fear

There are times when life on this earth is hard and uncomfortable...and even downright painful. When those times come, you deeply need the comfort that only the Holy Spirit can bring.

How do you receive that kind of comfort?

By doing just what the believers in Acts did. By “walking in the fear of the Lord.”

Praise God. Praise Him in the morning. Praise Him at noon. Praise Him at night. If you've never praised God in your life, then get started right now. Praise Him for freedom. Praise Him for healing and Calvary. Praise Him for the Name of Jesus.

You ought to be shouting your way to work and shouting your way back home! If there's anything the devil can't stand, it's praise.

One night after a worship service a friend of mine and I stepped outside and were suddenly awed by the beauty around us. It was one of those crisp, clear winter nights when the brilliance of the moon and stars nearly takes your breath away. I said to my friend, "Tommy, will you look at that!" Then he looked up with one of those Holy Ghost whole-face smiles and with a voice full of tenderness said, "My Daddy made that!"

"My Daddy...." I'll never forget the way he said that.

Can you really have a merry Christmas even when you have a thousand and one pressures bearing down on you? Yes, you can—and you don't have to leave the country to do it. No matter how intense or how trivial the problems are that you're facing right now, you can have the most wonderful, most carefree Christmas season you've ever had in your life; and you can start having it today.

Are you ready to face a crisis? Don't wait until one hits to find out. Prepare yourself now.

That's what a couple of my Partners did. They faced a situation that would have made many people panic. But when the crisis hit, their hearts were so deeply established on the Word of God that their first response was not one of fear but of faith.

What affected me most when I heard their testimony was one particular phrase they kept using:

No Deposit—No Return

Few people realize just how closely connected faith and forgiveness are. Jesus taught about that connection in His sermon on mountain-moving faith that's recorded in Mark 11:22-26.

He said, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive" (verses 24-25).

Did you know your name has been changed? It's no longer the same as it was before you were born again. You gave your old name away when you made covenant with Jesus.

To fully appreciate what that means, you have to think about it in the light of what we know about blood covenant. When someone enters a covenant of blood, he is giving himself completely away. He is no longer his own. His assets and his debts, his strengths and his weaknesses belong forever to his covenant brother.

There are times when you know what God has called you to do, but you just don't feel you have the inner resources you need to do it. Somehow you've simply run dry. You know the Word says that "out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). But, during those times, you can't even find the creek bank, much less the river.

The Word of God tells us how to handle those situations through a clear command: "Stir up the gift inside you."

What do you do when you're facing a particularly stubborn problem? A problem that resists your every effort to solve it?

Put the power of love to work on it! The power of love is the greatest power in the universe. It's beyond defeat. It never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8).

The Bible says God is love. So when you release love into a situation, you have released God into it. Think about that! When you start releasing love into a situation, Jesus becomes responsible for its success.

What is this love I'm talking about?

Have you ever noticed that those who have the most exciting, faith-inspiring testimonies are those who've been under pressure at some time in their lives? They're the people who stayed faithful when the pressure was on. They're the people who believed God's promises of prosperity in the midst of desperate financial situations or trusted God for healing in the face of a terminal disease.

The Amplified Bible translates Matthew 11:12, "...a share in the heavenly kingdom is sought with most ardent zeal and intense exertion."

I want you to get violent today. Yes, violent, determined, zealous. I want you to get so committed to the things of God that you'll withstand any attempt to take them away from you.

God has raised us up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus! That's what the Word of God says. Very few of us have actually dared to believe this. We've uplifted Jesus. We've exalted Him—and rightly so! But at the same time, we've unwittingly belittled what He did by not allowing Him to bring us alongside Him.

That was God's purpose at Calvary: to bring us alongside Jesus. To make us what He already was.

Did you catch that? He said all who live godly lives are going to suffer persecution. Not just the super-saints, not just the missionaries in hostile lands—but all.

If you're going to live for God, you're going to run into persecution somewhere along the line. The devil's going to make sure of it!

Now I'm not saying that to frighten you or to depress you. I'm saying it because I want you to be prepared.

When you're wise to the strategies of the devil, it's harder for him to use them successfully on you to confuse you and get you off track.