Tag Archives: faith

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How to Make Certain You Never Backslide

The Second Epistle of Peter

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Diligence os one Key to Keep from Falling

As a teenager, J. Stephen Conn sensed God calling him to be a preacher. But he felt a certain disadvantage. Because he had been saved when he was 7 years old, he would never be able to hold an audience spellbound with stories of a wicked past. So he asked God for permission to backslide — just long enough to get some experience in a life of sin to “enhance” his preaching later on. Deep within he knew that God would not answer such a request, so he decided just to preach the Bible without a dramatic testimony. Sometime later Conn wrote, “For the past 11 years I’ve been pastoring a church. I realize now what a great testimony I really have. God not only has the power to deliver from sin, He has the even greater power to keep from sin. God not only saved my soul—He saved my entire life!”1  Did you know the Bible gives you the exact path to follow to keep from ever falling? The word backslide can be erased from your thinking and vocabulary if you follow God’s prescription in the book of Second Peter.

For more on the Second Epistle of Peter please see “Why You Can Be Thrilled With God’s Excellence.”

[Tweet “giving all diligence’ is the part a believer needs to add to the mix in order to become ‘fall proof’.”]

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Why You Should Not Pass Up the Opportunity to Destroy Little Giants

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Learn to Deafeat Little Ginats before the Big Ones Come Along
  • David had confidence that he could defeat giants like Goliath because he had experience taking on lions and bears. The lesson we need to learn is that we need to work with God to defeat the little giants before we take on the Goliaths we may be confronted with.

1 Samuel 17:32–36 (ESV) — 32 And David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” 33 And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. 36 Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.”

  • Many are just waiting around.
  • They are not using their faith against the small stuff of life.
  • David didn’t do this.
  • The confidence that he needed to boldly declare to the King that he could take this huge enemy on came from many experiences of taking on much smaller giants.
  • David slew the lions and the bears and that’s he knew Goliath was toast.

[Tweet “David slew the lions and the bears and that’s how he knew Goliath was toast.”]

Taken while visiting the Oklahoma City Zoo. For more of our travels check out our Instagram account.© 2017 Emery Horvath

For more ‘photo posts’ see ‘Are You Stoked about God’s New Sensational City?

 

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Three Areas We Need to Be Prayer Smart In

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Three Areas to Be Prayer Smart In

Pastor Jim Cymbala shares his experience with us: After I had been pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle for about a year, the church had grown to fifty people, but we were facing problems: little money, few people coming to faith in Christ. One Tuesday afternoon, I sat in my cubbyhole office on Atlantic Avenue, depressed. I knew that later that day, fifteen people, at most, would come to church to pray. How could God call me and my wife to this city not to make a difference? I wondered. I walked into our empty, little sanctuary and recited to God a list of my problems: “Look at this building, this neighborhood … Our offerings are laughable … I can’t trust So-and-so … There’s so little to work with.” Then the Holy Spirit impressed upon me, “I will show you the biggest problem in the church. It’s you.” In that moment I saw with excruciating clarity that I didn’t really love the people as God wanted me to. I prepared sermons just to get through another Sunday. I was basically prayerless. I was proud. I fell on my face before God and began to weep. “God, whatever it takes, please change me. I would rather die than live out some useless ministry of catchphrases.” The Brooklyn Tabernacle began to turn around, and twenty years later, we are still learning about the tremendous power of prayer. Every Tuesday evening many hundreds of people come together simply to pray. 1 The Bible is our prayer book. In it are truths which will help make us smart in the fine art of prayer. Here are three truths which will help you.

[Tweet “It is a very good idea to read the scriptures about what you are praying about before you pray.”]

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How to Gain A Quality Prayer Life

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How to Build A Quality Prayer Life

Two Christian men lived near each other. The first was a farmer. Since there had not been any rain for several weeks, the farmer got up one morning and prayed for rain. His next-door neighbor was also up early, but he was praying that it would not rain, because he was taking an unsaved friend fishing that morning.1 One person’s prayer was answered, the other one was not. Is answered prayer just like rolling dice? You know hope that sevens come up? Or is there some truths from the Word of God which we can act on to help us build a quality prayer life and get the answers God promises in His Word?

[Tweet “The Bible give us clues and remedies to the disease of unanswered prayer.”]

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#S3-043: Yet More of How You Know You Really Believe God [Podcast]

Take the Test!

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We have already covered six tests in the last two podcasts. We covered the baseball bat test. We covered the gender test. We covered the acting test. Then last week, we took the will of God test, the fear test, and the tense test. This week we are going to last test, the forgiveness test. Walking in forgiveness protects your faith. Holding grudges against people dissipate your faith. The Bible speaks a lot about this area and we are going to drill down into it in this week’s Light on Life.

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[Tweet “Forgiveness is a ‘from the heart lifestyle attitude’ to be exercised without limits.”]

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#S3-042: More of How Do You Know You Really Believe God [Podcast]

Take The Test!

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We can learn so much from looking at Abraham in the Old Testament. Abraham was fully persuaded and absolutely convinced that God would do what He had promised He would do. He is called the father of faith for a reason and rightly so. And here’s the marvelous truth you can be just like him in faith. But how can we get there? How can we grow our confidence in God? One way is to understand what it means to believe God? Let’s ask the question then. What does it mean to believe? What does it mean to stand on the Word of God? There are some tests you can take. And that’s what we’re talking about in this week’s Light On Life.

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[Tweet “You don’t want to bring God your opinion. Bring Him His Word. Take the will of God test.”]

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#S3-041: How Do You Know You Really Believe God? [Podcast]

Take the Test!

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Jesus ministered healing to twenty-three individual cases. In the vast majority of these individual cases, you can see evidence of the person’s faith in connection with their healing. What does it mean to have faith for healing? What does it mean to believe? How do you know if you really are believing God? You may have had those times where you thought you believed God, and nothing happened. You were believing the Lord for some healing in your body, and you got no better fast. How do you know if you’ve connected? Everything is by faith. You know by faith. You expect by faith. If you want to connect with God, you have to speak in His domain. You have to speak His language. Otherwise, you won’t be heard. Heaven is a faith place. The domain of unbelief is not understood there. You will not connect if you’re speaking in the wrong realm. So, how do you know if you really are believing God’s Word? One way you can find out? Take the test. There are seven tests which you can apply, which we are going to go over. These are not all the tests there are. These are seven that I know about. If you want to receive from God, take the test.

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[Tweet “You know you believe when no one can talk you out of it, even under pressure.”]

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#S3-028: Encore Episode: How To Release Your Faith With Words [Podcast]

Real Bible Faith: How It Works

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Medicine at Work, published by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, has stressed the critical importance of words spoken in surgery. As the anesthetic is given for surgery, deadly fear may strike the patient when he hears someone say, “I’m going to shoot him now,” or, “Hook up the monitor.” “Monitor” to the drugged patient may sound like “monster.” Or a doctor may declare in disgust, “This isn’t my day!” Dr. Paul J. Moses told a medical audience in San Francisco that “the same directions given by two different physicians could help or fail.” One doctor’s voice, Dr. Moses suggested, might make the medicine work, but the other’s might reveal doubt and the medicine would fail. 1 Words are extremely important in the realm of the faith life. Words are difference makers. They are deal breakers. Jesus said, “By Your words you are justified and by your words, you’re condemned” (Matt. 12:37). In this week’s Light on Life, we are going to take a look at the importance of words and their connection to the faith life.

This is part two of the Series entitled, ‘Real Bible Faith: How It Works’. You can find Part One ‘Why is Faith Important and Who Has It? [Podcast]‘ here.

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[Tweet “Circumstances have a voice and once they speak they need to be answered with the Word.”]

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Why You Can and Should Be Absolutely Positively Persuaded

Roaming through Romans

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We come to the last two verses of Romans eight, verses thirty-eight and thirty-nine. He ends this the way he started this portion of the epistle, strongly positive about all the word of God in the life of a believer. All of His works are marvelous and you can be fully confident in the greatness of your God and what He has provided for you in Christ.

[Tweet “If you desire to be pleasing to God, get fully persuaded of His love for you.”]

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#S3-008: Why Your ‘Want To’ Needs to Be Fierce to Receive Help from God [Podcast]

Healing and Miracles in the Life of Jesus

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In this episode, we look at the importance of the human will in receiving divine healing as well as some steps one should take in order to hold on to healing once it has come.

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[Tweet “Jesus put His finger on the pulse of the problem when He asked, “Will you be made whole.””]

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#S3-004: Why It’s Important to Flow in Faith’s Domain [Podcast]

Healing and Miracles in the Life of Jesus

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In April 2000, a boy named Nathan was in a near-fatal car accident while trying to avoid a deer. When he arrived at the hospital, he had a broken leg, spinal cord damage, numerous lacerations, and a collapsed lung. To stabilize him, doctors put him into a drug-induced coma. Nathan was in a coma for four days, but when the drugs were discontinued, he didn’t come out of the coma. That night Nathan’s father prayed and read the Bible to him, repeating the words Jesus said to Lazarus: “Come forth.” You’ve got to fight. You’ve got to wake up.” The next morning he came out of the coma. The parents were beside ourselves with joy. But the spinal cord damage was a major concern. Nathan had a fracture in his neck, the same vertebra that actor Christopher Reeve had injured several years ago. The doctors gave Nathan a protective neck collar to prevent further separation of the vertebrae. He was in danger of full or partial paralysis.
For two weeks Nathan prayed earnestly for healing. One night as he was falling asleep, he heard and felt a popping in his neck. The next morning physicians performed three sets of X-rays to see if the vertebrae were continuing to separate. Instead, the tests showed that the vertebrae had fused back together. The doctors were stunned; there was no medical explanation for the healing. Three months after the accident, doctors cleared Nathan to resume his participation in athletics, including football, wrestling, and track and field. 1 Our God is a healing God. He is a miracle worker and He will do a miracle for you.

This is Part Two of a Series entitled ‘Healing and Miracles.’ You can find part one of this series, ‘How to Minister Healing Like Jesus Did‘ here.

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#S3-002: Why It’s Important to Slow Yourself Down [Podcast]

Soul Power for Your Present Hour

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It’s important to shut down certain voices like sinful thoughts.  You don’t argue with those thoughts. You don’t examine those thoughts, you just cut them off in Jesus name. It is scriptural to talk to your soul.  David, if you remember, told his soul to bless the Lord (Psalm 103:1).  In last week’s podcast, we also talked about the multitude of arrows hitting the soul. The point being, we often live overloaded lives. How many irons in the fire can you have before it affects your ability to divide spirit and soul? How much mental angst can we have before our heads are roaring so much we can’t hear our hearts?  For this series finale, let’s go down two separate tracks as we look at the important idea of slowing ourselves down so we can better hear our hearts.

This is part two of the Series entitled, ‘Soul Power for Your Present Hour’. You can find Part One ‘Why Renewing the Mind is Important for Soul Development’ here, Part 2 “Why Renewing the Mind is Important for Soul Development” here, Part 3 “More of Why Renewing the Mind is Important for Soul Development“, and “How to Keep Your Soul from Going Tilt“.

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