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Date Posted: 13:49:10 05/27/22 Fri
Author: c
Subject: Called to breakthrough/Key to answered prayer - excerpts

Called to Breakthrough: An Autobiography

by Rabbi Kirt A. Schneider

p 64 - 65

...As I remembered this, I thought, "If the sealed, self-contained spirit of pure, white life that I saw lived inside of me, I would have a life force in me that would be my engine so I wouldn't have to push so hard. The life in me would do the work, create breakthrough, and go before me, and I could just sit back and enjoy the ride." I'm striving to live in this truth. I still have a long way to go to fully live in this reality, but a birthing has taken place in my life so that God has become my engine.


Learning to follow God's Spirit in this way takes sensitivity and surrender to the Holy Spirit inside of us. Once we allow God's Spirit to be our life force, we will enter into His power. Instead of constantly struggling on our own because we think it is all up to us - like I did as a child riding my bicycle up that steep hill - we will instead begin to trust God, knowing that He is working on our behalf, both in us and in our circumstances. Knowing we don't have to control everything - that it doesn't all depend on us and that we can trust God - releases many burdens and produces rest....

Because of our reliance on trying to accomplish everything in our own flesh, we have a hard time receiving the revelation that our lives are in the Son. We don't know how to lay down our own initiatives and allow God to arise in us and be God. We think we have to do it all ourselves, so we end up tired and burned out.

God desires for us to completely trust and look to Him alone for all things. Once the Lord has stripped us of relying on ourselves and the world and has strengthened our faith to believe that He is going before us and supplying all our needs, we will enter into greater rest and peace.

p 83

As I sought Him more, God started dealing with me about some of the issues that were getting between us. One of the first was my smoking. Every time I felt I needed something to calm or settle me, I would, without thinking about it, reach for a cigarette. I had been deceived into thinking I would receive life and satisfaction in the smokes. i was looking to death for life....

I also got rid of all my pornography. Not only did I realize that pornography hindered my walk with God, but by engaging with it, I was opening the door to spiritual darkness and evil. I comprehended that if I continued to yield to this temptation, I would not be protected by God's light but would instead put myself in a spiritual realm where satan could attack me.

p 86

Shortly after, my parents asked me to move out. They hadn't expected me back. They couldn't take it anymore and frankly just didn't know what to do with me. I was erratic and still very vocal about my faith. Somehow they found and reached out to a Messianic rabbi in Cleveland who agreed to take me into his house. I was with him for a couple of months.

p 94

...I didn't realize what was going on or that God was using me, her Jewish neighbor growing up, to bring her to Himself. It most definitely was not one-sided, though. Although Cynthia had gotten lost spiritually while in college, she nevertheless had something that I needed. She was grounded in a way that I was not.

...She is full of goodness and is strong in so many areas where I am weak. I'm pretty sure, despite my faith, that my life would have been shipwrecked had it not been for my meeting Cynthia.


p 128

...I got along great with the sales manager at Centex, who was also a believer. In fact, I interviewed with him in the afternoon and then surprisingly ran into him a few hours later that night in Columbus at a concert featuring Michael Card, a leading Christian musician at the time. Unfortunately, after a year he was fired and was replaced with the husband of one of our other salespeople. I could read the handwriting on the wall. I was the top salesperson in the Columbus office, and there was considerable jealousy and animosity toward me from some of the other salespeople, including the woman whose husband had become our new sales manager.

p 129

...I knew he was going to make it difficult for me and probably try to fire me in the near future, so I resigned before he got the chance. I wanted to exit while I was on top so I could feel good about myself and empowered for whatever was next.


p 154

After much thought and prayer, I believed the Lord was telling me, "if you want more of My peace, you need to go on a fast."

p 162

...He was saying, "Don't run away when you get restless and uncomfortable or your mind tells you there is something else you should be doing. Believe in the process, even when it feels like nothing is happening and you're bored and fidgety. Continue to face Me and allow Me to bring to the surface what I need to heal so I can ground you in Myself and make you complete."

I felt the Lord was encouraging me to stay with the process and believe in it. I didn't need to be out in the world, talking to people, being busy, doing things - at least not for this season. Instead He was saying, "Just be still and focus on Me. I'm going to transform your soul and bring you shalom." (Shalom, as you may know, is the Hebrew word for peace and wholeness.)

p 165

I'd like to leave it at that because I believe her prayer was sincere, but that wouldn't be completely honest. After my mom prayed to receive the Lord, I felt such love for her. I would call her every day and try to build her up in the faith, but I could feel her faith wavering. A few weeks later she said, "I don't know if I believe in Jesus. I'm a Jew. I believe in Moses." She seemed confused. Not long after, she passed away. I am hoping God had mercy on her because she did open her heart to Him a few weeks earlier. I am hopeful she is now in Heaven.

p 174

Then I said to the angel, "If I'm on the right path, why does it hurt so much?"

Then the angel said kindly back to me, "If you would cooperate more, it wouldn't hurt so much."

Then I said to the angel, "When will I be happy?" And this time, I heard not the angel but God's Spirit speak back to me, "When you get strong, you will be happy."

The longer we war, the more strength we gain, and as we gain strength, we'll be able to rise up and confront the darkness that is keeping us bound. In my experience the hardest thing about overcoming darkness is facing the darkness in the first place. Once we face the darkness, the darkness breaks - it has to. As soon as it is confronted by the spirit of light, it instantly breaks. The hardest part is gathering the strength to start setting our faces against it. It's not something that happens all at once. It's an everyday struggle. We must keep pressing in, and little by little we get stronger and break through into the light, where God's fullness is realized.

------------------------=

The Key to answered prayer by Rabbi Kirt A. Schneider

p 19

...the Scripture says we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3), that God has not given us a spirit of fear but one of love and of power and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7), and that Jesus came to give life and give it more abundantly (John 10:10).

When you really believe God's Word and that you can have what He says you can have, you'll labor and contend for those things in prayer, and more and more you'll enter into the Father's fullness.

The Power of Pressing In

Again, Jacob said, I'm not going to let go unless You bless me." But what is the blessing we are seeking? It is every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. It is the fullness of love, joy, freedom, beauty, and power that comes from being set free to live in union and friendship with our Creator. This fullness doesn't come in a second; we enter into it more and more as we press in through prayer.


p 25

...So many people are making decisions that result in failure and are taking actions that lead to unfruitfulness because they don't have the attitude Moses displayed when he said, "Father, if You don't go with us, if Your presence doesn't go with us, I'm not going to go."

For some of us, instead of walking in that type of humility, we're walking presumptuously. We're not relying on the Father. We're not afraid of relying on our own abilities. We just rush out there....doing whatever we think is best, not realizing that unless Father God blesses us, we're putting ourselves in a dangerous place. In this prayer, Moses teaches us that we need to come to a place of humility and recognize that unless we're relying on God to go before us every day, we're positioning ourselves to fail. Even Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner" (John 5:19).

We can't get in our cars and just assume we will be safe as we drive. We can't just assume things are going to go well for our families. We must rely on God's protection. We must go before Him in prayer daily, asking Him to keep us safe and guide us by His Spirit. Only when we put ourselves in a posture of reliance, as Moses did, can we be confident that the Lord is blessing our families, giving us wisdom, and leading us in the way we should go.


p 27

....I definitely heard the Spirit in my heart, and He said this to me: "The reason you're seeing My people falling and failing is because they're not trusting Me." But when He said the word trusting, it was filled with revelation. What He was actually communicating to me was the idea of clinging. He said the word trust, but what He meant by trust was that His people were not clinging to Him.

Moses was clinging and cleaving to God.


p 30

That is why I am passionate about Yeshua - because I am experiencing Him in the here and now. Am I experiencing Him as much as I would like to? No. I still hunger and yearn for more - much more - but Jesus is making Himself real to me. Messiah Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6). He will make Himself known to anyone who hungers and thirsts for Him.

p 39

...We struggle to understand how we can bring Him pleasure, how He could be happy with us, or how we can bring Him delight. But somehow we do! Remember, the angels in Heaven rejoice over every person who turns to God. Jesus said, "In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15:10).

p 41

...we have to reject the spirit of shame, guilt, and self-rejection and the mindset that seeks to run from God rather than turn to Him. The Lord wants to heal us and make us whole and complete in Him. This is what God desires for you and me - that we would have peace, walk in wholeness, and be complete in Yeshua. Scripture says, "In Him [Jesus] you have been made complete" (Colossians 2:10).

The gift that God has given us, His kids, is His own completeness, His own shalom.


p 54

When you get up in the morning, don't rush first to check your phone or emails. Don't text or talk to anybody. Let the first part of your day be set apart for God. Sit down before Him...Designate a special place to spend time with Him. Ask Father God if you dreamed anything the night before that He wants you to remember. Seek Him for understanding and revelation. Then read a chapter slowly from the Scriptures. Read devotionals....

Then talk to God. Tell Him what's on your heart. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you. Ask Him for help in the areas where you're struggling. Ask Him to strengthen you with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. Ask Him to give you a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Him. Ask Him to help you discern His power and leading in your life. And ask Him for wisdom. As you keep asking, you will receive. Yeshua said, "Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened" (Matthew 7:8). As you seek His wisdom, you're going to become smarter and smarter and more and more discerning.



p 58 - 59

There's no question, if you ask the Lord to teach you His ways, He's going to do it....He will because you're praying according to His wil for you. He wants to teach you His ways. When you ask God to guide you in His path, the path of salvation, and you really mean it and keep seeking Him for it, He's going to do that for you.

p 68

...We can ask God for His favor on our lives and be confident that He has a good will for us.

Many people struggle to believe that God really has a good will and a good purpose for their lives...But by looking at David's prayer, we gain insight into the heart of God, and we see that God's disposition toward us is full of grace; it is good.

...we must have confidence in Who He is to us - that He is good and His plans for us are good.

...Beloved, if you and I are going to walk with God, our belief about God and our prayer confession have to be in alignment with His nature, because our lives will not rise above our faith confession,.

p 70

Satisfaction comes only from relationship with Father God.

p 73

...Many people run from the conviction of the Holy Spirit, but the Bible says, "The kindness of God leads you to repentance" (Romans 2:4). the conviction of the Holy Spirit is God's kindness, causing us to become aware of our sins so we can look to Him and say, "Wash me, cleanse me, and give me a clean heart. I see that there is evil in my heart [Revelation 21:8]...I see pride in my heart. ...O God, I know it's wrong. Forgive me. Wash me. Cleanse me." This is a prayer that when prayed from the heart will be answered.

When we put ourselves in this posture, our Creator is faithful to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). When we let the Spirit of God in, we will be changed and transformed from the inside out. As we are, we will be taken into deeper depths in Yeshua - and as a result be filled with strength and joy.

p 74

...As we age and move through life, the world has an effect on us. We are defiled by the fallen world we live in but even more so by the words we've spoken.

p 75

...We can sit in all the church services we want to, but if we're leaving the services and speaking words of criticism, cruelty, and accusation against other people, these things defile us...


...Choose to speak words of life instead of words of destruction. Choose to speak words that heal instead of words that tear people down. Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and our salvation experience will never rise above the confession of our mouth.

p 76

If we're going to go deep with God, our words are going to have to line up with the Spirit of God. And we're going to have to be cleansed from the inside out.

p 86

...Ask Him to cause you to live as a light in this world so that even your enemies will be forced to admit to themselves that the glory of God is on your life.

p 88

...Stephen was stoned to death with a smile on his face. Those around him said he looked like an angel. He saw Jesus as he was being stoned, and he experienced God's glory in the process (Acts 7:54-60). Stephen's circumstances didn't determine whether he had victory. He had victory because he knew Yeshua, and Yeshua proved Himself to Stephen even in the midst of the chaos....

p 91

...Anointings, knowledge, and spiritual power are transferable. We pick them up just by being in close proximity with people who are anointed, knowledgeable, and walking in the power of God.

p 95 - 96

....to live in victory, we must see reality as it truly is, and the only way to do that is to see with the eyes of God's Spirit.

Paul prayed in the book of Ephesians that God would open the eyes of our hearts (Ephesians 1:18)....Seeing in the Spirit involves the supernatural ability to understand people, your circumstances, and the spirit world in which you live.

...We must pray, "Lord, let me see. Let me have revelation."

Revelation gives sight. Jesus said to Peter, "'Who do you say that I am?'" Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father Who is in Heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church" (Matthew 16:15 - 18).

What rock was Jesus referring to here? Part of the rock, beloved, is having revelation. The revelation Peter had allowed him to see that Jesus is the Son of God when others couldn't discern that. Peter had spiritual sight....

p 99

...She became very confused. Finally, in desperation she fell on her knees, held the Quran in one hand and the Bible in the other, and said, "God, which one is true?" Next, she shared, the Spirit of the Lord spoke to her and said, "Which one tells you to call Me Father?" That totally melted her heart. She put down her Islamic defenses toward Christianity and received Yeshua as her Lord. That revelation of God as a loving Father saved her life.

You see, the Quran never taught her to relate to God as Father. In the Quran, God was someone way up in the sky, too holy really to be approached or know. But in the Judeo-Christian Bible, Jesus said, "Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father Who is in Heaven, hallowed be Your Name" (Matthew 6:9, emphasis added).

p 102
...Keep asking and keep seeking, because as you continue to ask, as you continue to seek, and as you continue to knock, God's going to bring you into more. That's what makes living for Messiah Jesus exciting. It's a walk of discovery, a discovery of the more.

p 104 - 105

...Ask God to enlarge your territory, to bring you into a fuller place in His Spirit, where you'll experience more joy, more love, more shalom, and more dominion in the Spirit. Ask God to be with you where you go as you depend on Him, giving you favor and opening up the way for you. Ask God to keep you from harm and from unnecessary pain through His divine protection on your life. As you look to Him in love, He's going to do it.

p 110

There are many days when it seems as if nothing is new. But overall, if we take a step back, we'll be able to see that God is continually bringing us into a new thing - if we're really pursuing Him. God wants to continually bring something new and fresh into our lives.

Stay Fascinated


p 111

...The Lord wants to irresistibly draw you and me.

p 116

We can't take for granted that we're walking in love. Paul told us, "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!" (2 Corinthians 13:5). We can't just go coasting through life without looking at ourselves to see whether we're in the faith. And I think one of the ways we can examine ourselves is by asking ourselves if we are walking in love and if our love is increasing.

Now, none of us is perfect....So if you have a living faith in Yeshua and you're walking in love - not that you're perfect but you're striving to walk in love and you're growing - you can have confidence this prayer is for you.

p 119

...we must ask Him to fill us with the wisdom, revelation, and knowledge of Him. And we can't ask for this just once and think we're done. We must continually pray for God to keep revealing Himself to us.

p 124

There is a power in your life that makes you unconquerable...That doesn't mean you'll never get knocked down or discouraged. It doesn't mean you'll never have a bad day. But at the end of the day it means you are an overcomer because the power that raised Jesus from the dead is focused on and in you.

p 125 - 126

Now, it's important to realize that sometimes Father will bring us through seasons and circumstances in life that can cause us to become weak. Paul learned of this and explained it to us in 2 Corinthians when he said there was a "thorn in his flesh that was causing him distress." We don't know what that thorn in the flesh was for sure. What we do know is that it caused him pain and suffering. He kept praying to the Father to take away the thorn that was weakening him. Eventually the Lord spoke to him and said, "No, Paul, I'm not going to remove this problem because in your weakness My power is being perfected." (See 2 Corinthians 12:7 - 10.) In other words, as God made Paul weak, Paul was left with no choice but to reach out to God for strength. And as Paul reached out to God for strength because he had no power left of his own, the resurrection life of Messiah Jesus was imparted to him, and through that Paul was made supernaturally strong.

I want you to be aware that sometimes the Lord brings us through trials, wilderness seasons, times of weakness, and even times of pain so that in those times we will call out to Him in a deeper way. In calling out to Him, we receive the resurrection power of Messiah, and that makes us strong, not in ourselves but in His eternal Spirit. Sometimes we take a step backward to go five steps forward. We trade in the power of the flesh for the power of the resurrection life that is in God's Spirit.


p 132

...Father wants us to get in touch with the reality that we have fellowship with Him and that His Spirit is bearing witness with our spirits that He is with us.

The bottom line is the God Who is transcendent and beyond also wants to make Himself imminent or present to us.

p 135

...Faith comes from God's Word and from being strengthened on the inside.

p 136

Children who are raised in safe homes feel safe....Similarly, when we believe by faith in God's goodness, when we believe in His promises, when we believe in His Word, when we know we're safe, protected, and loved, the fruit of love is going to come forth from our lives.

p 137

When you and I are strengthened in our faith - when we believe God is good, that God is going to supply all our needs, and that we're going to spend eternity with God - this gives us the ability to open up in love and care about other people. The more I grow in relationship with my Messiah Yeshua, the more I realize that love truly is the central aim.

p 145 - 146

Sometimes people claim their actions are out of love, discernment, or some kind of prophetic knowledge. And because they don't have real knowledge and discernment, they don't recognize that their actions are being fueled by their own hurt; they don't understand that what is happening is that pride rose up, the enemy got in, and now the devil is giving them false, demonic knowledge about someone....That's not discernment. Real knowledge and discernment produce love.

People with real knowledge and discernment practice self-discipline by stopping before responding in pride or anger to someone who hurt them. Real discernment causes them to say, "You know what? I realize what's going on here..I'm going to strive to forgive. I'm going to overcome evil with good and speak blessing instead of insults. I'm going to strive to walk in love as Yeshua did because I want to be like Him."

p 152 - 153

...If we want to be known as people who walk in the love of Yeshua, we can't just look out for our own interests. We have to go to a deeper level by praying for the interests of others, especially for the church at large - for Yeshua's bride to arise and enter into the fullness of her destiny.

p 154 - 155

Becoming more aware of Yeshua's living Spirit will help us to be more conscious of His Lordship over our lives. He wants to lead us every day in the practical aspect of our lives.


I want to encourage you to get your spiritual antenna up....When we become sensitive to the Holy Spirit in the present, then we can walk, as Paul said, "in the knowledge of His will."

This is a supernatural process. Again, the ability to apply the knowledge of God in our present circumstance doesn't come just from book learning. It certainly comes through knowing the written Word of God, but there needs to be a marriage in our lives between the written Word of God and being sensitive to the ever-present Holy Spirit.

p 157

...when we have wisdom, we begin to pay attention to our thoughts. And as we look to the Lord, He gives us the wisdom and power to change the trajectory of our thoughts so we can focus on what is good and move forward in Father's good will.


Feelings, of course, are very important. They make us feel alive. But if our feelings control us rather than wisdom, revelation, and a knowledge of God's will, we're going to fall on our faces. We're going to get shipwrecked. We're going to go astray. We're going to chase after illusions. We're going to chase one feeling after another...we're going to see behind us a trail of destruction.

p 163

...With the wisdom, knowledge, and revelation of Yeshua within you, you have the power to transform the spiritual climate wherever you go. Life primarily is happening in the spiritual realm....The invisible is greater than the visible.

p 164

Again, bearing good fruit is not simply a matter of doing works. Bearing good fruit has to do with what you are releasing by your spirit. You are first a spirit, and you have been born again by the Spirit of God....

...Wherever you go, you can leave an imprint in that atmosphere, and the people you have been with can be changed for the better.

p 165

I couldn't believe who walked in with the pastor. It was one of the top producers at the financial services company I had worked for. This man was in the group that day years earlier when I had been witnessing for Jesus. But his life had taken a dramatic turn. He had started dating a prostitute and ended up getting seduced into her cocaine habit. He became so addicted that he ran out of money and forged a check to get more drugs. He was arrested for forgery, and while he was in jail he remembered my witness. The Holy Spirit had used my witness years later while the man was incarcerated to bring him to faith. We just never know how God may use us.

You can influence the world around you with your spirit, creating love, joy, and peace and bringing the spirit of counsel wherever you go.

p 169

The other element of joy is hopefulness that can be tied to our cognition. It involves thinking and believing the right things......I'm having to transition my thinking from trying to take joy or excitement from something I'm seeing happen in the natural world to totally focusing on what the Bible says should give me hope, which produces joy.

p 170

...there's a joy that comes through the renewing of our mind, which allows us to align our thoughts with God's light and truth and know that whatever is going on is working for our good. These two together produce joy and breakthrough

p 171

I know we go through battles. I know we go through tough times. But we have a choice. When we're in tough situations, we can still give God thanks by faith. We can still say, "Father, thank You. This might be a challenge, but I choose to love You. I choose to be grateful. I choose to believe that You're doing something good in my life right now."

p 172

...When we have wisdom and understanding, we can give thanks in all things. We belong to King Yeshua. He is intimately involved in our lives, closer even than our own breath, and He wants us to trust Him and thank Him for all things. Scripture says, "In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

p 180

...if prayer is always all about you and me, we're not hearing the message Jesus brought. He taught us to pray, "Our Father Who is in Heaven, hallowed be Your Name. Your Kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven."

p 182

...The Holy Spirit keeps showing me more and more things in my life that need to change. The more we grow in grace and get closer to God, the more the Holy Spirit shows us things in our lives that we need cleansing from.

p 183

...We must continually allow the Holy Spirit to show us our sin, agree with Him about it, and ask Him to forgive us.

p 185

What I've found is that if I don't keep my eyes focused on Jesus and instead look at the person, I may fall into offense again because I'm focusing on how the person hurt me. But when I keep my focus on Yeshua, I'm able to release the person with the same forgiveness Jesus released when He died on the cross. This is very important.

p 187

...The Lord wants to be glorified in our lives. He strengthens you and me to overcome temptation and evil so that His Name will be exalted in and through us.


p 211

You don't have to be afraid to tell God anything. Tell Him what angers you. Tell Him all about yourself. He knows already, but when you talk to Him, you're going to build intimacy with Him, and He's going to be pleased that you've opened your heart to Him....

If you have a wrong attitude, the way to get cleansed and healed is to talk to Him about it. If you're unsure of what step to take in life, the answer is to talk with God about it....As you do, the Spirit of God is going to move deeper into your heart and gain greater possession of you. His Spirit will run more and more fully through you as you open up to Him.

p 214

So ask God to glorify Himself through your life.

p 215

Our Creator wants us to look beyond where we've been and where we are to see where we're going - a place where we allow the Lord to glorify Himself through our lives.

p 217 - 218

...As we sat at a table outside to enjoy the beautiful evening, she brought up how easy it is for me to witness to people as she recalled the episode she had observed when I shared the gospel with our guide.

When she said it was so easy for me, I literally started crying because so often it is the opposite of easy. It's hard. It hurts. It's painful to be rejected because of my witness for the Kingdom of Heaven. I explained to Cynthia that it's not easy; it's painful, but this is the work God has given me to do. We are His witnesses.

p 221

...Although the world lies in the power of the evil one (John 5:19), you are being guarded by your Creator and your life has a supernatural protective barrier around it. Jesus prayed, "I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one" (John 17:15).

p 222 - 223

Scripture says the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). But there's something greater, and that's the revelation of the love of God. When we have a revelation of the love of God in addition to a revelation of the fear of God, we're going to have joy. When we realize how much God loves us and how special we are to Him, we'll have true joy.

p 227

I have grown so much in my life from working through problems in relationships...I also have discovered more effective ways of communicating with someone I'm having a conflict with. For example, saying, "You did this, and it made me mad," just makes a person defensive. But if I say, "You know, it hurt me when you did this," the person is able to hear what I have to say, and then we can dialogue about it. We can work through it together rather than running from it.

p 229

You may experience seasons of dryness, but life is a series of battles and then increased releases in God's joy and glory. By that I mean we go through battles, we go through trials, and then when we get through that season of battling and trial, the Lord releases us into a new dimension of joy and glory....In other words, God establishes us in Himself as we rely on and cling to Him through times of dryness or trials.

p 230

...we have to go through many trials and overcome many challenges in life. Life on this side of Heaven involves both joy and suffering. Paul said that we suffer with Jesus in order to be glorified with Him: "And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him" (Romans 8:17). And Luke said, "Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). Yes, there is suffering and pain on the earth right now, but in the midst of it we experience God's glory! The Creator Himself is with you, and you have overcome the world in Him. (See 1 John 5:4).

So let's keep pressing on. Let's keep overcoming!

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