Category Archives: Spiritual Development

Practical teachings from the Bible for every day living.

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Why God Wants You to Have Spiritual Revelation Flowing In Your Life

Podcast: Light on Life Season Eight Episode Thirty

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Why God Wants You to Have Spiritual Revelation Flowing In Your Life

In this week’s podcast, we are headed to the book of Ephesians to take a look at spiritual revelations. That book contains several prayers that Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers. Often, you wonder how or what we should pray for our fellow believers in Christ. Well, the Holy Spirit helped us in this area. He had Paul write these prayers out in detail. We have a record of the exact words that Paul uttered to God the Father for them. Now, you can find these words starting in Ephesians 1:15–23 and Ephesians 3:14–19. If Paul thought that these prayers were important to pray for the Ephesian church, do you think that you can pray the same prayers for your church and yourself? Thank God – the answer to that is a resounding yes. I mean, you are in the church. You are part of the body of Christ. Everything that the Lord laid out in these prayers, God wants you to have. He desires that you flow and move in a revelation of His power. He wants to be filled with strength in your inner being. These prayers are one of the primary prayers that I pray for others. I am praying these prayers for you right now. ‘Father, in the Name of Jesus, I pray for the listening audience concerning this podcast. I ask you, Lord, to grant unto them all, a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you — in the knowledge of Your Word. Let the eyes of their heart be opened — be enlightened that they may know you in a greater way. Strengthen them with might by your spirit in their inner mind – that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith. I pray for them now and I thank you for doing it in advance.” You know I have prayed these prayers hundreds and hundreds of times over the course of my life. And I am going to keep doing it. There are spiritual things in these prayers that you need to get a hold of — that you need active and working in your life. These prayers will enrich and elevate your life, just like they have lifted my life. Let’s take a particular look at one of these prayers today. Why God Wants You to Have Spiritual Revelation Flowing In Your Life, that’s our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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How to Build Your Life Praying Bible Prayers

[Tweet “In the city called the ‘Light of Asia,’ Paul instructs the Ephesians to pray for light, to pray for a spiritual revelation of God’s power.”]

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How Running Your God-Given Race Brings Great Salvation

Podcast: Light on Life Season 8 Episode 29

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How Running Your God-Given Race Brings Great Salvation

A couple of weeks ago, we did a podcast on ‘How to Run a Steady Race Right Into Glory.’ After that message, I told you to stay tuned for a second installment. So here goes. We are talking about the metaphor of running. After all, it’s a thoroughly scriptural image that the apostle Paul used from the ancient world. But did you know this modern-day fact about running? The percentage of those who own running shoes in America, but don’t actually run, stands at 87%.1 What do you think is the percentage of people who say they are followers of Jesus but don’t actually follow? How many say that they are in the race for God, but if the truth is known, they are on the sideline watching? What is the impact of not running your race? Does it make a difference? How Running Your God-Given Race Brings Great Salvation. That’s our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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More of Why God Desires You to Live A Committed Life

[Tweet “The majority does not rule. God plus one is what makes the majority.”]

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Why Destroying Devilish Giants Is Part of Your Spiritual DNA

Podcast: Light on Life Season 8 Episode 28

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Why Destroying Devilish Giants Is Part of Your Spiritual DNA

In today’s Light On Life podcast, we are talking ‘giants,’ that is, giant problems, destroying devilish giants as part of your spiritual DNA. Tony Evans says that most of us have experienced our children’s dependence on us to face their fears when they have nightmares or when it’s thundering and lightning during a storm. They’ll wake up, scream, and jump out of their bed. They will walk through the valley of their bedroom, down the valley of the hall, to the valley of your room. They jump in your bed because what they need is somebody to be with them. Your hugging them doesn’t stop the rain, the thunder, or the lightning, but it changes how they face it. They’ll fall asleep in your arms. The fear that they have alone, they no longer have, because Mama or Daddy holds them. You help them face their fears in the midst of their struggles. This is exactly what the heavenly Father does for us when we face our own fears and insecurities.1 You can face devilish giants not because of who you are but because of whose you are. But, there is even more good news than that. You can eliminate these giants totally from your life. Why Destroying Devilish Giants Is Part of Your Spiritual DNA, that’s our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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The Problematic Irreverance for God

[Tweet “There is a measure of strength that you acquire just by hanging out at the Throne Room.”]

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Why People Who Are Strong in the Lord Thrive

Podcast: Light on Life Season 8 Episode 27

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Why People Who Are Strong in the Lord Thrive

In today’s podcast, we are going to be talking strength — being strong in the Lord. We’re talking about strength to run your race — talking about going from one level of strength to another, a higher level of strength. You know the scripture says that Jesus’ followers are to be ‘strong in the Lord.’ Did you know that a person’s mental attitude has an almost unbelievable effect on his strength levels, both physical and psychological? The British psychiatrist, J.A. Hadfield, gives a striking illustration of this fact in his booklet, The Psychology of Power. “I asked three people,” he wrote, “to submit themselves to test the effect of mental suggestion on their strength, which was measured by gripping a dynamometer.” A dynamometer is a device used to measure power. They were to grip the dynamometer with all their strength under three different sets of conditions. The first test was normal conditions. The average grip was 101 pounds. Then Hadfield tested them after he had hypnotized them and told them that they were very weak. Their average grip this time was only 29 pounds. In the third test, Dr. Hadfield told them under hypnosis that they were very strong. The average grip jumped to 142 pounds.1 Now, I am not a hypnosis advocate, but it is noteworthy that they became physically stronger when suggested that people were strong. When the suggestion was that you were pretty weak, the results followed that very suggestion. Why People Who Are Strong in the Lord Thrive, that’s our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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#S3-015: How the Mighty Names of God Energize Your Life [Podcast]

[Tweet “There is a measure of strength that you acquire just by hanging out at the Throne Room.”]

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How To Run A Steady Race Right Into Glory

Podcast: Light on Life Season Eight Episode Twenty-Five

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How To Run A Steady Race Right Into Glory

This podcast is about running the race God gave you to run. It’s about finishing or completing the vision God gave you for your life. Running the race is a Track and Field metaphor used by Paul in one of his epistles to the churches. Now you may have seen sprinters running the 100 meters or 200-meter event. You know their coaches encourage the athletes under their guise to push all the way through to the end. Break the tape at full speed – don’t coast – don’t let up at 90 meters. Breaking the tape, that’s the picture I want you to have in your mind. Are you struggling in this area? Are you one of those who has trouble completing what they start? Maybe you have piles of stuff that you, in a fiery heat of Spirit-inspired passion, began but never finished. Maybe you are one of those who has trouble staying on even keel. You are up one day and down the next in your Christian experience. You flame up in the heat of consecration at the altar call, but you smolder when you get over into the mundane parts of your everyday life. Helping you is what this is about today. You know it’s not how you start your race; it’s how you finish. That’s the great lesson of the tortoise and the hare. I once heard a very godly gentleman say when he was in the twilight of his life, ‘It takes the same dedication at seventy years of age as it did when you were twenty.’ If you want to ‘break the tape,’ you will have to make some training adjustments — that’s what we are talking about here. How to Run a Steady Race Right Into Glory — that’s our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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More of Why God Desires You to Live A Committed Life

[Tweet What God-inspired, Spirit-directed projects for the Kingdom do you have that have not made it out of stone?]

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Why It’s Important to Walk in Love to the Very End

Podcast: Light on Life Season Eight Episode Twenty-Three

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Why It's Important to Walk in Love to the Very End

Man is a love product of a love God. He was created in love. Man is sustained by love. And, when He comes to know Jesus as His personal Savior, the very love of God is shed abroad in his heart. By that very love of God, we live and move and have our being. So how can we, today, allow that love which is already in us to dominate our lives? The following illustrates the very love of God towards man. When God was about to create man, says a Jewish legend, He took into His counsel the angels that stood about his throne. “Create him not,” said the angel of Justice, “for if you do, he will commit all kinds of wickedness against his fellow-men; he will be hard and cruel and dishonest and unrighteous.” “Create him not,” said the angel of Truth, “for he will be false and deceitful to his brother-man, and even to You.” “Create him not,” said the angel of Holiness, “he will follow that which is impure in your sight and dishonor you to your face.” Then stepped forward the angel of Mercy (God’s best beloved) and said: “Create him, our Heavenly Father for when he sins and turns from the path of right and truth and holiness I will take him tenderly by the hand, and speak loving words to him, and then lead him back to You.”1 Love is the key — it’s the ticket to success. So how can we, today, allow that love which is already in us to dominate our life and do so to the very end? Why It’s important to Walk in Love to the Very End, that’s our focus on this week’s Light on Life.

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The Anointing in Jesus Life

[Tweet “Love and the Spirit of God were what poured out of Jesus’ heart during His last moments on earth.”]

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Why Repentance is a Good Friend and Godly Companion

Podcast: Light on Life Season Eight Episode Twenty-One

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Why Repentance is a Good Friend and Godly Companion

D.L. Moody relayed the following on the subject of repentance. He said, ‘The unconverted have a false idea about repentance; they think God will make them repent. I was once talking with a man on this subject, and he summed up his whole argument by saying:

“Moody, it has never struck me yet.” I said: “What has never struck you.” “Well,” he replied: “Some people it strikes, and some it doesn’t. There was a good deal of interest in our town a few years ago, and some of my neighbors were converted, but it didn’t strike me.”

That man thought that repentance was coming down someday to strike him like lightning. Another man said he expected some sensation, like cold chills down his back. Repentance isn’t feeling. It is turning from sin to God. One of the best definitions was given by a soldier. Someone asked him how he was converted. He said: “The Lord said to me, Halt! Attention! Right about face! March! and that was all there was in it.”1 Moody has it right; repentance is ‘a turning,’ but it’s not just for the unconverted. Repentance Is a Good Friend and Godly Companion for the follower of Jesus. Why this is true is our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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Why Doing the Word of God Is The Ticket to Success

[Tweet “There is godly sorrow, a godly regret that produces something – it produces repentance”]

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Why You Need to Know the Healing Ministry of John Alexander Dowie

Encore Podcast: Light on Life Season Eight Episode Twenty

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Why You Need to Know the Healing Ministry of John Alexander Dowie

You should absolutely read the biographies of great men of God and their healing ministries. If you remember, in a previous podcast, “Why You Can Expect Powerful Healing Moves of God,” we briefly mentioned a man named Edward Irving. Edward Irving was a minister of the Scottish Church in London who began calling for a new expectation for the miraculous. He questioned the cessationists thinking that the age of miracles is past. The result of that call and that questioning? By 1830, Irving’s congregation began to experience supernatural healings as well as ‘speaking with other tongues.’ That’s 1830, approximately 75 years before Azuza. But that may not have been Irving’s greatest contribution to the healing gospel of Jesus Christ. His teachings were exposed to a young ministry study attending the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. The student’s name? John Alexander Dowie. We are going to be talking about modern-day healing evangelists in this week’s Light on Life. Why You Need to Know the Healing Ministry of John Alexander Dowie.

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Why Your Will is A Powerful Help to Healing

[Tweet “We can learn lessons by looking at the lives of the men and women who have walked with God.“]

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Why You Should Lift People Instead of Criticizing Their Failures

Podcast: Light on Life Season Eight Episode Nineteen

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Why You Should Lift People Instead of Criticizing Their Failures

John Favel, a famous 17th-century Puritan preacher, had this to say about criticizing and condemning others. “It is easier to declaim, like an orator, against a thousand sins of others than it is to mortify one sin, like Christians, in ourselves; to be more industrious in our pulpits than in our closets; to preach twenty sermons to our people than one to our own hearts.”1 There have been many a ‘hellfire and brimstone preacher’ whose primary tool was smoking fiery rhetoric designed to scorch people into heaven throughout the ages. Was Jesus this type of preacher? Did Jesus minister condemnation? If He did, then we should strive to be like Him. But, if he wasn’t, we should stand up and take notice. Why You Should Lift People Instead of Criticizing Their Failures is our focus on this week’s Light On Life Podcast.

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#016: The Secret to Prophecy [Podcast]

[Tweet “You’re not God’s policeman. Quit writing tickets for other peoples sins.”]

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Why Meditating God’s Word is the Breakfast of Champions

Podcast: Light on Life Season Eight Episode Eighteen

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Why Meditating God's Word is the Breakfast of Champions

Churches today are failing to teach and preach biblical meditation. As a result, Christians are weak and anemic. Biblical meditation must become an integral part of a Christian’s life if he is to be a radiant and victorious Christian.1 There are several reasons why churches are not teaching the Biblical version of meditating God’s Word. Part of it is that the word has taken on negative context because of some practices found in false religions. We will explore that a little bit further later. Notwithstanding the abuse or corruption, there is a Bible concept of meditation, and Jesus followed it. Jesus meditated the Word of God, and I’m going to show that to you in today’s podcast. Why Meditating God’s Word is the Breakfast of Champions – that’s our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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Faith and Prayer: Important Lessons to Know

[Tweet “Bible reading is fun, revelation is thrilling, it satisfies that something deep inside your being.”]

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How Praise Powers You to Remarkable God-Style Growth

Podcast: Light on Life Season Eight Episode Sixteen

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How Praise Powers You to Remarkable God-Style Growth

So many of us struggle to understand the vital link between praise and prayer. Prayer is more than asking things from God. It is an exercise in the worship of God to extol His Name, and to offer thanks for all His benefits. The child of God is assured that he is approaching a throne of grace in prayer, not a throne of judgment (Heb. 4:16). The Christian enters the divine presence in the name of Christ (John 14:14, 16:23). If he prays under the control of the Holy Spirit, he will offer petitions within the will of his Heavenly Father (Romans 8:26, 27). Prayer should be made in faith and with thanksgiving (Phil. 4:6; Col. 4:2). The prayer that Christ taught His disciples, known as the Lord’s Prayer, is a model to guide His followers concerning proper principles and goals of prayer (Matt. 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4).1 In this week’s Light On Life, we discuss a potent aid to your spiritual development. It’s a power protein shake packed with nutrients to help you grow. How Praise Powers You to Remarkable God-Style Growth, that’s our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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#028: How to Develop Spiritually [Podcast]

[Tweet “God is always present but not always manifest. Worship causes an escalation of manifestation.”]

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Why Your Human Will Is So Vital In Receiving Help and Healing

[Encore Podcast]: Light on Life Season Eight Episode Fifteen

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Why Your Human Will Is So Vital In Receiving Help and Healing

In this week’s teaching, we focus on the importance of the ‘human will’  in receiving divine healing or any kind of help from the Lord. Some think that God wants to break a person’s will so that they would conform to His plan. God doesn’t want your will broken. He is not that kind of God. The Lord wants your will whole, complete, and entire. But He wants you to choose who will serve. Exercising the power of choice comes mightily to the forefront in gaining answers to prayer. In this podcast, we look at some steps one should take to hold on to healing once it has you have received it in Jesus’ Name. Why Your Human Will Is So Vital In Receiving Help and Healing, that’s our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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#S2-048: Why It’s Important to Understand the Serious Power of the Soul [Podcast]

[Tweet Jesus put His finger on the pulse of this man’s problem when He asked, ‘Will you be made whole.’]