The Incredible, Essential Importance of HOPE
The incredible, essential importance of HOPE!
April 2024 Blog
Please read this blog. Please share this blog.
I will be quoting from Steve Backlund, of Bethel ministries, (yes the one in California founded by Bill Johnson and yes with Bethel music!) Please check out him and his wife Wendy’s life-changing ministry website: [email protected]
At our recent Dove International Leader’s Conference, we were privileged to get to hear Steve Backlund. He is truly one of the most humble, laid back, funny, brilliant, wise and empowering speakers we have ever heard.
As I count down to the day I officially pass the baton of lead eldership/pastor of Cross Creek Community Church (8 weeks to go!), I am all about the joy of empowering others. It is very exciting to me to anticipate where our next, dear, lead elder, and her husband, and leaders and staff and church will take us all. It will be by God’s Holy Spirit and to the glory and honor of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I can’t wait to see what will happen next!
I’ll continue blogging, but probably at a different site. So I want to write up my last three blogs to really empower our dear body of Christ. And if there’s one thing everyone needs, and everyone needs to be able to encourage others with, it is HOPE!
Steve came in on a wave of the Holy Spirit saying the same thing to churches everywhere. He had just preached in Kansas City about encouragement.
Steve told us that “discouragement is when we run out of courage.” (Isaiah 35:4)
Yes! It takes courage to work to be encouraged rather than discouraged!
Don’t let the naysayers get you, let alone keep you, down!
Also, whatever we’ve overcome, (and oh haven’t so many of us overcome so much?!), we’ve earned the authority over it! We can help other people through these situations!
“After love, HOPE is the most important quality in life!” “Hope is thinking tomorrow will be better than today.” I think it is important that as “purveyors of hope,” (my term), we must constantly assure and reassure others that “it won’t always be like this.” (Me, again.) How powerful are those words of hope and encouragement when we’re going through a difficult time and it just feels like it’s always going to be this way. Fill in the blank… in pain… jobless… purposeless… in relationship conflict… God can and will overcome these situations with you and for you. (John 16:33)
When Moses sent “the twelve spies” (Numbers 13) to look over the land for conquering, we all know 10 came back with discouragement, and only two, Joshua & Caleb, said “we’ve got this!” Unfortunately the negative Neds won over the people.
It would be another 40 years before the goal would finally be achieved.
And all the sour faces had to die off first! The problem was that the men who gave the negative report were “grasshoppers in their own eyes.” Compared to the giants of the land, they were looking at themselves rather than God. God can do anything!
Contrast Caleb and Joshua, who said “we are well able to overcome it.”
We must understand and practice positive affirmations of God’s promises over ourselves rather than the lies we believe about our selves which are less than what God has for us!
“Circumstances are not as important as our conclusions about them!”
“It’s in the fight, we develop, to then be able to keep the promise!”
God had promised His people this land, but they let the lies they told themselves overtake their beliefs of what He could do for them and with them.
What are the giants standing in your Promised Land?
The answer: our mindsets! Our strongholds! “Feelings and past experiences tend to exalt themselves repeatedly!” The greatest temptation we face is not that God doesn’t have our hearts completely… He knows He has our hearts… it’s what we keep choosing to believe about ourselves that is not from Him!
We often struggle with feelings of… shame… embarrassment… being less than… dismaying family situations… past choices… regrets… insecurity… inferiority.
Great leaders get rid of these feelings, choose not to let them determine their thinking, and choose to have great beliefs! Great priorities! And great habits!
Let’s begin today to recognize those lies we, and others, speak, and have spoken over us, and slay them! Put the sword of the Word of God to them! (Ephesians 6:17 - the only offensive weapon in the armor of God arsenal!) Kill those lies! And replace them with God’s words of affirmation. “I CAN do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” “I can do it!” “I am strong.” “I am able.” “I am loved.” “I am a community leader.” “I am a world changer.”
Steve says if we speak 100 positive (from God’s Word/His promises) over our lives every day for a month, our lives will be transformed! I believe it. I feel more confident already than ever before in my life! Check out his books. Grow in this way. It’s great!
And now… “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him,
so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romas 15:13
April 2024 Blog
Please read this blog. Please share this blog.
I will be quoting from Steve Backlund, of Bethel ministries, (yes the one in California founded by Bill Johnson and yes with Bethel music!) Please check out him and his wife Wendy’s life-changing ministry website: [email protected]
At our recent Dove International Leader’s Conference, we were privileged to get to hear Steve Backlund. He is truly one of the most humble, laid back, funny, brilliant, wise and empowering speakers we have ever heard.
As I count down to the day I officially pass the baton of lead eldership/pastor of Cross Creek Community Church (8 weeks to go!), I am all about the joy of empowering others. It is very exciting to me to anticipate where our next, dear, lead elder, and her husband, and leaders and staff and church will take us all. It will be by God’s Holy Spirit and to the glory and honor of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I can’t wait to see what will happen next!
I’ll continue blogging, but probably at a different site. So I want to write up my last three blogs to really empower our dear body of Christ. And if there’s one thing everyone needs, and everyone needs to be able to encourage others with, it is HOPE!
Steve came in on a wave of the Holy Spirit saying the same thing to churches everywhere. He had just preached in Kansas City about encouragement.
Steve told us that “discouragement is when we run out of courage.” (Isaiah 35:4)
Yes! It takes courage to work to be encouraged rather than discouraged!
Don’t let the naysayers get you, let alone keep you, down!
Also, whatever we’ve overcome, (and oh haven’t so many of us overcome so much?!), we’ve earned the authority over it! We can help other people through these situations!
“After love, HOPE is the most important quality in life!” “Hope is thinking tomorrow will be better than today.” I think it is important that as “purveyors of hope,” (my term), we must constantly assure and reassure others that “it won’t always be like this.” (Me, again.) How powerful are those words of hope and encouragement when we’re going through a difficult time and it just feels like it’s always going to be this way. Fill in the blank… in pain… jobless… purposeless… in relationship conflict… God can and will overcome these situations with you and for you. (John 16:33)
When Moses sent “the twelve spies” (Numbers 13) to look over the land for conquering, we all know 10 came back with discouragement, and only two, Joshua & Caleb, said “we’ve got this!” Unfortunately the negative Neds won over the people.
It would be another 40 years before the goal would finally be achieved.
And all the sour faces had to die off first! The problem was that the men who gave the negative report were “grasshoppers in their own eyes.” Compared to the giants of the land, they were looking at themselves rather than God. God can do anything!
Contrast Caleb and Joshua, who said “we are well able to overcome it.”
We must understand and practice positive affirmations of God’s promises over ourselves rather than the lies we believe about our selves which are less than what God has for us!
“Circumstances are not as important as our conclusions about them!”
“It’s in the fight, we develop, to then be able to keep the promise!”
God had promised His people this land, but they let the lies they told themselves overtake their beliefs of what He could do for them and with them.
What are the giants standing in your Promised Land?
The answer: our mindsets! Our strongholds! “Feelings and past experiences tend to exalt themselves repeatedly!” The greatest temptation we face is not that God doesn’t have our hearts completely… He knows He has our hearts… it’s what we keep choosing to believe about ourselves that is not from Him!
We often struggle with feelings of… shame… embarrassment… being less than… dismaying family situations… past choices… regrets… insecurity… inferiority.
Great leaders get rid of these feelings, choose not to let them determine their thinking, and choose to have great beliefs! Great priorities! And great habits!
Let’s begin today to recognize those lies we, and others, speak, and have spoken over us, and slay them! Put the sword of the Word of God to them! (Ephesians 6:17 - the only offensive weapon in the armor of God arsenal!) Kill those lies! And replace them with God’s words of affirmation. “I CAN do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” “I can do it!” “I am strong.” “I am able.” “I am loved.” “I am a community leader.” “I am a world changer.”
Steve says if we speak 100 positive (from God’s Word/His promises) over our lives every day for a month, our lives will be transformed! I believe it. I feel more confident already than ever before in my life! Check out his books. Grow in this way. It’s great!
And now… “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him,
so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romas 15:13
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