The word promise generally evokes positive feelings. It is mainly used to describe how someone gives their word about something good they will do. Even if the promise pertains to something bad never happening again, it’s more positive than negative. It stirs within us a feeling of hope.

When it comes to the Bible, we like to get all excited about God’s promises don’t we? Who wouldn’t be excited to receive a promise from our Heavenly Father? Now, I’m not inferring that promises should not excite us, I am however going to submit to you that there is more to receiving them than we may understand.

God’s promises ARE for His children and they are freely made available to us, but not without some conditions. We play a part in receiving a promise from God. Our Father God in His infinite wisdom knew that we could struggle with staying spiritually immature in our dealings with His promises. He knew that if we received every promise from God without a personal investment of some kind we would not grow and mature. Therefore God attached conditions to His promises.

Let’s look at a story that will provide a rich illustration for conditional promises. In the book of Exodus in the Old Testament, you can find the story of when God sent Moses to deliver the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt. God led them into the wilderness where He begins to tell them that He is going to lead them to the “Promise Land.” In Numbers chapter 13, we read the story of God instructing Moses to send 12 spies into Canaan to survey the land. When these guys returned the where excited and filled with hope! They reported that this land was flowing with milk and honey and had giant grapes that took several men to carry. All of a sudden a few of the guys chimed in and reported that there were giants living there that were so huge that the spies looked like grasshoppers.

Well, that last bit of information was all the Israelites needed to hear before they went from excitement and expectation to fear and doom. When it sounded easy, they were all in, but as soon as they heard about the giants they lost all faith in God and His promise. They no longer felt they would be able to take this land for themselves.

Later, as Moses was about to die and was passing the leadership to Joshua, he recounts the story to Joshua. He tells him that because of the people’s lack of faith and trust in God, no one but the children, Joshua and Caleb would enter Canaan!

This seems really severe, but God had showed them signs and wonders yet they still did not believe. If there was a chance of hardship they were out!! Receiving the promise of God was awesome…doing what God was instructing, not so much. They were perfectly willing to forfeit their God given inheritance out of fear.

You may find some common ground with these folks. It can be easy to read these stories and think that these are some thick skulled individuals. However, if we really take a moment to think, we can find similarities to ourselves. There have probably been times that if you’re being honest, you have sought out a particular promise, without paying attention to the conditions that went along with it. We have ALL been there.

God is no respecter of people according to Acts 10:34. This is great news because it means that His promises are available to ANYONE. Along with that is the fact that His conditions and commands are for everyone as well.

Today, we can reflect on areas in our lives where we are trying to take shortcuts to obtain God’s promises. We can ask Him to reveal these things to us because He is not in the business of hiding truth from us. He is a loving Father who wants His children to live in peace and for them to enjoy all that He has promised us.

In this video, our guest speaker Dr. Phil Brassfield shares a timely and impactful message that is essential for us all. We’ll hear about David’s Secret, the renowned King of Israel from thousands of years ago, and how his unwavering faith in the Name of the Lord made all the difference. Our speaker reflects on his personal experiences and the importance of calling upon the Name of the Lord in challenging times.

Revelation Frisco is a Spirit-filled, diverse, non-denominational church family located in Frisco, TX. Led by Pastor Ben Sanders, we envision a church that is vibrantly alive with true worship of Jesus Christ. Visit us online at http://rev.church.

Today we wrap up our series on The Ministry of the Saints with a crucial topic! We are going to discuss the subject of prayer and how it directly correlates to other issues in our life. Prayer can literally make or break our Christian walk.

I would imagine that there are countless ways of visualizing or even describing prayer. There are probably as many methods as there are religions in this world. However, I’m sure we can agree that the first and most important aspect is WHO do you pray to?

It’s easy to see how an unsaved person could be perplexed about which god to pray to and how the prayers should go. There is no shortage of deception out there when it comes to different gods and different worship practices. For the sake of time, it will be understood that there is but one God and He is the ONLY living God to whom we pray.

Now that we have that firmly established, it is beneficial to understand that our prayer life is in direct correlation to our faith life. If we don’t consistently exercise our faith muscles, by trusting that God is working on our behalf, our prayers will show it. Don’t misunderstand, all of us come to God with doubt about things, but if you don’t leave your doubt and fear in His hands, we won’t grow. If we don’t grow spiritually in our faith our prayers will be a laundry list of requests that we don’t even believe can be answered.

If you think about it, it’s a very cyclical process. The more you choose prayer over worry, the more your faith grows. The more your faith grows the stronger your prayer life becomes.

I Thessalonians 5:17 days to “Pray without ceasing.” Now this is a very tall order! For some reason worrying without ceasing or complaining without ceasing seems to come more natural to us. Ironically, prayer is the one thing that could bring us the most peace, but sometimes it’s a struggle for us. Truly surrendering our will, our emotions and our thoughts to the Lord in prayer can be difficult because satan knows it’s the place we experience the most power!

The big question that accompanies a sermon on prayer is, “How do we pray?! Well, God in His infinite wisdom knew this would be a huge question and so He provided the answer. Matthew 6:10-13 is what is referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer.” This is the perfect prayer and if you don’t know how to pray, then this is the premier place to start! “Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,
your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.” If you were to take every line of this prayer and make it applicable to your own life, you could be praying for several minutes on this prayer alone.

Praying the Lord’s Prayer or the Psalms or any other scripture is more of a formal prayer. Even though you might be repeating these scriptures over and over, it’s ok because it keeps your mind focused on the Lord. This is different from the “vain repetitions or empty phrases” that are mentioned right above the scriptures just mentioned. Verse 7 says, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.”

This would be more like rushing through and repeating a memorized prayer in order to check a box. The formal prayer consisting of Scripture is not empty. These are life giving words. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” This is very different.

There will also be times when you have exhausted all your human abilities to pray about a matter. This could be from mental and emotional exhaustion or just a lack of understanding of all the details. In these moments you may choose to pray in the Spirit…or pray in tongues because it is the Holy Spirit interceding on your behalf. It’s the perfect prayer that goes unhindered directly to the throne room of God.

No matter how long we have been praying in our life, we can always pray more. Life affords us constant material to pray about and God is ready to connect with us in prayer. May we all desire a more rich and intimate prayer life with our Creator!

The Ministry of the Hands 

God is a very “hands-on” God. He never leaves us and never forsakes us!

We have been talking about the ministry of the Saints for the last few weeks. First, we discussed the different offices or positions in the five-fold ministry. We have apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers and all are beneficial to the body of Christ. Last week we discussed praise and how it was different from worship and a necessary aspect of the life of a Christian, especially a mature one.

This week, we continue with a topic that admittedly is NOT the most popular in the church. In Mark 9:14-29, we see the story of some of the disciples that tried to pray and deliver a demonically tormented boy. The disciples were unsuccessful so Jesus entered the picture and the boy was delivered. When the disciples asked why they couldn’t handle it, He replied in verse 29, “This kind only comes out by prayer and fasting.”

I know that there are very few who actually enjoy fasting because after all, it is the sacrificing and giving up of something we like. Whether it’s an actual fast from food, or a hybrid fast of some kind where you give up sweets or entertainment etc. It’s difficult for our flesh. The flesh is the part of all of us that must constantly be brought into submission to live in this world. We love food, tv, social media etc, therefore when we give it up for a time we can encounter some real hesitancy or warring because it’s not fun to go without.

As Christians we are taught and we believe in putting things in our spirit like the Word of God. We are taught to add prayer to our life in order to stand strong in our faith. We are told to put on the armor of God, Ephesians 6:11-18. These are all things added to our spirits and to our lives. However, there are reasons for removing things from our lives as well.

In this life and on this earth we are born into a constant struggle for our attention to pull us away from God. It is generally unnatural to just wake up and float from prayer to the reading of the Bible without something or someone else vying for our attention. Staying in a comfy bed, a nice yummy meal, Facebook etc. are all things competing with your precious time with God. It’s because of this fact that fasting should be a regular part of our walk with the Lord.

Have you ever wondered why fasting is so incredibly hard for us? It’s because satan knows of the unbelievable power that is let loose in our lives and circumstances when we fast! While it is a struggle to fast much less to want to fast, we can have a deep desire for more of God. He has provided a recipe for us if we truly desire more of Him. This will be a lifelong journey and the issue of fasting and starving the flesh will continue to come back around until we yield to it.

Let’s talk about what fasting is not. It is NOT for show or for recognition like the Pharisees did in the Bible according to Mark 2:18-22. They wanted everyone to know how spiritual they were for fasting and in so doing simply didn’t eat..you can get the same results from a diet. They missed the entire point of starving the body or flesh to focus attention on God. Pride is a work of the flesh so they literally missed the entire point. It’s not just about what you’re taking out, It’s about what you’re replacing it with, and that should be the things of the Lord.

At the end of the day, we are supposed to be about our Fathers business and that means snatching souls away from satan and leading them to Jesus. Now more than ever, people are scared and worried about what our future holds. There will be those that will enter a church for the first time because of the utter insanity of our world. When they walk into church they need to be met with a body of believers who have kept nothing back from God. They need to be “seen” and embraced by folks who cared enough about them before they ever came, to do the things that bring spiritual health and wellness. We need to be spiritually ready at all times to be a willing and clean vessel to reach the hurting and fasting is a huge part of this.

We are all in varying places in our Christian walk so start somewhere. Take steps this week to shut out the world, starve your flesh and feed your spirit. There are lives out there depending on it.

Did you know that it is actually our job as believers to praise the Lord? It’s true! It’s not your pastor’s job or your worship leader’s job to do that for you, It’s actually your job. It may be part of our pastor’s job to help facilitate praise and your worship team’s job to lead praise, but each of us that trust in the Lord are responsible for OUR praise to the Lord.

If you have spent much time in the church at all, you might have heard the words, “praise and worship” used interchangeably, but they are not the same. Praise is included in worship, but not just worship. Worship involves praise, but much more.

Praise can be rowdy and can even make a scene if you will. Now, I’m not referencing an inappropriate scene or a self seeking scene because our praise is to the Lord, not a performance for those around us. I’m sure at some point you have seen some crazy sports fans screaming and jumping and “praising” their team. This is a very different kind of praise but the point remains that it can get wild.

Psalm 100:1-2 says, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.”

You see here that it mentions a shout for joy!! I know for some people the idea of praising God can seem very threatening and very intimidating. You can have a mind set to stand and praise God in your head, but that is not a true definition of praise. This can really be a sticking point for many people who trust in the Lord. I understand that if you’re an introvert making it uncomfortable for you to even walk into a room, it can be very intimidating to praise in a way that means other can see you. Just please, keep this in mind. Your praise is unto the Lord and is an outward expression of gratitude for all He has done. It is not meant for others to judge.

Let’s be clear, there are numerous ways to worship God. You worship Him with your tithes and offerings. You worship when you serve in the house of the Lord or in a place where your acts of service point people to Jesus. Some worship is sacrificial as in volunteering to give up rest to serve in church etc. praise, however is the fun part!

Psalm 150:6 says, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.” That actually means EVERYTHING and certainly EVERYONE!

In Acts chapter 16 there is the incredible story of Paul and Silas being arrested AGAIN for sharing the Gospel. They weren’t murmuring and complaining about their circumstances or why God would let them be imprisoned again! No! They were calling into remembrance all the things God had done for them and how He had protected them so far. They were getting stirred up in their spirit man. Then we see that an earthquake happened right there…right in the middle of their circumstances!! The shackles were loosened and they fell off so that they were free, praise God!!! Praise can happen at anytime and in any situation!! If you are feeling bound in your circumstances, praise is a wonderful way to deal with the stress and fear you may grapple with. I say this not because it’s a “If I do this..God will do this” sort of thing, but because we have scriptural references for how God can break chains in response to praise.

Someday, when we have reached our eternal reward and we are in Heaven, there will be unbelievable praise before the Father. What a huge contrast to this carnal world we live in now. However, we don’t have to wait for Heaven because God is worthy to be praised now! Let’s be the scriptural and Godly example for others on earth. This is not for attention and not to seem pious, but to praise the Lord for all that He has done for us and in so doing cause others to follow our example!!

PRAISE the Lord!

God wants to build His church and help us to mature and grow!

Let’s talk about the ministry of the saints today. God has called us each and every one with gifts and callings to minister to those that are lost and hurting.

We are going to discuss a very important scripture and I feel it’s prudent to include the whole thing.

Ephesians 4:11-16 says, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

Before we dive into the different callings in the church, let’s discuss the people. Paul mentions the “babies” of the church. This basically refers to the new converts and the unchurched. This is not intended to be insulting in anyway. If you meet and accept Jesus today, there is no way that you could automatically know or even immediately learn some of the more complicated topics in the word. Just as a mother would never dream of giving birth and moments later handing the baby a plate full of steak and potatoes. This would choke the baby and bring great harm.

Those of us who accepted Jesus years ago have hopefully been reading the Word of God and praying so it is possible at this point to eat the meat of the Word. There are no doubt 20 year old babies in the church due to not being in the right church that preaches the Word or because they count on one hour a weak at church to grow them spiritually and this is where Paul is coming from. Spiritual babies are susceptible to being tossed around by every new thing they hear lacking discernment to know right from wrong.

Paul discusses five positions in the church that are needed to grow the body of Christ. First are the Apostles and these are the people that plant churches…multiple churches. They get them up and running and make sure the appropriate pastor is in place and they move on. They also come in and revive churches that are suffering and dying due to a myriad of reasons. They set up church systems and governments as well. They also have to correct leaders when it’s called for. We don’t meet a whole lot of Apostles

Then there are prophets and Paul says that we should all aspire to be used prophetically. Many folks like to call themselves prophets, but you need not announce it because the church and other prophets will recognize a true prophet. Prophets have an inner voice from God that allows them to speak to the church many times about the future and they are correct when they do.

Next, we have Evangelists and these are the people who can not help themselves when it comes to sharing Jesus with the unsaved. They can be some fire breathing folks who can get really loud and passionate because their heart is for the lost!

We also have the Pastors or shepherds of the flock and these are the Jack of all trades! They hear directly from the Lord for what the body needs to hear and they preach those things…some harder than others. They marry, they bury, the visit the sick in the hospital and go see new babies that have been born. They council,teach and train. They oversee the needs of their flock.

Lastly, we have the teachers and these folks love to learn so they can teach and share knowledge. They love to research and dive into the Word in order to teach the ways of the Lord.

Now, did you know we are all called to teach? Parents teach their children, Sunday school teachers teach the kids and there are those in the body that teach membership classes and other topical teachings as well. In whatever profession or station you find yourself in, you should be teaching. We all should be planting seeds in people’s hearts that are unsaved. We should be watering those seeds with prayer and more teaching until the day they accept Christ and then we teach them the Word.

We have been given Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Preachers and teachers for the equipping of the saints. Seek the Lord to find out where He is placing you and then submit to your pastor so that he can help bring you along in your gifts and callings.

Message by William Burch

Life is absolutely FULL of things that we are well aware of coming our way! Bills, taxes, painful anniversaries are just a few. In this fallen world we are unfortunately always hearing of things happening to people that they did not see coming. In fact, these are some of the most painful things to hear about much less experience. I’ve heard stories of people working their whole adult lives for the same company and months before retirement they lose their job. Some people suddenly lose a spouse to tragedy.

Former Heavy weight champion Mike Tyson was quoted saying, “It’s not always the most powerful punch that is thrown in the fight that can knock you out, but it’s the one that you don’t see coming.” All those other punches and jabs, no matter how powerful can be avoided by some fancy foot work and years of training on how to cover the face. It’s the punch they don’t see coming that can take them out. Many a boxer has been injured and even killed by the punch they never even saw.

We have established how realistic this analogy is to real life, but that is not the point of today’s message. Let’s talk about the blessings of God that you never saw coming. I believe most of us can vouch for a time that God did something amazing or stopped something terrible in your life. What a surprise this can be!

For a scriptural reference we will look at Mark 8:22-26 that says, “They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything? “He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into the village.” I felt it prudent to give the entire reference because it’s full of wonderful points.

First of all, you see that when Jesus grabbed his hand he didn’t instantly start complaining about his condition. He didn’t ask Jesus, “Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?” No, he caught a revelation of who Jesus was instantly. I’m sure he had heard the stories about Jesus and if his friends had taken him to see Jesus he knew it was for good reason. He just took His hand and submitted to what would happen next.

The second thing we see is that Jesus led him out of the villiage. He wanted him away from the naysayers and doubters. He drew him out to a new location for his miracle. There are times in life that we outgrow some folks and some places. When we take spiritual leaps in our lives it is important to look around and see who made the leap with you. Some people are perfectly happy living in situations that are no longer healthy for you. It doesn’t make you better than them, just changed and you need to find those running along side you to push you to go even further in the Lord.

Lastly, we see the fact that Jesus spits in his eyes. Now I don’t know about you, but if someone tries to spit in my eye…I’m not just going to stand there! I’m going to duck or something to avoid this. However, this man was blind so he didn’t even know to duck. The result of just standing there was that Jesus actually spit in His eye. I know it sounds gross, but just remember spit contains a person’s DNA! The actual DNA from the Son of God went into his eyes and he was healed! If he had been able to see it coming he may have moved away and missed his healing!

There are those of you reading this that God is getting ready to touch your body and heal you when you won’t see it coming. Some of you have been struggling financially and He is going to bless you when you don’t see it coming. Why? First of all He is your Heavenly Father and He loves you, but it’s not just for you. There are folks out there that need to witness and hear about your miracle so that they can meet Jesus for the first time. Some need to be restored to Jesus as well.

God is the God of suddenlies and when He touches your life it might be the touch you never saw coming!

At the end of the day, as complex as Christianity seems, it’s all very simple. 

Have you ever stopped and meditated on the subject of Science and how it pertains to every day life? It can be mind-boggling when you look at things as tiny as atoms, protons and photons.

Some very brilliant men throughout history did their best to come up with explanations for how things such as gravity operate. Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and others sought to understand and explain subjects such as gravity and how the earth reacts to certain things.

In fact, the reason you can see anything today or experience and touch anything is because there are electrons, photons, neutrons, gluons, protons interacting with each other. If they did not interact with each other, you wouldn’t even know they were there. So the interaction causes reality. These particles exist as potential until they are interacted with by measuring or observing them. Until this happens they are not considered real. The interaction mixed with the particle’s inherent potential causes them to become real.

There is something else that operates much the same way and its faith. We are all born with faith..small faith like that of a mustered seed according to Matthew 17:20. “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” You grow your faith by reading the Word, praying and by actually using your faith. Until it’s used it does nothing for you.

So you can see a parallel for how our spiritual walk works similarly to how the universe operates. If the potential is never tapped into…it won’t work. James 2:17 says, “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

Please don’t get confused, I’m not saying works are how you please God and make it to Heaven. However, the idea is that faith produces good works and there is a difference in those two. This activation of our faith causes us to act in a way that will cause the world to see our good deeds, which will point them to Christ.

Now, one of the ways we hold fast to our faith is by assembling with our brothers and sisters in church and other opportunities to hear the Word of God. The Bible addresses this issue in Hebrews 10:23, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

It is difficult to grow your spiritual walk if you are always moving from place to place. We must grow roots to be spiritually healthy. I bet you have never once seen a big and beautiful apple tree wondering about. Of course not! We need to find where God wants us and then settle there. We don’t just stay for no reason either. As we grow in our walk with the Lord, serving Him and others we cause spiritual roots to grow.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It is important to understand that faith is not the only important factor in your Christian walk, hope is important as well. You might be reading this right now and you might think you are really low on faith. However, if you at least have hope…you are halfway there!

When living a life of faith we must first call on God. By faith you believe in Him and live your life for Him. Another thing that faith requires is obedience. Once you become a believer, you want to dive into the Bible and obey what is tells us to do. So, you accepted Christ and now you get baptized in water to show publicly that your old man..the sin nature has been crucified and you are now living for the Lord.

Another commandment we have is to bear spiritual fruit. It’s peace, joy, love, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, patience, gentleness and self-control. You’ll need to start practicing those things. These fruits of the Spirit are an outward sign of God’s work in our lives.

Wherever you are in life today, you can change your mind, change your direction by letting hope go from being potential faith to real faith, from having the potential of new life to having new life in Jesus.

Being known as a person who calls on the name of the Lord.