Almighty Creator God speaks to we humans through our minds,…our brains. The power of prayer is the connecting link between the mind of man and the mind and power of God. The more quality prayer time a person spends with his God, the more God’s Will for a person’s life becomes evident to that person. Whenever you pray, make certain that at the end of your prayers and supplications you stop and stay quiet and give sufficient time to listen to God’s answers to your prayers. God answers prayers…we do not always listen.
If you will but give God a chance to answer your prayers, for the true believers, He will do so and the more you pray, the more answers you will receive.
God wants you to come to know His real Will (plan) for your own life. He will gladly speak to you in a myriad of ways if you just learn to listen for Him after you have completed your prayers.
It is through this very manner and way that God will bring your dreams into your mind. Dreams are the seeds of vision. Vision is the heart of all success. Dreams and vision becomes an impelling spiritual force within your own mind that will begin to drive you. Your own dreams and vision always continue to increase in strength and power within your own heart (your own mind) as you think about and meditate on them. They will continue to grow in strength within you until you begin to passionately pursue such God-given dreams and vision. This process will continue growing within your own mind until it forces you to begin to act on turning them into reality.
The action you initially begin to take in pursuit of your dreams and goals will range in a radical manner and way depending upon the power and importance of your dreams and vision. The greater the dream, the more effort and conviction attaches to it! The bigger the dream, the greater will be the struggle to achieve it. True Success is a long term journey…it is not a destination.
Every real dreamer throughout all of human history initially has been ridiculed, opposed, laughed at, persecuted, and has had to face and experience great hardship. It is all part of the price of being or becoming successful. When you experience such opposition, just remember, you are not the only one or the first one to go through this criticism. All of the “great achievers” out of the past have passed the same way as you are now traveling. They should have marked the trail well enough so that you can feel you are in good company as you journey along your own chosen pathway to success.
In spite of the opposition, laughter, and ridicule the real achievers in life face and endure, they never lose their dreams and goals,….they never lose sight of them. They continue on in the passionate pursuit of their vision until they actually accomplish it…until they actually become a great success by translating their dreams into reality!
Dreams are tremendously important! The Word of God teaches us that dreaming is one of the major ways that God speaks to His men and women concerning His work that He wants accomplished here on earth.
Everyone has a dream. We all were created to be dreamers. Our imagination is one of the greatest gifts God has freely given to us all. However, and very sadly,…not everyone pursues their God-given dreams and eventually turns them into reality. Always remember that truth and true reality are completely synonymous.
Everything that God does in our life, He does according to a pattern based upon a principle of His Kingdom. Whenever we act in total faith upon one of these Biblical principles, it becomes the key that unlocks all of heaven’s riches to us.
If you truly desire to have all of the blessings God has in store for you, simply insure that you base the living of your own life totally upon His principles and less upon other people’s personalities, activities, or accomplishments.
One of the greatest examples of what I am telling you now can be found in the Old Testament Book of Genesis, Chapters 37–50. The story about Joseph shows you how God develops potential principles in our lives based on the principles of His Kingdom.
All dreams originally come from God. God always matches His chosen dreamer with His chosen dream. Never forget that it was God’s chosen dream before HE GAVE IT TO YOU!
God gave Joseph a dream. It was a God-breathed, God-ordained, God-given dream. The dream held the potential for a successful life, for great blessings and prosperity for other people, and for the salvation for Joseph’s family and his nation.
This God-given dream created an image within Joseph’s mind,…within his imagination, that would ultimately become a reality. It was real in Joseph’s spirit before it became real in his flesh.
Joseph’s Dream came directly from God. He never lost his own Dream.
The Word of God is true and sharper than a two edged sword. It cuts and divides the truth from the lie. God’s Word tells us that God Almighty is the author and finisher of our faith. God will finish what He authors, but He is not obligated in any way, shape, or form to finish what He has not authored.
If God implants His desires in our hearts, then He will see to it that they are completed as we submit to His Lordship and work in cooperation with His Spirit within us. It is through this very procedure that His Kingdom is able to come to earth through us.
You see, my friends, Joseph’s success in life came from his identification with God rather than his identification with other men, family, or circumstances of life.
Joseph’s dream was God’s revelation of how he was to handle his leadership responsibilities. Every great leader knows there is a price to pay for that leadership, whether in a secular or sacred place of leadership.
In Joseph’s personal case, his price for leadership was spending thirteen years in intense confrontation with temptation and accusation. This was Joseph’s testing time and God’s proving time. Never forget that…..All testing is based upon resistance. This is a Kingdom Principle.
Holy Scripture expressly tells us in The Book of James, Chapter 4, verse 7 NKJV:
“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
These words of instruction clearly tells the reader that your ability to resist the devil is directly proportional to your personal submission to the Lord. This is the primary reason why the Word of God encourages all men and women to begin each and every day seeking the Lord through prayer, scripture reading, and meditation. Without first submitting to the Lord in the morning, men and women do not have the ability to resist the devil in the late morning, in the afternoon or at night. Impatience, temper outbursts, and even fleshly indulgences are most usually the by-products of lack of submission to the Lord at the beginning of each and every day.
Joseph was to be a leader. That accomplishment would take some time. God always has lots of time. He is never in a hurry. While it is true that leadership may be birthed in a man, the reality is that the quality of that leadership can only be developed and produced over a long period of time.
Preparation is the foundation for all success.
It is truly sad that our present day culture and society desires “instant gratification.” People “want it all now!” Consequently the world today is filled with poor quality of products and services because of improper preparation. People and businesses simply do not want to have to pay the price for success. As far as they are concerned, paying the price of success is too expensive and takes far too much time to develop. Such lack of quality flows over even into our churches and pulpits. Many preachers of God’s Word can handle sermons, they can handle churches, they can handle God’s Word,…BUT…they cannot handle themselves…..How terribly sad that situation is.
In our discussion about Joseph we clearly see that Joseph believed in his dream, but his own blood brothers did not. While Joseph identified with God, his brothers identified with their personal desires, ambitions, pleasures, and sin. This was the cause of the great difference between them and Joseph. It was a chasm or a gulf. The brothers could never understand Joseph. They had an entirely different perspective of life.
When Joseph told his brothers about his dream, their jealousy of him turned to hatred. Jealousy is more dangerous and cruel than anger. Jealousy is vicious….Flattery is disguised hostility….Beware of each!
Human nature never changes. Joseph’s brothers did not, could not, or would not understand him. They never did. Even after he forgave them, favored them, lavished the largesse of his kindness on them, they still thought that he would wreak vengeance upon them after their father died. The brothers portrait of Joseph was colored by their own selfish, lustful, petty spirits.
Learn these good life lessons from the life of Joseph. Joseph faced jealousy, anger, hatred, envy, and slander. He was betrayed, ignored, rejected, and humiliated. He suffered cruelty, injustice, and evil craftiness. He was the victim of conspiracy, sold down the river by his own brothers, imprisoned through false accusations, defrauded by those he befriended. He had to contend against malice and lust allayed against him.
But Joseph persevered. Perseverance will always outlast persecution.
You are never too young, too old, too poor, or too rich for God to make your dream become a reality. God is not partial. He is no respecter of persons. His laws apply equally to everyone. God truly wants you to have that which He has freely given to all others.
Joseph’s faith never ended. His life did, but his faith didn’t. He made his children promise him that when they returned to the Promised Land, they would carry up his bones with them.
He knew that what God authors, He will finish; what God promises, He will fulfill; what’s committed to Him, He will keep.
Joseph’s understanding of these Truths of Life is what made him a hero of faith…..It is what will make you a hero of faith!
God wants you to be a hero of faith.
Faith overcomes the world.
Believe God to make your dream a reality.
God-given dreams in God-favored men or women make a God-blessed world!
Peace And Love to All of You……………….Poppa Bear