Daily Devotional for Tuesday October 17, 2006

Our Journey of Faith

(2 Chronicles 20:20; Hebrews 11:6; Job 19:25)

"For four years I was deathly ill with liver disease, depression, anxiety, and taking several medications just to survive on a daily basis. I became a recluse, and your ministry was my only source of being fed the Word of God, other than reading my Bible. It kept me going when it seemed going on was too difficult. I so desperately want this nationwide TV ministry to succeed, because in my heart I know there are many out there who need someone to reach out to them in their hour of need, that need to know of the love and saving grace of our Father in heaven."

"I know God has done a lot for me because awhile back I was flipping the channel and ran across your show and that night you said it was going to be a special show and indeed for me it was. You were talking about drugs and I was laying in the bed smoke a blunt. I didn't think that the show was for real but that night I told the Lord if he was talking to me and wanted me to stop I would get through. Well that night you said that someone was smoking right now and I looked down at the blunt and laughed and said it was time to try. That night I was the last person to get through. I was going to church but I was going for the wrong reasons. So from that night forward I stop smoking weed."

"I watch you every night and last night accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior."

Like you, I am on my own journey of faith with the Lord. Like you, I have to get up each morning, surrender my life completely afresh to the Holy Spirit, and do my very best to walk by faith and not by sight, to live in the Spirit and not the flesh. Like you, I have to spend time with the Lord each day in prayer and in the Word to stay strong and grow in my personal relationship with Christ. Throughout each day there are moments when I fail Him miserably. But I refuse to quit or turn back. My eyes are fixed on Jesus and I am not going to let anything or anyone stop me from doing my best each day to faithfully serve and follow my Savior.

CHRIST GAVE HIS BEST FOR ME. HOW CAN YOU AND I GIVE HIM ANYTHING LESS???

Late Friday, I bared my soul as I shared with you my time in the "woodshed" with God. It really stemmed from my lack of faith in God and His provision. How many times do we end up trusting ourselves and not the Lord, even though we know without Him we can do nothing! You have no idea how much simpler, how much easier and peaceful my life would be if Liveprayer was simply the Internet ministry. I can honestly tell you that if I never had to get up at 11 p.m. at night and go do another TV program I would be very grateful. But God constantly reminds me it is not my life, it is His.

My word for you today is that YOUR life is not your own, it belongs to God. 100%! All of your time, treasure, and talent is His. Your purpose is to serve and glorify Him with your life. He has called each of us to do that in different ways. I want to share with you today that special message I sent late Friday since many possibly missed it. I want this message to challenge you today to put your faith and trust in the Lord no matter what you are going through in your life. In the end, it is not your wisdom or cleverness that will lead you to victory, it is God who will lead you to victory. May you put your complete and total faith and trust in Him today!!!

(From special message sent late last Friday)

Have you ever had God take you to the woodshed and when it was over you couldn't sit down? That is how I feel this morning. It started as I was driving home from the TV program last night. I was actually yelling at God for not opening the right doors with the sponsors I need to sustain the TV program past the initial months we will be on. I have been frustrated since I had to end our relationship with Feed the Children due to their involvement with the Mormons and eHarmony since they have now gone in a secular direction. I have spent many hours the last couple of weeks looking at and praying over several different plans to use the TV program as an advertising vehicle to generate the $900,000 I need each month to operate. No plan would come into focus and I could get no peace over any of the various opportunities I was looking at.

It was in the midst of my yelling at God that He spoke and told me He wasn't the problem, I was. God reminded me of Chad who called the program that evening and got saved. He then asked me why I was spending so much time and energy trying to "sell" things and find "advertisers" when since day one of Liveprayer, it was God, not Bill Keller, who has supplied the resources we needed to operate. God asked me why I wanted to prostitute myself and HIS television program, even for worthwhile organizations, when He had always been there to meet our needs. He asked me why I didn't trust Him?

I spent the rest of the drive home asking God to forgive me, apologizing for doubting Him, and allowing my Heavenly Father to simply love me. I felt such a peace and calm like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. God was right of course. Since day one, Liveprayer has survived, grown, and become the major influence it has become in millions of lives and in the marketplace by His hand. It has not been my clever ideas that has sustained Liveprayer, it has been God moving on the hearts of people like you who support His work here. To be honest, I saw the $900,000 we needed each month and simply didn't have enough faith that God could meet the need.

I need to apologize to you as well. I pray that you will forgive me. My heart was in the right place. It was a big goal of mine to see companies who have millions in their coffers cover the $11 million we need each year to do the TV program nationwide "live" for an hour 5 nights a week and cover all the operational expenses of Liveprayer.com. You have been so faithful, so giving, sacrificing so much to help me bring Liveprayer to the place it is at today that I wanted to be able to take that burden from you and let these major corporations carry that load.

There is a reason other ministries all end up on the Christian networks. That is where they can draw their support from. I spent 3 years of my life on the road preaching in churches all over this nation. I spent another 4 years heavily involved in the Christian television world. As an evangelist, the church and Christian television is the last place I need to be. The lost don't go to church and they don't watch Christian television. God has raised up Liveprayer.com and the Live payer TV program on secular television as 21st century vehicles to reach those lost and hurting masses. He has called me to be His voice in the marketplace for Biblical Truth and to bring the hope and love of Christ to the hurting and lost.

There are 2.3 million people who subscribe to the Daily Devotional. Less than 1/4 of 1% of those people for a multitude of reasons ever give to Liveprayer. However, it has been those few who have fed the many for over 7 years now. God has blessed many with good jobs, inheritances and investments, great resources, and their blessings come from being obedient to God in how they handle those resources He has entrusted to them. This ministry is ultimately about one thing, saving souls. I apologized to God and I apologize to you for getting distracted as I tried my best to find other ways to fund the work of Liveprayer. God showed me that I was robbing those who give of their blessings as they were faithful and obedient to give as God leads them.

I am grateful for God's promise in 1 John 1:9 to forgive me and I ask you to please forgive me as well. It has been a difficult lesson, and to be honest, this doesn't get me any closer to meeting the needs we have November 1st other than the fact that I now realize it wasn't going to happen by my might or power, but by His. God called me to be an evangelist, not to sell vitamins, or financial packages, or relationship memberships, or anything else. He has called me to declare the Truth of God's Word and tell the lost and hurting their only answer, their only hope, is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

So that is what I will stay focused on. In the meantime I will keep encouraging those who are able to give to support His work here, continue to work my contacts of those who have the money to help me be here for those who need hope in their hour of need, and continue to walk by faith and not by sight knowing that God is my Supplier and He will move on the right hearts. There are several people reading these words today who have the ability to underwrite a complete month for $900,000, some who can underwrite the entire year of right at $11 million. My job is to share the need and than trust God to move on those hearts who can help.

Please be praying for me each day. Pray for strength and pray for protection.