Things in this old world aren't getting any better, and in recent times, the Holy Spirit has been speaking an urgent message to my heart. He's been saying, Press in. Draw in to a more intimate relationship with your heavenly Father. If you don't, you won't make it. If you do, you will see more glorious outpourings of God than you can imagine.
Jesus has redeemed us from the curse. Many of us have been well taught about that redemption where sin, sickness and poverty in our own lives are concerned. But we often fail to realize that redemption has power over the destruction the devil tries to bring on our children's lives as well.
It always amazes me when I preach about prosperity and someone comes up to me and says, "I don't need much prosperity. I'm a simple person with a simple life. So I just ask God for enough to meet my needs."
They think that's humility, but it's not. It's selfishness! They don't realize it, but they're actually saying, "All I care about is meeting my own needs. I have no ambition to help meet anyone else's."
That word abide is so important. When Jesus told us to obey His commandments and keep His Word, He wasn't just telling us to follow a bunch of religious rules and regulations.
He was telling us to allow His Word—which is a living thing!—to make its home within us. He was telling us to spend time with it, to meditate on it, to fill our minds and our mouths with it, and to let it guide our every action.
Apart from the Word of God itself and prayer, nothing can do more for you than watching and imitating a real man of faith. I found that out in a big way many years ago when I was a student at Oral Roberts University. As co-pilot on the airplane that transported him and his staff to his healing meetings, I had the opportunity to study Oral Roberts up close. I followed him around. I heard him preach. I watched him lay hands on the sick.
The Bible teaches that as believers, you and I are to occupy until Jesus comes. Occupy is a military term meaning to hold possession, or control, of conquered troops and territory. If we're to do that effectively, most of us are going to have to change our attitudes. We're going to have to recognize that Jesus has already won the victory.
That's right. Satan is already defeated. He was whipped at Calvary. We're not on the defensive—he is!
Did you know your name has been changed? It's no longer the same as it was before you were born again. You gave your old name away when you made covenant with Jesus.
To fully appreciate what that means, you have to think about it in the light of what we know about blood covenant. When someone enters a covenant of blood, he is giving himself completely away. He is no longer his own. His assets and his debts, his strengths and his weaknesses belong forever to his covenant brother.
There are times when you know what God has called you to do, but you just don't feel you have the inner resources you need to do it. Somehow you've simply run dry. You know the Word says that "out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). But, during those times, you can't even find the creek bank, much less the river.
The Word of God tells us how to handle those situations through a clear command: "Stir up the gift inside you."
One thing the world needs to see is good examples. They need to see believers walk in love and purity and faith in their homes, in their schools and in their businesses.
There's an old Full Gospel tradition that says God gets glory from the wonderful way His children bear pain and agony and that the world is impressed by that. What a lie! That's simply a tool of the devil to keep God's children in bondage.
People of the world already have all the pain and agony they want. They aren't looking for a way into it. They are looking for a way out. They don't care what you preach. It's the religious people who get worried about that. The world, the sinners, are smarter than that. All they care about are the results.
Do you want to know why the Body of Christ has been in such a mess over the past few years? Do you want to know why the devil has been able to make a public display of our weaknesses? Do you want to know why, instead of being unified and strong, we've often been torn apart by division and criticisms that come not from without but within?
It is because, as the Lord said in Hebrews, the people of God have need of milk and not of strong meat. They're babies! The people of God for the most part don't know His ways.
All of us know what it's like to go round in circles. To pray our way through one financial disaster only to be met by another. To receive healing for one illness just in time to be knocked off our feet by the next.
Oh, we try. We pray. We exercise our faith. But we keep getting caught in the same old problems over and over again. Why? Because all too often, we don't actually know what it is we need to be praying for.
What do you do when you're facing a particularly stubborn problem? A problem that resists your every effort to solve it?
Put the power of love to work on it! The power of love is the greatest power in the universe. It's beyond defeat. It never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8).
The Bible says God is love. So when you release love into a situation, you have released God into it. Think about that! When you start releasing love into a situation, Jesus becomes responsible for its success.
What is this love I'm talking about?
Disciplining the flesh. For many believers that phrase stirs memories of frustration and failure. They know it's important—the Word of God clearly teaches that. But they're not sure exactly how to go about it.
Some have given up, shrugging off such discipline as impossible. Others are still fighting stubbornly to get their flesh under control—and losing one battle after another.
But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, we can't afford to let it be that way. It will cost us too much.
We're to live in hope. We're to rejoice. So, when Satan comes to steal your victory and tell you that God is not going to help you this time, you just think on the Word of God and start rejoicing. Rejoice that you're in Him. Rejoice that heaven is your home. Rejoice that greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Rejoice. Brag on God today. The devil can't stand it!
Remember when you went to school and learned your ABCs? You learned them by using your five senses and your logical abilities to gather information and sort it out. That kind of knowledge is called natural knowledge and it's the only kind most people know anything about.
But in the kingdom of God, there's another kind of knowing. One that works its way from the inside out instead of from the outside in. It's called revelation knowledge.
The deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is something that can never be brought into question by any born-again believer. Our very salvation rests on the fact that Jesus Christ is divine, the second person of the Godhead, God—the Son.
The beloved disciple and apostle, John, forever puts to rest any doubt about that in John 1:1,14. Anyone who doubts what those verses say could not possibly have been born of the kingdom of God. For the deity of Jesus forms the very foundation of our faith in Him.
I wonder when God is going to do something about this problem! Have you ever asked that question? If so, you may be surprised to find out that the answer depends 100 percent on you.
There's an incident in Mark 5 that will show you what I mean. Jesus had just gotten out of a boat and people were pressing all around Him, "thronging Him," it says. They had Him shoved up against the shoreline when suddenly there came a man moving through that crowd to get to Jesus.
Hopelessness. As this age draws to a close, that's a feeling that's going to be more and more common among the people of this world. But, you know, it's something we as believers never have to feel! Because no matter how much pressure comes on the earth, no matter how dark the natural circumstances around us are, we know that we have hope in the soon return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who do you turn to when you need help, when you need an important answer to an important question? Do you ask God first?
So many believers fail to do that! They'll stand around wringing their hands and talking to each other all day. They'll inquire of their pastor. They'll inquire of their friends. They'll inquire of their husband or wife. But do they inquire of God? No.
Don't make that mistake.