Is there a difference between Saturday and Sunday? There doesn’t have to be. What makes Sunday feel different is the act of sitting under a Word of God that fills you up. For 22 years I sat under a Word that made no difference between Saturday and Sunday, but once I saw that the Word was alive, Sunday became much more heightened experience.
Why isn’t every day a refreshing, exciting, stimulating, creative experience? The problem is that we are all CRACK POTS. In Bible words, we are vessels of clay that are leaking; so Scripture tells us that faith comes by hearing and not by what we have heard in the past. Maybe that’s why you need church. The Holy Spirit infilling is not just a moment, but a daily fill up.
Is life designed to be a struggle followed by the ultimate loss thru death, only to get your victory in the next life to come? No, that’s NOT God’s plan for you! When He called the children of God out of Egypt it was not to experience the desert. They were not just called out of bondage, but they were called into a promised land! The desert was not the plan, but mankind has a way of making their own choices.
The only way to change your desert experience is allowing the water of God’s Word to turn it into a garden of hope and dreams. Take time today to refill that old cracked pot of yours. Speak to yourself in hymns and songs and find the melody in your heart. There is a promised land with your name on it!
A Presbyterian evangelist named Charles G. Finney, who lived from 1792-1875, successfully popularized the altar call. Finney referred to the altar call as coming to the “anxious seat” or to the “inquiry room,” and began using it in his evangelistic services in about 1820. Evangelist D.L. Moody took Finney’s altar call and refined it, and in turn it was passed on to its modern champion, Billy Graham.
In Finney’s time, most denominations were not preaching a gospel that allowed you to publicly call on the name of the Lord for your conversion to Christ. They were preaching a gospel of predestination, which said you were predestined to be born again so you would eventually find Christ on your own.
Finney was willing to challenge the status quo, and he preached his emotional messages with altar calls in all the churches. Of course, he was highly criticized for challenging the accepted Christian theology of the day. He faced many difficulties because the religious hierarchy didn’t believe you could stand up on the platform and call the people down front and have them call on the name of the Lord to be saved. Yet, undeniably his preaching ushered in one of the greatest revivals ever experienced on the North American continent.
To comprehend our position on miracles, like Charles Finney, we must challenge the broad understanding that it is ok to ask Jesus into your heart, but not ok to ask Him into your heart and expect healing at the same time!
Where is the place you can go to obtain “maximum increase” in your life? God designed church so that the maximum number of people could gain benefit with a minimum amount of effort.
God directs a man or woman to prepare a message and preach it with anointing, so people can sit and listen and their lives will be increased and inspired. The result is a burden-free life with God’s ideas filling your mind and faith filling your heart to do the impossible.
This is the rich soil for increase that God designed for people, but many see it as an intrusion into their lifestyle. Only when famine comes do they run to the pastor for a quick fix, a drink of water for their parched ground.
We live in Florida where bugs thrive in the moist, humid, hot weather. If you don’t place some kind of protection in and around your house, soon you’ll be sleeping with the fleas and stepping on the cockroaches.
The devil is utterly defeated and powerless, but he is an opponent looking for entrance into your home. Like the roaches, he flees when you turn on the light. Our light is the truth of God’s Word. The devil cannot exist in truth, because he is the father of lies.
We observe this truth overseas quite often. Many times we present the Gospel to people groups that have lived in false religions or atheism for a thousand years, and suddenly in a moment, they completely change when they hear truth!
The only weapon the devil has is deception, and his only entrance into a born-again believer is the mind. He is looking for you to grab hold of a lie so he can have a foothold in your life. Allow God’s Word to wash your thoughts and steer your thinking into right paths, and you won’t be tripped up by the devil!
Most people, as they reach their 60’s and 70’s, have a certain amount of regret over things they didn’t do, or see, or have that they wanted in life. They reflect on the limitations they allowed to stop them.
When we see the life of Jesus we don’t see any limitations that He experienced, except the unbelief of those around Him. One day we all will see Jesus face to face in a place of unimaginable glory and abundance. When He was on earth He carried Himself like He had access to all of heaven. When Jesus walked on the earth He spoke, acted, and experienced life at a level that brought a marvel to those around Him. They said: “What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!” Matthew 8:27
Jesus was God, but He put off His God-rights and did nothing on earth that a human could not do. He clothed Himself in humanity to be our model. He became the standard for the New Restored man that would be made right with God by His substitutionary death.
This limitless life is what He is encouraging you and me to experience now. He says: “All things are possible to him that believeth.” He encourages us to pray our desires and expect them to happen. “Listen to me! You can pray for anything, and if you believe, you will have it.” Mark 11:23″ NL bible
Before you die, dare to think limitless in some area of your life. Understand that there is more to you than meets the eye. Jesus saw the real person you were to become!
“But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit you are of.” Luke 9:55
In 1991 we were preaching in the streets of St. Petersburg, Russia, and two Muslims were saved and healed. They made the decision to follow Jesus and their hearts were immediately opened.
Just as quickly as they accepted Jesus, they took out their wallets and said, “You must go to our home city of Baku, Azerbaijan, and tell our people what you have told us. We will buy your plane tickets, a sound system and whatever else you need!”
They saw the precious gift God had given them and quickly thought of all their loved ones who did not have this gift. When Jesus comes into your heart, the world comes with Him!
In 1984 I was in prayer one evening in Detroit, Michigan, asking the Lord what His next step was for me. In a flash I saw myself standing in downtown Detroit, next to a statue of George Washington, preaching the Good News. This picture was a totally new idea…I had never stood up in public before!
Because my regular soul-winning team didn’t show up at the church that night, I thought I should go downtown and see if this idea was of God. When I arrived I saw to my amazement that there was a small platform next to the statue. I stepped up on it and opened my Bible.
All summer long thousands of people walked through here going to the international festivals, and that night when I opened my mouth, power came forth to help the people and a new ministry was born. One man shouted from the crowd, “Who gave you the right to talk to us?”
I had to think for a moment.
No organization had told me to go. No preacher or pastor had sent me. The idea had simply come to me.
As I stood there thinking, I was reminded that scripture tells us to go into all the world (Mark 16:15-20). Detroit was part of the world, so I replied to the man, “The Apostle Mark told me to go!”
We wake up each morning with a world of possibilities before us. The morning news will reveal what went wrong while we were sleeping, but the good news is that there is more that has gone right! If you have found a right relationship with God, you had peace as you slept and a confidence when you woke up that He will be with you in your decisions and help you in your weaknesses.
In a world that is producing Pantheists with no framework for their faith except for the one they make up, you can be a shining witness of something solid to stand on. When you go into a grocery store, you never ask for the mush aisle where you can buy all the foods that require no teeth. That being true, why do people go into their spiritual life wanting a “mush” God, who has no definition, clarity, or voice other than the feelings they have during the day?
People are not interested in having mush on the menu for dinner, nor do they want mushy preachers sharing indefinite truths that are portrayed as opinions rather than guiding lights for us to hold before us!
I gather strength from my memory of watching Billy Graham stand before the leaders of nations and religions at a national meeting, and addressing all of them first by stating that He is a Christian minister and must therefore represent the One who has sent him. In our ministry we often have to address crowds of mixed religions, and they respect it when we identify who we are and why we must speak on behalf of the One we represent; just as they would represent their faith.
We are called to love people in their differences. People do not want to feel like you are tolerating them. It is a sign of disrespect to tolerate a person. We love people, and they recognize that love when we tell them from our heart why we are different, and what a difference Jesus has made in our life.
Our conviction is what draws people to Christ as it is expressed in sincerity. The truth that must be chewed on is what puts teeth in our mouth and strength in our bones!
“If you’re a street-sweeper, be a great street-sweeper for God.”
These words saved a street sweeper in Siberia from suicide, and launched him into the leadership of a church and authoring a book. He saw for the first time that what he did was important to God. Whatever you’re doing, recognize that God is in the middle of it and you will excel.
On earth we measure greatness by the amount of toys in your backyard bank account. But the measuring stick that God uses is different, and it makes every human qualify for greatness.
Matthew 5:19 “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Every human has God-like qualities. Every human is eternal, and has the right to heaven through faith in the blood sacrifice of Jesus for their sins. Once that relationship with God is established, then “God’s Positioning System” can work in every human, guiding them from where they are to where they were designed to be. Every human has a destiny on earth. Your dreams say a lot about where you were designed to go!
Jesus did not condemn His disciples when they discussed among themselves who was the greatest. Instead, He showed them the way to be great. In simple terms, He used the master key called service. If you provide a value to others, then you will be valued in return. Discover some of the many ways you can provide value to others and you will find a place of greatness in this life and the life to come.
Matthew 20:26 “Not so shall it be among you; but whoever desires to be great among you shall be your servant…”
When I go over to Russia and look into their eyes, feel their emotion and see where one van could reach one thousand villages or one evangelist with one hundred dollars could fill a tent with a thousand people each night, I am stirred to find money for the harvest. God never intended for anyone to be lost and spend an eternity in a hell designed for the devil. He gave the greatest gift of his Son for the salvation of people. He is constantly looking for men and women to get involved in his plan of redemption.
Every lost person is a mission field, and every Christian is a missionary. GOD NEEDS YOU!
Without you His hands are tied, His voice is silenced and His feet are sunk in the sand. He has not given His great Gospel plan to angels to proclaim, nor allowed His Son to walk on the earth like He did for forty days after the resurrection. He has entrusted to us the Gospel and believes that we can get this most important job done!



