Daily Devotional for Wednesday July 3, 2013

Sowing into Your Need

(1 Kings 8:1-24)

***ASK BILL: Pastor Bill, I am confused, please help me. The Bible says if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth 'Jesus is your Lord and Savior' you will be saved. Then is there a second condition, that you must also surrender your life 100% in addition to believing to be saved?

ANSWER: NO! Salvation is by faith and God's grace..plus NOTHING! Ephesians 2:8,9. The fact is you surrender your life to Christ when you make that decision by faith. That is what you are doing, giving your heart and life to Jesus. The Bible says we have been bought with a price. Surrendering to Christ is what happens when a person makes the choice to accept Jesus.

Sowing into your need. I am going to share a Biblical principle with you today as well as a critical situation here at Liveprayer. Because of the successful track record of the Liveprayer TV program from 2003-2008, last year we had a media group who wanted to help us get the program back on nationally in November of 2012. Due to the financial challenges we, as well as many churches and ministries have been experiencing for the past 4 years, the media group was not willing to invest the $2 million into the program to buy air time and for production costs they had offered. But God always has a ram in the bush!

Despite our continued shortfalls each month, always running 2-3 weeks behind, God opened the door for us to re-launch the program May 6th on about 30 stations around the country, as well as digitally for people with a SmartTV or a TV they can stream the internet on, on computers, tablets, and SmartPhones anywhere in the world in HD. We also record each night's program in HD and archive them for On-Demand viewing. Link to Liveprayer TV: http://www.liveprayer.com/liveprayertv.cfm

As we are into our 9th week back on the air "live" every Monday-Friday from Midnight-2am EDT, we are seeing the same great ministry results we saw for the 5 years we were previously on. Salvation, lots of phone calls each night for prayer, and praise reports to go along with the nightly topic to bring a Biblical worldview to the issues of the day.

Even thought we do not have the financial backing we were planning on, each week we are hearing from more stations who are interested in the program, and some of the newer and more aggressive media groups have also shown an intrest because of the unique nature of the program. By the time we hit the end of our 6th month back on the air at the end of October, we will have an additional consistent stream of funds coming in from people new to the Liveprayer family via the TV program, taking much of the pressure off each month to just cover our basic operating costs for the ministry.

As we head into a long holiday weekend, we are still trying to cover the final $19,000 we are short from our June operations. I am well aware after all of the years that June, July, and August are traditionally slow months because people take off, kids are out of school, and many just unplug for the summer. So I am praying today for 3-4 of our friends who can send a special one-time gift of $5,000 or more so by Friday our June shortfall is covered and we can begin to work on the $40,000 we need for July's operations.

If everyone else will pray, seek the Lord about what He is asking you to do to help me today, and give according to your ability to give, whether that is $10, $20, $50, $100, $500, $1,000, or more, together we can clear up our June shortfall and insure July's budget is covered.

We are at a critical place today since the companies we work with for our bandwidth and other operational needs have tightened up. They used to not care if we were a couple weeks behind because of the years of business we have done, now they do since the whole economy has tightened up causing ripple effects for most everyone. So please help me today as we are seeing the fulfillment of 14 years of ministry on the horizon, what we have always done in bringing God's Truth into the marketplace, pray for people in their time of need, save souls, and our final work for the Lord to lead our nation back to God and HIS Truth!

TO GIVE A GIFT TO LIVEPRAYER, you can use your major credit card on our secure server at: www.liveprayer.com under the "Donation" link, you can give using your PayPal account using my email address: bkeller@liveprayer.com,or you can mail your gift to: Liveprayer, 6660 46th Ave. North, St.Petersburg, FL 33709. All gifts to Liveprayer are 100% tax deductible!

There is a Biblical principle that I learned many years ago that I want to share with you today. Biblical principles are like scientific laws. They work. The law of gravity works, there are no exceptions. Biblical principles work, there are no exceptions. One of those Biblical principles is sowing into your need. Now trust me, many of God's principles don't make much sense. But then again, when God gave the army generals the battle plan for taking the city of Jericho, I doubt that walking around the walls of the city and blowing trumpets was something that made much sense either.

I am convinced that many things God does, don't make sense to us because we have to realize that only God could make something like that work. This principle is very easy to understand. You give when you yourself have a need. Common sense says if I have a need, I hold on to what I have or my need becomes worse. I am sure that is what the widow of Zarephath was thinking when the prophet Elijah asked her for her last bit of food. This woman literally gave the man of God the last thing she had. Talk about faith.

Faith is not a word, but it is a belief system. Faith is easy to talk about, hard to practice. The problem with exercising our faith is our brain gets in the way. The enemy puts doubt in our mind. Living our faith becomes the test of our Christian experience. From the thousands of prayer requests we get here daily, I realize that so many of you are struggling with your finances. There are many great Christian financial ministries that can help people apply biblical principles to their financial life. I would encourage you to invest a few dollars and study their teaching and follow those biblical principles that can help you keep your finances healthy.

I would encourage those of you today that are in the midst of a financial crisis, even those who are not, to sow into your need. I have done this continually throughout my ministry. Even now as we work each month to raise the finances to keep Liveprayer going, I sow a seed into other ministries knowing that God will honor my faith and bless us in return. My friend, it works. Look at the widow. She gives the man of God her last bit of food, and soon afterwards her son dies. God blesses her faith by using the man of God to bring that son back to life! Sowing into your need works!!! God's principles work!!!

I love you and care about you so much. I will be praying for you today. I care about you very much and will do everything I can each day to share the things God places in my heart to try and help you along this great journey we are on. You are never too young to begin applying God's principles into your life. What happens is, when we obey and God's blessings flow from our obedience, our faith is strengthened. The next time we have to exercise our faith, we do it more readily since we already have seen God move before. We gain confidence that our faith is real, God is real, and His way does work.

I pray that you who are struggling financially today will give into your need. I don't care where you give, just give and show God you believe His Word and trust Him. God cannot lie and His Word is the absolute truth that you can stake your very life and eternal existence on. Trust Him today and watch Him work miracles in your life!

In His love and service, Your friend and brother in Christ,

Bill Keller