In II Thessalonians 3:1 Paul the apostle exhorts us as disciples of Christ to pray that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified.

There are courses on which the word of God must travel in order to reach those whom God desires to come to repentance, be delivered from darkness and experience salvation.

God has made request of us to pray that His word would have free course and that His word be glorified.  As we pray in agreement with what God desires, His word will find its way into the lives of those who desperately need it.

- Shirley

God’s Word is just as personal, just as binding, and just as fresh and alive today as when it was first spoken.

There was a young woman who was told by her physician that she would never be able to conceive children. Anna had always desired children of her own and was initially devastated by the word of her doctor. But Anna turned to God in her brokenness and heard something different from Him in prayer. Her Heavenly Father assured her that it was His desire for her to have children and He promised to bring it to pass. To say the least, Anna was excited and took God at His Word and within the year conceived and brought forth her first of what would become five sons. Anna allowed the word that she had heard from God to be the final word in her situation and responded to it in faith. As a result she received a miracle in her body allowing her to have children.

The foundation for faith is the integrity of God’s Word. We don’t have to worry about whether the Word is able to produce what it promises. God Himself will see to it that not one word He has ever spoken will fail. Faith is never any better or more pure than its source or its foundation. If we believe the promise of someone who doesn’t have the power to make good on his word, our faith is in vain.

But it can never be so with faith in the Word of God. God’s Word cannot fail because first, it is absolute truth, and second, the power of God stands behind it to make it good. “No word from God”, the Bible says, “shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment” (Luke 1:37, Amplified). Since God and His Word are one, we may commit ourselves to His Word with absolute assurance that our faith cannot fail to produce what He has promised.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, also received a great miracle in her body on the basis of a promise to her from God, spoken by the angel of the Lord. At first, she questioned the possibility of such a miracle but her heart finally came to rest by faith in God’s promise to her. It was the word spoken by the messenger of God that she believed. She had to believe that word more than she believed her present circumstances. She answered the angel by saying, “Be it unto me according to thy Word” (Luke 1:38, King James). And the miracle of divine conception, and virgin birth, took place. God’s Word mixed with faith brought it to pass.

There are many things God is willing to do but will not do until someone, by faith, takes Him at His Word. At that point of faith in God’s Word, God stands behind that particular word and makes it good. Whether it is salvation, forgiveness of sin, victory over temptations, release from some binding habit, wisdom to solve a problem, supply for a material need, guidance, physical healing, or whatever we need according to the will of God, our faith puts God’s Word into operation and it is impossible for His Word to fail.

God’s Word reveals what God is willing to do. God is willing to save the worst of sinners, to give His wisdom for what might seem an impossible problem or healing for an incurable disease. He is ready to do all that He has promised.

But we have a problem. Instead of allowing our faith to rise to the promises of God we have endeavored to reduce God’s promise to fit our experience. We tend to interpret God’s Word by human experience instead of taking it as God intended. Many have turned God’s Word into a lifeless creed, into an intellectualized theological system, instead of accepting it as though the Master Himself were speaking it. We have trimmed the Word down to fit our experience, to fit what we can explain. Some portions of His Word, like certain spiritual gifts, we have relegated to the age of the apostles while others are ignored altogether.

We have failed to realize that God’s Word is just as personal, just as binding, and just as fresh and alive today as when it was first spoken. It has the same authority and carries the same power-potential as if Jesus Himself were in our own town preaching today. One of the most tragic things that Christians have done is to treat the Bible as though it were a common book. In one breath they exalt it and declare it to be the infallible revelation of God’s will, but in the next breath they deny its believability. It’s time to meet God’s Word once again with faith.

- Pastor Marshall

God’s Word cannot fail because God cannot fail.

We are going to study further that quality of faith that receives the bountiful grace of God. Trust is the appropriate response to the grace of God shown to us through Jesus Christ. And that trust is the result of time spent with God diligently listening to His voice with the intent to learn and obey. God and His Word are one. The Scriptures are an infallible revelation or self-disclosure of God. There is no inconsistency between God and His Word.

It follows then that God’s Word cannot fail because God cannot fail. If God failed, the entire universe would cease to exist, for God not only created all things, but by Him all things are held together. He is literally upholding all things by the Word of His power according to Hebrews 1:3.

So, God cannot fail. And whatever God has promised to do, He will do. God watches over His Word to perform it. God and His eternal throne of absolute power stand behind every word He has spoken. If you can’t trust God’s Word, then you can’t just God.

The scripture says, “Forever, O Lord, your Word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89). In Psalm 138:2 the Word says, “You have magnified Your Word above all Your name!” And, again, in Matthew 24:35 Jesus says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away” (King James).

In Jeremiah 1:11,12 we have an interesting passage having to do with the integrity of God’s Word. This verse reads, “And the word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘What do you see Jeremiah?’ and I said, ‘I see a rod of an almond tree.’ Then the Lord said to me, ‘You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to perform it’” (New American Standard).

What was the point of the vision? Jeremiah lived at one of the most critical times in all the history of God’s people, Israel. It was a decadent age, plunging into destruction. They had forsaken the Lord and had put their trust in human government instead of obedience to God. There was no regard for God’s Word. It seemed to Jeremiah that it was futile to preach. But God assures Jeremiah that His Word is a word of power and a word that cannot fail.

In this vision there is a play on words which is not translatable into English. Jeremiah did not use the actual word for almond tree. Rather, he used the figurative word for it. The almond trees blossom when other trees are still asleep in winter. So in the garden Jeremiah saw, the almond tree was awake. God was showing Jeremiah that just as the almond tree stays awake, so I am always on the watch or “I watch over my word to perform it.”

Even though the death of winter was over the land, God guaranteed the success of His Word. Not even the coldest spiritual conditions can keep the living Word of God from bearing fruit because God is behind it.

The foundation for faith is the integrity of God’s Word. We don’t have to worry about whether the Word is able to produce what it promises. God Himself will see to it that not one word He has ever spoken will fail. Faith is never any better or more pure than its source or its foundation. If we believe the promise of someone who doesn’t have the power to make good on his word, then our faith is in vain.

But it can never be so with faith in the Word of God. God’s Word cannot fail because first, it is absolute truth, and second, the power of God stands behind it to make it good. “No word from God”, the Bible says, “shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment” (Luke 1:37, Amplified). Since God and His Word are one, we may commit ourselves to His Word with absolute assurance that our faith cannot fail to produce what He has promised.

- Pastor Marshall

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Multiple GRAMMY® Nominee Gungor To Headline Spring “Ghosts Upon the Earth Tour” Sponsored by Relevant Magazine

iTunes® and Relevant Among Critics Celebrating Ghosts Upon the Earth As One of the Year’s Finest Releases

Nashville, Tenn. Dec. 15, 2011… Just days after scoring their third GRAMMY® nomination, Gungor is announcing a headlining tour sponsored by long time supporters Relevant Magazine. With stops in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and more, the “Ghosts Upon the Earth Tour” will launch March 1 in Austin, TX and feature special guest The Brilliance. To purchase tickets or to check out the latest information on each of the tour stops, click here.

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We’re pleased to announce Gungor live in concert at Believers Center of Albuquerque, Wednesday, March 07, 2012, 7:30 pm

Will Call 5:30 / Doors Open 6:30
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Opening Band: The Brilliance
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Sometimes, I think we are more concerned about the feelings of others than we are about what we might be causing God to feel.

Jesus taught, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22). I think all of us would agree that if Jesus took the time to teach on anything that it is worth hearing. Jesus often taught topically and here does so with the subject of having or holding trust toward God.

Jesus makes it clear that faith is necessary to receiving from God. By faith we receive the grace of God which empowers us to live a new way of life. Jesus says that we are enabled by faith to move mountains. We are enabled or empowered by that grace that faith receives.

As we have endeavored to point out, this special faith is always built upon evidence of some kind. Unfortunately, in the world of human affairs, there may be an element of error, or even deception, involved with the evidence that we are given. We may believe something that is false and that does not conform to reality.

If such is the case, our faith will fail us, not because our faith was faulty, but because the foundation of our faith was unsure. We might be deceived or our faith misplaced. It’s happened to all of us at some point in life. This is not something to be condemned over or feel rejected by God over. When we are hurting or stand in honest need of help, we should know that we can run to God and get grace to help in our time of need. The Bible tells us to do just that. It tells us to come boldly unto the throne of grace to obtain the help that we need. If you feel condemned by someone else or within yourself, that condemnation is from the devil and you should take authority over it and overcome it. God will give you grace to do it.

However, our faithlessness is also a serious issue and should be dealt with. By our faithlessness, especially in view of God’s integrity, we stand in denial in one way or another of God’s truthfulness and authority. And that’s serious. Sometimes, I think we are more concerned about the feelings of others than we are about what we might be causing God to feel. The Word of God exhorts us not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Surely, in view of God’s faithfulness, our unbelief must be grievous to God’s Spirit.

God cannot lie. God is truth. There is no reality apart from the eternal nature of God Himself. All meaning flows from the mind of God, for His mind was the blueprint according to which the contingent universe was formed. God called the world into being out of that which appeared not according to the pattern of His infinite wisdom. Jeremiah 10:12 says, “He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom; and has stretched out the heavens at His discretion.”

It follows, therefore, that when God says something, it is true, for God cannot lie. It is not only that God does not lie – He cannot lie. It is contrary to His nature. It is impossible for God to lie. A lie is the opposite principle to truth. If God could possibly lie, He would cease to be God.

God and His Word are one. And it is by hearing His Word that faith comes to be established in our hearts.

- Pastor Marshall

Believing that you receive is the qualifying factor to receiving.  The if factor in prayer is this, “If you have anything against anyone, forgive.”  If you do not forgive, your heavenly Father will not forgive you.  Hard to think that we can believe God to answer our prayers if we have placed Him in a position where He will not forgive us because we refuse to forgive others.

How important is it to you to have God answer your prayers?  Believe you receive when you pray; and when you pray, forgive.  Those are the qualifying factors to answered prayer.  Believing and Forgiving, the constant, daily practice of a praying believer.

- Shirley Howard

In order for faith to receive the promise of God, the Word must become a vital part of your heart.

God always wants to provide you with His grace to get you beyond whatever weakness you might be experiencing. I encourage you to humble yourselves by faith and receive an abundant supply of His divine and free favor for all you need. The Word of God declares that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. It would be enough to know that God is able to do all that we ask or think but the inspired use of these superlatives by the apostle Paul gives us a much better idea of what God is like and what His intentions are. He is a liberal God and willing to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think.

God grants His grace without merit but it must be received by faith. Again, the Scripture says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith . . .” (Ephesians 2:8). The Scripture also says that we have access into His grace by Jesus Christ and by faith. This quality of saving faith comes from God Himself, and more specifically, the word that He speaks into our hearts.

It’s only as you attend to God’s Word by focusing your total attention upon it that you come to understand it; and it’s only as you incline your ear to God’s Word with a submissive attitude that you can come to receive its teachings as final authority in your life. It’s only as you keep God’s Word with an attitude of continuing diligence that you can get it deeply rooted in your heart.

When the Bible refers to the heart it is referring to the center of the human personality. It refers to that part of man that is made up of both the spirit and soul. The thoughts, emotions and decisions of the will are all activities of the heart. Thus, if the Word of God is deposited or planted in the heart, it becomes a vital part of the man himself.

When God’s Word is in the heart, it’s like a seed planted in soil. It will produce results according to the condition of the heart. If the soil is rich and well prepared it will bring forth a strong and pure faith and you will no longer be trying to believe, or struggling to trust that which God has said. This is very important to understand. In order for faith to receive the promise of God, the Word must become a vital part of your heart.

If you are trying to believe certain promises, such as those regarding your physical healing or the financial supply of your needs, if you are still struggling over them and reasoning about them, it’s because they have not yet taken root in your heart. Now, you can allow yourself to become condemned over this issue, or you can diligently apply yourself to correcting it. The choice is yours.

To have the Scriptures in the mind in an academic way so that you just give mental assent to them is one thing. To actually step out on those promises and appropriate them in a time of crisis is another thing altogether. There is a very distinct difference between mental assent, or merely giving credence to something, and genuine Bible-saving faith. And that difference is determined by whether or not God’s Word has been truly planted and then rooted in your heart. What’s in your heart in abundance you can’t help but believe!

Developing faith, faith that can receive the promises of God, has only one source – God’s Word. Therefore, we should let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly until faith is born. In addition, we should continue to meditate that same Word from God until it becomes rooted and grounded in our hearts.

We have a desperate need for the grace of God to permeate every area of our lives. God gives grace freely, but again, it is received by simple faith and honest trust. God cannot fail and your faith in Him will put you over when failure seems inevitable. Trust God for His grace to put you over in life today.

- Pastor Marshall

It is in attending to God’s Word that we come to understand it; In inclining to it, we come to receive it; and in keeping God’s Word we will retain it.

We’ve been studying the kind of faith that, without hesitation, receives the grace of God. This quality of faith does not come from natural sources but from God Himself. In order to possess this type of miracle-working faith, you must allow God’s Word to be the final authority in your life. You can’t go to a higher authority than God anyway, so learn to find rest by faith in what He has said.

By this kind of faith ordinary men and women, just like you and me, subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, and were enabled to face fierce persecution and even martyrdom with complete victory. This is a powerful, life-changing faith capable of receiving all that God desires for us.

The saints of Bible times got their faith exactly the same way you must get your faith; they heard God’s Word. If you ever expect to have the kind of faith that can do the things they did, and have the things God says you can have, then you must get God’s Word planted deep into your heart.

To get God’s Word rooted firmly in your life is no small accomplishment. The enemy of your soul will do everything he can to keep God’s Word from taking root in you. That is why it’s so important how you hear God’s Word.

To “hear” is a Hebrew idiom which means to receive into your heart. Many hear with the physical ear and the natural mental processes without ever coming to real faith. It’s possible to hear without hearing spiritually. This is why Jesus often said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 8:8).

How we hear is an urgent matter. We have all too often assumed that the message is what controls the hearer. But there is a sense in which the hearer controls the message. This truth is illustrated by Jesus in His “Parable of the Soils.” In this parable, the seed was the same for each hearer but the results of the growing seed were different in each one that heard because of how they heard and what they did with the seed.

In Proverbs 4:20-22, we are given three steps on how to hear God’s Word. Step one is to attend. The word attend means to focus the mind, the total consciousness, on what God says. Our attitude in hearing must be one of individual attention so that we may understand what God means by what He says. Furthermore, it implies that all human opinions, tradition, circumstances, and even our own experiences must not be allowed to take the place of God’s Word. Personal experience or the experiences of others must not be allowed to define truth. Truth should be exercised to interpret and define the nature of our experiences. Never the opposite.

The second step is to incline. The word incline means “to bow down or to submit.” We are to be submissive to its teachings and allow them to be the determining factor of both thought and deed.

And, finally, step three is to keep. We must be diligent to hold onto what we hear from God. We must, therefore, hear with a continuing diligence. God, through Moses, set forth a command for the priority of His Word: “And these words which I command you today, shall be in your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).

It is in attending to God’s Word that we come to understand it; in inclining to it, we come to receive it; and in keeping God’s Word we will retain it. These three steps, if followed, can lead to the kind of mountain-moving faith that Jesus spoke of Himself in His own teachings on this subject.

So let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly until real faith is born in you – faith that, under all circumstances, will receive the grace of God to make the difference.

- Pastor Marshall

Any prayer that is prayed with any power must be prayed from a humble heart. Humility is the key to power in prayer. The word of God says in James 4:10, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” Humility is a key factor to powerful prayer. The term humble and the term powerful typically sound as if they oppose each other. However, in truth, it is actually the humble man that walks in the power of God. Especially in prayer!!

- Shirley Howard

Instead of focusing on what you don’t have, set your heart on what God has promised by faith, hold fast to Him and what He has said, and allow Him to fulfill His Word concerning you.

We’ve been studying biblical faith. We are especially concerned with the truth on this matter because it is by faith that we receive the grace of God. Romans 5:1-2 reads this way: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (King James).

Notice from this verse of scripture that we have access into the grace of God because of two things. We have access into the grace of God by Jesus Christ and by faith. The apostle Paul echoes this thought in his letter to the church at Ephesus where he writes, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:4-9).

There is a movement today among Christians to do away with the need for personal faith, especially when it comes to receiving from God. These teachers stress the Sovereignty of God implying that if God wants something done then He will just do it. While this might sound good, it is not biblically correct. If personal faith were not necessary, then surely God would just go ahead and save everyone from their sin because the Bible clearly states that it is not God’s will that any man perish but that all receive eternal life. The truth of the matter is that there are a number of reasons why men don’t receive from God and unbelief is just one among many. There certainly are those times where God might overrule our unbelief to make provision for us anyway, but that action would be more the exception than the rule.

Faith is absolutely essential to any relationship and the beneficial exchange that should take place within any relationship. And all the whining and wishful thinking in all the world won’t change that.

The faith that receives the grace of God has only one source – the living Word of God. Romans 10:17, says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” This faith has the ability to lay hold of the “exceeding great and precious promises” of God (II Peter 1:4). Faith that is born out of God’s Word has the ability to see things invisible to the natural eye. II Corinthians 4:18 mentions those things that are not seen, or not seen naturally, but nevertheless things that we should look at. The implied way of looking at these unseen things is, of course, by faith.

You might be facing a time of lack in your life. Naturally speaking you don’t have enough to make ends meet. But the Word of God declares that He has supplied all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus. Instead of focusing on what you don’t have, set your heart on what God has promised by faith, hold fast to Him and what He has said, and allow Him to fulfill His Word concerning you.

This faith that the Bible speaks of also equips us to do battle in the realm of spiritual realities and actually achieve miracles in the physical realm that would, without this faith, be impossible. I think we have all marveled at what the men and women of Bible times accomplished through faith in God. What mighty answers to prayer! They dared to speak faith-filled words in the face of danger and humanly impossible circumstances! We have a tendency to think they were something special, something a little above us common folks, but they were just as human and frail and ordinary as you and I. God has always, it seems, taken ordinary people and enabled them to do extraordinary things.

The Word of God tells us in the book of Hebrews that they did what they did by faith. This faith is the gift of God that comes to us as we involve ourselves intimately in fellowship with Him.

- Pastor Marshall