Always keep your song even when all looks lost.

The loss of expectation is a tragic path to walk down. It makes the days seem so long and your purpose so empty. If the devil can’t steal your soul He will try to steal your song.

For example, in World War II a Nazi submarine blew up a passenger ship.  The ship went down in the freezing water and many life boats were launched. Among the life boats was one with 12 women inside.  After floating many hours in dense fog and ice water with no one coming to save them, the people in the boats gave up hope.

However, one woman of the twelve in her boat lifted up her voice and began to sing. She kept singing all night long in the dark and silent fog. Her voice was finally heard which led a rescue team to the raft. All the other boats were lost. Don’t lose your song in the dark!

No matter what the nation’s or your own personal economy may look like, The “Good News” is that we live according to God’s economy, employing age old principles of stewardship, giving, faith, prayer and obedience.

“And besides, what’s the use of worrying? What good does it do? Will it add a single day to your life? Of course not! 26 And if worry can’t even do such little things as that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?” (Luke 12:25-26 TLB)

Recently I heard of a single mom who was prompted by the Lord to pledge a $1,000 offering. After she got home she told the Lord that she didn’t have the money but trusted He would provide. He reminded her of the hair barrettes she had created for family and friends, so she made up some barrettes and found a friend’s boutique to sell them in. A few days later a woman admiring the barrettes asked if she had created them and if she could place an order. The woman was a representative from a major department store chain, and placed an order for 50,000 barrettes on the spot!

REMEMBER – God has specific direction for you that will open the windows of heaven!

Partners, we encourage you to rejoice in the seed you have sown into this ministry and the ministries of others!

GOD IS FAITHFUL!

How many have had a moment of inspiration for an invention that would bless the world, but talked themselves out of it because of age, education, or fear and never took the step to make it a reality? How many saw an illness ravage a loved one, friend, or even themselves but resigned themselves to the limits of medicine and lived with their pain? How many have wanted to study abroad and envisioned a life of service to another culture but allowed the ceiling of financial shortage to kill that vision?

The potential of a new Creation in Christ is as far superior to human potential as human potential is superior to animal potential. Jesus said “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19).  He is saying that following His success will make you someone that others want to follow. Men will be caught by your posture, words, peace, and authority in the midst of challenges. That is true leadership!

We want His type of success and level of success. We want a success that goes beyond a dollar amount into a human value amount. It needs to go beyond a benefit to one generation to an eternal benefit. That is the lifestyle and leadership only He can offer.

Nothing is impossible to the new creation!

“I Can!” is a statement every believer needs to declare.  The “I Can!” in life will open a thousand doors you’ll never see until you say it.  Take yourself out of pondering and wondering and take an action step in a direction.  Choose a goal and declare, “I can do all things through Christ” (Philippians 4:13).

Make a decision to believe that you have received the power Jesus gave in the book of Acts when He said, “you shall receive power” (Acts 1:8). Take it out of the future and put it into today’s words. He is saying, “I will work through you.”

When the revelation hits you that Jesus in you is the same as the Jesus in the Bible, then you will seek to discover how Jesus can work through you!

Freedom is never a reality until it is tested.  In the Constitutions of most countries you will see flowery words of individual rights and freedoms but they mean nothing until they are attempted by individuals in that society.  Freedom of speech, freedom to travel, and freedom to work are assumed rights, but they are often challenged by controlling people.

At the turn of the century America’s freedom of religion was tested by a foreigner named Alexander Dowie.  He came from Australia with a healing message for this country which prides itself in its freedoms, and he was arrested over 100 times for all sorts of reasons, like practicing medicine without a license or disturbing the peace.  All those arrests were illegal, but someone had to pay the price to test the system to see if the freedom written in the books was in reality a freedom you could experience.

Egypt kept Israel in bondage for 400 years.  It was long enough to make them forget how a free person thinks.  When they had an opportunity to be free men they wanted to return to the security of the chains in Egypt.

If a Christian is in bondage it is not because the devil is so strong, but rather their will to walk free is too weak.  They will need to continually hear that Jesus has set them free and that they can stand in that freedom, until it gets down in their spirit and reprograms their thinking.

After the Emancipation Proclamation first ordered the freedom of over 3 million slaves, they were given the opportunity to become legally free if they escaped the control of their slave masters.  However, many died on those same farms under the whip of the owners because they were afraid to risk failure as free people.  Remember, who the Son sets free is free indeed!

When you have an encounter with Jesus Christ and surrender your life to receive Him as your Savior and Lord, it is not just an emotional experience. It is not just a rational, intelligent moment of decision. It is not just a cleansing of your past and passport to your future.

The seed of God has been planted in you in the same miraculous way that the seed of God was planted in Mary to produce the Lord Jesus!

You had to say yes to His will the same way Mary did. She did not understand but said, “Be it done unto me according to your will.”

Peter describes this phenomenon by declaring:

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.  1 Peter 1:23

You have a miracle in you! All the potential of Jesus as a Son of God was placed in seed form in you as a child of God, except for the redemptive nature of Jesus. All His purpose and power is now able to grow and develop in you. This gives special meaning when we celebrate His birth at Christmas!

Moments of great exchange occur for the believer who is acting on the Word of God in the area of giving tithes and offerings. Predicting the exact moment of exchange is as difficult as   predicting the moment of rainfall on your property. But the rain always comes.

As the Israelites were leaving Egypt a moment of great exchange occurred. God released favor on His children and the Egyptians gave them all their silver and gold.

Peter was out fishing one day and Jesus showed up on the shore. Jesus directed him to throw the net on the right side of the boat. Peter obeyed and had such a harvest of fish that he had to call the other boats to help bring it in.

God is a God of more than enough if we will act consistently with His Word and expect the great exchange!

We were preaching in Mariupel, Ukraine, at the top of the Black Sea. There we stayed with a Pastor who had a church of four hundred people. I noticed that the Pastor had no phone and no car. In conversation I asked him, “How can you minister to your flock if you can’t talk to them or visit them?” He told me communication was very difficult and He spent much time on the trolley busses.

That night I challenged the church to pay to connect a phone in his home. All agreed, but with half of his church unemployed and the others only making fifty dollars a month it looked like the biggest miracle in the world to his congregation. Some waited for a phone for thirty years because they couldn’t afford to pay the required thousand dollars.

I encouraged the congregation to trust God to use them as a source to purchase the phone. I asked how many would allow God to use them as a channel of supernatural blessing, and most agreed.

The next night as we were about to begin preaching, a salty old sailor came up to us with big tears in his eyes and shouting, “I’m the one! I’m the one!” I watched him approach thinking, you’re the one? What does that mean? 

 He continued, “I’m the one to give the phone! I stood up last night and committed, and when I got home I received two phone calls from foreign shipping companies. They have asked me to work at European salaries for the next two years. I’ve been unemployed for two years!”

Only when more people will stand up in their faith and pledge to a Godly cause will we see more miracles of supernatural supply in the body of Christ!

When I enrolled in Bible school I only had three dollars in my pocket and no job. The idea came to me to apply at the tennis club called Shadow Mountain. When I applied the manager said there were no openings.

The next day the same idea came to me so I went again. The manager told me again that there were no jobs. On the third day the idea came to me again to apply for a job there. When I approached the manager, he asked me why I kept coming back. Then suddenly another manager in the complex got into an argument with an employee and fired him. She looked up and there I was ready to fill his shoes.

Jesus instructed His disciples on where and how they could get the desired result. When they obeyed the words of their Master, they were abundantly blessed. In much the same way, when we heed His ideas, we will enjoy God’s best and will be delivered from unproductive and fruitless efforts.

It seemed strange to keep going back, but it pays to be persistent. The Bible says that in these last days God will speak to us through dreams and visions. It would pay to listen to all those little “hunches” you get and see what develops!

Understand that God knows where the opportunities are and will readily open them to you! He is on your side. When you run up against a closed door and there are no open doors at all, He will make one for you.

In Astana, Kazakhstan, our team leader and the local organizers came bearing bad news on the day the tent was to go up on the palace grounds of the Muslim president’s own central park. This was going to be a first for Christianity, as no Christian evangelist had been allowed to preach in the capital before and here we were next to the palace grounds in the heart of the city.

The bad news was a flash flood had covered the grounds with six inches of water. The local administrators were planning on abandoning the site, but we rose up as we have done before and said, “NO! We’re keeping the site. Now let’s start draining it.”

In our efforts to try and drain the field, a man with a dump truck drove by and felt compelled to give us eleven truckloads of sand. He was an angel on assignment from heaven, even if he did not know it. It was enough to cover the ground for the big tent so that we could start on time. It was a miracle idea for a miracle moment. God is involved in the affairs of men!