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February 16 - April 11, 2018
We don’t see the world as it is; we see the world as we are.
When babies make their grand entrance into the world, their visual resolution is one-fortieth of that of a normal adult. They lack depth perception. And their visual range is only about thirteen inches. The world is low-definition, two-dimensional, and only thirteen inches in diameter. Slowly yet sovereignly, the world begins to take on width and breadth and depth. By four months, a baby can perceive stereoscopic depth. By six months, visual acuity has improved fivefold. Their black-and-white world has burst into a kaleidoscope of colors, and they have volitional control of their eye
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William Jennings Bryan, famous for his role in the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, once likened the mystery of God to a watermelon seed: I have observed18 the watermelon seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight: and when you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art, and then forms in it a white rind and within that again a side of red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which in turn is capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight — when you can
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If we do the little things like they are big things, then God will do the big things like they are little things.
the God who gives the vision is the same God who makes provision.
to the infinite, all finites are the same.
When Jesus walked out of the tomb, the word impossible was removed from our vocabulary. The size of your prayers depends on the size of your God. If your god is small, you’ll pray man-sized prayers. But if your God knows no limits, then neither will your prayers. The God we pray to exists outside of the four space-time dimensions He created, and maybe we should pray that way!
I love the story about the man who sized up God in prayer one day. “God, how long is a million years to you?” God said, “A million years is like a second.” Then the man asked, “How much is a million dollars to you?” God said, “A million dollars is like a penny.” The man smiled and said, “Co...
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the way you steward the miracles of God is by believing for bigger and better miracles. God stretches your faith so you can dream bigger dreams.
There comes a moment when you must quit talking to God about the mountain in your life and start talking to the mountain about your God.
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.
there will always be pharaohs who get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.
I made a determination a few years ago that I wasn’t going to defend myself against any and every criticism that comes my way. Life is too short, and the mission is too important. And I’m called to play offense, not defense. God is my defender. And I believe He is contending for me if my cause is just and my heart is right. It’s important for us to have people in our lives who can speak words of rebuke and exhortation. But they will typically be someone with whom we have a relationship. When discerning whether to respond to criticism, I try to discern the spirit of the person doing the
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On September 7, 1774, the Continental Congress held its first official meeting at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia. Their first official act was prayer. And it wasn’t some perfunctory prayer that was nothing more than protocol; it was a good old-fashioned prayer meeting. Our founding fathers prayed with fervency and intensity. Earwitnesses heard them interceding several blocks away. Eyewitnesses said Henry, Randolph, Rutledge, Lee, and Jay were doubled over as they bowed in reverence before God. John Adams later recounted31 that it “has had an excellent effect upon every body here.” And not
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Every miracle, every blessing, every divine appointment has a genealogy. If we trace them back, we’ll find a genesis prayer that set in motion the sovereign act of God. Am I saying that God cannot do it without us? No, I’m not saying He cannot; I am simply saying He will not. In His omniscience and omnipotence, God has determined there are some things He will only do in response to prayer.
The greatest tragedy in life is the prayers that go unanswered because they go unasked.
Prayer adds an element of surprise to your life that is more fun than a surprise party or surprise gift or surprise romance. In fact, prayer turns life into a party, into a gift, into a romance.
God has surprised me so many times that I’m no longer surprised by His surprises. That doesn’t mean I love them any less. I’m still in awe of the strange and mysterious ways in which God works, but I have come to expect the unexpected because God is predictably unpredictable. The only thing I can predict with absolute certainty is this: the more you pray, the more you will experience holy surprises.
Praying hard is not the path of least resistance; it’s usually the path of most resistance because we engage in spiritual warfare.
Very rarely are our prayers answered as quickly or easily as we’d like. By definition, praying hard is hard because it’s hard. But it’s the prayers you pray when you feel like you want to quit praying that can bring the greatest breakthroughs.
Our most powerful prayers are hyperlinked to the promises of God. When we know we are praying the promises of God, we can pray with holy confidence. We don’t have to second-guess ourselves, because we know that God’s word does not return to Him empty.35 This doesn’t mean we can claim the promises of God out of context. But our problem typically isn’t overclaiming the promises of God; it’s under-claiming them.
If we stand on God’s word, God will stand by His word.
God is never early. God is never late. God is always right on time.
it’s not over till God says it’s over. If your cause is ordained by God, then the battle belongs to the Lord. It’s His victory to win,
Sometimes God shows up; sometimes God shows off!
Sometimes God will push us to our absolute limits — the limits of our faith, of our patience, of our gifts.
Our prayers have no space or time limitations because the God who answers them exists outside of the four dimensions He created. You never know when His timeless answer will reenter the atmosphere of our lives, and that should fill us with holy anticipation. Never underestimate His ability to answer anytime, anyplace, anyhow. He has infinite answers to our finite prayers. He can answer them more than once. And He answers them forever.
We never know when our prayers will be answered, and we never know when we are the answer to someone else’s prayer.
Drawing prayer circles isn’t some magic trick to get what you want from God. God is not a genie in a bottle, and your wish is not His command. His command better be your wish. If it’s not, you won’t be drawing prayer circles; you’ll end up walking in circles. Drawing prayer circles starts with discerning what God wants, what God wills. And until His sovereign will becomes your sanctified wish, your prayer life will be unplugged from its power supply. And getting what you want isn’t the goal; the goal is glorifying God by drawing circles around the promises, miracles, and dreams He wants for
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If we could come to grips with two fundamental truths, they would transform our lives: God is with us, and God is for us. That is all you ever need to know.
Müller wrote, “This … is one of the great secrets44 in connection with successful service for the Lord; to work, as if everything depended upon our diligence, and yet not to rest in the least upon our exertions, but upon the blessing of the Lord.” The key to kingdom productivity is this: work really hard at what God has called you to do, but do not trust in your work; trust in God.
Oswald Chambers once wrote, “Let God be as original45 with other people as He is with you.”
Don’t seek answers; seek God. And the answers will seek you.
When God gives a vision, He always makes provision.
Sometimes we have to be willing to give something up to God in order to get it back from God. Like Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, it will probably be something that is precious to us. It may even be a gift from God, just like Isaac was to Abraham. But God will test us to make sure the gift isn’t more important than the Gift Giver, the dream isn’t more important to us than the Dream Giver. He’ll test us to make sure it’s not an idol. If it is, that dream, gift, or desire might need to die so that it can be resurrected. But God often takes things away to give them back so that we know
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Prayer will sanctify our waiting, so we wait with holy expectancy. And waiting doesn’t delay God’s plans and purposes. It always expedites them. Waiting is the fast track to whatever it is that God wants to do in our lives. And we’ll discover that on God’s timeline, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
We think we have too much to do to pray, but the exact opposite is true: we have too much to do not to pray! Martin Luther once declared, “I have so much to do47 that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” The more you have to do, the more you have to pray!
We live in a culture in which everybody wants to be heard, but many people have nothing to say. Don’t worry about building a platform. If you listen to God, people will listen to you.
When you open your Bible, God opens His mouth. The surest way to get a word from the Lord is by getting into God’s Word. God will speak to you. Then God will speak through you.
Sin doesn’t just harden the heart; it also hardens our hearing. In fact, it makes us turn a deaf ear to God because we don’t want to hear the convicting voice of the Holy Spirit.
Prayer isn’t just the way we cultivate our own potential; prayer is the way we recognize potential in others.
Jewish philosophers did not believe that the prophetic gift was reserved for a few select individuals; they believed that becoming prophetic was the crowning point of mental and spiritual development. The more we grow in grace, the more prophetic we become. This doesn’t mean we will start predicting the future; it means we’ll start creating it. How? Through our prayers! Prayer is the way we write the future. It’s the difference between letting things happen and making things happen. And when we speak prophetic words into someone’s life, it gives them a new lease on life.
The more we pray, the more prophetic we will become. And I know it’s a play on words, but the less we pray, the more pathetic we will become. Sorry, I couldn’t resist, because it’s true.
Laurie Beth Jones has stated51 that at least 40 percent of our lives are based on personal prophecies. I’m not sure how to substantiate this statistic, but I find it very believable. The right word spoken at the right time can make an eternal difference.
There comes a moment when praying becomes a form of spiritual procrastination. It’s time to stop praying and start acting.
I wonder what would happen62 if we all agreed to read one of the Gospels, until we came to a place that told us to do something, then went out to do it, and only after we had done it … began reading again? … There are aspects of the Gospel that are puzzling and difficult to understand. But our problems are not centered around the things we don’t understand, but rather in the things we do understand, the things we could not possibly misunderstand.
When Christianity turns into a noun, it becomes a turnoff. Christianity was always intended to be a verb — more specifically, an action verb. The title of the book of Acts says it all, doesn’t it? It’s not the book of Ideas or Words. It’s the book of Acts. And if we said less and did more, I believe we would have the same kind of impact the first-century church had. And while we’re on the subject, we should be more known for what we’re for than what we’re against.
Prayer that doesn’t lead to action isn’t true prayer; it’s self-talk. When we talk to God, God will talk back to us. He will provoke us, rouse us, stir us, goad us, and prompt us. When we say “amen,” inaction is no longer an option.
When everything is said and done, God won’t say, “Well said, good and faithful servant.” He won’t say, “Well thought,” “well planned,” or even “well prayed.” There is only one commendation He will give: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
If you want God to do something new, you cannot keep doing the same old thing.
