We were born for more than the pursuit of a moment. This is why the best moment the world has to offer will never fulfill our lives!

God’s Dreams awaken God’s potential in God’s people!

Eph 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, God prepared in advance 4 us to do.

God releases to us by grace but some things only materialize by a faith that cooperates with God.

2 Cor 13:5 Tells us to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith because it is vitally important to our assignment that we remain in a place of being awakened to and aware of the purposes of God!

When your spirit man is underdeveloped spiritual things are like a workout and you simply wear out quickly. It’s not that you’re against what’s going on but we just don’t seem to get out of it what others do.

When your faith is strong your mountains seem small compared to your God. When your faith is lacking you seem small compared to your mountains. The person who needs your leadership more than anybody else is you! Are you leading the way you think, determining the altitude of your attitude and developing a soldier-like faith? #TurnThePage is a great way to steadily develop yourself spiritually with a measurable and powerful expression producing an heirloom that will inspire generations after you. Every day turn the page in your Bible writing the date at the top of the page and listing any meaningful moments or stirring memories beside the date.

#TURNTHEPAGE – More on this important topic that I believe to be one of the most revolutionary tools God has ever given me for people below.

Rom 8:19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. ESV

Five translations use the word “manifestation” instead of “revealing”. The first thing God told Adam to do in the Garden wasn’t to pray, worship or study. He told him to work! Your job is what you’re paid to do. Your work is what you’re born to do. MANIFEST YOURSELF!!! Be revealed as God’s assignment to your generation by embracing the dreams of God in your life. God’s potential is in God’s people and is waiting to be ignited in your life!

When we are awakened to the purposes of God we manifest ourselves correctly!

When we are spiritually well we become supernaturally empowered! Are you spiritually well? Are you developing yourself in places of prayer and God’s Word so your spirit man is alive to God?

THE LESS WE PAY ATTENTION TO THE HOLY SPIRIT THE MORE WE THIRST FOR ENTERTAINMENT!

Your home will be better a place if you are awakened to God’s purposes. Your work will be a better place if you are awakened to God’s purposes in your life! Your neighborhood, your grocery store, restaurants you frequent, every environment of your life will be a better place if you are awakened to God’s purposes in your life!!!

To submit to God is to embrace his ideas and to listen to his counsel. A lot of Christians don’t let the Bible get in way of what they have decided to believe.

The absence of counsel produces the abundance of problems. The counsel of God is a resource from another dimension We have the God-deposited potential in our lives to build airplanes and fly! Everything needed already existed God just needed somebody to step into the realm of declaring I BELIEVE WE CAN FLY and airplanes were manifest!

Faith makes things possible not easy. We were created to ride Harley Davidsons and all we needed existed. Your perspective about God’s provision makes things possible. The greatest tragedy of distraction is the life you never live and the difference you never make in the lives of other people.

Painful circumstances are inevitable; whether they grind you down or polish you up depends on your overall attitude. The story of the ear cartilage forming a nose reconstruction tells us how that ear cartilage never forgot what it was always meant to be. The deepest part of you will always remember what was meant to no matter what else others have wanted you to be or whatever you may have become.

2 Pet 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need….

We don’t need to strive to have access to stuff. We need access to him and that’s the starting place to discover the plan. IT’S ALL THERE! THERE HAS TO BE A WAY! To fulfill our greatest purpose from God we must learn to live life full of expectation. This is the place where hopes and dreams are at their best.

IT’S TIME TO FACE OUR FUTURE COURAGEOUSLY Filled with expectation!!!

1 Thes 5:16-18 Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. NIV

 

MORE ON #TURNTHEPAGE

It’s such a common frustration to feel like we really don’t know where to read even though we feel like we should be reading. The idea I’m sharing here can solve this problem and position us all to discover another level of pursuing God in his Word.

When our daughters were about twelve years old we introduced them to an idea I’d been doing for years. We talked about the value of God’s Word and how it not only renews our minds but how it nourishes our spirit. When we understand our minds are being renewed but even when we don’t our spirit is being nourished if we are engaged and experiencing The Author as we read The Book.

The goal was to start in Genesis and read at least one page a day writing the date at the top of the page. On special dates like birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, etc mentions could be made converting our Bibles into keepsakes and even heirlooms for future generations to hold. Amazingly we never ever pressed them on this again yet they both achieved this very reasonable goal of daily turning the page. It was just a matter of time before they both finished their entire Bibles and we bought them new ones that they are well into now as I write this.

As I read David’s words, “That a people yet to be created may praise the LORD” (Ps 102:18 NAS), I was stricken. What is God doing in our lives that will make an unborn generation look to Him?

Over the past few years I’ve become a huge advocate of this idea and it has truly transformed the culture of our home into an environment where we embrace God’s Word with deeper affection together.

I found this picture of a man who was almost 100 years old holding the Bible he carried in World War II. It struck me when I thought about how valuable this treasure would be to his grandchildren, their children and so on.

Friends of ours who live in England posted this next picture holding Smith Wigglesworth’s Bible – thank you for the inspiration Dan and Joanna Hargreaves. Again I was taken by the priceless treasure this Bible had become to future generations.

My college roommate, Todd Teeples, came to visit Oklahoma City and my daughters met him and his family for the first time. He had been my first Christian friend and actually bought me my first Bible. I marveled to see my daughters peruse the sacred Scripture with almost a sacred enthusiasm as they looked over all my dates, writings, highlights and thoughts. I took my daughters to buy Todd a nice Bible. At lunch I shared my Bible with his family, now more than ¼ of a century old held together by radiator tape I used when it started falling apart. Then I made the presentation to Todd explaining how much he’d impacted my life.

I’m so glad Todd didn’t merely forward me a reading plan but actually bought a physical, tangible Bible that will impact my grandchildren’s grandchildren one day long after Todd and I are celebrating in heaven together.

No generation can effectively disciple itself. A single generation simply cannot contain God’s eternal legacy. We must effectively hand off the baton to the next generation both while we live and after we die.

Below are some verses I find meaningful in regard to inspiring and empowering the next generation church. Below those verses are a number of pictures to provide creative ideas of how you might inspire your children and your children’s friends. At Destiny we have now provided classes helping young teens learn how to illustrate their faith creatively in Scripture. This led to my wife, Tracy, volunteering to teach the idea in Art class in our Christian school. Their work is breath-taking and one Sunday after I finished speaking I discovered a post from one of her students. The young teen had taken the text from my message and interacted with it on a creative level expressing the ideas in art form. It was an “over the moon” moment for me to see someone get what I felt was in God’s heart for us that day.

You can simply search #illustratedfaith to find tons of these illustrations. It has quickly become a movement among this next generation. Thank you Krissy, Tracy and Andrea for devoting yourselves so selflessly to introduce this idea to our church family last year at the conference for young girls.

I’m believing for a legacy to be established through our surrendered lives that awakens the call of God in our children for the next generation!

Ps 48:13-14 …that you may tell the next generation that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever. ESV

Deut 3:28 But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see. (NIV) Commission, encourage and strengthen the next generation.