I have one main job. It is to encourage people to come to know and feverishly love Jesus Christ through the study of the Bible. God called me at 18 between my freshman and sophomore year of college, started teaching me how to get up in front of a group and communicate between that time and my mid-twenties then, at 27, He set a torch in my chest for His Word. That fire has burned in me for 30 years. It is my whole ministry life. I love those pages more than I love a sizzling skillet of great food. I love the One who breathed those words on the page, taking His own sweet time, over centuries strewn mysteriously with periods of divine silence. From the very beginning, God called me to serve interdenominationally. I have been part of one denomination since the cradle roll but I have had the privilege and clear insistence of the Holy Spirit to serve all over the Christian spectrum where people would have me. I will serve any group of people anywhere my schedule allows as long as I don’t have to compromise the message of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus alone and the exhortation for people to come to love and know Him and serve Him through the ongoing study of Scripture.
I serve Baptists, Lutherans, Assembly of God and everything around them and in between. I serve both cessationists and charismatics. I serve people who raise their hands and people who sit on their hands. Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll serve anybody. It’s not everybody’s calling but it’s mine. I may feel less comfortable some places than others as Jesus opens gates to new fields but I cannot find a single place Jesus commanded us in Scripture to go where we feel most comfortable or where people already agree with everything we have to say. I love the Body of Christ in all its diversity. I am not blind to our flaws and sins and imbalances but I still believe in the power of Jesus Christ to save and deliver through the gospel invading this globe.
Here’s why I’m writing today. We are in colossal need of a collective uprising of faith even amid our differences of opinions on other matters. Faith is still the paramount response God requires from His people. We want so much for it to be our righteousness because it feels more secure and reliable and tame and God knows it looks better out there in front of people. You will get no argument from me on that one. Make no mistake, our pursuit of righteousness is crucial. Carnality kills our witness and quenches the Holy Spirit. It destroys our relationships and unravels our effectiveness. But God has a greater priority even than our righteousness. He wants our FAITH. We don’t get to make the rules. We don’t get a vote. God is sovereign and this is the way He’s chosen to do it: Our faith is counted to us as righteousness. Of Abraham, Paul wrote in Romans 5…
20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.Â
Without faith, it is still impossible to please Him. (Hebrews 11:6) Jesus can do anything He pleases but He is still the same Savior who worked few wonders where He saw little faith. (Mark 5:5-6) He is still the same Son of God who stated unwaveringly, “According to your faith be it done to you.” (Matthew 9:29)
We need God’s intervention in our day. Our nation needs His help. Our globe is quaking with oppression and darkness. People are lost, suffering, starving and dying. People in nearby cubicles at work feel despair and hopelessness. Many within a few miles of each of our front doors are contemplating suicide. We need doors open for the gospel that are shut so tight, the best evangelical strategies will not budge them. We need God’s wonders to be renewed in our day. (Habakkuk 3:2) Even if you believe wonders largely ceased with the completion of the New Testament canon, I’m wondering if perhaps you might be willing to cry out for the sake of this broken world and ask God to have mercy on us and intervene miraculously in our midst.
The common bond for all of us truly in Christ is our faith in what He has already done through the power of His cross and resurrection. That is nonnegotiable. But is He not also calling us to faith in what He has yet to do in fulfillment of His own prophetic word? What He might currently do if enough of us were willing to lay down our differences and our comforts to fall on our faces and ask? This is not about spiritual gifts if that is an issue that makes you resistant to believing God for wonders in our day. This is about supernatural power. And we are desperate for it. We need wonders of salvation, deliverance, freedom, rescue, repentance, revival, reconciliation, forgiveness. We need healing from bitterness and offense. We need miracles of unity in a fractured church. We need holiness and wholeness. We need mighty servants of God raised up all over the world to serve Him, to teach and preach His Word. We need boldness and fearlessness. We need supernatural strength to suffer well when suffering is imperative to His glory. We need to love people we hate. We need miracles.
To those of us who are willing to keep believing Him, God has promised the immeasurable greatness of the very power He exercised to raise Jesus from the dead. (Ephesians 1:19-20) He is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or think but He commands us to both ask and think, and to pray and believe, to seek and beat the door down.
We are here such a short time. You and I will stand in that great cloud of witnesses in the blink of an eye. We want to be among the generations of whom Jesus can say, “I got to do great and mighty things in that era right there. Those people had some kind of fiery faith.” Oh, make it so, Lord Jesus. Let it be. Revive us again.
“Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” Luke 18:8
Amen & Amen! You have so hit the nail on the head with this blog, Beth. I wish the body of Christ would see how much she is hurting herself with all the infliction of pain we put on each other. We tend to forget that we are the ONE Body of Christ. We do Not go around inflicting pain and maiming our physical bodies on purpose unless we have a serious mental issue. So why should we do that to the body of Christ, we have some serious spiritual issues. Look to Jesus, confess these and let us love one another and get back to work for our time is short.
Thank you for your word, Beth. You speak the truth and it both inspires and convicts me. Keep writing. I will press on. Bless you. Sarah
Ps. My second granddaughter was born last night~ further encouragement to be in Christ for this world!!
Oh how I needed to hear this today. Amid the turmoil in the world around us, the politics that that flood on to Facebook and make friend bash friend, I needed to know someone out there is on their knees praying for our leaders, the United States, the World.
This post blessed my heart. Yes, I too am praying that we will be a people of fiery faith. I pray with you, Revive us again!
Mrs. Beth,
Thank you for speaking truth and love with such boldness! I am praying for you today.
With a grateful heart,
Laura Knight
Murfreesoboro, TN
Mrs. Beth,
Thank you for speaking truth and love with such boldness! I am praying for you today.
With a grateful heart,
Laura Knight
Murfreesboro, TN
Preach!
Amen! And thank you for a very timely message. May God continue to bless you (and us) richly. To God be the glory!
Yes! I will pray. I will ask. I will believe.
AMEN to ALL the above!!
I pray He will find me faithful. I realize that much of our busyness and fretting are the chaff that the fire consumes. I ask for the power and perspective to tend to the divine chores that Jesus has assigned me. More often now I pray as the tax collector did, that God would have mercy on me on us. I pray because I am becoming more desperately aware of my own need of prayer of Him. From your heart to God’s ears sister!
Thank you, Beth.
Oh Beth! I wholeheartedly agree. That is why I am in the process of publishing a christian blog. My target audience is non-christians, new christians, and christians who have lost their passion for their faith.
Thank you for this blog. It is inspiring me!
Beth, thank you for the reminder to expect immeasurably more and to remember that we serve a powerful God. I have to have the boldness to ask and then believe that He knows better than what I could imagine.
Wonderful!! I’m in!
May God reward your faith with more influence for him than ever before. At the last Conference in Greenville, SC, I loved the way you called the girls to the front who wanted to accept Jesus. My dear husband of 56 years, Gerry, went to heaven 2 weeks ago and my faith in Jesus is holding me up. Thank you for your encouragement.
Amen and Amen.
Beth,
I woke up this morning thinking of you. Thinking of your faithfulness. I thank God for the encouragement and truth you continue to bring to my life. Thank you for teaching all of us all these years. I am praying for you and I am praying in agreement with you. I want to love the people around me with the gospel. May God strengthen you and continue to fill you with His grace and truth for others.
Julie Adams
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, which is why what you do is so important, Beth.
It’s interesting that one of the first signs of physical maturity in a child is their ability to feed themselves. I think this is a metaphor for spiritual maturity as well, which was why Paul marveled and lamented that although the church should have been ready for solid food, they were still nourished only by the milk, which left them weak and unable to take what they had learned to feed others.
There is real danger for us to remain in receiving mode; always learning but never coming to understanding. At a certain point we must step out in faith.
For some of us, it’s time to stop admiring Beth from the safety of the rear and join her on the front lines in our own spheres of influence – risking exposure to harsh criticism and ugly condemnation. Risk being misunderstood sometimes and maybe even wrong at times (my private fear), yet confident that Christ is bigger than our mistakes.
We need miracles in our day, but they must be the miracles of God’s choosing.
The miracles of the Old and New Testament often corresponded with a need for deliverance from the enemies of God’s people as they stepped out in faithful obedience. God didn’t just part the Red Sea as a sign; he did so to deliver his people who had stepped out in obedience and were about to be destroyed. Maybe the absence of large, corporate miracles in our day is less a matter of God’s willingness and more a reflection of our unwillingness to take risks and to engage the enemy. How often does our faith walk require his direct, divine intervention?
We are assured that Jesus will never leave or forsake us.
It’s not a question of whether or not he holds our lives and our ministries, our families and our destinies in his sovereign hand. We know experientially and intellectually that he does. The question is whether we will use that knowledge to rest in relative safety or take that assurance as a call to action – to step out in boldness. We’d do well to remember that the full armor of God comes with shoes!
Thank you Beth for this awesome letter, it is not only uplifting, inspiring, and thought provoking but convicting. I think sometimes my faith is strong only to realize it is weak. I want to be so close to the Lord that I can hear Him breathe, so strong I will not waver, so firm in Him that I will stand firm.
Amen! I love that picture of beating the door down. Kind of like the men who made a hole in the roof to lower their friend down to Jesus. Sometimes we need to have faith for seeking God’s help for those whose faith is weak. May God do great and amazing things for them in response to our prayers. He is mind-blowingly amazing!
The Lord has shown me a plan called PRAY 714 to accomplish what you are writing about. It involves having groups of Christians of many denominations around the world pray 2 Chronicles 7:14 according to a prayer guide sometime during the week of July 10-16. Can you imagine the impact on our world if Christians around the world actually do humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways? And we seek God with diligence during the same 7- day period? I can send a copy of the Prayer Guide if you would be interested.
I have been. Pray that a lady named Tracy will come with me to your event in Chicago. I asked her to Milwaukee’s event last year and she declined. Somewhere the church hurt her. Me too. But God helped me. I see her hurt. Maybe because God gave me sight. Who know’s. She would be our miracle. I believe if Tracy caught on then others would and my little corner in this world might witness some Jesus. But that’s just what I think. I’m praying for it. Pray with me.
UPDATE: She agreed to come. So I’m doing a Nazarite vow to no glass of wine til after the event and I will be praying. I sure hope someone see’s this and pray too.
Miss Beth~I love how you speak your mind and get right to the heart of things. Thank you for your words of “faith” and thereby sometimes “lack of faith.” God forgive me for the times I lack “faith” but more importantly thank you Lord for the times I do have “faith” and that this King’s daughter is pressing on. It’s a real spiritual warfare out there, and as for me, the attacks hit right in my own home. I once told the pastor’s wife that I felt a lot like Job, and she said to me, aren’t you glad God thinks that much of you? I guess I never thought of it that way…so I press on to see what God has in stored for me on the other side, and have “faith” that God will see me through the trials & tribulations. Thank you Beth for those encouraging words of “faith.” God bless you Sister!!!
Yes, this is so true. Thank you. I am praying with you in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.
Amen. In prayer and seeking the face of God, I said “Lord, what am I to do.” The Holy Spirit spoke, “Occupy”. Well, with one word I took it to mean, “Get busy, girl”! Thankful for a pioneer such as yourself, Ms. Beth! Let’s close the gaps, and stand shoulder to should for Christ…Pentecostal, Baptist, Methodist….Let’s just love Jesus…together. 🙂 We can each bring something to the table! Press on.
YES! YES! YES! WE NEED AN UPRISING OF FAITH! I NNNNNNEEEEEDDDDD IT! MY HUSBAND NEEDS IT – WE ALL NEED IT! PLEASE PRAY THIS FOR US – JERRY AND LESLIE CRAWLEY
MUCH LOVE AND JOY TO YOU – KEEP UP THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH!
LESLIE
Yes and Amen. Praying with you and believing Jesus is near. All powerful and All good God we need you.
Amen – thank you for honoring your call and being obedient.
I went to my first LPL back in 1998. After I heard you tell the story of getting into your car after a bible class, I TOO got into my car and prayed…”I want to know my bible like she does”. I believe you were touched by a profession or teacher at your church. I have done several of your bible studies with women over the past 15 years, but truly ONLY had my eyes open to that LOVE you speak about back in February of 2011….at a God Encounter Weekend. 5 years later, He has placed a vision within me and I am a part of a group that has had some similar God Encounter weekends twice a year. Anyway… I reposted your blog, as our next one is titled, “boundless grace’ and I am so excited and expecting God to rock it and show off…. He has asked me to ‘do this’… with the various worship places within our community. At this next Encounter Weekend – 5 different places of worship will be represented – which is the BODY of Christ – His Bride! God is so faithful. God is so merciful…He is indeed everything YOU have described on this page. And, as God plans it and I obey, He uses your curriculum for our training and He unites us as we study His word using the tools He has created through you — so THANKS!
If you happen to be in Titusville , Florida on Friday – April 8th… stop by our retreat center …Park Avenue Retreat Center — we begin at 5:30 and will leave Sunday by 10am….and we will enter as 17 leaders and 28 women seeking freedom from captivity…and we will all leave changed and different — I have seen it happen 7 different times….God is continually drawing His people near. What a glories time to be living in this Kingdom Calendar… for such a time as this.
Thank you Beth for being obedient as obedience brings rewards.
I look forward to chatting with you — if the Lord orchestrates it on this side of heaven or if you get a hankering to visit us at Park Avenue Retreat Center in Titusville Florida on the 8th or the 9th of April…. or…we will chat in heaven.
God bless you – Beth —
Michelle Pritchard
Okeechobee, Florida
Well said, dear Sister in Christ!!! I have just returned from a 10 day grande silence retreat led by a wonderful Catholic priest. An opportunity to drop my big fat ego and rest in our Lord. I could not agree more. Our planet is hurting and we must have Christ to heal us. Thank you Beth for your ministry. You have certainly ministered to me over the past years. As I enter another cross roads in a long and difficult season, over 18 years, I appreciate those of you called to bring Christ’s love into almost unbearable circumstances with a ray of hope and renewed faith. God Bless you for using your gift for the Kingdom of God.
Thank you for your ministry. I just found your blog and after I signed up on twitter…I know, I am a bit behind the times. But grateful to be able to connect with you in real time. I have been doing your bible studies and simulcasts for years. Have read most of your books and am now embarking on my on my own ministry. I am a constituent minister for Volunteers of America and also involved with Celebrate Recovery at my church. Both organizations are working together with men and women in substance abuse treatment centers. Today I decided to train for ordination, which will take me away from your studies for a year. Something that quite honestly scared me. But out of the blue, God had me finally sign up for Twitter, which led me here and now I feel I need not lose my connection to your shepherding. I pray for you and am so thankful that you have such a gigantic heart for Jesus❤️ The world needs 10,000 more like you. Bless you for blessing me.
Thank you so much for the encouragement, Beth! We, individually and as a society, are definitely in need of an uprising, and people like you make me believe it’s possible. I continue to pray that God will make it clear to me how I can best spread his love and word, and just encourage others to get to know him. If we really knew him, we wouldn’t have so much stress, and other problems like the tragedy of suicides. Thanks again for all your work.
AMEN AMEN AMEN and AMEN. Let’s be the faithful children God calls us to be! And LOVE one another!!
YES!!! The Lord is stirring up a movement in His people. This is a theme I have come across again and again with fellow believers. Our country, our world is lost. And the enemy is infiltrating our churches and our community to take as many people with Him as possible. He is keeping us weak in our faith and in turn keeping people from believing in God and as Jesus as the one true savior. BUT God is bigger and stronger and has already won! There is a holy rumbling beginning, the Lord is ready to unleash His mighty spirit for His glory. If you feel this pull, press into it. You are not alone. Fight the enemy, fight your flesh, fight this world by submitting to the God of the universe and see what He will do in and through you. He is calling His people to Himself so that His gospel may be proclaimed and people will be saved. Press into Him, listen to His voice, expect Him to move and save!
Thank you Beth for speaking this truth!
This has been on my heart too! I’ve been praying for God’s people, who are called by His name, to humble ourselves, confess our sins and turn from our wicked ways, so that He can come and heal our land.
Thank you Beth. You words are such an encouragement. They confirm my own thoughts and prayers.
God speaks to you in so many amazing ways!
There were two things about Faith and Jesus that have stuck with me for years – the first was that He marveled!!!!! over the Faith of the Centurion – and the second, is that He wept over the lack of Faith in Luke 11 concerning the death of Lazarus. Our Faith, Trust, and believe reveal and uncover the Glory of our Living God!
Luke 11: 40 –Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” We have the same Power and authority – We have everything that Jesus displayed for us to mirror – and it all begins with Faith!
I grew up in the church and I too gave my heart to Jesus at 8 (don’t remember the exact date either). I knew, even as a child, that God’s opinion of me was different than peoples opinion of me. It wasn’t until later as a young adult I realized the bickering over who had the ‘right’ church with the ‘right’ doctrine was really affecting our outreach to the world of unbelievers. Believing the word and following Jesus should be our main focus not looking for who’s better. The world needs Jesus and a united people of God! Thank you for this message Ms. Beth.