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Word for Today:  August 21

Miracles.

God is a Miracle God.  He knows all about miracles.  God likes miracles and God performs miracles.  God delights in performing the impossible for those who love Him.  God wants you to receive your miracle more than you desire to have it…  His desire for you to receive is greater than your desire to get.  God’s ways are miraculous ways.  He declares that:

My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts… Isa 55:9

The devil hates miracles.  Miracles have defeated and humiliated him in in the past and they will overcome him in the present.  Miracles prove God, reveal God and release God’s Power.  Miracles always defeat the devil and prevent him from fulfilling his mission.  Healing is a miracle.  Deliverance is a miracle.  Salvation is a miracle.  The Holy Spirit Baptism is a miracle.  All these defeat the devil and make an open show of his weakness and helplessness.

The Church needs miracles.  Too long we have operated in our own strength and our own ability.  We have manufactured the ”religious” machine, kept it well-oiled and repaired, painted and polished it, spent our efforts in lowering empty buckets into empty wells and we have grown weary of bringing nothing up.  The church has, in many cases, become nothing more than a man-made organism functioning in the limitations of man’s strength and human ability.

The Church needs miracles.  The church needs challenges that will shake it out of its self-sufficiency and mediocrity.

If we are not doing the Miraculous we are doing no more than General Motors or Chrysler or Ford or IBM.  The Church needs to expect miracles. The Church will never surpass what it can do and get what God can give if it miracles continue to be absent from its ministry.

In today’s church, Miracles are to be the Norm and not the Exception

Word for Today: August 20

An Unfailing Anchor.

God’s Word is an Anchor that holds (Heb 6:19).   It is as reliable as God is.  It is as strong as God is.  It is as enduring as God is.  It is as changeless as God is.

The Word proved to be an unfailing Anchor in the lives and experiences of many of the Heroes we read about in the Bible.  It held steady in times of trials and impossibilities.  It gave them security in the times of storms and conflicts.  The Word was an anchor in them that held them secure in the Hand of God.

• The Word in Moses produced Israel’s deliverance from Egypt.
• The Word in Joshua drove out the enemy and produced victory in the Promised Land.
• The Word in David gave him strength in the time of temptation and victory in the time of attack. The result was and is the matchless beauty of Worship and Praise in the Book of Psalms.
• The Word in Elijah produced water in the season of drought.
• The Word in Joseph sustained him in prison, delivered him from lies and brought him great favor and promotion as the Prime Minister of Egypt.
• The Word in Job kept him faithful to God in his loss of everything he loved and treasured.
• The Word in Elisha raised the Shunammite’s son from the dead, caused the axe head to swim and cleansed numerous lepers.
• The Word in Daniel stopped the mouths of hungry lions.
• The Word in Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, cooled the fiery furnace and brought the Son of God from heaven to comfort them.
• The Word in John the Baptist caused him to launch Jesus into His public ministry.
• The Word in Peter gave him power to walk on water.
• The Word in Paul saw him through ship wrecks, stonings, scourgings, imprisonments, rejections and betrayals and produced most of the New Testament.
• The Word in John gave him a glimpse of the Rapture, the Return of Jesus and the Eternal Perfect State of those who are washed in the Blood.

The Word held them steady in the face of every impossibility.

The Word will hold you in every adversity and trial.

It is our Anchor.

It never fails

Word for Today:  August 19

Continuing in victory.

Continuing in victory depends on continuing in the Word.  What you do with the Word determines what the Word will do for you.  How you Work the Word determines what the Word will work for you.  Giving the Word first place in your life and making the Word your Instruction Manual is extremely important. You need to learn the Word.  Study the Word.  Know the Word.  Meditate the Word. Speak the Word.  Pray the Word.  Believe the Word.  And, most importantly, Do the Word.

When you get full of the Word, no matter what shakes you, only the Word will come out.  If a glass is full of only water, no matter how badly it’s shaken, nothing but water will come out.   When you are full of the Word, no matter how bad your circumstances may be, nothing but the Word will come out.

Hide the Word in your heart and plant it in your spirit.  Think it and meditate it.  Never turn away from it.  Keep it before your eyes night and day.  Treasure it.  Love it and honor it.  Obey it.  See it as your Source.  It is food for your spirit and protection for your body and healing for your bones…  GET INTO THE WORD and GET THE WORD INTO YOU.

Be fill with all the fullness of God…  Eph 3:19

Word for Today:  August 18

Get involved.

Spiritual Growth depends on proper teaching.  The only correct teaching is Word Teaching.  The only adequate teaching is the teaching of the Whole Word.  Word Churches teach the Whole Word to the Whole man.

You need to get involved and committed to a ministry that does not compromise the Word… a ministry  and a church that preaches and practices everything that the Word Teaches.  You need to belong.  You need to help shoulder the responsibility of getting the Gospel to the World.  Your family needs the protection and provision of a strong Word Ministry.

It is extremely important that you attend and support and give into a ministry that is doing what the Word tells you to do.  Your love for Jesus is reflected in your love for your church.  Your family needs to know how to get healed and stay healed… how to get rid of devils and run demons off.  Your children need to know how to resist the devil and how to stand on the Word.  Your marriage needs the protection of a strong Word Ministry.  Your business needs the counsel and support of a strong Word Ministry.

You need the challenge of Believing Big and Dreaming Big and attempting the Impossible.  You need to get committed to a Word Ministry.  Have you?  Will you?  If not, why not?  Who do you suppose it is that is trying to talk you out of it right now?

You need to be committed to a strong Word Church with a World Vision that has plenty of work for you to do…  Are you willing and ready to get involved?  Are you available for God to use you?

Find your place in God’s Plan

Word for Today:  August 17

The Word demands a response.

You will respond one way or another.  You cannot ignore and remain unresponsive to the Word.  Each of you will respond.  And you will respond in one of only four ways.

Christianity hates neutrality just as this atmosphere hates a vacuum.  You can measure your response to the Word and determine your future.  Your future is absolutely predictable by the way you respond to the Word of God.  There are no “unknowns” in the life of a believer.

Your response to the Word will determine what happens to you today as well as in the future… Therefore, it is extremely important that you respond in the right way.

Paul commands us to “Work out our own Salvation with fear and trembling…”  (Phil 2:12).  He knew the extreme importance of a correct response to the Word.  The Word is in us.  We are to “work out” what God has “worked in.”  There is Life in the Word.  There is Power in the Word. There is Light in the Word.    There is deliverance in the Word.   There is Healing in the Word.   There is Strength in the Word.  There is Peace in the Word.  There is Salvation in the Word.   These elements are to be “worked out” through our response to the Word.

First, you need to understand that the Word is a Seed.

There is Life in the Seed.  There is potential in the Seed.  There is power in the seed.  There is an image in the seed.  The seed is the secret.  The seed is the source.  The Bible declares that the Word of God is the “incorruptible Seed…”  (I Peter 1:23)  “Incorruptible” means “undecaying” in essence or continuance.  Simply, it means “immortal” and “eternal.”

Second, you need to understand that the Seed must be planted.  It must be sown and it must be sown in the right kind of soil.

Third, Seed must have Ground in order to grow.

Without ground, seed is no good.  The seed must have a response from the ground if it is to produce fruit.  There are cases of seeds remaining dormant and useless for hundreds of years because there was no ground for it to be sown in.  When the ground makes a proper response to the Seed, Growth develops and in due season, fruit is produced.    A correct response to the Word will make us fruitful and productive.  A wrong response to the Word will cause us not to bear fruit. (See John 15)

Fourth, YOU are the ground.  Your heart-ground will determine if the seed will germinate and grow.  Your heart-ground will determine what the seed will produce.   Your heart-ground will determine the measure of your spiritual harvest of success.

You set your own boundaries and fix your own limits.

What you reap is what you plant.

How much you grow depends on how much you sow.

Word for Today:  August 16

What Faith is.

Faith is believing.  Faith is believing God.  Faith is believing God’s Word.  Faith is the opposite of fear.  Faith is the opposite of doubt.  Faith is the opposite of unbelief.  Faith is a gift from God to you and me.  Every believer has faith.  Every believer has the measure of faith.  How much is the measure of faith?  It is enough.  It is enough faith to do what God says do.  It is enough faith to have what God says we can have.  It is enough faith to be who God says we can be.

Faith is connected with God.  Faith is connecting with God.  Faith is an attribute of God that every believer receives when he is Born Again.

Faith is connected with the Word.  Faith is connecting with the Word. Faith activates the Word.   Faith brings the promises of God into the realm of the now.  Faith is connected with the Church.  When the church gathered to pray for Peter who was in jail, an angel came and opened the prison doors and let him out.  They prayed in faith.  They broke the barrier of the natural and stepped into the realm of the supernatural.

We do not come into faith on our own righteousness.  God honors faith on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ which has been imputed into every Believer.  Our faith is not based on the works that we have done or our performance in the past.

We do not come into faith with legalistic theology.  Our faith is a finished work.  Jesus is the Author and the FINISHER of our faith (Heb 12:2).   God does not do things for us because we are nice, sweet, obedient or spiritual… He works in our behalf on the basis of the Blood of Jesus… AND NOTHING ELSE.

Faith accepts the Goodness and the Grace of God.  We must believe that “He is and that He is a Rewarder of those who diligently seek Him…”   God can do anything.

• He is not the Author of bad things. He is the Creator of good things.
• He is merciful.
• He is kind.
• He is patient.
• He is compassionate.
• He is a Giver and not a taker.
• He is a Multiplier and not a divider.
• He is a Promoter and not a demoter.
• He is adds and does not subtract.
• He is forgiving.
• He is understanding.
• He is longsuffering.
• He is kind and He is gentle.

God is Good.  God is Love.

God is for you

Word for Today:  August 15

Faith’s potential.

What you do with your faith determines what happens to your faith.  If you use it, it increases.  If you don’t use it, it decreases.  Use it or lose it.   Faith demands action.  Faith demands risk.

Faith is a creative Force.  The Faith of God is the Force behind all creation.  Faith is a “first-order” force.  God is a Faith God.  We are commanded to have the “God-kind” of Faith.

 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. Mark 11:22

“Have Faith of God.”  You have the same kind of Faith that God has.  Faith is a Divine Attribute of God.  When you and I got Born Again, we received an impartation of the very Nature and Character of God into our Recreated Human Spirit.  When we were Regenerated, we were “RE-GENED…”  God Supernaturally changed and altered the Genetic Mapping of our human nature.  He “imputed” His Faith into us.  NOW… we have the Faith of God.

Just as you received certain biological and genetic characteristics from your earthly parents at the time of your physical birth, your also received certain Spiritual and Supernatural characteristics from your Heavenly Father at the time of your Spiritual Birth.  You look like your parents.  You have personal and emotional characteristics like your parents.  The color of your eyes.  The color of your hair.  Your physical size.  The way you walk.  The way are physically built.  Your size.

All these were built into you… mapped by the genetic structures of your parents… and passed on to you at the time of your physical birth.  If all these intricate and miraculous physical attributes were placed in you when you were born, what about the wonderful supernatural characteristics that were imputed into your recreated human spirit at the time of your Spiritual Birth…  When you were Born Again?

If the faith of God is behind all creation, (and it most certainly is) and if you and I have the same kind of faith, (and we most certainly do) then we have access to the most awesome force known in the universe.

That is a Spiritual Reality

All things are possible to him that believeth…  Mk 9:23

Word for Today:  August 14

Can you believe?

Isaiah had a problem.  He discovered some things in the realm of the Spirit that were just too good to believe.  His problem was to convince his contemporaries to believe the Report that God had given to him.  He cried out in frustration:  “Who hath believed our report?”  (Isa. 53:1)

The Gospel is Good News.   Not bad new, sad news, but Good News and Glad News…

• The Gospel is POSITIVE and not negative.
• The Gospel is LIFE and not death.
• The Gospel is HEALTH and not sickness.
• The Gospel is SUCCESS and not failure.
• The Gospel is PROSPERITY and not poverty.
• The Gospel is LIBERTY and not bondage.
• The Gospel is OPPORTUNITY and not restraint. It is an open door and not a closed door.
• The Gospel is the WAY. The WAY OUT, the WAY UP, the WAY THROUGH and the WAY OVER.

Many in the Body of Christ are walking in defeat and despair and darkness because they will not “believe our report”…  They simply think it’s “too good to be true…”   But it is good and it is true!

So Believe our report…

• Our sins are forgiven.
• We have strength and power to live right.
• We are delivered out of satan’s dominion.
• We are seated with Christ “in the heavenlies.”
• We have the Nature of God our Father.
• We have authority to use His Name.
• We are in possession of Eternal Life.

Can you believe this?

Word for Today:  August 13

Only Believe.

If you are not facing impossibilities, you are, in fact, displeasing God.  The Word declares that without “faith it is impossible to please God” and if you are not facing Impossibilities, then you have no opportunity to activate and release your faith. Impossibilities are where you will meet God.  At the extremity of humanity, man meets deity.  If we never attempt the impossible, we are no better than natural man.

Just consider what natural man has accomplished by his own efforts.  For example:

Electric power, Air Travel, Space exploration, instant worldwide communication, Computer ingenuity, Medical marvels, Satellite Technology and thousands of other innovative and creative inventions.

Man, in effect, has done this without the help of the “supernatural” intervention of God.  Man’s own innovative and creative genius has risen to the challenge of the impossible and we are all the better off for it…  If man can do this in the natural… what more should we Spirit-Filled, Bible-Believing, God-Loving, Word-Centered individuals do as we face the challenge of the Impossible?

What are your “impossibilities”?

• Some are saying: “I’ll never be able to live the Christian life… it’s just no use… it’s impossible.”
• Others are thinking: “This Holy Ghost Business is too far out for me… I’ll never be able to understand it… it’s just impossible.”
• You may be declaring: “My home will never be right… there is just too much difference between us… It will never work out… it’s just impossible.”
• Some today are thinking: “I’ll never be able to have anything. I do not have the knowledge or background.  I’ve failed at most everything I’ve tried to do.  I think I will just quit… It’s just impossible.”
• You may be saying: “I’ll never be healed… I’ve prayed and prayed and prayed. I guess healing is not for me.  I really wish it was.  Others may get healed, but for me, it’s just impossible.”
• Some will think: “I’ve made too many mistakes already. God has given me many chances and I blew them all.  I am just a failure.  I have a bad record.  Nobody will ever give me a chance.  It’s just impossible.”

Guess where this kind of thinking comes from?

IF you will Only Believe….

Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.  Mr 9:23

Word for Today:  August 12

Impossible?

The challenge of the impossible is fuel for the Spirit-Filled Believer.  It is the place where we become personally acquainted with God and His Grace and His ability to supply every need.  It is a proving ground…. a proving ground for the Word, for our Faith and for the Integrity of God.

God speaks in the Book of Malachi and commands us to prove Him.

…prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.   Mal. 3:10-11

God is literally saying “I dare you.  I ‘double-dog’ dare you.  I dare you to try what I am saying and PROVE me.  Prove that My Word transcends every impossibility.  Prove that I will actually and factually do what I say that I will do.  Prove that My Word works.  Anytime. Every time.  All the time.  Prove that My Power will prevail.  Prove that with Me nothing shall be impossible for you.”

The challenge for us this day is to PROVE GOD… To believe God.  To act on what He promises.  To reveal to the world how Great He is.  To break away from our timidity, our insecurity and false humility… to break out of our box and soar to new heights in our Spiritual Walk.

What are you waiting for?