on his mind. He spoke with a purpose. He had a depth to His words that would stir the soul and stimulate courage of heart to follow Him to the ends of the earth. In every delay or diversion He was aware of His time and His purpose.

The third secret of His leadership is His willingness to pay the price for it. He said in his weakest moment: “nevertheless thy will be done, not mine.”

Don’t consider the cost to your purpose to be too much. It is nothing compared to the satisfaction of reaching the end of your quest or at least knowing you tried to reach it. Even the great apostle Paul wrote of his plans for Spain, yet there is no scriptural record of him ever reaching it.

Jesus was not sad when He said His last words, “It is finished.” He was completed. And His leadership continues to be an inspiration to us all.

Folks in the West are not accustomed to waiting. At a stop light I leaned over for 2 seconds and the person behind me laid his horn on me so hard I thought someone must be about to run into me. But no, it was just him letting me know that I didn’t jump fast enough on the green light.

Wait has become a four-letter-word in a society where convenience is king. But the word wait is often found in scripture with meanings of pause, rest or “attaching oneself to.” When we wait on the Lord we attach ourselves to Him and His plans.

The prophet Isaiah tells us:
“He energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts.
For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
They spread their wings and soar like eagles, They run and don’t get tired,
they walk and don’t lag behind”  Isaiah 40:29-31 (Message).

Let’s be like the eagles. We hang in there with our wings spread until a new wind blows and we rise up on that wind to soar above the current location to a new view and new place in life!

We should always desire to breathe deep of the wonder of life. Science tells us that deep breathing is the best guarantee that every cell gets oxygen in our body to keep it healthy. I always want to pray for those I see walking around with an oxygen tank and tied to a machine.

I see so many people tied to the machine of television and computers and cell phones. It has become their oxygen life-line for inspiration and meaning. Playing football on a computer is not playing football, it is playing on the computer.

Don’t make the mistake of living a virtual life. Learn to breathe the breath of God deeply and experience what life is really all about…Euphoria!

Most people are dead while they are alive. Their dreams have died. Their drive is dead. Their desire is dead. Their destiny is dead. They are just going through the motions of existence, many times turning to drugs to deaden their thought processes so they will not look up anymore into the world of their own perishing possibilities.

It’s like an eagle’s egg that has been mistakenly dropped into a chicken coop. The eagle hatchling gets so used to seeing how chickens behave that he starts acting like one—until the day he sees a bald eagle soar overhead. Then he can begin to dream again!

If he dares to believe, he will spread his wings and flap. When he takes that first step he will discover that he was destined and designed to fly. He was not meant to live as a chicken!

Remember the days of your youth when your imagination knew no boundaries? It is a gift of God to make your days on earth a heaven, and a way for the life force of faith to bring dreams to pass. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a sign to every human that they can live a resurrected life. We are NOT captives of our past, our circumstances, or the opinions of the people around us. We are destined to soar as we embrace the destiny of our Creator and act like Him!

The message of the Gospel is new life to those who are dead. Cherish this new life. Fight for it. Stand in it. Let it take you places you never dreamed possible!