Revival

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2012 Bible Reading Plan

Revival

We have heard that word bantered around so many times it becomes one of those words we just gloss over. Is revival possible in our day? Is revival something that we could experience? Do we really believe that we could be a part of another “Great Awakening?”

Pastor Mark Batterson author of the new book, The Circle Maker, shares how revival could break out in our day:

He never received a formal education, yet he lectured at Harvard. He was born in a gypsy tent, yet he was summoned to the White House to meet two presidents. Born in the Epping Forest outside of London in 1860, Rodney “Gypsy” Smith crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean forty-five times, preaching the gospel to millions. Few evangelists have preached with more passion. He is secret? Private prayer! 

More powerful than his preaching was his praying. Gypsy’s secret was revealed to a delegation of revival seekers, who asked him how God could use them just as he was using Gypsy. Without hesitation, Gypsy said, “Go home. Lock yourself in your room. Kneel down in the middle of the floor, and with a piece of chalk draw a circle around yourself. There, on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival within that chalk circle.

Years ago J. Edwin Orr wrote these words in his song, Search Me, O God:
O Holy Ghost, revival comes from Thee
Send a revival, start the work in me!

The question of the day is this: I am daring enough, bold enough, hungry enough to do what Gypsy said to do? We may never see revival in our lifetime if we can’t take THAT first step. He’s willing – are we? – Bill Welte is President and CEO of America’s KESWICK

Team YOU: Daily Scripture reading… because YOU, Lord, would like a word with me: Genesis 7-9; Proverbs 3, Matthew 3

Motivations: Daily quotes…because they keep it- on point: What feels like zeal may be only fidgets or even the flattering of one’s self-importance.
C. S. Lewis

Practice to Remember: Memory Verses… because it’s not just a game: Level 1: Ephesians 1:3; Level 2: Ephesians 1:1-6

Powered Up: Prayer…because it works: Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscles of omnipotence.  Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Happy New Year

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Happy New Year

Happy 2nd day of this brand new year. When I cracked open my Daily Light yesterday, God’s Word really spoke to my heart. The verses were all so good and a great way to begin the new year. I decided that it would be a good way to start off this week:
But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind,… I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
“Father, I desire that they… whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me.”—I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.—He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.—Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus.

“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you.”

And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.”—I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.—For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
·       Morning: Philippians 3:13; Philippians 3:14; John 17:24; 2 Timothy 1:12; Philippians 1:6; 1 Corinthians 9:24; 1 Corinthians 9:25; Hebrews 12:1; Hebrews 12:2
·       Evening: Deuteronomy 31:8; Exodus 33:15; Jeremiah 10:23; Psalm 37:23; Psalm 37:24; Psalm 73:23; Psalm 73:24; Romans 8:38; Romans 8:39
Let these verses encourage your heart as you begin this new year. Bill Welte is President and CEO of America’s Keswick

Team YOU: Daily Scripture reading… because YOU, Lord, would like a word with me: Genesis 4-6; Proverbs 1; Matthew 1

Motivations: Daily quotes…because they keep it- on point: Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past. Henry Ward Beecher

Practice to Remember: Memory Verses… because it’s not just a game: Level 1: Ephesians 1:3; Level 2: Ephesians 1:1-6

Powered Up: Prayer…because it works: The strongest knees are those which bend most easily. Mary S. Wood

Are You Daring Enough to Trust God in 2012

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Are You Daring Enough to Trust God in 2012

“Come on …! We have seen that the land is very good. Aren’t you going to do something? Don’t hesitate to go there and take it over … God has put into your hands, a land that lacks nothing whatever.” Judges 18:9-10

This is the last Freedom Fighter for 2011 and I wanted to thank you for joining me on the journey this past year.

The past few days have been exciting because in my heart of hearts I feel like the Lord is about to do some incredible things. All of my devotional reading and even the books He has led me to read have all had this common theme about trusting God, walking by faith, and looking with expectancy to see what HE will do.
This morning I read these words from Streams In The Desert:  We have to have appropriating faith when it comes to God’s promises and should make His Word our OWN personal possession. A child was once asked what appropriating faith was, and he answered, “It is taking a pencil and underlining every ‘me,’ ‘my,’ and ‘mine’ in the Bible.

Pick any word you want that He has spoken and say, “That word is my word.” Put your finger on a promise and say, “It is mine!” How much of God’s Word have you received and endorsed, and how much have you been able to say, “This has been done in my life?” By how many of the promises have you signed your name and said, “This has been fulfilled to me?” Do not miss your inheritance through your own neglect.

I am thankful for the legacy left by my wife’s grandfather, George B. Toms and her Mom (Florence Toms). Pop taught us to mark our Bibles, claim the promises of God, and record the answers to prayer. Their Bibles are filled with dates, notations, underlinings when God spoke to them through His Word.
The question for you and me is this: are we bold enough, daring enough to trust God for this year? I trust you will join me with expectancy as we move into 2012. God bless you. – Bill Welte is President and CEO of America’s Keswick

GPS – God’s Positioning System: When faith goes to market, it always takes a basket.

Compass Pointers: Revelation 12-18; Psalm 149; Proverbs 30
Navigation Rules to Memorize: Level 1:Malachi 4:5-6; Level 2: Malachi 4:5-6

Anchored to the Rock: No matter what prayer has secured, attained or achieved for us, BOUNDLESS possibilities still lie before us. It may be doubted where we have yet touched more than the fringe of the garment of a prayer-hearing God. We come timid and trembling when we ought to come BOLDY and CONFIDENTLY. We ask but little, where we should only honor God by making large demands. Arthur T. Pierson

For the New Year

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For the New Year
My friend, Dr. Art Larson who spoke at America’s Keswick on many occasions put this in his 2011 Christmas letter. I thought it was worth sharing with you as we approach the end of 2011:
Click on picture to download the 2012 plan
Ten Rules for Happier Living

1. Give something away (no strings attached).

2. Do a kindness (and forget it).
3. Spend time with an older person (experience is priceless).
4. Look intently into the face of a baby (and marvel).
5. Laugh often (it is life’s lubricant).
6. Give thanks (a thousand times a day is not enough).
7. Pray (or you will lose your way).
8. Work (with vim and vigor when possible).
9. Plan as though you will live forever (you will) and
10. Live as though you will die tomorrow (you will die on some tomorrow)
.
Good words for this 29th day of December.  Thanks, Pastor Art for these 10 rules! – Bill Welte is President and CEO of America’s Keswick
GPS – God’s Positioning System: Revelation 6-11; Psalm 148; Proverbs 29
Compass Pointers: O let me never lose sight of my need of a Savior, or forget that apart from Him I am nothing and can do nothing. From The Valley of Vision – Prayers of the Puritans

Navigation Rules to Memorize: Level 1:Malachi 4:5-6; Level 2: Malachi 4:5-6
Anchored to the Rock: None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience. Martin Luther

Neglect Forget Replace

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Neglect, Forget, Replace. 
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.” Hebrews 1:1-3 (ESV) 
As the year comes to close I reflect back to what I heard Dr. Harry Wood, Superintendent of the Penn-Jersey Wesleyan District, say in a sermon recently…”what is neglected is forgotten, what is forgotten is replaced, what is replaced becomes our god.” He came to this conclusion during a trip Oberlin College. While there, he went to the library to read the writings of its founder, Charles Finney. To his dismay, barely anyone could help him find any of Finney’s writings let alone know who he was. Anyway, they were eventually found in a spot where dust had accumulated and the lights were off. 
So let’s start off today with asking a few questions. Do you know where your Bible is? Do you keep it out in plain view or do you have a spot for it? I have to keep my Bible out in the open and in plain sight. It serves as a constant reminder for me not to neglect picking it up and reading it. I have found that some of the best “WOW” moments can come from a simple read. Even in those times where I either do not feel like read it or in those moments where I feel that I do not deserve to read it.  
I have those days where the motion of my everyday living sometimes has me stumble over the pebbles on my daily path and I may not have been as Christ-like as I should have been. It’s those days where I know that if I pick that Book up there will be something there to convict me. But I also keep in mind this wonderful promise that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  The very thing to keep us from neglect is the grace of God…AMEN? 
And if we all were reminded about the grace of God as much as we are being reminded that the economy is in bad shape, we all would be able to quote Bible verses frontwards and back. I would venture to say that we all need to be reminded to maintain our walk with Christ. If we are reminded to practice the maintenance plan we find in God’s Word we walk a bit easier. The place we need to have that happen is in God’s Church. And I do not mean in a building that we call “Church” I mean in fellowship with the people of God.  
 As this year as gone by I have found that being with God’s people serves as that reminder that what is neglected is forgotten, what is forgotten is replaced and what has been replaced becomes a god in my life. In the ancients days the Hebrew households were told to talk “Torah” and in these days we need to do the same. But because of Jesus Christ we are beyond Torah. We need to not just talk Jesus Christ but to walk Jesus Christ. The best way to do this is with God’s people. If we neglect to surround ourselves with God’s people, we will forget God’s people and if we forget God’s people in our lives we will replace them. For all we know they may find us one day, alone, in the dark…accumulating dust. That shouldn’t be! – Chris Hughes is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy and a frequent Freedom Fighter contributor 

GPS – God’s Positioning System: Revelation 1-5; Psalm 147; Proverbs 28
Compass Pointers: Where His saints are, His sanctuary is, and there He will dwell. He is in the midst of them, in their hearts. It is a spiritual presence, the presence of Christ’s Spirit with their spirits, that is intended here. Though only two or three meet together, Christ is among them. This is an encouragement to the meeting of a few. Grant Me Wisdom   Matthew Henry
Navigation Rules to Memorize: Level 1:Malachi 4:5-6; Level 2: Malachi 4:5-6
Anchored to the Rock: Prayer can change anything. The impossible doesn’t exist. His is the power. Ours is the prayer. Without Him, we cannot. Without us, He will not. Jack Hayford

The Spiritual Gift of Criticism

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The Spiritual Gift of Criticism  
“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?”                                                                                                                        Romans 2:1-3 (ESV) 
“Criticism…1, The act of criticizing, esp adversely: censure. 2.a. The judgments of a critic. B. A review expressing such judgments.” This is how the Webster’s II New Riverside Dictionary defines criticism and from a worldly viewpoint there isn’t anything too offensive in it. We all get criticized every now and again by those around us and our reaction to it is key to gaining an insight to ourselves. But there are those of us who get offended when we are criticized and instead of taking the rebuke and learning from it we forge this into a weapon in which we rage a war of emotional attrition. And we take no prisoners!!! 
The Pharisees didn’t take too kindly to Jesus when He called them a brood of vipers. They got really offended when He said to them, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “ ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ” (Matt 15:7-9) Those money changers in the Temple must have had a time as Jesus dump their tables over as He yelled about His Father’s house becoming a den of thieves. Yeah sometimes it takes the spiritual gift of criticism for us to see that we may not be as planted in the Father as we thought we were.  
And if it isn’t those of us on the receiving end of this gift who have an issue with it, what about those who are on the giving end of it. If the Pharisees had only knew that the One who they were offended by was in the right to judge them they may have reconsidered their own position in passing judgments. John Gill says it like this…
“Some men may be so vain as to imagine, that though they do the same things which they condemn in others, they shall escape the judgment of God: but such will find themselves most sadly mistaken; there is no avoiding the general judgment; all men must come to it; there will be no eluding it through craftiness and deceit, through bribery and corruption; there will be no escaping condign punishment, through might in the criminal, or through the judge’s ignorance of his crimes, or want of ability and power to punish.”
In essence no man has the spiritual gift to criticize anyone. It is like that old saying that goes on to say that when we are pointing a finger at someone we are really pointing the three back at us. But for those of us who suffer from “rebuke-o-intolerance” we are the ones that need the spiritual gift of discernment. Not every criticism is meant to bend us out of shape. We need to receive it, run it through the Cross and see if it tears down or edifies. If it edifies then let it do what it needs to do but if it tears down we must remember that it is not a good idea to return the gift. Chances are the person that gave you the gift doesn’t have the receipt anyway. They weren’t the One who paid the price. Chris Hughes contributes regularly to the Freedom Fighter blog and is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy
GPS – God’s Positioning System: 2 John; 3 John; Psalm 146; Proverbs 27
Compass Pointers: “Nothing will more effectively arrest the working of the Spirit in the heart than the spirit of criticism.”  Days of Heaven on Earth  A.B. Simpson
Navigation Rules to Memorize: Level 1: Malachi 4:5-6; Level 2: Malachi 4:5-6
Anchored to the Rock: The Christian on his knees sees more than the philosopher on tiptoe.

Living With Purpose

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Living with Purpose … Responding to God’s Call…Realizing Our Gifts…Rejoicing in the Victories!

“I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14

Merry the day after Christmas. I trust you had a great day with your family as you celebrated the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In 2012 the summer Olympics will be held in London. We decided that this year we would have some fun tying in our theme to the games. This will be the focus of our summer conference season.

To get you started in your training for the games, I want to encourage you to join us in reading through the Bible. Our 2012 Bible Reading plan is downloadable (click on picture) or you can email me your snail address and I will send it to you.

Besides my daily TEAM CAPTAIN CHALLEGE, you will receive the following:

Team YOU: Daily Scripture reading… because YOU, Lord, would like a word with me.

Motivations: Daily quotes…because they keep it- on point.

Practice to Remember: Memory Verses… because it’s not just a game.

Powered Up: Prayer…because it works.

I am looking forward to training with you in 2012. I trust you will join me and encourage others to join team KESWICK. God bless you. – Bill Welte is Team Captain/President and CEO

God is a Very Present Help

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GOD IS A VERY PRESENT HELP
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1
I was planning to give you information today about our new Bible reading plan for 2012, but over the course of the past few days I have heard numerous reports of friends, co-workers and Keswick partners that are going through very deep waters. I can’t remember a Christmas season quite like this with people dying, serious illness, families splitting up, and a many more painful situations.
This morning’s reading from the pen of Charles Haddon Spurgeon and I felt led to share it with you. I pray that it will comfort your heart and if you know someone who is in the midst of a tough time, share it with them.
A help that is not present when need it is of small value. The anchor which is left at home is of no use to seaman in the hour of storm; the money which he used to have is of not worth to the debtor when a writ is out against him. Very few earthly helps could be called ‘very present’; they are usually seeking, far in the using, and farther still when once used.

BUT as for the Lord our God, HE IS PRESENT when we seek Him, present when we need Him, and present when we have already enjoyed His aid.

He is MORE than present, He is VERY present. More present than the nearest friend can be, for He is in us in our trouble; MORE present then we are to ourselves, for sometimes we lack presence of mind. He is ALWAYS present, effectually present, sympathetically present, altogether present!

He is present now if this is a gloomy season. Let us rest ourselves upon Him. He IS our refuge, let us hide in HIM; He IS our strength, let us array ourselves with HIM, He IS our help, let us repose in Him now.

We need not have a moment’s care, or an instant’s fear. The Lord of hosts IS with us: the God of Jacob IS our refuge! (From Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith)

I needed to hear this today. I needed to be reminded of this fantastic truth. I trust it will bring comfort and peace to YOUR heart today. Merry Christmas. – Bill Welte is President and CEO of America’s Keswick
GPS – God’s Positioning System: 2 Timothy 1-4; Psalm 144; Proverbs 24
Compass Pointers: The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable. Ralph W. Sockman

Need Some Gift Suggestions

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Need Some Gift Suggestions?
I realize that Christmas is just “3 sleeps” away, but I would like to recommend four special gifts for you this Christmas as 2011 is quickly coming to an end.
I have found these very helpful in my daily walk with the Lord and highly commend and recommend them to you. (I have provided the links to amazon.com.)
Daily Light on the Daily Path is a collection of Scriptures for each morning and evening. I have been using this for many years and my copy is marked up with pen, verses highlighted, and notations of significant events. I never cease to be amazed at how timely the verses are for each day.
The Book of Proverbs – Years ago, my Pastor friend, Matt Reed, challenged me to read a chapter of Proverbs every day. That was probably over 25 years ago. I have been doing it ever since. The link I have provided for you is for a new edition that has both the King James version and The Message side by side. You will be amazed at how God will speak to you each day from this book from His Word.
Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith is a collection of daily readings from the “prince of preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. These have really spoken to my heart this year.
His Battle – God’s Plan for Victory is a collection of short prayers about living in victory. I am on my second year of reading this little book and I have been challenged, encouraged and exhorted.
I get nothing from Amazon for recommending their materials, but if you decide to join me in reading any of the above, I’d love to hear from you. Tomorrow I will share information about our 2011 Keswick Bible Reading Plan. – Bill Welte is President and CEO of America’s Keswick
GPS – God’s Positioning System: Hebrews 11-13; Psalm 143; Proverbs 23
Compass Pointers: There was a day when I died, died to George Muller: to his tastes, his opinions, his preferences and his will; died to the world-it’s approval and censure; died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and friends; since then I have only studied to show my self-approved unto God. George Muller
Navigation Rules to Memorize: Level 1:John 17:3; Level 2: John 17:1-5
Anchored to the Rock: Thou art coming to a King; large petitions with thee bring; For His grace and power are such, none can ever ask too much!!! John Newton