There was a street sweeper named Boris in Far East Russia that came to one of our meetings. The doors had been open and he was outside the building sweeping in the bitter cold. He heard English being spoken and came in out of curiosity.

As he sat there listening he thought about the very serious decision he had made—the decision that today was going to be his last day to live. He had been thinking about all the Communist government had taken away from him, and then sent him to Siberia to sweep the streets. It was too much! “Who am I?” he asked himself, “What reason do I have to live? Today when I go home I am going to end my life.”

Then he heard the words being spoken to the crowd by my husband, Kevin. “Maybe you are a street sweeper, and maybe the government has told you that you have no hope, no future. But God has sent me to tell you that you have a hope and a future in Him!”

We didn’t know Boris was there, but we saw him at the end of the meeting when he came forward crying and smiling. He told us he was going to write books and be an author. “God told me today that I can write books!”  We both thought, that’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard—you come to receive Jesus and the first thing you say is that you’re going to write books?

Fifteen years later we ran into Boris on the metro in Moscow where he told us that he had gone on to Bible College. Since that meeting we learned that he has become the head of a very large ministry and has, in fact, written several books!

All you need is one idea from God to change your life. He says, come to me for my burden is light and my yoke is easy (Matthew 11:30). Stop working in the strength of your own flesh, and work in His strength instead!

I can think of many testimonies where women have been delivered from the bondage of shame and fear. When I was in Kazakhstan we were conducting a very large woman’s conference, and at the end of the meeting this very little lady came up to me holding a gold chain. She grabbed my hand and put the chain in it saying, “Leslie, my husband is in prison for sharing his faith and I am all alone in my home. I have three small children and I have come from far away. I felt so ashamed and so alone—they closed up the church and the government is against us. I have always asked myself, what did I do to cause this to happen? What sin did I commit that might have sent my husband to prison?  But today you have given me hope and reminded me that it is the blood of Jesus that paid the price, and what my husband and I are doing we are doing because Jesus Christ has come to us. Now I know I do not have to be ashamed, I am not the cause of this! I now can come before God with an open face, and I am giving this chain to you to remind you that the women of Uzbekistan will never forget that they have been created in the image of God, and we can come boldly into His presence.”

She ended by saying, “Now I return to my country and I will lift up my head, for I am not ashamed that I am a Christian created in the image of God!”

Faith does not rely on feelings, but it absolutely does foster them. It is what we feel strongly about that happens in our lives. Only in the realm of strong conviction can we weather storms that arise. Our beliefs and our strong feelings must be intertwined to form a powerful seed for change.

Strong feelings could accurately be described as passion. Passion is a mixture of what a person loves and what he hates. Sometimes it’s a love of something that drives his passion to change the world, but at other times, it’s what angers or disappoints him about the world that leads to a passion to change it. All great achievements must be maintained through passion; otherwise, criticisms, setbacks, and pressures will eventually wear achievers down. In order for passion to exist you must be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right.

Without passion you will never stick it out when the going gets tough. It’s passion that keeps you going in the face of insurmountable odds, and it is the same passion that keeps one refusing to quit no matter how painful the journey to the top is. It is the energy that commits to a goal and stays with it.

Jesus gave a Roman centurion—a man who had no covenant with God—a higher compliment than He gave to any of God’s covenant people. Jesus told His disciples that He had not seen greater faith in all of Israel than what He saw in this man (Matt. 8:10). What caused this centurion to receive such a compliment from God?  He had evaluated the similarity of authority that He and Jesus carried, and told Jesus to speak the Word only and his servant would be healed.

This soldier’s understanding of how his own word of authority operated in the natural realm gave him perfect understanding of how Jesus’ words operated in the spiritual realm. This centurion had a revelation that words controlled both realms! If that is the case—and Jesus has given us the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 16:19)—then what we say is the road map to our future. We are our own prophet; we declare our own future.

Can this power be abused? Yes. But it was intended to be used by people with a new, God-filled heart to bring about the desires of that heart.

There was a woman who was well known in a particular African city because she lived in a cardboard house underneath a bridge. Everybody knew she was there. She had tuberculosis; she was dirty. Nobody cared about her. She had no family, no one to love her, no one to trust her, no one to believe in her. So she went about her life living under that bridge. But then a big meeting came to town where they were sharing principles similar to what I’m sharing with you here.

A group of ladies from the church decided to be bold and go under the bridge to the woman in the cardboard house. When they came to her house and invited her to the meeting, she said, “Why do you want me? You don’t care about me. Nobody wants me.” They replied, “You’ve got to come with us. There is a man who is talking about Jesus and God, and lots of people are being healed. You are ill and he can help you!”

She finally consented and went to the meeting, and as she was standing there on the outside of the crowd listening, she heard words of love and life. Suddenly she understood that God loved her, and that Jesus had died for her so that she would never be alone.

She opened her mouth and prayed to this living God, and as she did, Jesus visited her. She felt an energy come into her body, and she could breathe deeply once again! The ladies from church saw that she was smiling and breathing normally, so they rushed her up to the platform to share a testimony of what had happened in her life. The women were so excited! Right there in their midst they were seeing a miracle!

They brought the woman up onto the platform and asked the preacher to have her testify. When they handed her the microphone, she walked out in front of the people and said, “You know me. I’m the lady that lives under the bridge in the cardboard house. You know who I am. You know that I’m all alone under that bridge, but something happened to me. As I was standing on that field praying and listening, all of a sudden Jesus came to me, and for the first time in my life I know that I will never be alone again, because Jesus has come to live in me.”

The women pressed her to testify about her healing from tuberculosis, but the greatest miracle to the lady from the cardboard house was the reality that she would never be alone again! The God of the universe had taken up residence within her heart!

“We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father.” Colossians 1:11-12 NLT

Strength from God for the journey will see you through life’s most difficult challenges. Having lived in Russia for approximately 10 years I learned how God can provide even our simplest request in the most difficult economic situations. I remember one winter in the early 90’s I wanted a pair of gloves to match my coat. No one was selling anything but Soviet-style grey and black gloves, and there weren’t a lot of those available. My coat was multi-colored and I wanted a pair of matching red gloves. To my missionary friend it seemed like a fantasy to desire a pair of bright red gloves in the, at that time, dull, dirty city of Moscow, but one morning as we emerged from the Moscow Metro (subway), there on the corner stood a grandmother selling an assortment of brightly colored gloves! My friend gasped and said “Look! Leslie, there are your gloves!” This was a tremendous testimony to this young missionary who did not have much income and who had no experience living by faith.

 “Have faith in God,” Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours… Mark 11:23, 24 NIV

Remember today that God provides strength for the journey! Have faith! He is with you even in the small things!

Laws are designed for good. They are intended to protect us. When an offender breaks the law, we want him in jail. There are laws in every area of creation, both seen and unseen. For example, there are laws that govern nature, such as the law of gravity. We build our science on laws that work. In physics, for instance, there are laws that dictate how electricity works. These laws have always existed. When men understood them, they could harness the power of electricity for good to bless mankind. But if these laws are broken, then what was meant for good can do evil to you. The same heat generated by electricity to cook eggs on your stove, will also cook you if you sit on it—even though you own the stove. The laws that govern electricity are not respecters of persons.

In the same way, the law of faith is a dynamic given for the good of mankind to bring the blessings of heaven to earth. It is the currency of heaven. It is the evidence of things not seen. It is the victory that overcomes the world. It is the answer to all things desired. It is what makes possible the things that look impossible. We can value it for our benefit, or it can easily be used for our destruction. Let us operate in the light of the faith revelation.

What is our future? If we really believed that what we plant today is what we will see tomorrow, then we would start planting what we want to see. What are the seeds that we have to plant? The law of sowing and reaping shows us that good and bad are the result of what we sow.

If we want good in our life, Jesus told us very clearly what the seeds are when He revealed the law of faith. Faith is designed to bring to pass good desires, or what you want. If you are not admiring your life right now, then change the seeds you are sowing!

There are laws that govern God’s “moral universe” just as we recognize the laws that govern the physical universe. Cause and effect is used to defend the creation of earth by God. Is there a cause and effect in the realm of faith where actions can predict results? If we have an unchangeable Christ, can we discover principles of His kingdom that are unchangeable?

In Galatians 6:7 Paul said, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”  God declared that seedtime and harvest would continue as long as the earth remained (Genesis 8:22).  He sowed the seed of His Son to reap the harvest of billions of sons and daughters. There are two overriding truths here: Seed produces after its own kind. And seed always produces more than the amount of seed sown.

These truths will work in every area of life. At my home I have terrible bushes that try to overpower my property, and they flourish. If these principles work for bad, corruptible seed like those undesirable bushes, just think how well they will work for an incorruptible seed like the words, thoughts, and actions motivated by your relationship with your Lord!

We are seed planters. Everything in my life; my world, my body, my ministry, my job, and my family begins with a seed.

How much do you want out of life? How high do you want to climb? How long do you want to live? How much power will you exercise? What goals do you want to reach?

You could say this: whatever you give yourself to will increase. Whatever you put your focus on will multiply. In your life, whatever you pay attention to will grow, and whatever you ignore will diminish. Seeds give back what you plant, and more.

Do you know the parts of a seed? There are three. First is an outer husk—a hard, permanent shell. Second is the inner meat. And third is the germ or life spark. Science has been able to duplicate the outer shell and the inner meat but not the germ.

It’s important to comprehend how the seed works in order to comprehend how faith works. The outer shell is for protection and permanence.  In the realm of faith, it represents the permanent parameter of truth.  It is the known will of God. Apart from the known will of God there is no Bible faith. This is like the boundary on a basketball court. The game will continue until the ball goes out of bounds and the referee blows the whistle. When the whistle is blown, all play stops. Like the game on the court, Bible faith cannot operate outside the bounds or the known will of God. And His will is revealed in the words, example, and finished redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

The inner matter, or meat, of the seed is what the germ feeds on. You could say that your spiritual life is feeding on the ideas, inspirations, concepts, and wisdom of Scripture that daily nurtures you or builds you up.

The third part of the seed, the germ, has the life force that is the creative power making it all happen. In science we would call this a dynamo, or self-starting and self-sustaining energy. In the spiritual realm, this is the same life that resurrected Jesus in the tomb. It is the new source of life not limited to the earthly realm. When we say yes to God’s plan, our ”yes” acts as a catalyst that sets in motion all the unmerited favor of the Creator for His creation. Our positive expectation mixes with truth and creates the desired result!

I remember a young man named Ildus that we met at one of our meetings in Bashkortostan. Ildus could not speak and had severe difficulties. Our ministry workers found him outside our tent meeting begging in the trashcans, and someone decided to invite him to our meeting. They brought him in and I was preaching that day. He came up to give his testimony after I finished speaking. He was so excited as he came up onto the platform and walked over to the microphone. Everybody was expecting this wonderful healing testimony, but when he picked up the microphone he said, “ooh, ooh, ooh” and pointed at his heart.

Right at that moment my husband walked into the meeting, and I could see him looking at me thinking, Leslie, what are you doing? Obviously this young man has not been healed. I remember I just said to the audience and to my husband, “Everyone look! It’s obvious that Jesus has touched his heart and brought peace into his life.” So we all celebrated the smile he had on his face and the fact that something had happened in his heart.

Well, the next day when we were conducting a similar meeting and my husband was speaking, here came Ildus into the meeting again with that big smile on his face. He came up to the edge of the platform and wanted to testify. I could see my husband looking at him thinking, Hmm, I don’t think I’m going to let this young man up here; it doesn’t appear that he is actually healed. But one of our directors, Akop, was on the edge of the platform waving at us saying “No, it’s okay! It’s okay—he’s okay!” My husband still had the same reaction, as if to say, sure he’s okay…you’re going to let him up tonight like you did yesterday? But Akop kept saying “No, it’s real! It’s real!”

So this young man marched out to the center of the platform in front of all the people, took up the microphone, and began to tell a story. He said, “Last night when I went home after the meeting and I was alone in my room, Jesus walked into my bedroom and put His finger on my forehead. And when He did, all of a sudden the fog left my mind, and for the first time in my life I began to think clearly!”

Satan’s tools have never changed. He has no greater power than to fog, distort, and cause confusion in the minds of people—to cause them not to understand who this God is that we serve, and to deny the One who was sent to deliver us and bring us into fellowship with God.

But this young man, who the day before could only speak in grunts (he showed us the papers—he was in one of the more serious classifications of mental retardation), was healed when Jesus walked into his room, extended His hand, and touched his forehead. And when He did that fog left his brain and he could think clearly!