In this 700 Club interview, Charisma founder and CEO Stephen Strang, author of God and Donald Trump and the upcoming Trump Aftershock, shares how God moved to bring this seemingly unlikely candidate to the presidency.
“We’re expecting the Lord to move in an amazing way.” This episode of “The Reel” captures the Spirit-fueled power of Stadium Worship in Zimbabwe. Experience the awakening!
In this CBN news story, evangelist D.R. Harrison shares some of the Spirit-powered happenings taking place in Greeneville, Tennessee, where revival has blazed since April 15, 2018. Watch, and catch the fire!
Temptation is a fact of life. When we are tempted to fall in any area, the reason is anxiety worry, stress, concern, apprehension, unease, nervousness, misgiving or tension. Whatever we want to call it, this difficulty stems from one main cause: fear.
I’m Not Enough
One big fear is that we are not enough. When we are afraid of who we aren’t, we tend to bolster our inadequacies with something tangible to build ourselves or make us more.
Different people turn to different things, like drugs, alcohol or pornography. I turned to overindulging in food. Maybe that’s your distraction of choice as well.
We need not fear our inadequacy because in God we are more than enough.
God Won’t Help Me
There is another big fear that stops us. It is really the fear that God won’t come through for us either in giving us the physical strength to go on or the resources we need to just live.
We trust God, but when we physically see that we don’t have the money to pay our bills, we get anxious and worried. Instead of turning to God, we give in to our feelings of inadequacies.
Finally, we cry out to God, and He gives us an answer. We figure now all our worries are over. Right here, though, is the point where we will meet the biggest resistance.
Whatever form it takes, its main task is to draw us away from our dependency on God. We fear we are not enough. We fear we don’t have enough resources to live.
I Can’t Go Forward
Acknowledging resistance is trying to stop you is one way you know you are on the right path. Resistance will overwhelm and diminish your drive and make you feel like there is no way you can go forward. It is temptation in its rawest form. Resistance is created to make you want to run back to what you used to rely on.
“Let me be clear, the Anointed One has set you free, not partially, but wonderfully and completely free. Let us always cherish this truth and stubbornly refuse to go back to the bondage of the past” (Gal. 5:1, TPT).
Dealing with this fear in our own strength will only cause us to want to run back to whatever physical thing we have used in the past to bolster our courage. So how do we deal with this huge obstacle?
We draw our strength from God. We realize no obstacle is bigger than God. Huge obstacles are there to remind us that as a human it is impossible to move, “but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26, MEV).
Peace Is God’s Antidote for Fear
We get anxious. We worry. We stress. Then, when we are at our weakest, instead of drawing strength from God, we give into temptation. We eat to stop worrying and stressing.
God tells us to be anxious for nothing because we can’t fix it no matter how much we stress over the obstacle in our way. There is only one thing to do when we are anxious, faced with resistance and circumstances beyond our control.
We pray. I don’t just mean a short, two-minute prayer. We pray constantly, all the time, every single day. We thank God for what we have and for who He is. With focus on God comes peace.
“Don’t worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7, NLT).
Recipe for Overcoming Temptation
Overeating will not fix the problem you are facing no matter what it is. It won’t even make you feel better because the problem will still be there when you finish indulging. Indulging only adds another layer to the issue you are facing.
It’s actually fear, anxiety, worry, stress, loneliness, shame, guilt and a myriad of other emotions you are facing. However, if you’re the way I was, sometimes you feel like you are eating your emotions. Instead of dealing with them, you pile them under mounds of comfort foods in order to try to make them go away.
There is only one thing to do. Take the issue to God and leave the problem, the obstacle, the person in His hands. Keep doing that until you actually let go of it.
That is when you will experience God’s recipe for peace. When you have peace, you will be able to overcome temptation.
Releasing your problems to God in prayer plus thanking Him constantly equals peace, which results in the ability to overcome temptation. {eoa}
Teresa Shields Parker is the author of seven books, all available on Amazon. Her latest book, Sweet Hunger: Developing an Appetite for God, is available now, and Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds is the No. 1 Christian weight-loss memoir. She is also a writing and weight-loss coach, blogger, speaker, wife and mother. Visit her online at to find her books, coaching programs and gifts.
This blog originally appeared at .
One of my favorite memories is that of my mother reading to me from a book of fairy tales. Cinderella, Ali Baba, Sleeping Beauty and other characters came to life through the sound of her voice. As I listened to their adventures, each character seemed as real as any person I’d met.
I soon graduated to reading those tales, and others, myself. Then I moved on to more stories. Grand tales of love and adventure, of courage and sacrifice. Stories set in exotic locales with characters much more interesting than the people I talked to each day.
Trouble is, that’s how some people view all or part of the Bible: interesting stories set in exotic times and places. Stories that have a moral, but aren’t really true.
Even in some Christian circles today, it’s popular to teach that the Bible is true when it speaks of Jesus as our Savior, but that other passages, such as the book of Genesis, are merely grand stories meant to teach a lesson. For example, the creation account in Genesis couldn’t be true, since “everyone” knows the universe could not have been created in six days, Noah could never have fit all the animals on the ark, and Jonah could not have been swallowed by a big fish.
Why not? As Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis is fond of saying, “How do you know? Were you there?”
While science has proposed a variety of theories to disprove biblical accounts, including creation, there has not yet been one scientific law that proves the Bible wrong. Not one. In fact, the theory of evolution contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics: left on its own, entropy (disorder) will increase, not decrease.
So why are many Christians reluctant to take a stand for the validity of the entire biblical record, from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22?
Some people seem to think we simply need to teach others about Jesus Christ—that discussions about creation are unimportant. After all, whether it took six days or six million years, we’re here, aren’t we?
But it is important. If we can’t trust the literal, biblical account of creation, how can we trust the biblical accounts of anything else? If we teach others to choose the passages they want to believe in the Bible, how is that different from belief systems that combine bits and pieces of various religions to create something they are comfortable with?
The book of Genesis is as important as the Gospel accounts in the Bible because it is foundational to everything else the Bible mentions. It provides detailed explanations for the basis for marriage and for the development of different people groups and cultures. It even provides a scientific explanation for the fossil record discovered by archaeologists in recent years.
Most of all, Genesis explains the reason we need a Savior. If the account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is not true, then why should we believe the rest of the Bible is true?
Some Christians try to find a happy compromise between creation and evolution. They offer a third theory for consideration: God created the world, and He used evolution as the means by which He created.
But this option slides down a slippery slope. For one thing, it can’t be reconciled with what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 5:12:
“Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death has spread to all men, because all have sinned.”
If man was created through evolution, then variations of humanity would have died millions of times before sin entered the world through Adam and Eve.
And if death did not enter due to sin, then why do we need a Savior?
Denying the creation account does more than offer alternate theories. It rejects humanity’s need for a Savior, and it rejects humanity’s accountability to its Creator.
If we are ashamed of the biblical account—the whole biblical account—then we are not correctly handling “the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).
I love reading fairy tales, and I love reading the Bible—but they are not the same.
What do you believe about creation, and why do you believe it? {eoa}
Ava Pennington is a writer, speaker and Bible teacher. She writes for nationally circulated magazines and is published in 32 anthologies, including 25 Chicken Soup for the Soul books. She also authored Daily Reflections on the Names of God: A Devotional, endorsed by Kay Arthur. Learn more at .
This article originally appeared at .
Dr. Eddie Hyatt shares a Spirit-powered teaching with Christ for the Nations on our nation’s history of revival as well as our deep need to experience a Great Awakening today. Check it out below!
Why are we discouraged? I submit there are two main reasons. We are too focused on ourselves and not on God and/or the devil has his weapon raised and we are in his sights. Both are actually reasons to be encouraged.
Fixed on the Here and Now
We are human, and so most of the time we look at what is happening in the natural instead of believing what God promises supernaturally.
In other words, we are too focused on the temporal, earthly issues and circumstances we find ourselves in. We are limited and hemmed in by what looks like an impossible circumstance.
Story of Your Life
One thing God does well is what fiction writers sometimes call “pulling a rabbit out of a hat.” Here’s how it works. Toward the middle of the book, everything looks like it’s going to turn out perfectly.
Then in the next section, everything falls apart. What you thought would be a great story looks impossible to rectify. As a matter of fact, you can’t see how it will ever turn out good.
Wait, though; there’s more to the book. The twist comes in the last part where the impossible is made possible. This is what God does with our lives. He weaves everything together.
The Weaver
“So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together to fit into God’s perfect plan of bringing good into our lives, for we are his lovers who have been called to fulfill his designed purpose” (Rom. 8:28, TPT).
Our creative God loves to weave the pieces of our lives together for our good and His glory. We can’t see how anything will ever come of the mess we’ve made of our lives. He believes in us so vehemently that He helps weave the pieces of our lives together in a beautiful tapestry.
Fear Is A Liar
Fear is another thing that hits us between the eyes. And it always happens right when we are about to enter into another level in God, and we know we will have to vigilant against the enemy’s tactic.
Things are lining up for our promotion or our deeper understanding of God’s ways. It feels like there is a long, dark tunnel we have to get through before we are able to step into the new.
God is ready to teach us something, an important piece we will need for our next season. However, there is one who will fight tooth and nail to make sure we don’t step into that next level.
Father of Lies
The thief, the father of lies, is the one who wants to stop us and keep us wandering around in the dark tunnel where we can’t find our way out unless we are focused on the light at the end. Unfortunately, he has many whom have been enlisted to accomplish this deed for him.
Jesus could have been discouraged when facing those he knew wanted to kill him. Instead, he called them out and said, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning … there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).
Fear is the evil one’s main weapon. We know we are stronger than the cartoon-looking guy in the red tights, horns and pitchfork because we have Jesus on our side. It’s just that he doesn’t show himself to us in a way we can recognize him.
Recognize the Source
He comes disguised as discouragement. It feels like what he says are not his words, but our own. And, of course, we always believe our own words.
Once we recognize the source, though, we have him on the run. We know what to do. It’s simple. We make a clear choice and take a stand. “Therefore, submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
Why does he run? Because we have taken a stand, and he knows the one you we chosen is stronger than he is. And once we have taken that stand, we must continue to stand.
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8a). But there’s one final act to seal the defeat of the enemy. We must cleanse our hands of anything we have done wrong and purify our hearts.
This is the final dagger in the enemy’s heart.
Be Encouraged
When discouragement comes against us, it is because there is a greater blessing, a deeper walk with God, a new season on our horizon.
God is working to take the difficulties we’ve been walking through and weave them into a message only we can carry.
When the evil one is working against us, it’s time to send him packing in the name of Jesus, because we are just one step closer to coming into our destinies. {eoa}
Teresa Shields Parker is the author of seven books, all available on Amazon. Her latest book, Sweet Hunger: Developing an Appetite for God, is available now, and Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds is the No. 1 Christian weight-loss memoir. She is also a writing and weight-loss coach, blogger, speaker, wife and mother. Visit her online at to find her books, coaching programs and free gifts.
This article originally appeared at.
Along with the growing unbiblical trend of self-care among Christian women is a growing trend of speaking positive affirmations.
Speaking positive affirmations is a daily practice of one choosing certain phrases, thoughts and quotes to speak to themselves in an effort to boost their self-worth and defeat negativity in their life.
These affirmations are a self-help mechanism that stems from the idea that a positive mental attitude will help you achieve anything; therefore, you need to speak and think only positive things in order to achieve your goals.
To be sure, there is a biblical parallel that can be drawn here.
But isn’t that how the enemy always works? He takes a biblical truth and then twists it to serve his own purposes and to lure people away from glorifying God to glorifying him … by means of glorifying themselves.
Positive affirmations, like self-care, makes us—fallen man—the center of our focus, which is humanistic: the worship of man.
This is where practices like this are so dangerous because they carry an element of truth to them, but twist them so that the object of our meditation and worship is no longer God, but a god we have formed of ourselves.
Yes; the Bible does tell us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45).
The Bible also instructs us to think on those things that are good, true, honest, lovely and of a good report. One could say that the Bible tells us to think about positive things.
But there is a significant difference between the practice of positive affirmations and Philippians 4:8.
1. Positive affirmations make self the focus.
Just as we saw with self-care, positive affirmations are a humanistic idea, making ourselves the central focus of our daily meditation. However, in God’s Word, we are told to do just the opposite.
God’s Word instructs us time and again to keep our eyes fixed on Christ. We are to look to Him for our validation, strength, help and comfort.
We will not find these things in ourselves, and in just a moment we will see why.
2. Positive affirmations seek to affirm self.
Positive affirmations are all about affirming ourselves, validating our own worth and training our minds to believe that we have significance. In Scripture, however, we read that we are to die to ourselves.
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24).
Yes, it is true, we all have worth and value, we all have significance. God has created us for a special purpose, which He determined before the beginning of time.
But our worth and value are not found in us, but in Christ.
When we discover that—when we truly understand who we are in Jesus Christ—we are free from having to convince ourselves of our own significance and are able to focus on others, affirming others, imparting that value to those around us.
” Let nothing be done out of strife or conceit, but in humility let each esteem the other better than himself” (Phil. 2:3, emphasis mine).
3. Positive affirmations assume power in the positivity of our own words.
James does say that the power of life and death are in the tongue.
What we speak has tremendous power because it confirms what we already feel in our heart. That is why when we get a sense that something is wrong, very often we hesitate to speak it out loud because it somehow makes the situation real.
There is great power in our words.
But behind this power are two forces at work, because words in and of themselves are not powerful. It is what inspires those words.
Inspiration comes from two sources: God and Satan.
To assume that just the act of speaking words about ourselves to transform our thinking and achieve success has power, in and of itself, is to deny the power of God. And this is a danger we face when, as God’s children, we adopt this practice of positive affirmations.
2 Timothy 3:5 says that in the last days people will have a form of godliness, but deny its power. People will look godly, say things that sound godly, but their very lives deny God’s power.
4. Speaking positive affirmations is a technique for self-improvement.
The central message of the gospel is that we cannot save ourselves. There is nothing we can do to help ourselves; we are hopelessly and helplessly lost.
There is nothing in us from which we can improve, and we certainly cannot improve ourselves.
Any worth and worth we have is in the fact that God created us.
Any significance we have is because of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Scripture has this to say about us: “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They all turn aside, together they become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (Ps. 14:2-3).
This is repeated in Psalm 53.
Jeremiah says, “The heart is more deceitful than all things and desperately wicked; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).
If we think that that any words of man—who lacks goodness apart from God and who is at the very center of his being deceitful and desperately wicked —can improve upon our situation, we are not only wrong, but we have exalted the power of man above the power of God.
We are putting our faith, hope and trust in the words of fallen man and trusting in our own power for success.
Do we not see how this offends God?
5. Speaking positive affirmations has its roots in New Age, Eastern religions, Buddhism and yoga.
Anytime I see a new trend like this explode in society, I like to go back and look at the origins of that trend, and here’s why. While some may argue that as long as we use an activity as worship to God, it’s not important where that activity originated. For example, some say that as long as we use yoga only as exercise, or we meditate on Scripture and worship God while doing yoga, it’s not bad.
But God said this:
When the Lord your God shall cut off the nations from before you, where you go to possess them, and you dispossess them, and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself so that you are not ensnared by following them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you not inquire after their gods, saying, “How did these nations serve their gods? Even so I will do likewise.” You shall not do so to the Lord your God, for every abomination to the Lord, which He hates, they have done to their gods. They have even burned their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.
Whatever I command you, be careful to do it. You shall not add to it or take away from it.
We are not to worship God in the way pagans worship their gods.
We are not to borrow their activities and turn them into worship of God. God has already prescribed in His Word how He wants us to worship Him, how we are supposed to live as dedicated children of God.
We are not to borrow activities from the world—no matter how good and nice they seem—and adopt them as our own personal practices.
The temptation would be, now, to take the concept of positive affirmations and “Christianize” it: taking the nice, positive, self-affirming and uplifting verses of the Bible and making them our main focus, while speaking them over ourselves to make ourselves feel good.
For every nice, positive and affirming verse in the Bible is a verse that reminds us that without Christ we are nothing and nobody.
Without Him, we are lost.
“[You} were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12).
For every nice, positive and affirming verse in the Bible is a verse that reminds us that there is nothing in us that is good, our heart is corrupt and everything we do apart from Christ only has the worth of a dung heap.
“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is as filthy rags; and we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isa. 64:6).
Yes, we need to know who we are in Christ, but we also must understand that being in Christ comes with certain responsibilities.
Being in Christ means we live a crucified life.
It means that God’s Word is the final authority for every decision and activity.
Knowing who we are in Christ is realizing that as a child of God we must make decisions that reflect our royal lineage, we must reject those things that are in not in line with who we are as a royal son and daughter of God.
Embracing our identity in Christ means embracing more than good feeling.
It means embracing a life of sacrifice, commitment, loyalty to Scripture and submission to God’s supreme authority over our life.
These verses are not meant to stroke ourselves and affirm ourselves, but to renew our mind so that our mind, our worldview and our entire life is in alignment with God’s Word.
“And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that you put on the new nature, which was created according to God in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:23-24).
Rosilind Jukic, a Pacific Northwest native, is a missionary living in Croatia and married to her hero. Together, they live with their two active boys in the country, where she enjoys fruity candles and a hot cup of herbal tea on a blustery fall evening. She holds an associate degree in practical theology and is passionate about discipling and encouraging women. Her passion for writing led her to author a number of books. She is the author of “A Little R & R,” where she encourages women to find contentment in what God created them to be. She can also be found at these other places on a regular basis. You may follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google +.
This article originally appeared at .
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that bears no fruit, He takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, He prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:1-2).
Yesterday, I had my one-week check-up after breast cancer surgery. Though there are some issues to be expected, the doctor believes that all seem to be healing nicely, for which I praise God. The surgeon then revealed, with compassion in her eyes, that she had the pathology report. As she went over the numbers, it became evident that the results were not what I had prayed they would be. A trace of cancer was found in the lymph nodes, which alters the follow-up treatment significantly. So beginning Oct. 18, I will have 18 weeks of chemotherapy, with additional treatments stretching out over the next 12 months. The adventurous journey through the valley of the shadow will be longer than anticipated. But I am still confident the Shepherd will walk with me each step of the way until He sees me safely through.
The hardest thing facing me is the need to clear my schedule. By necessity, I will have to cancel commitments throughout the next year in order to take the cancer treatments. As I looked ahead at the calendar, I could almost audibly hear the “click” of the divine pruning shears.
I’m confident that the gardener knows exactly what He’s doing. I’m more expectant than ever of bearing much eternal fruit. For His glory.
Thank you for your prayers and your concern! So many of you have sent cards, gifts, pillows, emails, texts and testimonies of your own experience. I have been blessed by every single one.
There is one devotional thought that has been sent to me by quite a few of you. It is entitled, “What Cancer Can’t Do. It then lists about a dozen things. It’s a great list, and I was encouraged when I read it. But I wanted to turn it around. Although I’ve only known about my cancer for a little over a month and so in no way qualify as an expert. I have experienced some things already, and I’m expecting to experience even more things, that cancer can do. I want to share them with you. Feel free to add to the list.
Cancer Can:
—enrich love
—refocus hope
—strengthen faith
—deepen prayer
—command peace
—bolster confidence
—increase endurance
—multiply friendships
—enhance memories
—open doors
—realign priorities
—grow courage
—create empathy
—tenderize compassion
—develop character
Cancer can be a blessing in disguise.
Cancer can be the preliminary to bearing much eternal fruit.
Cancer can be a display case for God’s glory.
Please continue to pray for my healing and that I will not miss what cancer can do for me. {eoa}
Anne Graham Lotz, second child of Billy and Ruth Graham, is the founder of AnGeL Ministries and former chairman for the National Day of Prayer Task Force. She has authored 15 books, including her latest, The Daniel Prayer.
This article originally appeared at .
It’s hurricane season in Florida. With every new tropical disturbance identified in the Atlantic Ocean, Florida residents play the “What if?” game.
What if a hurricane strikes us again?
What if we experience similar flooding to the Carolinas?
And the what-ifs extend beyond the weather.
What if the diagnosis is cancer?
What if the prognosis is terminal?
What if my prodigal refuses to return?
Most Christians say they trust God. We quote Bible verses that talk about God as Provider, Protector and Healer. We memorize verses describing God’s loving nature and His compassion.
But even as we quote truth, our circumstances can unleash fears in overwhelming waves.
What if God allows the cancer to return?
And what if God permits my prodigal to remain lost?
What if God allows us to lose our home?
The resulting fears rise above our immediate circumstances to influence our view of God.
We doubt God’s goodness, even though the Bible declares that God is good (Ps. 100:5).
And we doubt God’s provision, even though the Bible tells us He will meet our needs (Phil. 4:19).
We doubt God’s love, even though the Bible tells us God is love (I John 4:8).
When we allow our fears to trump our faith, it’s the equivalent of saying God doesn’t have our best interests at heart. And even when we don’t fear, we can rebel against God by choosing what we think is best, rather than what He says is best.
How are your circumstances influencing your perspective of our heavenly Father? Do you hold a high view of God? Have you allowed what you don’t understand about His ways to prevent you from trusting His nature?
God calls His children to trust Him despite our what-ifs.
And if our what-if actually happens, will we still trust Him?
Which what-if are you struggling with today? {eoa}
This article originally appeared at .