Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)

The theme of yesterday’s DWOD is encapsulated in this verse: Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act (Psalm 37:7).

As I finished writing it, the Lord reminded me that there is another test of patience that is often more difficult to endure than waiting for Him. Put simply, it has to do with how patient we are with one another.

We who are created in the image of God and growing in the likeness of His Son Jesus would only be mirroring Him when we are patient, amen? After all “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

You will also recall that among the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit, fourth in prominence is the pomegranate of patience. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

And, let us not forget that at the top of the list of the many manifestations of love in I Corinthians 13:4-8 is that word again! “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” (I Corinthians 13:4-5)

Judging by these verses, you could be led to believe that those who acknowledge Jesus as Lord, filled to overflowing with the love of the Father and operating in the power of the Holy Spirit would automatically be patient with one another.

Alas! Such is not the case. Mea culpa. Otherwise there would be no need for exhortations such as the one at the top of this post and those listed below penned by the apostle Paul:

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; BE PATIENT, bearing with one another in love. (Ephesians 4:1-2)

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and PATIENCE. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (Colossians 3:12-13)

Yet, I am very grateful to God for those who have been patient with me over the years, most notably, my wife Sulojana, who has had to put up with me for more than three decades now! Ditto for my parents, children, other members of the family and members of the churches I have pastored.

Kudos also to you, our faithful DWOD subscribers, for your patience with me over the past month or so, when the daily posts have not always showed up daily…or they show up pre-dated by three days…or when three arrive in quick succession within a 24 hour period.

Let me first of all apologize for the recent lack of consistency. It is partly due to the priorities of pastoring superseding other labours of love, compounded by Darren Canning having to cut down his customary prolific production due to the demands of his new job.

We are grateful to our guest contributors who have filled in admirably, as necessary. We are almost caught up with the backlog. Beginning next week, we will honour our commitment to help you start every morning with the Destiny Word of the Day.

May you continue to be patient with one another as God is with you and as you have been with me. May others know that you are followers of Jesus by your love which is marked—first and foremost—by patience.

Brothers and sisters, be patient until the Lord comes. See how the farmer waits for the land to produce its rich crop. See how patient he is for the fall and spring rains. You too must be patient. You must stand firm. The Lord will soon come back. (James 5:7-8)

In an earlier DWOD—Be a Go-Giver, you read about how our daughter Priya had gone out of her way to serve others in the television news room while she was still working an entry level position as an autocue (teleprompter) operator. She also used her days off to shadow reporters and learn from them. This way when her turn came to be a reporter herself, she would be up to the task.

Then she took one more step since Jan. 15, when the aforementioned post was written. With the permission of her superiors, she prepared a couple of clips as though she were reporting on a story and submitted them to the more experienced reporters for their feedback. They were only too eager to offer her constructive critiques. In the process, they and her supervisors also took note of the initiative she was taking to improve her skills.

Of course, once she took these steps and kept on honing her craft, she simply had to wait for an opportunity to prove herself. The decision to send her out on the field needed to be made by others. She had to learn to be patient…which was not exactly easy for her.

In the passage quoted at the top of this post, the apostle James uses the example of a farmer to address the impatience of his readers for the Second Coming of Christ. The farmer prepares the soil, sows the seed and plucks the weeds. Once these tasks are complete, he has done what He needs to do and leave the rest to God.

The rains must come in due season, there should be adequate heat, there should be no grasshoppers or other pests that could destroy the crops. All these are out of his control. He has no choice but to wait for “the land to produce its crops.”

Dear DWOD friend, this is one of the most difficult lessons for you to learn as you advance toward your destiny. Yes, you’ve taken the prophetic words spoken over you to heart. Yes, you’ve sought the counsel of the Holy Spirit and godly leaders about the steps you need to take for those words to be fulfilled. Yes, you’ve actually taken them.

Yet, you have not seen the results you had anticipated by now.

This is where it is very easy to lose patience, to stop waiting, to force things to happen or to get angry, upset or depressed.

It is in times like these that helpful words such as those penned by James stand us in good stead. Although his context was the Second Coming of Christ, they are applicable to your particular situation as well.

In our daughter’s case, all that patience finally paid off as she was offered her first reporting shift last week. Here is what she produced. http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=383201. She comes across as a professional who has been reporting for quite some time, doesn’t she? It is because of all the work she did while patiently waiting her turn.

Yes, patience pays. The farmer shall indeed reap a rich harvest. The reporter-in-waiting will eventually get her chance. And you, dear friend, will indeed receive the breakthrough that propels you into your God-ordained, long-awaited destiny.

So, “let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Ephesians 6:9).

If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. (Matthew 5:29-30)

When Jesus uses such strong language to get his point across, we’d better get it, amen?

Why does he go to such extremes? Obviously, because He wants us to pay rapt attention.

Clearly, He lets us know that we need to make sure that we do not give in to temptation, because it has eternal consequences.

We cannot afford to slack off on this count. It is way too important for us to ignore this stark warning.

Surely it offends our sensibilities when we sense Jesus calling us to be ruthless. But, ruthless we need to be at times.

Recently, the Lord spoke to Sulojana about the time she spends on Facebook. To be perfectly honest, she spends way less time than I do. But, she felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit very strongly in this area. She could not ignore it or discount it. She had to take action. She has been extremely careful about the time she devotes to social media interactions ever since.

A couple of weeks ago, we were both pleasantly shocked to discover that our son Sathiya has programmed his computer in such a way that he gets kicked off Facebook after browsing for just 10 minutes. It forces him to pay attention to what is really significant within that very short window of time. Whatever doesn’t get taken care of just gets ignored. And he is fine with it. Because it was a directive from the Lord Himself. Is that ruthless? Yes!

The apostle Paul calls us to “redeem the time, for the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:16). When it comes to how we spend our time, we need to be ruthless. There is simply no getting around it.

After all, time is the most precious commodity we have in this life. Money lost can be replaced. Relationships lost can be restored. But time lost can never be regained.

Dear DWOD friend, this is one area in which you cannot continue to be Mr. Nice Guy or Ms. Congeniality. If an expenditure of time does not in some way contribute to advancing into your destiny, you need to be ruthless and cut it out of your life.

Perhaps some of you may be called to take this one step further. You may need to cut out relationships that are dragging you down and keeping you from making the progress you need to make.  You may need to be ruthless with “friends” who take up your precious time complaining or tempting you to indulge in activities that are a waste of your time.

If you’re ready to take this message to heart, start keeping a log of exactly how you spend every waking minute every day for a week. Then you review it.

Ask yourself whether you were redeeming the time or receding on the road to your destiny. Examine whether the way you used the gift of time would bring a smile to your heavenly Father’s face or tears in His eyes.

Now you need to make some choices, don’t you? Go ahead, make His day. Be ruthless. You will not regret it.

Chances are good that at least some of you, our DWOD subscribers, are soccer fans who are feasting right now on the Brazilian churrascaria known as the FIFA World Cup.

For the benefit of those who haven’t been to one, a churrascaria is a restaurant where different cuts of meat perched on metal skewers are turned slowly over an open flame. Servers bring the meat-laden skewers to your table and carve the pieces you would like right on to your plate. They’ll keep doing this until you feel that you can’t eat anything else for the next 4 days or you’ve gained 6 lbs, whichever comes first! But I digress…

Although I have not watched a single match yet, I do catch the highlights occasionally. It would appear that every country has at least one superstar who can make a soccer ball do things that make you wonder whether they have it tied to their toes on a string that they can manipulate at will!

Yet, despite all the mesmerizing manoeuvres, fancy footwork and pinpoint passes that comprise their repertoire, the players never forget that the aim of the game is to deposit the ball in the opponent’s net.

As much as fans can get caught up in the artistic antics and the thrill of the skills on display, ultimately what counts is the goals that are scored and the victories that are won.

Should a player forget this and simply focus on showing off his abilities, it would still be considered part of the game, but it would not contribute to the overall aim.

In yesterday’s DWOD, you read about an encounter that a young woman had with Jesus through an accurate prophetic word. As thrilling as it was to see her response to that word, the entire exercise was not about delivering a spell-binding, gut-wrenching, heartwarming, tear-inducing spiritual reading. The aim was to point her to Jesus and give her the opportunity to surrender her life to Him.

That same afternoon, a young man walked into our pod seeking healing prayer for his back which had been damaged badly when the car in which he was a passenger crashed while his buddy was driving at 180 km/hr (110 mph). After my partner Amelia and I persisted in prayer, he was pleasantly surprised to discover that his pain had subsided by 60%.

Once again, the doors were opened for us to speak into his life and let him know that it was Jesus who brought about the healing in his back. We gave him some prophetic words that Holy Spirit delivered to us from the Father’s heart. He too gave his life to Jesus before he left the encounter pod.

The aim of the game was not for him to receive healing, but for him to encounter the Healer Himself!

Dear DWOD friend, please bear in mind that as much as you may be able to dazzle others with dizzying displays of your gifts, even spiritual gifts, that is not what your destiny is all about. It is about leading others to Jesus, without whom your gifts are no better than ball tricks in the middle of a soccer field that have nothing more than entertainment value.

However, when you use those gifts with the aim of adding eternal value to the lives of others, now you’re within striking distance of a soul. Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!

“Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:13-14)

It never ceases to amaze me how a simple sign that says: Free Spiritual Readings & Healing Prayer attracts people who will wait in line for hours, if necessary, to step into an “encounter pod”.

Yesterday was no exception as Rev. Heather Curnew and crew set up shop at a community outreach in the city of Hamilton, Ontario. My ministry partner Amelia and I ministered to seven people over a three hour period.

One of them was a lovely young woman with a pleasant personality, who came quite expectantly, even though she had never received a spiritual reading before in her life. She did admit that despite her childhood Christian upbringing, she had searched out other faiths. At the moment, she was fascinated by native spirituality.

We informed her that we were Christians who hear from the Father in the name of Jesus and release the mail delivered by the Holy Spirit.

We begged her indulgence for a few moments of silence while we waited to see or hear something. All I was getting was a picture of a train. So I simply said to her: “I am seeing a train.”

No sooner had those words hit her ear drum than her eyes started to well up with tears and her lips started to quiver. Amelia promptly handed her a tissue with which to wipe her tears.

“I see you standing on the platform in a railway station. You are kicking yourself for missing the train. But God says it was a timing issue. You are getting back on the train and going to your destination.”

The tears kept on flowing as the prophetic flow kept on increasing.

At that moment, I saw her dressed like a doctor and said: “You’ve always wanted to be in the medical field. You are worried about the money. But, don’t worry. God will provide you with the resources and the connections you need…but there is one man you need to forgive first.”

It was time to pause now and ask her why she was so emotional about what she heard. The simple answer was because it was all so true. Her grandmother’s house was by a train station. A teen pregnancy had made her feel as though she had missed the train. Yes, she had always wanted to be a doctor. And she thought she had forgiven that man.

We asked her if she had ever experienced anything like this in the other faiths she had explored. Nada. Nyet. Non. We told her: “What just happened was all Jesus.” To make a long story short, the session ended with her surrendering her life to Jesus and earnestly desiring to be his disciple. We took down her contact information and promised to be in touch.

What made it possible for such accurate prophetic words to be delivered that afternoon? Was it a gift? An anointing? An impartation?

Probably all three to some degree. But simply receiving the gift or anointing or impartation was not enough. It was “by constant use” that the accuracy came.

Whether it was at pastors’ gatherings with my spiritual father Steve Long, outreaches with Heather Curnew, online sessions and Facebook groups, Activate! sessions at our churches, the prayer lines at Catch the Fire, Toronto and other places…seizing the opportunities that the Lord opened up along the way…sticking to it despite the initial fumbles, stumbles, one-sentence and one-picture feeble attempts…that is what led to encounters such as the one in Hamilton last Friday.

Dear DWOD friend, no matter what your particular gift may be, please realize that you cannot cut corners when it comes to constant use. It is absolutely indispensable for you to move from milk to solid food, from infancy to maturity. Put your gift to constant use and watch what happens. You will advance toward your destiny at a greater pace than ever before!

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:36-37)

“Altar calls are unbiblical.”

Every time I make that statement, whether in a sermon or a seminar, there are raised eyebrows and glaring gazes that shoot nonverbal missiles right back at me.

One of the passages that supports this contentious statement is the one quoted above from Acts 2. It is in the context of the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

Peter has just finished preaching a pointed sermon proving that Jesus is indeed the promised Messiah. Before he can call for a response to this message though, the people pipe up: “What shall we do?”

Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, makes it very clear that it was not Peter’s sermon that convinced them to ask that question. It was because they were “cut to the heart.” The Greek word so translated literally means “to prick or to pierce thoroughly.”

Peter’s words, though direct, were not by themselves able to produce such a result. It was the double-edged surgical scalpel of the Word and Spirit that caused the listeners to respond the way they did.

Dear DWOD friend, as you advance toward your destiny, you need to be acutely aware of the distinction between convincing and conviction.

Convincing is something you and I do by logical progression and skillful persuasion. It is more of a sales job than anything else.

Conviction, on the other hand, is what the Holy Spirit does. It is His specialty. As Jesus taught the disciples, it is part of His job description. “And when He comes, He will convict the world of its sin…” (John 16:8).

Clearly the first application of this distinction is to the enterprise of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with others—whether it is done from the platform of a pulpit or other public forum where you are addressing a group—or in a one-on-one setting over a cup of coffee in your dining room.

I must admit that it is possible for you to convince someone with your superior persuasive skills to give their life to Christ. However, if it is not undergirded by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, chances are very good that this conversion experience will not produce lasting results.

Your job is to simply share from your heart with conviction. But it is not your responsibility to bring about conviction in their hearts. Leave it to Holy Spirit.

Another area where you will be called upon to do something similar is when you face conflict. Of course, you would want to meet face-to-face with the person who disagrees with you. Whether the other party is a member of your family, a colleague, a client, a business partner—if you approach the meeting with the aim of getting a conviction, you may not be successful.

What if, you were to simply state your case, as Peter did that day, and leave the rest to your Paraclete, as Jesus called the Holy Spirit? It is interesting that this Greek word is actually a legal term, describing someone who comes alongside you to support, counsel and help you. Let your advocate do what He does best.

And they too will ask, as did those who were cut to the heart on the Day of Pentecost: “What must we do?”