Random Teachings

Random Selected & Compiled Christian Teachings & Summaries
RANDOM SELECTED & COMPILED
CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS & SUMMARIES
1
Table of Contents
Taste and See (Tim Dearborn)----------------------------------------------------------4
Greatest thing (Love) (George Irving)-------------------------------------------------5
Learning to Love Him (Anna Roundtree)---------------------------------------------8
st
Prophetic Vision for 21 century (Rick Joyner)------------------------------------10
Loneliness of Jesus-----------------------------------------------------------------------12
7 reasons to pray in the Spirit----------------------------------------------------------13
Apostle of Abiding Love-----------------------------------------------------------------14
God wants you helpless-----------------------------------------------------------------15
In the hands of the Potter----------------------------------------------------------------17
7 barriers of Protection-------------------------------------------------------------------18
Watch of the Lord (Mahesh Chavda)-------------------------------------------------19
Within Heavens Gates (Rebecca Springer)----------------------------------------20
Prayer and Fasting (Mahesh Chavda)-----------------------------------------------22
Final Quest (Rick Joyner) & Listening Prayer (Linda Olsen)-------------------23
Is that really you God- (Loren Cunningham)---------------------------------------24
7 Priorities of God-------------------------------------------------------------------------26
Final Quest part 2-------------------------------------------------------------------------27
Titles of God--------------------------------------------------------------------------------28
Frank E. Peretti----------------------------------------------------------------------------29
Forgiveness--------------------------------------------------------------------------------30
Praying for Friends- Intercession-Thrilling- (Joy Dawson)----------------------31
7 Ways to Praise- Possessing the gates-(Cindy Jacobs)----------------------32
Lost art of intercession- (Jim Ghol)---------------------------------------------------33
Hour that changes the world (Dick Eastman)--------------------------------------35
Spiritual Gifts- (Peter Wagner)---------------------------------------------------------37
The Call (Rick Joyner)-------------------------------------------------------------------39
Wigglesworth Nuggets-------------------------------------------------------------------41
The Anointing (Benny Hinn)------------------------------------------------------------43
Hells best kept secret (Ray Comfort)------------------------------------------------45
2
Elements of Hell (Bill Weise)----------------------------------------------------------48

Power of Kindness (Steve Sojern)---------------------------------------------------49
Meditation----------------------------------------------------------------------------------50
One thing you cant do in heaven (Mark C.)---------------------------------------51
Caught up into paradise (Richard Eby)---------------------------------------------53
To heaven and Back (Rita Bennet)--------------------------------------------------54
Ian Mcormicks testimony---------------------------------------------------------------55
My Glimpse of Eternity (Betty Malz)-------------------------------------------------57
Words from a Thesasurus describing God----------------------------------------58
Heaven Chapter -------------------------------------------------------------------------60
Solitude ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------63
Isaiah 58 & Apostolic Prayers---------------------------------------------------------67
Commands from the Word ------------------------------------------------------------68
Cant Accept Not Trying (Michael Jordan)-----------------------------------------78
Journey of Desire (John Eldredge)--------------------------------------------------81
Refiners Fire-------------------------------------------------------------------------------91
7 Golden Keys ---------------------------------------------------------------------------93
Waking the Dead (John Eldredge)---------------------------------------------------94
Ransomed (John Eldgredge)--------------------------------------------------------103
The man who talked with Angels (Sharon Buck)--------------------------------114
When Heaven Invades Earth (Bill Johnson)-------------------------------------119
Favor Confessions (Bob Buess)----------------------------------------------------127
Breaking Soul Ties-----------------------------)---------------------------------------128
Finding the Right Mate for Life (Kong Hee)--------------------------------------130
Jewish Customs of Matrimony (Zola Levitte)------------------------------------138
Knowledge of the Holy (Tozer)------------------------------------------------------142
7 Intimacies in Heaven-----------------------------------------------------------------143
7 Rewards in Heaven (Mike Bickle) ------------------------------------------------144
7 Questions-------------------------------------------------------------------------------145
Sun Dar Singhs & Oden Hetricks Heaven Visions----------------------------146
Paradise, Holy City, and the Glory of the Throne (Marvin Ford)------------147
3
Taste and See
The root issue in spiritual growth isnt discipline and determination but
desire and hunger. For whom am I living, for my own fears and hopes or for
our Lord? For what am I hungry, for success and affirmation or for our
Lord? The real question is not are we disciplined enough, but are we
hungry enough?
Our sins our gone and we look as clean as Jesus in the Fathers eyes when
we accept what He has done for us on the cross. God is looking at our
heart. That is the question we need to ask from time to time, how is my
heart Lord?
All of us long for our parents affirmation. In Christ, God celebrates who we
are. In Christ, God is pleased with us, not because of what we are or what
we have done, but because of who He is. I may have known Gods love for
me in my head, but I relied on my efforts to make myself lovable. Gods
love is not based on our performance but because through Jesus we are
children of God the Father. He loves us because we are His children and
we belong to Him. This love drives out fear. When this news sinks into our
lives, that in Christ the Father continually says to us you are my son or
daughter whom I love, and in you I am pleased, we are freed from all the
other voices that would demand our attention and seek to define our worth
by our works.
If we want to notice the surrounding signs of the presence of God, we need

to walk more slowly and notice what we see. We need to ask questions like
what do I see in this of the hand of God, or what are Gods purposes in
this, or what is God doing and how does He want me to participate in the
fulfillment of His purposes? Or what do you see God doing in your current
situation?
Learning to hear Gods voice requires training. Learning to hear Gods

voice is the real training and key to walking with God and fulfilling your
destiny. Sometimes we listen best through adversity, when other noises
have been silenced. We need to receive whatever is knocking at our lives
as an invitation to join Christ at His feast. Our spiritual hearing will improve
only as we obey the truth we hear.
Everyday lets seek to focus on one thing thats beautiful, and do something
for someone else that costs us something. In whatever we see, hear, smell,
touch, taste, we can encounter God. The changes that God wills in our
lives are for our wholeness, not for our harm. We can encounter Christs
presence in all we meet, and we can enable all we meet to encounter the
presence of the indwelling Christ in us. We can relax because all does not
depend on us.
4
The Greatest Thing
God is love. Above all things have fervent love among yourselves. Love is
the fulfilling of the Law. You can take nothing greater to the lost world than
the impress and reflection of the love of God upon your own character.
That is the universal language. It is the man who is the missionary, not his
words. His character is his message. Take into your new sphere of labor,
where you also mean to lay down your life, that simple charm (Gods love),
and your life work must succeed.
Love puts up with people a long time, it is kind and generous. Love doesnt
envy, nor does it vaunt itself. It is not puffed up. It does not behave itself
unseemly. It seeks not her own and its not easily provoked. It thinks no evil
and rejoices not in iniquity but in the truth. The supreme thing in short, is
not a thing at all, but the giving of a further finish to the multitudinous words
and acts which make up the sum of every common day.
Love is patience. This is the normal attitude of love; love passive, waiting to
begin, not in a hurry, calm, ready to do its work when the summons comes
but meantime wearing the ornament of a quiet spirit. Love suffers long,
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. For love understands,
and therefore waits.
Love is kindness, love active. Have you ever noticed how much of Christs
life was spend in doing kind things, in merely doing kind things? You will
find that He spent a great proportion of His time simply in making people
happy, in doing good turns to people. What God has put in our power is the
happiness of those about us, and that is largely to be secured by our being
kind to them.
Love never fails. Love is success, love is happiness, love is life. Life, with
all it yields of joy and woe and hope and fear, is just our chance of learning
to love. The prize of learning how to love is all of the joy that loving others
gives. Where love is, God is. He that dwells in love, dwells in God.
Therefore love without distinction, without calculation, without
procrastination. Lavish it upon the poor, especially upon the rich, who often
need it most, most of all upon your equals, where it is very difficult, and for
whom perhaps we each do least of all.
There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give

pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure. For that is the ceaseless and
anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. I will pass through this world but
once. Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can
show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again.
5
Love is generous, it doesnt envy. Whenever you attempt a good work you
will find other men doing the same kind of work, and probably doing it
better. Envy them not. The only greatness is unselfish love. Even self
denial in itself is nothing, only a great purpose or a mightier love can justify
the waste.
Nothing is a hardship to love, and nothing is hard. Christs yoke is easy.

Its just His way of taking life. There is no happiness in having and getting
anything, but only in giving. It consists in giving and serving others. He that
would be great among you, said Christ, let him serve. Remember, it is more
blessed, happier to give than to receive.
Love is not easily provoked. Temper is significant; it is not in what it is

alone, but in what it reveals. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating
ours, sweetens, purifies, and transforms all. This only can eradicate what is
wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate
the inner man. Neither will power nor time changes men, Christ does.
It is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus that it is better not to live than to
live and not love. You will find if you think for a moment, that the people
who influence you are people who believe in you. In an atmosphere of
suspicion men shrivel up; but in that atmosphere of love they expand and
find encouragement and educative fellowship.
Love thinks no evil, imputes no motive, sees the bright side, and puts the
best construction on every action. And if we try to influence others, we shall
soon see that success is proportion to their belief of our belief in them. Our
ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he may
become.
Love is the charity which delights not in exposing the weakness of others,
but covers all things. That is the supreme work to which we need to
address ourselves in this world, to learn love. Is life not full of opportunities
for learning love? Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one
eternal lesson for us all is how better we can love. What makes a man a
good musician? Practice! What makes a man a good man? Practicing His
presence. Nothing else. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is
the Christ like nature in its fullest development. What was Christ doing in
the carpenters shop? Practicing. Though perfect, we read that He learned
obedience. Do not quarrel therefore with your lot in life. Do not complain of
its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you have to
stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with. Above all,
do not resent temptation. That is the practice which God appoints you; and
it is having its work in making you patience, and humble, and generous, and
unselfish, and kind, and courteous.
6
Do not grudge the hand that is molding the still too shapeless image within
you. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men, and among things and
troubles and difficulties and obstacles. We love because He first loved us.
Contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love. You can only look at the
lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness to it. Love
begets love. Once Edward Irving went to see a dying boy, he just said, My
boy, God loves you. And the boy started saying God loves me! God loves
me! The sense that God loved him overpowered him, melted him down,
and began the creating of a new heart in him.
Love lasts, it never fails. Covet that everlasting gift, that one thing which it
is certain is going to stand, that one coinage which will be current in the
Universe when all the other coinages of all the nations of the world shall be
useless and un-honored, give yourselves first to love.
To love abundantly is to live abundantly. Eternal life is inextricably bound

up with love. Why do you want to live tomorrow? It is because there is
some one who loves you, and whom you want to see tomorrow and be with
and love back. Love is the energy of life. Eternal life is to know God, and
God is love. Love must be eternal, it is what God is.
Love never fails, and life never fails, so long as there is love. No worse fate
can befall a man in this world than to live and grow old alone, unloving and
unloved. To be lost is to live in an unregenerate condition, loveless and
unloved; and to be saved is to love.
Love is patient and kind. Get these ingredients into your life. Then
everything you do is eternal. It is worth giving time to. Address yourself to
that one thing; at any cost have this transcendent character exchanged for
yours. You will find as you look back upon you life that the moments that
stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when
you have done things in a spirit of love. Everything else in all our lives is
transitory.
The final test of religion at that great Day is not religiousness, but love; not
what I have done, or achieved, but how I have discharged the common
charities of life. For the withholding of love is the negation of the spirit of
Christ, the proof that we never knew Him, that for us He lived in vain. It
means that He suggested nothing in all our thoughts, that He inspired
nothing in all our lives.
Who is Christ? He, who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick,
and where is Christ? Whoso shall receive a little child in My name receives
Me. And who are Christs? Everyone that loves is born of God!
7
Learning to Love Him
In relating Bob Jones death experience, he says that he found himself in a
line of people who were standing on a moving path. One by one, each
person in the line appeared before Jesus. All those on the path were
dressed in white and were exceedingly happy. On a parallel path moving
toward the Lord were people who were exceedingly unhappy. These were
clothed in that to which they had devoted their lives. Each was given the
opportunity to look at Christ and He at them before the path turned
downward. When our friend appeared before Jesus, he was asked the one
question that everyone in the line had been asked: Did you learn to love?
The Lord had not asked, Did you do? Or even Did you go? But Did you
love? In other words, while on earth, did he fulfill the two greatest
commandments?
Christianity is a way of life of supernaturally receiving that which we do not

have and will never have in ourselves. Our Lord and Savior is to be and
do everything within and through His disciples. It takes God to love God.
His love has no limits. It was before all time and will be forever. We ask
that this eternal love of the Father for His Son be brought forth in us. We
cannot originate it.
Unbelief is an obstacle to love. Faith must always be the first aspect in any
spiritual advance. We cannot love Jesus until we trust Him to be in us what
He requires of us. Christianity is not a way of life in which we do more and
more and therefore appear to be more Christ-like. Christianity is a way of
life in which we get out of the way more and more and allow Christ to
manifest Himself through us.
Faith and love are bound together in the Word. For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through
love. Fortunately faith and love are gifts given to us because we are in
Christ Jesus.
A second hindrance to Christs love flowing through us is unforgiveness.

We are always to remember the inestimable love of God in His forgiveness
of our past sins through Christ Jesus. For many this mercy is the greatest
motive for loving Jesus. The Lord said, Therefore I say to you, her sins,
which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but to whom little is
forgiven, the same loves little.(Luke 7:47) Extending full forgiveness to
others who may have wronged us is a key to keeping our hearts open to
allow the love of Christ to flow through them. If we pursue the Lord with out
whole heart, love for others becomes a blessed actuality.
The Bible tells us that another major impediment to our loving Jesus as His
Father does is a divided heart. In order for love to be effective, ones heart
8
needs to be fully available for Christ to dwell there. But what if part of our
hearts loves the things of this world? Do you not know that friendship with
the world is enmity with God? God the Father cannot be satisfied with a
heart that is only partially available to love His Son. The apostle John
warned that if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
(1 John 2:15) This is speaking about the lust of the flesh, eyes, and the
pride of life, hollow rewards dangled before us by satan to entice us to turn
our eyes and our hearts from Jesus.
When we are born again, we receive a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26). But our
bodily desires and unregenerate mind, will and emotions (the flesh), can
back up into this new heart, clogging it. Therefore the Holy Spirit daily
prepares for each disciple his cross- opportunities whereby he my choose
God over his flesh. Each time we choose the Lord over gratification of our
fallen nature, a chamber is cleansed within the heart. Into each cleansed
chamber rushes the living God. (John 14:23)
Love begets love until we can be satisfied with nothing but complete union
with Christ. Only complete oneness satisfies our Father (John 17:21-23).
Therefore, only complete oneness will satisfy His children. We begin seeing
others as the Lord sees them: either helplessly lost without Christ, or in
various stages of growing up into Christ. We begin to wake up; the world
loses its allure. Nothing it offers-fame, power, position-can motivate or
control us. Why would we want any of these? We are in love with and
loved by the most renowned, wealthy, powerful and loving person in
existence. No mere human can love as He loves. We dont want to settle
for less than the best.
We dont want a passionate existence; we simply want to channel all our

passion toward the right One. We were created to experience the best.
Mankind has searched this planet and beyond. We have followed every
false god and every form of distraction and thrill. But there is only One who
is eternal and who is a perpetual, ever-new delight: He is Jesus. Therefore,
set yourself to know Him, really know Him, and learn to love Him above all
else. He is the prize, and when you pursue Him, all things are added unto
you. (Matt. 6:33, Col. 2:10, 1 Cor. 3:21-23, Rom. 8:32)
9
Prophetic Vision for the 21st Century
The only way we can come to know the voice of the Lord is the same way
that the sheep came to know their Shepherds voice--through time spent in
His presence. The single greatest endeavor to help us cultivate this is to
love the Lord. And the single greatest thing we can do to cultivate that love
is to ask for it.
One of the basic characteristics of true love is communication. It is the

nature of lovers to share everything. Every one of us is as close to the Lord
as we want to be. The greatest spiritual authority is the ability to touch and
move Gods heart.
No one can properly understand the Scriptures, prophecy, or the will of God
unless he maintains true humility. Humility comes by simple dependence
on God for everything we are or have, including our next breath. The
highest form of humility will be displayed in the wisdom of those who
seemingly have legitimate reasons to be proud if they compare themselves
with others, but remain humble because eternity is in their hearts. The fruit
of true humility will always be obedience, contentment despite
circumstances, and compassion for others in whatever state the Lord has
them.
The Bible is the map to Gods kingdom. The Scriptures alone are used for
establishing doctrine, while the voice of the Lord is used to give us day to
day guidance as well as revealing the strategic will of the Lord. Christianity
is a restored, living relationship with the Lord. In either case we have
nothing to boast about all that we receive is by grace. The book of Acts is
an example of normal church life.
Compared to eternity, all of the treasures in this world would be less than a
grain of sand in the ocean. We are both very wealthy and very poor. The
Lord is courting His bride, and He continually seeks to draw us after Him.
Humility and intimacy are keys to hearing Gods voice. The closer two
people are the more intimate their secrets will become. Pray and give in
secret.
Christians must view every encounter with others as an opportunity to sow

life. Whenever we can endure the often trying and unfair encounters of life
without compromising our position in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we are extending the
limits of the kingdom of God.
The ultimate goal of the church is to populate heaven and our weapon is the
gospel of salvation, the words of everlasting life. The church will become
the most desirable place in the world to be, and the church will become the
pure vessel she is called to be when she takes up the cross, committing
10
herself to the life of sacrifice. In the times ahead, the life of sacrifice and
service to others will be the most desirable life in the world. We will find our
true peace when we take up our cross to serve others. Now is the time
when all true bond servants will be revealed and they are the ones who truly
do all things for the sake of His gospel.
Every Christian has a ministry, a purpose he or she has been given in this
life. God does not want us to live in the perpetual frustration or boredom
that comes from not walking in our true purpose. He wants us to have the
indescribable pleasure of knowing we have accomplished all that He put us
on this earth to do. Our fist step to getting out of our wilderness is believing
that He has something better for us and that He is able to bring us into it.
Five basic characteristics can be found throughout the Scriptures in the

biographies of those who fulfilled Gods purpose in their generation:
1. They have a clear vision of their purpose

2. They stay focused on their goal
3. Theyre resolved to gather resources to accomplish their purpose
4. They only associate with solution-oriented people
5. They refuse to let obstacles or opposition stop them and they stay
resolutely on the course to fulfilling their purpose, regardless of
setbacks and disappointments
Our path should become clearer as we proceed. The path of the righteous
is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.
Our calling is possibly our most precious treasure, and what make treasure
valuable is that it is either rare or hard to find.
When you seek the Lord, get specific. Those who have goals that are too
general rarely accomplish them. The answer to what we are called to be is
usually found in our own hearts, because living waters can only come out of
the inner most being. Because people often wear so many veils and
defense mechanisms, they have a hard time knowing the deepest desire of
their hearts.
11
The Loneliness of Jesus
Try listening to someone for a few hours, without getting in a word. It leaves
you with a feeling of loneliness. The person who got the load off his chest
goes away feeling better, but the listener, who could not offer a single word
of advice or share his own heart, stands there unfulfilled. How often have
we left our Lord there alone in the secret closet, lonely and unfulfilled? We
rush into His presence with praise and petitions but how many times has He
been so ready and anxious to open His own heart to speak, when lo and
behold, no one was there. Can you hear Him saying Yes, yes, thank you
for your praise. I accept it. Im so glad you took the time to be with Me. I
have heard your request and the Father will give you the desire of your
heart. But please wait, please be still awhile, dont leave just now. I have
some things I want to share with you. My heart is yearning to be
unburdened to you. Ive bottled your tears; Ive soothed your troubled mind.
Now, allow Me to talk! Allow Me to tell you what is on My heart.
Our Lord Jesus wants to talk. He wants to tell us what is breaking His heart
in our generation. He wants to speak to each child about the beautiful plan
He has for all who trust Him, revealing glorious truths: guidance for
ourselves and help in raising or discipling children: solutions to problems,
new ministries and outreaches that will save the lost; specific words
concerning jobs, careers, homes, life partners, truths about heaven, hell and
the coming calamities. Most of all, He wants to talk to us about how much
He loves and cares for His own. We rob our Lord of the joy of ministering to
us. Jesus wants to talk to those on the battlefield. He must have open
lines, two way lines, to every soldier on every front.
When Elijah finally allowed that voice to speak, alone, quiet, away from all
the power displays, he got the most specific directions ever in his entire
ministry to God. (1 Kings 19:12-16) How many busy, busy children of God
today have never had the voice come to them? They are so busy
witnessing, going about doing good, praying for a spiritual awakening in the
land, fasting-so intense-so sincere-so dedicated. Yet, they have heard
everything but the voice of the Lord. John tasted of the greatest joy a
follower of Jesus can know. He said, I stood still and I heard Him talk to
me. His voice made my heart leap. He talked to me personally. I listened
to my Lord. And thats my joy; Just hearing His voice. The Lord still
speaks directly to the hearts of those waiting to hear. The Lord would say
Im asking to be heard. Open up. Let Me into your secret closet. Let Me
talk with you and you talk with Me. Lets commune. Thats how I will keep
you from the hour of temptation that is coming on the entire world.
12
Seven Reasons to Pray in the Spirit
1. Praying in the Spirit builds up your inner man, while
sowing strength to your spirit.
2. Praying in the Spirit sensitizes your spirit to hear
the voice of God, bringing accuracy.
3. Praying in the Spirit sensitizes your spirit to the
Holy Spirit, bringing alertness.
4. Praying in the Spirit helps you to be stronger when
temptations come, building maturity.
5. Praying in the Spirit keeps the joy of the Lord in
your walk, developing perseverance.
6. Praying in the Spirit helps you to love God when
words arent strong enough, providing a love
language. Romans 8:26
7. Praying in the Spirit nurtures your spirit and keeps
you in the love of God, bringing contentment.
Jude 20-21
13
The Apostle of Abiding Love
When God puts a desire into your heart, He will fulfill it. I learned to place
myself before God every day, as a vessel to be filled with His Holy Spirit.
God will use each trial in your life to remove all that hinders your devotion to
Christ.
Andrew Murray wrote Take time. Give God time to reveal Himself to you.
Give yourself time to be silent and quiet before Him, waiting to receive,
through the Spirit, the assurance of His presence with you, His power
working in you.
Murray learned that laughter and fellowship were two of lifes most
important activities. He often prayed, May not a single moment of my life
be spent outside the light, love, and joy of Gods presence and not a
moment without the entire surrender of my self as a vessel for Him to fill full
of His Spirit and His love.
Abiding in Christ was the cornerstone to Andrew Murrays life and ministry.
He writes: Abide in Jesus: your life in Him will lead you to that fellowship
with God in which the only true knowledge of God is to be had. His love,
His power, His infinite glory will, as you abide in Jesus, be so revealed as it
hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive.
14
God Wants You to Be Helpless
My most spectacular answers to prayers have come when I was helpless.
Psalms 4:1 says When I was hemmed in, You have freed me often.
Recognize this hemming in as one of Gods most loving devices for
teaching us that He is real and gloriously adequate for our problems.
God is a realist and insists that we be realists, too. So long as we are

deluding ourselves that human resources can supply our hearts desires, we
believe a lie. Jesus said in John Without Me you can do nothing. And in
John 3:27 it says a man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him
from heaven.
The Word has many passages that point out our helplessness. Sometimes
in life every one of us finds himself out of control, caught in circumstances
he is helpless to change. Welcome such times! Often it is only then that we
enter into the truth of Jesus statement without Me you can do nothing.
With helplessness alone, one would be like a bird trying to fly with one wing.
But when the other wing of Gods adequacy is added to our helplessness,
then the bird can soar triumphantly above and through problems that
hitherto have defeated us.
A.B. Simpson, the famous New York preacher had poor health including two
nervous breakdowns and a heart condition which led a physician to tell him
when he was only 38 that he would never live to be 40. In desperation
Simpson turned to the Word and became convinced that Jesus had always
meant healing to be part of His gospel for the redemption of mans total
being.
One afternoon he went to the woods and started telling God of his complete
helplessness with regard to his physical condition. But to this helplessness
he added his belief that God was for health all the way. It was that
majestically powerful combination again, My total inadequacy, Your perfect
adequacy. He then asked Christ to enter him and become his physical life,
for all the needs of his body, until his lifes work was done.
He said I every fiber in me was tingling with the sense of Gods presence.
A few days after that, Simpson climbed a mountain 3000 feet high. From
that time on he literally had a new heart in his chest. During the first three
years after this healing he preached more than a thousand sermons,
conducting sometimes as many as 20 meetings in one week. His testimony
was that never once did he feel exhausted. He lived to be 76.
The acknowledgment of our helplessness is the quickest way to that right

attitude so essential to prayer. Blessed are the children for there is the
kingdom of heaven. Children have that dependency; they know their
15
helplessness apart from their parents. Poverty and hunger lead people to
do the unthinkable. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theres is the kingdom.
Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness for they shall be filled.
Those that acknowledge their dependency upon Christ, their desperate

need for Him, enjoy a deeper fellowship with Jesus-the true purpose of our
lives. Remember that Hes not looking for perfection but a perfect
relationship, one that has the lines of communication open and honest, a
perfect heart towards Him.
One sunny day in the future, you will look back and praise Him that He
cared about you enough to shut you up to Him alone. Without that
stringently kind providence, you could never have learned firsthand the
amazing benefits of helplessness.
16
In the Hands of the Potter
Master Potter picks up a rock and begins to crush the broken pieces of clay;
you cry out, God, how can You crush me after everything Ive been
through. But the stone beats down on you again and again until the hard
clay becomes a fine dust. Then, when His own scarred hands, He reaches
into the depths of your heart saying, I will take out all the rocks and thorns,
all of the debris you picked up along the highway of life. I have measured
you; I know exactly what your destiny will be. I will center your inner man
and take away the double-mindedness and confusion. God spoke to
Joseph in a dream revealing the anointing on his life, yet the fulfillment of
that dream would be many years, many miles, and many tears down the
road. The Lord has placed you on the shelf to dry and after a long time you
ask where are you? I dont feel you anymore. I seem to be in a
wilderness. Youre right, He answers, and youve been promoted. But Lord
I thought promotion was getting to start my ministry. Promotion is the
wilderness, says the Lord. My Holy Spirit led My Son into the wilderness to
be tested. Now Ive called you there so you can learn to recognize My
voice. Im testing your heart. Will you continue to seek My face in this
wilderness, or will you turn away in anger?
The greater the call is on someones life, the greater the misunderstandings
will be. You dont need the approval of man, you need to be planted so
deeply in Me that the storms of life will not uproot you. One day you stop
struggling and pray Lord, Ill stay in this wilderness forever if I have to. Ive
found You here and Youre all I need. Just then the Lord says now is the
time for Me to take you out of the wilderness. Are you feeling like Joseph?
Is God using your family, ministry, finances, and relationships to fuel the
testing of your heart? The Lord is calling you, and those around you, to a
deeper place in Him. And the Lord says Just as My Son had a
Gethsemane, so you must have one too. All that can be shaken
(competition, position, religious intellect, critical nature, reputation, comfort,
family, and even understanding), will be shaken, and then Ill build you
solidly upon the Rock.
In the midst of the black fire you feel like youre going to explode as the
pressure builds. But instead, a mystery takes place. This is the hidden time
when all the brilliant, most beautiful colors are pushed deep into the clay.
These colors are formed in the darkest hours of agony and grief, just like
diamonds are formed by hot fires inside the earth. Now that you reflect My
face and My glory, He says, I can send you out to all the world. Are you
willing to go into the Glory fire to let God perfect His destiny and calling in
your life?
17
7 Barriers of Protection
There are seven barriers of protection around each believer
and four barriers around each non-believer. The first three are
around everyone, and the last three are only around born again
children of God.
1. Inner hatred of evil (we are born with this from God)
2. Angels (This is part of the love of God) Hebrews 1:14
3. Hedge of protection that God has built
around us (Psalms 19:1)
4. Fellowship/Prayer with other believers
5. Jesus blood covering over our lives
6. Jesus prayers (John 17:9 and Hebrews 7:25- Continues on!
7. The Holy Spirit indwelling within us (Luke 17:21)
18
Watch of the Lord
The humble, holy, and hungry will be the first recipients of His visitation.
Heb. 11:6. In a crucial tone of voice the Lord said My watch is being
repaired. The word watch means=the act of keeping awake to guard,
protect or attend, a state of alert and continuous attention.
Genesis 32 talks about how Jacob watched and wrestled all night with God
for a blessing. We are the Bride of Christ; we need to spend time in
intimate communion and prayer with the Lord. Have Date nights with
Jesus. Hab. 2:1 says I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart,
and watch to see what He will say to me. The times Jesus spent watching
were more times of communing intimately with His Father. They were a
source of life for Him, a relationship with Abba. And there He received the
revelations and instructions He needed to fulfill His purpose on earth.
We offer thanksgiving, then we praise, and when the spirit of worship comes
and God touches our spirit we worship for a long time. We always celebrate
communion towards the end of the watch. There is clarity of vision when the
presence of the Lord comes. There is a place for petition, intercession,
prophecy, and faith proclamations. The fruit of fasting from sleep or time
and food to watch and be with the Lord is found in Is. 58. The Holy Spirit
will water you, make you fruitful, and empower you in difficult times. This
kind of intercession is not something we do; instead it is a place of being.
At His feet we will receive instruction regarding His every desire for us. This
kind of prayer is not do, do, do, but be, be, be. His yoke is easy.
Mary was just being with the Lord at His feet. We journal any insights the
Lord releases to us during the watch. Often several individuals will be given
a piece of the prophetic puzzle. Prophetic intercession may come to our
musicians, prompting spontaneous songs that are brand new, elevating the
Word of God to new heights. We designate a watchman captain who will
lead intercession. We appoint a watch communications officer who will
record the events of each watch as well as visions, scripture verses shared,
prophecies given, urgent prayer requests, prophetic songs, testimonies and
prophetic prayers.
Establish a watch of the Lord protocol. Designate worship leaders. Pray for
the local church, nationally and around the world. Pray for more laborers, for
the government, for the peace of Jerusalem, national concerns, economic
stability to facilitate the end time harvest. Pray for area pastors, households
and children of the watchmen, the elderly, lonely, the forgotten and those in
prison. Pray for the requests of individuals in the watch. Put on the armor of
God. Rev. 16:15 says blessed is he who watches. Pray in the Spirit.
Praying in tongues for a couple of hours a week during your watch wont
hurt you. End the watch exalting the Lord and declaring Him Lord and
Victor over every area of your life.
19
Within Heavens Gates
This account is true, though greatly condensed, a record of an experience
during days when life hung in the balance between time and eternity.
All through the grounds, people were walking, all with an air of peacefulness
and happiness. As I looked upon their spotless robes, I thought, These are
they who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb.
If only we could realize while we are yet mortals that day by day we are
building for eternity. Every gentle word, every generous thought, every
unselfish deed, will become a pillar of eternal beauty in the life to come. We
cannot be unselfish and unloving in one life, and generous and loving in the
next; the two lives are too closely blended- one but a continuation of the
other.
I found the heavenly life and its loveliness unfolding to me like the slow
opening of a rare flower. Delightful surprises met me at every turn. One of
the most wonderful to me was the occasional meeting with some one whom
with tearful eyes, would pour forth his earnest thanks for some helpful word,
or stern rebuke, which had turned him, all unknown to myself, from the
paths of sin into the life everlasting. Oh, the joy to me of such a revelation!
My first impulse after happy blissful rests, was to plunge into the river of
life, so refreshing, and inspiring. I always returned full of new life, hope and
purpose to our home.
During a visit at a friends home I saw a stranger at the front entrance and
arose to meet him. He was tall and commanding in form, with a face of
ineffable sweetness and beauty. Peace be unto this house, he said as He
entered. Sit beside Me awhile. How does the change impress you? How
do you find life here?
I never fully understood till now the meaning of that passage, Eye has not
seen, nor heart conceived, the things which God has prepared for them that
love him.
Do you believe that all Christians truly love Him? he asked. Do you think
they love the Father for the gift of the Son and the Son because of the
Fathers love and mercy? He spoke gently. Oh, I said, you who so well
knew the beloved Master, how can you doubt the love he must inspire in all
hearts who seek to know him? A radiant glow overspread the wonderful
face, the mist rolled away before my eyes--and I knew him! With a cry of
joy and adoration, I threw myself at his feet, bathing them with happy tears.
He gently stroked my bowed head for a moment, then rising, lifted me to his
side.
20
My Savior, my King! I whispered. Yes, and Elder Brother and Friend, he
added, wiping away tenderly the tears stealing from beneath my closed
eyelids. Yes, the chief test among ten thousand, and the One altogether
lovely! again I whispered.
Ah, now you begin to meet the conditions of the new life! Like many
another, the changing of faith to sight with you has engendered a little fear.
Have you forgotten the promise, I go to prepare a place for you; that where
I am, there you may be also? If you loved me when you could not see me
except by faith, love me more now when we have really become co-heirs of
the Father. Come to me with all that perplexes or gladdens; come to the
Elder Brother always waiting to receive you with joy.
I seemed to have drunk deeper draughts from the fountain of all good, since
I had met Him whom my soul loved.
Heaven is as beautiful and happy a place as it is to any who have ascended

higher, simply because we can enjoy only in the capacity to which our souls
can reach.
21
Prayer and Fasting
Fasting with intercession is a powerful weapon to pull down strongholds and
set captives free. Being filled with the Spirit does not make you ready to
move into the fullness of your calling in power. We need to submit to the
discipline of the Spirit, and during that time frame God will disciple us in the
crucial works of prayer, fasting and the skillful use of His Word as a weapon.
Jesus fully completed the process in only 40 days. Fasting helps to release
the power of the Spirit in our lives and it facilitates the freer flow of the Spirit
through you by dissolving all the junk in your life. God only wants you to
measure up to His purpose for your life.
God may lead you to fast one day per week, month, or whenever. Some
reasons why we fast are; we fast in obedience to Gods Word. We fast to
humble ourselves before God and obtain grace and power. We fast to
overcome temptations in areas that keep us from moving into Gods power.
We fast to be purified from sin and to help others become purified as well.
We fast to obtain Gods support in order to accomplish His will. We fast in
times of crisis. We fast when seeking Gods direction. I fasted for my wife
even though I was not yet married and didnt even know her. We fast for
understanding and divine revelation.
The only eternal aspect of our lives on earth is our investment in the eternal
life of others. We need to learn how to laugh when we feel heavy. I believe
that a lifestyle of disciplined fasting and prayer is one of the elements
required of a people who enjoy the abiding or lingering presence and glory
of God.
Fasting will help you to develop self-control. We need to learn how to

minister in Gods rest and not out of our own strength. We must learn the 2
prerequisites of victory in every battle. 1) We must cast away all sin in our
lives through his blood, and 2) we must obey every command and follow
each strategy the Lord gives us without deviation or hesitation through fear.
22
Final Quest & Listening Prayer
Take time to listen to my voice. The greatest weapon that I have given you
is My love. Walk in my love everyday. The more focused you are on Him,
the more glory you will see regardless of where youre at. Many leaders are
doing good works, but very few are doing what I have called them to do.
Even my greatest leaders are seldom in harmony with Me. This is the result
of divisions among you.
Dont continue to measure yourself by others. If you are looking to Me you

will go far beyond what you would have otherwise accomplished. My Word
is the power that upholds all things. To the degree that you believe that My
word is true you can do all things. Words have power and it is wisdom to be
careful with words.
As a family try sitting together before the Lord and have one member ask a
question and all listen for the answer. Ask the Lord for your marriage
partner. Begin to establish a running dialogue with the Lord about the
decisions and the circumstances of your life. The more time you spend
listening the better at it you will become.
Dial down the flesh so you can hear God. When the Lord speaks you feel
refreshed, rested, peaceful, at home, comforted, special, empowered,
courageous, and loved. The only way to know what pleases the Lord is to
listen to Him. Shut out the negative self-talk voice by praising God.
In praise and worship we do more than merely sing to God, in this

atmosphere we can readily enter a dialogue with Him, spirit to spirit, just as
we can in listening prayer. Ask God to open your spiritual ears and eyes, so
that you can hear what He is already saying to you.
Choose to spend a period of time each day waiting in His presence. God
will speak to you through the scriptures so read the Word. The more you
ask, the more you will receive. Learn to listen in your spirit to God. Jesus
wants you just to be with Him. Dont be bothered by silences, it is probably
the Lord readying your heart to hear Him.
For directions you could try asking Lord what is the big picture, what are
You doing? What does it mean to be faithful in this circumstance? What is
your way and will in this situation? Keep a prayer journal, record what you
want to say to God and then write down what He says back to you. Pray
with pen in hand. Tell God how you feel, record spiritual truth you learn.
Struggle to put into words what He teaches your spirit. Record meaningful
poetry, songs, prophecies, quotes from books and precious things people
have said to you. Be led by God step by step.
23
Is that really you God and Will of God
Success itself is the most dangerous obstacle to hearing properly the voice
of God. We need to confess places in our lives where we have failed to put
God first or when we have robbed Him of His glory.
Three practical steps in hearing from God are, 1) take Christs authority and
silence the enemy. 2) Ask the Lord to clear from your mind any
presumptions and preconceived ideas. 3) Wait, believing He will speak to
you in the way and time He chooses.
The first goal of guidance is to lead us into a closer relationship with Jesus.
It is a higher price to live for your self or the enemy than it is to live for God.
One of the most common of all ways that God speaks to us is through the
quiet, inner voice of His Spirit to our spirit. A clean heart is necessary if we
want to hear God. The key question is have you obeyed the last thing God
told you to do?
Get your own leading. God will use other to confirm your guidance but you
should also hear Him directly. It can be dangerous to rely on others to get
the word of the Lord for you. Dont talk about your guidance until God gives
you permission to do so.
The main purpose of waiting is to avoid Pride, Presumption, missing Gods

timing and method, and bringing confusion to others because they too need
prepared hearts. The more you seek to hear Gods voice in detail, the more
effective you will be in your own calling.
Relationship is the most important reason for hearing the voice of the Lord.
If you dont have communication, you dont have a personal relationship
with Him. True guidance is getting closer to the Guide.
The men and women of God who changed history all had one thing in
common; they knew and did the will of God in their generation. God has
chosen to give you freedom, and He works for or against your choices to
accomplish His over all purpose. His ultimate goal is for you to be
conformed to the image of His Son, the Lord Jesus. (Romans 8:29)
Jesus goals on earth were to seek and save the lost, destroy the devils
works, and finish the Fathers work. There are so many who are scared of
doing their own thing, they dont do anything. Before we were Christians we
were alienated from the life of God but now that weve been adopted into
the family and turned from our own way to His, we receive a new nature and
the mind of Christ and our thoughts become Gods thoughts. We have new
desires in our hearts planted by God. One of those desires is that none
should perish.
24
When I get desires to pass out tracts or witness I know they are not my
unregenerate desires. God has changed our hearts and we can expect
God to honor our desires. There are some who say you shouldnt move
until you get a rhema from God. Thats true for big decisions. When it
comes to preaching the gospel we dont need a rhema. The starting gun
was 2000 years ago.
The passivity of the saint arises out of his non-use of his talents. Our clear
mandate is to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Take initiative and God will honor your exploits because Hes faithful to His
word. God inspires our initiative. Proverbs 6 says to go to the ant. The
only ant you see doing nothing is a dead ant. There full of initiative. We
should be steadfast in the Lord, unmovable always abounding in the word of
the Lord, knowing that our work in the Lord is not in vain.
25
7 Highest Priorities of God

(They are all related to the 7 Feasts of Israel!)
1. The Blood of Jesus (FEAST OF PASSOVER)

The demands of justice were satisfied, the wrath of God
appeased, and the records of iniquity erased through the
shedding of that blood.
2. Fellowship/Communion with God (FEAST OF

UNLEAVENED BREAD)
God wants to fellowship with you and to enjoy an
awareness of His presence every day.
3. The Resurrection of Jesus (FIRST FRUITS)

He is alive! Best way to witness is to let others see
Jesus life flowing out of you.
4. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit (PENTECOST)

Power to be and do like Jesus.
5. The Great Commission (TRUMPETS)

Go tell the world that they can come now!
6. The Atonement of Jesus is Everlasting (DAY OF

ATONEMENT)
All of our needs are covered in the atonement. Without
the atonement we could not be accepted. He wants us
to know that our lives are covered when our sincerity,
faith and trust are in Him.
7. The Return of Jesus (TABERNACLES)

For His own, His return is the priority God is looking
forward to with such excitement that the angels of
heaven are rejoicing with him about it.
26
Final Quest
There was once a man named Angelo. He was an over-comer. He was
faithful with the little that the Lord had given him. His life was more pleasing
to the Lord than a Christian teacher who would always witness to people
and pray for the sick.
The Christian teacher had been raised in a wonderful family which had
always known the Lord. He grew up in a thriving church and attended one
of the best Bible colleges. He wasnt using everything God gave him.
Angelo had been born deaf. He was abuses and kept in a dark, cold attic
until he was found by the authorities when he was 8. He had then been
shifted from one institution to another where the abuse continued. Finally he
was turned out on the streets.
The Lord gave him 3 portions of His love and he used every one to keep
himself from kicking a kitten that crossed his path. That other man was
given 100 portions of the Lords love and was using 75. Angelo used all 3
and was given 3 more and with that love he had in his heart he decided to
stop stealing even when he starved.
We all have consciences. He worked for money to buy food. He collected

bottles and did yard work. He learned to read. He read a gospel tract that
someone gave him. As he read it the Spirit opened his heart, and he gave
his life to Jesus. The Lord gave him 6 more portions of His love and Angelo
used all of them. Even though he lived in such poverty, he started spending
over half of everything he made on gospel tracts to give out on street
corners. He led 1 soul to Jesus.
Angelo became like Jesus. He died a martyr. He wrapped his arms around
a drunken bum on a very cold night. He froze to death saving that drunk.
Very few have overcome so much with so little.
Many Christians dwell in houses that kings centuries ago would love but
they dont appreciate them, while Angelo would appreciate a cardboard box
on a cold night. He began to love everyone and everything, he would
rejoice more over an apple than some do over a great feast.
Angelo was rejected by some churches. He bought a Bible and would read
it over and over. He would only do enough for himself to stay alive, and
gladly sacrificed his life to save a needy friend. Angelo lived for others like
Jesus. Angelo is now one of the kings lower cased k in heaven. Jesus is
the King of kings.
27
Titles of God
Prince of Peace (Is. 9:6) The King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev.17:14)
The Lamb of God (Rev. 5:6) The Bread of Life (Jn. 6:48-58) Bright Morning
Star (Rev.22:16) The Light of the World (Jn. 8:12) Emmanuel (Isa. 7:14)
Wonderful Counselor (Is. 9:6) JESUS (Mt.1:21) The Same Yesterday,
Today and Forever (Heb. 13:8 ) Our All Sufficiency (2 Cor.3:5) The Word
(Jn.1:1) Dwelling In Us (2 Cor. 6:16) Faithful and True(rev. 19:11) Easily
Touched (He. 4:15) A Sure Foundation (Es. 28:16) Upholding All Things
By the Word Of His Power (He. 1:3) A Rewarder of those Who Diligently
Seek Him (He. 11:6) Our God is The Holy One(Ps. 16. 10), The I Am(Jn.
8:58), YAHWEH (Example. 6:3), Alpha and Omega, Miracle Working God
(Gal. 3:5), Creator (Jn. 1:3), Unchangeable (Nu. 23:19), Father of Lights
(Ja. 1:17), Our Heavenly Father (Mt. 6), Bread of Life (Jn. 6:48-58), JESUS
(Mt. 1:21), Sure Foundation (Isa. 28:16) Our Resurrection Our God is...Love
(1 John 4:16) The Holy One (Ps 16:10) The I Am (John 8:58) Yahweh (Ex.
6:3) the Alpha & Omega, The Beginning & End (Rv. 1:8) God Almighty
(Ex. 6:3) A Miracle Working God (Gal. 3:5) The Creator Of The World
(Jn. 1:3) All Knowing & All Powerful (Jer. 32:17)(1 John 3:20) Ever Present
(Ps. 139 1-13) Unchangeable (Num. 23:19) Jehovah (Ps. 83:18)
Everlasting Father(Is.9:6) Author of Salvation (Heb. 2:10) God who Raises
the dead (2 Cor. 1:9) Meeting our needs through Jesus (Ph.4:19) Giving
us peace that surpasses all understanding (Ph. 4:7) The Way, the Truth,
and the Life (John 14:6)
28
Frank E. Peretti
As I had a vision in my own life for what I thought God wanted me to do,
oohhh, was there a wait. If you are waiting for God to accomplish a certain
thing in your life, bring about a certain goal, supply a certain need, heal a
certain relationship. If you are waiting on the Lord, understand that a lot of
times we set are eyes on what we want from God and were waiting and
here are all these riches going right by you. There are riches in the waiting.
As God begins to work in your life, and molds His character in you as you
are trusting in Him. And putting up with the wait, there is riches in the
waiting. Times like Moses herding the sheep in the wilderness and Joseph
in prison, David fleeing from Saul, Jesus tempted in the dessert, Paul
arrested and then shipwrecked, Jacob working 14 years for his wife Rachel,
Abraham waiting for his son, thats like when my wife and I were living in a
trailer, no job, no money, no direction. I just got through pastoring a church
for 5 years. We had been pushed to such a limit that we went crazy.
We left the ministry, and during that time I was thinking Id like to be a writer,
or sell some songs, I was working on all kinds of things and nothing seemed
to pan out. We had to wait. In my earlier year I tried music and I failed at
that. I tried banjo business and failed at that, I tried getting into film and I
failed at that, I tried the pastoral ministry and I drove myself into the ground.
I tried producing material for Christian radio and that failed. We didnt have
any tricks. We just sat there. Folks from the church brought us food. I
remember while working in a factory some childhood desires and something
broke inside of me. I begin to confess to the Lord my desire to have things
my own way, to have them easy. Then I began to weep. God came next to
me in the factory and began to talk to me. In the process not in words but in
knowledge the Lord said youre right where I want you to be. And dont
worry. Youve made all these mistakes, but I still have a plan for you. This
is all part of the script. I am going to use you to reach millions of people.
A thought came to me write the book, Write the book. It took me 5 years
to write the book This Present Darkness. It took 3 more years to publish it
and a year an a half for it to become a best seller and another half a year for
me to get out of the factory. Know that God will always do the right thing. If
you want to get mature in the Lord keep going. Things get dry and things
get kind of oh what are we going to do, dont go back, that was then this is
now. The real victory in your spiritual life comes from pressing on and it is
when times seem the darkest if you will stay with the Lord He will push you
through to the other side. Youll be a different person on the other side then
when you first went in. Dont go in circles. The Lord says press on in a
straight line. Aim for the prize. You have to keep going. So press on, youll
make it. Hebrews 10:32-39 You need to persevere so that when you have
done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. For in just a
very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.
29
Forgiveness
The following nine practical steps will produce sure forgiveness if diligently
taken:
1. Realize that forgiveness is an act of the will.
2. Understand that resentment is destructive to the mind, body, soul, and

spirit.
3) Realize that we will not be forgiven by God unless we forgive others who
have hurt us. (Mark 11:25)
4. Think of all that God has forgiven us for. Eph. 4:32. Col. 3:13. God
forgives us instantly, joyfully, and wholly.
5. Thank the Lord for any or all of the blessings He has brought to us
through the people who have hurt us.
6. Think of the needs-mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual-of the

individuals at the time of their hurting us. Their needs then-and now-are
probably greater than ours.
7. We ask God to give us His supernatural ability to love and forgive those
people. Acknowledge that this is the work of the Holy Spirit and receive it
by faith. Heb. 11:6. 1 Cor. 13:8.
8. We ask God for opportunities to express His love to these people both in
word and in deed. (1 John 3:17)
9. Pray for them that God would bless, encourage, comfort, strengthen and
meet their deepest needs.
10. Acknowledge the loss or hurt and release it to God, forgive the person
and bless them. Soak up in Gods presence while in thought about forgiving
the person until you can restore them to a place in your heart that they
occupied before they sinned against you! This includes you.
30
When Praying for Friends
1) Ask God for His intervention in our friends circumstance. Jer. 32:27.
2) Ask God to be glorified in their lives and that they would become more
conformed to the image of His Son. (Gods Highest Purpose for us)
3) Ask God to show us what Hes trying to teach us through our friends
trials, and give Him time to speak.
4) Thank God for the blessings received through our friends. Phil. 4:6.
5) Ask God to show us whether theres anything in our hearts that would
hinder our prayers from being effective for them.
6) Ask God to fill us with His love for our friends, and receive it by faith.
7) Ask God to reveal His character to our friends, especially His

unfathomable love, absolute justice, limitless power, infinite understanding,
and unswerving faithfulness, and that they wont lose faith in Gods
character. (Is. 50:10)
8) Pray that our friends will be encouraged by seeing the trial of their faith in
light of Gods big picture, since God sees the end from the beginning
9) Ask God to reveal to them the need to give vocal praise and to Him.
10) Ask God to draw our friends by His Spirit to regularly read the Bible and
to quicken to them comforting and encouraging scriptures to build their faith.
11) Ask God to stir them to ask Him What is it you are trying to teach me?
Ask God to reveal to them the purposes and the causes of their difficulties.
12) Ask God to keep them from presuming upon His answers (Ps. 19:13)
13) Ask God to meet their deepest needs and thank Him that He will.
14) Stand against the powers of darkness and command them to scatter
15) Communicate love to our friends, and that were praying for them. Ask
God to show us any practical ways to help them, and obey His promptings.
16) Ask God whether theres anything He wants us to send our friends
either from His Word, or a taped teaching, or a book, or gift.
17) We must be sure to move from hope to faith each time we pray.
31
Intercessory Praise (7 Ways to Praise)
Ps. 149 verses 1, 3, 6-9 talk about intercessory praise. One time a girl was
demonized and a Christian couple worshiped God for 2 hours. After that
was over the girl was normal again. Davids music had driven the evil spirit
from Saul. Ps. 22:3. When we praise God, He inhabits or enters our
praises, and His power overwhelms the power of the enemy. Light will
dispel the darkness through Gods entering into our praise. Not only does
intercessory praise still the avenger, but it also brings receptivity to the
gospel. There are seven Hebrew words for praise, and they can all be used
at different times in our prayer meetings.
1. Halal. To be excited, tremendous explosion of enthusiasm in the act of

praising. This is connected with the overthrow of the wicked. (Ps. 117:1).
2. Yadah. To thank, to give public acknowledgment to, to extend the hand,

to worship with raised hands (2 Chron.20:19-21.
3. Barak. to bless, to bow, to kneel in adoration (Ps. 102:1-2).
4. Zamar. to touch the string, to make music to God. This is a musical verb
for praise.
5. Shabach. To speak well of in a high and befitting way. It means to

address in a loud tone, to shout, to command triumph (Ps. 117:1)
6. Tephillah. Intercession for someone, supplication, a hymn (Isaiah 56:7)
7. Towdah. Thanksgiving; also involves the extension of the hand in

thanksgiving; to give the sacrifice of praise (Ps. 50:23)
Once Cindy Jacobs sang over her little boy who had a club foot that
wouldnt flex for an hour. She sang the devil had me bound, but Jesus set
me free (x3) singing glory, hallelujah, Jesus set me free, for an hour and
the next morning she noticed that her sons foot was flexible. Clapping is
good. Ps. 47:1. Clapping is one means of breaking yokes. Shouting is ok.
Jeremiah 50:15. Shout against her all around; she has given her hand.
Joshua 6:16 says they shouted after marching around Jericho 7 times.
32
The Lost art of Intercession
We have Gods permission and invitation to plead our case and make
appeals in the courts of Heaven before our great Judge and God. An
intercessor is one who reminds the Lord of promises and appointments not
yet met and fulfilled (Isaiah 62:6-7), takes up the case of justice before God
on behalf of another,(Is. 59:15-16) makes up the hedge, and builds up the
wall of protection in time of battle,(Eze. 13:4-5) stands in the gap between
Gods righteous judgment which is due and the need for mercy on the
peoples behalf.(Ez.22:30-31) We are only authorized to argue or present
our case for those things and petitions which are in accordance with Gods
will.
Plead the Honor and Glory of Gods Name-

Samuel prayed for the sake of Gods own name (2 Sam. 7:26), David
prayed for Gods name sake. Asaph prayed for God to help Israel ...for the
glory of Your holy name (Ps. 79:9)
Plead Gods Attributes-
1) Plead Gods righteousness as Nehemiah did (Neh. 9:33) Christ speeds

the cause of the righteous (Is. 16:5).
2) Plead on the basis of Gods faithfulness as Ethan did in Ps. 89, where he
makes his holy plea according to Gods faithfulness six times.
3) Plead on the basis of His mercy and love. Join Moses (Deut. 9:18),
David (Ps. 4:1; 27:7; 30:10; 86:6, 15-16) and Daniel and the three Hebrew
children (Dan. 2:18).
Plead the Sorrows and Needs of Gods People-

David was one who took upon himself the suffering of his people. He even
wept for the suffering of his enemies (Ps. 35:11-13). Jeremiah used this
form of plea as he prevailed for his people. He pleads for God to look and
see the sufferings (Lam 2:20), and to remember, look, and see (Lam. 5:1).
Plead the past answers to prayer-
1) David reminded God of His past mercy Thou has been my help.. (Ps.
27:9) A number of Psalms remind God and the people in detail of His past
mercies (Ps. 78; 85:1-7; 105; 106; and 136.
2) Like David, you can present pleading arguments for new mercies on the
basis of the history of all He previously has done.
3) Just begin to praise and thank the Lord for the answers of the past
33
Plead the Word and the promises of God-
1) David pressed for fulfillment of Gods promise.
2) Solomon prayed the same way. He held God to the promises that He
had made to David, his father. (2 Chronicles 6:14-17)
Begin to pray the tenfold claim of Col. 1:9-12.
Five claims of Revelation- Pray for a revelation of Gods will, wisdom,

understanding, a revelation of Gods holiness and His pleasure.
Five claims of blessing. 1) Pray for increased effectiveness, productivity,

fruitfulness, increased devotional growth, an increase of strength, patience
and joy. Pray that they will have an increased delight in the work of the
Lord.
34
The Hour that Changes the World
What we do for the Lord is entirely dependent upon what we are in the Lord.
What we are in the Lord wholly depends upon what we receive from the
Lord. And what we receive from the Lord is directly proportional to the time
we spend alone with the Lord in prayer. Here is one model of prayer.
1) Praise-The prayer in Matthew begins Our Father which art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name. Praise is the vocal adoration of God. Adoration is
the act of rendering divine honor, esteem and love. Praise is unselfish and
it produces forgetfulness of self. Pick a theme like His righteousness and
declare vocally all that God is.
2) Waiting upon God- Waiting says softly, God, I love you. Ps. 46:10 says
be still and know that I Am God. Those that wait upon God shall mount up
with wings like eagles. It is a spiritual silence with all thoughts directed to
God alone. It gets your heart in tune for prayer. Concentrate on Gods love.
3) Confession- Confession clears the conscience of faith-killing guilt and

opens the heart to truly believe God will hear our petitions. Ps. 51:10, 11
says, Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
After waiting in silence ask God to search your heart for any unconfessed
sin.
4) Scripture praying-The secret to receiving answers to prayer lies in how

Christians apply Gods Word during prayer. First read a passage from the
Word of God. Read slowly from verse to verse. Evaluate how the passage
might be transformed into a specific petition. Psalms, Proverbs, the
Gospels, or Epistles provide the best setting for this method of praying.
5) Watching- Make yourself aware of the ways Satan seeks to hinder the
effectiveness of our prayer. Read a missionary magazine so you can pray
for specific needs in Gods work around the world.
6) Intercession-Fill your intercession with the four key scriptural claims. Ask
God to give more laborers to the harvest, to open doors, to bless them with
fruit as the result of their efforts, and with finances to expand their work.
7) Petition- Some things God will not give until we want them enough to ask.
A petition is specific cause even the simplest petition, when offered in faith,
opens doors to the miraculous. Ask things that will honor God.
8) Thanksgiving- It helps you focus on Gods faithfulness. Confess spiritual

blessings, material blessings, physical blessings, and external blessings.
9) Singing- Sing a specific song unto the Lord.
35
10) Meditation-Ponder the nature of God with full intensity. Focus on Gods
word, the works of God, past victories, then on positive thoughts.
11) Listening- It is in the stillness of the prayer closet that the gift of listening
is given and received. In the listening time of prayer do not hesitate to ask
God very specific questions about difficult situations. Search the Scriptures
for specific answers.
12) Praise- Focus your praise on His power, knowledge, and presence.
Thank God for hearing all your requests.
36
Spiritual Gifts
A spiritual gift is a special ability given by the Holy Spirit to every member of
the Body of Christ to Gods grace for the benefit of the church.
1. Celibacy is to be able to remain single and enjoy it, and not suffer undue
sexual temptations.
2. Martyrdom is to be able to undergo suffering for the faith even to death

while consistently displaying a victorious attitude that brings glory to God.
3. Hospitality is to love to provide open house for those in need.
4. Intercession is to love to pray for extended periods of time on a regular

basis and see frequent and specific answers to their prayers, to a degree
much greater than that which is expected of the average Christian.
5. Giving is to be able to contribute your material resources to the work of

the Lord with Liberality and cheerfulness.
6. Voluntary poverty is when you can renounce material comfort; adopt a

personal lifestyle equivalent to those in poverty in order to serve more
effectively.
7. Discerning of spirits- to know what is of God, the devil or the flesh.
8. Deliverance is from God to cast out demons and evil spirits.
9. Teaching- to communicate information relevant to the health and ministry

of the Body and its members in such a way that others will learn.
10. Pastor- to assume a long term personal responsibility for the spiritual
welfare of a group of believers.
11. Exhortation- to minister words of comfort, consolation, encouragement

and counsel to others in such a way that they feel helped and healed.
12. Administration is to be able to understand clearly the immediate & long

range goals of a particular unit of the Body of Christ and to devise and
execute effective plans for the accomplishment of those goals.
13. Faith is to be able to discern with extraordinary confidence the will and
purposes of God for the future of His work. They are goal oriented.
14. Evangelist- to share the gospel with unbelievers in such a way that they
become Jesus disciples.
37
15. Leadership- to be able to set goals in accordance with Gods purpose,
to communicate these goals to others in such a way that they
harmoniously work together to accomplish those goals. The best
leaders are relaxed.
16. Missionary is to minister their spiritual gifts in a second culture.
17. Apostle-to exercise leadership over a number of churches with an

extraordinary authority in spiritual matters.
18. Knowledge- people can guide discussions, analyze info.
19. Wisdom-to know the mind of the Holy Spirit. They get to the heart of the
problem quickly.
20. Mercy-feel genuine empathy for people, while alleviating the suffering
21. Helps-to invest in other believers.
22. Service-identify unmet needs of to Gods work and meet those needs.
23. Prophecy is to receive and communicate messages of God.
24. Tongues liberate the Spirit of God that is within us.
25. Interpretation, Miracles and healing speak for themselves.
38
The Call
The more focused you are on Him, the more glory you will see regardless of
where you are at. The highest wisdom is to love God. Remember that He
came to save the lost; He left the 99 to go after the one who was lost. Will
you help to fill heaven and take up this quest to bring joy to heaven, to
Jesus and to the Father?
When you fall short of the Lords grace and sin entangles you, it is hard for
you to come to Him. You must learn to always run to the Lord at such
times, not away from Him. There is one characteristic that is common to the
over comers in every age-they did not waste their time. Your love will grow
cold if you do not deny yourself and take up your cross every day. The
fullness of wisdom is to obey God for your love for Him. We are on earth
will remain a part of who we are forever.
To know our purpose is one of the ways that our vision grows. If you do not
use your vision by walking in what you see, you will lose it. Vision and faith
must work together. You do not have true faith if you do not obey, and if
you have true faith you will always obey. Faith and patience go together.
Every trial is for the purpose of changing us into His image. Dont waste
any trials. If your path is more difficult, it is because of your high calling.
Discipline yourself for righteousness.
All of the treasures of the earth cannot weigh in the balance with the value
of a single soul. The angels love to listen to your testimonies. Get the
Word of God in your heart and love it. First you must recognize Gods voice
in your own heart and then as He speaks through others. Those who know
the Lords voice because they know Him will not be deceived. The Fathers
glory was so great and the power of His presence so awesome that it
seemed like the whole earth would not have even measured as a grain of
sand before Him. There is no higher purpose in the universe than to
worship Him to bring Him joy. our highest purpose is to recognize Jesus, to
hear His voice, and to follow Him.
The humble cannot be embarrassed. The first grace that will keep you on
the path of life is to know the level of your present deception. Deception
involves anything that you do not understand as I do. Knowing the level of
your present deception brings humility, and I give My grace to the humble.
My word is the power that upholds all things. To the degree that you
believe that My word is true you can do all things. Dont be careless with
your words because to be careless is to care less. Words have power and
it is wisdom to be careful with words.
We need to be clothed with humility. Humility is the place of entire

dependence on God. The loss of humility is the root of every sin and evil. 1
Pet. 5:5, Titus 3:2, Col. 3:12, Acts 20:19. Without humility there can be no
39
true abiding in Gods presence, or experience of His favor and the power of
the Spirit. Humility must be made the object of special desire, prayer, faith
and practice. We must seek a humility which will rest in nothing less than
the end and death of self. Which gives up all the honor of men as Jesus
did, to seek the honor that comes from God alone; which absolutely makes
and counts itself nothing so that God may be all that the Lord alone may be
exalted.
Study the humility of Jesus. His humility was simply the surrender of
Himself to the Father; to allow the Father to do in Him what He pleased no
matter what men around might say of Him or do to Him. Humility is the
secret of blessing. Matt. 11:29, Matt. 18:4, Luke 9:48. Humiliation is the
only ladder to honor in Gods kingdom. Luke 18:14. Just as water always
seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds men abased and
empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless. True humility
comes when, in the light of God, we have seen ourselves as nothing, having
consented to part with and cast away self- to let God be all. The chief mark
of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility. The power of a perfect love
forgets itself and finds its blessedness in blessing others, in bearing with
and honoring them, however feeble they may be. There is no pride as
dangerous as the pride of holiness. Let us flee to Jesus and hide ourselves
in Him until we are clothed with His humility. That alone is our holiness. It
is the revelation of God not only by the law condemning sin, but by His
grace delivering from it, that will make us humble.
40
Wigglesworth Nuggets
God can never bless us on the lines of being hardhearted, critical, or
unforgiving. This will hinder faith quicker than anything. The moment a
person is cleansed the Spirit will fall. Bring everything to the light. The
blood of Jesus and His mighty name are an antidote to all the subtle seeds
of unbelief that satan would sow in your minds.
Every trial is a blessing. More of Gods glory can be revealed through it.
Youll never find Jesus missing an opportunity of doing good. He will meet
you in your absolute helplessness. Every trial is to bring you to a greater
position in God. Do everything in the Spirit, and be filled with the Holy
Spirit, and when you are filled youll want to pray in tongues morn, noon,
and night. We should be like torches purifying the very atmosphere
wherever we go, moving back the forces of evil.
None of you can be strong in God unless you diligently hearken to what
God has to say to you through His Word. Read it in the morning and at
night and at every opportunity you get. After every meal, instead of
indulging in unprofitable conversation round the table, read a chapter from
the Word and then have a season of prayer. You will find that the more of
Gods Word you hide in your heart, the easier it is to live a holy life. There
is nothing impossible to a man who is filled with the Holy Spirit. I have
seen some who have been suffering for years and when they have been
filled with the Holy Spirit all of their sickness has passed away.
The secret of receiving power from God is to wait upon God. Pray this,
Enlarge the vessel that the Holy Spirit may have more room within. The
more we know we are nothing, the more God can make us a channel of His
power. May the dear Lord save us from the things that cause us to be
proud-they are the devils traps. May the dear Lord take us to the place
where our life is being lived in the Spirit out of Love and compassion for
others.
No one is any good for God and never makes progress in God who does
not hate sin. God is more anxious to answer than we are to ask. We need
to eat and drink of the word of God. Every day must be a day of
advancement.
If your body is yielded sufficiently until it becomes perfectly the temple of the
Holy Spirit then the fullness will flow and his life shall be given to you as you
need. The word will work out love in our hearts. We must give all; yield all,
as our great Refiner puts us again and again into the melting pot.
Everything depends upon our being filled with the Holy Ghost. The harder
the place you are in, the more blessedness can come out of it as you yield
to His plan.
41
When the Lord reveals to you that you must be filled with the Holy Ghost,
seek that one thing until God gives you that gift. After the trials, temptations
and everything, Jesus came out more full of God, more clothed in the Spirit,
more ready for the fight. What we want is a great hunger for God. People
are never safe until their baptized with the Holy Ghost. Separate yourself
from every material desire and God will use you for His glory. God only
tries those who are worthy.
The source of all revival is the Holy Ghost. The Lord doesnt want you to
trust yourselves so sometimes He allows you to be tested beyond your
strength so you will trust Him.
Everything that is not of faith is sin, the bible is supernatural in origin,

eternal in duration, inexpressible in value, infinite in scope, regenerative in
power, infallible in Authority, universal in interest, personal in application,
inspired in totality, read it through, write it down, pray it in, work it out, and
then pass it on.
If you have lost your hunger for God you are missing the plan. We should
want more of God. All lack of faith comes from lack of bible reading. All
things are possible with God.
We need to get to the place where rivers of living water floods our being. If
you only knew the unspeakable wonderful blessing of being filled with the
third Person of the Trinity, you would set aside everything else to tarry for
this in filling. The Holy Spirit will come when a man is cleansed. He fills you
with His Spirit to be an effective witness.
42
The Anointing
You cannot know the power of Gods anointing until you experience the
presence of God. Only when you abandon self, totally emptying yourself,
can you be filled with Gods presence. The Holy Spirit is vitally interested in
every aspect of your life. He doesnt divide things up into spiritual and
secular. There is no secular. He wants to be and actually is involved in
everything.
Its time to say Here I am, Holy Spirit. Come. Walk with me. Help me
receive what the Father has for me. Help me hear what the Lord is saying.
When the Holy Spirit is a reality in your life, He provides an avenue through
which the anointing, the power, can flow.
As you receive the Spirits presence, seven things will occur in your life
1. You will be liberated from sin
2. Righteousness will enter your life naturally as you learn to walk after the
Spirit
3. You will set your mind on things of the Spirit
4. You will become totally at peace
5. You will be healed from your head to your toes
6. You will receive total death to self and total life to God
7. You will receive intimacy with the Father
Theres only one way to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and thats through
prayer. Longing takes one to the Outer Court, thirsting takes one to the Holy
Place; and seeking leads one to the Holy of Hollies.
As we long for God we go into prayer, the place where God begins to deal
with and crucify the flesh and the longer we are on our knees the less of the
flesh remains. A death begins as we are on our knees. Its a daily death on
your knees. In the Outer Court, my mouth was talking to God, in the Holy
Place; my soul was talking, in the Holy of Hollies, my spirit talks-deep calling
unto deep. This is where prayer without ceasing is born where you bask in
the glory of God. As you enter the Holy of Hollies on a daily basis, it
becomes more natural and quicker. It may not take you half an hour to
break through; it may take five minutes. The more time you remain in the
presence of God the more that presence will rub off on you. God will judge
the prayer- less. Its not your ability its your surrender to the Holy Spirit
thats needed.
43
The anointing will not flow and touch anyone if you are afraid. Boldness is a
must. Every born-again believer has experienced the lepers anointing,
which deals with salvation. The priestly anointing is for ministry unto the
Lord, including leading souls to Him. To be baptized in the Holy Spirit is the
priestly anointing. It is not a one time anointing, but you need a daily
anointing. The kingly anointing is the most powerful of them all. This gives
the person authority over devils. The Lepers anointing comes by accepting
Jesus and the priestly anointing comes by fellowship with Jesus, the kingly
anointing comes be obeying Jesus. We will never reach the level of
dominion and authority that God intends for us until we receive the third
anointing, the kingly anointing.
Repentance is the first step toward receiving the anointing. Holy Spirit does
not glorify what you have been through. He brings Jesus to the center. He
shows the world what Jesus has gone through to get you to heaven, not
what you have gone through to get there. Repentance is a daily experience
for those who are forsaking their sins.
44
Hells Best Kept Secret
Many people have not seen their need for Gods forgiveness. Just ask them
if they have while youre talking with them. You could start by sharing your
testimony or something like this, I didnt see my need for Gods forgiveness
either even though I broke the 10 commandments. I realize now that if I
never repented from my sins and asked Jesus to save me I would have
been judged for my sins without a lawyer on my side and would have been
sent to hell. Then walk them through the commandments. Ask them, Have
you ever lied? Have you ever stolen anything? Have you ever lusted
before? According to your own testimony youre a lying, thieving, adulterer
at heart and youre going to have to face God on judgment day. This really
gets them thinking. The secret here is that the Law (10 Commandments) is
a schoolmaster to bring the lost to Christ.
When using the law while witnessing it is better the sinner be offended in
order to repent than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season and be cast
into everlasting fire. P. T. Forsyth said Our churches are full of the nicest,
kindest people who have never known the despair of guilt or the breathless
wonder of forgiveness. The law shows us our guilt before God and stops us
from justifying ourselves. The law brings to us the knowledge of sin. The law
defines sin. The law was designed for the very purpose of bringing men and
women to Christ. See Rom. 3:19, 20, Rom. 7:7, and Gal. 3:24.
John Wesley said, Before I can preach love, mercy, and grace, I must
preach sin, Law, and judgment. He also said they must be slain by the
Law before they can be made alive by the gospel. A.B. Earle said they
must see themselves lost before they will cry for mercy. They will not
escape from danger until they see it.
If you have an unconverted sinner, convict him, if you have a convicted

sinner, convert him. Use this verse in witnessing-it is appointed for men to
die once, but after this the judgment, Heb.9:27 and tell them that the fist of
eternal justice will grind them to powder if they remain in sin, that unless
they repent, they will perish. Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for many will
seek to enter it, and will not be able Luke 13:24. As with natural birth,
intense agonizing, affliction and groaning should accompany ones entrance
into the kingdom of God. Jesus never pushed for a commitment from those
who were not willing to forsake all.
They will only flee from the wrath to come if they believe that there is wrath
to come. The law shows the sinner that he deserves hell, thats its purpose.
The anointing to a preacher is what ink is to a pen. Ask God for more
compassion for the lost and when your preaching to the lost if you havent
got tears in your eyes, let them hear tears in your voice. God must initiate
the process that leads a man to salvation. You can ask questions like,
Whats your spiritual background? Then you can ask them if they know the
45
Lord. Someone said a good rule of thumb to follow would be to presume the
Lord wants you to share the gospel with everyone unless He leads you not
to.
Ask the person Do you see your own need of Gods forgiveness? Most
people will say no. Then you could say something like I felt the same way
before I became a Christian. I didnt see myself as being a particular bad
sinner because I measured myself by mans standard. You could tell this
story- there was a girl who remarked to her mom how clean some sheep
looked against the green grass. Then as snow began to fall, she noticed
how dirty the sheep looked against the white snow. The background made
all the difference. All have sinned does not tell him how much he has
sinned. Only the law does that. Bring up the individuals particular sins.
Bring the person to the point of where they cry out what must I do? It you
arent consumed with the zeal of God, ask the Holy Spirit to stir the depths
of your soul. Confess your lack of faith in God as mistrust, your inferiority as
pride, and any other hindrance in your life as sin. Then call upon God to
baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Seek God for souls as never
before, and with equal zeal seek souls for God.
The Lord God who made heaven and earth wrote the 10 commandments on
stone tablets and gave them to Moses. Do you think youre good enough to
go to heaven? Our righteousness is like filthy rags to God. Lets go through
the 10 commandments and see if you can see your need for Gods
forgiveness.
1. You shall have no other gods before Me

That means that we should love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and
strength.
2. You shall not make for yourself any carved image

The Bible warns that idolaters will not inherit the kingdom of God in
1 Corinthians 6:9.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain
This is blasphemy and I wouldnt want to be in the persons shoes who
took Gods name in vain and never repented on judgment day.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy

If you never give God any of your time on the Sabbath day and you
work then you've broken the fourth commandment.
5. Honor your father and mother
6. You shall not murder
46
Also, scripture says Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and
you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
7. You shall not commit adultery

Jesus said that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already
committed adultery with her in his heart. Adulterers will not inherit the
kingdom of God.
8. You shall not steal

How many times do you have to steal something to be a thief? No thief
shall enter the kingdom of God.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

The Word of God says, All liars shall have their part in the lake which
burns with fire and brimstone.
10. You shall not covet

This means not to be greedy or materialistic. The covetous will not
inherit the kingdom of God.
God is holy and will not let sin come into heaven because He is perfect. If
you die in your sins God will be forced to give you justice and His judgment
is going to be so thorough, every idle word a man speaks youll give an
account on the Day of Judgment. Stop and consider where you are headed.
Where are you going to spend eternity? To believe means to trust in, rely
on, and cling to the person of Jesus Christ alone for salvation. If you were
judged today based on the standard of the 10 commandments, would you
be guilty or innocent?
I once heard of a judge who was ruling in a court of law. He was a good,
righteous man, always judging according to his conscience. One day he
looked up to find his own brother standing before him. He was guilty of a
terrible crime. He wanted to say this is my brother, I love him, he may go
free, but his conscience wouldnt allow him to. He brought down the
hammer and proclaimed a verdict of guilty. I fine this man 5000 dollars.
Then he took off his wig and gown, came around the dock and put his arm
around his brother saying, Because you are my brother and I love you, I
will pay that fine myself. So he satisfied his conscience, the laws of justice,
and demonstrated his love at the same time. God is holy and righteous. His
very nature demands that justice must be done. Sin must be punished. God
says I will by no means clear the guilty. We have committed a multitude of
crimes against God. We are like the brother standing before the judge. The
verdict is guilty, the punishment is hell. But God who is rich in mercy had
pity on us like the judge and in a sense took off His robe, forsook His glory,
and paid the fine for us by dying on the cross. He satisfied the eternal laws
of justice. On the cross He cried it is finished meaning the debt is paid.
47
(Romans 5:8) You have to take Jesus up on His offer by repenting, praying
in faith, and inviting Him to save you from your sins. Hell clear you from all
guilt as though you never sinned.
Elements of Hell
Nakedness
Heat (like walking on the sun at 12,000 degrees)
Weakness (no strength-Psalms 88:4)
Fear (no relief ever)
Torture from demons
Hopeless Despair
Darkness (Evil Presence can be felt- Lam. 3:6)
Putrid Smell, a rotten stench
Dryness, no water, everlasting thirst
Loneliness, isolation, (Stuck in a 5 foot pit or cell)
Loudness, Screaming (no rest, no peace)
Never Get Out (Eternal Punishment)
Purpose is non-existent, (useless wasting away)
No Sleep
Lack of Breath (Low Oxygen)
Feeling of being lost, isolated and separated from God and
His Light, Love, and Life forever is the worst part of hell
When lost people die, they are either led by spirits or just find themselves in
a cell in the center of the earth and will remain their for 1000 more years
until the Great White Throne Judgment occurs and then they will be let out
and after they see that their name is not written in the Lambs book of Life
will be cast into the Lake of Fire. You can gather this info from 23 Minutes
in Hell, by Bill Weise.
48
The Power of Kindness
Small things done with great love can change the world. We can use the
power of kindness to penetrate the spiritually darkened hearts of people
with the love of God. After you do kind deeds for someone ask them if you
could pray for them. As a result of practical love shown by Christians, walls
of spiritual resistance often come down. Try leading a team of windshield
washers on an outreach at a local shopping center and leave a card
explaining that you cleaned their windshield to show them Gods love in a
practical way. Try leading a team of car washers and do it for free and pray
for the people whose car was washed. Or try feeding parking meters and
leave a card that says your parking meter looked hungry so we fed it. On
the back of the card have a map leading to your church and the times of the
worship and a phone number. The power of kindness can remove spiritual
barriers that prevent people from seeing God clearly. Taking away peoples
spiritual blinders will ultimately help them receive Christ. Unless we
constantly remember to value people, we are destined to go off track.
Try cleaning toilets at a bar or a restaurant. On a hot day get a stand up and
pass out free drinks. People whose hearts are closed often become open
and vulnerable when they are shown simple kindness. Pray, Lord dont let
a single person in (Your City) go into eternity without knowing you. Bake
cookies for someone that hates you and curses you for no reason other
than that you belong to Jesus. The kingdom of God is based on the power
of love, servant hood, and kindness. The kindness of God leads us to
repentance. Try wrapping presents at Christmas. When the climate of Gods
love and presence is evident among a people group, spiritual barriers
crumble, old ways of thinking change, and people come to see and know
Jesus as he really is. Try raking leaves at a fraternity house. Some things
change best when we stand back and let God be God. Try getting a small
group and sponsor an ice cream cone giveaway for the people going into
the movie theaters. Take an informal survey among your neighbors by
asking What could I and my small group do to serve you in a practical
way? Begin a birthday card campaign in your neighborhood. Soft drink
giveaways are good. Just look around and ask God how you can meet
some needs in a practical way.
49
Meditation
George Mueller said, It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth I have not
lost the benefit of for more than 14 years. The first great business of the
day is to have my soul happy in the Lord. I saw the most important thing I
had to do was to pray and give myself to the reading of the Word of God
and to meditate on it. Thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged,
warmed, reproved and instructed. Christ is in every page of Scripture.
Meditation is a chewing of the cud with Scripture so that Gods Word

becomes a vital part of us. Its spiritually digesting the Bread of Life, feeding
and building the inner man of the spirit. Its a cleaning stream for the mind.
Thinking Gods thoughts after Him purifies the thought life. One of the
meanings of meditate is to mutter. To help grasp the meaning and fullness
of a verse, read it aloud. Repeat it to yourself a number of times. Many
blessings are given through the discipline of meditation. No meditation is
really valid unless it leaves us with something to which we can return during
the days business and find it helpful there. Joshua 1:8, Psalms 119:15.
The thought is that we render special mental attention by bowing down in
respect of Gods Word. 1 Tim. 4:15- In this verse the Greek word for
meditate is meletao meaning to be careful.
Meditation is more than merely thinking good thoughts. It is the giving of

attention to how we might specifically apply these ponderings after the
devotional hour has ended. Scripture meditation provides the believer with
spiritual benefits through no other means. Isaiah 26:3, Suggests meditating
or thinking about Jesus. Ps. 139:17-18-here David is meditating on the fact
that God thinks about us. Ps. 104:34- David also said in the multitude of my
thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul. Ps. 94:19.
Focus meditation on God Himself. In Ps. 62:5 David writes My soul, wait
thou on only upon God. For my expectation is from Him. Ponder the nature
of God with full intensity. Probe everything you know about your Heavenly
Father. Ask these types of questions. What does the Bible say about God
that touches my life? What great attributes of God can I better appropriate
in my daily life?
You could focus meditation on Gods Word. Ps. 1:1-2. Although nearly 30
thousand promises await us in Scripture, each promise is a focus for
meditation, or you could focus meditation on the works of God. Ps. 77:12.
Every created aspect of the universe can become a focal point for effective
meditation. All these ponderings must be in reference to God.
Teaching received in a Sunday class or excerpts from a Christian periodical
make excellent food for meditation.
50
One Thing you cant do in Heaven
Every time we share our faith, it is a winning situation. Paul took something
natural around him and turned it into a supernatural conversation. When I
feel it is time to swing to the eternal in my conversations, I just ask, what do
you think happened to those fifteen people when they walked off the
planet? Talking casually is a good thing to do with people. It builds rapport
and trust, so when you transition to the eternal they are more willing to
listen. God allows us to be friends with lost people so that we will plant
seeds in their lives and help them to become eternal friends. Repetition is
very valuable in witnessing. I heard it takes an average of 7.6 times for
people to hear the Gospel before they commit their life to Jesus. Charles
Spurgeon said, Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not
saved yourself. Be sure of that. We must be available to the Spirit of God
to initiate conversations with people when we go out. How shall they believe
if they havent heard? When you are friendly and smile, people usually
respond the same way. So the nicer you are, the more likely they will talk
with you or accept a tract from you. Hudson Taylor said, Gods work done
in Gods way will never lack Gods supplies.
The most thrilling part of witnessing is a good conversation with someone

who doesnt know Jesus. Dwight Moody said that if he could get people to
think about eternity for just 5 minutes, he could lead the person to Jesus
Christ. One thing you could say to people is, a hundred and fifty years from
now, will it matter if you made a million dollars, drove a Mercedes, or
graduated from college? No. The only thing that will be important then is
whether you know the God who created you, because you will be in one of
two destinations foreverand ever. Remember, eternity is an awfully long
time; make sure youve got the right answer. There is a 100% chance that
you will die. Can you guarantee that you will wake up tomorrow morning?
Dont put your head on your pillow tonight unless you know exactly where
you are going to spend eternity. When you plant seeds of the gospel, and of
love and of the fruits of Jesus into other people, God is faithful and will do
something with it.
If you can look someone in the eyes and say I care where you spend
eternity and mean it, it will have a tremendous impact. When people know
that we care, they will listen when we share. Make a friend, be a friend,
lead a friend to Christ. Studies have shown that 87% of all people who
come to Jesus were introduced through a friend. We need to be about the
business of making friends who do not know Jesus, so the Lord can use us
to draw them to Him. Personally, I dont have time for temporary friendships
(That is, just hanging out with people who dont know the Lord). I do have a
lot of temporary friends, but its for the purpose of making them eternal
friends. I have them as friends for the express purpose of loving them like
Jesus would, talking to them about Jesus as I have opportunity, and
eventually seeing them in Heaven for all of eternity. Ephesians 4:15 reminds
51
us that we should be speaking the truth in love. We dont need to shove it
on someone, but to love it on someone.
It is our responsibility to invite others to Heaven with us; it is their

responsibility to decide how to respond to the invitation. It might be that you
are the only Christian friend or someone who is lost, and God has
strategically placed you in that persons life for a purpose. Have that
conversation with them, or write that letter, and you and God and they will
be glad you did.
You can ask people, Can I ask you an interesting question? Where are
you on your spiritual journey? What is happening spiritually in your life? If
you died tonight, are you 100% sure that you would go to heaven? You can
try Can you help me out? Im working on a project. Well, I am asking
people the question: If you died tonight, are you 100% sure that you would
go to heaven? This statement is true because the person youre talking to
is the project. You could say I use the data for talks that I give. That
answer is true too, because youre using it to share the gospel with that
person. Another question you can use is, what do you think is out there
when you walk out of here? We need to let people feel comfortable talking
about what they believe. Then when we transition to the Gospel they will
listen to us. Being a listener also helps you learn about other peoples
beliefs, so you will see where to counter the lies Satan has fed them.
Ask people why they wear a cross. Most people answer because it looks
good. Ask them did you know someone died on that cross? John Wesley
said you have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be
spent in this work. He that wins souls is wise. God promises to give us
wisdom to reach the lost for Him. He knows how to help you get a catch.
Remember that if you are not fishing, you are not following. How many of
us claim to be followers of Jesus, but dont do anything to reach the lost for
our Lord?
A tragedy is knowing someone will be dying and going to Hell for eternity,
and not caring enough to do anything about it. You have a divine task to
accomplish in your life, and God will give you the divine means to complete
it. Look people in the eyes when you witness. You will learn a lot from their
eyes, but they will learn whether you really believe what you say by looking
at yours. It ought to bother people that they have friends who will die and go
to hell, and theyre not motivated to do anything about it. Your boldness will
challenge others to be bold. Hang out in places that dont necessarily
glorify the Lord with a purpose: to share your faith while you are there. The
people I meet who are continually fired up for Jesus are those who are
doing the work of the Lord. They are active in their faith, they witness to the
lost, work at homeless shelters etc. If you want a full understanding of
52
everything that you have in Jesus, make sure that you are active in sharing
your faith.
Caught up into Paradise

In the twinkling of an eye Jesus took me out of this world; one moment in
suburban Chicago, the next moment in suburban Heaven. One moment
with a flesh-restricted mind, the next moment with a heaven released mind
whose speed of function was that of light! My initial gasp was quickly
followed by an overwhelming sense of peace-peace that passes all
understanding-peace so complete that I instantly knew it was the promised
gift of the Spirit from the Lord. I was enjoying a heavenly body, I was totally
me. Aside from the complete absence of pain, and the total presence of
peace, I looked like me, felt like me, reacted like me.
Being a physician, my first instinct was to inspect my new body, and I

instantly admired it. I was the same size and shape, as the person I had
seen in the mirror for years. I was clothed in a translucent flowing gown,
pure white, but transparent to my gaze. All this time I was perfectly aware
that the Lord of lords was everywhere about this place, though I did not see
Him. Instantly the sense of timelessness made all hurry foolish, so I
resumed my anatomy lesson, knowing that He would appear in His own
time. There were no bones or vessels or organs. No blood. abdomen and
chest were organ-less and transparent to my gaze. There was no air to
breathe, no blood to pump, no food to digest or eliminate. (Everyone who
goes to heaven now has Pre-resurrection bodies)
The illumination fascinated me-not a shadow anywhere. There was no

single light source as on earth. I realized that everything seemed to produce
its own light. The Heavens declare the glory of God; know ye not that His is
the Honor, and Glory, and Power? He is the Light of the world.
I stood overwhelmed with the sights of Paradise. But He had more-it was
music. All this time (Since there was no sun, there was actually no time
reference), I had been aware of the most beautiful, melodious, angelic
background music that the ear of man can perceive. I was now ready to
concentrate on it. It was truly a new song, such as St. John must have
heard from Patmos. Not instrumental, nor vocal, not mathematical, not
earthly. It originated from no one point-neither from the sky nor the ground.
Just as was true of the light, the music emerged apparently from everything
and every place. It had no beat-was neither major nor minor-and had no
tempo. In eternity, how would it have time? No earthly adjectives describe
its angelic quality.
I was not prepared for the sweetest revelation of all: the all-pervading aroma
of heaven. No one on earth, minister or Bible teacher had mentioned to me
this heady perfume! Like the sight and the sounds, it was everywhere. I
53
bent again and smelled the flowers-yes it was there. The air was just the
same. A perfume so exotic, so refreshing, so superior, that it was fit only for
a King! I simply stood quietly and let it bathe my being.
To Heaven and Back

We need to free ourselves from undue attachments to this life, so that we
can properly prepare for the next. Those that have visited heaven through a
near death experience come back with a different appreciation for human
relationships. Life is not about doing big things, but about doing whatever
you do for Him. Our purpose should be to love. The only thing that counts is
faith expressed in love. Day by day we are building for eternity. Every gentle
word, every generous thought, every unselfish deed will become a pillar of
eternal beauty in the life to come. Eternity is the present, the now that never
ends.
Pam (a Christian) felt she had awakened in a place other than the hospital
or her home. Being aware that the physical pain was gone felt wonderful.
A nice cool breeze blew on me. The temperature was perfect. There was
peace and an all-over comfort you could never even imagine. The lightness
and calmness I felt are hard to describe. I remember a bright light, like
sunlight on a sunny afternoon when youd normally need sunglasses-or like
the reflection that comes off a body of water. But I didnt feel I needed
sunglasses for protection. This light didnt hurt my eyes.
Everything in life leads to the day were going to go to be with God, forever
and forever. People have said there are no birds in heaven, but I heard
them. God has a plan of total restoration, and the end will be better than it
was at the beginning.
As you pass the sparkling walls and enter the inviting pearl gate, there is a
golden boulevard on either side of a beautiful river of life that ripples and
flows with vitality. There are trees of life, with twelve kinds of fruit, growing
on either side of this river. Our senses of sight and smell are nearly
overwhelmed by heaven. Everything is full of light. The light comes from the
glory of God, which has the most beautiful glow imaginable, and the
transparent streets of gold add to the radiance. There are parks as beautiful
as the Garden of Eden itself and at least one mountain we know of
(Rev.21:10). The fragrances of roses and lilies of the valley are there,
emanating Christs presence. The fragrance of the flowers in the parks is
carried by the gentle breeze. Music is everywhere. Angels are singing Gods
praises, people praising God with the words Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord.
Heaven is a place of total unity, healing and love. Our garments are white
and spotless. No more can temptations of the world contaminate our minds,
souls, and bodies. This is a place of friendship and fellowship. All are best
friends. God will be our teacher and perhaps those He designates will
54
assist. Well be taught about the universe by the Creator Himself. Well also
be taught how to be true leaders and kings Hes called us to be. This will be
a time of preparation for the great plans of the ages that God will reveal to
us. The adventure with God will never end.
Ian Mcormicks Heaven Testimony

I went deep sea diving and got stung by some box jelly fish. These were
fatal wounds. I almost closed my eyes and I heard a quiet voice say son,
if you close your eyes now you will never open them again. On the way to
the hospital I saw my life flash before me. I saw a vision of my mom praying
for me. I heard her say, Ian if you cry out to God from your heart He will
hear you. I wondered who to pray to because I saw hundreds of gods in
the east. Then I remembered that my mom was a Christian so I tried to pray
the Lords prayer.
The only part I saw to pray in the vision was Forgive me of my sins. So I
prayed that and then the words, As I forgive those who sinned against me
came up and I had to forgive everyone in my life who hurt me. The next part
that came was Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I did it and
surrendered to Gods will. Then I felt an incredible peace. In the hospital I
took some time to rest and closed my eyes and then I felt an incredible
release.
When I opened my eyes I found I was standing and it was pitch dark. I was
in a void of spiritual darkness. I could feel evil coming towards me. I heard a
voice say you deserve to be here. I said deserve to be where? Then a
voice said youre in hell now shut up. I just got told didnt I? I thought I
didnt believe in this place. Well its too late when you find yourself in it. I
thought I thought I had prayed in the ambulance. The moment I thought
that a glorious light shone in the darkness and immediately I was taken out
of that place.
As I moved closer to the light an incredible sense of warmth and comfort

filled me. Fear was pushed back. I could feel a liquid peace flow through
me. I wondered if there was a person inside the center of this glorious light.
A voice responded from within the light and said Ian do you wish to return?
I said if Im out of my body I wish to return. Then He said If you wish to
return you must see in a new light.
Words appeared God is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all. I

realized that within the center of this light must be standing Almighty God. I
thought, If thats God what am I doing here? I started edging back from His
presence into the darkness because I didnt feel like I belonged there. In His
presence youre undone. He knew my name. My thought was like speech
to Him. And I knew that His radiant light could search the inner most secrets
of my heart. I didnt feel worthy in His presence.
55
As I pulled back waves and waves of pure love came through me. And as I
confessed my sins to Him His unconditional acceptance came. This was
pure love with no strings attached. I stepped into His radiance and the first
thing I saw was a mans bare feet with dazzling white garments on. As I
looked toward His face, His face was emanating powerful pure light. This
radiance hid the features of His face. I came up literally 2 feet next to Him
and He moved so I didnt see His eyes or features. I then saw a perfect
world. I saw perfect grass, gentle breeze. No disease or death. I was
standing on the threshold of eternity.
I wanted to explore, but then Jesus came to block the way to heaven. He
showed me many lost people still on the earth and hinted that if I chose to
stay that many would not get a chance to hear the gospel and perish in their
sins.
Like Bob Jones, He was saying if you could stand to look at the people in
the line that was headed towards hell then he could stay. Ian and Bob could
not bear to look upon the horror on the faces of the lost that were doomed
because it was too late. He also didnt want to leave his mother thinking that
he died and went to hell.
I chose to go back to earth to tell my mother that I now know God so she
wouldnt have to worry about the possibility of me going to hell anymore. I
came back and was healed that day and read the Bible in 6 weeks.
56
My Glimpse of Eternity
When I died in the hospital the transition was serene and peaceful. I was
walking up a beautiful green hill. It was steep, but my leg motion was
effortless and a deep ecstasy flooded my body. As the bottoms of my feet
touched the grass, something alive in the grass was transmitted up through
my whole body with each step I took. Can this be death? I wondered. If
so, I certainly had nothing to fear. There was no darkness, no uncertainty,
only a change in location and a total sense of well being. All around me was
a magnificent deep blue sky, unobscured by clouds. Looking about, I
realized that there was no road or path. Yet I seemed to know where to go.
Then I realized I was not walking alone. To the left, and a little behind me,
strode a tall, masculine-looking figure in a robe. I wondered if he were an
angel. I sensed that he could go anywhere he wanted and very quickly. We
did not speak to each other. Somehow it didnt seem necessary, for we
were both going in the same direction. Then I became aware that he was
not a stranger. He knew me and I felt a strange kinship with him. Where
had we met or had we always known each other? It seemed we had. As we
walked together I saw no sun-but light was everywhere.
Off to the left there were multicolored flowers blooming. I felt youthful,
serenity, fulfillment, health, awareness, tranquility. I felt I had everything I
ever wanted to have. I was everything I had ever wanted to be. The wall to
my right was high and made of many colored stones. A light from the other
side of the wall shone through a long row of amber-colored gems several
feet above my head.
We came across a silver structure and as we walked toward it I heard

voices. They were melodious, harmonious, blending in chorus and I heard
the word, Jesus. There were more than four parts to their harmony. I
joined the singing. I have always had a girls body, but a low boys voice.
Suddenly I realized I was singing the way I had always wanted to ...in high,
clear and sweet tones. The voices not only burst forth in more than four
parts, but they were in different languages. I was awed by the richness and
perfect blending of the word-and I could understand them! I do not know
why this was possible except that I was part of a universal experience.
Communication between us was through the projection of thoughts.
The angel stepped forward and put the palm of his hand upon a gate which
I had not noticed before. About 12 feet high, the gate was a solid sheet of
pearl, with no handles and some lovely scroll work at the top of its Gothic
structure. An opening appeared and I saw what appeared to be a street of
golden color with an overlay of glass or water. The yellow light that
appeared was dazzling. I saw no figure, yet I was conscious of a Person.
Suddenly I knew that the light was Jesus, the Person was Jesus. Every part
of me was absorbing the light. I felt bathed by the rays of a powerful,
penetrating, loving energy.
57
Words describing God utilizing the alpha bet (Can be used in Q.T.)
1. Able= having the ability to perform well.
2. Abounding=alive
3. Abundant=generous, bountiful
4. Accurate=errorless, precise
5. Adventurous=Taking or willing to take risks
6. Alluring=attractive, appealing
7. Amazing=fabulous
8. Approachable=Warm, welcoming
9. Aromatic=fragrant
10. Artistic
11. Astonishing=Fabulous, Startling
12. Authentic=Faithful, true, trustworthy
13. Awesome=Full of awe, endless wonder
14. Beautiful=having qualities that delight the eye.
15. Best=unsurpassed, surpassing all others in quality
16. Brilliant=blazing, glaring, dazzling,
17. Boundless=endlessness, endless
18. Bright=radiant, Beaming, shining, colorful,
19. Bursting=eager, full
20. Captivating=Attractive, mysterious
21. Cheerful=glad
22. Complete=lacking nothing essential, whole, Ruddy, Healthy
23. Concerned=interested, involved
24. Conquering=victorious
25. Convincing=satisfying, persuasive,
26. Decisive=determined, resolute, firm
27. Delightful=glad
28. Dependable=reliable, solid,
29. Desirable=desireful
30. Eager=Intensely desirous or interested,
31. Effective=Producing or Able to produce a desired effect
32. Enthusiastic=fervent, glowing
33. Eternal=infinite, ageless, endless, illimitable,
34. Everlasting=continual
35. Exalted=elevated, grand, sublime
36. Excellent=champion, great, sovereign,
37. Exited=thrilled
38. Exhilarating=inspiring
39. Extravagant=gloriously wasteful
40. Exuberant=full of joyful, unrestrained high spirits
41. Fascinating=attractive
42. Fresh=ever-new and ever-old, bright and clear, not dull or faded.
43. Glad=providing joy and pleasure. Delighted, cheerful
44. Glorious=marked by extravagant elegance, beauty and splendor.
45. Good=flawless, whole, entire, perfect
58
46. Gracious=Gives freely to the undeserving, (all of us). Generous.
47. Holy=divine, blessed, sanctified, so completely other than
48. Honorable=worthy of honor and respect
49. Incredible=beyond belief, contrary to all reason, everyday is a miracle.
God is better than a fairy tale.
50. Indescribable=unspeakable
51. Innovative=inventive, new, creative, original
52. Intoxicating=inspiring
53. Joyful=merry, glad
54. Just=right, deserved, appropriate
55. Lively=energetic, vigorous, vivacious
56. Loving=God is love, affectionate
57. Magnetic=attractive
58. Magnificent=glorious, outstanding
59. Majestic=grand
60. Marvelous=particularly excellent, wonderful, out of this world, fabulous
61. Matchless=unique
62. Melodic=Musical, Melodious, I will rejoice over you with singing.
Heaven is full of music. Some say everything in the universe is made
up of musical notes.
63. Mighty=powerful
64. Mysterious=mystifying, difficult to understand. God always was.
65. Never-ending=Endless, we are part of Gods never-ending love story.
66. Optimistic= dwelling on hopeful aspects.
67. Overflowing= alive
68. Passionate=blazing, fervent
69. Patient=long-suffering, Enduring inconvenience without complaint.
70. Perfect= impeccable, supremely excellent in quality or nature
71. Praiseworthy=admirable
72. Preeminent=eminent, outstanding, primary
73. Pure=Free from extraneous elements, absolute, perfect, undiluted
74. Ravishing=beautiful
75. Refreshing=tonic, reinvigorating
76. Relentless=continual, God is relentless in His pursuit of us.
77. Shepherd=guide
78. Source=contact, origin
79. Supreme=Ultimate, ideal
80. Thoughtful=Mindful, What is man that You are mindful of him?
81. Unconquerable=invincible, The unconquerable kingdom of God.
82. Victorious=triumphant, Jesus the victor.
83. Wise=Possessing or showing keen perception
84. Worthy=Honorable, Admirable, Valuable
85. Zealous=enthusiastic
59
Heaven Chapter
Yoori hugged her knees and closed her eyes, recalling the day she met the
God Who Loves. She relived the moment he carried her into the River of
Life and washed away all her fears. Suddenly, there were hands over her
eyes. Jesus! Yoori squealed. Youre here!
Im here, he answered, smiling. Father suggested that I show you
something today.
It felt so good to be close to Jesus again. There were so many things to talk
about! I am wondering where all the people in the little white gowns are
going.
All those people are in gowns of salvation, Jesus answered. Those who
overcome on the earth receive a robe of righteousness like yours.
Oh! I love my robe! And I saw other people with robes like mine with
different colored sashes. But a few of the people wear wreaths on their
heads instead of a crown.
Thats right, Jesus said. These saints in line at the river did not overcome
on the earth, but they believed in me to forgive them of their sins and so I
brought them here. They are all heading toward the throne room of Almighty
God.
You are merciful, Yoori whispered. And you are the most merciful to me.
Im taking you to the portal, he called back to her. His words broadcast like
streams of water gurgling, gushing, and roaring in unison, a reverberation of
authority that shook the very foundations of heaven itself.
It was from this gateway that the Holy Spirit first hovered over the brewing
void of darkness that expanded the outside of heaven. Yoori did not
understand, but she waited for him to explain. In the beginning, we stood
here and created the world, the universe, the seas, and dry land. We
created the first humans, too.
Suddenly a great screen appeared. Yoori watched in awe as she saw Jesus
and his Father and his Great Spirit create the earth, the seas, the creatures,
the lights in the heavens. As she stared at the grandeur of it all, she realized
that Jesus was beyond imagination and it would take all of forever to know
everything that he was capable of doing. Wow! exclaimed Yoori. Is that
how you did it? Yes, Jesus answered. You lived in great darkness in
North Korea. But you began to talk to me, calling me, The God Who
Loves. Yoori smiled. I remember. Jesus continued, Your faith delighted
my heart. Now Jesus smiled and Yoori felt that she could drink the
pleasure he felt in her faith on the earth. Did the star really go into Han
Chun that night? Jesus grinned and then shook his head. No, but your
faith did. And your faith was a shining star in the darkness of your situation.
60
I love the whole world, Jesus replied as he placed her hand in his. But
Father and I cannot help ourselveswe respond to faith. We love faith.
And your faith, although you did not know my name, moved our heart. Your
faith even touched the hearts of the angels to want to bring you here. Your
guardian was pleased to be assigned to your rescue. Yoori tried to absorb
it all. She looked at the stars, the earth, the universe, and then back at the
golden box at the left of the gate. Immediately she noticed another golden
box on the right side of the entranceway into heaven. What is in this box?
At that question a tear formed in Jesus eye and his appearance changed
back and forth, from solid to liquid to a vapor almost. Yoori fell on her face
and worshipped him. What is it, Lord? she cried. What is it that could
make you cry? Yoori sobbed at the tear in her Beloveds eye. She could
feel the emotion of grief again yet she wanted to feel what he felt and know
him in this awful yet effervescent way. Jesus did not come to her. This, he
said slowly. This is the Fathers box of love. Yoori felt sorrow come up in
her throat as Jesus reached into the box. Why, its a crown! she
exclaimed. Jesus nodded, A crownand a robe. One night my Father and
I stepped on this very portico. I gave him my heavenly crown and my royal
robes and we clasped one another in a strong embrace. I needed his
strength for the mission. That night, Father put my robe and crown in this
box and he reformed me and placed me into the womb of a woman, a
virgin. Her name is Mary. Shes here with everyone else now. Mary had
faith to believe she could carry me and with Gods help she could raise me,
even though I was the Son of God and the Savior of the world.
How beautiful, said Yoori. Did Father throw her a star, too?
Jesus tilted his head slightly, his eyes shining at some remote memory.
Kind of; He gave her reason to believe that he wanted her to give birth to
me and raise me so that I could show Gods love to the world. How did
you show Gods love? asked Yoori.
Mostly, I showed Gods love by being willing to leave him in order to help
the people on the earth. I missed him greatly and while on earth spent a
great deal of my time praying to him. I also healed the sick, raised up a few
dead people back to life, taught the people about God and his love, and
His voice dropped off and Yooris heart urged him to continue. She did not
say a word, but their spirits were intertwined now and she knew that he
knew her eagerness to hear the rest of the story about the love of God.
The people on earth, some of them did not understand. They killed me.
Suddenly the screen was back again and Yoori saw her Beloved hanging
on a cross, his face swollen, bruised, and bloody, and his body dangling
from large spikes hammered onto boards. His precious head was mangled.
Oh, no, Yoori cried. She fell on her face on the floor of the portico and
wept. No, no, no!
61
Yes, said Jesus. Sin and grief and sorrow and fear have no place inside
these grand gates. It was the Fathers greatest love test to send me to die
so that no one would need to live in their sins forever. Yooris body shook
with grief over the condition of the body of the God Who Loves. She
trembled at the condition of her own heart when she was on the earth. She
remembered her hatred for the Gotchebee children and shuddered. She
suddenly remembered the lies shed told and all the wrong things shed
done. It seemed unfathomable-- she never knew what he had done for her
until that moment. She wrenched the crown from her head and threw it at
his feet. Please, take my crown, take mine! Its all I have to giveto thank
you. Jesus squatted beside her and pulled the hair back from her wet
cheeks, her golden crown in his other hand. This crown is your reward,
Yoori. It belongs to you. She looked up at him. There was so much love in
his eyes, so much tenderness and forgiveness. She was astonished--
utterly consumed by the love in his eyes. Please? Its all that I have to give
you here. I have nothing else I can offer.
You have given me this moment together, he said. And youve given me
your love. Will you wear it? she asked. Jesus smiled and put the crown on
his head. It fits right inside of my own crown; Hows that? Yoori looked at
him more deeply, not answering his question. His eyes drew her into a
trance of love, one that she did not want to return from for a long, long time.
After a time, Jesus helped her back to her feet and embraced her. Strength
went into her and she was able to feel his calm peace and love one more
time. I am so sorry, Yoori said quietly. I am so sorry for all my wrongs.
I forgive you, said Jesus. Even without knowing about my sacrifice for
you, you were able to believe in the God who loves. Many who know my
entire story still do not believe me. Jesus picked up his crown and
robe. These are here, kept in this box outside the gate, to remember the
great love of the Father and to remember all those on the earth who have
courageously left their homes and families in order to travel the path that
God has for them. Jesus put the crown and the robe back into the golden
box. When he turned back toward her, Gods love overpowered Yoori and
she collapsed onto the porch again. Jesus knelt beside her and gently drew
her into his arms, as he had that first day in heaven by the river, and lifted
her up and carried her back through the gateway into heaven. She thought
her heart would break into a million pieces. Then, just as they entered back
into heaven, the gates gently closed and the wind of heaven blew over her,
tousled her hair and dried her tears. Heavens energy surged through her
being again and the bitter sorrow of his suffering became a reality imbedded
in her memory that only added to her love for him. The grief was gone and
she stopped crying.
I love you, Yoori, said Jesus. I will love you forever, said Yoori. Forever
and ever with all of my heart. Jesus smiled. I know. I can feel your love.
Can Jesus feel your love?
62
Teaching I shared at Nikao on Solitude
How many times have we ran out of a time with the Lord before He was
finished sharing what was on His heart with us? He wants us to linger
lovingly in His presence like Mary.
An example would be if someone talks for hours without letting the other
person getting a word in edge wise. This is another communication error we
commit with the Lord. We must remember that our Lord has a heart that is
yearning to be unburdened to us. He wants to tell us what is breaking His
heart in our generation. He wants to speak to each of us about His beautiful
plan he has for all who trust Him. He wants to reveal glorious truths,
guidance for ourselves and help in ministering to others, solutions to
problems, new ministries and outreaches that will save the lost, specific
words concerning jobs, careers, homes, life partners, and most of all, He
wants to talk to us about how much He loves and cares for us.
When Elijah got alone, quiet, away from all the power displays, he got the
most specific directions ever in his entire ministry to God. How many busy
children of God today have never had the voice come to them?
Hebrews 3:7=Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts!
Revelation 3:20=Look, I the Lord, stand at the door of your heart, and
knock: if you hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and
will sup with him, and he with me. The Lord would say Im asking to be
heard. Open up. Let Me into your secret closet. Let Me talk with you and
you talk with Me. Lets commune.
John 16:12-13-I have yet many things to say unto you, buy you cannot bear
them now, but when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.
God is always speaking; we just at times have stopped listening or stopped
believing that we can hear him. He wants us not to give up listening in
times of dryness. He doesnt want us to be intimidated by the silence.
Silence before God is a key to our relationship with Him. Part of this silence
ought to be spent in meditation of Gods truths. We must learn to lit silently
and allow the Word to feed our spirit. Meditation is related to solitude but it
is not solitude alone. Meditation is more in step 4 where solitude is more in
step 6.
The soul in one single quiet hour of prayer will often make more progress
than in days of company with others! I remember my psychologist saying
theres nothing the enemy fears more than when a believer gets on his
knees, silences his soul and listens and waits for God to reveal Himself
through His Word, His voice, His Spirit, the revelation of His Person, and the
revelation of His will and desire. The Word in Psalms says, be still and
know that I am God. That word still in the Hebrew means be still, cease, let
alone, to slacken. This is hard for many because were used to be in a
doing, doing, doing mode. The Lord wants to teach us how to be in a being
63
mode, a being with Him. We must cease from our own works. When we are
in unrest you cannot hear His voice like you should. And then we often end
up guessing at what His will is for us at the present time and or future.
Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment. There is a

freedom of being alone, not in order to be away from people but to hear the
divine whisper better. Jesus sought out solitary places regularly be alone
with Father. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void
of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship
perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair. Without silence
there is no solitude. Though silence sometimes involves the absence of
speech, it always involves the act of listening. Refraining from talking
without a heart listening to God is not silence. When we repeat the intimate
words of God that he has left within us, our silence remains intact. Silence is
one of the deepest disciplines of the Spirit because it puts the stopper on all
self-justification. In times of dryness, or aloneness any overdependence on
the emotional life is stripped away. Feelings leave and there is the sense
that we are not getting through to God. Rather than fighting, become still
and wait. But whether in the desert or at home, hold in your heart a deep,
inner, listening silence and there be still until the work of solitude is done.
The fruit of solitude is increased sensitivity and compassion for others. It
enables us to come to terms with habits in our lives that need changing,
recognize and reform our inmost attitudes in our hearts towards people and
events, and escape from image maintenance and angry outbursts.
Psalms 27:4=One thing have I desired that will I seek after, to behold the
beauty of the Lord, to inquire in His temple, to dwell in His house all the
days of my life.
Inquire: to seek out, to plough (which is turning over soil in preparing a seed
bed). Application-as we practice solitude/stillness, we are seeking out
Gods face and voice (we are not blanking out our minds and chanting for
world peace), and the silence we maintain is preparing our hearts which is
like His seed bed, its preparing us for His Word to come and be planted
deep in the soil of our hearts.
John 10:3-5=My sheep hear my voice.

Revelation 3:20=I stand at the door and knock, he who hears my voice
Hear: give audience
Application-we are to give the Lord audience, our attention and be ready to
receive His revelation for that hour
Psalms 37:7=Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.

Rest=damam-in Hebrew means to be dumb, to stop, to cease, keep silence,
quiet self, be still, tarry, wait, to perish, to be astonished
64
Application-when we come before the Lord in this way; we must stop our
activity so we can begin to get a glimpse of Gods activity.
This quietness and ceasing from all effort is the secret of the highest activity
of man and all his powers. When God and man are spoken of as working
together, there is nothing of the idea of a partnership between two partners
who each contribute their share to a work. The true idea is that of co-
operation founded on subordination or dependence upon the Lord. As
Jesus was entirely dependent on the Father for all His words and works, so
we can do nothing of ourselves. What we can do of ourselves is altogether
sinful. We must therefore cease entirely from our own doing, and wait for
the working of God in us. As we cease from self-effort, faith assures us that
God does what He has promised to do, and works in us. Among the lessons
to be learned of those who are studying the blessed art of abiding in Christ,
there is none more needful and more profitable than the one of stillness of
soul. In it alone can we cultivate that teachable-ness of spirit to which the
Lord will reveal His secrets, that meekness to which He shows His ways.
It is a soul silent unto God that is the best preparation for knowing Jesus,
and for holding fast the blessings He bestows. It is when the soul is hushed
in silent awe and worship before the Holy Presence that reveals itself within,
that the still small voice of the blessed Spirit will be heard. Quietness is
blessedness, quietness is strength, and quietness is the source of the
highest activity, the secret of all true abiding in Christ. Let us try to learn it,
and to watch against whatever interferes with it. The dangers that threaten
the souls rest are not a few. What are some we go through so we can
watch against them in the future?
If abiding in Christ through solitude really is our first aim, let us beware of all
needless excitement. Above all, there is the unrest that comes of seeking in
our own way and in our own strength the spiritual blessing which comes
alone from above. Gods work is hindered by our interference. He can do
His work perfectly only when the soul ceases from its work.
Even when the soul seeks truly to enter the way of faith, there is the
impatience of the flesh.
Blessed is the man who learns the lesson of stillness and fully accepts
Gods word: In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. Each time
he listens to the word of the Father, or asks the Father to listen to his words,
he dares not begin his Bible reading or prayer without first pausing and
waiting, until the soul be hushed in the presence of the Eternal Majesty.
Cultivate the quietness as a means to the abiding in Christ; expect the ever-
deepening quietness and calm of heaven in the soul as the fruit of abiding in
Him.
65
To begin to acquire this habit of silence first of all forget yourself, lay aside
all self-interest. Second, listen attentively to God. This will gradually produce
in youre a love of that beauty which is the Lord Jesus. This beauty is
inwrought in you by Him. Third, try to find a quiet place. Outward silence
develops inward silence, it improves it. It is impossible for you to really
become inward, that is, to live in your inmost being where Christ lives,
without loving silence and retirement. Hosea 2:14-I will lead her into
solitude, and there I will speak to her heart. There is little value in being
turned within to the Lord unless the end result is an anointing and a spirit of
prayer which continues with you during the whole day. Silence has a great
deal to do with experiencing the Lord on a deeper plane. Mary was still at
the feet of Jesus while Martha represented the busy soul. The Lords words
to our spirit will satisfy our thirsty souls but we must learn to be still before
God.
My own experience with solitude:

At times when I really wanted to hear from the Lord I would seek Him the
best way I knew how and after I would be silent for awhile. Sometimes I
would hear a guiding word that I needed for peace and other times I
wouldnt hear an answer but I knew I was in His presence and I knew my
spirit was strengthened because of that. Sometimes the answers or the
words would be revealed later that week. The seasons I have spent more
time in stillness with God, those times I remember having a closer sense of
His nearness in my life during the normal course of my schedule. It has
helped me to think of a verse or something that has given me a sense of the
Lords goodness or character during the solitude times. But I do understand
that there is a difference between meditation and solitude. My moms cousin
gave me a prophetic word from the Lord which was dont do , but be. After
reading and thinking about this topic of solitude I am beginning to
understand a little bit more about what that word means. I used to do so
many things for the Lord in my own strength and I burned out. The eagle
just lays still on a rock while absorbing the rays of the sunlight and receives
new strength. Thats a good picture of how we should be. Its humbling
because we like to talk, and do. Doing to us is like an opium to the soul.
We have to lay that down so we can get on Gods frequency channel.
When we still our souls and give the Lord audience our heart is saying,
God I want to know you more, I want to hear you, I am yours and You are
mine, here I am send me, show me whatever you want to show me I am
available for you to unburden your heart to me now.
66
Promises from Isaiah 58
Verse 8: Your health shall spring forth speedily; the glory of the Lord
shall be your protection
Verse 9: When you call, the Lord shall answer
Verse 11: The Lord shall guide you continually, the Lord shall satisfy
your soul in drought, and you shall be like a well-watered garden, a
spring of water, whose waters never stop flowing
Verse 14: The Lord will cause you to ride upon the high places of the
earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob.
Confessions of faith from the Word regarding those who feed the hungry,
clothe the naked, take in the poor, help those who are needy in your own
family, free captives, satisfy afflicted souls, who dont make false
accusations or spread vicious rumors, who enjoy the Sabbath, honoring the
Lord in what they do, not following their own desires and pleasure nor
talking idly
God is shedding His own glorious light upon me
My health is springing forth speedily
The glory of the Lord is my protection
When I call upon the Lord he hears me and answers
The Lord is guiding me continually
The Lord is satisfying my soul in drought & in abundance
I am like a well watered garden, a spring of water whose waters never
stop flowing
The Lord is causing me to ride upon the high places of the earth, and
feeding me with the heritage of Jacob
The Lord is enlarging me and stretching and filling my heart with more
of His love for others
Apostolic Prayers
Make me strong and mature in You and let the beauty of Christ be
formed and seen in me
May I have confidence in all of Your will for me
Strengthen me with Your divine might in my inner man
Fill me with the fullness of Christ and the fullness of Your Spirit
May I be rooted and grounded in Your love
Give me power to understand the depths of Your love
Give me the utterance that I might speak the right words in sharing the
gospel with those around me.
Give me holy boldness.
Give me complete understanding of what You want to do in my life.
Give me spiritual wisdom and fill me with your joy
Give me opportunities to share You with those around me
Give me an understanding of my glorious future with Jesus and the
inheritance I have in You
67
May I grow in understanding & knowledge about what really matters

May I always be filled with the fruit of my salvation.
Make me holy in every way, may love grow in me.
May my body, soul, and spirit be kept blameless till You come.
May the gospel spread rapidly & be honored in every place.
Send Your healing power, may signs be done in Your name Jesus.
Bring unity to Your church, may we be one as You and Father are
Let me see Your glory Lord Jesus.
Romans 15:5-7, 13, Romans 10:1, 1 Corinthians 4-8, 2 Thess. 1:11-12
Commands from the Word

The Lord said If you love Me, keep my commandments. Those who are
called highest in the Kingdom practice and teach the commandments of
God. Those who do the will of God will abide forever. Study them, learn
them, understand them, memorize them, obey them, and teach them.
1. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30)
2. Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31) (1 Peter 4:8)
3. Be silent before the Lord your God (Zeph. 1:7)
4. Prefer others over yourself (Rom. 12:10)
5. Give to those who ask (Matt. 5:42)
6. Tithe 10% of your income to God (Numbers 18:26)
7. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33)
8. Seek Gods face (1 Chronicles 16:11)
9. Honor your father and mother (Matt. 15:4)
10. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus (Matt. 16:24)
11. Forgive everyone who has hurt you (Matt. 6:12)
12. Tarry until you be endued with the promise of Father (Luke 24:49)
13. Preach the gospel to all creation and make disciples (Mark 16:15)
14. Record the vision; write it down, though it tarries wait for it, it will
come! (Hab. 2:2-3)
15. Do not be unbelieving but believing (John 20:27)
16. Repent of your sins (Matt. 4:17)
17. Let your light shine before men (Matt. 5:16)
18. You shall not commit adultery (Matt. 5:27)
19. Fulfill your vows to the Lord (Matt. 5:33)
20. Guard your lips (Micah 7:5)
21. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two (Matt. 5:41)
22. Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors (Matt. 5:44)
23. Walk in Gods paths (Mic. 4:2)
24. Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is Perfect (Matt. 5:48)
25. Give, Pray, and Fast in secret (Matt. 6:4, 6, 18)
26. Store up treasures in heaven (Matt. 6:20)
27. Do not worry about your life or about tomorrow (Matt. 6:25)
28. Ask, seek and knock and the door will open to you (Matt. 7:7)
68
29. Treat people the same way you want them to treat you (Matt. 7:12)
30. Beseech the Lord to send out laborers into His harvest (Matt. 9:38)
31. Heal the sick, Raise the dead, Cleanse the lepers, Cast out demons
freely you have received so freely give (Matt. 10:8)
32. What does the Lord require of you? That you do justice, love kindness,
and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8)
33. Wait for your God continually (Hosea 12:6)
34. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord (Hosea 6:3)
35. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matt. 10:16)
36. Do not fear those who can only kill the body but fear Him who has the
power to destroy both body and soul in hell (Matt. 10:28)
37. Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great things (Jer. 33:3)
38. Come to Me all wearied, take My yoke, learn from Me. (Matt. 11:28)
39. You shall not murder, steal, lie, or covet (Exodus 20)
40. Feed the hungry, Give drink to the thirsty, and Invite the stranger into
your home (Mat. 25:35)
41. Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and
mourning, and rend your hear and not your garment (Joel 2:13)
42. Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness,
break up your fallow ground, for its time to seek God until He rains
righteousness on you (Hosea 10:12)
43. Clothe the naked; Visit the sick and those in prison (Matt. 25:36)
44. Let us examine our ways, and return to the Lord (Lam. 3:40)
45. Take communion in remembrance of Jesus (Matt. 26:26-28)
46. Watch and Pray (Matt. 26:41)
47. Have salt in yourself, and be at peace with one another (Mark 9:50)
48. Believe what you pray for (Mark 11:24)
49. Be on the alert for Jesus second coming (Mark 13:35)
50. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test (Luke 4:12)
51. Dont live by bread alone but by every Word from God (Luke 4:4)
52. Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only (Luke 4:8)
53. Proclaim release to the captives, set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18)
54. Bless those who curse you (Luke 6:28)
55. Do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:35)
56. Be merciful just as your Heavenly Father is merciful (Luke 6:36)
57. Do not judge or condemn (Luke 6:37)
58. Cast away from you all your transgressions and make yourself a new
heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 18:31)
59. Be dressed in readiness keep your lamps lit (Luke 12:35)
60. Count the cost (Luke 14:28)
61. Rebuke a brother who sins, forgive him if he repents (Luke 17:3)
62. Be faithful until death (Revelation 2:10
63. Whatever the Master tells you to do, do it! (John 2:5)
64. Work for the food that endures to eternal life(John 6:27)
65. Love one another as Jesus has loved you (John 13:34)
66. Do not let your heart be troubled (John 14:1)
69
67. Abide in Me and I in you (John 15;4)
68. Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain (Rev. 3:2)
69. Be zealous therefore, and repent (Rev. 3:19)
70. Consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ (Rom. 6:11
71. Present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice to God and be
transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom. 12:2)
72. Let love be without hypocrisy, Abhor what is evil (Rom. 12:9)
73. Give God no rest till He establishes, and makes Jerusalem a praise in
the earth (Is. 62:7)
74. Love truth and peace (Zech 8:19)
75. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love and give preference to
one another in honor (Rom. 12:10)
76. Be diligent and not slothful in business, be fervent in spirit, serve the
Lord (Rom. 12:11)
77. Set up for yourself road marks, place for yourself guideposts, direct
your mind to the highway, the way by which you went (Jer. 31:21)
78. Let him who glories, glory in this, that he understands and knows Me,
that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and
righteousness on earth (Jer. 9:24)
79. Persevere in tribulation, and be devoted to prayer (Rom. 12:12)
80. Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the
good way is, and walk in it (Jer. 6:16)
81. Contribute to the needs of the saints and practice hospitality (Rom. 12)
82. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (R. 12)
83. Be of the same mind towards one another, do not be haughty,
associate with the lowly and dont be wise in your own estimation (R. 12
84. Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns,
circumcise yourself to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your
heart (Jer. 4:3-4)
85. Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near
(Is. 55:6)
86. Be at peace with all men (Rom. 12:18)
87. Do not be overcome by evil, overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21)
88. Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another (Rom. 13:8)
89. Lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on armor of light (Rom. 13)
90. Put on Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh (Rom. 13)
91. Accept one another just as Christ also accepted us (Rom. 15:7)
92. Do not associate with a brother who is immoral, covetous, idolater,
drunkard, swindler, not even to eat with such a one. (1 Cor. 5:11)
93. Do not seek a wife (or husband) (1 Corinthians 7:27)
94. Run in such a way that you may win (1 Cor. 9:24
95. Flee from idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:14)
96. Do not seek your own good but that of your neighbor (1 Cor. 10:24)
97. Do all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31)
98. Pursue love and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, especially prophecy (1
Corinthians 14:1)
70
99. Walk in the light of the Lord (Is. 2:5)
100. Let all things be done for edification (1Cor. 14:26)
101. Die daily (1 Corinthians 15:31)
102. Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord
(1 Corinthians 15:58)
103. Stand firm in the faith, be men of courage, be strong (1 Cor. 16:13)
104. Learn to do good (Is. 1:17)
105. Let all that you do be done in love (1 Corinthians 16:14)
106. Cleanse yourself from all defilement of flesh and spirit (2 Cor. 7:1)
107. Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christs will
(2 Corinthians 10:5)
108. Aim for perfection (2 Corinthians 13:9)
109. Seek the favor of the Lord (Zech. 7:2)
110. Serve one another in love (Gal. 5:13)
111. Walk (Live) by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16)
112. Bear one anothers burdens (Gal. 6:2)
113. Do not lose heart (or become weary) in well doing (Gal. 6:9)
114. When you have opportunities do good to all (Gal. 6:10)
115. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been
called. Walk in humility, gentleness, patience, showing tolerance for
one another in love. Be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in
the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:1-3)
116. Speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15)
117. Put on the new self (Eph. 4:24)
118. Be angry and sin not, dont let the sun go down on your wrath, Dont
give the devil a foothold (Eph. 4:27)
119. Let no unwholesome word proceed your lips only what is good for
edification (Ep.4:29)
120. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30)
121. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other (Eph.
4:32)
122. Walk in love (Eph. 5:2)
123. There must not be any hint of sexual immorality, impurity, or greed
among you (Ephesians 5:3)
124. Be imitators of God (Eph. 5:1)
125. Walk as children of Light (Eph. 5:8)
126. Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord (Eph. 5:10)
127. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness but expose them
(Eph. 5:11)
128. Be careful how you walk, not as unwise but as wise (Eph. 5:15)
129. Make the most of your time (Eph. 5:16)
130. Do not be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is (Eph.
5:17)
131. Do not get drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18)
132. Always give thanks for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus to God
(Eph. 5:20)
71
133. Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ (Eph. 5:21)
134. Obey your parents in the Lord (Eph. 6:1)
135. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might (Eph. 6:10)
136. Put on the full armor of God (Eph. 6:11)
137. Pray at all times in the Spirit on the alert with all perseverance and
petition for all the saints (Eph. 6:18)
138. Maintain the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose
(Phil. 2:2)
139. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit but with humility of mind
regard one another as more important than yourself (Phil. 2:3)
140. Do not merely look out for your own interests, but also for the interests
of others (Ph.2:4)
141. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12)
142. Do all things without grumbling or disputing (Phil 2:14)
143. Share your joy (Phil. 2:18)
144. Rejoice in the Lord always (Phil. 3:1)
145. Beware of the evil workers (Phil. 3:2)
146. Live in harmony in the Lord (Phil. 2:4)
147. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer with thanksgiving
let your request be made known to God (Phil. 4:6)
148. Whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, good report, any
excellence or anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things
(Phil. 4:8)
149. Rejoice and exult with all your heart (Zeph. 3:14)
150. Set your hearts on things above (Col. 3:1)
151. Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and
patience (Col. 3:12)
152. Put on love which is the perfect bond of unity (Col. 3:14)
153. Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart and be thankful (Col. 3:15)
154. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly (Col. 3:16)
155. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus
(Col. 3:17)
156. Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than
for men (Col. 3:23)
157. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt
(Col. 4:6)
158. Stand perfectly and fully assured in all the will of God (Col. 4:12)
159. Take heed to the ministry which you received in the Lord that you may
fulfill it (Col.4:17)
160. Be sanctified and flee sexual immorality (1 Thessalonians. 4:3)
161. Comfort one another with words of Jesus coming (1 Thess. 4:18)
162. Encourage one another and build up one another (1 Thess. 5:11
163. Be patient with everyone (1 Thess. 5:14)
164. Rejoice always, Pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17)
165. Abstain from every form of evil (1 Thess. 5:22)
166. Do not be undisciplined (2 Thess. 3:11)
72
167. Abstain from fruitless discussion (1 Tim. 1:6)
168. Fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience in
accordance with the prophecies made over you (1 Tim. 1:19)
169. Be constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of sound
doctrine (1 Tim. 4:6)
170. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness (1 Tim. 4:7)
171. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but in speech, conduct,
love, faith, and purity show yourself an example of those who believe
(1 Tim. 4:12)
172. Keep yourself free from sin (1 Tim. 5:22)
173. Be content with food and clothing (1 Tim. 6:8)
174. Flee from the love of money, envy, strife, abusive language, evil
suspicion (Tim. 6:11)
175. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and
gentleness (Tim. 6:11)
176. Fix your hope on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy
(Tim. 6:17)
177. Be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share (Tim. 6:18)
178. Guard what has been entrusted to you, avoid worldly and empty
chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called
knowledge (Tim. 6:20)
179. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 2:1)
180. Entrust the things you were taught to faithful men who will also teach
others (2 Tim. 2:2)
181. Suffer hardship as a good soldier of Christ (2 Tim. 2:3)
182. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who
does not need to be ashamed accurately handling the word of truth,
study the Word. (2 Tim. 2:15)
183. Continue in the things you have learned (2 Tim. 3:14)
184. Preach the Word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove,
rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction (2 Tim. 4:2)
185. Be sober in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry
(2 Tim. 4:5)
186. Deny ungodliness and worldly desires and live sensibly, righteously
and godly in the present age (Titus 2:12)
187. Draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so you may receive
mercy and find grace to help you in time of need (Heb. 4:16)
188. Consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds (Heb.
10:24)
189. Do not throw away your confidence for it has a reward (Heb. 10:35)
190. Lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles
us. Run with endurance the race that is set before us (Heb. 12:1)
191. Fix your eyes upon Jesus (Heb. 12:2)
192. Pursue holiness and sanctification without which no will see the Lord
(Heb. 12:14)
73
193. Let no root of bitterness spring up causing trouble and by it many
defiled (Heb.12:15)
194. Be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe
(Heb. 12:28)
195. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers (Heb. 13:2)
196. Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them and those who
are ill-treated
197. Be content with what you have (Heb. 13:5)
198. Continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God (Heb. 13:15)
199. Dont neglect doing good & sharing for with such sacrifices God is
pleased (Heb. 13:16)
200. Obey and submit to your leaders (Heb. 13:17)
201. Consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials
(James 1:2)
202. Be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger (James 1:19)
203. Prove to be doers of the Word and not only hearers only (James 1:22)
204. Seek humility (Zeph. 2:3)
205. Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7)
206. Draw near to God, cleanse your hands, purify your hearts you double-
minded (Ja. 4:8)
207. Be miserable and mourn, weep, let your laughter be turned into
mourning and your joy to gloom (double-minded Christians) (James
4:9)
208. Humble yourself in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you
(James 4:10)
209. Do not speak against one another brethren (James 4:11)
210. Instead of saying we will do this tomorrow, say If the Lord wills we
will do this tomorrow (James (4:15)
211. Strengthen your heart for the day is near (James 5:8)
212. Do not complain brethren against one another (James 5:9)
213. Let your yes be yes and your no be no or else you will be condemned
(James 5:12)
214. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another so
that you may be healed (James 5:16)
215. Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the
revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13)
216. Be holy in all your behavior (1 Peter 1:15)
217. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth (Ecc. 12:1)
218. Put aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all
slander (1 Peter 2:1)
219. Abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul (1 Pe. 2:11)
220. Sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart, always be ready to make a
defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that
lies within you, yet with gentleness and reverence (Peter 3:15)
221. Fear God and keep His commandments (Ecc. 12:13)
222. Keep a good conscience (Peter 3:16)
74
223. The end of all things is near so be of sound judgment, sober spirit for
the purpose of prayer (Peter 4:7)
224. Above all keep fervent in your love for one another because love
covers a multitude of sins (Peter 4:8)
225. Employ your special gifts in serving one another as good stewards of
the manifold grace of God (Peter 4:10)
226. Brethren do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which
comes upon you for testing, as though some strange thing were
happening to you (Peter 4:12)
227. Clothe yourself with humility toward one another (Peter 5:5)
228. Cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for you (Peter 5:7)
229. Be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless (2
Peter 3:14)
230. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
(2 Peter 3:18)
231. Walk in the same manner as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6)
232. Do not love the world nor the things in the world (1 John 2:15)
233. We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16)
234. Love not only in word but in deed and truth (1 John 3:18)
235. Dont believe every spirit but test them for there are many false
prophets (1Jn. 4:1)
236. Pray in the Holy Ghost to build yourself up (Jude 1:20)
237. Keep yourself in the love of God (Jude 1:21)
238. Master sin (Gen. 4:7)
239. You shall not take Gods name in vain (Ex. 20:7)
240. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy (Ex. 20:8)
241. Learn to do good (Isaiah 1:17)
242. You shall have no other gods besides Me (Ex. 20:23)
243. Serve the Lord your God (Ex. 23:25)
244. You shall fear only the Lord your God, and worship Him (Duet. 6:13)
245. Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord that it may be well
with you (Deuteronomy 6:18)
246. You shall not bring an abomination into your house (Duet. 7:26)
247. Remember the Lord for it is He who is giving you power to make
wealth (Duet. 8:18)
248. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, and test Me in this says
God, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven (Mal. 3:10)
249. Meditate on the Word day and night (Joshua 1:8)
250. Do not waste time (2 Sam. 18:14)
251. Let your heart be wholly devoted to the Lord our God (1 Kings 8:61)
252. Do all that God has put in your heart (1 Chronicles 17:2)
253. Yield to the Lord (2 Chronicles 30)
254. Do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength (Neh. 8:10)
255. Do not despise the discipline of the Almighty (Job 5:17)
256. Ask the Lord for the nations and He will give them to you as your
inheritance (Ps. 2:8)
75
257. Be strong and let your heart take courage, all who hope in the Lord
(Ps. 31:24)
258. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice you righteous ones (Ps. 32:11)
259. Bless the Lord at all times; let his praise continually be in your mouth
(Ps. 34:1)
260. Taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8)
261. Depart from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it (Ps. 34:14)
262. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your
heart (Ps. 37:4)
263. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it (Ps.
37:5)
264. Cease from anger and forsake wrath, do not fret, it leads only to evil
doing (Ps. 37:8)
265. Thirst, long, pant, hunger after God (Ps. 42:1)
266. Cease striving (Be still) and know that I am God (Ps. 46:10)
267. Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you, He will never
allow the righteous to be shaken (Ps. 55:22)
268. Make vows to the Lord your God and fulfill them (Ps. 76:11)
269. Sing to the Lord a new song (Ps. 98:1)
270. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise (Ps.
100:4)
271. Forget none of His benefits (Ps. 103:2)
272. Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His face continually (Ps. 105:4)
273. Remember His wonders which Hes done in you and others and in
creation (Ps. 105:5)
274. Consider the loving kindness of the Lord (Ps. 107:43)
275. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Ps. 122:6)
276. Make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding,
seek wisdom, search for wisdom like hidden treasures, and discover
the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2:2-5)
277. Keep to the paths of the righteous (Proverbs 2:20)
278. Do not let kindness and truth leave you (Proverbs 3:3)
279. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own
understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make
your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6)
280. Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening
(Ecclesiastes 11:6)
281. Honor the Lord from your wealth (Proverbs 3:9)
282. Dont withhold good from those to whom its due, when its in your
power to (Pr. 3:27)
283. Acquire, understand wisdom and understanding and do not forsake
them, love them, prize wisdom, embrace wisdom, guard wisdom give
attention to wisdom (Proverbs 4:5-13,5:1)
284. Watch over your heart with all diligence (Proverbs 4:23)
285. Watch the path of your feet (Proverbs 4:26)
286. Ponder the path of life (Proverbs 5:6)
76
287. Dig your own well and drink water from it (Proverbs 5:150
288. Observe the ants ways and be wise (Proverbs 6:6)
289. Treasure My commandments (Proverbs 7:1)
290. Abandon the quarrel before it breaks out (Proverbs 17:14)
291. Listen to counsel and accept discipline (Proverbs 19:20)
292. Do not love sleep (Proverbs 20:13)
293. Do not associate with a gossip (Proverbs 20:19)
294. Do not associate with a man given to anger (Proverbs 22:24)
295. Put a knife to your throat if you are a man of great appetite (Prov.
23:2)
296. Live in the fear of the Lord always (Proverbs 23:17)
297. Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine or with gluttonous eaters of
meat (Proverbs 23:20)
298. Buy truth and do not sell it, get wisdom and instruction and
understanding though it costs you all you have get it (Proverbs 23:23)
299. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might (Ecc. 9:10)
300. Do not reveal the secret of another (Proverbs 25:9)
301. Eat only what you need (Proverbs 25:16)
302. Let your words be few (Ecclesiastes. 5:2)
77
Cant Accept Not Trying
I always had the ultimate goal of being the best, but I approached
everything step by step. I had always set short-term goals. As I look back,
each one of those steps or successes led to the next one. I visualized
where I wanted to be, what kind of player or rep I wanted to become. I
knew exactly where I wanted to go, and I focused on getting there. As I
reached those goals, they built on one another. I gained a little confidence
every time I came through.
Take those small steps. Otherwise youre opening yourself up to all kinds of
frustration. If youve done your best, then you will have had some
accomplishments along the way. I set goals, realistic goals and I focus on
them. I ask questions, I read, I listen. Im not afraid to ask anybody
anything if I dont know. Why should I be afraid? Im trying to get
somewhere. Step by step, I cant see any other way of accomplishing
anything.
I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot. Why? Because

when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative
result. I realized that if I was going to achieve anything in life I had to be
aggressive. I had to get out there and go for it. I dont believe you can
achieve anything by being passive. Any fear is an illusion. You think
something is standing in your way, but nothing is really there. What is there
is an opportunity to do your best and gain some success. If it turns out my
best isnt good enough, then at least Ill never be able to look back and say I
was too afraid to try.
Failure always made me try harder the next time. Let your failures motivate
you to press on harder until you get where you want to go. Thats why my
advice has always been to think positive and find fuel in any failure.
Sometimes failure actually just gets you closer to where you want to be.
The greatest inventions in the world had hundreds of failures before the
answers were found. Its no different than making a presentation in the
business world or evangelizing. If you did all the things necessary, then its
out of your hands.
I can accept failure. But I cant accept not trying. It doesnt matter if you
win as long as you give everything in your heart and work at it 110 percent.
Ecclesiastes 9:10-12 says, Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all
your might; for there is non work or device or knowledge, or wisdom, in the
grave where you are going. And in the same book in chapter 11 verse 6 it
says In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold
your hand. For you do not know which will prosper; either this or that, or
whether both alike will be good. And two are better than one, because they
have a good reward for their labor.
78
If you put in the work, the results will come. I dont do things halfheartedly.
Because I know if I do, then I can expect halfhearted results. There are a
million excuses for not paying the price. Count the cost before you go to
work at anything. Part of this commitment is taking responsibility. If you run
into a wall, dont turn around and give up.
Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. I used to look for
shortcuts. I still had the desire, but I had lost my focus. You have to stick to
your plan. Very few people get anywhere by taking shortcuts. Very few
people win the lottery to gain their wealth. It happens, but the odds certainly
arent with them. More people get it the honest way, by setting their goals
and committing themselves to achieving those goals.
Managers, just like basketball coaches, have to find a way to utilize those
individual talents in the best interests of the company. Its a selfless
process, and in our society sometimes its hard to come to grips with filling a
role instead of trying to be a superstar. There is a tendency to ignore or fail
to respect all the parts that make the whole thing possible.
If you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of
themselves. Id rather have five guys with less talent who are willing to
come together as a team than five guys who consider themselves stars and
arent willing to sacrifice.
Fundamentals were the most crucial part of my game in the NBA.

Everything I did, everything I achieved, can be traced back to the way I
approached the fundamentals and how I applied them to my abilities. They
really are the basic building blocks or principles that make everything work.
Whatever youre doing or what ever you are trying to accomplish; you cant
skip fundamentals if you want to be the best. The minute you get away
from fundamentals whether its proper technique, work ethic, or mental
preparation, the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your
job, whatever youre doing.
When you understand the building blocks, you begin to see how the entire
operation works. And that allows you to operate more intelligently, whether
its in school, business, or even raising a family. There is a right way and a
wrong way to do things. You can practice gathering customers, or shooting
eight hours a day, but if your technique if wrong, then all you become is very
good at presenting the company deal, or shooting the wrong way. Get the
fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.
I never really tried to motivate by talking because I dont think words ever
mean as much as action. Hard work and discipline are important for
success. The second I let down, particularly if Im perceived as the leader
of my team or my company, I give others an opening to let down as well.
79
You arent the leader just because youre the best player on the team, the
smartest person in the class, or the most popular. You have to gain the
respect of those around you by your actions.
You have to be consistent in your approach whether its basketball practice,

a sales meeting, or dealing with your family. Those around you have to
know what to expect. They have to be confident that youll be there, that
your performance will be pretty much the same from game to game,
particularly when things get tight.
Players can say anything they want, but if they dont back it up with
performance and hard work, the talking doesnt mean a thing. Thats why I
tried to play through all the little nagging injuries, to make a point, to set a
standard. If I was considered the best player or I was making the most
money, I wanted everyone to know I earned those things. I wanted
everyone around me to understand it wasnt an accident. And I wanted
everyone to know I was watching them, too. A leader cant make any
excuses. There has to be quality in everything you do.
80
Journey of Desire
There is a secret set within each of our hearts. This secret remains hidden
for the most part in our deepest selves. It is the desire for life as it was
meant to be. To lose heart is to lose everything. The clue as to who we
really are and why we are here comes to us through our hearts desire. We
all have places in our past when life, if only for a moment, seemed to be
coming together in the way we knew in our hearts it was always meant to
be. Moments we wish would last forever and moments we wish had never
begun. When the desire is too much to bear, we often bury it beneath
frenzied thoughts and activities or escape it by dulling our immediate
consciousness of living.
It is possible to run away from the desire for years, even decades, at a time,
but we cannot eradicate it entirely. It keeps touching us in little glimpses and
hints in our dreams, our hopes, and our unguarded moments. Even though
we sleep, our desire does not. It is who we are. We are desire. It is the
essence of the human soul, the secret of our existence. Absolutely nothing
of human greatness is ever accomplished without it.
Our desire, if we will listen to it, will save us from committing soul-suicide, or
the sacrifice of our hearts on the altar of getting-by. The same old thing is
not enough. It never will be. If we would only listen to our hearts, to what
Chesterton called our divine discontent, we would learn the secret of our
existence. Those timeless experiences we want to last forever whisper to us
that they were meant to. We were made to live in a world of beauty and
wonder, intimacy and adventure all our days. All good things come to an
end is a lie. We abandon the most important journey of our lives when we
abandon desire. We leave our hearts by the side of the road and head off in
the direction of fitting in, getting by, being productive, what have you. We
must return to the journey.
Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, we must pick up the trail and
follow the map that we have at hand. Desire, both the whispers and the
shouts, is the map we have been given to find the only life worth living. We
must listen to desire. The most tragic day of all is when you start to prefer
slavery to freedom, or death to life. We must not stay in this sleep. Bringing
our heart along in our lifes journey is the most important mission of our
lives, and the hardest. It all turns on what we do with our desire. If you will
look around, you will see that most people have abandoned the journey.
They have lost heart. To desire something and not to have it- is this not the
source of nearly all our pain and sorrow?
Even in the bliss of love there is a certain exquisite pain: the pain of too
much beauty, of overwhelming magnificence. In both joy and pain, love is
boundless. Desire is the source of our most noble aspirations and our
deepest sorrows. We cannot live without the yearning, and yet the yearning
81
sets us up for disappointment- sometimes deep and devastating
disappointment. Do we reach for nothing in life because our reaching opens
us up to tragedy? Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams
come true there is life and joy. The life we have is so far from the life we
truly want, and it doesnt take us long to find someone to blame. In order for
our longings to be filled, we need the cooperation of others. No man is an
island. Very few of our desires are self-fulfilling; all our deepest longings
require others to come through for us. Inevitable, someone stands in the
way. The reason why we dont know what we want is that were so
unacquainted with our desire. Dare we awaken our hearts to their true
desires? Dare we come alive?
Augustine said, Longing is the hearts treasury. Jesus said and is saying
what do you want? By asking the man what he wanted, Jesus took him
back into his desire. Why? It is where we must go if we are to meet God. At
its core, Christianity begins with an invitation to desire. The Jew of his day
was practicing a very soul-killing spirituality. They had abandoned desire
and replaced it with knowledge and performance as the key to life. To the
weary, Jesus speaks of rest. To the lost, he speaks of finding your way.
Again and again Jesus takes people back to their desires. Ask and it will be
given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door shall be opened
unto you.
My purpose is to bring you life in all its fullness, Jesus said. Eternal life is
not primarily duration but quality of life, life to the limit. Ps. 16:11, 42:1-2,
63:1. Christianity has nothing to say to the person who is completely happy
with the way things are. Its message is for those who hunger and thirst, for
those who desire life as it was meant to be. God is realistic, He knows that
ecstasy is not an option; we are made for bliss, and we must have it, one
way or another. You are intended for pleasure. The Father responded to the
elder son in the parable of the prodigal, all that is mine has always been
yours. In other words, you never asked. Those who kill desire are not the
ones who experience the Fathers embrace. The question is not dare we
desire, but dare we not desire?
The great (and toothsome) sinners are made out of the very same material
as those horrible phenomena, the great Saints. (C.S. Lewis) Sauls zeal
made him the foremost persecutor of the church. When Christ knocked him
off his donkey on the Damascus road, Paul was hunting down the church.
Christ captured his zeal, and after Damascus it led him to work harder than
all the other apostles. (Cor. 15:10) Augustine was also a passionate young
man, sexually licentious, enamored with the pleasures of Rome, scratching
the sore of lust, as he would call it after Christ got hold of him. He went on
to become one of the great pillars of the church, laying the foundation for
the rise of Christendom after the fall of Rome.
82
Give me a man in love, he knows what I mean. Give me one who yearns,
give me one who is hungry, give me one far away in this desert, who is
thirsty and sighs for the spring of the Eternal Country. Give me that sort of
man; he knows what I mean. But if I speak to a cold man, he just doesnt
know what I am talking about. And so Screwtape reveals the enemys ploy--
first make humans flabby, with small passions and desires, and then offer a
sop to those diminished passions so that their experience is one of
contentment. How can we hunger and thirst for righteousness when we
have ceased hungering and thirsting altogether?
The greatest enemy of holiness is not passion; it is apathy. Look at Jesus.

He was no milksop. His life was charged with passion. God is a deeply
profoundly passionate person. Zeal consumes him. His profound desire for
something greater sustained him at the moment of his deepest trial. We
cannot hope to live like him without a similar depth of passion. You cannot
help someone who doesnt want a thing. Your heart longs, and you go to
seek the one you desire. She responds to your seeking because it touches
her hearts desire to be longed for. Yes, commitment plays a vital role--but
only as the expression of desire. A woman doesnt want to be an object of
duty; she wants to be desired.
God waits to be wanted. The parable of the talents issue isnt capital gains;
its what we think of God. When we bury our desires, we are saying the
same thing: God, I dont dare desire because I fear you; I think you are
hard-hearted. Like Brennan Manning so beautifully depicted in his book
Ruthless Trust, God takes pleasure in those who trust in His un-relentless
love. Those who know their desire and refuse to kill it, or refuse to act as
though they dont need help, they are the ones who live by faith. Those who
do not ask do not trust God enough to desire. They have no faith.
The deepest moral issue is always what we, in the heart of hearts, believe
about God. There can be no true praying without desire. Desire gives fervor
to prayer, strong desires make strong prayers. Pretending seems a much
more reliable road to Christian maturity. The only price we pay is a loss of
soul, of communion with God, a loss of direction, and a loss of hope.
Without hope we cant trust God, and if we cant trust God we cant please
Him.
Without a deep and burning desire of our own, we will be ruled by the
desires of others. The poet David Whyte states, the hope is to stay in the
background away from the fire, and wait for someone to come along and
grant us immunity from these difficulties and sacrifices, someone to offer
reassurance, saying perhaps, take the safe way, not the way of passion
and creativity, as the path to your destiny, the life you desire. Follow it and
you will never be touched, but we cannot neglect our inner fire without
damaging ourselves in the process. The damage of course is a life lost unto
83
itself. Millions of souls drift through life, without an inner compass to give
them direction. They take their cues from others and live out scripts from
someone elses life. Its a high price to pay. We can only hope for what we
desire. No desire, no hope. Our hopes are deeply tied to our real desires,
and so killing desire has meant a hopeless life for too many.
Our idols become the means by which we forget who we truly are and
where we truly come from. They numb us. Ecstasy is not an option, we
must have life. Revival is not an option. It seems at times that God will go
to any length to thwart the very thing we most deeply want. Job cried out,
what do you gain by oppressing me? You hunt me like a lion and display
your awesome power against me. Not every trial in life is specially arranged
for us by God. But there are times when God himself seems to be set
against us. By mistrusting Gods heat, by reaching to take control of what
we wanted, Adam and Eve set in motion a process in our hearts, desperate
grasping that can be described only as addiction.
Addiction exists wherever persons are internally compelled to give energy to

things that are not their true desires. Addiction sidetracks and eclipses the
energy of our deepest, truest desire for love and goodness. If you dont
think youre a chess player too, then prove it by letting go of the things that
provide you with a sense of security, or comfort, or excitement, or relief.
You will soon discover the tentacles of attachment deep in your soul.
Remember we will make an idol of anything, especially a good thing.
God must thwart us to save us. Mans worst fear is not measuring up.
Every woman lives with relational heartache and loneliness. A womans
glory is her heart for others. A womans imposters are nearly always an
attempt to some how fill that ache for love or pretend she doesnt need love.
God promises every man futility and failure, he guarantees every woman
relational heartache and loneliness. No matter how hard we try, no matter
how clever our plan, we cannot arrange for the life we desire. Will life ever
be what I so deeply want it to be, in a way that cannot be lost?
God must take away the heaven we create or it will become our hell. The
life that lies endlessly before us is in the kingdom of God. We desperately
need to possess a clearer picture of the life that lies before us. In heaven
everything is as it was meant to be. If there are dictionaries in heaven the
words sickness, death, dying, decay, orphans, widows, and the poor are not
in it. Arent every one of our sorrows on earth the result of things not being
as they were meant to be?
The Kingdom of God brings restoration. Life is restored to what it was

meant to be. It is the Fathers good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. Do
you see that eternal life does not become something totally other, but
rather life goes on, only as it should be? The creation we are told groans for
84
this day, the day when we--the sons and daughters of God--are revealed for
who we truly are. We get the earth back as well. He said He is creating a
new heavens and a new earth. When he says he is making all things new,
he includes the earth. Fire is also used for cleansing throughout the
Scriptures. Paul declared that our lifes work will be tested in the fire, like
gold. Only the dross is burned away. The life we now have as the persons
we now are will continue in the universe in which we now exist. The only
things destroyed are the things outside Gods realm--sin, disease, death.
We long to be loved by another person. We are surrounded by people, but

truly known by so few--if any. How we long for a soul-to-soul connection.
How often do you feel deeply and truly known? Do you have someone with
whom you can commune in love? This is our inconsolable longing--to know
and to be known. There is no union on earth like the consummation of the
love between a man and a woman. It is a small wonder that many people
experience sexual passion as their highest transcendence on this earth.
After creating this stunning portrait of a total union, the man and woman
becoming one, God turns the universe on its head when he tells us that this
is what he is seeking with us. In fact, Paul says it is why God created
gender and sexuality and marriage--to serve as a living metaphor. God
creates mankind for intimacy with himself, as his beloved.
True love is never constrained. So God sets out to woo his beloved and
make her his queen. Jer. 2:2-3. True love never fails, it always perseveres.
God will fight for his beloved. So the Old Testament ends with a promise of
reconciliation: Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes; I will wall
her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but
not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, I
will go back to my husband as at first. Therefore I am now going to allure
her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her... In that day,
declares the Lord, you will call me my husband; you will no longer call me
my master. (Hosea 2:6-7, 14, 16 NIV) And when he says to us, I am going
there to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I
am, he is making his proposal. (See Jewish Customs for Matrimony)
Couples moved into the home of the grooms parents. It was preparing a
place for her. When all was ready, he would come for her and take her to
be with him, so that where he is, she would also be. We are in the time of
waiting for the Bridegroom to return. It is the Bride who is panting; Holy
longing. By withholding of the vision, God extends the longing; through
longing he extends the soul, by extending he makes room in it. Let us long
because we are to be filled, that is our life, to be exercised by longing. This
engagement is headed toward a consummation.
Sexual intimacy is the closest parallel we have to real worship. Why else
85
would sexual ecstasy become the number one rival to communion with
God? We worship sex because we dont know how to worship God. But we
will. This spiritual intercourse with God is the ecstasy hinted at in all earthly
intercourse, physical or spiritual. It is the ultimate reason why sexual
passion is so strong, so different from other passions, so heavy with
suggestions of profound meanings that just elude our grasp. For many
people, certainly, sex is the most powerful and moving experience that life
has to offer, and more overwhelmingly holy than anything that happens in
church. As Allender says, our hearts live for an experience of worship that
fills our beings with joy that is so deeply in awe of the other that we are
barely aware of ourselves. Many people have a hard time conceiving of
this kind of intimacy with God. Our worship services dont get anywhere
near something like our wedding nights.
God is the expression of the very thing we seek in each other. God is the
source of all masculine power; God is also the fountain of all feminine allure.
Come to think of it, he is the wellspring of everything that has ever
romanced your heart; the thundering strength of a waterfall, the delicacy of
a flower, the stirring capacity of music, the richness of wine. What we have
sought, what we have tasted in part with our earthly lovers, we will come
face to face with in our True Love. The French mystic Madame Guyon can
write, I slept not all night, because Thy love, O my God, flowed in me like
delicious oil, and burned as a fireI love God far more than the most
affectionate lover among men loves his earthly attachment. And at the
same time a monk, St. John of the cross, can say, I abandoned and forgot
myself, laying my face on my Beloved; all things ceased; I went out from
myself leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies. Where else are we told
about oil and lilies? In Song of Songs. Is there sex in heaven? It would be
better to ask, is there worship in heaven?
He gives us the joy of community, of family and friends to share in the

Sacred Romance. Is it not the nature of true love---to be generous in love?
The naked intimacy, the real knowing that we enjoy with God, we shall
enjoy with each other. George MacDonald wrote, I think we shall be able to
pass into and through each others very souls as we please, knowing each
others thought and being, along with our own, and so being like God.
Brent used to call it multiple intimacies without promiscuity. It is what the
ancients meant by the communion of saints. In Oden Hetricks heaven
testimony he said that the 4rth intimacy in heaven is when you unite with the
covenant companion that God has united you with in your spiritual glorified
bodies and so occupying the same space at the same time, the masculine
and the feminine appearing as one glorified being, united as two voices
singing one duet. (Isaiah 34:16)
All of the joy that awaits us in the sea of Gods love will be multiplied over
and over as we share with each other in the Grand Affair. Imagine the
86
stories that well hear and all the questions that shall finally have answers.
And the answers wont be one word answers, but story after story, a feast of
wonder and laughter and glad tears. In my small group one night, I asked
everyone to bring a piece of art that he loved--a song, or a poem, or
perhaps a film clip. Art is a glimpse into our hearts, and you can learn so
much about someone when he shares with you something that has stirred
his soul. Our conversation flowed from laughter to tears as we talked about
each persons window of the soul.
Though it will be unspeakable joy to live forever in a fully restored universe

with the company of the truly intimate, it is not enough. One of the Grand-
Essentials of human happiness is having something to do. Jesus said My
Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working. (John
5:17) Hes not just sitting around on a throne somewhere. New stars are
born every day, a new sunset painted and swept away each night. Such
magnificent generosity, no composer ever gave so many free concerts.
MacDonald had it right: Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou! You dont
suppose he experiences his part in running the universe as drudgery, do
you? Does Michael Jordan love to play basketball? So God loves his work.
He isnt ashamed to call it all very good. He is simply one great
inexhaustible and eternal experience of all that is good and true and
beautiful and right. This is what we must think of when we hear theologians
speak of him as a perfect being. And it is this life, with all its joyful creativity
and power and unending happiness that he says he is going to share with
us.
We expect greatness from the offspring of the great. We humans are never
happier than when we are expressing the deepest gifts that are truly us.
God shares with mankind his own artistic capacity and then sets us down in
a paradise of unlimited potential. It is an act of creative invitation, like
providing Monet with a studio for the summer, stocked full of brushes and
oils and empty canvases. Or like giving Mozart full use of an orchestra and
a concert hall for an autumn of composing. Or like setting Martha Stewart
loose in a gourmet kitchen on a snowy winter weekend, just before the
holidays. You neednt provide instructions or motivation; all you have to do
is release them to be who they are, and remarkable things will result. Oh,
how we long for this, for a great endeavor that draws upon our every faculty,
a great lifes work that we could throw ourselves into. I was made for this,
said one friend who after years of hesitation finally pursued his dream of
becoming a high school teacher. It energizes me.
God has created us and our gifts for a place of his choosing. We are, all of
us, never-ceasing spiritual beings with a unique eternal calling to count for
good in Gods great universe. Some people love what they do. They are
fortunate souls, who have found a way to link what they are truly gifted at
(and therefore what brings them joy) with a means of paying the bills. But
87
most of the world merely toils to survive, and no one gets to use his gifts all
the time.
We yearn to be fruitful, to do something of meaning and value that flows

naturally out of the gifts and capacities of our souls. But of course, we were
meant to be the kings and queens of the earth. What if you were given the
freedom (the permission) and the power (all the resources necessary) to do
exactly what you were always meant to do? The day is coming when Christ
will appoint you as one of his regents over his great and beautiful universe.
This has been his plan all along. The One who created you and set all those
loves and gifts in your heart, the One who has shaped all your life
experiences (including the ones that seem to make no sense), this God has
prepared a place for you that is a more than perfect fit for all your gifts and
quirks and personality traits, even those you dont know you have.
We will not sit around looking at one another or at God for eternity but will
join the eternal Logos, reign with him, in the endlessly ongoing creative
work of God. It is for this that we were each individually intended, as both
kings and priests. His plan is for us to develop, as apprentices to Jesus, to
the point where we can take our place in the ongoing creativity of the
universe all within the fellowship and companionship with Himself and His
Bride. God takes our training so seriously because he fully intends to
promote us. Will it be joy? Does Stephen Hawking enjoy physics? Does
Mark McGuire enjoy hitting it out of the park? To each his own--literally.
Each person will live out the passion of his heart, set there by the Creator
from before the beginning of time. We will live forever, so if we dont get this
done now, well get to it later. This is important, for no human life reaches
its potential here. How amazing it will be to have our souls released into
their true destiny, in a world no longer stained by sin or under the curse.
We must come to terms with the following three things deep in our heart.
1. We must have life
2. We cannot arrange for it
3. It is coming
Life is now a battle and a journey. We must fight the forces that oppose our
becoming whole; we must find our way through difficult and unfamiliar
territory to our true home. We must watch over our desire with a fierce love
and vigilance, as if we were protecting our most precious possession. How
awful to reach the end of lifes road and find we havent brought our hearts
along with us.
To find the land of Desire, you must take the journey of desire. If we are to
take up the trail and get on with our quest, weve got to get our hearts back,
which means getting our desire back. I continue to be stunned by the level
of deadness that most people consider normal and seem to be contented to
88
live with. Our heart is our ally in this journey. Our core desires are good
through the new covenant and the transformation that comes with it. Yes we
will struggle with sin, with our tendency to kill desire or give our hearts over
to false desires. But that is not who and what we truly are. So lets come
back to the simple question Jesus asks of us all: What do you want? Dont
minimize it, dont try to make sure it sounds spiritual, just stay with the
question until you begin to get an answer, this is the way to keep current
with our hearts. The more attuned we are to our true desire, the less prone
well be to impostors. We need to take time to look at the desire beneath the
desire. Holiness is not numbness, it is sensitivity. It is being more attuned
to our desires, to what we were truly made for and therefore what we truly
want.
The commands of God become our tutor in the healing of our desire. God
tells us to love him with all our hearts; its not a burden but a rescue, a trail
out of the jungles of desire. All we truly need is God. All the other desires
find their place as we give God his place. Only as we truly delight in God is
it safe to give us our desires, for then they are not likely to become idols.
And by our delighting in God, he heals our false desires as our souls come
true in the light of their Maker.
Worship becomes the means by which we most deeply heal our desire.
Henri Nouwen once asked Mother Teresa for spiritual direction. Spend one
hour each day in adoration of your Lord, she said, and never do anything
you know is wrong. Follow this, and youll be fine.
Worship is the act of the abandoned heart adoring its God. It is the union
that we crave. There is nothing created that can fully satisfy my desires.
Make me one with You in a sure bond of heavenly love, for You alone are
sufficient to Your lover, and without You all things are vain and of no
substance. Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. He is
referring to desire.
We rehearse for the wedding now through worship. The more comfortable
we are with mystery in our journey, the more rest we will know along the
way. Somehow being empty allows us to make others rich. And if we are
willing to let go, well discover something most surprising, that all is ours.
Longing leads to fullness somewhere down the road.
We have only three options

1. To be alive and thirsty
2. To be dead
3. To be addicted
Ps. 145:16. What am I waiting for? Is there anything I ardently desire that I
am doing nothing to secure? We are enlarged in the waiting. The longer we
89
wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
Grief is our friend; the paradox of it is that it is healing. It somehow restores

our souls. I believe we must add two spiritual disciplines to everyday life.
The first is worship. We must worship God deliberately, regularly. The other
is grief. We must allow a time for sorrow to do our own personal sowing. I
see no other way to care for our hearts.
We must have a measure of beauty in our lives proportionate to our

affliction. How do you get to know a person? Through stories. Reminders of
the story are everywhere, in films and novels, in the natural world around
us, and in the stories of our own lives. Each year I take up a new journal in
which to capture my hearts journey. A journal is about the interior life. At
the back there is a section I have entitled this new day. There I am writing
the central truths I must return to each morning (at least) to guide my desire
home. My journal will be filled with all the twists and turns a year can bring,
but here is the place I can go for the interpretation of the events and
emotions and experiences. Like the Benedictines, we must keep before us
the deepest truths, morning, noon, and night.
God is speaking to us more often then we can imagine. These are the
treasures we must hide in our own hearts. His word to us is both
recoverable and precious beyond telling. And so I share a few of my notes
only in the hope that they will stir you to capture and hang on to the words
and images that bring the romance back to you each new day.
The Story Continues

This simple statement reminds me that life is unfolding, that we are headed
somewhere, that the story is moving toward its happy ending. No event is
the final word. Faith increases to the degree we are aware of, caught up in,
enthralled by, and participating in His and our story.
It is Coming
The very thing that I am aching for now, missing now, seeking now in other
things is exactly whats coming to me.
Lift any obstacle you may have to filling your life with greater and greater
amounts of beauty. Buddha abandons his desire; Christ surrenders his will.
It is no small difference. True surrender is not an easy out, calling it quits
early in the game. This kind of surrender comes only after the night of
wrestling. Then we choose to surrender our deepest desires to God. The
freedom and beauty and rest that follow are among the greatest of all
surprises.
90
Refiners Fire
Every Christian has to go through the refining fire of God. Refiners fire, my
hearts one desire is to be holy, set apart for you Lord, I choose to be holy
set apart for you my Master, ready to do your will. Once God takes you
through His purifying fire you will be ready to do His will with a pure heart,
pure motives. And you'll be a vessel of honor. (2 Tim. 2:20) If you take the
grace of God, repent and cry out to God when His hand is upon you and
humble yourself in His sight, you will purge yourself from the junk in your
heart and will be ready and prepared to do the good works He has prepared
for you before the foundation of the earth. (James 4:8-10) (1 Tim. 6:18-19)
Build a good foundation for your eternal dwelling place by being rich in good
works in the Spirit of love. The hand of the Lord doesn't always give you
the opportunity to repent or mourn. There are times when God releases an
anointing of mourning so you can mourn and mourn some more and it is
during these times that great heart operations are being wrought by the
power of the Spirit making you more like Christ. Cleanse, purify, be
afflicted, mourn, weep, and humble yourself in the fire of God.
The Lord is like a refiners fire according to Mal. 3:2-3. The Lord will purify
His own and purge them as gold and silver so we will be able to offer to the
Father a life of righteousness (unfailing ability to always do the right thing.
We as servants of God have the sentence of death in ourselves so we won't
trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. So when we suffer pains
of death like pain in soul or some area in our life, we trust in the Lord to yet
deliver us. (2 Cor. 1:9-10) We are always being delivered over to the death
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh (2 Cor. 4:11)
When the life or glory of Jesus manifests through your mortal flesh, your
flesh won't like it, it will feel like it's dying but that's good, it's when you know
you are on the right track. God fills us and fattens us up first with His Spirit,
glory, grace, and love. Then he leads us out as sheep to the slaughter
when we're ready to die for Him to bring Him that sweet smelling fragrance.
Don't complain about your lot in life that God has appointed for you. Your
cross is different than others but it's because your course is not the same
one as someone else's. God knows the right amount of pressure He needs
to use on you to prepare you for your eternal calling. He knew that Paul the
apostle might get too prideful if He didn't give Paul a thorn in his flesh. He
did this so he wouldn't get prideful and so he wouldn't trust in his own
strength and self to finish his course, but in God's strength and power to
fulfill Pauls' destiny.
God is counting on you to fulfill your destiny to finish your course, so take a
fresh hold of His grace for your journey each new day for God's grace is
sufficient for you. (2 Cor. 12:9-10) for when your weak in your infirmities,
that's the perfect time to take a hold of God's overcoming strength and be
91
made strong. Count it all joy when you are put through the refiners fire of
God's grace. For this trying of your faith is working patience, and when this
happens you get the chance to let patience do a perfect (maturing) work
which makes you perfect. (James 1:2-4) So glory, get excited and happy
and celebrate in the refiners fire for you know its working patience in your
spirit which lasts forever. Proven character or the character of Christ is
being worked into your spirit during this fire as you allow it to give you a
growth of your wings, enabling you to rise above the winds of adversity. Let
the fire take you higher and closer to God. This works hope that doesn't
disappoint into your spirit because God's love is shed abroad in your heart
by His Spirit. (Roman 5:3-5). So do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal
among you which is for testing, preparation and cleansing for whatever
degree your sharing in Christ' sufferings you are granted to share, for to that
same degree you will share His glory. (1 Peter 4:12-13)
Pain and suffering for God is in His will for you. God uses this to mature
you and grow your wings. You would be a fool to try to get out of the pain
that God has ordained for you to go through. This is why Wigglesworth
didn't try to get out of having those kidney stones pass. Remember God
gave Paul a thorn in the flesh; I've battled with bipolar which has pushed me
to lean more upon the Lord and to trust and wait for His deliverance. God
has perfect wisdom and knows just the right tools to get us acting and being
like how He wants us to be like.
God promises us that after we suffer a little while He who is full of grace will
perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you! (1 Peter 5:10) What an
awesome promise. Another promise we have from God is that our light
afflictions are only for a moment, not a lifetime, and they are producing for
us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. (2 Cor. 4:17)
This study gives great hope and encouragement to everyone suffering in

the will of God. If you are not suffering in the will of God at this time, just
relax and thank God and rejoice that some is on the way for God's use and
wise purposes. We are joint-heirs with Christ if we suffer with Him so that
we will be glorified with Him. (Rom. 8:17)
92
7 Golden Keys
1. Assurance to believer through the Blood of Jesus

(Hebrews 9:28)
2. Authority to believer through Jesus name (Mark

13:34)
3. Holy Spirit baptism for believer to be like and do

like Jesus
4. Touch and ever-present presence of Jesus through

grace is the answer to loneliness. (Hebrews 13:5)
5. Praise is the key that unlocks God's power to push

back the enemy and everything that is not God's
will (Psalms 149:6)
6. Grace= I am what I am by God's grace. (unmerited

favor) 95% of the time we receive without meeting
the conditions (2 Cor. 12:9)
7. Faith confessions such as, I'm saved, I'm

covered.
93
Waking the Dead
The glory of God is man fully alive. Sometimes we experience moments that
arent rational, or of a calculated progression of thought. Theyre more like
being tossed out of a raft in a storm. It comes fast and furious, but the pull of
the current is always toward a loss of heart. Most of the time we are swept
away; we give in, lose heart and climb out of it sometime latter. Some never
climb out. Sometime you need to pray, Jesus, take away the fog and the
clouds and the veil, and help me to see, give me eyes to really see. I had a
vision once, Jesus took me with Him on a mountain overlooking the glory of
the Father and the important thing was that I was with Him, seeing the
object that He wanted me to see, with Him, we were facing the same
direction, I was seeing the object the way the way He wanted me to, to the
degree that He wanted me to see it. I was seeing as He sees.
His happiness and my happiness are tied together. The offer is life but
youre going to have to fight for it because theres an enemy in your life with
a different agenda. You were born into a world at war, and you will live all
your days in the midst of a great battle, involving all the forces of heaven
and hell and played out here on earth. We all were created in the image of
God. Fearfully and wonderfully made, fashioned as living icons of the
bravest, wisest, most stunning Person who ever lived. We dont see clearly
because we dont see with the eyes of our heart. There is a way of looking
at life, and that those who discover it are able to live from the heart no
matter what. Facts stay lodged in the mind, for the most part. They dont
speak at the level we need to hear. But when you tell a story, you speak to
the heart.
Myths are, first of all, stories: stories which confront us with something
transcendent and eternal...; a means by which the eternal expresses itself in
time. Things are not what they seem. There is a whole lot more going on
here than meets the eye. We have a crucial role to play. We must discover
the task that is ours alone to fulfill. We would find our courage. The hour is
late, and you are needed. So much hangs in the balance. Where is your
heart?
The plan of God was to create a world where love reigns. By taking out your
heart, the enemy takes out you, and you are essential to the Story. In order
to find our way out of these woods, we must return to the heart. The subject
of the heart is addressed in the Bible more than any other topic, more than
works or service, more than belief or obedience, more than money, and
even more then worship. The Bible sees the heart as the source of all
creativity, courage, and conviction. It is the wellspring of life within us, the
fount of our life. Think about your work life for a moment. Why are so many
bored with their jobs? Their hearts are not in their work. Those who are
bored with their life work or their work life didnt arrive at what theyre doing
by listening to their hearts, because if they did they wouldnt be bored. The
94
heart is central; to find our lives, we must make it central again. The heart is
the source of our emotions. Our conscience is in our hearts. This is why it is
so dangerous to harden our hearts by silencing our consciences, and why
the offer of forgiveness is such good news, to have our hearts sprinkled
clean from an evil conscience. Our deepest thoughts are held in our hearts.
As a man thinks in his heart so is he. (Prov. 23:7) It is the thoughts and
intents of the heart that shape a persons life. Memory is vital and one of the
highest powers in our nature from God. This too is a function of the heart.
Creativity flows from the heart as well.
Success or failure can be pretty well predicted by the degree to which the
heart is fully in it. Everything you love is what makes a life worth living.
Take a moment, set down the book, and make a list of all the things you
love. What is the real point of our existence? Loving God and loving others.
Do this, he said, and you will find the purpose of your life. How much have
we grown in love should be the question we ask from time to time. You
cannot be the person God meant you to be, and you cannot live the life he
meant you to live, unless you live from the heart. Spend a month in some
breathtaking spot, doing nothing productive at all. Have yourself a good
laugh-the kind that sends tears down your face and makes you grip your
side for the ache of it. Listen to a beautiful piece of music. Find God.
Without your heart you cannot find the work that you were meant to do. In
other words, without your heart you cannot have life. We need
transformation. Count yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
If we believed that we could do anything, we would follow Him anywhere!
You have a role you never dreamed of having. In Phil. 1:15 he tells us you
shine like starts in the universe as you hold out the word of life. The whole
Christian thing is about healing your heart, setting it free, restoring your
glory. You are going to need your whole heart in all its glory for this Story
youve fallen into. Youll need every ounce of courage and faith and love
you can muster. So, who did God mean when he meant you? We at least
know this: we know that we are not what we were meant to be. Most of us
spend our energy trying to hide that fact, through all the veils we put on and
the false selves we create. As we are liberated from our own fear, our
presence automatically liberates others. We can repent of our sin. We can
work on our issues. But there is nothing to be done about our glory. Its so
naked. Its just there, the truest us. You cannot love another person from a
false self.
If youre not pursuing a dangerous quest with your life, well, then, you dont
need a Guide. But if you intend to live in the Story that God is telling, and if
you want the life He offers, then you are going to need more than a handful
of principles, however noble they may be. The programs in some churches,
ask, does it teach a person how to apply principles, or how to walk with
God? Only Christianity can teach you to walk with God. We were created for
95
intimacy with God. Teach a man a rule and you help him solve a problem;
teach a man to walk with God and you help him solve the rest of his life.
Our heart has been made good by the work of Christ, but we havent
learned how to live from it. What has God called you to do with your life?
What does the future hold for you-and how should you respond?
When the apostles needed the help of some good men to shepherd the
exploding new church, they chose men full of the Spirit and wisdom. The
two go together; we need both. It takes time to learn to walk with God in a
deeply intimate way, and many challenges face us before we are
accustomed to the way of the heart. We must practice our chords; we must
do our drills. The Bible is full of counterintuitive direction from God. Would
you counsel a father to sacrifice his only child, the only hope for the
promised nation? Whats the sense of slashing the ranks of your army from
32,000 to 300, just before battle? The commonsense life, which, as Oswald
Chambers warned, can be the enemy of the supernatural life. How will we
hear him call us out of Ur, lead us to our own promised land, bring us
through our own Calvary? God is still speaking. He wants to speak to you;
he wants to lead you to good pasture. Our ability to hear Gods voice and
discern his word to us grows over time. As Brother Lawrence had it, we
practice the presence of God. We cannot solve the depths of Gods work
in this world. All we can do is stay very close by his side and listen for his
voice, obey his counsel. More depends on it than we know.
Second, we pay attention to our hearts. When I hear something that seems
really unwise, I test it again and again before I launch out. The flesh will try
to use your freedom to get you to do things you shouldnt do. Any word
or suggestion that brings discouragement, condemnation, accusation--that
is not from God. His conviction brings a desire for repentance; satans
accusation kills our hearts. Often before I head out on a mission of some
sort, I will ask God for his advance words to me. Its proven to be a vital
part of staying close to Him and avoiding disaster.
Third, we get alongside those who walk with God. I hope you will find a few
folks who walk with God to also walk with you through the seasons of your
life. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. (Prov. 13:12) The enemy will try to
bring blows to you to turn your glory into shame. These blows arent random
or incidental. They strike directly at some part of the heart, turn the very
thing God created to be a source of celebration into a source of shame.
And so you can at least begin to discover your glory by looking more closely
at what you were shamed for. Look at whats been assaulted, used, abused.
Through the hearts wound, I see its secret. He wants truth in the inmost
being, and to get it there hes got to take us into our inmost being. One way
hell do this is by bringing up an old memory. However he brings it up, go
with him there. He has something to say to you.
96
I went through some healing, over the course of several months my whole
system of perfectionism-so-as-not-to-be-seen unraveled. Maybe the
thought began to creep in maybe the world has been wrong about me.
The world has been wrong about you. Theyve hated your glory-just as the
evil one hates the glory of God. But we need your gift. Come forth. I began
to believe the truth, and it set me free. Having a doctrine pass before the
mind is not what that Bible means by knowing the truth. Its only when it
reaches down deep into the heart that the truth begins to set us free. And so
Ive started offering my heart. Ive started saying no to the voice of the
enemy that calls me to fearfully tone down, edit, and control my words and
my actions for fear of offending or bringing on rejection and shame.
Instead, Ive been stepping out. Ive been sharing what I see of my God and
in my friends. Ive chosen to offer my presence, my heart, and my love,
instead of trying endlessly to figure out what else I should offer. Ive chosen
to believe I am loved and safe with God. Do you believe you are loved by
God and are safe with Him?
Much of what troubles us comes out of the broken places in our hearts
crying out for relief. When Jesus brought something up I asked him to come
and heal those wounds and bring what was true about my heart to my heart.
And he did; he counseled me deeply. Without your heart you cannot hope to
find God, for the heart is his dwelling place. If you ignore your heart, its like
looking for him everywhere but at home. He brings his comfort and mercy to
those times and places where we suffered the shattering blow, and the
heart in that place often feels the same age as it was at the time of the
event, even though it might have been decades ago. Walking with God
leads to receiving his intimate counsel, and counseling leads to deep
restoration. When we are in the presence of God, removed from
distractions, we are able to hear him more clearly, and a secure
environment has been established for the young and broken places in our
hearts to surface.
The evil one is still lying to us, seeking our agreement every single day.
Your heart is good. Your heart matters to God. These are the two hardest
things to hang on to. Be careful what or who you are agreeing with. The
whole plan is based on agreements. When we make those agreements with
the demonic forces suggesting things to us, we come under their influence.
It becomes a kind of permission we give the enemy, sort of like a contract.
Maybe half the stuff people are trying to work through in counseling offices,
or pray about in their quiet times, is simply agreements theyve made with
the enemy.
The religious Spirit has turned discipleship into a soul-killing exercise of

principles. So heres a bottom-line test to expose the Religious Spirit: if it
doesnt bring freedom and it doesnt bring life, its not Christianity. If it
doesnt restore the image of God and rejoice in the heart, its not
97
Christianity. So much light could be shed on our lives if we would explore
what we were meant to be before things started going wrong. What were we
created to do? What was our original job description? Gen. 1:26-28. And let
them rule. God appoints us as the governors of his domain. We were
created to be the kings and queens of the earth (small k, small q). The idea
of rule means a fierce exercise of mastery. It is active, engaged, and
passionate. It is fierce. Now, what will be our role in the kingdom of God to
come?
During some of our hard times, we werent blowing it, nor was God holding
out on us. It was training. We are made to rule. We need to learn how.
Spiritual Warfare is a great deal of our training. We need to hear a persons
story to get some understanding and context of whats going on in their
heart and life. This is the stream of Counseling. I always listen carefully for
the wounds, for how we mishandle them, and for where the enemy has
probably come in. The enemy will always try to get you to do to someone
what he is doing to that person. The word foothold from Ephesians 4:26-27,
means more than just opportunity. It conveys a place of influence, even
strong influence. Paul is not writing about non-Christians; he is clearly
speaking to believers and he is making I clear that we can have demonic
footholds in our lives. That is why, before we could go after those enemies
of Stephens heart, he first had to confess his part in the mess. That is why,
before we could go after those enemies of Stephens heart, he first had to
confess his part in the mess. Bitterness is one example of letting the sun
go down on an issue, and giving the devil a foothold. By bringing those sins
under the blood of Christ, the enemy has lost his hold.
The major ways we give claim to the enemy in our lives are through sin and
through making agreements with him. Most of our sins fall under the
category of pride (independence from God, self-sufficiency) and idolatry
(giving our devotion or our fear or any part of the heart to something other
than God). In this part of the prayer we humble ourselves by declaring
Gods rightful place in our lives. And we ask him to search us so that we
might confess any sin or agreement weve unknowingly made with our
enemy. The following is the prayer we pray when we need clarity
My dear Lord Jesus, I come to you now to be restored in you- to renew my

place in you, my allegiance to you, and to receive from you all the grace and
mercy I so desperately need this day. I honor you as my Sovereign Lord,
and I surrender every aspect of my life totally and completely to you. I give
you my body as a living sacrifice; I give you my heart soul, mind, and
strength; and I give you my spirit as well. I cover myself with your blood, my
spirit, my soul, and my body. I ask your Holy Spirit to restore my union with
you, seal me in you, and guide me this time of prayer.
Dear God, holy and victorious Trinity, you alone are worthy of all my
98
worship, my hearts devotion, all my praise and all my trust and all the glory
of my life. I worship you, bow to you, and give myself over to you in my
hearts search for life. You alone are Life, and you have become my life. I
renounce all other gods, all idols, and I give you the place in my heart and in
my life that you truly deserve. I confess here and now that it is all about
you, God, and not about me. You are the Hero of this story and I belong to
you. Thank you for your forgiveness and constant cleansing that comes
every time I talk to you. Search me and know me and reveal to me any
aspect of my life that is not pleasing to you, expose any agreements I have
made, and grant me the grace of a deep and true repentance.
Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me and choosing me before you
made the world. You are my true Father- Creator, my Redeemer, my
Sustainer, and the true end of all things, including my life. I love you, trust
you, I worship you. Thank you for proving your love for me by sending your
only Son, Jesus, to be my substitute and representative. I receive him and
all his life and all his work, which you ordained for me. Thank you for
including me in Christ and granting me his righteousness, for making me
complete in him. Thank you for making me alive with Christ, raising me with
him, seating me with him at your right hand, granting me his authority, and
anointing me with your Holy Spirit. I receive it all with thanks and give it
total claim to my life.
Jesus, thank you for coming for me, for ransoming me with your own life. I
honor you as my Lord; I love you, worship you, and trust you. I sincerely
receive you as my redemption, and I receive all the work and triumph of
your crucifixion, whereby I am cleansed from all my sin through your shed
blood, my old nature I s removed, my heart is circumcised unto God, and
every claim being made against me is disarmed. I take my place in your
cross and death, whereby I have died with you to sin and tom my flesh, to
the world, and to the Evil One. I am crucified with Christ, and I have
crucified my flesh with all its passions and desires. I take up my cross and
crucify my flesh with all its pride, unbelief, and idolatry. I put off the old
man. I now bring the cross of Christ between me and all people, all spirits,
all things. Holy Spirit apply to me the fullness of the work of the crucifixion
of Jesus Christ for me. I receive it with thanks and give it total claim to my
life.
Jesus, I also sincerely receive you as my new life, my holiness and

sanctification, and I receive all the work, and triumph in your resurrection,
whereby I have been raised with you to a new life, to walk in newness of
life, dead to sin and alive to God. I am crucified with Christ, and it is no
longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. I now take my place in your
resurrection, whereby I have been made alive with you; I reign in life
through you. I now put on the new man in all holiness and humbly, in all
righteousness and purity and truth. Christ is now my life, the one who
99
strengthens me. Holy Spirit, apply to me the fullness of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ for me. I receive it with thanks and give it total claim to my life.
Jesus, I also sincerely receive you as my authority and rule, my everlasting

victory over satan and his kingdom and I receive all the work and triumph of
you ascension, whereby satan has been judged and cast down, his rulers
and authorities disarmed, all authority in heave and on earth give to you,
Jesus, and I have been given fullness in you, the Head over all. I take my
place in your ascension, whereby I have been raised with you to the right
hand of the Father and established with you in all authority. I bring your
authority and your kingdom rule over my life, my family k, and my domain.
And now I bring the fullness of your work, your cross, resurrection, and
ascension against satan against his kingdom and against all his emissaries
and all their work warring against me and my domain. Greater is He who is
in me than he who is in the world. Christ has given m authority to overcome
all the power of the evil one, and I claim that authority now over and against
every enemy, and I banish them in the name of Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit,
apply to me the fullness of the work of the ascension of Jesus Christ. I
receive it by faith and with thanks and give total claim to my life.
Holy Spirit, I sincerely receive you as my counselor, my comforter, my

strength, and my guide. Thank you for sealing me in Christ. I honor you as
my Lord, and I ask you to lead me into all truth, to anoint foe for all of my life
and walk and calling, and to lead me deeper in Jesus today. I fully open my
life to you in ever dimension and aspect, my body, my soul, and my spirit-
choosing to be filled with you, to walk in step with you in all things. Apply to
me, blessed Holy Spirit, all of the work and all of the gifts in Pentecost. Fill
me afresh, Blessed Holy Spirit. I receive you with thanks and give you total
clam to my life. Heavenly Father, thank for granting to me every spiritual
blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. I receive those blessing into my
life today, and I ask the Holy Spirit to bring all those blessing in my life this
day. Thank you fro the blood of Jesus. Wash me once more with his blood
from every sin and stain and evil device. I put on your armor, the belt of
truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the readiness of the
gospel of peace, the helmet of salvation. I take up the shield of faith and
sword or the Spirit, the word of God, and wield these weapons against the
evil one in the power of God. I choose to pray at all times in the Spirit, to be
strong in you, Lord, and in your might.
Father thank you for your angels. I pray that you would release them to war
for me and my household. May they guard me at all times this day. Thank
you for those ho pray for me; I confess I need their prayer, and I ask you to
send forth your Spirit and rouse them, unite them, raising up the full canopy
of prayer and intercession for me. I call forth the kingdom of the Lord Jesus
Christ this day throughout my home my life and domain. I pray all of this in
100
the name of Jesus Christ, with all glory and honor and thanks to him.
Weve been praying along these lines for several years now. Every time we
do its like a fog lifting, the clouds break, and suddenly faith is obvious, God
is near, we see again, and we can breathe. Give it a week or two, youll see.
The first Christians or the followers of the Way lived together, ate together,
fought together, celebrated together. They were intimate allies; it was a
fellowship of the heart. When Neo is set free from the Matrix, he joins the
crew of the Nebuchadnezzar. When they go back into the Matrix to set
others free, each one has a role, a gifting, and a glory. They function as a
team. And they watch each others back. Though we are part of a great
company, we are meant to live in little platoons. The little companies we
form must be small enough for each of the members to know one another
as friends and allies and who will fight for your heart.
The four streams are something we learn, and grow into, and offer one
another, within a small fellowship. We hear each others stories. We
discover each others glories. We learn to walk with God together. We pray
for each others healing. We cover each others back. Devotion takes place
in small units, just as in a family. A group is the right size, when each
member can pray for every other member, individually and by name. The
sort of devotion we want and need takes place within a shared life. Over the
years our fellowship has gone camping together. We play together, help
one another move; paint a room; find work. We throw great parties. We fight
for each other, live in the four streams. This is how it was meant to be.
One time I suggested something my group should do; write down on a

piece of paper five words or phrases that capture your life right now. What
does it feel like? Dont edit. Dont make it sound better than it is. How are
you doing? It began an incredible eye-opening journey. I then asked, what
stories or scenes or characters help you interpret those words, help you see
whats going on, give a context to your words for your life right now? You
see, no experience or feeling provides its own interpretation. Are you Elijah
on Mount Carmel, on the brink of great victory? Or are you Paul in
Thessalonica, and youd better get out of town, fast?
There are two things you now have that you didnt have before, and they
enable this sort of fellowship to work. First, you know the heart is good.
That is the missing key in most fellowships. Your heart is good, and the
others hearts are good. This makes it so much easier to trust and to
forgive. Knowing full well that we all are facing battles of our own, we give
one another the benefit of the doubt. Leigh isnt intentionally being distant
from me--shes probably under an assault. Thats why you must know each
others stories; know how to read each other. Community cannot live
without solitude. We first must go to God alone, so that we have something
101
to bring back to the community. I know my community needs me; everyone
is coming over tonight. So Id better get with God this afternoon. I want to
contribute. I want to play a vital role.
Celtic Spirituality is not a top-down form of church, but bottom-up. It allows

spirituality to flow from the heart. It allows the five senses to be used. Its
creative. Its a flowering of creative arts. Its an expression of Christianity
which believes that to be Christian is to be fully human. Your heart matters
to God, it has always mattered to God. Roy Orbison sang if not for my
careless heart, and it might be the anthem for our lives. Things would be
different. I would be farther along. My faith would be much deeper, my
relationships so much better. My life would be on the path God meant for
me... if not for my careless heart.
We live completely backward. We are called to live in a way that we store

up reserves in our hearts and then offer from a place of abundance. God is
the most joyous being in the universe. Has it ever occurred to you that God
is such a loving and generous person because his heart is filled, like a
reservoir, with joy? Care for your heart for the sake of others. What will you
bring to others if your heart is empty, dried up, pinned down? Love is the
point. And you cant love without your heart, and you cant love well unless
your heart is well. Caring for your heart is also how you protect your
relationship with God. You cannot cut off your heart and expect to hear from
God.
What brings you life? For some its music, for others its reading; for still
others its gardening. You know what makes your heart refreshed, the
things that make you come alive. We need beauty. We need to drink in
beauty wherever we can get it, in music, in nature, in art, in a great meal
shared. These are all gifts to us from Gods generous heart. Friends, those
things are not decoration to a life, they bring us life. Ps. 104:15. We need
silence and solitude.
Mark 1:32-38. If Jesus really wants to launch his ministry, increase sales,
expand his audience, this sure looks like the chance to do it. What does he
do? He leaves, He walks away. Everyone is looking for you! Oh, really
then wed better leave. It cracks me up. Wendell Berry might have been
writing of Jesus when he said, His wildness was in his refusal--or his
inability--to live within other peoples expectations. We are just the
opposite; our entire lives are rules by the expectations of others, and when
we live like that, the heart is always the first thing to go.
What does your heart need? A simple starting place would be to ask God
what do you have for my heart? Youll be stunned by what he guides you
into. In my small group one night, wed taken an evening to write down the
things wed love to see happen in our lives in the coming year. Its a simple
102
way of listening to what your heart needs: what do you want? What is your
heart longing for?
Hyenas cannot bring down a lion in its prime. What they do is run it and
taunt it and wear it down to the point of exhaustion. Once they see it cannot
defend itself, then they close in. The strategy of our enemy in the age we
live in now is busyness or driven-ness. An affair isnt even appealing when
you have the real deal. Its the famished heart that falls for seduction.
Ransomed Heart
Arent you thirsty? Listen to your heart. There is something missing. You
long to be in a love affair, an adventure. You were made for something
more. You know it. Frustrated by our hearts continuing sabotage of a dutiful
Christian life, some of us silence the voice by locking our heart away in the
attic, feeding it only the bread and water of duty and obligation until it is
almost dead, the voice now small and weak. We make sure to maintain
enough distance between ourselves and others, and even between
ourselves and our own heart, to keep hidden the practical agnosticism we
are living now that our inner life has been divorced from our outer life.
If there is meaning to this life, then why do our days seem so random? No
wonder we keep losing heart. We find ourselves in the middle of a story that
is sometimes wonderful, sometimes awful, often a confusing mixture of
both, and we havent a clue how to make sense of it all. With every step of
our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to
misunderstand. Walk into any mall and you will see a large map the red
start and the encouraging words you are here. Oh, that we had something
like this for our lives. This is the Story in which you have found yourself.
Here is how it got started. Here is where it went wrong. Here is what will
happen next. Now this is the role youve been given. If you want to fulfill
your destiny, this is what you must do. These are your cues. And here is
how things are going to turn out in the end. We can discover the story.
Maybe not with perfect clarity, but in greater clarity than most of us now
have.
The heart is central. It is addressed in the Bible more than any other topic.
The Bible sees the heart as the source of all creativity, courage, and
conviction. The heart is central; to find our lives, we must make it central
again. Were not fully convinced that Gods offer to us is life. We have
forgotten that the heart is central. Id love to wake each morning knowing
exactly who I am and where God is taking me. Zeroed in on all my
relationships, undaunted in my calling. Its awesome when I do see. But for
most of us, life seems more like driving along with a dirty windshield and
then turning into the sun. In the end, it doesnt matter how well we have
performed or what we have accomplished-a life without heart is not worth
living.
103
To lose heart is to lose everything. It isnt just the addictions and affairs and
depression and heartaches, though, God knows, there are enough of these
to cause even the best of us to lose heart. But there is the busyness, the
driven-ness, the fact that most of us are living merely to survive. Beneath it
we feel restless, weary, and vulnerable.
All of these stories (Braveheart, Titanic, Star Wars series, Gladiator, Lord of
the Rings trilogy) borrow from the Story. We hear echoes of it through our
lives; some secret written on our hearts; a great battle to fight, and someone
to fight for us. An adventure, something that requires everything we have,
something to be shared with those we love and need. Christianity, in its true
form, tells us that there is an Author and that he is good, the essence of all
that is good and beautiful and true, for he is the source of all these things. It
tells us that he has set our hearts longings within us, for he has made us to
live in an Epic.
We have grown dull toward this world in which we live; we have forgotten
that it is not normal or scientific in any sense of the word. It is fantastic. It is
fairy tale through and through. Really now. Elephants? Caterpillars? Snow?
At what point did you lose your wonder at it all. He enables us to love. He
gives us the greatest treasure in all creation: a heart. For he intends that we
should be his intimate allies who join in the Sacred Circle of intimacy that is
the core of the universe, to share in this great Romance.
At one point in my own spiritual pilgrimage, I stopped to ask myself this

question: What is it that I am supposed to be doing to live the spiritual life in
any way that is both truthful and passionately alive? The clue as to who we
really are and why we are here comes to us through our hearts desire. The
Lord is a warrior. He has come to rescue us.
In all of our hearts lies a longing for a Sacred Romance. Philosophers call
this Romance, this heart yearning set within us, the longing for
transcendence; the desire to be part of something larger than ourselves, to
be part of something out of the ordinary that is good. The deepest part of
our heart longs to be bound together in some heroic purpose with others of
like mind and spirit.
The Romance has most often come to us in the form of two deep desires:
the longing for adventure that requires something of us, and the desire for
intimacy-to have someone truly know us for ourselves, while at the same
time inviting us to know them in the naked and discovering way lovers come
to know each other on the marriage bed. These two desires come together
in us all as a longing to be in a relationship of heroic proportions.
God created us in freedom to be his intimate allies, not religion, not good
church people, but Lovers, Allies, Friends of the deepest sort. God warned
104
back in the Garden that the price of disobedience would be death. Not just a
physical death, but a spiritual death-to be separated from God and life and
all the beauty, intimacy, and adventure forever. It is the thoughts and intents
of the heart that shape a persons life. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
Everything you love is what makes a life worth living. What is the real point
of our existence? Jesus boiled it all down to loving God and loving others.
Do this, he said, and you will find the purpose of life. We know love is the
point. We know if we could truly love, and be loved, and never lose love, we
would finally be happy. And is it even possible to love without your heart?
Men are made for battle. Adventure is a deeply spiritual longing in the heart
of every man. Every woman is in some way searching for or running from
her beauty and every man is looking for or avoiding his strength. God
yearns to share a life of beauty, intimacy, and adventure with us. I have
loved you with an everlasting love. This whole world was made for
romance-the rivers and the glens, the meadows and the beaches. Flowers,
music, a kiss. So God endows Woman with certain qualities that are
essential to relationship, qualities that speak of God. She is inviting, tender,
embodies mercy, intimate and alluring, and fiercely devoted.
Beauty is powerful. It may be the most powerful thing on earth. It is

dangerous because it matters. Remember what its like to come into a
beautiful place, a garden or a meadow or a quiet beach. There is room for
your soul. It expands. You can breathe again. You can rest. That is what
beauty says: All shall be well. Beauty is transcendent. It is our most
immediate experience of the eternal. Think of what its like to behold a
gorgeous sunset or the ocean at dawn. Remember the ending of a great
story. We yearn to linger, to experience it all our days. Sometimes the
beauty is so deep it pierces us with longing, for life as it was meant to be.
Beauty speaks of heaven to come, when all shall be beautiful. Beauty draws
us to God.
We yearn to be fruitful, to do something of meaning and value that flows

naturally out of the gifts and capacities of our own soul. We were meant to
be the kings and queens of the earth. Awake, come fully alive, your good
heart set free and blazing for him and for those yet to be rescued. You have
a glory that is needed. You are given a quest, a mission that will take you
deep into the heart of the kingdom of darkness, to break down gates of
bronze and cut through bars of iron so that your people might be set free
from their bleak prisons. You must not go alone. You must cling to those
intimate allies that you have.
As our soul grows in the love of God and journeys forth toward him, our
hearts capacities also grow and expand: Though shall enlarge my heart.
(Ps. 119:32) The word passion means to suffer. This is why many
Christians are reluctant to listen to their hearts: They know that their
105
dullness is keeping them from feeling the pain of life. Many of us have
chosen simply not to want so much; its safer that way. Awakened souls are
often disappointed, but our disappointment can lead us onward, actually
increasing our desire and lifting it toward its true passion. Beauty helps us in
our letting go. Beauty is the closest thing we have to fullness without
possessing on this side of eternity. The Romance tells us life will flourish
when we give it away in love and heroic sacrifice.
The church viewed the gospel as a Romance, a cosmic drama whose

themes permeated our own stories and drew together all the random
scenes in a redemptive wholeness. Do not forsake the secret of life; we
abandon the most important journey of our lives when we abandon desire.
We leave our hearts by the side of the road and head off in the direction of
fitting in, getting by, being productive, what have you. The display of Gods
works through our wounds, losses, and sufferings is yet to be revealed.
And so, we groan and we wonder.
Paul says, arm yourselves, and the first piece of equipment he urges us to
don is the belt of truth. We arm ourselves by getting a good, solid grip on
our situation, by getting some clarity on the battle over our lives. Gods
intentions toward us are life. Even in the bliss of life there is a certain
exquisite pain: the pain of too much beauty, of overwhelming magnificence.
Further, no matter how perfect a love may be, it is never really satisfied, in
both joy and pain, love is boundless. Jesus extends the offer to anyone who
realizes that his life just isnt touching his deep desire: If you are thirsty,
come to me! If you believe in me, come and drink! To the weary Jesus
speaks of rest. To the lost, he speaks of finding your way. Again and again,
Jesus takes people back to their desires. Ask, seek, knock-these words
invite and arouse desire. What is it that you want? They fall on deaf ears if
there is nothing youre hungry enough to bang on a door over.
The enemys strategy is to disconnect us from our heart and the heart of
God toward us by any means possible. Our experience of life deteriorates
from the passion of a grand love affair, in the midst of a life and death battle,
to an endless series of chores and errands, a busyness that separates us
from God, each other, and even from our own thirstiness. All of these
smaller stories offer a taste of meaning, adventure, or connectedness. But
none of them offer the real thing. Are you taking the necessary steps to
keep the thirstiness in your heart alive for God?
The danger of disowning desire is that it sets us up for a fall. Eventually, we

find some means of procuring a taste of the life we were meant for. Our
souls are designed to flourish in an atmosphere rich in love and meaning,
security and significance, intimacy and adventure. Nature at the height of its
glory shouts, beauty is essential! Our intense desire for eternal and intimate
communion with God and each other in the midst of Paradise-is the desire
106
that Jesus himself placed in us before the beginning of the world. Nothing
less than this kind of unbroken communion will ever satisfy our desire. Only
Gods Spirit himself can free us or even bring us to our senses. Our
addictions prevent us from truly loving God and one another. God himself is
standing before us with a better offer. It seems at times that God will go to
any length to thwart the very thing we most deeply want. The things we do
to save our psyche, our self, those plans to save and protect our inner life,
those are the things that will actually destroy us. It is out of love that God
thwarts our imposter. God thwarts us to save us. We must be saved from
what really will destroy us. Venture out with God. We are made for union
with Him, and nothing about us works right without it.
Healing never happens outside of intimacy with Christ. The healing of our
wound flows out of our union with him. We can work on our issues. But
there is nothing to be done about our glory. Its so naked. Its the truest us.
You cannot love another while you are still hiding. You cannot love another
unless you offer her your heart. It takes courage to live from your heart. Be
what he meant us to be. It is about fully coming alive. If youre not pursuing
a dangerous quest with your life, then, you dont need a Guide. There are
too many twists and turns in the road ahead. In all the ins and outs of this
thing we call living, there is one narrow path to life, and we need help
finding it. Wisdom is not cramming our head with principles. It is developing
a discerning heart. We seek wisdom because were dead if we dont. The
Bible is full of counterintuitive direction from God. Thats why we need
revelation alongside wisdom.
You can begin to discover your glory by looking more closely at what you
were shamed for. Look at whats been assaulted, used, abused. Through
the hearts wound, I see its secret. Dont wait to forgive until you feel like
forgiving; you will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice
to forgive is made. If your forgiveness doesnt visit the emotional core of
your life, it will be incomplete. We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered
and we choose to extend forgiveness to whoever hurt you. Forgiveness
says, It was wrong, it mattered, and I release you. When God looks at you
he does not see your sin. He has not one condemning thought toward you
because of that blood. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered,
self-reliant; our strength will be our own. I dont trust a man who hasnt
suffered. Where a mans wound is, that is where his genius will be. First, the
wound was given in the place of your true strength, as an effort to take you
out. Until you go there you are still posing, offering something more shallow
and insubstantial. Therefore, second, it is out of your brokenness that you
discover what you have to offer the community. When we begin to offer not
merely our gifts but our true selves that is when we become powerful.
Little boys want to know, do I have what it takes? Little girls want to know,
am I lovely? Elijah became worn out from doing and badly needed
107
restoration of spirit. It is in the gentle whisper that he finds God. God desires
to talk with us in the quietness of our own heart through his Spirit, who is in
us. There is a place on each of our spiritual journeys where the Spirit also
desires to lead us into the desert. We must have a place in our lives where
we are removed from materialism, entertainment, diversion, and busyness
that the Vanity Fair of our society and culture immerse us in. The things sold
at the booths in the Fair are tranquilizers that separate us, and protect us,
from the emptiness and need of our heart. Our emptiness is often the first
thing we find when we face honestly the story going on in our heart. When
we lay down our false self and the smaller story of whatever performance
has sustained us, we experience the freedom of knowing that he simply
loves us where we are. We begin just to be, having our identity anchored in
him.
The spiritual disciplines of silence, solitude, meditation (heart prayer),

fasting, and simplicity practiced by Christ and passed on to us, bring us
through our emptiness and thirst into the presence of God. When we begin
to abide in Gods heart, the blades of grass on heavens outskirts no longer
puncture our feet.
Faith and love spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven. Our
courage for the journey so often falters because weve lost our hope of
heaven-the consummation of our Love story. The reason most men, to
quote Thoreau, live lives of quiet desperation is that they live without hope.
With Christ formed in us we will be ready to reign with Him. God really does
want you to know who you are. He wants you to be able to understand the
story of your life. The religious spirit has turned discipleship into a soul
killing exercise of principles. Most folks dont even know they can walk with
God, hear his voice. One day we will have glorified bodies with which to
partake of all the beauty of heaven. Every faculty will be an inlet of delight.
We do not want merely to see beauty. We want to be united with the beauty
we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become
part of it. And so we shall. He who has been faithful in the small things will
be given even greater adventures in heaven. Few of us ever sense that our
talents are being used to their fullest; our creative abilities are rarely given
wings in this life. Christ promises that we shall be actively fulfilling our total
design in the adventures of the new kingdom.
We must fight the forces that oppose our becoming whole and the enemies
of our hearts-those sirens that would seduce and shipwreck our desire and
those arrows that aim to kill it outright. How awful to reach the end of our
lifes road and find we havent brought our hearts along with us. Life is not a
game of striving and indulgence. It is not, as Henry Ford once said, one-
damn thing after another. Life is a desperate quest through dangerous
country to a destination that is, beyond all our wildest hopes, indescribably
good. To find the Land of Desire, you must take the Journey of Desire. If we
108
are to take up the trail and get on with our quest, weve got to get our hearts
back, which means getting our desire back.
How can we offer the stream of Counseling to one another unless we

actually know one another, know one anothers stories? The four streams
our something we learn, and grow into, and offer one another, within a small
fellowship. We hear each others stories. We discover each others glories.
We learn to walk with God together. We pray for each others healing. We
cover each others back. Church means community. The little fellowship of
the heart that are outposts of the kingdom. A shared life. They worship
together, eat together, pray for one another, and go on quests together.
Over the years our fellowship has gone camping together. We play
together; help one another move; paint a room; find work. We throw great
parties. We fight for each other, live in the Four Streams. This is how it was
meant to be. I love this description of the early church: All the believers
were one in heart.
God wants to live this life together with you, to share in your days and
decisions, your desires and disappointments. He wants intimacy with you in
the midst of the madness and mundane, the meetings and memos, the
laundry and lists, the carpools and conversations and projects and pain. Art
is, in the final analysis, a window of heaven. The heart cannot live on facts
and principles alone; it speaks the language of story, and we must rehearse
the truths of our faith in a way that captures the heart and not just the mind.
We were meant to remember together, in community. We need to tell our
stories to others and to hear their stories told. We need to help each other
with the interpretation of the Larger Story and our own. Remembering is not
mere nostalgia; it is an act of survival, our way of watching over our hearts
with all diligence.
The loss of sensitivity is the dullness that most people accept as normal. It
actually leads us into sin, to sensuality and lust. The deadened soul
requires a greater and greater level of stimulation to arouse it. Holiness is
not numbness; it is sensitivity. It is being more attuned to our desires, to
what we were truly made for and therefore what we truly want. All we truly
need is God.
Worship occurs when we say to God, from the bottom of our hearts, You
are the One whom I desire. As Thomas a Kempis prayer, There is nothing
created that can fully satisfy my desires. Make me one with You in a sure
bond of heavenly love, for You alone are sufficient to Your lover, and
without You all things are vain and of no substance. Augustine said our
hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. He is referring to desire.
We rehearse for the wedding now through worship.
109
Contentment is not freedom from desire, but freedom of desire. Being
content is no longer being ruled by your desires. God grants us so much of
our hearts desire as we delight in him (Ps. 145:16). God delights to give
good gifts to his beloved. But that old root would have us shift once more
from giver to gift, and seek our rest through being full. This is the turn we
must be vigilant to see, watching over our hearts with loving care. We are
expanded by longing, enlarged in the waiting. Something grows in us, a
capacity for life, love and God. There is actually a sweet pain in longing, if
we will let it draw our hearts homeward. What will you bring to others if your
heart is empty, dried up, pinned down? Love is the point. And you cant love
without your heart, and you cant love well unless your heart is well. You
cannot cut off your heart and expect to hear from God. Christian maturity is
the stage where we love ourselves for Gods sake, meaning that because
he considers our hearts the treasures of the kingdom, we do too. The hour
is late, and you are needed. Youll need everything that helps you see with
the eyes of your heart. You have a crucial role to play. It is a dangerous
thing to underestimate your role in the Story. You will lose heart, and you
will miss your cues. The heart is the center of life. We must bring the truth
into our hearts to guard and to guide our desire; this is the other half of our
mission.
How do we get to know a person? Through stories. Reminders of the Story

are everywhere-in film and novels, in childrens fairy tales, in the natural
world around us, and in the stories of our own lives. In fact, every story or
movie or song or poem that has ever stirred your soul is telling you
something you need to know about the Sacred Romance. Arent the
greatest joys and memories of your life associated with family, friendship, or
falling in love? Arent your deepest wounds somehow connected to
someone also, to a failure of relationship? There are no formulas with God.
He operates not like a system. But with all the originality of a truly free and
alive person. Take Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. He has them march
around the city blowing trumpets for a week. It works marvelously, of
course. It never happens again. Israel never uses that tactic again.
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Our souls
speak not in the naked facts of mathematics; they speak the images and
emotions of story. Our heart is made to live in a Larger Story; having lost
that we do the best we can by developing our own smaller dramas. The only
fatal error is to pretend that we have found the life we prize. One man called
such a life the sleep of prisoners. The most tragic day of all is to prefer
slavery to freedom. Bringing our heart along in our lifes journey is the most
important mission of our lives-and the hardest. It all turns on what we do
with our desire. If you will look around, you will see that most people have
abandoned the journey. They have lost heart. They are camped in places of
resignation or indulgence, or trapped in prisons of despair. Without this
burning (desire), we lose the meaning of our days.
110
No one gets all he desires; no one even comes close. What if life is a dress
rehearsal? What if the real production is about to begin? That is precisely
what Jesus says; he tells us that we are being shaped, prepared, and
groomed for a part in the grand drama that is coming. All the rest was
rehearsal-not for just a few shining moments, but for an eternity of joy. Lets
see, Im going to be alive forevermore, so if I dont get this done now, Ill get
to it later. This is important, for no human life reaches its potential here. He
had never once considered that he would be a great writer in the coming
kingdom, and that he was merely in training now. To desire is to open our
hearts to the possibility of pain; to shut down our hearts is to die altogether.
The full proverb reads this way: Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but
when dreams come true, there is life and joy.
Relationship is the most important thing in the universe. There are many
things God calls us to do, but loving well always comes first. Dont your
relationships feel opposed? They must be fought for. All the Enemy has to
do to destroy peoples lives is to get them isolated. In order for our longings
to be filled, we need the cooperation of others. We need others-its part of
our design. All our deepest longings require others to come through for us.
The reason we dont know what we want is that were so unacquainted with
our desire. If you are going to find a life worth living you simply must get
your heart back. You must head up into the high country of the soul, into
wild and uncharted regions and track down that elusive prey. We dont need
more facts, and we certainly dont need more things to do. We need Life,
and weve been looking for it ever since we lost Paradise. When we
abandon desire, we no longer hear or understand what he is saying.
Christianity has nothing to say to the person who is completely happy with
the way things are. Its message is for those who hunger and thirst-for those
who desire life as it was meant to be. He who has the Son has life. I John
5:12. Things are rarely what they seem.
Desire gives fervor to prayer, strong desires make strong prayers. The
neglect of prayer is the fearful token of dead spiritual desires. There can be
no true praying without desire. We dont pray like Jesus because we dont
allow ourselves to be nearly so alive. Pretending seems a much more
reliable road to Christian maturity. The only price we pay is a loss of soul,
of communion with God, a loss of direction, and a loss of hope. Without a
deep and burning desire of our own, we will be ruled by the desires of
others. I think of Charles, an attorney in his fifties who still doesnt know
what he wants to be when he grows up. There is Paul, a young man in his
twenties who doesnt know what to do with himself now that college is over.
He focused on grade and left his heart behind. Millions of souls are drifting
through life, without an inner compass to give them direction. They take
their cues from others and live out scripts from someone elses life. Its a
high price to pay; Too high. God is captivating Beauty. Our nature was
nailed to the cross with Christ; we died there, with him, in him. Your heart
111
has been set free. Gods intention is to use spiritual warfare to draw us into
deeper communion with himself.
Pleasure isnt nearly so much about true enjoyment as it is about

anesthetizing ourselves. Think about the relief your idols provide: Is your
desire truly and deeply satisfied, or does the relief come more through the
temporary absence of desire? We are usually too close to our lives to see
whats going on. Because its our story were trying to understand, we
sometimes dont know whats real or imagined. It often takes the eyes of
someone to whom we can tell our story, bare our soul. Our lives are not a
random series of events they tell a Story that has meaning. We arent in a
movie weve arrived at twenty minutes late; we are in a Sacred Romance.
There really is something wonderful that draws our heart; we are being
wooed. He created us for Himself, and now he is moving heaven and earth
to restore us to his side. His wooing seems wild because he seeks to free
our heart from the attachments and addictions weve chosen, thanks to the
arrows weve known.
Weve either given our heart to other lovers and cant get out of the
relationships, or weve tried our best to kill desire and live lives of safe,
orderly control. Satan comes with the offers of less-wild lovers, hoping to
deceive us in order to destroy our heart and thus prevent our salvation or
cripple our sanctification. When we are in the presence of God, removed
from distraction, we are able to hear him more clearly, and a secure
environment. The only thing more tragic than the things that have happened
to us is what we have done with them.
Every woman yearns to be fought for. She wants to be wanted. She wants
to be pursued. Every woman also wants an adventure to share. She wants
to be strong and a part of the adventure. A woman doesnt want to be the
adventure; she wants to be caught up into something greater than herself.
Every woman wants to have a beauty to unveil. There is also a deep desire
to simply and truly be the beauty, and be delighted in.
When you are with a woman, ask yourself, what is she telling me about
God? It will open up wonders for you. First, youll discover that God is
relational to his core, that he has a heart for romance. Second, that he longs
to share adventures with us-adventures we cannot accomplish without him.
And finally, that God has a beauty to unveil.
When a man withholds himself from his woman, he leaves her without the
life only he can bring. This is never more true than how a man offers-or
does not offer-his words. She is made for and craves words from him. A
woman knows, down in her soul, that she longs to bring beauty to the world.
112
One of the deepest ways a woman bears the image of God is in her
mystery. By mystery we mean something to be explored. God yearns to
be known. But he wants to be sought after by those who would know him.
This is crucial to any womans soul. You cannot simply have me. You must
seek and pursue me. I wont let you in unless I know you love me.
A woman is not a problem to be solved, but a vast wonder to be enjoyed.

Few women can or even want to just do it. Foreplay is crucial to her heart,
the whispering and loving and exploring of each other that culminates in
intercourse. That is a picture of what it means to love her soul. She yearns
to be known, and that takes time and intimacy. It requires an unveiling. As
she is sought after, she reveals more of her beauty. Every woman has a
beauty to unveil.
113
The Man Who Talked With Angels and Roland Buck
This is an account of one of my uncles last visitation by the angels before
his death. The following is edited from the tape as he shared it with his
congregation Sunday morning, October 14, 1979. I had an unusual
experience that made me think about how much God cares for the
individual. It has been about six weeks since Ive had a visitation from the
angels. God has given so many ways that He speaks. He speaks through
His Word, He uses human beings as agents to answer needs, and He uses
circumstances.
Last night in my office, I found out that the visit six weeks ago wasnt the
last one, because Gabriel and the angel that travels with him came in. My
head was down, and I was doing some meditating, and looking at the
Scripture. They came in just like those people on the television series, Star
Trek. I was breathless because I never get accustomed to their presence.
They were talking with me and gave me some beautiful truths about Gods
concern for the total person. Even our humanity is really a concern of God.
Then the telephone rang. I let it ring for a few minutes, because I hated to
be bothered with menial things like that while Gabriel was standing right
there. I finally picked up the receiver, however, and it was a little lady from
Sacramento.
Her first question was, have you seen any of them angels lately? Then
she told me that she had some needs, Ive asked preachers to pray for me.
Ive asked friends to pray for me. Nobody seems to know how to get hold of
God for me, and I dont even know if God knows about me. Im seventy nine
years old and my husband is sick. Would you, the next time you see one of
those angels, ask them to tell God that I really need some help?
I said to her, Well, theyre in here right now! She choked a little bit, so I
said, do you want me to ask them? That isnt really their work, because you
have the same kind of connection as they do to God. She said, Please
ask them. I was going to turn and ask, not because I expected any answer,
but Gabriel had been listening to the conversation. He evidently has a way
of picking up the sound without it coming through the receiver.
He told me that he heard what she said. He said, Tell Bonnie Thompson
that God already knows her need, and He cares for her and loves her! I
told her, and she let out a squeal, He knows my name! She hadnt told me
who she was earlier, so I didnt know her name. She said, I dont care if I
ever get this help, as long as I know God knows my name! This incident
brought to my attention once again, that God knows my name, and He
knows your name!
114
The following account of an angelic visitation is taken from my uncles
journal dated April 29, 1979.
Early this morning I was awakened about 2:10 a.m. by voices downstairs. I
went down, and as I suspected, Gabriel and his companion were there.
After a few words of comfort, Gabriel seemed to speak direct words from
God in the first person.
The Lord speaks now to you. All your life forces are in me. Your drives,
your talents, your skills, as you commit yourself, wholly, even your potential
springs from me. Bring these words to the world. I have loved you, cared for
you, yes; I have planned your steps, and when you would yield, have
directed your path. Your successes come from me; your wealth has come
from my hand. Your creative skills, your abilities to succeed are because of
Me.
Because of your failure to recognize Me and walk in my ways, you have

limited the Lord your God, your lives have been restricted so that you have
not known the potential of your life. As you make Him Lord of all, He will
also be Lord of what you can be, not only of what you are. (Exod. 31:1-6)
Money and its power belong to the one who directs the use of it. It is not a
force apart from the one who controls it, satan or God.
On two different occasions I have been told that Gods plan before He ever
made the earth was to take us to be with Him. Gabriel made this statement
that although people fail to agree as to whether they go through the Great
Tribulation, through half of it, or are raptured before, or dont believe in the
Great Tribulation at all, when Jesus comes, He is not going to look in
peoples minds to see what position they hold on this. Hes just going to look
in their hearts to see if Hes living inside. Gabriel went on to say that it would
be totally contrary to the character and nature of God for even one believer
to go through even one day of the Great tribulation time!
I will never forget an early morning hour in my family room when the giant
warrior angel, Chrioni, was given permission by God to speak with me
again. One of the things he told me was that Man will never fully
comprehend the love of God! He said that many of the people he and his
hosts had been sent by the Spirit to help, had defied God. They had shaken
their fist in Gods face and were filled with lawlessness and evil. Many were
in Satanism and witchcraft. They were Gods enemies. But God said,
Those people need help. Go and help them!
What can separate us from the love of God? We did nothing to earn it. So
even if you are completely away from God and sentenced to hell because
you havent accepted Him, His love reaches out, and He says, I want you! I
115
have room for you! I see God now, like I have never seen Him before, and I
feel that one of the purposes of these experiences has been for me to see
God like He really is!
On August 27th 1979 my uncle had another unusual experience from God.
It portrayed the great love of God. Here are his words; I was awakened
about 1 a.m., God allowed me to witness again His great plan in operation
for making us acceptable in his sight. Coming alive before me was the
message of Paul in Colossians 2 concerning the greatness of Jesus. He is
the head of all Gods forces. I saw the believer not only sharing in His life,
but in His accomplishments fulfilling the law. His death, His resurrection is
ours because of our faith in Gods operation. I saw Him strip Satan of his
authority and spoil him, never restoring it. He clothes us with confidence,
and forgives every sin.
Then something happened, and I was escorted into the presence of Jesus
by these angels. Like Paul, I am not sure if I was in body or spirit. I saw
Jesus, met Him, and talked with Him for the first time face to face. His
appearance was identical to that described by John in Revelation 1:13-18.
He appeared as the great judge of all. It is possible he will take on a
different appearance upon his return. What I was allowed to see was His
eternal appearance. His white hair hung to His shoulders. His face shown
like pure white light. He wore a wide gold belt that was contoured to partially
cover His chest.
My spirit leaped within me as He stated that His servants, these angels, had
been sent forth to compel men and women to come to the point of choice.
He made reference to the words that He himself had said, that which his
angels said, there was still room. He said to go out on the highways and
the hedges and compel them to come in. This is what Hes doing now.
Gods last call to the feast. This is all because of the Fathers great love for
them. He also spoke of the numberless hosts sent into all the world to help
prepare, and He used this term, the precious fruit of the earth for the
harvest, the redeemed souls that He has purchased and prepared.
Jesus stated that His purpose for this meeting was to remind me, and to
remind the world, of the urgency and importance of linking arms with Him
and telling the world that He really cares and telling the workers around the
world that they are not alone. There are missionaries who feel like theyre
working alone, but Jesus wants them to know there are workers sent forth
with sickles ready to work beside them in preparing the precious fruit of the
earth for the harvest. The countdown is nearly finished. The sickle has
been thrust in. We must be alert, awake, full of faith, alive with His Spirit,
and make each breath count for God.
116
Jesus stated that even the Great Tribulation would not separate men and
women from His love. He said that millions will be saved during that time by
their own death, in standing for God in those days.
He wanted me to carry the message to people who were worried about their
loved ones, wondering whether God really cared in bringing them as they
were, refusing and rejecting. Some may feel at that time of the trumpet
sound that many of these people have not made their start for God, but
Gods love still reaches them! Theyre going to seal their redemption by their
own death during that time. They will die and be united at the resurrection,
at the close of those days of sorrow, with their loved ones who have been
taken in the rapture when He returns for those that are His. Theres going to
be a great reunion as Gods great body moves out into the millennial days.
Jesus also said It would be totally contrary to the nature of God to cause
His people to dwell in His wrath! He then reminded me of 1 Thessalonians
5:9, where He said, God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain
salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. That word taken used in Matt. 24 was
prepared by God and only used once in the whole Bible, it means called to
one side in an affectionate manner. And in that great calling, He is calling
us as His bride to be with Him during that great joining of Christ to his
church.
The Lord allowed me to see that there are three barriers that stand between
man and God, and even if we got rid of every sin, we could still not
approach Him because we still have human fault, human failure. But He
said that by the covering of the Blood of Jesus Christ that sin is atoned for,
that human fault is covered, that human failure is no longer there.
Colossians 1:22 says that because of the body of His death, we have been
accepted, holy, unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. All three barriers
are gone.
When your faith is in the blood of Jesus, its not your performance. Its
based on His performance. When your faith is in what He has done, you are
covered, whether you wake or whether you sleep you are the Lords. The
Lord wants you to know that He has so much invested in you that He is
going to protect that investment. And Hes not going to let you out from
under that covering without a lot of effort. Gods plan is to make it easy to
come in and hard to get out. There is nothing we can do to enable us to
achieve the righteousness of Jesus that is given to us freely when we
believe in Him.
Many coincidences are angels on the job. God will never do anything to
violate His character. When He looks at man, he does not look at the evil
which has taken place, but He looks at the very heart of man. God gave the
apostle Paul a bigger brain capacity so he could write most of the New
117
Testament. God has a book for each person that trusts Him with all of the
good deeds and God doesnt record failure in heaven.
The Bibles highest purpose is to reveal the character of God.
Gods plan is to restore us to the place of total innocence and fellowship

with God which Adam and Eve enjoyed in the garden before sin came. God
says You have given Me your sins. I am giving them back to you now, and
letting you see the empty shells, the ashes of something that has lost its
power and its life. It is reduced to nothing because the fire of judgment has
been diverted to a substitute, and your sins which were there on the body of
that substitute, were destroyed. Jesus literally tasted hell for us, His body
being struck by the righteous judgment of God. We can joyfully say, His
wrath has been diverted from me to Jesus, and my sins were judged when
He was judged.
It is when we get down on the level of human need and take a person into
our hearts and actually meet their need that something is written down in
our book in heaven. There is not going to be a person present at this
believers judgment who will hear one harsh word of condemnation,
because Jesus has already paid our penalty through His death. Many more
people are going to be saved and turn to God when they see us doing
Gods work for Him by meeting their needs, then when we are trying to put
the bee on them for salvation. God wants us to fill up our good works book
in heaven so He can reward us.
118
When Heaven Invades Earth
The lack of miracles isnt because it is not in Gods will for us. The problem
exists between our ears. A renewing of the mind is needed, and its only
possible through a work of the Holy Spirit that typically comes upon
desperate people. If He performed miracles because He was God, then
they would be unattainable for us. But if He did them as a man, I am
responsible to pursue His lifestyle. We must learn how to enforce the victory
obtained at Calvary.
Kingdom means: Kings domain. The invasion of God into impossible

situations comes through a people who have received power from on high
and learn to release it into the circumstances of life. Turning from sin to God
is more the result of true repentance than it is the actual act. Repentance
means you change your way of thinking. And its only in changing the way
we think that we can discover the focus of Jesus ministry, the Kingdom.
Repentance is not complete until it envisions His kingdom. It was as though
He said If you do not change the way you perceive things, youll live your
whole life thinking that what you see in the natural is the superior reality.
Without changing the way you think youll never see the world that is right in
front of you. Its My world, and it fulfills every dream youve ever had. And I
brought it with Me.
Some things are only discovered by the desperate. Our abundant life is
hidden in the Kingdom realm. And only faith can make the withdrawals. The
realm of Gods dominion, that realm of all sufficiency, is the realm called the
Kingdom. The benefits of His rule were illustrated through His works of
forgiveness, deliverance, and healing. It was common for Jesus to teach so
He could explain what He had just done. Jesus reveals the attitudes that
help His followers to access His unseen world in the Sermon on the Mount.
The beatitudes are actually the lenses that the Kingdom is seen through.
Examine the promised result of each new attitude, receiving the Kingdom,
being comforted, obtaining mercy, seeing God, etc.
Grace is different from the Law in that the favor comes before the
obedience. Grace enables what it commands. The unseen world has
influence over the visible. Faith is the key to discovering the superior nature
of the invisible realm. It is the gift of God within to uncover. Faith provides
eyes for the heart. Jesus expects people to see from the heart. They
(Pharisees) became blind to His dominion because of their own corrupted
hearts and were judged for their unfulfilled potential.
All of the Fathers resources, all of His benefits, are accessible through faith,
but faith and love must work together like the two rails of a train track.
Learning how to see is not the purpose for our worship, but it is a wonderful
by-product. Those who worship in spirit and truth, as mentioned in John
4:23-24, learn to follow the Holy Spirits lead. Its in the environment of
119
worship that we learn things that go way beyond what our intellect can
grasp, and the greatest of these lessons is the value of His presence. Faith
lives within the revealed will of God.
When I have misconceptions of who He is and what He is like, my faith is

restricted by those misconceptions. If I believe that sickness is to the body
what sin is to the soul, then no disease will intimidate me. Faith is much
freer to develop when we truly see the heart of God as good. A woman who
needed a miracle once told me that she felt God had allowed her sickness
for a purpose. I told her that if I treated my children that way Id be arrested
for child abuse. She agreed and eventually allowed me to pray for her.
After truth came into her heart, her healing came minutes later.
God has created all things to speak of Him. The natural realm carries the
witness of His greatness, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. I was
provisionally healed 2000 years ago. There are no tumors in heaven, and
faith brings that reality into this one.
The fear of man is very strongly associated with unbelief. The fear of God
and faith are very closely related. Faith and love is the currency of heaven.
Faith comes by hearing. It is the listening heart, in the present tense, that is
ready for heavens deposit of faith. Even though we may know the will of
God from Scripture, we still need the Holy Spirit to help us with the
interpretation, application, and empowerment to perform His will. Fear
attacks the foundation of our relationship with God, our faith. Fear is faith in
the devil; it is also called unbelief. Issues such as bitterness, jealousy, and
hatred qualify as the decay of the heart that invites the devil come and give
influence, yes, even to Christians. Fear is also a decay of the heart. It
attracts the demonic in the same way as bitterness and hatred.
Some people would have no belief system were it not for the error of others.
Their thoughts and teachings are the antithesis of what others believe and
practice. As a result those who strive for balance become anemic. The word
balance has come to mean middle of the road, of no threat to people or the
devil, with little risk, and above all, the best way to keep our nice image
intact. Faith offends the stationary. Jesus was concerned about finding
people with faith, the kind He displayed. The whole nature of faith implies a
relationship with God that is current. The emphasis is on hearing, in the
now. I emphasize the use of testimonies to stir peoples hearts to believe for
the impossible so He might invade. Just as fear is a tangible element in the
spirit world, so faith is tangible there. Rest is the climate that faith grows in.
It comes out of the peace of God. What is restful for us is violent to the
powers of hell. That is the violent nature of faith.
This world is our assignment, but not our home. Our purpose is eternal.
The resources needed to complete the assignment are unlimited. The only
120
restrictions are those between our ears. Praise and worship are the primary
activities of heaven. Worship is our number one priority in ministry. When
the believer prays according to the revealed will of God, faith is specific and
focused. When the King of kings manifests His domain, the fruit of that
dominion is Liberty. It if is not free to exist in heaven, it must be bound here.
We can only bind or loose here what has already been bound or loosed
there. Once again, heaven is our model.
Heaven sets the standard for a Christians material world, enough to satisfy
the desires born of God and enough for every good work. James 1:13 and
the line in the Lords Prayer Lead us not into temptation, is actually a
request for God not to promote us beyond what our character can handle.
When promotion comes too soon the impact of our gift brings a notoriety
that becomes the catalyst of our downfall.
One of the most important messages Ive ever received came from Derek
Prince. It was a message on praise. In it he suggested that if we only have
ten minutes to pray we should spend about 8 praising God. Christ-likeness-
excellence with humility is the real goal. Promotion comes from the Lord. If
we spend more time developing a Kingdom heart, wed have more people in
key places of leadership. All of our Kings resources are at our disposal to
carry out his will. Consider the sparrow. Pray until theres a breakthrough.
Then exercise the authority given to execute His will over the circumstances
at hand.
Salvation was not the ultimate goal of Christs coming. It was the immediate
target, the marker in the lane. The ultimate goal was to fill each born again
person with the Holy Spirit. Gods desire is for the believer to overflow with
Himself, that we might, be filled with all the fullness of God. We could travel
off of this planet in any direction at the speed of light, 186,000 miles a
second, for billions of years, and never begin to exhaust what we already
know to exist. All of that rests in the palm of His hand. And its this God who
wants to fill us with His fullness. Hell give us His baptism of fire if well give
Him something worth burning.
Contentment short of Gods purposes would mean having to learn to live

with the enemy. The problem is not in receiving more of the blessing of
God. Its the refusal to give it away to others once we have received it
ourselves. The incomprehensible becomes possible because He is with us.
His presence makes anything possible. The Holy Spirit is released through
faith and compassion, and faith and compassion are never self-centered.
Jesus was completely dependent on what the Father was doing and saying.
Jesus often healed after being moved with compassion. I frequently detect
the leading of the Holy Spirit by recognizing His affection for someone else.
Being drawn to a person through compassion usually means that there will
be some realm of supernatural ministry to them, either with a word of
121
encouragement or a miracle of healing or deliverance. Loving people is
Christs agenda, and surrender of my own agenda makes me available for
His.
The word anointing means to smear. The Holy Spirit is the oil of God that
was smeared all over Jesus at His water baptism. He was to reveal the
Father. In doing so, He was to unveil the Fathers realm called heaven.
These miraculous ways helped to set something in motion that mankind
could inherit once we were redeemed. Heaven, that supernatural realm,
was to become mankinds daily bread. In the O.T., it was the anointing that
qualified a priest for ministry. Anointing brings supernatural results. Today,
the real issue is the priority we place upon His presence. Its difficult for
most to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit because we are so limited in our
experience with Him. If our study of the Bible doesnt lead us to a deeper
relationship (an encounter), with God, then it simply is adding to our
tendency towards spiritual pride. We are being saturated with His presence
in order that we might learn His voice.
The church cannot afford form without power, for it creates Christians
without purpose. Jesus, the model teacher, never separated teaching from
doing. He is the patter for this gift. Gods revealed Word, declared through
the lips of an anointed teacher, ought to lead to demonstrations of power.
Jesus said, The Father who dwells in Me does the works. Its apparent
that we speak the word, and the Father does the works, miracles. Moving in
the impossible through relying on God short-circuits the development of
pride. There comes a time when simply knowing truth will no longer satisfy.
Teaching must be followed with action that makes room for God to move.
God is a person, not a philosophy or a concept. Its time for those who have
encountered God to stop pandering to fear by watering down their story.
We must whet the appetites of the people of God for more of the
supernatural. Testimony has the ability to stir up that kind of hunger. God
has promised to back up our message with power if our message is the
gospel of His kingdom. God loves to feed those who are truly hungry. Are
you truly hungry?
The Holy Spirit directs, reveals, and empowers me to be and do what the
Word says. Unless Scripture leads me to Him, I only become better
equipped to debate with those who disagree with my way of thinking. We
must remember that the love of God is the greatest power in the universe.
We must be moved with the love of God to the point that we seek His face
until we are clothed with power from on high.
Jesus was driven by one overwhelming passion: pleasing His heavenly

Father. He said I must be about my Fathers business. He confessed that
obeying the Father remained His priority. It actually brought Him
nourishment, My food is to do the will of Him who sent me. Jesus life
122
illustrated what that pronouncement was all about-bringing salvation to the
spirit, soul, and body of man, thus destroying the works of the devil. This
was an expression of a kingdom that is ever increasing, and continually
unfolding. The gospel is the story of the Father wooing the heart of mankind
through His love. All the other stuff we do overflows from that discovery. I
learned a long time ago that more people are healed when you pray for
more people. Until we act on what we know, our knowledge is nothing more
than a theory. Real learning comes through doing. Character is shaped
through obedience. When Jesus returns will He find faith on the earth?
If we would learn would it means to not grieve and not quench the Holy
Spirit, we would know the secret to being full of the Spirit. Do not grieve the
Holy Spirit explains how our sin affects God. It causes Him grief. This
command is character centered. Departing from the character of Christ in
either of these ways brings grief to the Holy Spirit. Do not quench the Spirit.
This mandate is focused on our need to follow His leading. To quench
means to stop the flow of something. As the Holy Spirit is ready to bring
salvation, healing, and deliverance, we are to flow with Him. Failure to do so
hinders His efforts to bring us into the supernatural. My life reflects what I
see with my heart. I will not lower the standard of the Bible to my level of
experience. If you want to see people healed, look for those who are sick
and offer to pray for them.
If I minister to the needy, I give Him an opportunity to show His extravagant

love for people. We have grown fat on the theories of classroom Christians.
We must learn from those who just do it. I am responsible to protect what
God has given me. No one else has the assignment. Burning within my soul
is a piece of the original flame from the day of Pentecost. Learn how you
function best, and then function! If we teach, preach, or witness and nothing
happens, we must go back to the drawing board, our knees. Do not make
excuses for powerlessness. Some of our prayers are too general. God
could answer them and we would never know it. The absence of power is
even more costly than what the anointing costs. Win for the Lamb that was
slain the reward for His suffering. Power removes the middle ground.
Power exposes sin and brings people to a decision. To insure they didnt
forget, they were to build monuments that would help them to remember the
invasion of God into their lives. When the expectation grows, miracles
increase. When the miracles increase, testimonies increase as well.
This passage of Scripture makes a distinction between religious cities and

those known for sin. The religious city had a numbed awareness of its need
for God, while the sinful city was conscious that something was missing.
Religion is even crueler than sin. Jesus only did what He saw His Father do,
and He only said what He heard His Father say. When Mary first mentioned
the need for wine to Jesus, it is say to say He noticed that the Father was
not involved in doing any miracles for that wedding. Jesus again looked to
123
see what the Father was doing and now noticed that He was turning water
into wine. So Jesus followed His lead and did the miracle. Her faith so
touched the heart of the Father that He apparently changed the chosen time
to unveil Jesus as the miracle worker. Faith moves heaven, so that heaven
will move earth. There will be a generation that will catch this and will invade
the world system with this living testimony of who Jesus is! Without
miracles, there can never be a full revelation of Jesus.
Nothing thrills the heart more than knowing God. The disciples in the upper
room were to wait for Dunamis, the ability to perform miracles. A glass is
only full when it overflows. Fullness can only be measured by overflow. The
fullness of God ought to do more for me than give me a supernatural
language. But His purposes bring us into more, to a divine partnership in
which we become co-laborers with Christ. Power came to make us
witnesses. Power was displayed, and impossibilities gave way to the full
expression of Gods presence.
Some people place high value on the presence of God. The ones who do
enjoy fellowship throughout their day with the Holy Spirit are extremely
conscious of how He feels about their words, attitudes, and activities. In the
kingdom of God we only get to keep what we give away. I owe the world a
Spirit filled life, for I owe them an encounter with God. Without the fullness
of the Holy Spirit in and upon me, I do not give God a surrendered vessel to
flow through.
I believe angels have been bored because we live the kind of lifestyle that
doesnt require much of their help. Their assignment is to assist us in
supernatural endeavors. If we are not people of risk, then there is little room
for the supernatural. When the Church regains its appetite for the
impossible, the angels will increase their activities among men. A godly self
esteem is derived from doing as He pleases. Service is an overflow of
worship. In the natural we use signs to help us find a city, or a place of
business. Its practical. In the same say, signs and wonders are a natural
part of the Kingdom of God. They are the normal way to get us from where
we are to where we need to be.
We have nothing without the cross. Religion is unable to mimic the life of
resurrection with its victory over sin and hell. If Im the main subject, talking
incessantly about my weaknesses, I have entered into the most subtle form
of pride. By being sold on my own unrighteousness, the enemy has
disengaged me from effective service. The first place that faith must be
exercised is in our standing with God. The boldness we need is not self-
confidence, but the confidence that the Father has in the work of His Son in
us. Isnt it a greater from of humility to believe Him when He says we are
precious in His sight when we dont feel very precious? Doesnt it honor Him
more when we think of ourselves as free from sin because He said we are?
124
The only part of the past that we have legal assess to is the testimony of the
Lord. The rest is dead, buried, forgotten, and covered under the blood.
When God silences the voices of unbelief, it is usually because their words
could affect the outcome of a promise. The superior potential of this
generation has nothing do with our goodness, but id does have everything
to do with the Masters plan of placing us at this point in history. He leads us
only into a battle we are prepared to win.
The safest place in this war is obedience. In the center of His will, we face
only the situations we are equipped to win. Outside of the center is where
many Christians fall, facing undue pressures that are self-inflicted. His will is
the only safe place to be. Intimacy with God is our strong suit. Never allow
anything to distract you from this point of strength. There is something about
desperation for God that enables a person to recognize whether or not
something is from God.
We maintain our sharp edge as we recognize our need and passionately

pursue Jesus. This first love somehow keeps us safely in the center of
Gods activities on earth. First love is passionate by nature and dominates
all other issues in ones life. If they didnt correct this problem, God said He
would remove their lamp stand. A lamp enables us to see. The above
mentioned blindness or dullness is not always the kind that leads to hell. It
just doesnt lead us to the fullness of what God has intended for us while
here on earth. When passion dies, the lamp of perception is eventually
removed. Is your lamp burning brightly for God?
Every Christian is supposed to maintain a desperate heart for God.

Remaining poor in spirit, combined with a first love passion for Jesus are
keys God created to anchor us to the center of His work. Its that absence of
desperation that causes believers to miss God. Where no oxen are, the
trough is clean; but much increase comes by the strength of an ox. Messes
are necessary for increase. A humble heart keeps us useful to God. Risk
takers, the ones who thrill the heart of God, become the targets of those
who never fail because they seldom try.
The depth of wisdom was actually identified by these three attributes:

excellence, creativity, and integrity. Excellence comes from viewing things
from His perspective. A heart of excellence has no place for the poverty
spirit that affects so much of what we do. We must reveal who our Father is
through creative expression. It will be easy to distinguish between those
who are satisfied and those who are hungry. This anointing will also bring
about new inventions, breakthroughs in medicine and science, and novel
ideas for business and education. New sounds of music will come from the
Church, as will other forms of art. The list is endless. The sky is the limit.
Arise and create.
125
Religion is not only boring, it is cruel. It takes the breath out of every good
thing. True holiness is refreshingly good. An Olympic athlete will never get
to the games by gifting alone. Its the powerful combination of a gift brought
to its full potential through discipline. That is the picture of the Church
becoming a mature man. I do believe there is a maturity of function, without
jealousy, that will develop as His presence becomes more manifest. That
intimate love relationship with God will help us to receive all that He has
desired to release since the beginning of time. These manifestations of the
Holy Spirit will be taken to the streets where they belong. It is there that they
reach their full potential.
The word greater is mizon in the Greek. It is always used to describe

quality, not quantity. The message was to be a declaration of His lordship
and dominion over all things, followed by demonstrations of power,
illustrating that His world is invading ours through sings and wonders. As we
pursue the Extravagant One with reckless abandon, we will discover that
our greatest problem is the resistance that comes from between our ears.
And its time for us to make Him unconcerned about whether or not Hell
find faith on the earth when He returns. Are you pursuing Him today?
126
Favor Confessions
Today I will be a blessing to the Lord, I am a blessing everywhere I go,
the favor of the Lord is upon my life and it is making me rich
God is doing exceeding abundantly above all that I can ask or think
according to the dunamis power of God which is working in me
I am increasing in favor with God and with man; I am the head and not
the tail, God has crowned me with glory and honor
God is shining His face upon me this day, He is being gracious to me
today, I am filled with Gods fullness, and am rooted and grounded in
love
I like people and people like me, God is guiding me today, I am flowing
in Gods love and people are being healed
I reign in this life as a king through Jesus Christ. Romans 5:20, I am
growing in the Lord, I am waxing strong in spirit, and learning today
I have favor with God, with my teachers, boss. Just as the Lord brought
Daniel into favor, he is also bringing me into success
Esther obtained favor in the sight of all who looked upon her. I shall
have favor today with people. I shall have good relationships with
people today. I am sowing blessing into others and the Lord is
supplying seed to me. Im seeking first His Kingdom- Mat. 6:33
I love the Lord, God is blessing me, He honors me, I am strong like the
sun in full strength. God is with me. I am His honored son.
All things are mine, I am a son of God, a king and the Lords priest
today, failure and poverty is under my feet, satan is under my feet
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. God has blessed
me with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
I am flourishing like the palm tree. Gen. 14:19 says, I am blessed of the
Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth.
Joshua 1:8 says, Gods Word does not depart out of my mouth. I
meditate day and night upon the Word. I have good success.
The Lord is my Shepherd; I do not lack any good thing. Ps. 23, The
Lord has pleasure in my prosperity for I am His servant.
Ps. 65:11 says God crowns my year with His goodness, and my
footsteps drop abundance. Ps. 112:1,3 says I fear the Lord, and
delight greatly in Gods Word. Wealth and riches are in my house.
Proverbs 8:21, I love the Lord and He causes me to inherit substance.
He fills up my treasuries. Proverbs 22:4
127
Breaking Soul Ties
A definition of a soul tie: bonding together, knitting together of two souls in
mind, will and emotions. Soul ties are an ungodly covenant with another
person based on an unhealthy emotional and/or sexual relationship. This
covenant binds the two people together. God honors or recognizes these
covenants. He leaves us free to decide when and if we will appropriate His
provision to break or cut the ties and release both people.
Godly soul ties are good. 1 Samuel 18:1. Jonathan and David. Jonathans
soul was knit to the soul of David.
They can exist in healthy parent, child relationships, balance close
friendships, intimate, healthy marriages. They are a blessing from God.
Unity=strength.
Most common ungodly soul ties=fornication and adultery causes ungodly

soul ties. Unhealthy emotional soul ties. Girl friend/boy friend, first love
even if no sexual relationship (Later they may say or think things like, If Id
only married so and so, if the soul ties are not broken. Some child to
parent relationships are unhealthy like if the parent continues to control the
child when older, (not allowed to leave home etc.) hatred results. Any
friendship where the motivation of the relationship is impure, all of these
hinder relationship with God and with others, type of idolatry-causes:
emotional dependency, control, manipulation, or confusion.
A. Repent and confess and forgive yourself and the person who bound
you.
B. Break the tie and renounce it then break any sexual soul ties or bonds.
C. Break generational sex sins resulting in curses if applicable
D. Rebuke and bind any demonic spirits (tormenting, guilt, shame,

divination, witchcraft, control, manipulation)
E. Renounce and cancel the assignments of all evil spirits sent to attempt
to maintain the ungodly soul ties (jealousy, confusion, co-dependency)
F. Break any vows made
G. Call back every part that was given away (every emotion, will and
thought that was part of the bond through the blood of Jesus so it comes
back sanctified
H. Release the other person by sending back all that was taken from them.
(Every emotion, will, and thought through the blood of Jesus so it goes back
sanctified.
128
I. Pray healing over mind, will and emotions and ask for memories to be
cleansed and healed.
J. Thank the Lord for wholeness, holiness, and grace.
Sample prayer (will work if you pray from your heart)

Father God, in the name of Jesus, I come to you in complete trust! I repent
of wrong choices I've made in relationships. Forgive me for entering into
ungodly soul ties; for emotional and sexual sins. I choose to forgive each
person that I have been involved with in any ungodly way. I ask you, Lord,
to forgive me from my sin that resulted in an ungodly soul tie.
Lord I renounce and break all vows or promises made and ask you to
forgive me and release me from them. Lord, I receive your forgiveness and
thank you for your forgiveness and cleansing. I choose to forgive myself
and no longer be angry at myself, hate myself, or punish myself. Lord, I
break the ungodly soul ties with ______. I release myself from him/her, and
I release him/her from me through the blood of Jesus. I call back every part
of me that was given away, every emotion, will, and thought, that was part
of this ungodly bond and I call this back through the blood of Jesus. I
release everything that was taken from ___ in this ungodly bond, every
emotion, will, and thought through the blood of Jesus so it goes back
sanctified.
I pray that you would cause him/her to be all that you want him/her to be,
and that you would cause me to be all that you want me to be. Lord, please
heal and wash my mind from all memories of ungodly union. Make me free
to give myself to you and to the one you've chosen for me in marriage. I
renounce and cancel and break the assignments of all evil spirits attempting
to maintain these ungodly soul ties by the authority in the in the name of
Jesus Christ. I renounce and cancel jealousy, control, confusion, and any
co-dependency related to this ungodly soul tie.
I rebuke and bind any demonic spirits of torment, guilt, shame, witchcraft,
control, manipulation, or/and lust. Lord, thank you for restoring me to
wholeness. Let me walk in holiness by your grace. In Jesus name, Amen
You can pray this pray for every other person that you feel has formed an
ungodly soul tie with you. Leave the healthy soul ties in tact.
129
Finding the Right Mate for Life- Gods Purpose for a family
We all need companionship, friendships, and people we can relate to. The
moment were cut off from the people in our lives we begin to die inside.
The family is first and foremost a shelter for the storms in life. We all need a
place of stability, somewhere we can count on. So when the winds of
adversity are blowing, our family is our island of security.
The four blocks of turning a home into a shelter are, 1) Hear 2) hug 3) help
4) hope. You need a listening ear if you are going to build a shelter from the
storms of life. We all need physical affection in our family.
Your happiness in life is connected to how well you can get along with
others and how you relate with people in healthy ways. Healthy
relationships take effort, honesty, transparency, forgiveness, vulnerability.
Character is more caught then taught. God uses the family life to prepare
us for the launch into our ministry. If you cant manage your family well,
how can you manage the house of God? If you cant manage your own
finances, how can you manage the churchs finances? The way we treat
our family members is an indication to God of how we will treat others. If
you want to build a strong family you have to help them to get to know
Jesus, and help them to serve Him.
Eight Types of Relationships that wont Work

If you marry right, your life will be a heaven on earth. If you marry wrong,
your life will be a hell on earth. Marriage is a God-ordained blessing. A
good marriage develops your character as a person.
If you are in a relationship and you realize it wont work, get out of it today.
Dont waste another Kleenex box. God doesnt choose your mate for you.
He may have the best partner in His mind for you, but in the final analysis it
is still your decision. Proverbs 22 says he would finds a wife finds a good
thing. So you do the finding. You have to search and look; you need to put
some effort into it. Dont get too comfortable in your life if you know you are
not be single the rest of your life.
If you feel emotionally empty before you entered the relationship, you will
still feel empty. The emptiness that all humans feel can only be filled when
we surrender our lives to Jesus Christ. Falling in love takes a lot of energy
from you. When youre more in love you are pursuing. So in a healthy
relationship this role goes back and forth, back and forth. If you are the one
who is always doing all the pursing then you will end up feeling cheated,
miserable, anger, and hunger for love. You will feel controlled by your
partner.
130
Three myths about love
1- True love will conquer everything. Wrong. You need compatibility and
commitment. Not just passion and romance.
2-Youll know true love at first sight. Wrong. Reality is that true love takes
time to grow.
3- The perfect partner will fulfill you completely. Wrong. If you feel
incomplete going into the relationship, by the time your deep into youll be
finished. Only God can fully fulfill our needs.
Eight types of relationships that wont work

1) You care more about your partner than he/she does about you.
2) You are in love with your partners potential. The person, then, is not
your lover they are your project. Make sure you love and respect the
person that they are today. They should be enough for you as they are right
now. They can still grow of course, but a question you should ask is, if
your partner doesnt change the way they are right now, will they be enough
for you for the rest of your life, will you still be in love?
3) You are on a rescue mission. People on rescue missions often mistake

symphony for love. Do you often feel responsible for helping your partner
get his or her life together? Do you feel afraid that if you were to leave your
partners life will fall apart? If you answers yes to any of these you are
probably a rescue-holic. Rescue-holics dont look for partners who are
compatible. They get into relationships with partners they feel compelled to
help. They want to be the savior. The key word to remember is respect.
The person you choose to love must be someone you can feel respect for,
and be proud for who she or he is.
4) You look up to your partner as a role model. You cannot relate to each
others as equals. How can you have a balanced relationship? I am talking
about attitudes. People who fall in love with role models usually have low
self-esteems. How can you love someone if you dont love yourself? The
type that will work is that if you love and appreciate yourself as much as you
love and admire him or her.
5) You are infatuated with your partner for external reasons. Ask yourself,
If that person didnt have the beautiful brown eyes, would you still be with
him or her? Proverbs 31.
6) You and your partner are really trench buddies. Trench buddies are
people who are thrown into the trenches of unusual environments, and they
are able to live life together for a short while. In that period they become
intensely bonded together. Im not saying you cant meet your mate during
131
a vacation or a project. But the danger is this, that you become so
consumed by being together during that time that you forget the rest of that
relationship, you forget the rest of his or her personality.
7) You choose a partner to be rebellious.
8) Your partner is unavailable. The meaning of available is, free to be in

a relationship with you, not involved with anyone else, not engaged, alone,
single. When you get involved with someone who is in relationship with
another person you are accepting that persons leftovers.
Eight Fatal Flaws (Finding the Right Mate for Life)

If you or your partner has one or more of these, it doesnt mean that he or
she is not capable of a relationship. But it does mean that these
weaknesses can cause trouble in your love life.
1) Anger. Living with an angry person is like living with a time bomb. You
will feel controlled by his or her anger. You can never truly relax. Im not
talking about normal healthy anger. When we use our words to hurt others
we cross the line into sin. If shes quick to demean you or yell at you, its
not normal. If you see warning signs of this kind of anger in your partners
relationship, get out of it. There must be fruits of repentance.
2) Victim consciousness. It is an attitude that blames others for all of their

problems. If your partner has a habit of blaming others for his
circumstances you better watch out. To these people, everything will be
your fault. They will have a hard time of receiving your love. Victims enjoy
sufferings. Holding onto their pain gives them an illusion they have power
over those who hurt them. No matter how long you try to console them they
wont be cheered up. It drains the life out of you. If they dont want to
change, that relationship will not work.
3) Control freak. A control freak must make all of the decisions by

themselves. They dont want to admit that they need you. They are highly
possessive and jealous. They need so much of you that they want all of
you. If you love me, youll call me every 5 minutes. These people have
sexual problems because they cant let go. In order to change they have to
admit they have a problem. They have to let go and let God.
4) Sexual Immorality. Addiction and obsession. Pornography destroys

intimacy. Intimacy is a shared experience in closeness and connection
between two people. The lack of sexual integrity is part of this fatal flaw.
5) Your partner hasnt grown up. If you feel like you have to take on the role
of a parent in your relationship then your partner has fatal flaw number 5.
Your partners carelessness with finances will reflect his carelessness with
132
you. Jesus said to be childlike, not childish. Does your partner seem to have
no direction or purpose in life? Is your partner unmotivated? Does your
partner put off making decisions of any kind? Does your partner have
significant problems they are unwilling to face? Everything in the kingdom of
God grows incrementally. But some people stay in a seemingly permanent
immature state of mind. If you continue in this relationship you will lose all
respect, youll feel angry, taken advantaged of.
6) Emotionally unavailable. Stay away from partners who are emotionally

shut down. Why choose someone who has a hard time opening up and
spend half of your life trying to pry them open? Whats the point of being in
a relationship with someone who cant share with you how they feel about
you? You should expect your partner to be able to demonstrate basic
emotions. Can your partner talk about feelings? Is your partner emotionally
unavailable? The purpose of a relationship is to relate. Not just to keep
each other company. It means sharing feelings, ideas, and insights with
your partner. You have to find someone who is willing to do anything that
knocks down the wall that divides.
7) Hasnt recovered from past relationships. The more anger towards the
past you carry in your heart the less capable you are of loving in the
present. Does your partner seem emotionally fragile? Is your partner afraid
to trust you? If they are you may be with someone whose heart is not
healed enough to love you.
8) Emotional damage from childhood. Most of us carry emotional damage

from our childhoods. By the time you are 5 years old, 50% of who you are
emotionally is programmed. By the time you are 18 years old, 95% of you
are emotionally programmed. The good news is that God can take that
remaining 5% to help change the 95%.
Extreme religious flaky beliefs; Teaching from cults about sex or other
important relational matters that do not line up with the Word of God must
be addressed and dealt with.
If you or your partner has any of these, they can be changed. If your dating
partner does not want to change any of these, if they have them, then you
might want to reconsider going on in the relationship before you commit to
marriage.
Five Compatibility Time Bombs (Finding the Right Mate for Life)
1) Significant age difference. If your partner is 10 or more years younger or
older than you, its going to cause a lot of difficulties, in the area of patience.
A marriage is two coming together with equal standing. Im not saying a big
age difference cant work. It could only work if each others love is strong
and really want to be with each other.
133
2) Different spiritual conviction. When most couples are in love they only
focus on what they have in common. As the relationship matures, values
and convictions will come into play. The place of agreement is the place of
power.
3) Difference social, ethnic, or educational background. Common interest

makes living together comfortable. Im not saying that you and your partner
have to agree on everything, or that you both have gone through all of the
same experiences, but too many differences will create too many tensions.
You could never find a partner who is exactly like you. That would be too
boring. We become better and more well rounded people because of this.
But if these differences are too extreme it will create tensions or possible
conflicts. Things like your goals, values, how you raise your kids, how you
feel towards people who were not as fortunate in life etc. Find the common
grounds in your relationship.
4) Overbearing in-laws. You must gently but firmly establish your

boundaries with your in-laws.
5) Long-Distance relationships. A long distance romance makes it easier

to think that the relationship is better than it is. You will have an unrealistic
view of your compatibility in a long distance relationship.
Seven Qualities to look for in a Mate (Finding the Right Mate for Life)
Instead of looking for personality traits, we should be looking for character.
A murderer can have a sense of humor. Character determines how he or
she will treat himself/herself, how they will treat you, and how they will treat
your kids.
Commitment to personal growth. If you can find this in a mate then half the
battle will be won. If you both have commitment to personal growth then
when problems that need to be dealt with, will be dealt with when they come
up. You want a partner who is willing to live by what the Bible teaches
about love, forgiveness, acceptance, honoring one another, godly
relationships. Your partner ought to be willing to receive and want help
when they need it. Proverbs 12:1 says to learn you must want to be taught.
There are people who dont like to be helped; theyre so self-sufficient and
proud.
Emotional Openness= the person must be conscious of his blind spots or

emotional handicaps. It is dangerous to become involved with someone
who is oblivious to his own weaknesses or problem areas. Pride and
stubbornness will turn your relationship into a battleground. Staying in a
relationship with someone who cannot share their feelings is a form of self-
punishment. If you or your partner is shut down emotionally, how can you
love them, or how can they love you?
134
Integrity= this is the consistency of your character. Your actions match up
with your words. Your choices match your vision. Your behavior matches
what you believe. Honesty and trustworthiness are essential ingredients in
any relationship. You want someone who is honest with herself and with
others. Look for a partner who is upfront about how he feels and what he
wants, and someone whose actions match his ways.
Character of maturity and responsibility= Can he or she take care of

themselves? She will know how to be tidy and keep up her personal
hygiene. Our outward life is a reflection of our inward life. Maturity comes
with acceptance of responsibility. Responsibility is doing what you say you
will do. You will keep your promises.
Healthy Self-Esteem= A person with high self-esteem loves because she

feels good about herself. She comes from a position of freedom. The
healthier your partners sense of self-esteem is, the stronger your
relationship will be. Some of the signs of self esteem in a partner are that he
knows who he is in Christ. He knows that he is the head and not the tail.
Secondly he doesnt abuse himself and takes good care of himself. You
can tell about someones self-esteem by the way he treats himself. You can
see how he eats. A person who has no healthy self-respect will enlarge
himself with junk food. The way he takes care of his body. The way he takes
care of his clothes. Does he iron his clothes? Does he polish his shoes?
The way he takes care of his car. The way he treats his possessions. All of
these are reflections of his self-esteem. People who mistreat themselves
and dont care about it, may not treat you well also. Also he wont allow
others to abuse him. Christian meekness is not the same as weakness.
Meekness is the same as controlled emotions. Ladies want to marry a real
man, not a wimp. If you have no healthy self-esteem you will let others walk
over you. The more you love yourself, the less you will allow others to
mistreat you.(when you can help it) Paul said to live peaceably with
everyone as it is possible. Some situations you cant help it because its
persecution or tribulation for serving the Lord. Another area under this
quality is that he takes action in his life. A person with low self-esteem is
usually a procrastinator. He avoids actions because hes scared of failing
and feeling worse about himself. If you are a procrastinator its probably
because you have low self-esteem.
Positive attitude to life= Paul said to rejoice in the Lord always. If you are
going to spend the rest of your life with either a positive person or a
negative person, who will you choose? You want a positive partner who is
full of faith.
Personal Chemistry =you either have it or you dont. You and your partner
need to have some sort of personal chemistry to distinguish your
relationship from a friendship, otherwise what makes him or her so different
135
from the rest of your friends. Personal chemistry doesnt always have to be
instant. Gradual attraction is usually more genuine because you arent just
focusing on the way they look. The couples that were friends before they
fell in love have a much higher success rate. The best thing to do is to
befriend someone and then as you develop the relationship, grow and get
married. You need to have healthy physical attraction to your partner
unless you plan to keep sexuality out of your marriage. For those who have
lost this over time, it can be restored. If youve been seeing someone for
awhile and theres no chemistry, dont continue. Dont just go by personal
chemistry.
Compatibility and Commitment (Finding the Right Mate for Life)

Some people are not looking for a mate; they are looking for a relationship.
You should have a basic compatibility list. This consists of your value
system. Some questions to go with your spiritual style are, does my
partner have compassion for the lost and needy? Does he have a similar
speed of growth? Do they value prayer and worship?
What about the physical style? Appearance, etc. Eating habits. Personal
hygiene. What about professional and financial style? What about tithing.
Etc. Emotional health. Attitude towards romance and affections.
Communication style. Does he tell you whats going on inside of him? Can
he accept feedback? Willingness to discuss problems. Social style. Is he
outgoing? Humorous. Sexual style. This means the persons attitude
towards sex and morality. Does the person have a right biblical view of
what sex is? Maybe the persons been raped, or was a homosexual. You
dont want to interrogate, but to help. Maybe the person was violated and
they hate sex. This will be a problem if not dealt with. Background.
Intellectual style. Attitude towards learning. Creative mind. Cultural
expressions. Attitude towards world affairs. This doesnt mean everyone
you meet must be an expert at world affairs. But do you have something
thats compatible? Hobbies and interests. Music. You dont have to have
total compatibility in all of these areas. You must have very strong
compatibility though. The differences add spice and challenge and
opportunities for you. We learn to compliment and strengthen one another.
The two circles, over time, should become one. If over time, the two
spheres are moving apart, you will have a difficult time in living together.
Ask, would I want to have a child with this person? Would I want to have a
child just like this person? Do I want to become more like this person? Will
I be willing to spend my life with this person, even if he or she never
changes from the way they are right now? If your answer is no to one of
these, you are probably not compatible. If you keep your eyes open and be
sensitive to the Lords leading, you will find the best soul mate for you.
Every intimate relationship needs character, compatibility, chemistry, and

commitment. Without commitment your relationship is very shallow.
136
Commitment gives your relationship purpose. A relationship without a
purpose is like a ship without a rudder. Commitment invests you into a
relationship. A relationship without commitment is like renting a house.
Commitment creates emotional safety. Commitment frees you from
expending your emotional energy to everyone else, because you will begin
to focus on one. Some people are afraid of commitment because they have
the fear of choosing the wrong one, ending up like their separated parents,
or other fears. You can overcome all of these fears through avoiding the
wrong types of relationships, watching out for the character flaws, for
checking chemistry, compatibility, and watching for the seven qualities to
look for in a mate. God is going to help you. Commitment level number 1 is
agreeing with your partner that you and your partner will be committed to
only seeing one another and no one else. Commitment level number 2 is
working towards a partnership. Youre sharing more of your time with each
other and youre starting to think as we and not I. At this point you and
your partner agree that your relationship is worth developing into a
partnership. Commitment level 3 is your commitment to get ready for
marriage. Youre ready for this level when youre not always fighting and
youre sure you have a desire to spend the rest of your lives together. You
dont feel like checking other cell groups for other girls. Commitment level 4
is deciding on your wedding date and plan on living together after the
wedding. This is the commitment to spend the rest of your lives together.
You are your partner agree to continue working on your relationship.
Marriage is the total commitment of the total person for the total life.
Marriage is like a big magnifying glass. It will exaggerate any historic
problems in the relationship that were not dealt with.
137
Jewish Customs for Matrimony
The Jews had no dating or courtship. Marriage to them was a practical
legal matter, established by contract and carried through by exacting
procedure. These customs exist in a form today in the Jewish wedding
ceremony.
When the young man of Israel in Jesus time saw the girl he wanted (or the
girl his father said he wanted), he would approach her with a marriage
contract. He would come to her house with a covenant--a true legal
agreement--giving the terms by which he would propose marriage. The
most important consideration in the contract was the price the bridegroom
would be willing to pay to marry this particular bride. First of all, if the
bridegroom was willing to sacrifice hard cash for his bride, he was showing
his love in a most tangible way. Secondly, it was a favor to his future father
in law. In those days of farming and heavy labor, it was something of a
liability to raise a daughter. A family with sons would prosper more because
of the built-in work force; but a family with daughter would expect to
consolidate their losses when the girls were mature enough to attract
bridegrooms. And so the father of the bride was more or less paid off for his
earlier expenses and for his patience and skill in raising a girl to be good
marriage material.
The bridegroom would present himself to the bride with this agreement,
offering to pay a suitable price for her, and she and her father would
consider the contract. If the terms were suitable, the bride and groom would
drink a cup of wine together and this would seal the covenant. This cup was
most significant. It signified the bridegrooms willingness to sacrifice in order
to have this bride. It was offered as a toast to the bride, and it showed the
brides willingness to enter into this marriage.
Then the groom would pay the price. It should be said that this price was no
modest token but was set so that the new bride would be a costly item--that
was the idea. The young man would pay dearly to marry the girl of his
choice.
When that matter was settled the groom would depart. He would make a
little speech to his bride, saying I go to prepare a place for you, and he
would return to his fathers house. Back at his fathers house, he would build
her a bridal chamber, a little mansion, in which they would have their future
honeymoon.
This was a complex undertaking for the young man. He would actually build
a separate building on his fathers property, or decorate a room in his
fathers house. The bridal chamber had to be beautiful and it had to be
stocked with provisions since the bride and groom were going to remain
inside for seven days. This construction project would take the better part of
138
a year, ordinarily, and the father of the groom would be the judge of when it
was finished.
The bride, for her part, was obliged to do a lot of waiting. She would take
the time to gather her trousseau and be ready when her bridegroom came.
Custom provided that she had to have an oil lamp ready in case he came
late at night in the darkness, because she had to be ready to travel at a
moments notice. During this long period of waiting, she was referred to as
consecrated, set apart, bought with a price. She was truly a lady in waiting,
but there was no doubt that her groom would return. Sometimes a young
man would depart for a very long time indeed, but of course he had paid a
high price for his bride; even though there were other young women
available, he would surely return to the one with whom he had made a
covenant.
The bride would wear her veil whenever she stepped out of her house so
that other young men would realize she was spoken for and would not try to
approach her with another contract.
As the year went on, the bride would assemble her sisters and bridesmaids
and whoever would go with her to the wedding when the bridegroom came,
and they would each have their oil lamps ready. They would wait at her
house every night on the chance that the groom would come, along with his
groomsmen, and sweep them all away to a joyous and sudden wedding
ceremony.
Meanwhile, the bridegroom would be building and decorating with all that he
had. His father would inspect the chamber from time to time to see if it were
ready. If we came along the road at this point and saw the young man
working on his bridal chamber, we might well ask, Whens the big day?
But the bridegroom would answer, Only my father knows that.
Finally, the chamber would be ready and the bridegroom would assemble
his young friends to accompany him on the exciting trip to claim his bride.
The big moment had arrived and the bridegroom was more than ready, we
can be sure. He and his young men would set out in the night, making
every attempt to completely surprise the bride.
And thats the romantic part--all the Jewish brides were stolen. The Jews
had a special understanding of a womans heart. What a thrill for her, to be
abducted and carried off into the night, not by a stranger but by one who
loved her so much that he had paid a high price her. Over at the brides
house, things had better be ready! To be sure, the bride would be surprised
since the groom would try to come at midnight while she was sleeping. But
the oil lamps were ready and the bride had her veil. And while she might be
sleeping in her wedding dress, she was definitely surprised.
139
Now there were rules to be observed in consideration of a womans
feelings. As the excited party of young men would get close to her house,
they were obliged to give her a warning. Someone in the wedding party
would shout.
When the bride heard that shout, she knew her young man would be there
momentarily. She had only time to light her lamp, grab her honeymoon
clothing and go. Her sisters and bridesmaids who wanted to attend also had
to have their lamps trimmed and ready, of course. No one would try to walk
through ancient Israel, with its rocky terrain, in the dark of night without
carrying a lamp.
And so the groom and his men would charge in, grab the girls and make off
with them! The father of the bride and her brothers would look the other
way--perhaps just making one quick check to see that this was the young
man with the contract--and the wedding party would be off. People in the
village might be awakened from their sleep by the happy voices of the
young people carrying the oil lamps through the streets, and thats how they
knew a wedding was going on. Today, we hear car horns--back then, they
saw the lamps late at night. Those looking on would not know who the bride
was because she was still wearing a veil, of course. But she would be
returning through these same streets a week later with her groom and then
her veil would be off at the return of the bride with her bridegroom, all the
people would know just who got married and they would realize the total
significance of this wedding.
When the wedding party reached the house of the grooms father, the bride
and groom would go into their chamber and shut the door. No one else
would enter. The grooms father, meanwhile, would have assembled the
wedding guests--his friends--and they would be ready to celebrate the new
marriage. Since the wedding was actually going to take seven days (until
the appearance of the bride and groom out of the chamber), it was hard to
plan for. Occasionally, the host would run out of wine, as we can well
imagine. The Lord Himself graced a wedding at Cana with His presence
and replenished the wine for the celebrants as told in John 2.
But the celebrating wouldnt start right away. First, the marriage had to
actually be consummated. The Jews were a most law abiding people and
the law provided that the bride and groom become one before their
marriage was recognized. Thus, the friend of the bridegroom--the individual
we might refer to as the best man--would stand near the door of the bridal
chamber, waiting to hear the bridegrooms voice. When the marriage was
consummated, the bridegroom would tell his friend through the door and the
friend would then go to the wedding guests and announce the good news.
The celebration would then begin and go for a week!
140
At the end of the week, the bride and groom would make their long awaited
appearance to the cheers of the crowd. There would then be a joyous meal-
-a marriage supper, which we might refer to as the wedding reception-- to
honor the new couple. At this point, the bride would have discarded her veil,
since she was now a married woman, and all would see exactly who it was
the bridegroom had chosen. The new couple and the guests would enjoy a
magnificent feast to conclude the entire matrimonial week.
After the marriage supper, the bride and groom would depart, not remaining
any longer at the home of the grooms father. They would go instead to their
own house, which had been prepared by the bridegroom. (The Bride of
Christ will spend 7 years in heaven at the home of the grooms Father, and
then we shall return with our Bridegroom to occupy the Kingdom He has
prepared)
141
Knowledge of the Holy
We need to be able to meet God in adoring silence. By the mercy of God
faith can break through into Gods presence if the seeker would believe His
word and press on. Gods love is the way He is, and when He loves He is
simply being Himself. The spirit of a man alone can enter through the veil
and penetrate into the Holy of Hollies. All life is a gift of God. God never
began to exist. All that God is He has always been, and all that He has
been and is will ever be. God has never learned and cannot learn. God
constantly encourages us to trust Him in the dark. The fear of the Lord is the
fountain of life. But this healing fear is hardly found today.
Forever Gods mercy stands, a boundless, overwhelming immensity of

divine pity and compassion.
As electric power flows only through a conductor, so the Spirit flows through
truth and must find some measure of truth in the mind before He can
illuminate the heart. Father sees us perfect in His Son while He disciplines
and chastens and purges us that we may be partakers of His holiness. We
must detach in spirit from everything that unbelieving men set their hearts
upon. Practice the art of long and loving meditation upon the majesty of
God.
142
7 Intimacies in Heaven (Oden Hetricks Testimony)
1. Intimacy of Being
Is the delight enjoyed by a soul as it dwells in a glorified
body and senses the delights of the Celestial City.
2. Intimacy of Baptism
Is Gods Spirit united with your spirit. After the
resurrection you will be one with Gods Spirit in your
glorified body forever
3. Intimacy of New Wine

Is a love feast of partaking of Gods Spirit as the New
Wine of Heaven. (Mark 14:25)
4. Intimacy of Perfection
Happens when you unite with the covenant companion
that God has united you with in your spiritual glorified
bodies and so occupying the same space at the same
time, the masculine and the feminine appearing as one
glorified being, united as two voices singing one duet.
(Isaiah 34:16)
5. Intimacy of Worship
Happens when united Spirit-filled companions in the
Most Holy Place of Heaven, the very presence of God,
lose themselves in the rapture of wonder, love and
praise to their Heavenly Father!
6. Intimacy of Rapture
Happens after the worshipping saints have completed
their expression of love to God- They submit themselves
completely to the control of the Holy Spirit, who carries
them up to the throne where God breathes upon them.
7. Intimacy of Divine Likeness

This is when companions become one in Christ and in
God. (John 14:20)
143
7 Rewards in Heaven
1. The Glory of God in our resurrection body.
There will be a vast difference in the measure of glory manifest in
our resurrected bodies. This will greatly differ according to the
measure of ones obedience. The largest star known has a mass
about 100 times that of the sun and is 10 million times brighter. 1
Cor. 15:41-42
2. Intimacy/relationship with Jesus (revelation of God)

We will each receive a varying measure of revelation to encounter
God in intimacy. We will experience varying capacity to receive
from Jesus based on the capacity that our souls developed to know
God while on earth.
3. Strategic Work Assignments (throne and authority)

We will each receive strategic work assignments in the Millennial
Kingdom that will bring us joy and fulfillment. The more like Jesus
we become the more wisdom and authority will be entrusted to us
to reign and make decisions in the Kingdom. According to 2 John 8
we can lose rewards! So finish well.
4. Heavenly Crowns and Jewels (Precious Stones)

Odem saw Jewels in a chest in his house in heave for all of his
service to God. (Revelation 3:11)
5. Heavenly Garments (white, bright, many colors)

Gown of salvation- Matt. 22:11 (For every believer)
Robe or righteousness (Rev. 7:14) varies by obedience
Garment of Praise (Isaiah 61:3)
6. Life in the New Jerusalem (authority and revelation)

Oden said there are some places in heaven that only those who
have obey God on earth to a certain degree can go or see or
behold!
7. Heavenly Riches
Riches and Treasure in heaven include the location and design of
our heavenly dwelling place and our garments and jewelry that
exhibit our dedication to God. (Luke 12:21)
144
7 Questions for thought

1. Who is God asking you to lay your life down for?
2. What needs does god want to open up your eyes to that are around you
and that He wants you to press into Him for in order to get enough fresh
bread and provision to meet those needs and what does love look like
in this case and sphere of influence?
3. If you cant think of anything in your schedule and life that are being
recorded in heaven and that will remain, then what steps can you take
to begin to include things that will remain
4. What do you think will remain?

a. Your character
b. Your relationship with God
c. Your relationships with other saints
d. Your obedience, service, love, and deeds
e. Your knowledge, personality, and skills developed
5. Will you be ready to live in that city of Light? Will you have any regrets
when you get there or if you got there tonight?
6. Will you feel that you gave the best building material from your life and
obedience while on earth that you possible could?
7. Are you yielding to the Holy Spirit and have you learned how to love
and follow the Spirits leadings?
The Lord would Say

I want you to fix your eyes and gaze upon Me, the Author of the never-
ending love story and finisher of your faith. Develop a heavenly perspective.
I told Ian he had to see things from a new light when he came back; the light
of love and eternity. Focus on the things that really count and that will
remain. Get quiet before Me, give me time to speak and develop your
hearing ear and your spiritual vision. Practice loving your neighbors. I will
finish the work I started in you, I will make you so much like Me that you will
eventually have My nature and likeness fully formed in you perfectly. Take
the small steps now that will lead to that day. Yield to My spirit, share the
gospel and let me give you my heart and strategies to lead the lost to Me.
Invest your time and energy into things that have eternal significance and
purposes for Me. Study to show yourself approved. Develop your gifts and
talents and use them with a heart of love and humility to bless others.
145
Clips from Sun Dar and Oden Hetricks Heaven Visions
A man is as great as he can be useful to others, and the usefulness of his
life to others depends on his service to them. Hence, in so far as a man can
serve others in love, just so far is he great. Matt. 20:26. The joy of all those
that dwell in heaven is found in this that they serve one another in love, and
thus, fulfilling the object of their lives, they remain forever in the presence of
God.
The degrees of goodness reached by the soul of a righteous man are

known by the brightness that radiates form his whole appearance. For
character and nature show themselves in the form of various glowing
rainbow like colors of great glory.
In eternity, the spiritual progress of any one governs the degree to which he
is able to know and feel God; and the Christ also reveals His glorious form
to each one according to his spiritual enlightenment and capacity. If Christ
were to appear in the same glorious light to the dwellers of the darkened
lower spheres of the spiritual world, as he appears to those in the higher
planes, then they would not be able to bear it.
A happy relationship with Gods indwelling Spirit is required before anyone

enters the gate of the Holy City. Are you yielding to Him, are you being
careful not to quench Him, or are you careful not to grieve Him? Do you
follow His leadings?
The secret covenant of God simply stated is eternal companionship.

Fellowship and companionship is the purpose of this creation.
The angel at the gate has on record the name, the spiritual status and the
works of every saint of God. In the Temple wall in the holy of holies of
heaven there are rooms with picture screens where knowledge is presented
in a 3 dimensional review of important events. Your lie is on record here
although God has wonderful editing software powered by the Blood of
Jesus. One of the events that are viewed by all is the sacrifice of Jesus.
Heavens highest pleasures are not given to unsanctified triflers. They are
given to those who drink of the Spirit of God as a thirsty soul drinks from a
cool mountain spring
One of the most wonderful surprises that met was the occasional meeting
with some one whom with tearful eyes, would pour forth his earnest thanks
for some helpful word, or stern rebuke that had turned him, all unknown to
myself, from the paths of sin into the life everlasting. Oh the joy, oh the
regret that my earth life was not more filled with this kind of work for eternity.
146
Paradise, the Holy City and the Glory of the Throne Excerpts
Your heavenly Fathers will, will become your will and all that you see, and
infinitely more, are yours to enjoy forever. If you made good use of your
opportunities in your past life you have much treasure laid up in the city of
which our Lord spoke while on earth. The entire heavenly kingdom is full of
music without a discord. Those praise Him loudest and most who have
learned how to praise him best while on earth.
She represents a very large class in the world who has not made good use
of earthly opportunities; she was never deeply interested in her salvation till
near the time of her death. Do you not see how slim and lean she looks,
and how little clothing she has, only a gown! Her repentance has been
genuine and her faith accepted the promises of eternal life in her Lord, and
her forgiveness has been complete. She has added but little grace and
almost no growth to her soul. Oh may I keep from doing things that keep
my soul lean! And may I do those things that cause growth to my soul.
I felt that strange feeling and tendency to bound upward toward the throne
of God, and so I felt a freedom to ask one near me if he could give me an
explanation. Oh, we all felt the same. It is the law of spiritual gravitation
which draws all beings, which have been purified and made holy by the
blood of the Lamb, to this great kingdom and the throne where God is.
Some have made but little preparation for this glory while in the world and
now the light is too great for them; and as you see, they fall back in the rear
and content themselves among the trees, waiting for a further preparation
by an application of these wonderful leaves of the trees. When those, lean
in soul, arrive here, they have but little relish for the crystal river, nor could
they enjoy the fountains at the throne, nor do they have great relish for the
fruit upon the trees of which no doubt you have been eating. They take
more largely upon their coming here, of the leaves, the fragrance of which is
so sweet and powerful upon. God cannot reward them largely, for their lack
of capacity to receive, and yet as full as they are prepared to do so they will
enjoy the glories of this heavenly kingdom. One star differs from another in
glory.
So those who dont live consecrated and yielded lives to God now wont be
able to enjoy the things of God in heaven to the same degree that those
who did live close to God will. Or your ability to enjoy in eternity increases
when you grow in grace and soul.
One dear lady whom I had known as an invalid for many years, and yet a
very spiritual Christian, was in the group; she was rejoicing with exceeding
joy. She seemed so well now and her face was beaming with immortal
youth. As I drew near to her there was a halo of light and heavenly joy,
beyond my power to describe to you, covering her soul. I told her she
147
looked well and she said, Indeed, when you knew me I was a great
sufferer. I realize now Pauls words, For our light affliction which is but for
a moment works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
My soul is so full of glory.
No one in this entire heavenly kingdom has any feelings or wishes to

disobey. The law of love and light is the law of the heavenly kingdom and
His will becomes law to you.
May His will become your will both now and forever!
148

Random Teachings

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Random Teachings

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Random Selected & Compiled Christian Teachings & Summaries

RANDOM SELECTED & COMPILED

CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS & SUMMARIES

Elements of Hell (Bill Weise)----------------------------------------------------------48

If we want to notice the surrounding signs of the presence of God, we need

Learning to hear Gods voice requires training. Learning to hear Gods

There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give

Nothing is a hardship to love, and nothing is hard. Christs yoke is easy.

Love is not easily provoked. Temper is significant; it is not in what it is

To love abundantly is to live abundantly. Eternal life is inextricably bound

Christianity is a way of life of supernaturally receiving that which we do not

A second hindrance to Christs love flowing through us is unforgiveness.

We dont want a passionate existence; we simply want to channel all our

One of the basic characteristics of true love is communication. It is the

Christians must view every encounter with others as an opportunity to sow

Five basic characteristics can be found throughout the Scriptures in the

1. They have a clear vision of their purpose

Seven Reasons to Pray in the Spirit

1. Praying in the Spirit builds up your inner man, while

sowing strength to your spirit.

2. Praying in the Spirit sensitizes your spirit to hear

the voice of God, bringing accuracy.

3. Praying in the Spirit sensitizes your spirit to the

Holy Spirit, bringing alertness.

4. Praying in the Spirit helps you to be stronger when

temptations come, building maturity.

5. Praying in the Spirit keeps the joy of the Lord in

your walk, developing perseverance.

6. Praying in the Spirit helps you to love God when

words arent strong enough, providing a love

language. Romans 8:26

7. Praying in the Spirit nurtures your spirit and keeps

you in the love of God, bringing contentment.

God is a realist and insists that we be realists, too. So long as we are

The acknowledgment of our helplessness is the quickest way to that right

Those that acknowledge their dependency upon Christ, their desperate

2. Angels (This is part of the love of God) Hebrews 1:14

3. Hedge of protection that God has built

around us (Psalms 19:1)

4. Fellowship/Prayer with other believers

5. Jesus blood covering over our lives

6. Jesus prayers (John 17:9 and Hebrews 7:25- Continues on!

7. The Holy Spirit indwelling within us (Luke 17:21)

Heaven is as beautiful and happy a place as it is to any who have ascended

Fasting will help you to develop self-control. We need to learn how to

Dont continue to measure yourself by others. If you are looking to Me you

In praise and worship we do more than merely sing to God, in this

The main purpose of waiting is to avoid Pride, Presumption, missing Gods

7 Highest Priorities of God

1. The Blood of Jesus (FEAST OF PASSOVER)

2. Fellowship/Communion with God (FEAST OF

3. The Resurrection of Jesus (FIRST FRUITS)

4. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit (PENTECOST)

5. The Great Commission (TRUMPETS)

6. The Atonement of Jesus is Everlasting (DAY OF

7. The Return of Jesus (TABERNACLES)

We all have consciences. He worked for money to buy food. He collected

Wonderful Counselor (Is. 9:6) JESUS (Mt.1:21) The Same Yesterday,

(Jn.1:1) Dwelling In Us (2 Cor. 6:16) Faithful and True(rev. 19:11) Easily

(Ps. 139 1-13) Unchangeable (Num. 23:19) Jehovah (Ps. 83:18)

Everlasting Father(Is.9:6) Author of Salvation (Heb. 2:10) God who Raises

and the Life (John 14:6)

1. Realize that forgiveness is an act of the will.

2. Understand that resentment is destructive to the mind, body, soul, and