They thrive in the toughest circumstances because they know that impossible odds set the stage for amazing miracles.
I live by the maxim, love people when they least expect it and least deserve it. That how you change someone’s life forever.
There is an old adage: ready, set, go. And I know it’s predicated on the importance of preparation. But I think it’s backward. You’ll never be ready. You’ll never be set. Sometimes you just need to go for it. The sequence of faith is this: Go. Set. Ready.
God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time, but it’s up to us to see and seize those opportunities that are all around us all the time.
Matthew 11:12? “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” Are you playing offense in your marriage? Or are you playing a prevent defense that leaves romance on the sidelines?
When we try to make things go faster, we usually slow things down. When.
Did you know that embryologists have recently captured the moment of conception via fluorescence microscopy? What they discovered is that at the exact moment a sperm penetrates an egg, the egg releases billions of zinc atoms that emit light. Sparks fly, literally! That miracle of conception is a microcosm that mirrors God’s first four words.
Man skills may win you man points, but manhood virtues win the heart of God. Virtue is much harder to develop than skill, and it takes much longer. But the payoff is far greater! Don’t.
Throwing down your staff is letting go and letting God. And that’s counterintuitive for those of us who are control freaks. As our executive pastor Joel Schmidgall likes to say, “You can have faith or you can have control, but you cannot have both.” If you want God to do something off the chart, you have to take your hands off the controls.
More than a hundred years ago, a British revivalist issued a holy dare that would change a life, a city, and a generation. That timeless challenge echoes across every generation: “The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.
The paradigm shift happens when we come to terms with the fact that the world doesn’t revolve around us.
Consecration is going all in and all out for the All in All.
Maybe we need to quit playing defense and start playing offense. Maybe we need to quit letting our circumstances get between us and God and let God get between us and our circumstances. Maybe we need to stop talking to God about our problem and start talking to our problem about God.
Until you hear the voice of God, you won’t be able to sing His song. Why? Because you’re out of tune.
We were meant for more than a safe ride when God placed us here. Any part of this life that offers more, requires more, or asks more of us than we are used to is an opportunity to grow more, dream more, and be more than we are now.
Courage doesn’t wait until situational factors turn in one’s favor. It doesn’t wait until a plan is perfectly formed. It doesn’t wait until the tide of popular opinion is turned. Courage only waits for one thing: a green light from God. And when God gives the go, it’s full steam ahead, no questions asked.
Do you find your identity in who you are or whose you are?
If you want God to do something new in you, you cannot keep doing the same old thing. You have to do something different.
In God’s kingdom, calling trumps credentials every time! God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called. And the litmus test isn’t experience or expertise. It’s availability and teachability. If you are willing to go when God gives you a green light, He will take you to inaccessible places to do impossible things.
Prayer and imagination are directly proportional: the more you pray the bigger your imagination becomes because the Holy Spirit supersizes it with God-sized dreams.