WINNING WORDS!--No.1
Copyright July 1988 by Heaven's Magic
Winning Words!--Valuable information on love, faith & prayer that can make your life more meaningful.
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Love is believing, trusting, helping, sharing, encouraging, confiding, understanding, caring, feeling, touching, giving, praying. Love is communication, love is an emotion, love is passionate, alive, vibrant & warm. Love is something that gets better all the time. Love is the greatest need of Man, so love is the greatest service to Man. Love is spiritual, but is manifested in the physical. Love is seen as it is put into action. Love is thoughtfulness. Love is always, it knows no hours nor days. Love is always finding a way. Love is giving all. Love is rare, the unselfish kind. Love is priceless. Love is its own reward. Love is not hurting anybody. Love is choosing to suffer & hurt yourself so that you can help someone else. Love is courage. Love is total sacrifice. Love is never lost, it always has its effect sooner or later. Love is forever. Love is saying you're sorry. Love is quick to forgive. Love is humbling. The truly loving are truly humble. Love is the name of God. Love is the power of God. Love "is" God, God "is" Love!
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The Word of God is like a map to help you find your way through life. You should no more try to find your own way through life than you should try to take a trip without a map. While travelling along a road, you can only see what's around you moment by moment. But if you'll look at the map & have faith in it, you can also see where the road came from, regardless of where you started out yourself. And even if you've never been to your final destination or travelled that road before, you can know where the road is supposed to end. But if you don't take time to study the map, you could waste an awful lot of time & maybe even ruin your chances of getting to your destination at all. Just as you must look at the map, believe it's true & follow it to get where you're going, if you will take God's Word, believe that it is for you, read it & follow it, you'll come out at Heaven--absolutely without fail! Just follow the Mapbook, & you'll know where you're going. God can see it all, & He not only knows where you are right now & where you came from, your past, but He knows where you're going. Do you? You can!
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God is still on the throne & prayer changes things! Most people today seem to put the stories of Jesus & His disciples way back in the past. They're looked on as fairy tales, they have no reality to them. God is far away, Heaven is far away, Jesus has long been dead, everything is so far away. But the Lord is just as real as ever, & can still do the same & even more so. God is still alive, well & working just as powerfully as ever amongst those that trust in Him. He says in the Bible, "I am the Lord, I change not," & "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today & forever." The day of miracles is not past. God's Word & His guarantees have no restrictions, no limitations, no qualifications except our faith. All God asks of us is that we honour Him with faith by believing the promises in His Word. When you pray, bring those promises with you to remind Him. When you remind God of His Word, it shows you have faith in it. It's a positive declaration of your faith & your knowledge of the Word which pleases God. So quote Scriptures & hold God to His Word!
"Keep on believing,
God answers prayer.
Keep on believing,
He's still up There."
He has never failed in one of His good promises!
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Enjoy yourself, enjoy life!--But enjoy the Lord most of all. God intended for us to enjoy this World, & to love Him & enjoy Him & it forever. He made all things for you to enjoy, & He created the very senses with which you enjoy them. If you put God first & His Kingdom & His righteousness first, you can enjoy them all to the full, every good & perfect gift that God has sent down from above that God Himself created for you to enjoy as His child. Enjoy the pleasures which God has given you to enjoy as much as you please, & as much as you need, but just don't enjoy them more than Him & more than His Love. If you have an inordinate desire for too much of these things & worship these things more than God, then it becomes a sin. Don't let them take first place in your life, because God will not take second place. He wants your love above all others, He wants to be your God above all others, & He will have no other gods before Him! Be sure that you put God first, love & worship Him above all, & thank Him for all these things that He has given us to enjoy. Then you can have all this & Heaven too! Amen?
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Isn't it wonderful to trust the Lord? Faith in God, trust in God gives you a feeling of rest of body, peace of mind, contentment of heart & spiritual well-being. When you know that God loves you, you know that everything is going to be OK, including His taking care of everything. Then you can have peace of mind & you can just rest in the Lord. But worry can kill you! The Bible tells us, "fear hath torment."--How true! Fear is a killer! You can worry yourself sick, worry yourself to death! This is why faith in Christ & His Word is the greatest cure that you could possibly have. Faith is the opposite of fear, & when you have faith you cannot fear. You either have one or the other, & if fear displaces faith, then you've got problems. But if you cling to God & the Lord & His Word, & replace fear with faith, then you've got solutions. So rest your case with Him, He never fails & if you truly trust Him, He'll see you through. Help us not to worry, Lord, because we trust You & we keep our mind stayed on You & You keep us in perfect peace. We know You're going to handle everything, Lord, & You know what's best to do, & we know that You're in control, Lord.
"Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast,
Here no fears alarm me,
Here can my soul find rest."
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Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven. Every day millions of Christians all over the World pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven," but most of them probably don't really appreciate the tremendousness of that statement in the Lord's prayer, & how literally it's going to come true & be fulfilled. It's actually going to be like Heaven on Earth with God's Will being done & His Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven. Jesus told His disciples, "The Kingdom of God is within you." This is true for all of us who know & love the Lord, we already have Heaven on Earth in our hearts. But during the coming 1000-year reign of Christ on Earth, the Millennium, He's going to wipe away all this Hell on Earth, & He's going to set up His Kingdom of peace & righteousness & fairness & justice & goodness & mercy & love.--And that's going to literally be Heaven on Earth. His Kingdom won't only be within us, but it will be all around us! The Kingdom of Christ on Earth is going to completely cover the whole World!
"For the darkness shall turn to dawning,
And the dawning to noonday bright,
And Christ's great Kingdom shall come on Earth,
The Kingdom of love & light!"
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Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal. God's Word is always a comfort, & the voice of His Spirit is always an encouragement in the hour of greatest trial. The Bible says, "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." When you think about that, it helps you bear some of the things that you have to go through now. "Sorrow may endure for a season, but joy cometh in the morning." Keep your eyes on the Lord, look forward to Heaven & it will help you bear some of these burdens & trials that you're going through now when you realise these are only just for a moment. Now you see through a glass darkly, but soon it will all be clear & you'll understand. God's tomorrow is a beautiful place! You'll be with Jesus & all your loved ones & no sorrow will be there. Praise God! The tears shall be wiped away & the former things shall be no more in the glories of the ecstasies of the Kingdom to come.
"It will be worth it all when we see Jesus,
Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ!
One glimpse of His dear face, all sorrow will erase!
So bravely run the race 'til we see Christ!"
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Wouldn't it be wonderful if people would simply do what Jesus said to do? Jesus said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," so of course when people don't treat others with much love, they're going to have problems--& they have! In fact, all of the evils in the World today are caused by men's lack of love for God & each other. The simple Love of God & each other is still God's solution even in such a complex, confused & highly complicated society as that of the World today. It's still just that simple! If we love God, we can love each other & even respect ourselves as His Creation. We can then follow His rules of life, liberty & the possession of happiness & all will be well & happy in Him! So ask God to help you love your neighbours with His Love, & remember, "neighbour" doesn't only mean the one that lives next door, it is anyone we meet that needs our help, regardless of their race, creed, colour, nationality or condition. A little love & understanding & tolerance & sharing could go such a long way in solving all of the World's problems. In fact, this is our goal--to love God & our neighbours as ourselves--& as a result, bring love to this whole World, & peace & freedom & plenty to all! To love God & thy neighbour would solve all of the World's problems. Do you? Love will solve all "your" problems too!
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You get what you ask for, & what you have faith for! The Lord is trying to be as good to us as possible, & He will give you whatever you want that's good for you because He loves you. He promises, "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." But sometimes the Bible tells us that we have not because we ask not. So if you really need something, pray it in! Pray for it! Just be careful what you ask the Lord to do, because He'll take you literally. The Lord will take you exactly at Your Word & your faith. The true story is told of a certain preacher who prayed, "Lord, give me a car! I need a car, I'm desperate for a car, Lord! Any old car!"--And that's exactly what he got, exactly what he asked for, a real clunker! He said, "Next time I prayed for a "good" car & I got it!" God is very definite, so be definite with Him. He says, "Command ye Me!" He'll give you what you ask for & certainly what you have the faith for. That's the way the Lord blesses if you trust Him, if you please Him, if you follow Him, if you obey Him, if you're getting the work accomplished that He wants you to accomplish. God will give you what you have faith for, & you should have faith for what you need. If the need is there, the answer must be there too. So just look around & pray it in!
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Eternal salvation by grace means once saved, always saved. Jesus said, "He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life," right now, no ifs, ands or buts about it! You already have it, you don't have to worry about are you going to have it or are you going to fall from grace or are you going to manage to stay saved or are you going to manage to keep true & then finally be given the reward of salvation for your faithfulness. Salvation is not a reward, it's not pay, it's not wages. It is a gift that you don't earn by faithfulness or any kind of works of your own--& that's all there is to that.--Nothing else, no other way, no righteousness of your own, none of your own good works! None of these can keep you saved any more than they can save you in the first place. Only Jesus can do it! The "gift" of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, His Son. A "works" salvation is no salvation at all! You cannot be good enough, no matter how many good deeds that you do, they won't save you. The Bible says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith, & that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God." It's impossible to save yourself. You have eternal life through His Son, which is the gift of God, & you cannot lose it, for He will keep you. You are the Lord's forever!
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We walk by faith, not by sight. So many people today say, "I'll believe it when I see it, seeing is believing." But that's not the way that faith works. To the Christian, "believing" is "seeing." God wants us to trust Him & believe first of all & then we'll see the answer. He puts us through that period of faith & believing & trusting to see if we really love Him & are willing to trust Him. He wants to see if we really have faith. He appreciates our faith to believe what we cannot see. We can't expect faith from God for our situation when we're looking at the waves, looking at ourselves, looking at the conditions instead of looking at God.
Man says, "Tie up in port, don't attempt the impossible! You'll sink!"
God says, "Launch out into the deep, cast forth your nets & I'll give you such a draught that there will not be room enough to hold it!"
Man says, "Look at the condition of your vessel, you can't do it!"
God says, "Look at Me! With Man it is impossible, with God nothing shall be impossible, & all things are possible to Him that believeth."
"Keep your eyes on Jesus,
His promises avail,
Keep your eyes on Jesus,
His Word can never fail."
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"SIDE TWO"
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Faith is believing in the unseeable. Faith is tranquil when it's very stormy. Faith is not passive, it acts out what it believes. Faith is asking for what you need. Faith is hearing the inaudible, seeing the invisible, believing the incredible, & receiving the impossible. Faith is completely contrary to natural expectation & natural conditions. Faith is creating a vacuum in your heart for God to fill. Faith is not only believing that God "can," but that God "will." Faith is not surprised at the answer, faith expected it to happen. Faith is standing your ground when all others desert. Faith is burning your bridges so you cannot go back. Faith is willing to pay any price, faith is doing what God tells you to do today & believing Him for tomorrow. Faith is the opposite of fear. Faith is choosing God in spite of the other possibilities. Faith is standing on God's Word & not your feelings. Faith is willing to die trusting. That's the kind of faith that gets healing & works miracles! Faith is like a muscle that grows strong & supple with exercise. Faith is built by faithful study of God's Word.
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You'll never walk alone if you have Jesus in your heart & your hand in His. If you have Jesus, you always have company & love. No matter where you are, you are in His hands & He'll take care of you. Jesus is the One possession you'll never have to give up, never have to leave behind, never lose. You can give Him away as much as you like, but you'll always have Him, He'll always be near. He's always there. It's not the Lord that's not always there, it's we who are not always there. We're sometimes running off somewhere else & leaving Him way behind. But He never leaves us behind unless we don't follow. It's just that simple.
"If Jesus goes with me I'll go anywhere,
'Tis Heaven to me
Where'ere I may be
If He is there.
I count it a privilege here
My cross to bear,
If Jesus goes with me
I'll go anywhere."
"If by some still small voice
He calls to paths that I do not know,
I'll answer with my hand in His,
'I'll go where You want me to go.'"
Go with us, Lord, that's the best that we could possibly desire, is that You go with us every step of the way, & that we go with You every step of the way.
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No matter what else you're doing, you can always be praying. You don't have to be down on your hands & knees to be praying, in fact, in everything you're doing you ought to be praying, looking unto Jesus, the Author & Finisher of your faith. Prayer is like breathing, just breathing the Holy Spirit all the time. Stay in constant communication with the Lord, constantly thinking about Him, & you will be anointed & Spirit-led in everything you do. If you're praying about what you're doing & asking God for wisdom, He has promised to give it to you. The Lord can save you a lot of work, a lot of trouble & a lot of time if you'll just pray first before you start a job. Pray about it & ask the Lord to help you & lead you, even if it's just a word, "Jesus, please help me." You can pray in a split second & get the answer back quick. But if you lean on your own understanding & your own wisdom, you're apt to make a sad mistake. So pray without ceasing. Ask the Lord about everything--every problem, every decision--& make sure you're doing what He wants you to do. God's Word promises, "In all your ways acknowledge Him, & He will direct your paths."
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A Christian is not perfect, but he is forgiven. Some people say you've either got to be black or white, & there's no grey in between. But the fact of the matter is, there's no such thing as black or white!--We're just about all grey, aren't we? Nobody is perfectly clean & white except by the blood of Christ & by faith. Look at some of the greatest men in the Bible, men of faith, but all of them made mistakes. They all became shining examples not of their own greatness, but of their utter dependence on God. Nobody's ever good enough--we're all fallible, we all make mistakes, we all have sins, & it's all the grace of God. It's only His Love & mercy & His grace & His sacrifice on Calvary that saves us--nothing else, nothing! Thank God, salvation doesn't depend on how good we are or even how bad we are, but it depends on how much we trust the Lord, how much faith we have in Jesus Christ. In spite of all our sins & shortcomings, failures, mistakes & unsaintliness, God can still save us through Jesus. He still loves us & we can still be Christians if we will just love the Lord & love others. Only Jesus is perfect & able to help us, & that's why He came.
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God is pictured in His Son. None of us can really grasp how great God our Father is & how wonderful He is, beyond the mind of Man. The Bible says that He is so great even the whole Universe cannot contain Him. He's so beyond our comprehension that He has had to make Somebody who could show us His Love, Somebody who was within our realm, Somebody we could see, Someone we could feel, Someone we could experience, Someone who brings God down to our comprehension, one Man who was like Him whom He called His Son. God has stooped to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to be born on this Earth as an example of what God Himself is like. Jesus is His most outstanding means of communication with us, communicating to us His Own Love by means of His Own Son. Jesus is like the tip of the iceberg, the part you can see, but by far the greatest part of the iceberg, God, is out of sight. Even though you can't see the rest of the iceberg, you have a faint idea of what it is like by the part that shows above the water in this World, in this realm, the realm of Man. We know that God must be love by the loving part of Him that we can see in Jesus!
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The Word of God is the foundation of faith. How do you get faith? It is a gift of God, & it's available to you or anyone else who wants it. You just have to want it & ask for it. The problem is, people don't usually want it until they need it, & then they suddenly find they don't have the faith they need because they have no background of faith or trust in God's Word, no foundation. After all, how can they have faith in something they know little or nothing about. Just as no good building is without a good foundation, there is no faith without the Word because faith in God is built on His Word. So if you feel like you're weak in faith, there's a simple cure. God's Word will increase your faith. Faith comes, it grows by hearing the Word of God. As you faithfully read & study the Word, as you meditate on it & even memorise it, every Word will inspire, strengthen & increase your faith. Fill your mind & heart with positive, encouraging, strengthening, faith-building thoughts from His Word, & you'll soon be amazed at the faith you'll have.--True faith, the kind of faith that can stand any test, the kind that works miracles, the kind that lasts, built on the solid Rock Foundation of His Truth.
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The whole plan of God is built on free will within certain limitations. The name of the game, this whole game of life, is choices, constant choices. God sets choices before us all the time, & then lets us make our own decisions & operate within certain bounds. God's Will is sort of like a tunnel, it confines & restricts us to a certain area of movement & possibility. He keeps us within certain boundaries & limitations, but which way we go in the tunnel, left or right or up or down, depends a lot on us & our choice. There's a certain leeway, an allowance for variations of choice in the Will of God as long as it stays within the bounds which He has set. And though we are allowed to find our way through the tunnel any way we wish, we should be making progress with each step & not going backward. The tunnel always leads in the right direction, it always has a goal, & of course there's always the best even within the tunnel. When we yield to the Lord & let our choices be "His" choices, pleasing the Lord, delighting ourselves in Him, then we go His direction, in the center of His Will, following that light at the other end of the tunnel. Thank You Jesus!
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You can't be God's fair-weather friend only, you have to keep on serving the Lord even when everything goes all wrong. Most Christians can have faith under normal conditions for usual situations, what they expect God to do. But only those with great faith like Job, when everything goes wrong & seems contrary to the Word & the usual, only those with great faith can say with Job, "Even though He slay me, yet will I trust Him!" What Job was saying was, "Even though it seems like God is breaking His Own Word with me, even though God kills me contrary to all His promises, I'll still trust Him." If you're only going to be willing to believe & obey the Lord as long as everything goes alright, you won't be believing or obeying very much because a lot of things can seem to go wrong when you're serving the Lord. But even though "many are the afflictions of the righteous," the Bible promises the Lord "delivereth him out of them all," no matter how many or what. So let's try to be able to take our testing & temptation & yet without sin, & without failure. "Trust in God, however dark your way, no matter what hard turns the road may take. Hold to His hand until the break of day, when in His likeness we shall then awake."
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Nothing happens without God's Will, especially to His child whom He loves. Nothing happens to a Christian without some spiritual cause, it's always for a good reason, to teach us something or because of our own sins, faults, mistakes, neglects or disobediences. The Lord is in control, nothing happens without His permission or our permission. Sometimes we get ourselves into these things by allowing them ourselves through our own carelessness or prayerlessness. The Lord does everything for a good reason. He says, "All things come of God & all things work together for good to them that love the Lord." He's trying to train, discipline & chasten us to make us better. But chastenings, like Paul confesses in Hebrews 12, are sometimes inclined to discourage us & tempt us to give up instead. But about that time the Lord always comes to our rescue. "Things don't just happen to children of God, they're part of a wonderful plan. The troubles, reverses, the sorrows, the rod are strokes of the Great Sculptor's hand. Things don't just happen to children of God, the blueprint was made by His hand. He designed all the details to conform to His Son, so all things that happen are planned."
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Winter's over, Spring is here! It's a pity to live in unhappiness when just around the corner your life can be thrilling & fulfilling & wonderful beyond all expectation!
"Beyond the blue horizon waits a beautiful day!
Goodbye to things that bore me,
Joy is waiting for me.
I found a new horizon,
My life has only begun.
Beyond the blue horizon,
Waits a rising Sun!"
For all of you who have found the Lord, that certainly is true. Your life is constantly full of new horizons behind which the rising Sun of Jesus is always rising & always brightening each new day, giving you new experiences & new excitement, new thrills, a new wonderful life in Jesus. Hallelujah! Jesus said, "I am come that ye might have life, & have it more abundantly," & enjoy His joy to the fullest here & now. Not just pie in the sky in Heaven hereafter, but Jesus promised us a hundredfold in this life & in the World to come life eternal. All this & Heaven too!--Heaven on Earth & Heaven hereafter! When we find Jesus, it's like the end of a cold, hard Winter & the beginning of a beautiful new spring-like awakening of the Spirit of Life. We have a Heaven on Earth in our hearts in the peaceful, sunny beauty of God's bright Spring sunshine!
"For Truth & Spring our God can bring,
And happy you can be!
Take Jesus' joy right here & now,
And live a life that's free!"
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Would you like to receive Jesus into your heart, & thus be able to partake of all the wonderful promises that you've heard about on this tape? Would you like to be born again into God's spiritual Kingdom of Eternal Love & Joy? The Bible says, "For God so loved the World (you & me), that He gave His Own Son, Jesus, that whoever believes in Him should never die but have everlasting life." Jesus promised that if you open up your heart & ask Him to come in, He will come in. He says, "Behold, I stand at the door (of your heart) & knock. If any man hear My voice & open the door, I will come into him." You can receive Jesus right now & everything He has to offer you by simply praying this little prayer with me:
Dear Jesus, please forgive me for all my sins. I believe that You are the Son of God & that You died for me, & I now invite You into my heart. Jesus, please come in & help me to love others & tell them about You so that they may find You too. In Jesus' name I ask, amen.
Well, if you prayed these words sincerely, your new life has just begun, you've entered a whole new dimension. There's an exciting new World to explore & so much to look forward to! Don't be surprised if you actually feel different, think differently & are happier than you've ever been before. Now you'll have a whole new outlook on life, a new way of looking at the World with new reactions to nearly everything around you. Now that Jesus has come into your heart, everything is changed. You are a new person, so expect to be different. You'll find a change in your spirit, in your thoughts, in your heart & in your goals. You'll be happy & overflowing with Love!--Because if you have Jesus, you have Love, for God "is" Love!
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