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Hard times are inevitable! We have been redeemed from the curse, and there’s nothing Satan can do to change that. But, he is going to challenge! So don’t be surprised when things get tough! Times will come when you have to stand strictly by faith, when you’ll have to speak and act as though what God says is true even when you can’t feel it or see it happening around you.

There will be times when everything looks terrible. That’s when you must endure hardness as a good soldier.

So many people hear the word of faith and they say, “Hey! I’m going to try that.” Then when the hard times come, they give up and cave in.

Living by faith is not something you try! It’s a lifestyle. You do it when it’s hard. You do it when it’s easy. You do it all the time because you’re not doing it just to get in on the benefits. You’re doing it because you know that faith pleases God. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Things may get a little rough at times. But you’ll always come out on top if you endure hardness as a good soldier! If you refuse to faint and fall away, you will have the victory.

The only defeated Christian is the one who quits!

Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS, Volume 9.07. Live for God, on purpose, living and walking by faith in Him.

Victory through Faith

Since the first Sunday of this year, we have been sharing in the series “Victory is Mine in 2009!” Perhaps the most important sermon in the series is this week’s concluding message, “Victory Through Faith!” Overarching everything we have shared so far, the element of our personal faith is the ultimate key to our victory!

In 1 John 5:4, we read “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.” The early disciples recognized the need for great faith, when in Luke 17 they say to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” What was Jesus’ response to their request? He said, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”

A careful examination of that passage demonstrates a very important point. The disciples thought they needed more faith, as they asked the Lord for an increase. But, that’s not at all what they needed. Jesus essentially tells them that if they just use what they already had, they could do miraculous things!

And that’s the exact point. The key to our victory is not to somehow get more faith. It is to use the faith we have. Victory is not found in some quantity of faith or belief in Christ. Rather, it’s in what we do with what we have and what we do for Jesus! Don’t miss this dynamic concluding message, as together we discover how we can indeed have “Victory Through Faith!”

Ten Reasons to Hope
When You’re Hurting

by Steve Arterburn and Mike Marino

1. God is truly in control.
If God is God, then nothing happens apart from His knowledge and permission. While it is difficult to imagine why God allows some painful things to happen, His character, revealed in the Bible and through the testing of generations, leads us to the conclusion that He is willing and able to sustain you during the worst of times. “We were crushed and completely overwhelmed, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we learned not to rely on ourselves, but on God who can raise the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8,9)

2. There is an eternal life to come.
“Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the Glory He will give us later.” (Romans 8:18) “He will keep you strong right up to the end, and He will keep you free from all blame on the great day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns.” (1 Corinthians 1:8)

3. The story isn’t finished yet.
Time after time, the Bible records hopeless situations that ultimately ended in victory. Think of Job’s Sickness, Joseph’s betrayal by his brothers, David’s adultery and the many who were healed in mind, Body and spirit. “But Joseph told them, ‘Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, to judge and punish you? As far as I am concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil. He brought me to the high position I have today so I could save the lives of many people.’“ (Genesis 50:19,20)

4. God has not given up on you! Don’t give up on Him.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

5. There is likely purpose in your pain.
Ask God to reveal His purpose in allowing this difficulty in your life. That’s a legitimate question to ask. Often, the answer comes in the process of dealing with your circumstance. “Dear brothers and Sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when Your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for When your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.” (James 1:2-4)

6. You are loved!
Even the most unlovable person in the world is actually loved so much by God, that He let His Son die a terrible death to restore their relationship. God does love you! He sees your pain and weeps with you. “He has sent Me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent Me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies. To all who mourn in Israel, He will give beauty for ashes, joy instead of mourning, praise instead of despair. For the Lord has planted them like strong and graceful oaks for His own glory.” (Isaiah 61:1-3)

7. Your prayers are heard.
“You parents – if your children ask you for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him?” (Matthew 7:9,10)

8. You are not facing this alone.
“For God himself has said, ‘I will never fail you. I will never forsake you.’ That is why we can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper, so I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to Me?’’“ Hebrews 13:5-6)

9. Others have made it through – you can too.
Try to connect with others who have gone through similar situations. You will find hope, strength and encouragement. “A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:12)

10. Reach out to someone else who’s struggling.
Place your focus on someone else and invest your life in him or her. You may discover that your peace of mind is found in being a source of hope for another. “All praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.” (2 Corinthians 1:3,4)

Missed Opportunities

by Alan Smith

The story is told of a young man who wished to marry the farmer’s beautiful daughter. He went to the farmer to ask his permission. The farmer looked him over and responded, “Son, go stand out in that field and I’m going to release three bulls, one at a time. If you can catch the tail of any one of the three bulls, you can marry my daughter.”

The young man stood in the pasture awaiting the first bull. The barn door opened and out ran the biggest, meanest-looking bull he had ever seen. He decided that one of the next bulls had to be a better choice than this one, so he ran over to the side and let the bull pass through the pasture out the back gate.

The barn door opened again. Unbelievable. He had never seen anything so big and fierce in his life. It stood – pawing the ground, grunting, slinging slobber – as it eyed him. Whatever the next bull was like, it had to be a better choice than this one. He ran to the fence and let the bull pass through the pasture, out the back gate.

The door opened a third time. A smile came across his face. This was the weakest, scrawniest little bull he had ever seen. This one was his bull. As the bull came running by, he positioned himself just right and jumped at just the exact moment. He grabbed... but the bull had no tail!

Life is full of opportunities. Some will be easy to take advantage of, some will be difficult. But once we let them pass (often in hopes of something better), those opportunities may never again be available.

The same thing is also true of opportunities to serve Christ. God often opens doors – opportunities to speak up for Him, opportunities to minister to someone who is hurting or in need, opportunities to make an influence on the world around us. If we allow them to pass by (perhaps because we are waiting for something easier to come along), we may miss out on them altogether.

“Continue praying, keeping alert, and always thanking God. Also pray for us that God will give us an opportunity to tell people his message.” (Colossians 4:2-3a, NCV)

“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:10)

May you take advantage of the doors God opens for you this day!

This article by Alan Smith, Senior Pastor of the Helen Street Church of Christ in Fayetteville, North Carolina. You can visit his site at http://www.TFTD-online.com

Undercover No More

by Mark Cahill

After one of my recent speaking engagements, a gentleman came up to me to chat. He told me that he worked for the government in kind of an undercover capacity. I was intrigued and started asking him questions. Well of course, he couldn’t tell me too much! He told me that when he does undercover work, he has to have some type of “cover” so people won’t know what he is really doing. He told me that he chose to be an open air preacher and to hand out tracts as his “cover!” I stood there almost stunned. I said that you get paid every day to preach the gospel and hand tracts out, but that really isn’t your job?! I loved it. What a fantastic idea. I asked him how he got away with that as a “cover.” He told me that he was the boss, and he could make that decision! My kind of boss!

The whole conversation really got me thinking. What really got to me was that for many of us, we do just the opposite. We are salesmen, who happen to be Christians. We are mothers and fathers, whose faith is only seen on Sundays. We are plumbers, but our customers never know that we read the Bible. We are politicians, but we don’t want to mix our faith in with our job. We are teachers, but leave our Christianity at the front door with the metal detector. We are students, but think we don’t need to raise our hands up to speak against the false teachings that are being propagated on college campuses. We are, and you can fill in the blank, but yet we are keeping the most important part of ourselves, our relationship with the Almighty God, to ourselves. So when this world is in desperate need of eternal truth, it comes down to the fact that we are scared or ashamed and that it is really not my job to tell these people anyway. Wrong!

Once while I was still teaching, I had to hire a guy to speak at an athletic banquet, so I hired this ex-Major League Baseball player. It was a Christian school, and we wanted someone with a strong testimony to challenge the students and parents to boldly stand for Jesus Christ. So, I asked him what he was doing for a living. He told me that he worked for a cable company and installed cable TV in people’s homes. I asked why would you be doing that? I am not the smartest guy in the world sometimes! I thought that every ex-pro athlete should be rolling in the dough. And of course reality is very different from our perception. He looked at me and said, the reason I install cable TV is to get into more people’s homes so I can tell them the truth about eternity and the truth about the crucified Savior of the world. I can’t even begin to tell you the feeling I had inside of me when he told me his story. It was one of the most humbling moments of my entire life; this man had life figured out. It isn’t that you go and lay cable to feed the family and pay the bills, but that you go into people’s homes to plant seeds for the Lord Jesus Christ, and at the same time God allows you to get a paycheck.

Read what is written in the 26th chapter of the book of Acts verses 23 through 29: “That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles. And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”

You see that Paul wasn’t standing before Festus and King Agrippa as a tentmaker. He was standing there as a man of God who happened to make tents on the side. He didn’t get arrested for being a tentmaker. His real profession was making sure that Festus and King Agrippa knew the truth about Jesus Christ, period. Paul made some very powerful and direct statements to the King. He didn’t worry about the consequences; he worried about being faithful to God and nothing else.

As the New Year begins, I want to encourage you not to be an undercover Christian in the coming days. Make sure it is the part about you that most people know first and foremost. Oh by the way, the government person who was undercover told me that one day he got the chance to hand a tract to the terrorist that he had been following! Even he knew that jail doesn’t change a man’s heart, but the gospel does. Make sure no one around you in the coming days will ever mistake you as an undercover Christian. Be bold!

as seen in Mark Cahill’s January 2009 newsletter – http://www.markcahill.org/news.html

How to be Thankful
in Tough Times

by Rick Warren

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” – Philippians 4:6 (NLT)

1. Don’t worry about anything. Worrying doesn’t change anything. It’s stewing without doing. There’s no such thing as born worriers; worry is a learned response. You learned it from your parents. You learned it from your peers. You learned it from experience. That’s good news. The fact that worry is learned means it can also be unlearned. Jesus says, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matthew 6:34 NLT).

2. Pray about everything. Use the time you’ve spent worrying for praying. If you prayed as much as you worried, you’d have a whole lot less to worry about. Some people think God only cares about religious things, such as how many people I invite to church or my tithing. Is God interested in car payments? Yes. He’s interested in every detail of your life. That means you can take any problem you face to God.

3. Thank God in all things. Whenever you pray, you should always pray with thanksgiving. The healthiest human emotion is not love, but gratitude. It actually increases your immunities; it makes you more resistant to stress and less susceptible to illness. People who are grateful are happy. But people who are ungrateful are miserable because nothing makes them happy. They’re never satisfied; it’s never good enough. So if you cultivate the attitude of gratitude, of being thankful in everything, it reduces stress in your life.

4. Think about the right things. If you want to reduce the level of stress in your life, you must change the way you think. The way you think determines how you feel, and the way you feel determines how you act. So if you want to change your life, you need to change what you’re thinking about.

This involves a deliberate, conscious choice where you change the channels. You choose to think about the right things: focus on the positive and on God’s Word. Why? Because the root cause of stress is the way you choose to think.

When we no longer worry, when we pray about everything, when we give thanks, when we focus on the right things, the apostle Paul tells us the result is, “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7 NLT).

What a guarantee! He is guaranteeing peace of mind.

© 2009 Purpose Driven Life. All rights reserved. Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., one of America’s largest and best-known churches. In addition, Rick is author of the New York Times bestseller The Purpose Driven Life and The Purpose Driven Church, which was named one of the 100 Christian books that changed the 20th Century. He is also founder of Pastors.com, a global Internet community for ministers.

Great Acts of Faith

by Jim Burns

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.... And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” — Hebrews 11: 1, 6

What are you doing right now that you could not do without the help of our supernatural God? When we think of the word faith, we often think of the most incredible miracles we’ve ever heard about. I don’t know about you but I believe in those kinds of miracles of faith. Sometimes God chooses to heal a person with cancer or other health issues. In fact, I’ve even heard of God giving a van supernatural extra gas mileage when a group of people were smuggling Bibles into a country where Bibles were forbidden. There are other times when people have just as much faith but God chooses not to heal or do a miracle.

Faith is also ordinary people doing extraordinary things with their lives. Faith is... Bob Wieland walking across America on his hands because he has no feet! Faith is... Rachel deciding not to abort her baby even though her boyfriend was pressing her to abort. Faith is... Cheryl and Hank almost going all the way but deciding to remain virgins, even when they would really like to have sexual intercourse. Faith is... Ted choosing to not cheat on exams any more.

Faith is ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It’s deciding not to drink, not to have sex before marriage, even when everyone else is doing it; it’s walking away from riches because God’s call on your life is to be a missionary. Faith is asking God to help you with an eating disorder or loving the unlovely. Faith is placing all that you are, all that you can be and all that you do, into the hands of God.

Faith is doing something or being someone that you could not do or be without the help of our supernatural God.

What are you doing in faith right now? Take a moment and ask God to make you an ordinary person doing extraordinary things for him.

as seen in “Today’s HomeWord,” a daily devotional with Jim Burns. Visit them online at www.homeword.com

The Last Impression

A young woman was taking an afternoon nap. After she woke up, she told her husband, “I just dreamt that you gave me a pearl necklace for Valentine’s Day. What do you think it means?”

“You shall know tonight”, he said.

That evening, the man came home with a small package and gave it to his wife.

Delighted, she opened it. She found a book entitled “The Meaning of Dreams.”

I surely hope your Valentine’s Day will be a whole lot better than a book about the meaning of dreams! We are going to have a wonderful Valentine’s Day evening here at WFA as we enjoy the Sweetheart Dinner! On the day we remember the special ones we love, be sure to remember the One who literally IS love!