The Bible and Life

Friday, December 5, 2025

Prayer Gives Us Options

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is another great story about prayer and the options it provides. Enjoy.

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One of the ultimate benefits of prayer, I'm convinced. It trains us to go over our options, to pray through every angle of a decision, and to see things more clearly through the eyes of faith. Have you ever made a bad decision because you didn't take the time to pray it through?

I have. I remember clearly when a church in South Bend, Indiana, approached me about being their pastor. I flatly told them no, I wasn't interested. I felt God had called me to a different area of ministry. Besides, I wasn't particularly attracted to South Bend.

The next night, I received another call from the South Bend church. The man on the other end told me that the church people had fasted and prayed all day and once again had voted unanimously to call me.

"That's very interesting," I said. "I appreciate that very much, but I can't come." And I hung up.

The next night another call came from the church. They were convinced I hadn't prayed about my decision. If I prayed it through, they felt, I would change my mind. They were right, and I accepted the call.

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Several years later, after I had left South Bend to spend several years overseas, the Lord gave me an almost identical decision to consider. I had recently returned to the United States and was seeking the Lord's will about a location for our international headquarters. One day I received a telephone call asking me to come back to South Bend to begin a new church there. Sixty-nine people, who were meeting in a basement and had no pastor, had signed a petition asking me to come be their spiritual leader. I told them I could not make a quick decision. My former church, located in a different part of South Bend, was still going strong. I couldn't see going back to start from scratch again.

But this time, I knew better than to try to make the decision without spending time in prayer. After seeking the Lord's will diligently on my knees, I knew what He wanted me to do. I said yes to the group in South Bend, and our ministry has been located there ever since.

More often than I can remember, I have been saved from a bad decision because I took the time to pray it through. In the course of praying, I saw things more clearly from God's perspective. Just as often I have experienced what Nehemiah did. After a season of prayer about something I feel deeply for, I find myself more committed than ever to what I began to pray for. Either way, prayer enables us to see things in sharper focus through the eyes of faith.

- Dr. Lester Sumrall ( The Making Of A Champion )

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Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Praying Down Revival

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

PRAYING DOWN REVIVALS

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While most people thought of revivals only as moves of God, who, in His sovereignty, poured out His Spirit (another instance where the ministers of the day used God’s sovereignty as an excuse for their lack of effective ministry), Charles Finney believed that human beings could set the stage for revival through prayer, fasting, and holding God accountable to His promises in the Bible.

Charles wrote about this spirit of prayer as it affected him during the revival at De Kalb in upstate New York: I found myself so much exercised, and so borne down with the weight of immortal souls, that I was constrained to pray without ceasing. Some of my experiences, indeed, alarmed me. A spirit of importunity sometimes came upon me so that I would say to God that He had made a promise to answer prayer, and I could not, and would not, be denied.

I felt so certain that He would hear me, and that faithfulness to his promises, and to himself, rendered it impossible that he should not hear and answer, that frequently I found myself saying to him, “I hope thou dost not think that I can be denied. I come with thy faithful promises in my hand, and I cannot be denied.”

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I cannot tell how absurd unbelief looked to me, and how certain it was, in my mind, that God would answer prayer—those prayers that, from day to day, and from hour to hour, I found myself offering in such agony and faith. I had no idea of the shape the answer would take, the locality in which the prayers would be answered, or the exact time of the answer.

My impression was that the answer was near, even at the door; and I felt myself strengthened in the divine life, put on the harness for a mighty conflict with the powers of darkness, and expected soon to see a far more powerful outpouring of the Spirit of God, in that new country where I had been laboring.

Oswald J. Smith explained why this kind of prayer was so important to Charles’s ministry:

He always preached with the expectation of seeing the Holy Spirit suddenly outpoured. Until this happened little or nothing was accomplished. But the moment the Spirit fell upon the people, Finney had nothing else to do but point them to the Lamb of God. Thus he lived and wrought for years in an atmosphere of revival.

- God’s Generals ( The Revivalists )

Roberts Liardon

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Friday, November 28, 2025

The Lack Of Consecration In Believers

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is an important lesson from a very popular book of the past. Enjoy!

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THE LACK OF CONSECRATION IN BELIEVERS

There seems to be a lack of deep consecration to do God’s will among some Christians today. Recently, I was thinking about the difference between my experiences in Full Gospel circles fifty years ago and today. As I compared Full Gospel believers then and now, I realized there wasn’t nearly as much sickness among Spirit-filled Christians fifty years ago as there is today.

I remembered the great manifestations of the Holy Spirit we used to experience in our meetings. The move of the Holy Ghost was also much greater and in more consistent demonstration back then than it is today. As I was thinking about this, the Spirit of God said to my spirit, “Yes, and the consecration of My people was greater too.”

Let that soak in! Whether we choose to consecrate ourselves to obey God or choose not to obey God, it affects every other area of our lives as well!

I’m thoroughly convinced of the truth of what the Lord said to me. The consecration of believers was much deeper fifty years ago than it is today. Believers’ appreciation and reverence for the things of God and the move of the Holy Spirit was much deeper too. And as a result, God honored that depth of consecration and reverence by giving His people great manifestations of the Holy Ghost.

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Believers today need greater consecration and dedication to God. In the churches I pastored in the 1940s, we used to gather around the altar and pray at the end of nearly every service. We often sang the old hymn, “Is Your All on the Altar of Sacrifice Laid?” We don’t sing hymns like that much anymore, but many folks today need to heed the message of some of those old scriptural hymns.

It seems that many believers are willing to lay some things on the altar, but not all! But God’s plan for their lives is hindered and many of His blessings are withheld because they haven’t totally consecrated themselves to do God’s will instead of their own.

Ministers need to teach about consecration so people’s hearts will be stirred to surrender everything to God and to consecrate themselves wholly to follow God’s plan for their lives.

Consider your own consecration to the Lord. Consider whether or not you are able to say from your heart, “Lord, I’ll do whatever You ask me to do. I’ll go anywhere You want me to go. And I’ll stay where I am if You tell me to stay. No matter where You lead me, I’ll carry the good news of Jesus Christ to others.”

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You see, you need to be willing to do anything God wants you to do. You need to commit yourself to obey God and do His will every day for the rest of your life.

Since I was first born again at the age of sixteen, I’ve understood the importance of total consecration to the Lord. I’ve been a Christian more than half a century, and I’m still praying the same prayer of consecration I prayed more than fifty years ago. I’m still praying, “Lord, I’ll go where You want me to go. If You want me to go to Africa, I’ll go. If You want me to stay where I am, I’ll stay. I’ll do what You want me to do.”

Also, notice Jesus didn’t just pray this prayer one time. He prayed virtually the same prayer three times (Matt. 26:39,42,44).

You see, the prayer of consecration is not a one-time prayer, as is the prayer of faith. The prayer of consecration is a prayer you pray throughout your life. You will only be able to follow God’s plan for your life if you constantly maintain an attitude of consecration and surrender to the Lord’s will, whatever it might be.

Following God’s Plan For Your Life

by Kenneth E. Hagin

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William James Roop

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

What I Lose In Prayer

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

This is from an unknown source that I wanted to share.

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A woman was once asked:

What do you "gain" from praying to God regularly?

She replied:

Usually ′′ I don't earn anything ", but rather ′′ I lose things ".

And she quoted everything she lost praying to God regularly:

I lost my pride.

I lost my arrogance.

I lost greed.

I lost my urge.

I lost ′′ my ′′ anger.

I lost the lust.

I lost the pleasure of lying.

I lost the taste of sin.

I lost impatience, despair, and

discouragement.

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Sometimes we pray, not to gain something, but to lose things that don't allow us to grow spiritually.

Prayer educates, strengthens, and heals.

Prayer is the channel that connects us directly to God."

" 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Pray without ceasing."

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Friday, November 21, 2025

Sunday Is Coming

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is the poem "Sunday is Coming," by Phil Wickham.

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He received 39 stripes because 40 was known to kill a man. They wanted him alive.

They held handfuls of his beard, and hair and pulled it out by the roots. They wanted him alive.

They kicked, punched, and spit on him for hours. Until there wasn't a single spot on his body not covered in blood. They wanted him alive.

They shoved a crown of thorns down on his head so harshly it stuck in his skin. They wanted him alive.

After hours of being beaten, mocked, whipped, flogged, and tortured they made him walk with a cross. They made him carry it. A rough piece of wood with splinters digging into fresh wounds. They wanted him alive.

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They wanted him to feel every ounce of pain they could bring. He had to feel it in order to heal us. Crucifixion was historically one of the cruelest most tortured deaths a human could face. Hours upon hours of torture. Torture most of us can not mentally think of because the cruelty isn't normal. It isn't something our minds can comprehend. We celebrate Easter with pastel colors, happy children hunting eggs, and chocolate. Truth is there was absolutely nothing happy about the day Jesus died. It was cruel, bloody, and nasty.

He could have stopped all of it. He could have called every angel in heaven to demolish every person standing and shouting "Crucify Him!" He didn't. He knew in order to have a Sunday you have to have a Friday. He knew in order to have joy you have to carry your cross. He felt everything that day. He felt how your heart broke wide open when you had to watch your baby die. He felt how heavy your life was when you were staring down the barrel of a gun wondering if the man you called husband was going to shoot you. He carried the weight of the burden you have felt since your spouse died and life just doesn't seem right since. On that cross he held the rapist and murderers, the sinner and the saint. He leveled every playing field and said ALL of you are worth it. He knew he had to carry the cross. He never promised the cross you carry in this life would not be heavy. His wasn't. His promise is that Sunday is coming.

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No matter how heavy Friday is. Financially, emotionally, mentally, or physically. Friday is heavy. That cross is weighing you down and you are about to crumble under its weight. His promise was simply this. He won't make you carry it alone. What kind of king would step down from his throne for this?

Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God did. For you.

He did every bit of it for you and me. Oh yes it is heavy. So heavy sometimes you do not think you can take one more step. But look up and call of the name of Jesus!

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." (John 15:12-14).

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Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Art Thou The King Of The Jews?

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

This information was taken from Eusebius' book, The History of the Church.

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John 18:33: "Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?"

Pontus Pilate asked that question as if he knew the answer already. Did Pilate know something? Did he overhear something? He worked closely with the priests. Were they talking about Jesus?

Why did he make such a statement?

But what a minute, Herod was the King of the Jews! Or was he!

When Herod, the first ruler of foreign blood, became King, the prophecy of Moses received its fulfillment: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes." Genesis 49:10.

Shiloh is a Hebrew word meaning "Peaceful One," or "Gift from God." Jesus was both.

Herod, the first foreigner, was given the Kingdom of the Jews by the Romans. As Josephus relates, he was an Edomite on his father's side and an Arabian on his mother's.

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But Africanus, a famous writer, he was a son of Antipater, and that the latter was the son of a certain Herod of Ascalon, one of the so-called servants of the temple of Apollo. This Antipater, having been taken prisoner while a boy by Edomite robbers, lived with them, because his father, being a poor man, was unable to pay the ransom for him. Growing up with them, he was afterwards befriended by Hyrcanus, the high priests of the Jews. A son of his, was that Herod who lived in the times of Jesus.

When Pompey, the Roman general, took Jerusalem by force in 63 BC, and defiled the holy places by entering the very innermost sanctuary of the temple, Aristobulus, who, by the right had been king and high priest, he sent with his children in chains to Rome; and gave to Hyrcanus, brother of Aristobulus, the high priesthood, while the whole nation of the Jews was made a tributary to the Romans from that time.

But Hyrcanus, who was the last of the regular line of high priests, was very soon afterwards taken prisoner by the Parthians, and Herod, the first foreigner, was made King of the Jewish nation by the Roman Senate and by Augustus.

Under him Christ appeared in bodily shape!

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