Have you noticed that the simplest slogans are also the most memorable?
“Just do it.”–Nike
“Eat fresh.”–Subway
“Finger lickin’ good.”–Kentucky Fried Chicken
“I’m loving it.”–McDonalds

The easier a slogan is to remember, the more likely you are to think of a particular company say, when you’re shopping for runners or looking for a place to eat.

A leader in a networking business used to teach what he called the L.T.D. Principle (in the days when Ford made a car called the LTD).

“Keep it Learnable, Teachable and Duplicatable.”

In other words, don’t complicate it. Keep it simple!

Those who followed this piece of advice did indeed achieve remarkable success, while those who came up with complex plans found out the hard way that simplicity wins!

You may have noticed that God has a way of keeping things simple as well.

Take the 10 commandments, for example. Every one of them is essentially a simple one-liner.

A scholar once pointed out that if you were to translate the Hebrew literally, some of them would read as follows:

”You no steal.”
“You no kill.”
“You no hanky-panky.”
“You no covet.”

Since they are so simple, they are also memorable and are L.T.D as well!

Did Jesus not also keep things simple?

You could summarize his essential teachings with these two sentences:

“Love the Lord your God with all you’ve got.”
“Love your neighbour as you love yourself.”

That’s it! How much simpler can you get, eh?

No wonder Jesus has had so many followers down through the ages!!

He left us with something that is Learnable, Teachable and Duplicatable!

A number of years ago, I was at a Worship, Media & Technology Conference at a church in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

At that time, they had something like 5 services on a weekend, with 1500-2000 people at every service.

I went there under the mistaken impression that their mastery of media and technology was responsible for their spectacular growth.

It turned out that it was their spectacular growth that forced them to become so media and tech savvy!

As I investigated their reason for explosive growth, it became very obvious it all had to do with a very simple slogan/mission statement that was inculcated into every member.

The exact words escape me, but it was something along the lines of: “Each One Reach One for Christ.”

In other words, all they did was teach every follower of Christ in their midst to invite a family member, friend, co-worker or total stranger to follow Jesus.

Then they taught this new disciple how to reach another one for Christ. Once they learned it, the process was now duplicated. Another person came into the Kingdom. And the church grew by one more member. The process was repeated over and over again with every new follower of Jesus.

When they hit a critical mass where enough of them were making disciples on a regular basis, exponential growth became the order of the day.

Oh, yeah, didn’t Jesus say something simple like: “Go and make disciples?” Duh!

The sheer simplicity of it all is simply amazing, isn’t it?

If you sense that you are not advancing toward your destiny as rapidly as you ought to, could it be because you are making everything too complicated to be duplicated?

Could this be the reason you are not seeing much growth in your church, sales force, business or organization?

Put the L.T.D Principle to work. Keep it Learnable, Teachable and Duplicatable.

You too could end up experiencing exponential explosive and exceptional growth!

It is a choice that needs to be made every time I take Sulojana to work.

Do we turn into the alley that connects King Street and Church Street? Or do we drive a block further and take Queen Street?

Personally, I prefer the alley, as it is a tad shorter, takes less time and saves us the trouble of going through two sets of lights.

There is only one potential problem with taking the alley.

When two vehicles are coming towards each other, there is not always enough room for both to get through…especially when one vehicle is a truck.

Delivery trucks do like to take the alley so they can get to the loading/unloading areas at the rear of buildings.

So, any vehicle taking the alley is also taking the chance of encountering one of these oversized vehicles.

Since one defers to size in such cases, it is usually the passenger vehicle (namely moi) that has to back up, and often back out back on to King Street and then take Queen Street…by which time, we have wasted a couple of precious minutes.

Get the picture?

Did I tell you that I love to take this risk just about every time, unless one of those trucks is already in the alley within my line of vision?

So, here is the scenario. Two weeks ago, I have already committed to taking the alley. We are a third of the way into the alley when a truck turns into the alley from Church Street and is coming towards me.

Suffice it to say I am not too thrilled about re-tracing my steps a third of the way down the alley back to King Street and then on to Queen, hit the lights, yadi yada…

For some inexplicable reason, I decide not to back up, but simply keep moving forward.

That’s when I noticed the truck making a left turn into the alley that connects our alley with the other parallel alley running north to south.

Now the way was clear for us to keep going, make the right turn on Church Street and drop Sulojana off at her office, right on time!

The Lord used this experience to teach me how we need to keep moving forward in the face of obstacles.

Quite often we are tempted to see obstacles as being immovable, impenetrable, impassable or impossible.

Yet, isn’t it true that obstacles can move too?

A church is told that they cannot add to their existing building because of a bylaw.  Guess what, a bylaw can be changed…it is movable!

You apply for a line of credit that is absolutely necessary to get your next project off the ground, but you cannot convince the loans manager at your bank. Surprise! The manager is “moved” to another branch and her replacement honours your request!

The secretary is firm about it. You will be waiting at least 6 months for your surgery. You are believing for an earlier date. And then you get the phone call. An appointment got “moved!” Can you come in next week instead?

Yes, obstacles have wheels!

God drives obstacles out of the way when we

a.    Speak to them in faith as Jesus commanded us to do. “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” (Mark 11:23)

b.    Keep on moving forward as the apostle Paul exhorts us to do. “One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal…” (Philippians 3:13-14)

Have you experienced this in your life? Please share your stories with the rest of your DWOD family, will you?

“Friends” whom we had known for a couple of years came to our house one day singing the praises of an investment opportunity that had fallen into their lap.

“This could be the next Trivial Pursuit!”

They were referring to the humble beginnings of the popular game, which was funded by a small group of friends, all of whom ended up with huge financial gains as a result of their faith in Chris Abbott and Scott Haney’s brainchild.

We were now being offered an opportunity to be part of a small group that could potentially strike it rich by investing a minimum of $2000 (which was a month’s take-home pay for me at the time) in this “fail-proof” idea conceived by someone whom they trusted with all their heart as well as their savings.

Sulojana and I talked it over. She had some reservations. I did not.

After all, these were our friends.  After all, how often does an opportunity like this come along? After all, the idea was well thought-out, had potential…even I could see it! She decided to go along with me.

I went to the bank, got a loan and forked the money over. Now we were shareholders in the next great Canadian success story.

Fast forward one year. We get the news that the one whom my friends had trusted had absconded with their savings and our loans, never to be heard from again. We had lost every penny. To add insult to injury, the bank continued to make monthly demands for the rest of our “investment” plus interest.

Several months later we discovered that another friend of ours had also been approached about the same “opportunity.” However, being a business analyst by profession, he had spotted the downside right away and politely declined the offer.

And then he asked me: “Jeeva, why didn’t you pick up the phone and ask my opinion before you decided to go ahead with it?”

To be honest, the thought didn’t even cross my mind. Obviously, I had forgotten these words of wisdom from Proverbs 24: 6: “There is safety in a multitude of counselors.”

I knew instinctively that “two are better than one” (Ecclesiastes 4:12) and was content in the knowledge that Sulojana and I had made this decision together…but we could’ve done one better!

I had total access to the wisdom, knowledge and discernment of my business analyst buddy. By seeking his counsel, we could have spared ourselves the agony of losing $2000.

In the ensuing 20 years, I have noticed that most of the “successful” people I have personally come to know surround themselves with a trusted group whose counsel they value and seek prior to making major decisions.

I can also give you countless examples of those who ignored this principle and made choices that turned out poorly.

One of the greatest blessings we have as members of the Body of Christ is access to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit directly from Him and through what He has deposited into others who are also members of this One Body.

All it takes sometimes is one simple phone call, one e-mail, one text message to a trusted friend who has no vested interest, a time of prayer with a pastor or counsellor to help you make the right choice.

It will definitely prevent you from making mistakes that could hold you back from accelerating toward your destiny…like investing in the next “Trivial Pursuit.”

You may have noticed that for the past two days, the DWOD has been published about 9 hours later than normal.

Sulojana and I have been ministering in the Ottawa Valley since Friday night. We have been staying at a retreat centre named A Place to Seek His Face.

It is a comfortable house located in a natural forest setting that is accessible by driving up a mountainous curvy road for more than 3km away from the closest main street.

The quietness and serenity of this place owned and operated by Charles and Alexandra Cheatley is ideal for anyone who simply wants to get away from it all and get rested up and/or restored in body, spirit and soul.

Needless to say there is no internet connection available here—which is a blessing if you want to avoid all distractions.

But, it also spells difficulty for someone who writes and uploads blog posts daily for you who subscribe to Destiny Word of the Day.

The game plan was to compose the DWOD before going to bed, get up early in the morning and drive 30 minutes to a place where there was a free Wi-Fi connection.

At breakfast, we were prompted to ask Alain, the caretaker of the place, the closest location where one could go online.

He promptly pulled out his IPhone, got out the cable with an Apple connector at one end and an USB connector at the other and said: “Right here!”

Thanks to a process known as “tethering” I was able to go online from my laptop and upload the DWOD to facebook, the website and the autoresponder, all in short order.

Praise God for tethering!

This morning, as Sulojana was sharing her side of the amazing miracle that God performed on my body on Dec. 31, 2010, the Holy Spirit helped me discover the tethering grace of God.

Part of Sulojana’s story is about how she was so adversely affected by the deterioration in my health that she found it difficult to pray.

It is not that she did not want to pray. She was not angry at God. Her faith was still intact.

But emotionally, it was very difficult for her to cope with the sight of seeing me lose 30 pounds in less than 6 weeks, lying around with no energy left whatsoever, often experiencing incredible pain as another spasm would hit my stomach.

She realized at that moment how much she (and I) needed the prayers of others. It was so comforting for her to know that there were people in our congregation and a number of close friends who were seeking God on our behalf.

When she could not go online in prayer herself, it was so amazing to realize that others could upload those prayers to the Throne Room in her stead.

The Holy Spirit reminded me that when you are part of the Body of Christ, you are knit together with others who have also chosen to follow Jesus.

No Christian has to ever walk alone, even when it feels lonely. There is always another fellow follower of Jesus who would be glad to agree with you in prayer, stand with you in solidarity and walk with you in unity.

Theologically, you can call it fellowship.
Pragmatically, you can call it support.
Prayerwise, you can call it intercession.
Biblically, you can call it “standing in the gap.”

Let’s just say that we could just as easily name it The Tethering Grace of God.

Can you relate? Please share your experiences with the rest of your DWOD family

“They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony”  (Revelation 12:11)

“The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Revelation 19:10)

Come to any Sunday morning service at Morgan’s Point or Forks Road East United Church (the two congregations I serve in Wainfleet Township), and you will notice that it includes a segment known as “Celebrating God’s goodness.”

It is an open microphone session where everyone is encouraged to share how they have experienced the goodness of God in their lives, particularly during the previous week or other recent time period.

Seldom is there a shortage of people willing to share something exciting that happened in their lives.

Some of the stories are nothing short of miraculous, some would be labelled God-incidences, some are about God’s guidance in everyday situations, but they all have one thing in common.

They point to the greatness of our awesome God.

There are times when there are so many reasons for giving God praise that it cuts into my sermon time, but I don’t mind one bit.

Because there is such great power in the sharing of these stories that one sermon by itself cannot offer. Let me explain.

In the first place, they provide encouragement to those who are listening.

I recall a Sunday when a disproportionate number of testimonies had to do with breakthroughs and answers to prayer that had to do with finances. It “just so happened” that we had a first-time visitor to our church that day who had just experienced a serious financial setback. She went home greatly encouraged that God cared about her financial well-being as well.

Since many of the stories attest to the healing power of God, anyone who comes with any healing need or a burden for a loved one/friend who is sick,receives an infusion of hope that they would not have received otherwise.

Recently we started keeping a written record of these testimonies. This way, when someone is discouraged about the way their life is unfolding or feeling that God is not that real anymore or doing miracles anymore, all they have to do is access the record of what God has done in most recent times and their spirits are stirred.

They receive enough hope to hang in there for just a bit longer and stretch their faith just that bit more until they get their breakthrough. “If God did it for them, He will do it for me as well!”

As the verse from Rev. 12:11 points out, a testimony has the power to help you overcome obstacles in life.

So, when I am discouraged, I can rehearse victories I have experienced in the past, so that I can declare: “What God has done before, He can do again for me!”

Another powerful effect we have witnessed is when people start receiving their healing simply by hearing another person’s testimony, without anyone having to lay hands on them or pray for them.

Once when I shared the testimony of how God caused a polyp in my colon to come out in a bowel movement, a woman had a polyp in her colon completely disappear (as verified by her doctor following a colonoscopy).

The testimony of one person became a prophecy that brought about change in another person…wow!

Now you know why we would not dare skip “Celebrating God’s goodness” time at our churches. It is so powerful that we cannot afford to skip it!

So, my dear friend, please share your testimony with the rest of the world at every available opportunity, even if it means overcoming your fear of speaking in public or your reluctance to be in the spotlight.

You will never know how God will use your story to change someone else’s history!

And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)

Cleopas and his friend are on the road to Emmaus, when they are joined by a mysterious stranger who wants to know why they are so sad.

They give a Reader’s Digest version of Jesus’ earthly life. He was “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people” who was crucified by the powers that be.

Listen to the pathos in these poignant words: “We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.”

Yes, they had heard the reports of the women who had seen the empty tomb. But they had not seen him personally. Neither had their buddies. So they were not sure what had actually happened.

After Jesus explains to them how everything that happened was a fulfilment of prophecy, he keeps on going. They invite him to “abide with us.” He does.

When he breaks the bread, their eyes are opened and they recognize him as Jesus.

That’s when they utter these immortal words. “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?”

You can almost hear them say: “How could we have been so dense that we could not recognize him earlier on in the journey?”

It is reminiscent of Jacob waking up after he has just seen the amazing dream that we have come to know as “Jacob’s ladder.”

Here is what he says: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” (Genesis 28:16-17)

Jacob and the disciples on the road to Emmaus receive revelation…but only in retrospect.

Is it fair to say that most of us can relate to the aforementioned characters?

Have we not also had those moments when we perhaps slapped ourselves on the forehead and said words like: “I should’ve known all along…why didn’t I…how (you fill in the blanks) could I have been not to…?”

Of course, it would be preferable to receive revelation at the very outset, but, frankly, there is nothing to be ashamed of in receiving it in retrospect.

Someone once said: “Life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward.”

There is a lot of truth to that statement, isn’t there?

Often, it is only as we look back on what happened that we recognize where God was in that moment.

When we are in the moment, we can be blinded by what we see that we fail to see what we ought to see.

The guilt of cheating his brother, the fear of running for his life and the anxiety of what lay ahead in Haran prevented Jacob from seeing that surely God was in that seemingly God-forsaken place.

The grief of losing their Lord, the lack of confirmation of the women’s accounts and the disappointment of seeing their hopes dashed stood in the way of the disciples recognizing the stranger as the one who no longer called them servants but friends.

Once the revelation finally hit them, watch what they did.

Jacob turned his rock-hard pillow into an altar.

Cleopas and his companion turned back toward Jerusalem to tell the rest of the disciples: “We have seen the Lord!”

So, if you’ve had revelation, but only in retrospect, don’t feel bad. It happened to Jacob. It happened to disciples who had spent three plus years in close proximity to Jesus.

What can I say…it happens to the best of us…as well as the rest of us 🙂

Perhaps what we need to do is exactly what they did…offer sacrifices of praise on the altar of worship and share our revelation with those who are eager to receive it. Amen?

He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him.” (Mark 5:39-40)

Can you visualize the scene at Jairus’ house when Jesus got there?

The mourners would’ve been surprised to see Jesus there in the first place. After all, Jairus had already been told not to bother bringing Jesus with him. His daughter was dead. Period.

The death certificate has already been signed. It was time to prepare for the funeral.

Those were the cold hard facts staring everyone in the face, including Jesus.

But Jesus makes a startling statement: “The child is not dead, but asleep.”

To paraphrase Arnold from Different Strokes: “Whatcha talking about, Mr. C?”

Jesus ignores their mocking laughter, kicks them all out of the house and enters the room where the little girl is. Only the parents and His inner circle of Peter, James and John are with him.

“Talitha Koum!”

“Little girl, I say to you: Get up!”

You wouldn’t ask a dead girl to just get up, would you?

“Be raised!” “Rise up!” “Come back to life!” “I speak life into you!” “Spirit of death, be gone!”

Any one of the above would’ve been an appropriate choice.

“Wakey, wakey!” “Get up out of bed!” are words reserved for a sleepyhead, not one who is dead, wouldn’t you say?

As he takes her by the hand, she gets out of bed, as a little girl would when she wakes up from sleep.

No wonder He said: “The child is not dead, but asleep.”

Those who said she was dead were stating the facts.

But the One who said she was asleep was declaring the truth.

Raising the dead girl was no more of a chore than awakening a sleeping child.

Clearly, Jesus proves that He spoke the truth about her condition.

This example of Jesus notwithstanding, isn’t it true that we are often tempted to focus on the facts and not the truth?

The apostle Paul gives us a great example of this in the passage quoted in yesterday’s DWOD from II Corinthians 4:8-9:
“We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

FACT: “We are hard-pressed on every side.” TRUTH: “We are not crushed.”
FACT: “We are perplexed.” TRUTH: “We are not in despair.”
FACT: “We are persecuted.” TRUTH: “We are not forsaken.”
FACT: “We are struck down.” TRUTH: “We are not destroyed.”

Jesus shows us, as does Paul, that we do not deny the facts, we simply state the truth despite the facts!

How could this work in your life today?

FACT: The doctors have diagnosed cancer. TRUTH: “By His stripes, we were healed.” (I Peter 2:24)
FACT: There is no money in your bank account. TRUTH: “My God supplies all my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:13)
FACT: You have been put down all your life. TRUTH: “I am seated with Christ in heavenly places.” (Ephesians 2:6)
FACT: You have just buried your loved one in the grave. TRUTH: “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” (2 Corinthians 5:1)

We can die by the facts or live by the truth.

Followers of Jesus would be wise to opt for the truth, amen?

“We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9)

In the British system of education in which I was raised as a child in India, we referred to a period as a “full stop.”

As to the origin of this term, the telegraph seems to provide the most logical explanation. The end of a sentence was marked by the word STOP. The end of the telegram in its entirety was denoted by FULL STOP.

In American usage, a period refers to the dot used to signify the end of a sentence.

Thus the period/full stop signals that you have come to a point where you absolutely need to stop. You can go no further.

What applies to a sentence also applies to our lives, doesn’t it?

There are times when we are forced to face a period and come to a full stop.

It could be the end of a relationship, a career, a business or a phase of life.

The ultimate would be the end of life itself as we know it. Death is definitely punctuated by a full stop. Period.

That is what the disciples of Jesus experienced on Good Friday. The end of a journey. The end of the road. The end of His life. “Low in the grave he lay.”

But everything changed on the third day when Jesus was raised from the dead, amen?

Death was no longer a full-stop. The period was now replaced by a comma, hallelujah!

That gives us hope that when we die, “God will raise us from the dead by His power, just as He raised our Lord from the dead.” (I Corinthians 6:14)

However, Resurrection power is not just reserved for the end of our lives, it is also made available when we reach certain ends in our lives.

This is how the apostle Peter puts it: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he gave us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (I Peter 1:3)

Paul articulates this living hope in these familiar words from 2 Corinthians 4: 8-9: “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Do you see the predominant punctuation mark in this statement? It is the comma.

If we were to truncate each clause at the point of the comma, these would be the most hopeless statements ever uttered.

We are hard-pressed on every side. Period.

We are perplexed. Period.

We are persecuted. Period.

We are struck down. Period.

The comma changes everything. It adds hope.

Isn’t it sad when many in our world today, Christians and non-Christians alike, put a period where God puts a comma?

We hear so many tragic stories of those who give up on life, renounce their faith, lose all hope and sometimes even take their own life.

They thought they had hit a full stop. Period.

What if they had replaced that period with the comma that comes from faith in the Resurrection of Jesus? What a difference that would have made!!

For now they would know that what looked like the end of the road was no more than a bend in the road. What seemed to be a period was actually a comma that offered hope.

How about you? Have you resigned yourself to seeing nothing more than a period in certain situations you are facing right now?

Please ask the Holy Spirit this simple question: “Am I placing a period where God has placed a comma?”

If the answer is No, Praise God! If Yes, please repent, replace the period with a comma and keep moving forward.

Why put a comma where God’s put a period, eh?