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!

One of my most important life-experiences came as I was helping Jean, a woman who attended our weekly feeding program. Our local city had issued a notice that she was to clean up her property or they would haul off all her possessions. What was so tragic is that although she owned a beautiful home, she lived on the front porch!  You could not even find a pathway through her home. Though she was a gentle soul with a love for nature and a concern for suffering people, she had a serious mental struggle.

Our local outreach group organized a team to clear her property—not an easy job since to her, everything seemed valuable. I remember sitting on the street curb, dirty from head to foot, picking up seeds that had just spilled from her pouch. At that moment a car load of young people sped by, shouting, “Look at the street people!” Then I realized—they were talking about me! But as my eyes caught Jean’s, I saw joy—because someone cared enough to help her pick up her little seeds.

I have carried that experience with me to over 60 nations! Why? A well-lived life is a life engaged with serving others! If you are sad or depressed, remember there is always someone else who is sadder and more depressed than you. So go out and get busy interacting with others! Then, as Jesus said, you will discover there is no greater love than to lay down your life for another (John 15:13).

True human value is not found in serving yourself, but in serving others!

Several years ago while driving across the farmlands of Southern Ukraine we stopped to buy fuel. Our team leader decided to ignore the sticker that said our car required high-octane fuel, and proceeded to fill the car up with the cheaper gas. Fortunately for us our car had a special shut off valve, and after driving just a few miles the car shut down. We were grateful that our Russian team was familiar with syphoning gas, enabling us to transfer this fuel to another car and walk back to the station for a new container of high-octane gasoline. Reality set in for this team—there was no substitute for the real thing!

In our lives, let’s remember, time spent with God is time spent fueling your high-performance engine with the most efficient, cost effective, eco-friendly power source available! Lord, we ask you to inject us with your heavenly fuel today!

“The Spirit is a help to our feeble hearts… And we are conscious that all things are working together for good to those who have love for God, and have been marked out by his purpose” (Rom 8:26a, 28 BBE).

“Now…give me this mountain of which the LORD spoke in that day…” Joshua 14:12a

The story of Caleb found in the Old Testament is an amazing picture of perseverance in the face of national disobedience and a 45 year wilderness saga. Only belief in the vision God had given Caleb kept him determined not to yield to the consequences of a complaining, disobedient generation of evil doers and an aging body that naturally would have weakened over 45 years.

Caleb was delivered from the hands of the Egyptians along with approximately 3 million Israelites. He saw God protect him as he partook of the Passover and saw this group of 3 million walk out of Egypt carrying the spoils of wealth.

Caleb had history with God!

Even so, when the children were on their journey to the Promised Land, something became very obvious. This group still carried the image of slavery in their hearts. When the opportunity to seize their promise arrived, they chose to remember where they came from instead of the One from whom they came…and they died in the desert.

Caleb, on the other hand, saw a land of possibilities, and although there were giants in the land, he understood that the God of Israel would deliver him once again!

What picture will you embrace today – the picture of your past or the picture of your possibility?

As I travel it is interesting to see the number of people who have a sense of destiny in their heart, but a lack of clear direction to make that destiny a reality.

Jesus told us to pray “Our Father…..Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).  I am not looking for the best that the government can give on earth or the best that Wall Street can give on earth. I want heaven’s standard for my earth! Heaven is abundantly blessed and healthy, as well as full of wonderful trusting and loving people. That’s a good destiny for earth.

Scripture tells us that we are “ambassadors of heaven” (2 Corinthians 5:20). It’s interesting to note that an ambassador does not live by the standard of the country he is in, but the country that sent him. An ambassador is under the law of the country that sent him and is also financed from the country that sent him.

Those who have called on Jesus and received His life are sent from God’s country to not only inhabit this earth, but to occupy it until He returns. I like what General Patton said in World War II: “I don’t like to pay for the same real estate twice.”

We can see in many parts of the world where the church has done a poor job of occupying the land, they are now attempting to re-establish the kingdom of God where there was once a great reality of God’s presence and power. We are sending teams and tents to Europe to again evangelize in regions that once were a great voice for redemption and new life. Time and money must be spent to do what a failed church should have done.

We are given the destiny and opportunity to influence every sphere of society and be the salt of the earth. Bring truth to your world so those you influence can rest in assurance that heaven is their home on earth as well as the life to come!

Love is a much greater motivator for men and women than any dollar or any discipline.

Love inspires every creature to be more than just a creation.

Love believes—when all evidence says it should not.

Love sees a bright future, even when dark clouds suggest storms on the horizon.

Love is the power of God.

Love lays down its life for the unloved.

Love pays the price others will not pay.

Love—the weapon of God—has conquered armies, won nations and made disciples of the vilest of men.

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!