When I was in Moscow one winter, record setting freezing temperatures froze the pipes of the heater units and caused a real flood, as well as a dangerous freeze inside. Our director had the good idea of an old iron gas heater in the center of the main room to warm up the house until we could replace the whole system. The heater had to be turned off at night, and the first thought in the morning was how to get the heater going again. A little spark was all it took, and everyone would gather round until the warmth began to spread.

Friends, don’t start your day without a spark. Yesterday’s spark won’t do! The fire has to be rekindled every morning. What is that spark to you? You probably know how to find that java jolt for your body, but it might take a little more time to spark the divine impulse within you that will lift you to a place of expectation and peace as you deal with the day’s issues. When you are warm then everybody around you will benefit.

“Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:6).

 “Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior…” (2 Peter 3:11).

Scripture tells us in Isaiah 53:4 that in fact Jesus has borne our griefs and has taken our sorrows and our pains, yet we ignorantly thought that He was stricken and struck down by God.

Many years ago I was traveling across Russia in a sweltering hot train with no air moving and no way to open a window. The flu was going around everywhere and I was coughing from a deep burning pain that was attacking my chest. I remember as I lay back on the bed I picked up my Bible, and as I was experiencing these symptoms of flu or bronchitis this scripture in Isaiah leapt out at me.

I said to the Lord, “I have not considered what you did on the cross for me and I have yielded to this sickness that is trying to take over my body. Lord, I know who You are, I know You paid the price so I don’t have to suffer this sickness because God put it on You.”  I remember at that moment with great confidence I said, “Lord, I will no longer consider you ignorantly, and right now in the name of Jesus I receive what you did for me 2,000 years ago and command these symptoms to go from my body!” I fell asleep right at that moment and woke up a few hours later without one sign or symptom of cough or a fever…not one symptom in my body at any level!

I encourage you today to take an aggressive stance against every form of sickness and disease trying to come against your body!

For many, salvation through Christ means an escape from eternal judgment. Often as I stand on the open fields of world evangelism, whether I am preaching or standing among the crowd, I find myself declaring the salvation prayer as if it were the first time I said it. Why? Because I understand the value of this word “Salvation.”

I am not simply uttering a religious prayer, but I am making a proclamation of my deliverance from fear, my redemption from sin, my discovery of healing, and the reality of God’s peace! This most simplistic Salvation Prayer opens my heart and my mind once again to the reality of God’s promises for me — His child!

One day as I was speaking to our partners via the internet, I sensed a strong presence of the Lord as together we made this simple salvation confession. Not an elaborate religious prayer, but a confession of the heart and a trust in the reality of Jesus and what He promised for you and me.

I cannot explain how such a simple prayer can transform people, churches, and even nations. Yet—I can declare to you that I have seen God respond to a simple heart desiring to know Him as Savior, healer, protector, deliverer, and comforter time & time again!

Let’s not make prayer difficult! Keep it simple! That’s how He designed it! Religion is the extra ingredient of unbelief added to the simplicity of Christ’s cross. Faith is the simple confession of a heart trusting in what He has done for us!

I’m trusting . . . are you?

Faith is a force coming out of the spirit man. It is being convinced of a truth spoken by God even though you don’t see it yet. 

I remember an incident years ago when I was still learning how to walk by faith. I was facing a tuition payment at Bible school, and my boss had just told me she was closing the shop where I worked and there would be no paycheck! My roommate was pretty nervous about it because he had seen several students dismissed because of no payment.

It was serious yet I had the greatest peace, and when I arrived at school on the last double-due payment date I had joy in my heart.  By now my roommate thought I was going crazy, but  confidence remained fixed in my heart as I went up to the Dean of Students to explain my problem. He looked at my records and said there was no problem…that morning someone had paid in full for the semester!

It requires the utmost discipline to hold to that truth when all evidence says otherwise—in fact it’s real work! If your mind cannot stay focused, then you don’t stand much chance of seeing your faith miracle, because you will flood your thought life with doubts and fears, which will put out the light of faith.  Our work is to believe!!

We were preaching in India a few years ago, and at the end of the service a young man rushed onto the platform with his mother. The mother was dressed in a black hijab covering her entire body. Suddenly, while standing there in front of tens of thousands of people, she ripped the hijab off revealing an elegantly dressed young woman who immediately began to preach to the crowd. She was full of faith, and pointing at her son she exclaimed, “This is my son! Look at my son, he can talk! Look at my son!  I know who the real Messiah is, I know who the real prophet and God is!” She gave the microphone to her son, and he began his story.

He related how he had been coming to the mass meetings for several nights, and each night as he watched and as we prayed with the people, he would see crosses come out of the sky and sit on the heads of people who were scattered across the field like a sea of faces. He began to notice that whenever the cross rested on someone they would begin to shout and  just a few minutes later they would be the one up on the platform testifying.

On the night this young man came forward, his mother told how he was hardly able to speak above a whisper and he struggled with fear in everything he did.  That night as he said the prayer all of a sudden the cross came to him out of the sky.  And as that cross approached him, out of that cross came the face of Jesus with His arms opened wide. “At the moment Jesus came to me, I was healed” the young man said.  “I am different, I am transformed!” He and his mother looked at that crowd and declared to them, “We know who the Healer is—this Jesus who went to the cross and who died for us!”

In Jesus’ day when the people saw Him hanging on the cross perhaps they remembered the woman He had loosed from a spirit of infirmity (Luke 13:11) or the lepers who were healed?  Most likely what they didn’t see as he hung on that cross was that every person who would ever look and believe was loosed from the spirit of infirmity that day! Maybe you’ve been watching from afar and wondering if Jesus would heal you! We want to encourage you that this same Jesus who died 2,000 years ago is appearing to His people today! He will come to you! Reach out and embrace the power of the cross today!

I believe God offers us the opportunity to live and walk the same way that His Son, Jesus, walked—regardless of the unique challenges our world faces today. Each challenge is an opportunity to discover the God-solution and grow in understanding of Him. Each challenge brings a supernatural answer, favor, insight, and experience that makes you wiser than before and more able to walk in God’s ways.

God’s salvation is free, but a miracle life is not easy, free, or cheap! A life of miracles requires risk. A life of miracles requires decision. A life of miracles is lived without fear of making mistakes. Living it will require your focus, commitment, determination, faith, and total effort in the laboratory of your life, “so you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2).

Do you have a dream that you are delaying? Is there a vision that you have stopped visiting? Does your destiny feel denied? I have learned that one of the great secrets of life is to just begin.

I guess I could be accused of beginning too many projects, too many buildings, too many countries, too many books, too many events, and too many enterprises. Let me just say that if I am to fall on my face, at least I know that I will fall forward, and that is progress!

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!

King Solomon is considered the richest man who ever lived and also the wisest man before Jesus Christ. The same spirit of wisdom God “placed upon” Solomon has been “created within” you, the believer in Jesus. This wisdom gives you power to make good choices and brings favor to your life. We see that financial wealth is not alone a satisfaction, but wisdom is the principle thing in life. Solomon’s prayer for wisdom was a key to unlocking wealth.

 “Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. “Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for— both riches and honor— so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings” 1 Kings 7:13.

We see that financial wealth alone is not a satisfaction, but wisdom is the principle thing in life. His prayer for wisdom was a key to unlocking wealth!

The key to success is not the absence of mistakes or failures, but the ability to learn from them.

As we travel the nations and work in new cultures, we have opportunity on a regular basis to make mistakes, as well as see others make mistakes. I actually carry a notebook and write every decision or incident that went wrong. Why do I spend time doing that? Two reasons. First, I do not want to repeat the same mistake twice. Second, I do not want to repeat the same mistake twice! Memories can fade so it’s good to keep a written memory of the day’s decisions. The learning curve teaches us that haste is the forerunner to mistakes.

Haste has ruined many a budding love story and many prosperous business partnerships. We live with a God who has planned the universe and He has some long range plans for you. Build your life with an expectation that He is building it with you, and don’t get in a hurry and take the detour of mistakes!

Proverbs 28:20
A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.

For many years in Russia we gathered as a missionary team each morning from 9 AM – 10AM. Our times were spent praying for the harvest. We were expecting the Lord to provide strategies for us as a team, and to develop divine opportunities for us to make known the mysteries of the Gospel. We discovered great value in these seasons of team prayer.

I remember specifically one morning the Lord highlighted a city on the map called Ust-Kut. We had never even heard of this place but began to pray for it fervently. A few weeks later we were ministering in Nerungry, deep in the Russian forest approximately 6 time zones to the east of Moscow. Getting to this destination took some concerted effort as we flew over about 8 hours of dense, wild Russian forest, traveled on back roads and weathered freezing temperatures. While conducting this conference in Nerungry, a Pastor from Ust-Kut approached us and told of his church planting efforts in his very isolated area off the coast of Lake Baikal. We were so excited to meet the pastor and learn of his work! Soon after this meeting we found ourselves in his region conducting a leadership conference and planting churches in towns that had never heard the Gospel before. WOW! What a testimony to the power of prayer!

Let’s remember: The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results! James 5:16b