Have you ever noticed that those who have the most exciting, faith-inspiring testimonies are those who've been under pressure at some time in their lives? They're the people who stayed faithful when the pressure was on. They're the people who believed God's promises of prosperity in the midst of desperate financial situations or trusted God for healing in the face of a terminal disease.
The Amplified Bible translates Matthew 11:12, "...a share in the heavenly kingdom is sought with most ardent zeal and intense exertion."
I want you to get violent today. Yes, violent, determined, zealous. I want you to get so committed to the things of God that you'll withstand any attempt to take them away from you.
God has raised us up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus! That's what the Word of God says. Very few of us have actually dared to believe this. We've uplifted Jesus. We've exalted Him—and rightly so! But at the same time, we've unwittingly belittled what He did by not allowing Him to bring us alongside Him.
That was God's purpose at Calvary: to bring us alongside Jesus. To make us what He already was.
Did you catch that? He said all who live godly lives are going to suffer persecution. Not just the super-saints, not just the missionaries in hostile lands—but all.
If you're going to live for God, you're going to run into persecution somewhere along the line. The devil's going to make sure of it!
Now I'm not saying that to frighten you or to depress you. I'm saying it because I want you to be prepared.
When you're wise to the strategies of the devil, it's harder for him to use them successfully on you to confuse you and get you off track.
Is it possible to live free from fear in this dangerous and unpredictable world? Yes, it most definitely is! Because protection is a solid promise of God.
But it's not a promise that's offered to just anyone. It is promised to those who abide in the Lord. To abide means "to dwell, to remain and to continue." To abide in the shadow of the Almighty is to live in continual union with Him, keeping His Word and obeying His voice. Those who abide in the Lord can live without dread of what the devil will do.
It's wonderful to know you've been set free from the law of sin and death. It's glorious to know you never again have to submit to the slavery of sin. But what do you do when, in spite of those wonderful, glorious truths, you still miss the mark? What do you do when you stumble and fall into sin?
Run to your Father and repent!
I used to worry about making decisions for God. I used to be afraid to step out on faith and declare I was going to do something new that He’d shown me to do. I’d think, What if I fail? I was so scared of failing, I’d muddle around in indecision for weeks. Then one day I found out it wasn’t my power that was going to carry it out anyway. But it took my decision to move God in on the scene. Once I decided what I was going to do, and committed myself totally to it, God backed me!
It’s time to set the record straight. Angels are not kid stuff. They’re not little fat babies with long blonde hair and bows and arrows in their hands. Angels are big, strong warriors. They are real. They are powerful. And if you are a believer, they are a vital part of your life.
We see examples of what angels can do all through the Bible. For instance, when the children of Israel were fleeing from Egypt with Pharaoh’s army hot on their heels, the Bible tells us that suddenly the wheels on the Egyptians’ chariots got fouled up. They just quit rolling!
One of the most exciting things I ever discovered about God’s law of sowing and reaping was the fact that financial harvests are not seasonal. If you plant year round, you can be receiving year round.
Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying your harvest will come instantly. It usually won’t. You may have to wait for it for several months. What I’m saying is, if you’ll keep planting consistently, you’ll receive just as consistently. If you’ll continually cast your bread on the water, eventually it will come in on every wave!
God’s rest. Considering the hectic, busy lives you and I live that sounds like a pretty good thing to have, doesn’t it? But exactly what is that rest? And how do we enter it?
The third and fourth chapters of Hebrews compare God’s rest with the children of Israel taking possession of the Promised Land. That land was to be a place where their every need would be met, a place of freedom from their warring enemies, a place no one would ever drive them from again. All they had to do was go in and possess it. But something kept them from it: unbelief and disobedience.
Courage comes from trusting God. It can’t be mentally drummed up. It comes from believing what God says regardless of what the circumstances look like. Courage comes from faith!
Where does discouragement come from? From fear and unbelief. It comes when you listen to the devil’s lies about what God is not going to do for you.
Spiritual bumps and bruises. Inner aches and pains that just don't seem to go away. Most all of us know what it's like to suffer from them but too few of us know just what to do about them.
We limp along, hoping somehow those hidden wounds will magically stop hurting, thinking that maybe (with a little extra sleep or an extra helping of dessert) that nagging sense of depression will finally disappear.
But does it ever happen that way? No!
I know. I've been there.
You can never get away with disobeying God.
Some people think they can. They think that if no one finds out about it, it won't hurt anything. After all, God is merciful. He's not going to hold it against them, right? And if no one else knows...what's the difference?
You know, that's what I want to be...running over with hope! I want to dare to throw my whole life and everything I have into building a dream that comes from the heart of God. I want to get out there so far that without God's help, I can't get back.
Many people don't think that way though because they're afraid to fail. Fear of failure is dangerous. If you let it dominate you, it will cause you to do the one thing that inevitably guarantees failure and that's not attempting at all.
How do you counteract the fear of failure?
Jesus compared the kingdom of God with the planting of seed and reaping the harvest. It's a simple concept. One all of us understand. Why, then, aren't all of us producing bumper crops every season? Because we're sitting around waiting for God to do all the work.
He doesn't operate that way. He'll work with you, but He won't do it all. There are some essential things you must do by faith if you want to have a crop to reap at harvest time.
Love your enemies...turn the other cheek...to most people that sounds like a pretty weak way to handle someone who's causing them trouble. But, the truth is, it's the most powerful way there is. It's the way Jesus did it—and His way never fails.
Naturally speaking, this is a terrifying world we’re living in today. A world that staggers from one disaster to another. Almost daily we hear about wars, about the dangers of nuclear weapons and chemical warfare, about oil spills and earthquakes and floods, about diseases on the rise and crime sweeping through our cities.
But in the midst of it all, God is promising to be a refuge and a fortress to those who will trust and dwell in Him.
“But, Gloria,” you might say, “He made that promise thousands of years ago when things weren’t in as desperate shape as they are today!”
What would you think if I told you that you could live without fear? Would you believe me if I said that despite what you saw on the news tonight, you could be perfectly at peace? Impossible? Unrealistic? No!
You see, fear isn’t just a reaction to external circumstances. It’s a spiritual force. It begins inside of you. And it is totally destructive. In fact, fear is Satan’s primary weapon. He moves in response to fear, the way God moves in response to faith. He challenges the promises of God with it.
It’s easy to be so afraid of making a mistake that you never get around to stepping out on faith. You can spend all your time wondering, Is this faith? Or is it presumption? What if I exercise my faith for something and find out later I’ve missed God’s will?
Don’t worry. God can handle any mistake you can make. I know because I’ve made plenty of them. When I did, I’d just go to the Lord and He’d tell me, Stay on the Word, son. Together we’ll overcome this thing. And we always did.
Have you ever wanted to get God’s attention? You can, you know. There’s a certain kind of boldness, a certain kind of faith in giving that will get His attention every time. You can see that in Mark 12.
Read that chapter and just imagine the situation it describes. Jesus was sitting by the treasury watching as people put in their offerings. Don’t you know there were some sanctimonious displays going on with Him there watching? There was bound to be plenty of pharisaical robe swishing as those wealthy leaders walked up to put in their gifts that day.