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The children of Israel were told in Deuteronomy 8:2 to “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands.” There was a reason they were in that desert all those years. They were taking a test! God desired to see a demonstration of what was in their heart.

Has God performed a heart test on you lately? There are times in our lives when God leads us into the desert in order to let us find out what is in our heart. These times can be very difficult and humbling. They can test our mettle like no other time. Desert times often mean we are living without those things we are normally accustomed to. It may be water, food, or limited supplies, and with few comforts.

These desert times may mean experiencing new ways of provision from the Lord. Like manna from Heaven, it may mean seeing miracles we’ve never seen before. Like clothing that never wears out, it may mean seeing your normal capabilities expanded. Like walking hundreds of miles without pain, desert experiences provide new lessons and new experiences that only these times can teach us.

What desert experience has He brought into your life lately? Perhaps it is a lean time in business or job. Perhaps it is a new environment or a transfer. Perhaps it is an unexpected suspension or an unwanted situation. Perhaps it is a loss of a person, privilege or a property. Perhaps it is a lonely life or monotonous moments.

Whatever it is, when God decides to bring new disciplines into our lives by bringing us into the desert, do not fear the heat that is sure to come. He is walking beside you in order to test you and find out what is really in your heart. Ask for His grace to pass the test. He wants to bring all of His children into the Promised Land.

Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS, Volume 8.13. Live for God, on purpose, staying strong in Him, confident that He will never leave you nor forsake you, and will supply all your need according to His riches in glory.

The Pathway of Prayer

The first church was a Pentecostal church. As they experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit, as recorded in Acts 2, these believers’ lives, already changed by Christ’s saving grace, began to demonstrate a new empowered dynamic in everything they did.

For these book-of-Acts Christians, being Pentecostal wasn’t something that took place only within a corporate worship experience. It was something they lived every day. And that is exactly what we need to live today.

This Sunday we begin a journey through the book of Acts, as we begin our series “Walking on Pentecostal Pathways.” We will look to Acts 3:1-16, and discover the “Pathway of Prayer.” Prayer isn’t just something we do in church. It’s not just a before meals and before bedtime routine. And, it shouldn’t be something that we do, simply because we find ourselves in a jam, and have no way out! As Pentecostal Christians, prayer must be an integral part of our everyday life.

You won’t want to miss this first message in this dynamic and practical seven-part series! Come join us, and together let’s begin “Walking on Pentecostal Pathways!”

Complain or Fish?

by Alan Smith

A game warden noticed how a particular fellow named Sam consistently caught more fish than anyone else, whereas the other guys would only catch three or four a day. Sam would come in off the lake with a boat full.

Stringer after stringer was always packed with freshly caught trout. The warden, curious, asked Sam his secret. The successful fisherman invited the game warden to accompany him and observe. So the next morning the two met at the dock and took off in Sam’s boat. When they got to the middle of the lake, Sam stopped the boat, and the warden sat back to see how it was done.

Sam’s approach was simple. He took out a stick of dynamite, lit it, and threw it in the air. The explosion rocked the lake with such a force that dead fish immediately began to surface. Sam took out a net and started scooping them up.

Well, you can imagine the reaction of the game warden. When he recovered from the shock of it all, he began yelling at Sam. “You can’t do this! I’ll put you in jail, buddy! You will be paying every fine there is in the book!”

Sam, meanwhile, set his net down and took out another stick of dynamite. He lit it and tossed it in the lap of the game warden with these words, “Are you going to sit there all day complaining, or are you going to fish?”

Seems to me we have two similar options as Christians – we can spend our time complaining or we can “fish.” Jesus, of course, used the concept of fishing to describe the work of evangelism ("Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” – Matthew 4:19). The method we use does not involve dynamite, but it does involve the word from which dynamite comes to us – “dunamis,” the Greek word for “power.”

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.” (Romans 1:16)

I’ve known some folks in the church who use the “dunamis” of the gospel to fish for souls, and I’ve known other folks content to do nothing but sit back and complain about what everybody else is or isn’t doing. It’s your choice – Are you going to complain or are you going to fish?

The Lesson of the Paperclip

by Jim Liebelt

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Ephesians 2:10

The ingenious little device known as the paperclip has been in use for well over 100 years. Unlike so many items of “old technology,” there’s no retirement in sight for the tool that most of us use to keep our important papers together. I read an article recently from the archives of Time magazine, from the July 17, 1958 issue to be exact, that revealed results from a Lloyd’s Bank survey on the fate of 100,000 paperclips. (It must have been a slow time in the banking business!) The survey yielded the following information: Out of 100,000 paperclips, 25,000 fell to the floor and were swept away, 19,413 were used as chips in card-games, 14,163 were twisted or broken during phone conversations, 7,200 were used as temporary replacements for broken buttons, snaps or zippers, 5,434 were used as toothpicks or ear cleaners, 5,308 were used to clean fingernails, 3,916 were used as pipe cleaners, leaving only 20,000 paper clips which served their proper function. It stinks to be a paperclip, if you ask me!

How wasteful that 80% of paperclips are never utilized for their intended purpose. It also seems to me that people are a lot like paperclips! Just as the creator designed the paperclip for a specific purpose (Johan Vaaler, 1899), God has created each one of us purposely, to fulfill His own design. Today’s Scripture passage speaks to the heart of that issue: “we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works.” Still, like the paperclip, far too many people do not fulfill the purpose for which they were created. How tragic! But it doesn’t have to be this way!

We fulfill the purpose of our Creator when we live according to the principle Jesus states in Matthew 10:39, which reads, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” We truly become all that God intends for us to be when we decide to make following Jesus our top priority. Today, may the “lesson of the paperclip” motivate you to live your life as God designed you to live!

A Baby’s Hug

We were the only family with children in the restaurant. I sat Erik in a high chair and noticed everyone was quietly sitting and talking. Suddenly, Erik squealed with glee and said, “Hi.” He pounded his fat baby hands on the high chair tray. His eyes were crinkled in laughter and his mouth was bared in a toothless grin, as he wriggled and giggled with merriment.

I looked around and saw the source of his merriment. It was a man whose pants were baggy with a zipper at half-mast and his toes poked out of would-be shoes. His shirt was dirty and his hair was uncombed and unwashed. His whiskers were too short to be called a beard and his nose was so varicose it looked like a road map.

We were too far from him to smell, but I was sure he smelled. His hands waved and flapped on loose wrists. “Hi there, baby; hi there, big boy. I see ya, buster,” the man said to Erik.

My husband and I exchanged looks, “What do we do?”

Erik continued to laugh and answer, “Hi.”

Everyone in the restaurant noticed and looked at us and then at the man. The old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby. Our meal came and the man began shouting from across the room, “Do ya patty cake? Do you know peek-a-boo? Hey, look, he knows peek-a-boo.”

Nobody thought the old man was cute. He was obviously drunk.

My husband and I were embarrassed. We ate in silence; all except for Erik, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring skid-row bum, who in turn, reciprocated with his cute comments.

We finally got through the meal and headed for the door. My husband went to pay the check and told me to meet him in the parking lot. The old man sat poised between me and the door. “Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Erik,” I prayed. As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back trying to sidestep him and avoid any air he might be breathing. As I did, Erik leaned over my arm, reaching with both arms in a baby’s “pick-me-up” position. Before I could stop him, Erik had propelled himself from my arms to the man.

Suddenly a very old smelly man and a very young baby consummated their love and kinship. Erik in an act of total trust, love, and submission laid his tiny head upon the man’s ragged shoulder. The man’s eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime, pain, and hard labor, cradled my baby’s bottom and stroked his back. No two beings have ever loved so deeply for so short a time.

I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms and his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm commanding voice, “You take care of this baby.”

Somehow I managed, “I will,” from a throat that contained a stone.

He pried Erik from his chest, lovingly and longingly, as though he were in pain. I received my baby, and the man said, “God bless you, ma'am, you’ve given me my Christmas gift.”

I said nothing more than a muttered thanks. With Erik in my arms, I ran for the car. My husband was wondering why I was crying and holding Erik so tightly, and why I was saying, “My God, my God, forgive me.”

I had just witnessed Christ’s love shown through the innocence of a tiny child who saw no sin, who made no judgment; a child who saw a soul, and a mother who saw a suit of clothes. I was a Christian who was blind, holding a child who was not. I felt it was God asking, “Are you willing to share your son for a moment?” when He shared His for all eternity.

The ragged old man, unwittingly, had reminded me, “To enter the Kingdom of God, we must become as little children.”

Sometimes, it takes a child to remind us of what is really important. We must always remember who we are, where we came from and, most importantly, how we feel about others. The clothes on your back or the car that you drive or the house that you live in does not define you at all; it is how you treat your fellow man that identifies who you are.

Thirsting After God

“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit” – 2 Kings 2:9

The first requirement to move in greater power and authority in God is to hunger for it. Yet even this hunger is born from God. Elisha hungered after God. Elisha saw many miracles as Elijah’s servant. But he wanted more. He wanted a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. When he asked Elijah for this, the prophet responded, “You have asked a difficult thing.” It wasn’t because it couldn’t be granted. Elijah knew that with great anointing came a great weight of responsibility and difficulty.

Second, humility comes before honor. Elisha was known as the “servant of Elijah.” How would you like to be known as “the servant of John”? Your name is not even mentioned. This was the preparation of Elisha. It has been the preparation of many men of God. Consider Joseph, the servant of Pharaoh. Consider David, the servant of Saul.

Third, Elisha committed himself totally to his calling. The Scripture says when Elisha was called to join Elijah, the younger man left his farm business completely. He slaughtered his oxen and had a great feast for the community. It was all or nothing. He could not fall back on his farm trade if his new venture didn’t work. This demonstrates Elisha’s pioneer spirit in stepping out, not knowing what was ahead.

Do you want greater anointing in God? “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you” (Jeremiah 29:13-14a). Begin thirsting for God’s anointing in your heart today. This is the starting place.

A Tithe Fish Story

by Ben Maxson

I was on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific when I heard the story of a twelve year old boy who had learned what the Bible teaches on tithing. One day he came to the local church elder with a large fish he had caught. He explained to the elder that it was his tithe and asked for instructions as to how to give it to God.

The elder explained that he could sell it at the market or dry it and then sell it. Then he could return the tithe to God through His church. Then the elder remarked that it had been a good day for fishing since he had caught ten fish.

“Oh no,” said the boy. “This is the first one. The other nine are still in the ocean. I’m going after them next.”

The Last Impression

On a sunny morning, William’s mother came into her son’s room and said, “William, it’s Sunday. Time to get up! Time to get up and go to church! Get up!”

From under the covers came mumbles, “I don’t want to go!”

“What do you mean?” she said. “That’s silly! Now get up and get dressed and go to church!”

“No!” he shot back. “I’ll give you two reasons. I don’t like them and they don’t like me!”

“Nonsense,” she told him. “I’ll give YOU two reasons to go. First, you are 42 years old, and second, you are the PASTOR!”

It hardly seems possible, but this is the end of March! A quarter of the “new year” is gone already! As this Sunday is the last Sunday of the month, two special things happen. First, we receive our Missions Offering, so come prepared to join us in reaching out around the world to spread the Gospel! Secondly, we have our “Last Sunday Social” fellowship following the Morning Worship service, so plan to stick around for a great time together! I AM looking forward to see you this Sunday here at WFA!