“Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).

Diligence in life means that we are working with all our heart, with total commitment. How do you put your whole heart into your work, school or your home? Recognize that what you are doing is unto the Lord and not unto man.

A halfhearted effort receives halfhearted results. That’s not prosperity! To prosper we need to work with a diligent attitude! There are some deceptive attitudes in Christian circles that are often disguised by religious terminology:

• “Whatever happens is God’s will so my input doesn’t matter.”
• “I don’t like my job.”
• “My ungodly boss doesn’t deserve my best.”
• “My job is only temporary so I’m not going to give it my all.”
• “I’m not one of the lucky ones who are gifted so I’ll just slide by.”
• “I tried the Bible way and it didn’t work for me.” 

The Blessing comes as you work. You will never escape poverty’s hold without good, old fashioned hard work. The river-life of continuous blessing comes through your hands, your mind, and your effort.

Blessing is God’s business. Finding what He can bless is your business!

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!”

“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!

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

In one of our large events in Africa, we were told by the organizers not to expect to start on time. “Here in Africa the opening night is just a test run where we work out our problems.”

Can you imagine? There are 75,000 people preparing to gather. People are already standing on the field hours before the meetings are to begin! Yet, the expectation of a group of adult men was, ‘don’t worry if we don’t start on time, well, we never do…’ So, in other words, failure is acceptable!

Ask yourself a simple question: Where have I set the standard for my life? Is failure my expectation, or is overcoming the impossible where I set my goal in life?

How would you handle a situation like this, if in just a matter of an hour you were to address this crowd and you had no lights and no sound?

Action was required, so we fired the 30 organizers and asked for 40, 14-year-old male volunteers. Why? They had not yet experienced failure! They would climb where no one else would climb, lifting lights and scaling poles! Are you willing to scale insurmountable odds?

If those 40 boys had not stepped to the line, what would have happened that night? Those 75,000 people who came looking for hope, searching for a miracle, and expecting good news would have left empty and disappointed!

The name of the game is NO FEAR HERE!  Jobless rates, economic reports, apocalyptic projections abound from the secular press to Christian programming. What will our response be? Over the years Kevin and I have said we must plan like Jesus is never coming back but work as if He is coming tomorrow.

Allow the Lord to breathe His life and whisper His wisdom in your heart. COMMUNE with Him to pick-up on His signals. He has direction for you in the midst of difficult times!

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” 2 Tim 1:7 NLT

We were having a meeting in Simferopol a number of years ago and didn’t have enough ushers. We had told the pastor we would have thousands of people, but he had never been able to get more than a couple hundred people together. So here we had thousands of people showing up on the opening night of the meeting, and this group of drunks wandered in and sat in the back.  As it turned out, they were drunks that had been committed to a type of insane asylum where they are medicated with as much alcohol as they would like, because that way they could at least keep them under control.

So these men wandered into our meeting, and then wandered to the altar and prayed a prayer. What happened then? When they woke up the next morning they had no desire for alcohol, they were in their right minds…they were healed! So they came back to the next meeting, and after that meeting they went back to the hospital, and then back to the tent the next night. These 6 men ended up being picked to be ushers, and they were so committed that they became our best Ushers, organizing other Ushers and security.

Alcohol had had such power over them, but after a prayer, in an instant their lives were transformed! When the doctors finally saw that these drunks were no longer taking any alcohol, even though they were offered as much as they wanted, they said, “What happened to you?” The men replied, “We got healed over there in that tent!” The doctor said, “I don’t believe you, I want to check your bodies.” So he began checking their bodies for microchips that were causing them not to want to drink! They wouldn’t believe that it had anything to do with a supernatural God who can heal, instead they said, ‘this has got to be some new computer chip technology that is controlling your urge to drink.”

Of course the doctors found no chips, and then realized that these men had been healed. They became the greatest testimony to the people coming into that tent as they stood there welcoming and seating people. The community knew those drunks, and they also saw that those drunks were in their right mind now.

What does Jesus say to us today? He says, I’ve loosed you from your bonds, I’ve loosed you from your captivity, I’ve loosed you from your sickness and disease.  I set you free 2,000 years ago from the influence of the devil, and now I release you to fulfill your destiny!