ReFocus

The call comes that ushers you into the worst crisis of your life. Over time, hope begins to disappear. You are well aware of your utter helplessness. It is time to stand still and consider your God.

If need be, God can speak and hang the sun and the moon.

If need be, God can operate, remove a rib, and create a helpmate.

If need be, God can cause it to rain for 40 days and nights.

If need be, God can send confusion to a mis-directed building crew.

If need be, God can direct you to a land you do not know.

If need be, God can provide a sacrifice when one is needed.

If need be, God can cause a womb to flourish even when it is past the time of child bearing.

If need be, God can bring you out of prison and give you the position of Vice President.

If need be, God can protect a baby in a crocodile infested Nile.

If need be, God can speak from a burning bush that is not consumed.

If need be, God can cause a rod to turn into a snake.

If need be, God can send frogs, flies, boils, gnats, locusts, darkness, disease, and death to our enemy.

If need be, God can cause our enemy to give us his gold and silver.

If need be, God can part the sea.

If need be, God can dry up muddy ground so we can walk on it.

If need be, God can drown the whole advancing enemy army.

If need be, God can give water from a rock.

If need be, God can send manna in the morning every day for 40 years.

If need be, God can cause clothes and shoes not to wear out for 40 years.

If need be, God can speak from the darkness.

If need be, God can give us the land occupied by others.

If need be, God can defeat our enemies and drive them out of the land.

If need be, God can send angels to surround us.

If need be, God can raise up a righteous judge.

If need be, God can bring down the house using a blind strong man.

If need be, God can stop the rain.

If need be, God can use a 17 year old boy to slay a giant.

If need be, God can remove a king.

If need be, God can shut the mouths of lions.

If need be, God can cause the sun and the planets to stand still.

If need be, God can rescue a prophet out of a well.

If need be, God can provide plenty of food for two widow ladies.

If need be, God can arrange a wedding for you with your kinsman redeemer.

If need be, God can provide food for you during a famine.

If need be, God can take your last container of oil and flour and fill it up again and again.

If need be, God can restore life to your son.

If need be, God can remove the reproach of barrenness and give you a child who will bless God.

If need be, God can cause a whale to swallow you to get you back on course.

If need be, God can send fire to consume a soggy altar and sacrifice.

If need be, God can stand with you in the fire, insuring that not even your hair gets singed.

If need be, God can turn a king into a crazy man in order for the king to give God glory.

If need be, God can give you a dream.

If need be, God can interpret the dream.

If need be, God can feed you with ravens.

If need be, God can pay taxes from a fish you catch.

If need be, God can make the lame walk.

If need be, God can calm the sea.

If need be, God can cause writing to appear on a blank wall.

If need be, God can make a donkey talk.

If need be, God can multiply fish and bread.

If need be, God can heal a leprous hand.

If need be, God can touch a little girl and restore life.

If need be, God can roll the stone away.

If need be, God can knock the hell out of the grave.

If need be, God can do anything He wants to do.

So why do we ever worry?

2 Chron. 20:12-18 (NLT) O our God, won’t you stop them? We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. We do not know what to do, but we are looking to you for help.” As all the men of Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, wives, and children, the Spirit of the Lord came upon one of the men standing there. His name was Jahaziel son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, son of Jeiel, son of Mattaniah, a Levite who was a descendant of Asaph. He said, “Listen, King Jehoshaphat! Listen, all you people of Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid! Don’t be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God’s. Tomorrow, march out against them. You will find them coming up through the ascent of Ziz at the end of the valley that opens into the wilderness of Jeruel. But you will not even need to fight. Take your positions; then stand still and watch the Lord’s victory. He is with you, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid or discouraged. Go out there tomorrow, for the Lord is with you!” Then King Jehoshaphat bowed down with his face to the ground. And all the people of Judah and Jerusalem did the same, worshiping the Lord.

We love yall. Let us know how we can pray for you.

Billy and Sheilah Daws

Ps. If you want a great set of audio teachings on line, go to http://ffmp3.firefighters.org/kelfer.asp . If you would like the lessons in written form, go to http://www.dtm.org/ .

Faith is believing it is so when it is not so that it may be so.

Faith then is moving the realm of the scripture into the realm of the material.

When you believe it is so, because God said it is, then you are bringing heaven to earth. By your believing, you place yourself at the disposal of God, and He works through you to make that thing that you are believing, true in your personal life.

So it is the word of God that brings about the grace of faith. Faith is built upon the will of God.

God gives faith to whom He chooses and to him that asks believing.

Faith is not an act of the will outside of the revealed truth of God.

As long as a person hopes rather than actively believes God he will never receive all that comes by faith.

The believers job is not to reason through his faith and question God’s motives, but rather to obey Him.

Sacrificing is something substituted for faith thus becoming an enemy of faith.

There is no other way to really please God then to trust Him in such a way that you can release Him in a given situation.

Every great man of faith has found the initial step of faith to be the doorway to trails, testings, temptations, tragedies, and triumphs.

I have found that waiting ‘for’ God is much more difficult than waiting ‘on’ God. Faith is believing God for what He wants in our lives. Patience is waiting for that time God wants us to have it.

MANLEY BEASLEY

Joshua 1:9 (NKJV) “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

Notice the phrase “Have I not commanded you?” God tells Joshua that we have had this lesson over and over…why don’t you learn this? You don’t have to fear…I am with you!

By chapter 10 a marvelous transformation has taken place.

Joshua 10:25 (NKJV)
25 Then Joshua said to them, “Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed; be strong and of good courage, for thus the LORD will do to all your enemies against whom you fight.”

The fearful warrior of chapter 1 has become the mighty warrior of chapter 10! How? The words of chapter 1 were in his head. In chapter 10, those words are in his heart! He has received the Word into the very fiber of his being! Receive the Word by an act of your will!

This faith enables the believer to treat the future as the present, the impossible as the possible, and the invisible as the visible.—
—A life full of meaning and purpose must be built upon first salvation, then sanctification, and then faith.

But there is often a problem here. You see, James tells us that faith without works is dead. What James was really saying was that if there are not any works there just simply never was any faith.

The seven laws for liberation, for living a life of faith are as follows:
A vital Relationship-The First Law
A Maintained Fellowship-The Second Law
A Recognized Lordship-The Third Law
A Personalized Revelation-The Fourth Law
An Appropriated Faith-The Fifth Law
An Inevitable Warfare-The Sixth Law
An Abiding Nature-The Seventh Law.

FAITH is the key to moving God out of heaven and into earth.
It is the principle by which God operates. He operates on the basis of His children having faith in Him to do what He is already doing. So by faith we have the power to release the Spirit to move the works of God from the pages of scripture into our lives.

The volitional act of faith is acting as if a thing is so when it is not so, in order for it to be so because it is so. 

But faith is not just believing that God can do something, or desiring Him to do something. It is acting upon God’s Word as He reveals it to us, as if it is being done now.

Truth is not really truth to us until we convert it into reality in our lives through faith.

Truth only becomes truth and revelation only becomes revelation when we move it from God’s eternity into our present reality by an act of faith. It is the function of faith to convert truth into reality. Faith is an act that causes an eternal truth to become eternal fact. Faith must be tested in conflict to see if it is only head faith or heart faith which brings living reality.

When you could accept that and believe it and trust it, then you were able to receive Him and be born from above by the Spirit of faith, you accepted it. By that faith God transferred the truth out of the Bible into your heart personally.

God has set up His economy on the basis that you experience His reality according to your faith. Until you discover these facts and believe them, you will never convert the truth off the pages of scripture into the reality of your heart.

Paul knew that for one to have faith he had to be able to see the invisible. (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Faith is calling those things which are not as though they were. Whatever is not of faith is sin. Any walk that is less than the walk of faith is a sinful walk.

Faith does not always take you out of the storms and adversities of life. It calms you in the storms and adversities. The conclusion of my search has shown that there can be no spiritual reality in this life, apart from active faith in Christ. Therefore there can be no salvation, no holiness, no peace, no calmness, no power, no witness, and no victory apart from faith. So we must at all cost learn to trust Christ.

Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as the present and the invisible as the visible. It is as much at home in the realm of the impossible as in the possible.

It is “by faith” that :
The just shall live. (Hebrews 10:38)
Your heart can be made pure. (Acts 15:9)
We are sanctified (Acts 26:18)
We are comforted. (Romans 1:12)
We are justified. (Galatians 2:16, 3:24)
We stand. (Romans 11:20, 2 Corinthians 1:24)
We walk. (2 Corinthians 5:7)
We live by the faith of the Son of God.
(Galatians 2:20)
We wait for the hope of righteousness (Galatians 5:5)
We have boldness and access with confidence.
(Eph. 3:12)
We are children of God. (Galatians 3:26)
We have the promise of eternal life. (Galatians 3:22)
Christ dwells in our hearts (Ephesians 3:17)

Faith is believing it is so when it is not so that it may be so.

Faith then is moving the realm of the scripture into the realm of the material.

When you believe it is so,  because God said it is,  then you are bringing heaven to earth. By your believing, you place yourself at the disposal of God, and He works through you to make that thing that you are believing, true in your personal life.

So it is the word of God that brings about the grace of faith. Faith is built upon the will of God.

God gives faith to whom He chooses and to him that asks believing. 

Faith is not an act of the will outside of the revealed truth of God.

As long as a person hopes rather than actively believes God he will never receive all that comes by faith.

The believers job is not to reason through his faith and question God’s motives, but rather to obey Him.

Sacrificing is something substituted for faith thus becoming an enemy of faith.

There is no other way to really please God then to trust Him in such a way that you can release Him in a given situation.

Every great man of faith has found the initial step of faith to be the doorway to trails, testings, temptations, tragedies, and triumphs.

I have found that waiting ‘for’ God is much more difficult than waiting ‘on’ God. Faith is believing God for what He wants in our lives. Patience is waiting for that time God wants us to have it.
MANLEY BEASLEY

This article was written by my friend, Sylvia Gunter.

Every year I ask God, “What are You saying to me for the new year? What are You doing in my life? Give me a verse or a prayer for the year.” At times God has been amazingly succinct. “Pray, ‘Lord, teach me to pray.’ ” or “Pray, ‘Show me Your glory.’ ” As I have prayed those prayers, God has outdone Himself, doing amazing things to answer them.

One year God answered me with “The prayer of Jabez.” The story can be found in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10. “Jabez was more honorable than his brothers… Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, ‘Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.’ And God granted his request.”

That remarkable prayer lit the fire of my heart for God’s possibilities in five short phrases. Be extravagantly blessed as God expands your borders through praying this prayer with us for the next three weeks. Journal your own Jabez evidences of God at work in your life and write more Jabez prayers in your own words. God delights to hear and answer this prayer.

Prayer

1. Bless me indeed. You are the blesser from whose hand every good thing comes. I want a front-row seat on a life of Your miracles (Mark 16:20).

2. Enlarge my territory. I boldly ask that You expand Your kingdom through me. Thrust me into the mainstream of Your plans, way beyond my ability, and accomplish them by the exhaustless energy of Your Holy Spirit and in the freshness of Your holy Word (Acts 1:8). Make my prayer life and my life in Your Spirit match my assignment.

3. Be with me. I am totally dependent on seeing Your strong hand on everything that touches me. I see before me human impossibilities, which is the realm of incredible blessing that You specialize in (Matt. 19:26).

4. Keep evil far from me. Help me stand confidently against the enemy when I have stirred up the hosts of darkness with Kingdom invasion. Keep me relying on the sharp weapons of Your warfare (Eph. 6:12-18). Help me give no quarter to the enemy. Free me from ground I have given him. It is said that one love will quench another. With passion for Jesus, quench my pet sins of pride, judgment, anger, and impatience. Spirit of the living God, cleanse me of insensitivity, hardness, indifference, ignorance, and shallowness.

5. God, answer my request. Live in me a life that is totally explainable only that it’s You, God (Isa. 65:24). In Jesus’ name, amen.

The following article was written by Sylvia Gunter:

There are three classes of people: those who have been in the desert, those still in the desert, and those who have your day coming in the desert!  If you have been there, you need no explanation from me.  If you haven’t been there, no words of mine will explain it to you.  It is not a popular topic, and God’s people perish for lack of knowledge.

Being “on the backside of the desert” is not a self-inflicted inconvenience or a detour because of our spiritual slackness.  It is one of God’s major destinations for those He wants to take deeper.  He is deliberate in leading us into the desert to speak tenderly to us and to make our trouble a gateway of hope.  God says, “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope” (Hosea 2:14-15).  There we give ourselves to Him in a new way, and He affirms to us that we are bound to Him forever in righteousness, justice, unfailing love, and compassion (Hosea 2:19-20).

God has purposes and blessings for us in the desert and afterward.  From there, we will know Him as Lord more deeply.  He wants to sharpen our listening skills to His voice alone.  He wants us to know that the only proper response when there is nothing we can control is to trust that He is in control, and He can’t get it wrong.  He wants to show us that there are only two places to go: down and out, or right up into His lap.  He gets us where we can’t move in our flesh, because He must do everything of eternal significance by His Spirit.  In the heat of the desert, He burns up or blows away all the wood, hay, and stubble of our pride, confidence, and striving.

The Bible says that John the Baptist grew strong in spirit in the desert (Luke 1:80).  There, he preached the message of the new entrance of God into the affairs of earth (Matt. 3:1).  The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert (Matt. 4:1, Luke 4:1).  Luke 4:14 tells us that Jesus came out of the desert in the power of the Spirit and preached his first public sermon: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).  This was His mission statement for the three years of His earthly ministry and His ultimate ministry to us and for us.

What lies ahead?  Based on the experience of the Israelites, we can expect more giant obstacles, more resistance by the heathen and hell itself, fiercer battles, and more confrontation with the forces of darkness.  That is the bad news.  The good news is that there are great things to come: more positioning as the Body of Christ to move corporately, more victories, more blessings, more light, more power in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, more of His presence, and more of His glory made manifest in our world.  For the joy set before us… !

Sylvia Gunter has once again written a wonderful devotion:

Listen to Zephaniah 3:17. “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Listen again from the Amplified Bible. “The Lord Your God is in the midst of you, a mighty One, a Savior who saves! He will rejoice over you with joy. In his love he will rest in silent satisfaction. He will exult over you with singing.”

Receive your Father’s smile today. All the affectionate imagery you can muster is only a dim picture of how he feels about you. You have not yet heard or seen or known the majesty of all his great love. You have longed and ached for a father’s embrace, and you have a Father whose heart longs for you. Be blessed as you receive his embrace. Look into his eyes to see him and yourself reflected there. He loves you in the way you were created to be loved. He loves you with his love as strong as death. He has come to overwhelm you with his love. He will pour out over your life everything you need. He has saved the best till now.

One thing is necessary: live at his feet and rest in his presence. Let his peace permeate your mind. Let his love calm your heart. As your Abba delights in his Beloved Son in whom he is well pleased, he delights in you in the same way, because he is in you and you are in him. The prayer of Jesus was “Father, let them know deeply that as you love me, so you love them, they in me and I in you” (John 17:21,26 paraphrased). He loves you beyond anything you deserve or can earn.

Let his love be the foundation of your life, and you will be filled again and again in all the promises he has spoken to you. He wants you to know that you are beloved in the Beloved Son and complete in the finished work of the cross, where he dealt with all sin, wounds, words, and other hurtful things that separate you from his love. God delights in you. There’s power in that little phrase. “I am the one God likes.” We need to live in this truth: “God LIKES me” today, every day, every moment. That doesn’t mean we do everything right, but when we do something wrong, we come to a throne of grace and find mercy to help us in our need. Be blessed as you receive mercy and grace there, that empowering presence of the Spirit to believe the truth and live in it. Allow God to remove all that causes offense.

Coach your soul to let go of the past, the pain, the problems. Turn your back on them as you face your Father. Be blessed with joy and a different peace and a greater rest than you have ever known. Be blessed with refreshing and renewal in his presence, as you pursue all that he has created you for.

Spirit, be blessed in your Father’s house where there’s a party in your honor, to celebrate you, just as in Luke 15. He is an extravagant Father. Be blessed as he rejoices over you with great gladness. Be blessed in the wonderful sound of the Lord himself exulting over you in happy song.