BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

God is GOD! He can do anything. He’s all-powerful. He’s faithful to His promises. He always has a plan, and He always has a way. You just need to keep your eyes on Him. You need to stop staring at natural circumstances—at your bank account, the economy, the natural condition of your body, your age, or whatever else in this world that’s been discouraging you—and remember you have a covenant with the Almighty One; the One who knows the end from the beginning. The One for whom all things are possible. He doesn’t need you to tell Him how to bring to pass the vision He’s put inside you. He’s not depending on you to figure out a way the promises you see in His Word are going to become a reality in your life. He already knows how it’s going to happen. He knows what He’s promised you and what He’s called you to do. He knows what you will need, where it’s all going to come from, and how He’s going to get it to you. All He needs is for you to keep looking to Him in faith—to keep believing, speaking, and acting on His Word, and He can do great and mighty things for you. I’m telling you, Ken and I have seen God do the seemingly impossible repeatedly over the years, not only in our lives but in the lives of others. I think about what He did for Brother Kenneth E. Hagin, for example. He was already about 50 years old when Ken and I first began going to his meetings in Tulsa. He’d been in ministry close to 30 years and yet the group that showed up to those early faith seminars we attended was still relatively small. The room where we met only seated about 150, and I don’t ever remember it being packed out. What’s more, the bunch that did come didn’t necessarily show much promise. Ken and I, for instance, drove to those meetings in an old, rickety car that looked like it was being held together by bailing wire and duct tape. We were financially broke, deeply in debt and just getting started in ministry. My friend Billye Brim often tells about one of those early meetings in which a prophecy came forth about the people there being the future chiefs of the faith movement. Billye says looking around at that group you almost felt sorry for God that this was all He had to choose from. God, however, did for us what in the natural looked like couldn’t be done. He took that little group and touched the world with it. Within a few years, Brother Hagin had founded Rhema Bible Training Center and was sending out hundreds of ministers to preach the Word of Faith. In addition, a number of us who were in those early meetings had launched ministries as well, and faith conferences and churches had started springing up all over. Looking back at it now, what happened is really amazing. Satan fought the message of faith with everything he had, but it wasn’t enough. God was with us, and like Abraham and the Israelites we just kept multiplying and being blessed. By the time Brother Hagin finished his race and went home to be with the Lord in 2003, the message of faith was being heard by millions of people around the world—and it’s still multiplying. “But I can’t expect God to move like that in my life,” someone might say. “I don’t have a special calling like Brother Hagin did. I’m not even a preacher. I’m just an ordinary believer.” There’s no such thing as an “ordinary believer,” or a Christian without a calling! According to Romans 8:28, all who love God “are called according to [His] design and purpose” ("AMPC"). We are all “God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus…that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live” (Ephesians 2:10, "AMPC"). BVOV : 29

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