purpose

There’s a spiritual flood coming. God has promised it. He’s promised us an outpouring of Holy Spirit power that will bring in the greatest harvest of souls any of us have ever seen.

As believers, we’ve been reading about it in the Word and hearing about it from the pulpit for years. We’ve been staring toward heaven so long, waiting for it to come, that we’ve gotten cricks in our spiritual necks. We’ve had this mental image of God pouring down His Spirit from some sort of big heavenly pitcher above us.

But you know what? We’ve been looking in the wrong direction!

God’s going to get you for that! Most of us have said that kind of thing jokingly for years. We’ve somehow believed that God slaps us down with pain and punishment every time we sin. But that’s just not true. There are deadly wages for sin, but God is not the one who’s doling them out.

Truly, it’s time for us to stop looking for the living among the dead. It’s time for us to stop wandering around in the cemetery of sin, sickness and failure and to step into resurrection life!

As a resurrected creature, you’re no accident going somewhere to happen. Your life isn’t just a loose web of events and circumstances. God has specific plans for you.

It’s time we, as believers, began to enter into the oneness Jesus prayed for in John 17:21. It’s time we held on to one another in good times as well as bad. It’s time we realized that we need one another.

We do, you know. I need your faith as much as you need mine. Together, we can face anything and win in Jesus.

The Bible calls us kings and priests (Revelation 1:6) and world overcomers (1 John 5:4). But for most of us, those are just phrases. They haven't become real to us. That's why the devil's been able to hoodwink us into living lives of defeat. It hasn't actually dawned on us who we really are.

If you'll look in 1 Chronicles 14, you'll see that David had a similar problem. He'd been anointed king by the prophet Samuel when he was just a teenager. He'd known for years that someday he'd rule over Israel. Yet somehow, it hadn't really sunk in.

Have you ever been in a room full of babies? Infants crying. Crawlers hollering for certain toys. Toddlers pushing and whining to get their way. It can be quite a handful, can't it?

The truth of this verse hasn't really dawned on most people. They mistakenly think that Jesus was able to work wonders, to perform miracles and to live above sin because He had divine powers that we don't have. Thus, they have never really aspired to live like He lived.

"Oh my," they say with great humility, "I could never live like Jesus did. After all, He had an advantage. He was God!"

Even though Satan lost all his authority on this earth the day Jesus rose from the dead, for the past 2,000 years he's been running around as a spiritual outlaw—continuing to kill, steal from and destroy all who will let him. But, you know, he's not going to be able to do that much longer. There's coming a day when he's going to be put out of business completely. There's coming a day when the evil he's done here on earth will be put totally underfoot by the power of God.

Are you destined for greatness in the kingdom of God?

Ask most believers that question and they'll humbly assure you they're not. "You know we can't all be golden vessels" they'll say. "Like the Bible says, some of us are just called to be little clay pots."

Praise God, the Bible doesn't say any such thing!

We're created to praise God. Some people don't know that. When the praise service starts, they sit back and say, "I'm not comfortable with all that singing and shouting. I guess praise is just not my thing."

Yes, it is! According to the Bible, if you breathe, you were meant to praise.

And don't try to slip by with saying, "Well, I have praise in my heart." That's not enough. The Word says you need to have it in your mouth as well (Psalms 34:1)! Psalm 132:9 says, "Let thy saints shout for joy." You can't shout and be quiet at the same time.