Living in a home filled with the love and the peace of God Himself is almost like living in heaven right here on earth. We all know that's true. And we long to live in such a home. Yet, time and time again, we shortchange our families. We spend our kindest words and our most winning smiles on those beyond our front door.

Have you ever wondered why?

Fear of failure. It's haunted all of us at some time in our lives. Popular psychology tells us to adjust to it. But the Word of God tells us that there is a failure-proof way to live without it. It is the way of love.

If you want to know real success, you must learn to be moved and motivated by love. That's how Jesus was when He was on the earth.

Years ago I was in Detroit, and I met a woman who was raised in a communist-bloc country. While I was visiting with her, a news broadcast came on. And as we sat there listening to it, suddenly tears came to her eyes.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

Although I hadn't noticed it, the news commentator had said something derogatory about the president. "I don't like to hear anyone talk about this country like that," she said. "I don't care whether it's true or not. I don't want to hear it."

There's an old Full Gospel tradition that says God gets glory from the wonderful way His children bear pain and agony and that the world is impressed by that. What a lie! That's simply a tool of the devil to keep God's children in bondage.

People of the world already have all the pain and agony they want. They aren't looking for a way into it. They are looking for a way out. They don't care what you preach. It's the religious people who get worried about that. The world, the sinners, are smarter than that. All they care about are the results.

Do you want to know why the Body of Christ has been in such a mess over the past few years? Do you want to know why the devil has been able to make a public display of our weaknesses? Do you want to know why, instead of being unified and strong, we've often been torn apart by division and criticisms that come not from without but within?

It is because, as the Lord said in Hebrews, the people of God have need of milk and not of strong meat. They're babies! The people of God for the most part don't know His ways.

Many of us, even though we're believers, have seen grief and sorrow as such a natural part of life that we haven't even questioned them. In fact, if we're honest, we'd have to admit there are times when we actually want to feel sad and sorry for ourselves.

Why would we choose to feel sorrow? Because sorrow has an emotional kick to it. It offers a surge of feeling that, in the beginning stages, is almost intoxicating.

Walking in love is good for your health. Did you know that?

It’s true! Medical science has proven it. Researchers have discovered that hostility produces stress that causes ulcers, tension headaches and a host of other ills.

What a time of monumental decisions and changes we’re living in. If there ever was a day when you and I must know God’s will and purpose for our lives, it’s now.

In fact, nothing else is going to work! God is changing and rearranging things, lining them up for the end-time move of the Spirit. If you’re going to keep up, you must know God’s perfect plan for your life—and how to carry it out in His power!

How do you do that? Through prayer.

Do you know what it’s like to face a problem so big it seems downright irresponsible not to worry about it? There may not be a thing you can do about it, but you feel like you need to at least be concerned. After all, someone needs to! And no one else seems to be volunteering for the job.

Have you ever tried to forgive someone...and found you simply couldn’t do it? You’ve cried about it and prayed about it and asked God to help you, but those old feelings of resentment just failed to go away.

Put an end to those kinds of failures in the future by basing your forgiveness on faith rather than feelings. True forgiveness doesn’t have anything at all to do with how you feel. It’s an act of the will. It is based on obedience to God and on faith in Him.

Did you know that as a believer you’ve been redeemed from the curse of grief and sorrow by the blood of Jesus Christ? You don’t have to put up with them any more than you have to put up with sin or sickness or disease.

God started teaching me about this personally several months before my mother went home to be with Him in August 1988. Every time He’d show me something about it, I’d put it into practice. (You ought to do that with anything God is teaching you. Start practicing it now, and you can walk in it when the time comes!)

When I was a new Christian, it was almost impossible for me to live at peace with anyone! Almost every time I opened my mouth, I said something ugly. I was constantly hurting the people I was close to. In fact, I spoke more harshly to them than to anyone else.

I criticized Gloria's driving so much that she nearly refused to drive while I was with her. I criticized my children so much that they began to avoid me. I didn't want to be so insensitive, but I couldn't help it. I had a well-developed habit of speaking harshly and didn't know how to change it.

Jesus came to take away sin. Do you realize what that means? It means that God, through the blood of Jesus, has so completely done away with the power of sin that you, as a born-again believer, can live as if it never existed. You can step out from under its shadow once and for all.