The Gospel is supposed to convict the sinner to repent and fall on their face and glorify God. I don’t see a lot of that in church. The Word is supposed to heal and restore. I don’t see a lot of that in church either. I see people “healed” but nothing changes. They come to church in a wheelchair, get “healed” and wheeled back out. Week after week, month after month. That’s not what I see in the Bible. So therefore, we must not be hearing what Jesus taught, but “another gospel” that Paul warned against. I’m hungry for what I see in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts.
Hey, has Jesus and the message of the Gospel lost it’s power? Stop settling for “Nothing happening here” church! If nothing is happening, then God isn’t there! (Sorry church, but that’s the truth.) Look at the Bible…when God shows up, things happen! Does God change? If the Word of God isn’t changing our life, it isn’t God’s fault…it’s ours! We need to change!
And if it isn’t the true Word of God being preached to us, we need to demand that change too.
I want to see God do something! We don’t “tickle people’s ears” here. We preach the Word of God and let it do it’s work, whether it’s for salvation, healing, deliverance, or whatever the Holy Spirit chooses to do. I minister to more than 8000 people every month by internet, and personal ministry, people who are reaching out, feeling for God, hungry to know Him, people needing prayer and individual attention. The ones who aren’t hungry usually “unsubscribe” after a few of my newsletters telling them to repent and put away their sins. They don’t want to hear it. One thing I find, Jesus will not force Himself upon you. He will let you do your own thing, even if you send yourself to hell for it. I have to work on myself daily, and as Paul said, he kept his body under, lest after preaching to others, he himself should be a castaway. I see that a very real and present danger for each of us.

Back in 1998, I was taught 12 steps by one particular movement about getting people delivered. Bought all the tapes and workbooks. But after 3 days of their teaching, I couldn’t deliver a newspaper. Then I saw it. Jesus didn’t do 12 steps, nor did He teach His disciples to. Jesus, by the Holy Spirit said simply, Cast the devil out. I asked the minister to show me those 12 steps in the Bible, and he said they weren’t in the Bible, but they thought them to be helpful. Well, that’s like telling me that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross wasn’t enough, we need to add such and such to it to make it enough…..

Man comes up with some goofy stuff, calling it “God said….” Everywhere I look, I see goofy stuff done in the name of Jesus. It makes me fear to stand in the office of a minister, knowing I could be one of the goofy ones, teaching for truth the lies that I hear from others.
No one sets out in ministry to deceive people. But error creeps in if great care isn’t taken to keep the Word of God pure. God is only obligated to perform what HE promises, not what some man adds to His promises. That’s why so many of you have become disappointed with God, because of promises someone made to you saying “God said.”

Did God truly say….? That’s like you going to the Bank and signing a loan contract, then someone adding a page in later giving the bank officer a paid vacation in Hawaii after you had already signed the contract. Would you honor what someone else added in later? Of course not. And neither does God. So before you try to hold God to His word about something, make sure He promised it in the first place. God isn’t obligated to honor false doctrine.
He took me to His word and told me to forget everything I had been taught about Him, and let Him reveal Himself to me. I started in Genesis 1:1 and can you believe I actually argued with God about things I had been (mis)taught about Him by churches and certain ministers?

I see the work of an evangelist, to seek and save the lost, as my main work. If seeking and saving the lost was Jesus’ main issue, then it must be yours and mine also, as I have been teaching strongly the last couple years especially. Yes, there are other issues I teach on, such as healing, and discipleship, but none are so important as salvation. For example, churches where the women are required to wear long dresses and head covers on their heads don’t really solve anything. You can cover a woman’s body head to toe, but unless you get rid of the lust in the men’s hearts, it is in vain. Women have lust too, it isn’t just a man thing. It’s like putting a band-aid on a festering sore. It’s still there, you just can’t see it. I want to see hearts delivered from lust and the desire to sin. I want to see people worship God because they want to, on their own time in their own homes, not just when they come to church, but because He is Holy, and is worthy of our worship. He is the God we serve, not vice-versa.
I had some “sacred cows” that people had instilled in me, and have had to butcher them and feed them to the pigs; things that appeal to man’s carnality, money, things, riches, popularity. While I know that God has no problem with us having things, He has a real problem with things having us. Too many have built their lives around using God to get the things they want. That stinks! God is not our servant, we are HIS! How did people ever get so far off? Well, a little here, a little there…. For example, it has been taught that money has no will of it’s own. So if you speak to it, it must obey. Well, money not only has no will of it’s own, it has no ears to hear, either. You can tell your next door neighbor’s money to come to you in Jesus’ name all day. Let me know how much of it comes over to you, ok?
The only thing I find is true is what the Bible says. As for me, I’m asking God to make me an evangelist, a fisher of men, to seek and save the lost. There are plenty of lost souls to go around for all of us who are soul-winners. I’m reading a book right now called “Evangelism By Fire” by Reinhard Bonnke. It sets me on fire, like it was written to me only. God is stirring my heart from this book, reminding me what my ministry truly is. It’s time now for the body of Christ to concentrate on that which is of first importance.
God puts doors of choice before us all. Many stand in front of the prosperity door. You can spot them, they’re the ones who say they would use their riches for the Kingdom of God, yet who never give a dime out of what they have right now to do the work of the ministry. I find that precious few people whom God prospers actually use it to fund the preaching of the Gospel. That’s just the facts, Ma’am. The whole world is lining up at the “bless me” door. Their motto is What about me? Well, what about you? It isn’t all about you anyway. It’s about JESUS. I shall go to the Evangelism door. It’s the little door that you have to get down upon your knees to crawl through. Not many are interested in that one, it involves time on your knees and sacrifice, so at least the line is not long. For those of you with little patience, you can go evangelize right now….no waiting…”GO YE into all the world and peach the Gospel to every creature.”
The lost, the unsaved, the sinners are at Wal-mart, the grocery store, Six Flags, on the street, in your neighborhood. If you want to fish, you go where the fish are, right? They aren’t at church. Go to the highways and byways, and hedges. It isn’t about “Come and hear”, it’s about “Go and tell”. Do home meetings for those who will come and listen, in your home or theirs. Prison ministry is a wide open door. If you really want to be a minister for Jesus, go into the prisons, the hospitals, the places where “the anointed” don’t want to go. Most of “the anointed” only want to go preach in mega-churches or on TV. They’re celebrities, the untouchables. I’ve been on TV many times, but you will still find me seeking the lost, wherever they are. I never want to be so “anointed” that I have to separate myself from “ordinary” people. They are precious to Jesus, and they are precious to me.

There are many pastors and ministers going through divorces and marriage problems, why? Because they got off the Word. I’m counseling more than one pastor right now whose marriage is on the rocks. I think a lot of it is due to having a hard heart toward people. They aren’t walking in love with one another. Being a minister does not give you an edge over others who are not. In fact, the pressure is much higher. You still have to control yourself and guard against lust and keep your eyes fixed firmly on Jesus. You still have to spend time with God and guard your heart daily. Being a minister is hard. You are not only responsible for your own life, but for those you teach as well. God says you will answer for that which you teach. The eyes of the world are upon you. But I know I’m called, whether I want the job or not. Life was so much easier when I did my furniture repair all week, working hard making money and playing on the weekends. But Jesus didn’t promise us easy. He just promised He will deliver us from all our troubles. He said He would make us fishers of men, that’s our job description now,or should be.
I just made an illustration for Jenny. I got in a drawer and got out a ruler. This is 6 inches, the ruler says. So I looked at the ruler and put it back in the drawer. I took a paper made a line that looked like 6 inches. I made a few more, not looking at the ones I did before it. After a while, I got the ruler back out and found my line was no longer 6 inches, but it was closer to 7. We get into God’s word, the Ruler. We read and study it and learn, and then stop looking at the Ruler, thinking we can accurately lay out the line without the ruler, and we may for a while. But after a time, we will begin to err, then more and more, until after a while, we are not even close to the mark. When I heard someone of great prominence recently teach on TV on Philippians 4:19 about the word “need” should be translated as “demand”, I started to accept it as truth, as I did all their other teaching, but the Holy Spirit warned me to get out the Ruler. Since when do we demand anything of God? What was said didn’t measure up.
I apply the Ruler to several other’s teachings about Jesus going to hell and being tortured by Satan and his demons after He died on the cross.. That doesn’t measure up. Jesus said on the cross, It is finished! No one has been in hell yet, because the White Throne judgment has not happened yet, nor has Satan been cast into the Lake of Fire yet. Nor does the Word say Satan will rule over anyone in hell. He won’t. Many other teachings don’t measure up either. Don’t take my word for it…check it out for yourself like I did. Then I applied the ruler to what else I had grown to believe. You need to do that too. Has your ruler been stretched by some teachings from what the Bible said? Line upon line, precept upon precept. Error upon error, here a little, there a little. Well, thank God, He got my attention to look closely at what I have been hearing. Just as with a business, it’s inventory time! Time to find out what we have, and what we don’t have. Time to find out what is truth, and what’s snot. We all need to do take inventory on a real regular basis. You do that by daily reading the Bible. But every now and then, take out your favorite doctrine and compare it again to the Word of God. See if it still stands the test of God’s Word. You may be amazed to find how your beliefs evolve over a period of time. I was.

And now, a word from our Sponsor…..
Jer 24:7 And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
If the tone of this letter seems a little hard, that’s because it is. I’m so tired of seeing people wanting to see a move of God, only to get robbed again and again. And I know why they’re getting robbed….because of false doctrines! Jude 3 says, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Get the Ruler out, and put it up against every doctrine you hold dear. See if it measures up. Put the tapes away, put the books away. Turn off the TV. Forget what you’ve heard from someone else, even me. Just lay the ruler down and let it give you the true measure of what your life should be. I may accidently lie to you, I may err, but the Word of God will not! The Bible is the Ruler we must live by!
I’m not telling you to forsake the teachings of others you enjoy, but rather closely compare what they are saying against the Bible. Don’t be lazy! If it doesn’t measure up, chuck it! That includes my writings, I make no exception for myself. It doesn’t matter how society changes, how customs or clothing changes, one thing never changes…the Holy Bible…the Ruler, the Lord God Almighty.