“Where should we go to church this Sunday?”

It is not a question that Sulojana and I have asked each other too often in nearly 31 years of marriage. Most Sundays we are committed to ministering in the churches where God has called us to serve.

Yet, from time to time, when we’re on holidays or have a Sunday off, we do need to make a decision about where we will worship.

Eight years ago when I asked the question, Sulojana pulled out a business card from her purse. “There is this guy who works with me who has been inviting me to his church. He is always so excited about his church and his pastor. I promised him that we will go to his church when we have a Sunday off. So, why don’t we go there today?”

Sounded reasonable to me. Plus, it was right in St. Catharines, where we live. So, we set out, business card in hand, to this church that neither of us had ever heard of before. It was on Queenston Street, well-known in our city for housing the General Hospital.

We drove to the spot where the church was supposedly situated. But, we couldn’t find it. No “sign” of the church whatsoever. Literally.

We don’t give up easily. Let’s take another shot. Drove to the logical spot where the church should have been waiting for us with open doors. Alas, no church to be found.

Now I’m getting frustrated. “Sulojana, there are lots of churches that have a 10:30 service. It is already 10:27. Let’s keep driving till we find one.”

She would have no part of it. “We must be really close. Let’s just go around the block and look one more time.”

I am not feeling very pastoral or Christian by now. But the thought of being in the doghouse for not going to her choice of God’s house was a powerful motivator.

“Alright. Last try.”

Sure enough, we found the church. It was on the second floor of a building, directly above the Pizza place which is all we’d seen until this time.

Worship was lively. The pastor was flowing powerfully in the Holy Spirit. The hospitality that followed was heavenly.

That was the blessed morning we met the one and only Pastor Dayo Adeyemo of the Royal House, who has since become one of my closest friends in ministry and in life.

What started out as an attempt to appease a persistent co-worker and an insistent spouse turned out to be a divine appointment.

Two nights ago, the same question popped up again. Only this time we were at a hotel room in Midland, Ontario. No business cards this time. In Google we trust.

We checked out a few websites and narrowed the choices down to two. Once again I deferred to Sulojana’s choice. She picked River of Life.

We knew nothing about this church, except what we saw on the website. No familiar names or faces—online or offline, when we walked in there. Friendly greeters, exuberant worship, powerful message with a prophetic flow.

In the course of his message, Pastor Tim mentioned a name that caught my attention. Daniel Smith. I have a pastor friend by that name, who ministers at Logos Christian Family Church in Mississauga. I recalled that he had ministered in this region at one time.

Out came the cell phone. A quick exchange of texts with Dan. I found out that we are in the same church where he had ministered a few years back and that Pastor Tim is his best friend. Wow!

We met Pastors Tim & Kari at ministry time and introduced ourselves. Much to my surprise, he recognized my name instantly and reminded me of a prophetic word I had given him through Dan. We received powerful prayer ministry through them.

We could have never orchestrated this. Another divine appointment.

Dear DWOD friend, may I encourage you to follow the nudges of the Holy Spirit (even when they come through your spouse!) and go where He leads? I exhort you to expect and experience divine appointments as well.

Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” (Luke 19:8)

In a recent Facebook post, our friend Rachelle Mainse, founder of Princess911 and Luella girl exhorts women to develop a love for modesty. As part of that post, she writes: “I remember years ago when God really started speaking to me about modesty and it went from my head to my heart to my closet.”

Hearing from God is good.

Taking it to heart is great.

But the ultimate proof that you heard from God and took it to heart is the change you choose to make next.

For Rachelle, it was making changes to her wardrobe. When the word of the Lord went from her head to her heart to her closet…that is when things began to happen.

She continues: “A couple of days later a woman who knew nothing said she felt God tell her to give me a big bag of classy and sharp clothes and then another lady came up to me after a conference (again knowing nothing) said I want you to come speak on modesty.”

Wow! The changes Rachelle made got the Lord’s attention. He promptly used two of His own to confirm that her obedience did not go unnoticed by Heaven!

When Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus’ place, you knew that something was going to change in the chief tax collector’s life. And then we get proof that Jesus’ words went from his head to his heart to his bank account when he makes the astounding statement at the top of this post.

Obviously it got Jesus’ attention! Please note that it is only after Zacchaeus promises to give away half his wealth to the poor and make fourfold restitution to those whom he had gouged that Jesus makes this declaration: “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham.”

Were you surprised that Jesus waited for proof before he made this declaration? You shouldn’t be, really, when you consider the meaning of the word “repentance.”

“Metanoia” the Greek word that is usually rendered as “repentance” in English translations, literally means “a change in thinking or mindset.” The Hebrew word “shub” which is translated metanoia in Greek actually means “to turn around.”

In other words, repentance is a change of mind which results in change of behaviour.

A great illustration of this occurs in Luke 3, where John the Baptist preaches a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He makes it clear that he is not just talking about an invisible internal change when he says in v. 8: “Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.”

He then goes on to apply this with specific directives for certain people groups such as tax collectors and soldiers (vs. 12-14).

Dear DWOD friend, whether you realize it or not, you are surrounded by skeptics and seekers who are all looking for proof that what you say you believe has gone from your head to your heart to your closet, your wallet, your hormones and your _____________(please fill in the blanks).

Actually, the Lord Himself is watching to see what you will do. When you get His attention, you too will get confirmation, as Rachelle did. Please feel free to share your testimonies with the rest of your DWOD family.

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!