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I believe that God desires all His children to be successful, significant, satisfied, and secure! Jeremiah 29:11 says, “‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’” From birth you have been developing in your mind a means for experiencing these values and reaching other goals in life. Consciously or subconsciously you continue to formulate and adjust your plans for achieving these goals.

But sometimes your well-intended plans and noble-sounding goals are not completely in harmony with God’s plans and goals for you. “How can I know if what I believe is right?” you may be wondering. “Must I wait until I am 45 years old or until I experience some kind of mid-life crisis to discover that what I believed was wrong?”

I don’t think so. I believe that God has designed us in such a way that we can know on a regular basis if our belief system is properly aligned with God’s truth. God has established a feedback system that is designed to grab your attention so you can examine the validity of your goal.

That system is your emotions. When an experience or relationship leaves you feeling angry, anxious or depressed, those emotional signposts are there to alert you that you may be cherishing a faulty goal that is based on a wrong belief.

If our goals are blocked, we become angry. If our goals are uncertain, we feel anxious. If we perceive our goals as impossible, we become depressed because the heart of depression is hopelessness.

Can any God-given goal be blocked, uncertain or impossible? Put another way, if God wants something done, can it be done? Of course! The question is, do we have a biblical understanding of success, significance, satisfaction and security?

When we see and pursue these values from God’s perspective, we will reach our goals because they are God’s goals for us. May God help you recognize whether your goals are in line with His, and make the proper adjustments in your belief system.

Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS, Volume 9.04. Live for God, on purpose, knowing that God has plans for your future!

Four Reasons Why Some People
Lose the Victory

This Sunday morning, our series on “Victory is Mine in 2009!” has a special guest – Evangelist Tiff Shuttlesworth. Brother Tiff will be joining us for just one service this Sunday, and he will augment our current series, as he shares this message the Lord has laid on his heart for us – “Four Reasons Why Some People Lose the Victory.”

Last with us back in June 2007, we are thrilled to welcome Tiff Shuttlesworth back to our pulpit. As he and I have been linked together so many times throughout our thirty-plus years of ministry, God has always been faithful in blessing us each and every time we are together! He and I met as we both took our very first credentials exam together, and ever since then, the Lord has regularly allowed us to combine ministries.

There are some individuals traveling in ministry who call themselves “evangelists,” but they are primarily used of God to stir the church toward a closer walk in the Lord. However, Evangelist Tiff Shuttlesworth is a man who truly is called, biblically, as an evangelist, and preaches to win souls for Christ. During his visits with us here in Wilmington, we have seen hundreds of people ask Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior.

Make your plans to be here now! And, most especially, invite your friends, co-workers, family, and neighbors to come with you to church! You will be glad you did, and they will too!

You can visit Evangelist Tiff Shuttlesworth’s web site by clicking here – http://www.lostlamb.org

What to Pray for a New President

by Mark Labberton

There is no better time to renew our commitment to pray for our leaders than the start of a new presidential administration. Barack Obama needs our prayers and we should give them freely and eagerly no matter how we may have voted.

I know our president needs prayer, because I know I do. My own life and pastoral leadership depends on prayer. I am aware that much of the blessing in the life of our church unfolds because of the prayers of people united in seeking God’s way. Blessings are not earned by prayer, nor should blessings be presumed because of prayer. But I do believe prayer increases our readiness to live humbly, wisely, and courageously.

These are also the qualities our new president needs. After a divisive campaign, an extraordinary economic collapse, a period of ecological vulnerability, and a time of war and global instability, our president and our nation need humility, wisdom, and courage. Wherever we or our congregations may be politically, these three qualities should guide our prayers for the leaders responsible for our nation and our world. Leadership that is lacking in any of these three will be far less constructive than these trying times demand.

Our president needs the humility to live and lead in dependence upon God, practicing a clear estimate of our human and national limitations. Few qualities are more characteristic of Jesus than his willingness to serve in dependency on the Father, “emptying himself and taking the form of a servant.” Humble servant leadership is the essence of Jesus’ power. Let’s pray that as a new season of presidential leadership begins, Barack Obama will live before God with a clarified awareness of who he is and who he is not.

When we lead our people to pray for our national leaders, we are praying for them to be wise. That means that they will be men and women led by the truth, who will act with discernment and justice. We may be tempted to pray that certain policies or political ideologies are enacted by the government, or for the authorities to establish our own utopian vision. This kind of prayer mistakenly treats the United States as a theocracy.

Instead, we should be praying for leaders to have the wisdom to seek the shalom of the city, country, and world. This kind of prayer asks God to grant leaders the power and authority that allows people and communities to thrive. It is a prayer that neither over-reaches nor under-reaches.

When we lead our people to pray for this new administration, we also need to pray that President Obama, and everyone in government, will have courage. Given the social, economic, environmental, and security threats today, we could accumulate a pile of fear-inducing situations to rival Everest. This is an exceptional time, when our leadership needs the strength of character and will to seek, say, and do what is right.

When we pray for a pluralistic, conflicted, and divided nation like our own, we should recognize that we are not just praying for the church, for the community of God’s people. Instead, we are stepping into our role as faithful exiles, surrounded by a widely varied people, who seek God’s life-giving love, mercy, and justice, especially for the marginalized and for our enemies. We cry out to God for his shalom to be poured out upon others. That will be the evidence to the world that the blessing we seek isn’t just for ourselves, but that we truly care for all peoples, tribes, and nations.

When we pray for these things—humility, wisdom, and courage—we are stepping beyond our own party affiliation or preference, beyond the bickering of the campaign, beyond the places where divisions are real and substantial. We are seeking instead to be prayerful partners of God’s shalom that comes, at least in part, through governments, civic leaders, and even presidents.

In Jail

Have you ever considered what it is like to be in jail? While I have not personally had this experience, I know of some who have. They tell me it is the hardest thing they have ever had to go through.

Being charged and locked up behind bars is a humiliating experience. Handcuffs, block walls, locked doors, thorough strip and body search, confiscation of personal valuables, narrow hallways, bars, a prison cell, stainless steal toilets, concrete bunks, rattling keys, the click of the lock and then a camera that monitors your every movement in a 6’ x 10’ cell. There is no privacy. In case of trouble, a guard merely calls for help by touching any part of a 3’ high yellow strip running along the hallways.

Access to a lawyer or relative is possible through an enclosed glass partition. Dignity and self-worth slowly ebb away. It is replaced with tears, anger, bitterness and a loss of self-respect. How futile is your predicament, how bleak is your situation. Your spirit is strangled, your hope is all but extinguished. Gone are those days when you could run after rainbow dreams in childish innocence: mother’s arms, a first date, the new set of wheels, a football game or that great buddy.

A good lawyer may be able to free you from “the morgue,” but swallowing that bitter pill behind bars will last a lifetime.

However, not everyone who is imprisoned is in jail. Perhaps you are imprisoned in relationships, chained to addiction, social castes or pornography. There is a way out for you as you awaken and see the same familiar surroundings. Yes, because of our human conditions, Jesus Christ swallowed your bitter pill by dying on the cross to give us that dignity that God wants you to have. He is able to give you a new spirit, and a new inner joy. He is better than any lawyer as He fills your life with hope and peace. God sets prisoners free by giving sight to the blind, food to the hungry, and lifting us up as we are discouraged (Psalm 146:7,8).

I Asked, He Gave

I asked for Strength... and God gave me Difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for Wisdom... and God gave me Problems to solve.

I asked for Prosperity... and God gave me a Brain and Brawn to work.

I asked for Courage... and God gave me Danger to overcome.

I asked for Love... and God gave me Troubled people to help.

I asked for Favors... and God gave me Opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted. I received everything I needed.

Holding Pattern

Many times God will allow a painful situation or a painful circumstance in our life to “swallow us up.” This season in our spiritual growth is a holding pattern. We can’t move to the left or the right. All we can do is sit, like Jonah sat in the belly of that great fish, so God can have our undivided attention and speak to us. God put Jonah in a holding pattern because He needed to speak to his heart. Jonah was all alone. There were no friends to call, no colleagues to drop by, no books to read, no food to eat, no interference, and no interruptions. He had plenty of time to sit, think, meditate, and pray.

When we’re deep down in the midst of a difficult situation, God can talk to us. When He has our undivided attention, He can show us things about ourselves that we might not otherwise have seen.

A few of God’s holding patterns:

1. When you are sick in your physical body and you have prayed but God has not healed you yet, you are in a holding pattern

2. When you are having problems with your children and you have put them on the altar, but God has not delivered them yet, you are in a holding pattern.

3. When you have been praying for the salvation of a loved one and they have not been saved yet, you are in a holding pattern.

4. When you are in a broken relationship and you have given it over to God, but it has not been restored yet, you are in a holding pattern.

5. When the doors slam shut before you can knock on them, you are in a holding pattern.

When we are deep in the belly of a difficult situation, there are no interruptions. God has our undivided attention. All we can do is sit, think, meditate, and pray. We cannot run from God because there are no Mountains that are high enough, valleys low enough, rooms that are dark enough, or places that are hidden enough from Him. We must remember to praise Him while we’re waiting and remember three things:

• The pattern has a purpose.

• The pattern has a plan.

• The pattern has a process.

So stop struggling and start listening, praying and trusting. He’ll keep you right where you are until you can clearly hear Him say, “I love you.”

Financial Amnesia

“Remember... the Lord... gives you power to become rich.” – Deuteronomy 8:18 TLB

Can God trust you with money? Do you have the courage to thank Him publicly for what He’s given you?

Ever noticed how some of us who praised Him when we had very little, suddenly become ‘image conscious’ when we start to prosper? We call on God when we’re in trouble, but when we get back on our feet, we stop counting our blessings and start counting our money. What’s happened? We’ve become so self-sufficient that we’re reluctant to mention the name of Jesus when we talk about our blessings! Israel’s financial amnesia was nothing new; it happens once you start believing “it was [my] own power and might that made [me] wealthy” (Deuteronomy 8:17 TLB).

Never get so dazzled by success that you forget the source of everything you have, or become so caught up in your blessings that you fail to acknowledge the One who blessed you. God told the Israelites, “When you have become... prosperous... built fine homes... and your silver and gold have multiplied... don’t become proud and forget the Lord... who brought you out of... slavery” (Deuteronomy 8:11-14 TLB). God doesn’t condemn success, He condemns arrogance!

When you’ve had very little and suddenly enter the “Promised Land,” it’s easy to forget where you came from. A few gourmet meals, a designer suit and a house in “the right neighborhood” can make you forget about yesterday’s hand-me-downs! God constantly had to remind His people not to overlook His goodness to them.

And the same applies to us. “Remember... the Lord... gives you power to become rich, and... just as [He]... caused other nations in the past to perish... That will be your fate... if you don’t obey... God” (Deuteronomy 8:18-20 TLB).

Bottom line – you don’t have anything God didn’t give you!

The Last Impression

A woman who happened to be a dedicated Christian and faithful member of her church had been working really hard to get the catsup to come out of the jar. During her struggle the kitchen phone rang, so she asked her four-year old daughter to answer.

“It’s Pastor Bob, Mommy,” the child said to her mother. Before the busy mother could tell the child to have him hold on for a minute, the youngster quickly responded back to the minister, “Mommy can’t talk on the phone right now, she’s hitting the bottle.”

We are eagerly looking forward to a fantastic day this Sunday here at WFA! Joining us for our “Victory is Mine in 2009!” series is Evangelist Tiff Shuttlesworth, and we are expecting the Lord to do great things in our midst! Invite your friends and neighbors, and join us for a tremendous time worshipping the Lord!