On this day, June 20, in the year of our Lord 1907, at the Wesleyan Hall in downtown Boston, Ira David, Bishop over a network of churches, led a corporate gathering where many members came under the power of the Holy Spirit. Several manifested with the gift of tongues. Several days later in Brockton, Massachusetts, many others received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Several weeks later, others gathered in Boston, experiencing many other Holy Spirit manifestations including singing in an unknown language, and seeing visions of the second coming of Christ.  Read More

It is easy to allow our marriage to become spiritually dry. If you are married, Jesus obviously did not join you together with your spouse, so that you would drift apart. There has perhaps never been a more profound statement defining marriage than the statement Jesus made when confronting the religious leaders of His day on the topic of marriage. Defining marriage, He said, “What God has joined together.”  Read More

Let’s be honest—most husbands and wives struggle to pray together. This is often an area of defeat in Christian marriages. Today is a perfect day to reverse this pattern and get the victory. When the Apostle Peter wrote his first letter to the church, he exhorted husbands to tenderly care for their wives, “so that your prayers may not be hindered.” Prayer is understood as an essential element in every marriage, and yet why do so many marriages fail at this point?   Read More

Declaring your family under the supremacy of Christ is one of the best declarations you will ever make. Joshua was a great leader in many ways. As a military leader, he was second-to-none on the battlefield. He was a world-class political leader. And as a spiritual leader of his family, he also set the bar high. Before his death, he declared the alignment of his family fully under the Lord God Almighty. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  Read More

Do you have a family member who does not know Christ? If so, you most likely carry a heavy burden for their salvation. Good news— when Christ come to us, He not only offers salvation to us, but to our entire household. There are many Bible examples of entire households coming to faith in Jesus Christ.  Read More

Some of the most radical transformations take place when we open the front door of our home to Christ. It’s time to invite Him to live with us inside our family life. When Christ spoke to the seven churches in Asia Minor, He used a vivid word picture while speaking to the church in the small town in Laodicea. He said, “I stand at the door and knock.” While this is intended to apply primarily to the local church, it also applies to everyone of our homes.  Read More

There are normally five elements to an encounter with Christ. The first is high worship. The second is deep repentance. The third is forgiveness and freedom. The fourth is being filled with the Holy Spirit. The fifth is being empowered for ministry. When Isaiah encountered the manifest presence of God, he was led in high worship and deep repentance. Before his encounter was complete, however, he was enlisted into God’s service, called, validated, commissioned and sent out.  Read More

There are normally five elements to an encounter with Christ. The first is high worship. The second is deep repentance. The third is forgiveness and freedom. The fourth is being filled with the Holy Spirit. When the early church encountered the manifest presence of Christ on Pentecost, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. God kept His promise—the promise of power and the promise of His manifest presence.  Read More

There are normally five elements to an encounter with Christ. The first is high worship. The second is deep repentance. The third is receiving forgiveness for sins and, when necessary, deliverance from evil strongholds. When Peter saw the full force of the supernatural power of Christ at the unmistakable miracle of a boatload-sized catch of fish, he fell down at Jesus’ feet and cried, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.”  Read More

There are normally five elements to an encounter with Christ. The first is high worship. The second is deep repentance. When Isaiah saw the Lord in all His holiness, no one had to tell him to repent. His sin was exposed. His heart was laid bare. There was nowhere to hide. It was a moment of ultimate vulnerability.   Read More

There are normally five elements to an encounter with Christ. The first element is high worship. When Isaiah encountered the manifest presence of Christ, he was awestruck. Overwhelmed. He saw the Lord, “high and lifted up.” He felt the threshold of the temple shake, and he heard the angels calling out to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” This is a significant example of high worship.  Read More

Good parenting flows from the inside out, from the hearts of fathers and mothers. When Malachi finished his prophetic book and declared Holy Spirit anointing that will come in the last days he said it would “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.” God was making a promise to each of us. This promise must not be wasted.  Read More

Today is a good day to remember to embrace the Trinity, one God, three Persons. Understanding the trinity is essential to effective prayer. When Jesus was baptized, the One God, three Persons, is seen distinctly active. Christ was being baptized. The Spirit of God descended on Him. The Father spoke, “You are My beloved Son.” In that one moment, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are seen together.  Read More

The final unreached people on earth will never be reached through a lukewarm church. They will only be reached through a revived church that is consistently encountering the manifest presence of Christ. When Christ rebuked the church in Laodicea for being lukewarm, He spoke a word of judgment and ultimatum.  Read More

God wants to manifest His presence to you in every life situation. Because the promises of God are a means by which God wants to encounter you, there are promises of God waiting for you today. Joshua is one of the most productive, dynamic leaders in the entire Bible. He made it a habit of praying the promises of God.  Read More

More than a warehouse of information, the Bible is more like a gymnasium full of exercise equipment. It is sitting there waiting for you to use it. Today, there are promises of God waiting for you to take hold of like hand weights and begin lifting! It’s all too easy to get down on ourselves, to lose hope.  Read More

Praying the promises of God is a healthy habit. The Apostle Paul learned to pray the promises of God. Three times Paul pleaded in prayer for his thorn in the flesh to be removed. Instead of removing his problem, God gave Paul a promise—My grace is sufficient. That promise changed everything.  Read More

Healthy lives are made up of healthy habits. There is no more healthy habit than learning to pray the promises of God. Jesus made a habit of praying the promises of God. Toward the end of His forty day fast, He was hungry, and the enemy tempted Him. Because He was in the habit of praying the promises of God, He was able to quote one of the promises as He resisted the devil’s temptation to turn the wilderness stones into loaves of fresh bread.  Read More

Consistently praying the promises of God is your daily cross-training for your faith. There is no more relevant promise in the Bible than the promise of His manifest presence consistently with you. Before Jesus ascended into heaven He made a significant promise, “I will send Him [the Holy Spirit] to you.” When He made this promise, He promised the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Read More

Our authority over demons is in Christ. On our own it would be utterly presumptuous to assume a posture of authority over evil spirits. Yet in Christ, to fail to exercise spiritual authority would be an abdication of our God-given position.  Read More

God loves it when we talk to Him in His own language. Learning to pray the promises of God is the Rosetta Stone of learning His language. Before Jesus ascended into heaven, He promised His disciples, “You will receive power.” He promised them power. It was that promise of Holy Spirit power that led the disciples into the Upper Room,   Read More

On this day, May 30, in the year of our Lord 1735, Jonathan Edwards published his book on the manifest presence of Christ at work in North Hampton, Massachusetts, entitled A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God. In it he wrote, “I know of not one young person who has returned to former ways of looseness and extravagance in any respect, but we still remain a reformed people and God has evidently made us a new people. For here in this corner of the world God dwells and manifests His glory.  Read More

The promises of God define for us what is fair for us to expect from God when we come to Him each day in prayer. Jesus tells us that it is fair for us as the children of God to expect Him to provide us with food and clothing. Just as God feeds the birds of the air and provides for their daily needs, so God even more provides for us.  Read More

On this day, May 28, in the year of our Lord 1908, Christian leader A.B. Simpson not only experienced the Holy Spirit manifestation of the gift of prophecy, he wrote about it with keen insight and clarity: “Prophecy is not always the power to foretell future events. A prophet is rather a divine messenger, the man who catches the mind of his Master, and gives it out to his fellow men at the divine direction  Read More