BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

deeper in debt. When sickness attached itself to us, we just yielded to it and said, "Oh my, I'm sick," and went to bed. We hadn't been taught how to have our needs met supernaturally. We hadn't yet learned how, by implementing God's wisdom, we could have peace, wholeness, and health for our body and our family. So, those things were not in our lives. It was pitiful! But that's how it is when you don't know how to do things God's way. You don't have any other recourse. Even though you're redeemed, if you don't know how to walk in the redemptive blessings of God, you just have to take whatever life hands you. And for the first few years after we were born again, that's what Ken and I did. Then, praise the Lord, we began to learn what the Word of God has to say. We found out the Word is God speaking to us. That it's true, and we can take it, believe it and do what it says. From the moment we began living by faith in the Word, our life began to change. Our circumstances weren't transformed overnight, but we took a turn upward and have been going up ever since. Why? Because God's Word is His wisdom. It teaches us to think like He thinks and operate like He does. So, as long as we stay with God's Word, we keep going higher and higher in life. I personally believe we'll keep going higher and increasing even beyond this life into eternity because that's just the way God is. He wants to bless His people and He always has more for us. I don't think there will ever be a time in the ages to come where we think, Well, I've heard everything from God there is to hear. I know it all now. I have everything He has to give. No, God will be forever toward us like He was in the beginning in the Garden of Eden toward Adam and Eve. He came to talk to them every day (Genesis 3:8), and I'm sure He always had something new to reveal to them, something good they'd never seen or heard before. When they heard God coming, they probably said to each other with excitement, "He's here again! Let's go meet Him! I wonder what He's going to say to us today?" They must have loved being with Him, because in His "presence is fulness of joy" and at His "right hand there are pleasures for evermore" (Psalm 16:11). What Adam Lost, Jesus Got Back Sadly, Adam and Eve forfeited that joy and those pleasures. They sinned and shut God out. He still came down to talk with them. But when He said, "Where are you?" instead of running to see Him, they hid. They didn't want to see Him anymore because they had made a choice to do something that was against His will. They had chosen to disregard His wisdom and disobey His Word. Their connection with Him was broken. Sin and spiritual death had darkened their hearts, so they couldn't fellowship with Him like they did before. That was a tragic day—not only for Adam and Eve but for all humanity. But thank God, Jesus triumphed over that tragedy! Everything Adam lost in the Fall, He got back for us through Redemption. Now that place of fellowship with the Lord is open to us again. By faith in Jesus, we can once again come into God's presence. We can get born again and filled with the Holy Spirit, go on an adventure with God in His Word, and find out all the wonderful blessings God has provided for us and what He wants us to do. Those two things are tied together. Things don't work for people who don't obey God's Word. So, to walk in God's ever-increasing blessings, we must know what He said AND we must act on it. The Lord won't make us do that, though. He'll always be there for us, 2 8 : B V O V "God's Word is His wisdom.... So, as long as we stay with God's Word, we keep going higher and higher in life. "

• Cover