by Aaron Davis
—Chris Hodges, Fresh Air
“The sober truth is that everywhere the Church fails to exercise her authority, a vacuum opens for darkness to occupy. By rejecting the culture, we reject our spiritual authority to influence that culture. In the last days, however, there is no neutral territory. What we don’t possess becomes fair game to occupy for the purpose of harassing us!”
—Lance Wallnau, Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate
“As we shift our focus from impatience and comparisons to God’s promises, we will begin to speak better things over our lives. As we change our words, our lives will begin to align with what we say. If we say what God says, then we are in alignment with God. I can testify that THE BEST PLACE TO BE is lined up with the one who places his SUPER on our NATURAL!”
—David Crank
“God’s power has not passed away. We are not eating the leftovers of yesterday’s feast. We are right in the middle of today’s banquet, the best that heaven has to offer. God didn’t do any more for those people back then than He will do tomorrow and is doing for us today. The only difference is, those people back then simply released themselves more to God than we do now. The more we release ourselves to God, the more He does for us and through us.”
—Lester Sumrall, Exorcism: The Reality of Evil . . . and Your Power Over It!
“Jesus came ‘to destroy the works of the devil’ (I John 3:8). The last Adam came to restore what the first Adam had lost. Nevertheless, through the centuries since that Good Friday, there have always been those who—for whatever reason—have chosen to believe that no provision for physical healing was made in the atoning work of Christ. And not surprisingly, such believers have seen little in the way of Jesus healing virtue flowing in their lives . . . .Jesus once told a desperate father seeking healing for his child, ‘If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.’ That man walked away hand-in-hand with a son who was whole and free. In the same way, those faith-filled souls who come to the cross believing that there Jesus bore their sicknesses, carried their pains, and by His stripes they were healed—they walk away changed as well. There—in the place of the great exchange—they lay down their brokenness and receive His wholeness.”
—Rod Parsley, World Harvest Church, Columbus, Ohio
“You are an overcomer. (See I John 2:13–14.) You are the head and not the tail; you are to live above and not beneath. (See Deuteronomy 28:13,14.) You are a prince, and the devil knows it. That’s why he has been trying to assassinate you. You are a prince, and all hell is afraid of you. The enemy knows what you can be, and he wants to destroy you before you become what God said you will be. You are a child of the King, and your Daddy is King of kings and Lord of lords.”
—TD Jakes, Loose That Man and Let Him Go!
“A fresh wind of the Spirit is blowing, and believers are beginning to rise up in power and authority to do the works of God that Christ has ordained for them, such as bringing people into the kingdom of God, healing the sick, delivering the oppressed, and even raising the dead . . . This is not a time for believers to sit back on the sidelines. It is time for every believer to become a participator and, by faith, to move into this new spiritual dimension.”
—T. L. Lowery, Walking in the Supernatural: Receiving Spiritual Power for a Miraculous Life
“There is great danger in walking in great power . . . If you start to think that the power is God endorsing you, or even your message, you will open the door for the same delusion. The Holy Spirit is given to testify only of Me (God) . . . If you begin to think that it is because of your wisdom, your righteousness, or even your devotion to pure doctrine, you will stumble.”
—Rick Joyner, The Final Quest
“Loving God with all our strength is living in His strength. But many of us never flipped the switch. We never receive the power He promised. And without His power, we become nothing more than theological Christians. Our testimony is reduced to our words. Our impact is reduced to our abilities. And not only is that less than exciting, it’s wrong. Without His power at work within us, we cannot accomplish His purposes.”
—Mark Batterson, Primal
“Any revelation from God’s Word that does not lead us to an encounter with God only serves to make us more religious. The church cannot afford ‘form without power,’ for it creates Christians without purpose.”
—Bill Johnson, When Heaven invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles
“Not even God will violate what He has set in place.”
—Dr. Phil Pringle, quoting Jurgen Matthesius in PUSH
“The Holy Spirit through Paul already said . . . that we are seated above these powers that we have to deal with. Not only is Christ seated at the right hand of the Father, far above all these powers, but we’re there, too, because God has made us sit together with Christ. Therefore, in our battle against the enemy and his forces, we need to keep in mind that we’re above them and we have authority over them. The Word tells us that Jesus has conquered them. Our job is to enforce His victory. His victory belongs to us, but we are to carry it out.”
—Kenneth E. Hagin, The Believers Authority
“Remember that when you want something you have never had, be willing to do something you have never done . . . Thousands will fail in life because they are unwilling to make changes.”
—Mike Murdock, The Uncommon Leader: 31 Keys For Unlocking Your Greatness
“The atmosphere of expectancy is the breeding ground for miracles.”
—Rod Parsley
“Next generation leaders are those who would rather challenge what needs to change and pay the price than remain silent and die on the inside.”
—Andy Stanley, Next Generation Leader: 5 Essentials for Those Who Will Shape the Future
“It’s difficult for most to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit because we are so limited in our experience with Him. Most know Him only as the One who convicts of sin or gives comfort when we’re troubled. The bottom line is we are not accustomed to recognize the Holy Spirit’s actual presence. We are acquainted with a small list of acceptable manifestations that sometimes happen when He shows up, such as tears, or perhaps a sense of peace when our favorite song is sung. But few recognize just Him alone. To make matters worse, many unknowingly reject Him because He either shows up in a way that they are unaccustomed to, or He failed to come as He has in the past. (Consider the arrogance of automatically rejecting everything that we don’t understand, or have never recognize the Scriptures to say. It implies that if God hasn’t done it or shown it to us first, He wouldn’t possibly do it to someone else.)
“While few would admit it, the attitude of the Church in recent days has been, ‘If I’m uncomfortable with something, it must not be from God.’ This attitude has given rise to many self-appointed watchdogs who poison the Church with their own fears. Hunger for God then gives way to fear of deception. What do I trust most: my ability to be deceived or His ability to keep me? And why do you think He gave us the Comforter? He knew His ways would make us uncomfortable first.”
—Bill Johnson, When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles
“At times, high achievers feel as if they’ve earned the right to not listen to anyone else since they’ve already ‘arrived.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. The higher up you go in life, the more input you’re going to need regularly to stay there.”
—Brian Klemmer, The Compassionate Samurai: Being Extraordinary in an Ordinary World
“I came to the conclusion that there had to be more. I think all of us have had that thought from time to time—the sense that there has to be more to our Christian life. If you’re like me, you probably never pursued that thought for long, out of fear of where it might lead. Although I knew there had to be more, I honestly was afraid to go for God’s best, to pursue all he had to offer me—particularly when it came to opening myself up to the Holy Spirit. The possibilities seemed incredibly dan
gerous . . . It seemed safer to have just enough God to get to heaven, but not so much that he radically altered my life.”
—Chris Hodges, Fresh Air: Trading Stale Spiritual Obligation for a Life-Altering, Energizing, Experience-It-Everyday Relationship with God
“The power of God’s Word has a profound effect on our lives. But most believers don’t really understand the degree to which this is true. Most believers only know that words convey information. But they are far more powerful than that. They actually serve as containers for spiritual power. According to proverbs 18:21, they have the ability to carry faith or fear, blessing or cursing, life or death.”
—Kenneth Copeland, Pursuit of His Presence: Daily Devotions to Strengthen Your Walk With God
“In Scripture, faith isn’t just about believing and certainly not about mere thinking. Faith is about action. In fact, faith is action. Faith doesn’t come full circle through lofty thoughts but through simple steps. It’s why James so pointedly said faith without works is dead. Faith isn’t a state of mind—it’s a course of action.”
—Steven Furtick, Greater
“The Bible is far more than a doctrinal guidebook. God’s word generates life, creates faith, produces change, frightens the Devil, causes miracles, heals hurts, builds character, transforms circumstances, imparts joy, overcomes adversity, defeats temptation, infuses hope, releases power, cleanses our minds, brings things into being and guarantees our future forever!”
—Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life
“What you will receive is directly connected to how you believe and what you expect. If you want God to do the extraordinary, then you must start believing Him for bigger things.”
—Joel Osteen, Your Best Life Now
“Words spoken are more than sound, they are a creative force. Words initiate life or death (Proverbs 18:21), strength or weakness, good or evil.”
—Kevin Gerald, Forces that Form Your Future
“When Jesus said, ‘It is finished’—it means perfectly perfect and completely complete! Everything you need was provided through His sacrifice!”
—Paula White
“How can God give you the right answers, if you only have an appetite for the wrong kinds of questions? We often pursue the wrong things/people then find ourselves disappointed with the catch. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
—Bishop Dale C. Bronner
“God told Adam and Eve what His intentions were. The word to them was that they were going to subdue the earth and have dominion over all things. Well, rather than subduing, they were subdued. Whose fault was it that the word did not come to pass? Was it God’s fault? Not at all . . . God put us in time and space-gave us a will-and it is through the human will that God must act . . . You have the power over your life, to do well or to do evil.”
—Kim Clement, Secrets of the Prophetic: Unveiling Your Future
“Sin, sickness, death under His feet. Hell itself taken captive and obedient to His word. Every enemy of mankind throttled, bound, chained by the Son of God. Mankind joined with Him by the Holy Ghost in living triumph. Why, if I receive of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, of the Christ who IS, I receive the spirit of victory and power and might and dominion, of grace, of love, of power, blessed be God, of all the blessed estate of which Jesus Himself is now the conscious Master. All these things He gives to the Christian through imparting to him the Holy Ghost.”
—John G. Lake, John G. Lake, His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith
“Carefully choose your friends, your counsel, and your place of worship. Avoid those whose belief system is devoid of answers for life’s everyday problems. Never accept the mindset that persecution and suffering are the will of God; they are the weapons of the devil who is hell-bent on distracting you from God’s amazing plan for your life.”
—Brian Houston, How To Maximize Your Life
“When you ’know the truth’ (embracing it with full acceptance), only then are you able to experience true freedom (John 8:32). In this verse, the Greek word for know is gingko. It is a Jewish idiom describing the sexual relations between a man and a woman. It denotes deep intimacy and close relationship. When you become deeply intimate and fully confident in the knowledge of what Christ has done for you through His finished work, nothing will be able to convince you otherwise.”
—Tony Sutherland, Grace Works
“It would be ridiculous for God to expect us to do something and not give us the ability to believe that we can do it. Satan knows how dangerous we will be with a heart full of faith, so he attacks us with doubt and unbelief. It is not that we don’t have faith, it is just that Satan is trying to destroy our faith with lies.”
—Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in your Mind
“Anybody—even preachers in the pulpit—who claims that God is not going to accept people because of their sin is imputing people’s sins to them. To impute means to hold against, or charge to their account. If you’re born again, God no longer charges your sins to your account (Romans 4:8, AMP). So, to tell people God doesn’t accept them because of their sin is to demean and devalue what Jesus has done. You’re saying that what He accomplished on the cross wasn’t enough—that sin is bigger than Christ’s sacrifice. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not true . . . . Because of Christ’s sacrifice, God is no longer mad at man. He poured out His wrath for sin on Jesus. Jesus reconciled us back to God. He restored harmony between God and man. It’s done. It’s finished. It’s paid for! Sin isn’t the issue. The issue is, what are you doing with Jesus?”
—Creflo Dollar
“Salvation is always ‘good news.’ It is news of God’s love and forgiveness—adoption into His family—fellowship with His people—freedom from the penalty of sin—liberation from the power of sin.”
—Billy Graham
“Beloved, there is nothing you can do today to make God love you more, and there’s nothing you can do to make Him love you any less . . . It’s not enough that you know that God loves everyone. You need to know and believe that He loves you, and let that revelation burn in your heart, especially when you fail.”
—Joseph Prince, Destined to Reign
“When you begin to believe God’s word over everything else then it will change what you image of yourself. And once that changes, then it’s only a matter of time before it starts changing in the physical world.”
—Jerry Savelle, Increase God’s Way
“God doesn’t have any rocks in His pocket with your name on them! It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done; He loves you so much that He will stoop down again and again to rescue you. He isn’t afraid of the dirt in your life, and He will keep getting his hands dirty, until you give grace a chance!”
—Jentezen Franklin
“Every decision we make comes back to what we know about God’s love. When we know the depth of God’s love, substitutes lose their appeal. Sin isn’t as attractive; addictions lose their power, circumstances can’t break us. The foundation of God’s love gives us the strength to stand up when everything else comes crashing down.”
—Rob Koke, 100 Days of Grace
“You can’t put God in a box. You can’t say that God always operates in a particular way because we don’t know that God always does it that way. The minute we think we’ve got God figured out is when He gets out of the box.”
—Randy White, Only God Knows Why
“My fear is that this young generation has spent so much time debating theology that we have become more divisive in spirit. All of us (including myself) must daily make an effort to spit out the venom of mean. We all might not be the greatest communicators of our day but we can all be nice. We can be non-conformists to mean. Yes, nice and bold can go hand in hand. In fact, they were made for each other. WE DON’T NEED TO TEAR DOWN EACH OTHER’S CAMP, WE NEED TO TEAR DOWN THE ENEMIES. When we attack each other, all we do is create questions and confusion to the average Christian w
ho doesn’t even understand what we are angry about. In fact, they don’t even care that we have an issue with someone who uses rap music, or teaches something different. The average person who comes to our church doesn’t need to hear our frustrations, they need to hear hope. My prayer is that when people see us as the church they say the words, ‘Why you gotta be so nice?’ Then we explain the reason for our kindness. Which comes through Christ.”—Matthew Barnett, pastor Angelus Temple and Founder of the Los Angeles Dream Center, Author of The Cause Within You: Finding the One Great Thing You Were Created to Do in This World; as quoted in his blog on 3/5/12, “Why You Gotta Be So Mean,” matthewbarnett.com.