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THE POWER OF THANKSGIVING
The Simplicity of Victory In Christ

  Thanks be to God who ALWAYS causes us to triumph in Christ - 2 Corinthians 2:14

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 By: Dr. Bill Miller                                                 Volume XV Number 35                                           September 16, 2012

Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!

 

Welcome back from vacation everyone! With this issue Prosperous Life Newsletter resumes our normal schedule of new articles each Sunday night. We hope you had a great summer and that if you had a chance you were able to read and grow from the repeat articles we were featuring during July and August.

 

All this year the Lord has led me to write to you about the POWER of THANKSGIVING. I've underlined the word POWER here because I want to emphasize the point I believe the Lord wants us to get across tonight. Recently a dear friend of ours told us she doesn't see any New Testament POWER these days in the Body of Christ: no miracles, no supernatural moves of the Holy Spirit, no healings, etc. That's a sad commentary but perhaps more true than it should be particularly here in the U.S. and in Western Europe where folks have become so cynical about God and the Church and FAITH. Even if her point is mostly true though it's not God's plan that the Bride of Christ should be stumbling through these times without POWER, weak and defeated, full of faithlessness and doubt and unbelief AND SIN. No, the Body of Christ is the sum of its parts and oh by the way, there're still a number of individual churches and ministries out there even in the USA where there is POWER and where great things are still happening.

 

But even if you haven't been able to find one of those POWER churches, you certainly can have supernatural VICTORY in your own life. We need to stop concerning ourselves with the Body of Christ and what God is doing or not doing there and focus on bringing about supernatural VICTORY individually in our own lives. When we have enough Believers who're walking in VICTORY individually, the Body of Christ will take care of itself. Along those lines, I can tell you with all the sincerity I can muster tonight that during the last 18 months or so, on a personal level we have seen more miracles, more of God's favor, more blessings and more supernatural POWER than at any time in our lives. It has truly been an awesome time and it happened because, on purpose we've PURSUED God's POWER with all we know to do and the Lord's been faithful to REWARD us for our FAITH just as He promised (Hebrews 11:6).

  

The Problem of Unbelief

 

The SIMPLE Truth is: it all starts with FAITH because VICTORY IN CHRIST comes by FAITH. There's no other way to achieve it because it's FAITH (and only faith) that changes circumstances without sorrow. When people got healed under the personal ministry of Jesus, He often told them it had been their FAITH that healed (Mark 10:52 for example). When the disciples couldn't heal the young boy from demonic affliction, Jesus told them that their failure was because of their unbelief (Matthew 17:20). When Jesus healed the nobleman's son, it was because the nobleman BELIEVED the Word (John 4: 50-53). When the disciples saw that the fig tree Jesus cursed the previous day had withered, He told them that FAITH had done it (Mark 11:22). Yes, our FAITH can move mountains (Mark 11:22-24) which is to say quite SIMPLY that FAITH has the POWER to change our circumstances.

  

Moreover another SIMPLE truth is that FAITH comes by hearing the Word with understanding (Romans 10:17). If your FAITH is weak tonight, if you're mind is bogged down in UNBELIEF, the likely problem is you need more Word in you. In order to be victorious in life, each Believer has to individually PURSUE an increasing understanding of the Word of God on his/her own as often as possible keeping in mind that every time you hear/see something there that you want to use to change your life, the enemy will come to try to steal it from you (Matthew 13:18-23). We have to protect the Word we receive by RESISTING the enemy with the POWER and authority and weapons we've been given in the Name of Jesus and by persistence in pursuing His Word. If we do all those things our FAITH will grow stronger and our circumstances will begin to change. I know this because the Word of God says so and because it's working this way in my personal life.

 

The Problem of Wrong Focus

 

Now when our FAITH is weak and unless we know better, we'll tend to focus on the wrong things in life. We're living in hard times and there's plenty of negative stuff around these days to worry about. But the Word says that if we want to enjoy the PEACE that passes all understanding we can come to it by THANKSGIVING (Philippians 4:6-7). That's how the Apostle Paul could tell us with a straight face not to be anxious for anything: THANKSGIVING has a uniqueness about it that brings PEACE AND VICTORY no matter what our circumstances are. And these are not just some words the Apostle wrote to make folks feel better. No, his words were inspired by the Holy Spirit which makes them scripture which makes it the truth and the TRUTH is something we can release our FAITH over: PEACE COMES BY THANKSGIVING THROUGH FAITH.

 

 

This is a SIMPLE concept that some people want to make complicated and here's how it works. When we start THANKING God for all His blessings we have to CONSIDER what He's been doing in our lives instead of worrying about what He hasn't been doing. In other words, we have to look for all the good things He's brought about in our lives which shifts our focus from the world and all its problems and circumstances over to the Kingdom of God where there're NO problems or trials or tribulations or circumstances. We're going to soon find out that there're a lot more good things from God to find than there are bad things from the world and that the bad things don't have any power over us anyway unless we permit it. The more GRATEFUL and THANKFUL we become the more we have to shift our focus and the more we shift our focus the more GRATEFUL we become, and the SIMPLE truth is God HONORS our sacrifice of Thanksgiving:

 

"He who offers a sacrifice of THANKSGIVING, honors Me" (Psalm 50:23).

"Those who honor Me I will honor..." (1 Samuel 2:30).

 

The Simplicity of Victory in Christ

 

The New Testament encourages us in many scriptures as we've pointed out in previous newsletters to be THANKFUL people. Lazy Christians who don't study the Word will have weak FAITH, which will lead them to focus on the wrong things, which will cause them to lose their PEACE, which will cause them to be UN-grateful. But Christians who want to manifest the victory of Christ will make the effort to cause their FAITH to grow stronger and be THANKFUL so they can attract the GRACE and the EMPOWERMENT and the FAVOR that God has ready for us to receive, that Jesus won for us at the Cross of Calvary. God honors those who honor Him.

 

Friend, this is NOT complicated stuff but it does require effort, it does require growing your FAITH by an increasing understanding and personal revelation of the Word. Effort and complexity are not the same. The enemy wants us to think that these things are complicated but the Apostle Paul said that there's a SIMPLICITY in the gospel that we need to hold onto (2 Corinthians 11:3-4). His fear was that with the enemy's encouragement we would try to complicate something that's meant to be relatively SIMPLE. In short, there's POWER for the Believer in the act of THANKSGIVING, in the process of becoming GRATEFUL which is not all that complicated to understand. All you have to do is just start THANKING God for everything you can find in your life that's good and do it every day and as often as you think about it and things will start to change, circumstances will start to diminish in importance and VICTORY IN CHRIST will start to manifest. God has made it simple for us so why not try it and see what happens. Just agree with the Word and step out in FAITH expecting God to meet you just as He has promised.

 

Thanks for stopping by tonight. We'll be looking for you again next Sunday night on September23. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing and cause you to PROSPER in every area of life.

  

Sinners' Prayer

 

If you've never invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life, you need to and you can do it today just by saying out loud the following simple prayer:

 

Jesus I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.

 

If you were sincere as you prayed this prayer, God has already come into your life and you are a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.

 

And, when you get a chance have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer today and believing what you said:

 

Romans 10:9

2 Corinthians 5:17

Ephesians 2:8

 

Prayer Requests

 
If you have a Prayer Request, please connect to the Link below and follow the promptings. The PLN staff members pray over Prayer Requests every Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM eastern time. God bless you.

 

http://www.creditcounseling.net/prayer-request.aspx

 

 

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