The Bible and Life

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Tuesday, January 13, 2026

You Failed To Pay The Price!

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

YOU FAILED TO PAY THE PRICE

By the fall of 1949, the Allens began to hear stories about miraculous healing meetings that were taking place. The evangelists conducting the meetings weren’t necessarily outstanding preachers. In fact, many preachers were more eloquent in their sermon delivery than these evangelists, but when these healing evangelists prayed for the sick, miracles happened so quickly, no one could count them. The Allens refused to believe half of the stories they were told, but their curiosity was certainly aroused.

One day, a friend gave Allen a copy of the publication The Voice of Healing. After reading it, Allen said, “As I read its pages, I laughed in ridicule. Fanatics, I thought, as I closed the magazine and laid it away in my study.” Some of his church members came from these tent meetings with glowing reports, but Allen discounted them and felt they were drifting into fanaticism!

Personally, I don’t believe that was his true heart in the matter. He might have spoken those words, but I believe he was incredibly stirred inside, because he knew this was his own call being manifested before his very eyes.

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However, it is possible to become so backslidden in one’s calling that the things one once held as precious and attainable are now a distant memory? Not long after this, some minister friends persuaded Allen to go to Dallas and attend an Oral Roberts tent revival. Along the way, he remembered the experience he had with God in his prayer closet many years ago, recalling the thirteen things that stood in his way of walking into the miraculous. Being out of his spiritual office and trying instead to be a pastor had caused him to shelve the vision God had given him.

As he approached Dallas, he became more and more aware that there he would witness the very thing God had called him to do. “But I had never paid the price for God’s miracle-working power in my life,” he added.

He was captivated by the tent meeting and by the power of God being displayed through Roberts, feeling as though he was living in the book of Acts. Miracle after miracle took place as he watched, but it wasn’t fanaticism; it was God’s miracle-working power.

As he sat watching the prayer line, he again heard the voice of God say, “My son, eleven years ago you sought My face.... Eleven years ago I called you into the same ministry.... But you failed to pay the price and to make the consecration. Therefore, you have failed to do this thing which I have called you to do.” With tears streaming down his face, Allen lifted his hands and cried out, “Lord, I’ll do it!”

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GOING, GOING, GONE!

Two Sundays later, he resigned from his pastorate. He would have left the first Sunday after his return, but his wife asked him to wait and make sure he was doing the right thing.

Immediately, pastors from all over the nation called for his services as an evangelist, and in less than a month, a new pastor occupied the pulpit!

The Allens kept the Corpus Christi, Texas, church as their home base and traveled out from there.

They moved all their possessions into a house trailer, and in less than three months after his “breakdown,” A. A. Allen was on the revival trail!

Allen began studying the list of thirteen requirements the Lord had given him eleven years earlier. He couldn’t believe all the time that had been lost. Eleven years! As he studied the list, he noticed that numbers twelve and thirteen had not been accomplished in his life, but that every other item had been marked through. Finally, with great determination, he was able to mark through the last two. After that, noticeable miracles began to take place through his ministry!

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In May of 1950, Allen sent his first report to The Voice of Healing magazine, the result of a great campaign in Oakland, California. Of the meeting, he wrote, “Many say this is the greatest revival in the history of Oakland.... Night after night, the waves of Divine Glory so sweep over the congregation that many testify of being healed while sitting in their seats.”

In 1951, Allen made a great leap. He decided to purchase a tent and advertise himself as a “healing” revivalist. He heard of a tent for sale, equipped with lighting, seats, a platform, and a public address system, all for $8,500!

But he had only $1,500, so he called the minister and made the offer of $1,500 as a down payment. The owner told him that another preacher had just called and offered the full price, but he would pray about the matter and call him the next day.

The next day, when Allen called the man, he wasn’t surprised to learn that the owner had decided to give the tent to him with a $1,500 down payment. The rest was to be paid in $100 payments, as Allen could afford, so the tent was his! On July 4, 1951, the A. A. Allen Revival Tent went up for its first campaign, in Yakima, Washington!

- God’s Generals ( A.A ALLEN )

Roberts Liardon

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Apostolic Church History

Friday, January 9, 2026

A Prayer For A Wife

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is one of my true stories about my life that I wrote for Quara.

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The week before I kneeled on a lime green chair, praying that God would send me a wife.

Fast forward a week. I was sleeping in bed when I was awakened by the sound of water dripping in my living room! I got up and saw a steady stream of water dripping in the middle of my living room!I got dressed, ran downstairs to the Ladies dress shop. The landlord owned the shop. She was older Belgian woman and couldn't speak English, so I motioned her to go upstairs with me.

We went upstairs and showed her the dripping water from the ceiling. The landlord ran downstairs to call a plumber (pre-cell phone era). I ran upstairs to find out what the tenant was doing above me. A young Belgian lady answered the door in a bathrobe, just a bathrobe!

She had basic English skills, but she said that she was taking a shower. I asked her to stop and motioned her downstairs. She put on some clothes and met me and my landlord downstairs in my apartment.

My landlord, and this young lady were speaking Dutch a mile a minute with me just standing there. Finally the young lady, named Marie-Josee, said the plumber was on the way to check out the pipes. The last person that rented the apartment upstairs was a friend of mine. We both were United States Airmen at the local airbase. He had paid to have the shower installed. So I knew that it was brand new and worked great.

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Later that afternoon, my landlord, her daughter, Marie-Josee, and the plumber met in my apartment. The daughter could speak excellent English. They were all speaking Dutch to each other.

That's when I had an out-of-body experience! My soul rose above my body and I was looking down. I was hovering near the ceiling. I had tunnel vision, looking down at myself praying on that chair the week before, praying for a wife!

After a few minutes my soul returned to my body. I was sweating profusely! Everyone around me was staring at me like I was a freak! Finally the landlord's daughter explained that the plumber pressure tested the pipes and found nothing wrong! This was impossible due to the amount of the water that leaked.

She said that if it leaked again to let her know. The plumber shrugged his shoulders, and they all walked out. Except for Marie-Josee, who stay behind. I know immediately in my spirit that God provided a miracle of a spiritual experience to tell me that she was the wife He sent in answer to my prayer!

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Tuesday, January 6, 2026

University Vision

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

A UNIVERSITY VISION

Oral Roberts University/Google creative commons

One night in 1952, Oral Roberts was driving around Tulsa, Oklahoma, and pulled his car up to a piece of property on the corner of 81st Street and South Lewis Avenue. Helping his children out of the car one at a time, Oral stood with them and Evelyn. In wonder, the children looked up at their father. What were they doing standing in front of this empty lot?

Oral said, “Children, we are going to pray. I believe someday the Lord wants a school on this property that will be dedicated to Him.”The family prayed and then drove away, leaving the outcome in the Lord’s hands. It wouldn’t be the last time that the Roberts family would lift this piece of property to the Lord in prayer.

It was the fall of 1961. For nine years, Oral and his family had prayed for the land on the corner of 81st Street and South Lewis Avenue. Oral believed in his spirit that it was the spot God had chosen for the university to stand. Five hundred dollars of seed money was all that Oral had at the time. Often, he would drive out and walk the land, praying in tongues and asking the Lord what to do and who to work with. He could picture tall, graceful buildings filled with students who wanted to bring honor to the Lord and spread His Word.

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However, when Oral’s lawyer, Saul Yager, approached the property owners, they insisted that it was not for sale. They were a rich, oil family who had owned the corner acreage for years, and they wanted to keep it in their holdings. The attempts to purchase the property dragged on for weeks.

Oral continued to pray and wait. One day, while in California, Oral sensed the Lord’s voice say, This is the day. He could see the land in Tulsa in his mind —the buildings that would soon make up the campus, the students eagerly searching for the Lord’s answers to their life quests, the young people sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He called Saul. “Go today and buy that land.” Impatiently, Saul insisted that Oral was wasting his time. But Oral replied, “I’m telling you, Saul, I know today is the day. Buy it today.”

Saul got off the phone and called the owner’s attorney, who, like Saul, was of the Jewish faith. Saul explained Oral’s insistence that today the owner would want to sell the land.

The second attorney contacted the owner, and his response marveled them all. “I woke up this morning and decided that if Mr. Roberts’s lawyer approached me today, I would sell.” The attorneys were amazed at the way God had worked in the situation. Oral was thankful to the Lord, but not surprised by His unfailing faithfulness.

- God’s Generals ( The Healing Evangelists)

Roberts Liardon

Oral Roberts University/Google creative commons

Friday, January 2, 2026

What are ghosts?

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Have you ever wondered what a ghost is? Here is your answer!

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The Bible refers to the spirits of the dead.as "familiar spirits" - as in personal, or well acquainted. The Bible also warns us to have nothing to do with them! There is no such thing as a dead person's spirit walking the earth or returning to the place where they died.

The Bible tells us in Job 7:9, "As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, so he goes down to the grave and does not come up again. He shall never return to his house, nor his place see him anymore." This is showing us that that the dead cannot return to the houses they once lived in, while here on earth. Houses are never haunted by the deceased; but by demons.

The Bible makes it clear there are spirit beings who can connect with our physical realm. These spirits are fallen angels that once served the God of the Bible, now they serve the god of this world, Satan. "And marvel not; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." , 2 Corinthians 11: 14.

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These demons have the power to transform themselves into the deceased and by doing so, make us believe that it is alright to contact the dead and go against what God has said. This lie has drawn many people away from God and into the kingdom of darkness, albeit they are unaware of what is happening.

William James Roop

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Love, That's God

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

LOVE, THAT'S GOD

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Have you ever wondered what God is really like? The only perfect revelation God ever made of himself, he made in Jesus Christ, and if you will look at Him through Jesus Christ, you will know what kind of a God He is really like, for Jesus said: “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Did you hear Him speak to blind Bartimaeus, the beggar? The crowd took no notice whatsoever of the beggar in their midst, till he began to cry: “Jesus, Thou son of David, have mercy on me.” The disciples said: “Shut up, you beggar,” but Jesus said tenderly: “Bartimaeus, receive thy sight.” THAT’S GOD!

Did you see Him moved with compassion for the restless, hungry multitude who were like sheep without a shepherd? Jesus said, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now for three days, and have nothing to eat: I will not send them away

fasting, lest they faint on the way.” THAT’S GOD!

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Did you see Him weeping in pity over Jerusalem? You have had an idea that God is a vindictive God and that He delights in letting a man go to Hell: but you do not know God if you think that. See his great heart of mercy overflowing with tenderness and compassion as he cries: “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wing, and ye would not.” THAT’S GOD!

Did you hear him speak to the poor woman with the scarlet stain of sin on her soul—the woman who was taken in the very act of adultery—the harlot being dragged into His presence by her accusers? The crowd wanted to stone her, but Jesus said: “Go in peace and sin no more.” THAT’S GOD!

If you want a single word to characterize the person of God, all you will have to do is to take four letters and write them over and over again from the beginning to the end— the word, LOVE—AND THAT’S GOD!

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God touched a precious young woman—her frail little body racked with pain from the pitiless disease of multiple sclerosis—a woman who had not been to church in years, who had never really served God a day of her life; so ignorant regarding spiritual things that when the power of God came upon her body, a sister-in-law, wanting to be helpful, lit a cigarette and put it in the suffering woman’s mouth, thinking it would stop the “shaking”? In tender mercy, and out of His great compassion, the Master touched that body and made it whole. My friend, THAT’S GOD!

A God who understands; a God who knows our every weakness, our every failure, our every shortcoming, our every sin—and yet He continues to love us and to pour his mercy upon us. He loves us, not because we are weak; not because of our failures; not because of our sins; but because we are His children. And He loves each one of us as though we were His only child.

~ I believe in Miracles || Kathryn Kuhlman

Friday, December 26, 2025

Our Great Need

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is a small article about living in faith and in the Spirit.

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OUR GREAT NEED

I want to speak this afternoon of Pentecost and the fullness of the Spirit, and of what God is able to do with any man who is yielded to Him. We are here today for one purpose, and that is to kindle one another with a holier zeal than ever has possessed us before.

I believe there is a greater need for us today in the world than ever. There is a more broken spirit abroad in our land than for a long time past, and no one can meet the need today but the man filled with God. God has promised to fill us.

You may be filled with the mighty power of God, and yet in a way not realize it, and yet know that you are being used by a power apart from yourself, a power that keeps you from self-exhibition. Just as the sun by its mighty power brings certain resources to nature, so I believe the power of God in the human soul, the power filling it with Himself, is capable, by living faith, of bringing about what otherwise could never be accomplished. May God by His Spirit this afternoon prepare us for what He has to say.

(Smith Wigglesworth, London, May 28, 1917, Published in Confidence)

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