The Error of Ultimate Reconciliation

George Santayana, the Spanish philosopher once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it!” Solomon, the wisest man in the world, once said, That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. (Eccl. 1:9) Sadly, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat the failures of the past.

Church history is one of those topics that the “hyper-spiritual” deem to have little value. Putting down the study of church history ranks right up there in the “ignorant Christian” poll with those who boldly declare, “I don’t want to study theology or doctrine; I just want to read the Bible!” Jesus knew the history of His people and He knew the doctrines of the day, as did the Apostle Paul. It was their knowledge of these practical areas that made them so powerful in so many different cultural settings and doctrinal conflicts. This lack of knowledge is the doorway for error to cycle through the Church repeatedly and be welcomed by unsuspecting generations as “new revelation.”

The prophet Isaiah boldly declared, Therefore my people have gone into captivity, Because they have no knowledge. (Isa. 5:13) While the Spirit-filled movements have introduced incredible truth into the body of Christ, they have, as a whole, been very poor theologians. The inconsistency of doctrine is a major reason Spirit-filled believers can’t get what they believe to actually work in real life. Our covenants are mixed, our doctrine is self contradictory, and we know nothing of how we got where we are! The 21^st century church is a breeding ground for doctrinal error – not the kind that simply causes an argument between you and other believers; this is the type of error that could affect every part of your life!

Error, like all trends, tends to circulate every few years. When error emerges those who don’t know history, specifically church history, think they have a revelation. They see it as a “scrumptious morsel,” unaware of the damage it has wreaked in the past. In the race to have the next new revelation some preachers rush to their pulpits, or in the case of traveling preachers, they rush to your pulpit and create havoc in the hearts of believers.

One doctrine that emerges every few years is ultimate reconciliation, sometimes called Universalism. Regardless of the name it goes by its message is the same: everyone is going to Heaven, whether they believe or not. This is an appealing message to people who will not reconcile their life and beliefs with particular aspects of truth. What seems like a message of endless love is actually a message of death, deceit, and depravity.

Years ago I traveled with a man who began the slide into Universalism. At first it seemed as if he was only preaching a mildly irresponsible grace message. People approached me after our meetings and said, “When I hear you preach about grace I believe I can live godly and I’m inspired to godly living. When I hear him preach about grace I feel like it’s just alright to sin.” In time, he was openly declaring that sin had no effect and he began rejecting any portions of Scripture that promoted responsibility and godliness. Ultimately he succumbed to a battle with sin that he no longer chose to resist! The way we know when the message of grace, peace, and faith righteousness has gone too far is when they inspire irresponsible living!

All deadly truth has an element of truth; however, that truth is extrapolated into something that is no longer true. Extrapolation is how Lucifer became Satan. He followed a flawed reasoning. (Ez. 28:17) Based on his brightness and splendor he began to build a logic that departed from reality. In the end he felt he could overthrow the One who gave him his splendor. God has given us grace, love, mercy, and the gift of righteousness so we can have the power to live a godly life, not to excuse us from godly living.

Extrapolation is the process of ultimate reconciliation. It starts with some basic truths. First, it capitalizes on God’s unconditional love. It couples that with the fact (and it is a fact) that Jesus died for the sins of the entire world, not for the few. Add this with some humanistic logic that exalts man and his needs above God and His plan, and you have a recipe for devastating error.

Jesus died for the sins of the world, not just for those who would believe and receive, but also for those who would not. (1 John 2:2) God was proactive and preemptive in His limitless love. Because of Jesus becoming the sin of the world, all men were free from the wrath of God. No man in this life has experienced God’s wrath. The apostle John said in this the propitiation we see the love of God. (1 John 4:9-10) Many people respond to His expression of love with love and trust and many others see it as a free pass for irresponsible living.

Everything God offers us must be received, (lambano) taken hold of, by our trust (faith) in God. (Rom. 1:16) Everything of God is given freely but our personal participation is a choice, thus the idea of free will. The Universalist denies free will and insists that everyone is saved whether they know it or not, whether they want it or not. By lifting a few Scriptures out of context and ignoring dozens more personal responsibility is glossed over as a moot point!

You see, the Universalists, much like the Spirit-filled community, actually miss the ultimate point: Jesus came so we could know, (experience, be intimate) with God. For some, God is just the One we run to when we have needs. We really have no desire to know Him or His ways; we simply want His benefits. It may be this corrupt version of Christianity that creates such a breeding ground for an impersonal faith!

Extrapolation is based on a logic that creates non-existent formulas. “This equals that.” When questioned about the basis of their process of reasoning it usually comes back to, “That’s what I believe.” or, “That’s how I see it.”  It doesn’t matter how we see it if it’s not supported by the truth of God’s Word. We are called to cast down vain imaginations and reasoning that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. (2 Cor. 10:4-5) This process is called subjective reasoning. A reasoning that is based on how it makes you feel regardless of all the other facts. Subjective reasoning places “me” at the center of the equation. I fall prey to the original temptation to be as God and choose good and evil from my own judgments.

One of the well known modern day proponents of Universalism is Carlton Pearson. I met personally with Carlton when he first made his exit from the faith. According to our discussion his subjective reasoning seemed to peak when he held his newborn baby in his arms and said, “I would never send my child to Hell if he did something wrong.” That very statement and the doctrine that Carlton had been preaching made it clear he already had error in his theology. But even if God would do such a thing, who are we to say to the Potter, “You can’t do it that way.”

The Universalists are basically taking a stand that they are more righteous, more compassionate, and more merciful than God. They, too, have exalted themselves above God by exalting their own logic and condemning His! It’s in this very attitude that we may see the real root of the problem.  We are called to surrender to Jesus as Lord. We are compelled to renew our minds and put on the mind of Christ. It seems that too many seek Jesus as Savior but not as Teacher and Lord.

Failure to cling to Jesus as Lord of our logic leads us down destructive, unfulfilling paths. In the absence of a meaningful relationship we search for knowledge to give what is missing in our heart. Maybe it is, in fact, the lack of an intimate relationship with God that spills over into an incredible sense of lack and insecurity that spurs the desperate search for something to bring us the peace that only comes through relationship.

It was Mike Williams who introduced or finally convinced Carlton Pearson in the doctrine of Universalism. Mike was a long time friend and associate. He is a man I loved deeply and grieved for as he made his departure from the faith. Mike came from a life of homosexuality and at the time he turned to Ultimate Reconciliation he had fallen back into an immoral lifestyle. As his life degenerated his message grew more and more compromising.

As someone close to Mike said, “You always know what Mike is going through, he always preaches his life.” And that’s true; Mike’s doctrine changed every time his life changed. When he couldn’t get grace to work in his life he simply changed his doctrine of grace. Like many, he developed circumstance theology that justified his own life. This is a common tendency among those who lean toward permissive doctrine. They need a “revelation” that justifies their failing life!

In an interview with Allen Speegle we discussed why grace preachers would be susceptible to the doctrine of Ultimate Reconciliation. It is my observation that there are three primary reasons for this. First, most grace preachers simply embrace grace as a doctrine, not as a means to a more powerful life. This, of course, means they are not experiencing grace. Grace is God’s power to live in righteousness, to live as it really should be.  The doctrine is a sad replacement for the reality!

The power of grace is experienced to support the belief of faith righteousness. Faith righteousness began by Jesus obtaining righteousness by His faith; it is brought to fruition by us experiencing that righteousness by faith. As Romans 1:17 says, it is revealed from faith to faith. If Jesus’ righteousness is received by faith, then righteousness has to be the object of our faith.

This brings another basic theological flaw to the forefront. The primary reason for receiving Jesus as Savior and Lord is not just to save us from the penalty of our sin but to save us from the power of sin. We are set free from the power of sin to live a righteous life. It’s in righteousness that we enjoy life as it was meant to be. When we forget the destruction of sin in our lives, we forget why we came to Jesus.

Then, the second reason grace preachers may succumb to this error is that our life often facilitates the need for self-justification. When preachers don’t reach the lost, when they don’t make their churches relevant, when they are seeking to build a ministry before building people, they need a doctrine that justifies the departure from New Testament goals and agendas. You see, it’s not the erroneous doctrine that leads to the compromised ministry and life. No! It’s the compromised life that needs a doctrine to justify itself!

The third reason is all too common. People who are not experiencing the grace of God, those who do not believe the Gospel of Peace in a way that leads to an intimate love life with God, tend to miss the point. In the absence of a life experience they think it’s the new revelation that gets people excited about their ministry. They fail to realize the excitement isn’t in the message; it’s in the power of the message. In their shallow insecurity they think they need to be ever finding new revelation to preach to people with itching ears. (2 Tim. 4:3) The preacher who is trying to impress will always end up in error!

The church desperately needs the message of grace, peace, and faith righteousness. But we need to live and model this message through our life, our character, and our commitment to the true cause of Christ. It’s those who misuse and misapply these cornerstone truths that give the legalists the opportunity to decry the message.

One of the greatest ways you can tell that grace, peace, and faith righteousness are no more than a message is when the life doesn’t change. Ultimate reconciliation misses the point that we have a predestined purpose to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus. (Rom. 8:29) That is our destiny. Being delivered from wrath and being unconditionally loved doesn’t equate salvation and righteousness by faith; it does, however, facilitate the opportunity. In the absence of fear and in the presence of love we can come unafraid. When we know everything God does is for our good we have every reason to trust and follow Him. If we continue in the same sins as before we knew Jesus, they accomplish the same destruction. That destruction is not the product of God’s wrath; it’s the fruit of sin.

In my meeting with Carlton Pearson and in discussions with Mike Williams and many others who began to follow this erroneous path, I asked the question, “Do you not believe there is any benefit to living a godly life? Do you not see the destruction of sin? If so, then why is the focus of your message the permissiveness of sin?” Paul, Peter, James, and John all echoed these sentiments in various terminologies: flee every type of sin, don’t yield to the flesh, don’t use your freedom as an excuse for sin, and don’t suffer for unrighteousness. The message is clear: sin still kills. While the beginning of Ultimate Reconciliation is not a blanket invitation to a reckless life, in the end that is the fruit.

Churches that embrace even the slightest hint of this doctrine lose sight of biblical agendas and ultimately their purpose. The need for relevancy evaporates. The passion to win the lost becomes needless. The value for the most basic ministry needs disappear with the idea that all men are ultimately going to Heaven so what’s the urgency?

We live in a day when people need God’s power working in them more than ever! The need for Spirit-empowered grace to take us to a life beyond our strength is imminent. We may be in what the Bible calls the “beginning of sorrows”; but whether we are or not, be assured we are living in difficult times, the likes of which the world has never seen. Our nation is disturbingly close to facing the horrors others nations have faced for generations. The church in America isn’t ready! We are poised for a great falling away! The only cure is a Gospel that works which will require leaders that experience it.

Fresh new revelation doesn’t come because we discover what has never been seen. Revelation is when we look at a truth in a new way, a way that empowers us to live in victory. People don’t need their lives complicated by a lot of new doctrines; they need to know how to get these doctrines we have to work. People need to be led into a relationship with Jesus. They need mentors and models. They don’t need to hear a message of grace; they need to see a lifestyle of grace.

This righteousness of God is by faith from first to last. Jesus obtained it by faith; we take hold of it by faith; and it empowers our life by faith. Inspire people to a better life than they ever imagined – a life of knowing and experiencing God’s love, grace, and righteousness.

Enjoy this video of, The Error of Ultimate Reconciliation, by Allen Speegle and Jim Richards.

Freedom – The Ultimate Intimidation

It could be that the ultimate evil in the world manifests through control. After all, the basic temptation revolved around man being his own god! For the natural mind, being god tends to come down to one question: who’s in charge? Control takes away freedom; it takes away choices; it deprives us of the very essence of being human and having the opportunity to decide our fate. In the end, control replaces the Lordship of Jesus with the opinion of man. Sadly, while violating nearly all that is godly it is most often done for our good and in many instances done in Jesus’ name!

Ultimate control is not overt physical force. No! Ultimate control is intellectual intimidation: the control of your thoughts and opinions. God gave man dominion over himself and over the natural elements of Planet Earth. Since the fall we have tried to exercise dominion over others as a substitute for self control. Man is held in control by keeping himself in darkness. Darkness, which is the opposite of what we have in Christ, disallows man of the God-given right to see, ask questions, and experience God for himself! When man cannot see he needs a guide; thus, the outplaying of darkness becomes the physical, economic, and spiritual control of our lives by those who “lead” us.

Control comes dressed in many costumes. In some dictatorial environments it is overt, easily understood, and quickly identified. But in other environments it is an oppression that lurks beyond the veil, just past the clarity of reason. In an environment that espouses freedom, control is always dressed as a concerned benefactor there to give us what we seem unable to get for ourselves! It is a defender of the faith, a crusader for the cause; it is the knight in shining armor that has come to do for us what we have been led to believe we cannot do for ourselves.

Politicians fill us with fear of the future and then offer to protect us from the monsters they created. In education teachers omit the facts they determine to be damaging. The medical practitioner confidently tells us what is good for us and is quickly frustrated if we question his radical procedures. The scientific community is no better than any other group; they may, in fact, be worse than most. By disregarding facts they make us feel ignorant if we so much as consider that which does not fit into the accepted dogma of academia. And then there is the meanest and deadliest control of all: religion. Religion wants to impose its view of God so that you see God in the approved manner.

Regardless of the arena, the limiting of ideas keeps man crippled. It restricts him from attaining his rightful place in Planet Earth as a child of the Creator. In the church world it causes us to doubt who we are in Christ and what we have through His finished work. When the goal is control of the person, what better way to control than to undermine your belief and experience of who you are in relation to God? All the woes of society, from the fall of man in the Garden to the vilest expression ever known, have resulted in man’s refusal to see God as a good God and to see ourselves as God has created us, in both the natural world and as believers in Christ! When man is not held in the esteem God intended the vilest of actions can be justified!

The message of the codependent controller, no matter what language is employed, what dogma prevails, or in which arena it exists, is always the same: “I have something you don’t have and you need me. You’re not smart enough, strong enough, or anointed enough to get what you need.” From the pulpit to the White House where codependency exists, it exists to give other people control of your life. Those who consider themselves the solution usurp the Lordship of Jesus and alienate you from the grace of God for yourself!

One of the unique factors of oppression is that it cannot be questioned! In smug arrogance those who seek to control will not tolerate being questioned. Questions reflect independent thinking and independent thinking is the path to loss of control! Today if a scientist is challenged about the accepted explanation of global warming the thinker, whether a member of the scientific community or a journalist, will find himself ostracized and very probably dismissed from his job.

Much of the scientific community, which prides itself on the pursuit of knowledge, is very clear that it is only in pursuit of knowledge that supports what it already believes. Simply ask an evolutionist about any form of intelligent design and you will encounter an onslaught of intellectual attack, intimidation, and belittling worse than anything you have ever encountered from the most insecure bully on any school playground!

Challenge a journalist about using “unidentified sources” in a scandalizing column while identifying absolutely no proof of legitimacy and you will meet with fury. Hiding behind the misuse of the Fifth Amendment, no matter how bizarre, has become a “self-evident” freedom for one man who violates the freedoms of another. Simply question the “source” and you will be made to feel that you are the one who does not honor the constitution; you will be portrayed as an anti-freedom, anti-American troublemaker.

Those who seek to play god and take control of our lives shame us into sitting quietly with our eyes closed until we believe all that exists is darkness and we do, in fact, need someone to deliver us. In the darkness of no challenging thoughts that which is real and obvious becomes twisted and distorted. That which is evil is called good and that which is good is called evil. And none dare question the powers that be! To do so would require opening our eyes and we are not qualified to open our eyes lest we see a different point of view. In various ways using corrupt reasoning we are told to keep our eyes tightly closed and we will be safe because someone else will tell us what they see!

Knowing God is a walk, a journey; it is not a stagnant event. There are several aspects to growing in the knowledge of God. One is the fact that there is no end to God. We will forever be growing in the knowledge of Him. Second, our life is not static. Every day brings new challenges and issues. Therefore, I must experience God in each of the scenarios in a way that allows the God-desired outcome of the abundant life. Therefore, growing in God is a constantly expanding awareness of what I have in Christ.

When the New Testament talks about knowing God it is talking about experience, not simple academic information. Experiencing God, as I need to know Him today, is based on revelation. In my current situation I need to perceive and experience God in some way that I have not previously perceived and experienced Him. I am not talking about something beyond the bounds of what He has shown us in the New Covenant; but I do need to see how I can experience Him in my current situation.

Religion has said that certain people have anointing that has allowed them to know God in ways that you haven’t, and it is implied that you probably won’t. Since they have what you don’t, you come to them instead of to God. No, it’s never said, “Don’t go to God.” In fact, you are encouraged to go to God with the implication that you are not as qualified as the anointed ones (or in some circles the professionals) or the clergy. While pointing you to God, they, in fact, become your mediator. They don’t lead you to God by praying with you or even showing you how to pray; they come between you and God by praying for you. (Sometimes that is obviously valid.) But in the end you are somehow left with the idea that you need them and they will take care of your God issues.

In somewhat the same manner the government says you need them to make life bearable. In the same way scientists say you need them to think for you and educators say you need them to explain the information to you. Like the over-protected child, the unspoken message is that you are not smart enough or capable enough to run your life; you need someone to do it for you.

In Matthew 13, when Jesus was asked about the use of parables, He made two seemingly paradoxical statements. In so many words He said, “I speak in parables because it is given to you to know the mysteries of Kingdom of God.” Then He said something that seemed to contradict all He stood for, “but to them it is not given.” If the Gospel is given freely to all how can we understand such a statement? Did God select to whom He would give revelation and to whom He would withhold it? Absolutely not!

Jesus made it clear that they would look and not see, listen and not hear. They would be exposed to the same opportunity to internalize and perceive truth but there was a reason it would not happen. Matt 13:15 says, for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them. God didn’t close the hearts and minds of the people. They closed their own hearts and minds. They had been conditioned by the religious leaders not to think, not to ask questions, and not to consider anything beyond the religious boundaries that had been defined. They needed a revelation they were not willing to see because it would require them to think and experience God for themselves.

Revelation doesn’t come because God decides He will show what He has previously kept hidden. After all, Jesus came so we could look at Him and see God! But religion doesn’t really look at Jesus and His finished work to understand God. Religion takes just enough of the Bible to make it seem true, then makes it fit in with accepted cultural concepts and the lie seems self-evident! Religion always makes adjustments in God’s offer to mankind. After all, if it is all free and freely given to all men, look how many people would be out of jobs, or even worse, lose power!

People listened to Jesus and not only failed to “get it;” they often wanted to kill Him for what He said. Keep in mind it wasn’t the “common” people who wanted to kill Jesus but those who controlled the common people by their religious ideas. The Jews and almost every version of the church have felt that only the elite should think and interpret truth. After all, the common ones, the laity, the nothing ones, just aren’t capable of reaching the conclusions that were sanctioned!

Leaders think the proof that we need to think for the masses is revealed by their lack of reaching the right conclusions. That only reveals that they have not been taught how to study, pray, listen, and think! People who are controlled can’t make the right decisions even when they have the right information. The teaching methods of those motivated by the need to control are not based on Jesus’ model.

One thing Jesus’ style of teaching did that was not done by the religious leaders of His day was that it required you to think for yourself. The public was very religious, they knew the rules that were imposed on them, but they really didn’t know the Scripture in a way that really worked. Yet, Jesus modeled the love of God, talked to them in ways that required them to think, asked questions, and trusted the Spirit of God to do His part! Many times He answered their questions with questions. Occasionally, He just walked away without answering their questions. This was completely different from those who sought to control their every thought about God!

People who don’t want others to think build walls. The Communists built the Berlin wall. It was designed to keep out the ideas and philosophies of the West. It was done, of course, for the benefit of the people. They didn’t want their people corrupted by the ideas of the West. And the concern for those people imprisoned, I mean protected, by the wall was so deep and heartfelt that they would kill their own people if they attempted to cross the wall. Politicians call that political parties, religion calls that denominations, scientists have a name for it, and so does every other group committed to control.

In the end, refusal to be questioned brings about hostile repercussions on those who ask. As a way of keeping the disease from spreading, those who dare to think or ask are attacked and vilified in such a way that inspires deep fear in the hearts of possible “dissenters” who would dare to color outside the lines. And, as always, it is done in the name of “protecting the innocent,” which is another word for “the ignorant.” But the truth is, it is designed to protect the power of those who attempt to be god to those who are less fortunate.

Without questions we can’t find new answers. It isn’t rebellion and unbelief to ask questions. New questions can be the pathway to answers that become the revelations that change our life and our experience with God. Every new revelation brings us to repentance, a change of mind about God. I am not talking about revelation outside of His Word; I am talking about new depths of experiencing Jesus! When I was a child I spoke as a child… How I experience God continues to grow as I grow in Him. But growing in Him means I have to always be ready to question my understanding and application of truth. In the absence of revelation, i.e. seeing God and His Word in an applicable mode that matches our current need, we are stuck where we are.

When we become “stuck” we create circumstance theology that explains and justifies why we are not experiencing God the way the Bible promises. The tendency then seems to be to hold others within the realm of our current experience. Our faith has been systematically and theologically sabotaged by those who would be threatened if our experience with God somehow overshadowed theirs. So the shadow of darkness is spread by those who through their insecurity attempt to validate their limiting experience by limiting the experience of others.

The heart that cannot ask questions cannot live in faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God. If believers had been allowed to ask questions we would have had steam engines, air travel, medicine, and unimaginable discoveries centuries before we had them. And, had believers been allowed to ask questions these discoveries would not have fallen into the hands of the wicked who line their pockets on the suffering of mankind. God would have been viewed differently and the world would not have become so anti-God!

The apostle Paul said: It is for freedom we have been set free. (Gal. 5:1, NIV) He then encourages us not to misuse freedom. However, because of those who would misuse it, he never justifies taking it away from us. People will misuse freedom. It is that very battle cry that the American government is using today to justify the stripping of almost all of our biblical and constitutional freedoms. But the institutionalized church has waved the same banner for around 1800 years. Whether it is government, educators, scientists, or religious leaders, the refusal to embrace and allow freedom is always for the sake of giving power to the corrupt controllers, “for the good of the people.”

Neither in a free society or a society that wants to appear to be free do people go into bondage by force; they go into bondage by oppression. The slow process of brain washing, of shaping thoughts and ideas, ultimately leads to the disallowing of free thought. People are misinformed, shamed, and intimidated into giving up the truth and ultimately their freedoms. The process is so slow that all our limiting beliefs seem self-evident! We think it has always been this way!

Today the world is in a dark place. The Kingdom of God is the only force capable of reshaping our world! The institutionalized church, (not all of the church) in the name of Jesus, will either conform in order to survive and maintain the freedom to assemble, or it will try to push us over into an anti- government conflict. One is a deliberate path of compromise to keep the preachers in a job. What’s the point in having the freedom to assemble if we can’t tell the truth when we come together? The other, the call to fight the government in the name of Jesus, will justify those who desire to stamp true Christianity from the face of our country. But we must not be drawn into the battle on the terms of the carnal controller; our struggle is not against flesh and blood.

For almost two thousand years the church has tried to establish righteousness by force. Wars have been fought; people have been murdered, vilified, tortured, and ostracized in a vain attempt to force on others what can only occur in the heart. The Kingdom is within. We enter that Kingdom when we believe that Christ was raised from the dead and that, as our Lord, we were raised up with Him.

The only reason our country and the world is where it is today is because those who sought to control us assassinated the fact that we are created in the likeness and image of God and that we have been made righteous in Jesus. By stripping us of our identity, our every pursuit of God and the Kingdom of God was reduced to behavior modification with a sprinkling of religious ceremony and biblical terminology. It was a pretty message with no power.

Be a responsible citizen. But do not for one moment think that the war you must win is “out there.” To complain about our country and not be a better citizen is hypocrisy. To want change and not be the change is a contraindication of all Jesus taught and modeled. Open your Bible; discover who you are in Jesus. Know and experience God for yourself. Write the truth of your identity on your heart. Become immovable in your faith. You don’t have to be an activist, just actively be who you are in Christ! Establish the Kingdom of God by influencing the hearts of others through your own life of love and kindness. Be who you are in Jesus. Show the world the love of God they have never seen through institutionalized Christianity. You be a light in a dark world.

When explaining why some people would never experience the truth Jesus said, For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. (Matt. 13:12) We get more of what we have in our heart. We see more of what we have already decided to see. Our understanding of anything becomes more locked into our preconceived ideas because that is how we need to see it; in other words, it is our world view that determines how we see the world, therein how the world becomes.

Our world view drives our scientific, political, and religious beliefs. Those who have their security in Jesus don’t mind asking questions and don’t mind being asked. In fact, those who are secure are comfortable with the idea that we may not know the answers. But those who build a false persona of spirituality tend to feel secure by being right and controlling the information. If your security is in your ideas instead of your Savior, those who challenge your ideas threaten your security and in that fear you become an irrational defender of the faith. You attack, slander, and assassinate others in the name of Jesus. You create an imaginary enemy out there while nurturing your own demons through fear, intolerance, and unbelief.

Jesus said all things are possible to him who believes. Instead of making excuses for the impotence of the church or our own ministry, if we would go back to the place where we started our journey, that place of surrendering all to Him, that hungering for all He is, then maybe, just maybe, we would be filled! If we are living and thinking in a realm where few things are possible maybe we believe what man has said more than what Jesus said.

The Spirit of the Living God is the Teacher; He will teach you. Part of this covenant we have in Christ is based on the fact that we don’t have to teach one another to know God. Every man can know God for himself in Christ! Teachers don’t control the truth, they point you to the truth and then the same Spirit that is in them can speak to you and help you experience that truth in a way that works in your life.

After teaching the famous parable of The Sower and the Seed Jesus said we would only get the benefit from the word we heard in relation to the amount of thought, study, and meditation we give it. After we have heard the truth we don’t need someone else to explain it. We need to ponder it and allow the Great Teacher to speak in our hearts and draw every life-giving element of that word. And He will gladly lead you to the answer of every question.

(I am not an enemy of the church, but I have no use for religion. Religion sets aside the finished work of Jesus and instead exalts rules and regulations that do nothing to benefit the world for whom Jesus died. I am so very thankful for those pastors who really do want to help people. They have that ability and heart to build organizations that really have a Kingdom purpose and Kingdom values. Institutions that exist to keep people in jobs and support the failed ego of its leaders are the darkness that has kept the world from seeing God as He is. You’re the only one who knows if that is what you are doing. No one has the right to judge your motives. I encourage every believer to be a part of a healthy church, free of control, built on the love of God, that exalts Jesus and His finished work as Lord. If you are in a church that is mean, controlling, legalistic, and judgmental – run! )

Escape From Codependent Christianity by Dr. James B. Richards

Words of Knowledge

Flowing in the gifts of the Holy Spirit is as individualized as there are different people. In explaining the variety of applications and expressions of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Paul said, There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. (1 Cor. 12:4-6, NLT) There are different gifts applied and ministered in various ways but they are all of God!

The church, as is its tendency, only has a limited religious model of moving in the spirit! It is a mystical model with a very limited scope of application. So limited, in fact, that it is nearly impossible to imagine how they could flow outside of church. So, as with all that God has freely given to the world, we have reduced these expressions of God’s love to something that excludes those who need it most and have regrettably limited those available for use to the religiously pious!

But God is God of variety. Creation itself screams God’s capacity and desire for creativity and variety. “Why all the variety?” one might ask. Simple! God works with, through, and for the benefit of people. He uses many different people in many various ways so the most people can benefit! Specific types of expression are more effective at reaching certain types of people. Variety maximizes the potential to do good for all!
Everything God does through you always maintains your fingerprint. It is always expressed through your personality, your communication style, and to some degree within the framework of your comfort zone. It is this variety that makes it possible for anyone to be used and for everyone to be helped.

In ministering to others I have always been very comfortable with what we have come to call word of knowledge. Word of knowledge for me is where I experience knowledge about someone that I would have no way of knowing other than by divine revelation. In sharing words of knowledge it is important that you don’t add, embellish, or take away from what you sense. Share what you have and let God work with the person from there!

Words of knowledge can come to you in several ways. Sometimes I feel something in a part of my body and I realize someone is dealing with an issue in that same part of their body. At times I have a quick “mental glimpse” of something. At other times I internally hear a word. It is never a sentence, rarely a phrase, usually just a word: back pain, kidneys, right eye, or something like that. I don’t try to understand it or expand it; I simply share the part of the body the person is dealing with and lead them in prayer.
Since there are many ways to administer these gifts there is no right or wrong way. The right way is the way that is effective for you. I seldom call people forward to lay hands on them; I usually pray for them where they are, but occasionally God will impress me to call someone forward.

My use of the gifts was developed in street ministry. I shared words of knowledge on a street corner before I ever shared them at an altar. They look very different when expressed in the real world than they do in a church setting. I believe it’s the mystical expression of the gifts in church that has kept them isolated from the world. Let’s face it: it’s hard to prophesy in Wal-Mart the same way it’s usually done in church. It would probably get you a trip to your local mental ward!

One of the greatest differences when applied in the real world is the necessity to do so with humility. In the world we submit these impressions to those we seek to serve. We never do it in arrogance or showmanship. The gifts are manifestations of God’s love and character. It is God expressing Himself through us. Every aspect of that expression must demonstrate the character of God.

There is no truly safe way to launch out in the gifts. All you can do is begin to humbly submit the impression you have. So many times I begin a conversation with something like, “Is there something going on with your back today?” That can immediately blossom into a ministry opportunity. Sometimes God gives me something very clear and definitive. When He does I share accordingly. As you allow God to move through you, you will become more confident in His ability to use you and more absolute in your awareness of His love for everyone!

Making Transformation Easy

When we first understand all the factors involved in true change (repentance and transformation) at first it seems impossible. The heart, which is the place all transformation occurs, resists change. It is always working to preserve our sense of self and protect the identity we have come to accept; therefore, homeostasis is the number one reason people do not change.
The beliefs of the heart which have accumulated over a lifetime have forged a sense of self that concretely defines our “normal.” Once our sense of normal is established the boundaries are firmly planted and difficult to move. At first this seems like an incredible weakness, a possible flaw in God’s creation; but actually it’s just the opposite.
When you consider that the heart is designed to keep us from being controlled by outside influences we realize that resistance to input apart from evaluation and intentional choice is part of what the heart is supposed to do. In other words, we are designed so that circumstances and corrupted logic received from the outside cannot easily change our boundaries or our sense of self. When your heart is fixed and stable this works for instead of against you. This protects a healthy heart from the corruption in the world.
Ps. 112:1-6 is the picture of a man whose heart is established in God’s love and really does trust and delight in His Word. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, Who delights greatly in His commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth; The generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches will be in his house, And his righteousness endures forever. Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness; He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous. A good man deals graciously and lends; He will guide his affairs with discretion. Surely he will never be shaken. The only word that adequately fits this person is IMMOVABLE!
Once your heart is steadfast in the realities of God the only way you can be moved, destroyed, or conquered is to change your beliefs. This is the real secret behind those who always get up, who always endure, and who always overcome. They may not really even understand it. They may attribute it to their faith, but the reality is it’s their heart!
This is the ultimate secret to living a life that keeps getting better and better and better. Years ago I preached a series called The Boiling Point. The principle of our boiling point is to do what we do until we cross an invisible barrier that suddenly shifts the balance in our favor. Some people call this the tipping point! When we cross the tipping point in our efforts it causes a shift, but that shift isn’t holistic. It only affects the area where we have focused our efforts, not our life.
When we cross the tipping point in our heart everything changes. When success happens on the inside we not only succeed but we have the capacity to enjoy it, feel safe in our success, and even rest and relax. Success that is only circumstantial brings anxiety and fear of possible loss. That’s why God’s wisdom says, the prosperity of fools is their destruction. But with a change in heart everything changes.
This brings us to the ultimate factor for producing heart transformation: We have to want it, choose it, and apply it. This is the labor that brings us into rest. In Mark 4:24-25 Jesus told us how to get the Word into our heart so it would bear fruit. The measure [of thought and study] you give [to the truth you hear] will be the measure [of virtue and knowledge] that comes back to you — and more [besides] will be given to you who hear. For to him who has will more be given; and from him who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. (AMP)
The Bible makes it clear that ministry to our heart belongs to us and us alone. God speaks to our spirit and people touch our soul, but only we can take input from either of these sources and write it on our heart. Then, and only then, does it bring about the automatic responses like those mentioned in Prov. 6:22 When you roam, they will lead you; When you sleep, they will keep you; And when you awake, they will speak with you.
One of the key ingredients to transformation (change that occurs from the heart) is passion. Passion makes things happen fast. The degree of passion determines the speed of transformation. In the parable of The Pearl of Great Price we see one of the laws of the Kingdom. Matt 13:46 says …when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. This man wanted the pearl more than he wanted anything else.
When you want to step into a new way of living more than you want anything you think you’ll have to give up, the transformation is easy. This initial passion usually occurs in a moment of inspiration. Inspiration can be the voice of God calling us to a better life or it can be the new “you” breaking through the mediocrity and crying out to live up to your potential (the promises of God).
Based on the teaching in the parable of The Sower and the Seed (which is confirmed by current research) when that inspiration occurs you have from a few minutes up to 12 hours to take ownership of it before it is lost. But the great thing is that if you “strike while the iron is hot” the transformation is incredibly easy! Mark 12:30 tells us to involve our heart, soul, mind, body, strength, understanding – all that we are in our involvement with God. This is what I call the multi-modality approach.
The more of you that you involve in any change the faster it happens. If you are dealing with sickness, deal with your heart, change your emotions, work with your body; bring every part of your into alignment with the promise of God that inspired you to hope. And never wait. Waiting is simply a form of resistance; it’s your heart trying to preserve what you have accepted as normal. Resistance will show up in many forms, but understand from the start that what seems like insurmountable obstacles is simply the heart trying to keep you in this place that you’ve accepted as normal for you!
It is this desire to bring a multi-modality approach that has lead me to develop dozens of tools for transformation over the years: The Prayer Organizer, The Releasing Series, Heart Physics, Meditations, Prayer, Mini-meditations, exercises relating to Pain and Pleasure, Put Off/Put On, Casting Down Vain Imaginations, Interrupt Destructive Patterns, Faith and Works and dozens of other powerful exercises. These all have one ultimate goal: harmony between mind, thoughts, emotions, feeling, behavior, and words!

Enduring Hardship

Every life has hardships, and every success story is filled with obstacles and near disasters. Nearly every financially successful person has lost everything at least once, and many several times. No one has made it to the place of success without facing and overcoming difficult odds. And all too often those that succeed do it at a tremendous price. Everyone who succeeds may point to a particular strength. But, the one strength common to all success is endurance. Because no one wins without hardship, everyone who wins must endure!

Paul’s writing to the Ephesians seems almost simplistic, “After you have done everything to stand just stand!” Sometimes I know I’ve done all I can do to bring about a success. All that is left to do is keep standing. Standing and enduring may be the hardest part. Activity makes us feel safe. It gives us the sense we are accomplishing something, whether we are or not. But enduring is what takes place when there is nothing left to do. When it seems that everything is beyond our control, it will be the strength to endure that keeps us holding on until success comes.

Endurance comes from many sources. It is the fruit of discipline, vision, hope and faith! In the parable of the sower and the seed, Jesus said those who lost the word through tribulation and hardship, lacked root. The truth was not rooted in their heart. “These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble” (Mark 4:16-17, NKJV). Enduring hardship is directly related to having an enduring vision. An enduring vision is one that is rooted deep in the heart. It is the unshakable certainty that the end is sure. If the vision is not rooted in our heart, we will give up when the hardships arise. If we lose sight of the vision, the hardships become exaggerated. They become bigger in our mind that they really are. But the person who is focused on the vision has little awareness of the hardship. Few people exemplify this more than the Apostle Paul. Paul, who had been beaten, imprisoned, betrayed, shipwrecked and maligned, referred to his suffering as “light affliction.” Paul experienced something that influenced him more than his hardship.

He had a vision to take the gospel to the world. It was his calling, his destiny. It was rooted too deeply in his heart to by plucked up by life’s hardships. When giving the secret to his capacity to endure incredible hardship Paul said, “we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen” (2 Cor. 4:18, NKJV). The person who sees the end from the beginning will endure hardship. The person who sees the end, experiences strength beyond what others can see or perceive.

Those who see the end are immovable. They always have a light in the darkness. The hardship is minimized by the joy of the goal. Sometimes the only difference between the incredible success and the failure is the ability to endure. Many times we have the right idea, the right plan and the right opportunity. But if we do not see it through, all the way to the end, we never know! We are left in that vague tormenting uncertainty; was the problem me or was the problem the plan? We must always be ready to walk away from a bad plan. We need to know when it is time to quit. A bad plan will never work regardless of how long and hard we work at it. But we should never quit because we lack the character to endure till the end. A person of character does not equate a bad plan with being a bad leader. Great leaders know when to walk away. Their ego is not bound to a particular project. But they never quit just because they lack the personal strength.

I enjoy the story of Wally Amos, a man who succeeded late in life. It is said that he lost everything he had, several times but he never lost faith. Late in life he became known as the father of the gourmet cookie industry when he found success with the Famous Amos Cookies. Wally Amos faced and overcame hardship so many times that he embodied the saying, “when life gives you a lemon make lemonade.” He so embraced this philosophy that in his official portrait he holds a pitcher in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the other. He endured until he could turn the lemons of life into lemonade. As one person pointed out, he didn’t just make lemonade; he sold it back to the people who handed him the lemons.

Colonel Sanders was another man who continually faced hardship and failure. As a child he learned to cook by taking care of his siblings while his widowed mother worked to provide an income for the family. Over the course of the next 30 years, Sanders held jobs ranging from streetcar conductor to insurance salesman, but throughout it all his skill as a cook developed. It was actually while operating a gas station that he began to develop the chicken dinner that would eventually become KFC. He kept trying until he found a way to succeed at the thing that he loved.

Then there is the story of Og Mandino, a homeless man who found refuge from the cold winter of the streets in libraries. Looking for little more than a warm dry place to survive he was only allowed to stay in the library as long as he was reading. So, he began reading books on success. The self-trained, homeless man overcame what must have been insurmountable obstacles and went from a homeless street dweller to a millionaire.

One of my favorite stories of endurance is about Bob Carlisle who sang and wrote Butterfly Kisses. It is said that everyone had given up on him. His record label had dropped him. Nothing he was doing was working. No one believed he would ever make it. When he recorded Butterfly Kisses it happened because of an act of kindness by someone who had allowed him the use of a studio. This person had so little hope for the project that he didn’t even want any claim to the royalties. This would be his last shot at any kind of success.

According to those that knew him, Bob Carlisle was sleeping in his van when he got his first royalty check on Butterfly Kisses, which was the number one song in the world at that time. It is said that his first royalty check made him wealthy. He went from poverty to wealth in one moment, from failure to superstar. All his success came when everyone had given up on him and advised him to give up.

The list of success stories that occurred when people were at the end of their hope is endless. The world has been changed by people who just didn’t know how to give up. And most of them had a string of failures that preceded their success! Anytime I hear the phrase “over night success,” I know this is usually someone who spent years becoming that “overnight success.” I know this is usually someone who would not quit! My good friend and fellow minister, Jimmie Bratcher talks about the gift of “showing up!” Sometimes that’s all we know to do, but there is virtue in the fact that we keep showing up.

Sometimes, facing adversity is like walking in a freezing wind on a winter’s day. You just lean forward and try to walk. When facing adversity, James 5:11 says, “Indeed we count them blessed who endure.” You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord — that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. In one of the worst hardship stories in the Bible, we see that God’s plan for Job was always a better life. No matter what you are facing, God has a good ending prepared for you! The more clearly you see that end in your heart, the greater your capacity to endure.

Do whatever it takes to keep you goal alive in your heart. The mark of a winner is not that he never falls or fails. He or she just keeps getting up. Maybe all you can do today is show up. But that’s better than any other option. The person who keeps showing up, eventually shows up at the right place, at the right time.

The words of John Osteen, the founder of Lakewood church, now pastored by Joel Osteen, have encouraged me so many times. John was a pioneer in so many ways. But his early days were filled with constant challenge and opposition. According to Bill Deerman, this super-church never had more than 200 people for over twenty years. At the time of his death more than 10,000 people per week were attending Lakewood church and tens of thousands were watching his services on television. I once heard John say that the secret to his success was that he kept preaching good news until he found the people who wanted it!

Don’t quit! Tomorrow you may become the next “overnight success!”

Kingdom Builders or Church Builders

Jesus came on the scene proclaiming the arrival of the Kingdom of God! To the disappointment of many, it was not an outward kingdom that would manifest itself with the overthrow of nations and governments. It would not force everyone to live godly, nor would it impose punishment on the wicked. There was nothing about his Kingdom that fit into the anticipation of the religious mind. According to Jesus, the Kingdom of God was “within.” Instead of a geographic location that could be ruled by power and might, it was a realm that could be entered by faith. This realm could be accessed by any person, anywhere in the world, any time, regardless of external circumstances. No longer would people go to Jerusalem, a temple, or another holy location.

This new Kingdom is an issue of the heart! The idea of a centralized power controlled by the edicts of leaders was non-applicable. People would weave in and out of this Kingdom based on the values and beliefs that guided their decisions. Those who trusted God’s word and applied those values to their decision making process would experience the Kingdom with all its benefits. Those who did not, regardless of how good they were, would not experience the Kingdom of God with all its benefits.

The message of the Kingdom was an intellectual struggle for everyone, the least of which were no doubt the apostles who were being discipled to live, preach and model this Kingdom reality. Nothing about it worked like other Kingdoms. The King was open to the common people. There was no hierarchy of power. There wasn’t a lot of “pomp and circumstance.” There were no political agendas. It took a total shift in thinking to understand how to lead in this new Kingdom. But this belief system would give access to all the promises of God!

Contrary to the way other kings built their kingdoms; Jesus invited sinners, tax collectors, Samaritans, Gentiles and enemies of Israel to join Him in the Kingdom of His Father. When they followed Him, in pursuit of this Kingdom, He taught parables, worked miracles, expressed mercy, and stilled the guilty conscience. Many had a heart to hear, believed God and entered in. Others walked away disillusioned and disappointed. His idea of the Kingdom did not fit what they were looking for. When speaking to those who assumed they would be first in line for this new Kingdom and all its benefits, Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the Kingdom of God before you” (Matt. 21:31-32). Or, as He so often said, the last shall be first. To enter in, one simply had to have hearing ears — ears that listen with a heart of faith, instead of a critical intellect. Thousands of people came close to the Kingdom of God, walked away empty, and never had a hint of what they had missed, or how close they were!

This same message of the Kingdom is offered to us today. This Kingdom message holds forth a promise of a life better than anything we had ever heard, anything we had ever seen or anything we had ever imagined. The Holy Spirit will teach us what we need to know, He will lead us into this incredible realm, if only we will surrender our personal agendas, cultural concepts and embrace the teachings of our Lord and Savior! (1 Cor. 2:9-10).

As new believers we are to renew our mind. (Rom 12:2). It is the top priority for the new convert. This is a process where we throw off our former way of thinking. We surrender our every thought, opinion and preference to the teaching of the Lord Jesus. In the early days of faith, we should embrace a new set of values and standards. Our life paradigm should shift from that which was imposed upon us by our culture, to the view and opinion of God. Maybe no one has to renew his or her mind more than the leader. We are called to lead people to live this Kingdom life. We are called to build churches that accomplish the agenda of the King, while following the principles He set forth. Our leadership style, regardless of the gifting, must be motivated by Kingdom values and goals!

This realm called the Kingdom of God is entered into by the values and beliefs that drive our decisions. When we harmonize our motives and goals with those of the Lord Jesus, we harmonize with the life and power of God. We experience God’s power for God’s goals. We experience the righteousness, peace, and joy of the Holy Spirit regardless of external circumstances. When we work our own agendas, we simply succeed by the sweat of our brow. Kingdom living makes no sense to the carnal mind. And Kingdom leadership probably makes even less sense! The carnal mind has spent a lifetime developing values and life strategies. It has created methods for survival and success that it trusts more than it trusts the principles of God. In this very struggle, the teaching of Jesus is fulfilled, “Through your traditions (culture) you make the word of God of no effect.” (Mk 7:13). Many success stories are simply great natural ability that meets the world’s standards, but does little to further the goals of the Kingdom. It looks like success and godliness but denies the power thereof!

There is probably no place where Kingdom thinking seems upside down as much as in the mind of a leader. None of the traditional laws of leadership fit the new model. Guilt, control, force, manipulation, political agendas and all the typical corruptions associated with power have no place in this Kingdom. All the rules have changed! All these carnal methods can no doubt get results but they do not endear the follower to the Kingdom of God. In fact, they alienate him. When leaders use carnal methods they reinforce the carnal mind of the follower. Carnal leadership builds organizations; spiritual leadership builds people. The religious leaders of Jesus day saw the multitudes as their servants. They used them to fulfill the agendas of their religious party. But Jesus showed an interesting paradox. He had a passion to reach the multitudes, but never at the destruction of the individual. Many great leaders of our day have learned the secret of building great organizations that serve the needs of the people. They have stayed true to Kingdom values. Carnal, leaders however, build organizations just for the sake of their personal glory and failing ego. They look successful because they are large and powerful, yet, their people are dying for a lack of Spiritual reality.

Jesus’ leadership style tended to defy logic. So very often He did for people what seemed to hurt the overall cause. Prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners often accompanied him. Their very presence offended the upper echelon of the Jews. This tendency to allow these people shared access, and equal value caused many to be offended and turn away. While Jesus, no doubt, regretted the loss of every potential follower, He never tried to satisfy the cultural standards to keep people, who would only be high maintenance, divisive controllers in the end. Remember the same people who wanted to make Him King by force, were the same ones who wanted to kill Him when he failed to meet their expectations.

James, the brother of Jesus, later addressed this very issue when he warned against showing preference to the wealthy by giving them special seating in your congregations. As he pointed out, it is these very people who in the end turn on you and persecute you. This new Kingdom was not prejudiced against the wealthy or the powerful; it was just not biased in their behalf.
The Kingdom leader needs to be ever aware that wealthy people tend to trust their wealth, powerful people tend to trust their power, and so on! Regardless of what a person trusts – other than God’s Word – money, power, sin, etc., it renders them carnal minded. Never deceive yourself in this; carnal minded people will never harmonize with Kingdom values. There will always be a source of friction. And in the end, when the Word of God contradicts what they trust, they will align themselves against the principles of God and become the source of strife and division.

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God “(Rom 8:5-8, NKJV). Yet, these are often the very people we place in power! We falsely assume that those who succeed in the world’s system can succeed in our system. And they can, if our system is built on the same principles and values!

The leader who has a heart for the Kingdom has to ask, “Will I help people even if it hurts my organization?” That is a tough question for any leader. Jesus no doubt dealt with this issue. Once, a man who was suspected of a heinous murder began to attend my church. Word spread through the community and it cost me some church members. In the end the man got saved, confessed to the crime and was sent to prison. In this life all I got was a smaller church attendance. But how did the Kingdom benefit? And was that enough for me? Were the loss of some church members and financial support more important than a soul being saved and the murderer being removed from society?

Our church was one of the first integrated churches in our city. We had the first bi-racial staff and leadership team. And I may have performed one of the earliest integrated marriages in our city. After I performed my first integrated marriage I asked a friend of mine his position on the matter. He warned me against it. He was sure it would hurt my church. In fact, he had refused to perform interracial marriages for that very reason. He was right; I performed the wedding and lost a few of my biggest givers! But what did the Kingdom gain? What was modeled to the world and our church about the Kingdom of God? There was no difference between what I faced and what Jesus faced for preaching to the Samaritans.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus seemed to strike at the very core of this exclusion of ministry based on social factors. He was maligned because of his inclusion of the poor, the sinful, the outcast and those of racially rejected backgrounds. Yet, this simple parable stabbed at the hypocrisy of the racial heart.

The way the carnal mind keeps score; Jesus was not a good leader. To the carnal mind growth of the organization is the true earmark of success. But it seems that Jesus had something else in mind. In the beatitudes Jesus seemed to say that the very people that were considered the losers of the day, by the religious community, were the very people who had a heart to grasp the Kingdom of God. Jesus didn’t seek out those who had the power and resources to help him build a large affluent following. Instead He sought those who had a heart for the reality of this new Kingdom!

We will all be faced with those hard Kingdom questions at one time or another. “Will I do what is best for the person, based on the word of God, even if my church benefits nothing from it?” I believe we could all answer in the affirmative on that question. But what if we take it a step further? “Will I do what is best for the individual, based on the word of God, even if it hurts my church, or ministry?”

In John 6:53 Jesus made the statement, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” From that time many people stopped following Him, Even His disciples had trouble with this. At this point, I¹m sure there were those who thought Jesus had no clue how to be effective in growing a congregation. After all, one day He would have a following of thousands and the next day He was being run out of town! But was He motivated by something greater than the size of His crowd? Remember, He desired to reach the multitudes; but he kept everything in perspective with Kingdom values.

One of my early realizations in ministry brought me to this opinion, “If you compromise to reach people, you have nothing to offer them once they follow you.” Jesus gave an interesting perspective to the ones who stayed to listen to His explanation. They would not be able to grasp resurrection realities if they could not bear with such difficult statements. He did not want to drive the people away, yet he knew they had no capacity to enter the Kingdom. If He compromised the message to keep the people, He would have people but no message that actually gave life!

Those who could not see past their own opinions were often offended and walked away. Those who minimized his teaching and argued their point of view were too busy being right to grasp a new understanding. But to those who chose to consider His words, stay and be taught in private, Jesus said, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom! As A leader I want to know how to do both, reach a lot of people and stay true to the only thing that will give them life.

The ultimate in carnality is when someone’s beliefs don’t really work for them, but their need to be right drives them to force their view onto others. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day did not have peace, joy or righteousness in their heart. Yet, they insisted they were right. But in their insecurity, they would often orchestrate the death of those who opposed them. Early Christians burned people at the stake for disagreeing with their theology. How likely is it that they were motivated by Kingdom values? It seems the more intense the dogmatic reaction the greater the evidence toward a life that is not working.

I have often wondered how many sermons are being preached by people who have very little of the joy of the Lord. How many leaders are having nervous breakdowns, yet leading others down the same path they are walking. How many sermons simply regurgitate information that has never been made to work? Or, how many sermons are geared for control instead of helping people connect with God in their heart?

Jesus said to the leaders of His day, you won’t enter in, but you won’t let others enter in. The way into the Kingdom is blocked by religious people who won’t go in but won’t let others go in. “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars! You took the key of knowledge, but instead of unlocking doors, you locked them. You won’t go in yourself, and won’t let anyone else in either”(Luke 11:52, TMB).

We live in a day when there seems to be a call to return to the Kingdom of God. As leaders we must assess what that means in light of the way we treat people, how we build organizations, and what motivates our actions. We must question our every motive and answer one question. “Do I do what I do for the Kingdom of God or for my own personal goals?”

The way of the Kingdom may not produce everything the world calls success. It certainly didn’t for Jesus. But to stand before God and hear, “Well done my good and faithful servant,” will surely outweigh any sacrifice we made in this life.

I am so thankful for those who have built large churches and ministries while holding on to Kingdom values, and I hope to learn from them all. At all cost I hope to follow the way of Jesus for the sake of the people for which He died, and the great mission we have of ministering this message of the Kingdom of God!

Eight Guiding Factors for Successful Teams

You can do everything you want to do, live your dreams, reach your goals, fulfill your call or simply attain success, faster, more effectively, with less stress and more peace with an effective team!

If this is true, why aren’t more people building teams, you ask? Team building seems to be among the most difficult of human feats! Team building is like starting a savings account. Even though it ensures a great tomorrow, the need for instant gratification drives us to fulfill the immediate and ignore the long range!

People would rather buy on credit than layaway. On layaway, there is no interest; there is no real debt or risk. You just have to wait for the gratification. On credit, the interest makes the product cost more. In fact, leadership that does not build teams is like paying the minimum payment on a credit card; you never get it paid off! Plus, when you build/buy on credit you could lose it all at any time.

In the beginning of team building, the common cry is, “I could get this done faster if I did it myself!” And that is true! On the other hand, the person who doesn’t train and develop a team is also the person that continually complains because no one will take initiative, no one knows how to do anything!

The end for the leader who does not build teams is always BURN OUT! And be sure there are no exceptions! No matter where you are in your journey to success, you can shift your paradigm and begin to build incredible teams. If you have a plan, if you know where you are going it is time to start building the team.

In the Critical Factors for Success, after creating a plan, the most important factor is staffing. You are not ready to do anything else, until you have determined who you need on your staff. Staffing is where you build the team that can build and sustain the success.

We call this The Dream Team. Your Dream Team may not be the people who are the very best at what they do. But they have to be the people who have the skills to bring your dream to pass.

The Dream Team is not really the “who” as much as it is the “what”! The question is not, “Who do I need?” The question is “what” skills do I need on my team!

This is usually where you need the input from a consultant, or someone who has effectively done what you are trying to do! When you need an expert, don’t try to be one, hire one! Remember, you’ve never done this before. You’re going where you’ve never been. Get good advice!

Teams thrive on several things. The following may be the most important guiding factors for team building:

1. A common Goal – This is a deal breaker. There is no room on a team for secret or hidden agendas. Anyone not fully committed to the common goal will eventually cost you more than they bring you.

2. Symbiotic Relationships – The relationship cannot be one sided. Everyone must benefit and everyone must fulfill his or her personal goals. If you work on my team, your personal goals must be fulfilled in the process of fulfilling the goal of the team.

3. Comparable Professional Skills – If professionalism is not comparable, you will realize what the saying means; a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. It is demoralizing when one or two team members are constantly the cause of reduced results. Over the long haul, the professionalism of a team always settles in at the lowest common denominator.

4. Healthy Communication Skills – Teams thrive on positive, open, honest communication. When people do not talk, dissension is close at hand. When people do not talk honestly, chaos abounds.

5. Mutual Respect – You cannot lead a person you do not respect. Likewise, you will not follow a person you do not respect. When a team member looses respect, a concentrated deliberate effort must be launched to heal the breach. If not, the team member must leave.

6. Congruent Philosophies – Our philosophies of life and business must mesh. They may not be identical but they have to be compatible. When speaking in terms of mathematics congruence means: Coinciding exactly when superimposed. That is exactly what must happen when we superimpose our philosophies one upon the other. While not identical, one will always support the other.

7. Shared Values – Values are the make-and-break point for most relationships whether personal or professional. If all else is in agreement but values are in conflict, it is only a matter of time before destructive disagreement emerges.

Values tend to define our sense of right and wrong. Right and wrong touches one of the deepest motivations for conflict in the human psyche. People cannot violate their values without a deep internal conflict that eventually erupts into relational conflict

8. An understanding and commitment to systems – Apart from well-defined systems, every effort is a guessing game. Systems say this is how we do it. every time! Teams cannot interconnect; there can be no integration of effort, there can be no consistency without systems. Without systems every project is harder, more costly, and is bound with more conflict.

Ask your team members questions. Determine if your teams are built on the eight guiding factors. You may find the hidden cause for low productivity and high conflict. But most importantly, you will find solutions!

For more information about building teams, see The Lost Art of Leadership, or Building Your Dream Team.

Grasping the Truth

I get emails nearly every day from someone who is sincerely asking what a particular Scripture means. While on one hand I am appreciative that so many people are seeking to understand the truth, I am also aware of how limited I am at helping anyone understand the truth.

Truth is never known until it is experienced. Jesus said that you shall know (experience) the truth and it shall set you free. That word for “know” is an experiential knowledge, not an academic definition. Information cannot set anyone free. Truth experienced is freedom!

Understanding is a heart capacity, not an intellectual one. The intellectual mind gathers data. It leaves us with little more than an equation, or at best, a rendering. But in the end our heart “bends” that data to fit our beliefs and perceptions. When we can’t make information say what we need for it to say, according to James 3:16, we fall into confusion. Confusion is the result of selfish ambition, i.e. we already know what we want. Therefore, any opposing view is confusing.

Because understanding is a capacity of the heart, when we understand something we don’t just gather and assess information. We understand information as it applies to application. Likewise, when we believe the truth it isn’t a mental acknowledgment that it is true. When we believe the truth we believe it as if it is our own. It changes our sense of self. We see ourselves with the truth as our reality!

The primary function of the heart is to believe about ourselves. Understanding, faith, and all other factors of faith are about believing it’s true for/about us now. For instance, salvation occurs when I believe in my heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. That means I believe it as it relates to me. It’s not the belief in a historical fact; it’s the belief about something that alters who I am! Believing on Jesus isn’t the acknowledgment that Jesus lived; it’s the belief of Him and what that means to me!

The Greek word for believe is synonymous with the word obey. There is no New Testament concept of believing one thing and doing another. Obeying, congruence, and harmony are always the fruit of believing!

We tend to seek for definitions of truth hoping that our intellectual grasp will bring the empowerment to live that truth. For many who have really good intentions, life becomes an endless, frustrating pursuit of information – information that never quite works as we expect! Definitions are not reality; they are simply the closest thing we can come to explaining reality. It’s difficult to actually explain or define the eternal realities of God. There are always subtle nuances that we hit or miss. In the end, those who have a heart for truth will get it and those who don’t… well, they just don’t get it.

The question then begs to be answered,”How can I know I have a heart for truth?” It’s all about intention. Is it your intention to intellectually know the truth or do you have the intention of living the truth you know? Jesus said it like this, If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. (John 7:17, NIV) The only way to know if He was telling the truth was if you tried to make it work!

The intention of application is the supreme difference. It’s the difference between a student and a disciple. It’s the doorway to truth that can be shared but never fully explained. It’s the difference between experiencing grace and willpower. It’s the difference between reality and theory!

I don’t know how many times I’ve been struggling with something and my mind would say, “You need to read a book on this!” Then I would hear another voice from deep in my heart saying, “No, you need to put what you already know into practice.” There is an ancient proverb that says, “If you think you can learn it from a book, don’t buy the book.” There’s nothing wrong with reading and studying; in fact, it’s commendable, but in the end only the Great Teacher, the Holy Spirit, can empower us to do that which we intend to put into practice!

So, I really can’t answer anyone’s question to their complete satisfaction. And to me it’s so incredible that I can’t because by not being able to answer the question, and knowing I can’t, forces me to point others to the One who can. At best we can inspire others to “experience” the answer. Only then have we actually done them a service.

A witness is someone who has seen or experienced something first hand. A witness gives a testimony, a verbal rendering of what they have seen or experienced. The breakdown of the church has been a couple of thousand years of people who don’t have experience trying to describe and explain what was told to them by someone else who really didn’t have a personal experience. In the end, it’s all reduced to intellectualism, words without power!

Grace, which is God’s ability and power to live, be, and do what we don’t have the power to do is only experienced by those who believe with the intention to do! There’s nothing impossible to the person who believes in their heart! Faith knows. Belief is feeling and thinking. Perfect faith is believing and doing! When you want to know if something is true… believe it and put it into practice.

The Earth is Not Flat – part 3

Because the church is right about Jesus, we have assumed we are right about everything. Like the early church fathers, we have not become students of the Word nor true disciples of Jesus. Like them, we have trusted for salvation and then sought to find security by subtly incorporating our cultural beliefs and personal fears into the repertoire of our personal theology.

Those who come from a background of satanism, occult, or new age, attack anything in the Bible that looks like their background. In the lack of security in Jesus they cloak their fear in self-righteous legalism, giving undue trust to those places from which they have come. Those who come from cults think that everything that sounds like what their cults embraced is, in fact, a cult belief. These are not people who, like Paul, believe that all things are pure when used for pure reasons. They pass judgments rooted in unbelief based on their intellectual concepts that mask their insecurity. They are weak in the faith!(Rom. 14)

Sadly, we must remember it was the church that killed people who proclaimed the world was round and the sun was the center of the solar system. Because the information didn’t come from the churches pseudo-scientific perspective it was considered to be “of the devil.” The most trivial disagreements were relegated to a demonic opposition of truth and punished with excommunication, exile, or death.

Our predecessors have fought against everything they didn’t understand with a blinded fervor (zeal) of convenient scriptural misinterpretation, factual ignorance, and cultural insensitivity that resulted in God and the church being rejected by the world. And as the Scripture says to believers in both the Old and New testaments, Because of you the name of God is blasphemed everyday. (Is. 52:5, Rom. 2:24)We, not the devil, are the main cause for the world turning its back on God and the Gospel.

Jesus said that because of our tradition, i.e. culture, we make the Word of God of no effect. (Mark 7:13) There are very few things that happen in a typical Sunday service that are actually scriptural, but we feel safe with those things and consider them godly, not because they are in the Bible, but because they are our culture. That doesn’t make them evil, it just means we tend to eventually adapt to the cultural norms and call them holy. Yet, anything outside of our culture that is incorporated into worship, we call cult or demonic.

When something comes that challenges our “current cultural concepts” we immediately make it of the devil (and he’s not that smart.) Then we shift directly into attack mode. Traditionally, the church has opposed nearly every advancement of civilization… until it becomes culturally accepted. Then, in time, when it is accepted by a large enough part of the Christian culture, we declare it to “no longer be of the devil.” It is now of God, just because we are comfortable with it.

Approximately 90% of the world’s population believes in a higher power. 50% of those believe in God, but they don’t know who He is. Between 70% and 90% of Americans believe in God and claim some form of Christianity, yet, they don’t attend church; they have corrupted values, destructive morals, and as a whole, their life isn’t working. Our world is sinking into destitution and depravity while the church clings desperately to tactics of outreach that haven’t worked in hundreds of years, and are rooted more in religious tradition (culture) than Bible truth. We attack what we don’t understand seeking to find security in our intellectual segregation.

Our impotent methods fail to reach the world Jesus came to save. Our dogmatic resistance to anything beyond our current scope of logic causes the world to reject the truth we do hold. And all the while the world is falling into eternal oblivion without God! And that seems to be alright as long as we don’t have to “think outside of our religious box.”

While we can’t get the promises of God to work in our own life, we fight against those things that we do not understand. All the while, demanding that the world be like us. They see that our faith isn’t really working that well. We are not dealing with sin much better than they. Our divorce rate is higher than theirs. And we’re always begging for money! We do not live a life of righteousness, peace, and joy that attracts the world to Jesus, the church, or the Gospel. The truth is that waitresses, businessmen, and scientists hate to see Christians coming. They don’t tip; they want everything for nothing, and they don’t know how to reconcile science and the Bible!

Because of the church’s intolerance and disrespect for others, we are hundreds of years behind where could have been had we not arrogantly rejected the discoveries of other cultures. We could have had aircraft, steam engines, and who knows what else hundreds or even thousands of years before we did. But we, the people of God, destroyed libraries, books, and inventions that did not come from “Christian sources.” We think that which is discovered by anyone other than our approved sources is of the devil. From our erroneous theology of dualism, we have created a false secular and sacred dichotomy that denies the very teaching of the New Testament. To the pure all things are pure. (Titus 1:15)

When the apostle Paul wrote to Titus he quoted a Creatian prophet to make a point. When he preached at Mars Hill he went to an idol and said, this is the God I’m going to tell you about. When John wrote to the Gentile world he called Jesus the “logos” which is a philosophical term describing the natural power in the world that causes things to flow as they should. The Chinese New Testament calls Jesus the “tao” as a suitable concept for logos. There are dozens of places where the writers of the New Testament were inspired by the Holy Spirit to use terminology and communication styles that were understandable to the people they addressed to create effectiveness. They were not threatened by a false sense of the sacred and secular.

Even Abraham, the father of faith of both Jews and Christians, made a sacrifice to God that was identical to the sacrifices made by the heathen to the false gods they served. Yet, he acknowledged God in his sacrifice. It was not only accepted by God but followed by a visitation. (Gen 15) Satanists quote Scriptures to conjure demons, but we don’t stop using those Scriptures and label them “of the devil.” Every religion in the world knows things we know and says things we say. We are not responsible for how they misinterpret those truths; we know the Source of all truth is God! The misuse of truth does not invalidate the truth.

Many people ignorantly discover a biblical reality, use it, and in the end worship the creation instead of the Creator, the process of God instead of the person of God. They dishonor God (the Creator) by worshipping the process (the creation.) We dishonor God (the Creator) by rejecting the process (the creation.) He is the God of

Creation. We should know the laws of creation better than any people who inhabit the Earth, yet we don’t.

If we valued God’s creation and the cultures of other people, if we just valued people as God values them, we could close the gap between the church and the rest of humanity. We could find common ground that would open the door to the Gospel of Jesus. Additionally, we could all live a greater quality of life if we were open to all God’s blessings and provision, even those on the natural plane. As the Apostle Paul said to Timothy, Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. (1 Tim. 6:17-18) Enjoying the benefits of God’s creation will not make us trust Him less; on the contrary much, much more! When we value and enjoy God’s creation we honor the God of creation.

Read all the articles in the August issue of Impact Magazine.

What to Do When You’ve Done it All and Nothing Seems to Work!

The one thing that is a constant in life is change! In fact, there is one thing we know for sure; we are predestined to experience change and it should be a positive, healthy, enjoyable process. As Romans 8:29 says, For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. It is our destiny to be like Jesus; therefore, we never stop changing, growing, and developing!
One would think with change being a life-long process we would be better at it than we are, but we’re not. We can master change and make it a truly enjoyable, effortless process. Understanding how we got here will help us understand how we get from here to some other place. Most of the permanent changes that have come into our life are unintentional. They were beliefs that only served us as children in a specific environment. Then we become adults with dysfunctional beliefs and we spend the rest of our lives struggling to reverse those changes! We don’t understand how we became the way we are and we don’t believe how we can change!
When we came to Jesus we received the power to change any and everything in our life. We have deposited in us the capacity to be the person we choose to be; yet, few people ever realize this incredible opportunity. In fact, believers are frustrated. Charismatic and Word of Faith believers are probably the most frustrated! Why? Because we know the promises! We know what should and could be happening; we just don’t really get much of it to work! Information that doesn’t work doesn’t bring freedom, it brings torment!
There is one prerequisite law that we must believe in order to begin the process of positive change. We must start by realizing that all things are possible through believing! (Mark 9:23) Not only are all things possible by believing, all things exist or come to be the way they are by believing! This is the first law of faith! It is the first law of creation!
We all have the power to create life the way we choose. We might not choose the outcome, but you can be sure, we choose the life. We chose the life we now have and most of what happens in our lives. We didn’t know the choices we made would have the consequences. We didn’t know we could have made other choices. But we did make the choices.
The main thing we did not choose was the environment that influenced our choices. We did not choose our parents, their values, and their generationally inherited dysfunction. Unfortunately, no one told us that we could make new Heart Choices that would forever change the pattern of our life. But your choices can be the end of generations of dysfunction. The Bible says it starts with repentance, i.e. changing our minds! We can change our minds about the life we live; we can choose another life, we can then change our hearts, and our life will change!
There are some reasons why we have such difficulty bringing about the changes we so desperately desire. The first is homeostasis, that state of equilibrium that keeps everything the normal. Our conscious mind justifies and rationalizes the beliefs of the heart. In other words, my intellectual mind keeps giving me reasons and excuses for why my life is the way it is. Since we trust our intellect more than the Word of God we accept these reasons as valid. After all, they make sense; they are logical and “factual.”
We think we have reached these views through an intellectual process. We think we have gathered information and made an informed decision. But the truth is the only information that leads us to any limited decision is doubt! Doubt is not, after all, the disbelief of the Word of God, it is simply when we believe something other than the Word of God. And we believe what we have the evidence to believe.
When facing change the thoughts of our heart invade the thoughts of our mind and give us plenty of evidence. It looks at everything we have ever done, everything we have tried and failed, our assessment of life, and all of our fears that make all the limitations in the natural world seem realistic! We think this conclusion was the work of our intellect. No! It was the work of our heart. It shaped our perception based on our current beliefs, primarily our sense of self!
To go where we have never gone, to live life on better terms, to do what we have never done is a venture into the unknown. The heart is motivated by fear and love. Everything emerges from these two sources. Anything unknown is treated as a threat, i.e. fear! And it is a threat! It is a threat to our sense of normal, our homeostasis! When the mind starts thinking thoughts that exceed the accepted norms of the heart, they upset our sense of balance!
It is also a threat because it seems that it would be hard and painful to bring about such massive change. Because we don’t know the law of entering rest, we think that our efforts bring about our change, and effort is always hard! But effort really doesn’t bring about change. Effort brings only temporary changes in behavior that disappear when effort is no longer exerted. Believing brings about effortless, permanent, painless change!
One of the essential laws of change is this: I am not really changing, I am transforming. I am not trying to become what I am not. I am choosing to live and manifest an aspect of who I am in Jesus. Change, becoming something else, is a rejection of who we are in order to become something else. Transformation is a yielding to who we really are on the inside. It is an accepting of who I really am in Jesus!
There is another predominant limiting factor to change: attempting to control the process. We want to go where we’ve never been but we want to draw our own map. If we’ve never been there we don’t know the map. We don’t know how to get there. We find a false sense of security in doing something our way. But as Proverbs 16:25 elucidates, There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. Just because it seems to be right doesn’t mean it’s even close!
Religion and faith are basically a struggle about the process, the way something is done. Religion has tried, since Cain and Abel, to choose the way that seems right to man. Faith, on the other hand, trusts the way, the process, that God says. All religious people want righteousness, some want to earn it, others receive it by faith. Everyone wants to know God but not everyone wants Him by faith! We try to choose the process that validates our current beliefs. This deceptive process insures we will never change. In fact, after we fail it ensures we will stop trying to change!
The struggle between true spirituality and religion is always about believing. Religion always comes up with some logical process that makes sense to the carnal thinker and always circumvents or, in some way, distorts believing. It is here that our struggle to be god of our own world emerges. The writer of Proverbs said, Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5) We want the process to fit our understanding!
We want to trust God but control the process. But if you don’t trust God’s way, you really don’t trust God. You can’t choose the end God promises and the process you desire. We must trust that our Shepherd will lead us down the appropriate path. Verses 6-7 of the passage from Proverbs goes on to say, In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes. In essence we are saying, “God, I will only trust You if You do it my way!” But today you can choose to trust God’s ways even though you might not yet know those ways.
When we want a better income we want to get it through the job we have; we don’t want the pain of changing jobs. But what if you are as far as you can go on your current job? When we want a loving future we want it with the person we think will make us happy. But what if we are really bad at picking out potential mates? What if our omniscient Father can see that there is someone who could make you happy for life? We are like the woman with the issue of blood, “My miracle will only happen if it happens the way I think it should.” While God is calling us down a path to His promise we resist because it’s not the way we want it to happen. It’s not the process we trust!
Our sense of security must be in the goodness of God, not the process that makes us feel safe. I understand the need for safety, but safety while on a cruise ship is in the way we feel about the ship and the crew, even though we really know nothing about sailing. It’s the same every time we get on an airplane. If we had to understand everything that occurred in flight and make every decision we would probably crash the plane. We’ve got to settle down in God and know that He will get us there. And since we are going where we have never gone toward a better career, a loving mate, or a life of purpose and destiny, we don’t know how to get there. But He does!
Then, there is the issue of the heart. Our current course is the result of the beliefs of the heart. As previously mentioned, our life script was written when we were so young that it was totally irrational. It has very few roots in reality. It was a view of the world forged by our environment and we did not choose that environment. When these life-controlling beliefs were forged they were written on our heart. They were not intellectual decisions. We were, after all, in a meditative state from conception to around 10-12 years old. We can’t change the heart unless we are willing to work within the heart.
All transformation is a work of the heart. It is something that occurs by bringing about influence in your heart. Your current beliefs were created in your heart, so in order to change those beliefs it must be done in the heart. Positive thinking, behavior modification, and any other technique rooted in behavior has to do with willpower. And to borrow something I heard someone say, “Willpower only works when you don’t need it!” When there is a struggle between beliefs and willpower, willpower will always lose, no matter how close to winning you seem to come, and believing will always effortlessly win.
God has a way that ALWAYS WORKS; it’s called believing. It has worked for you all your life. You may have wished for some things that didn’t happen, but be assured, you became everything you believed about yourself. As surely as believing has brought you to where you are, it will take you where you want to go.
(This article is based on the new eight message series entitled: What to Do When You’ve Done It All and Nothing Seems to Work! )