Author: Craig Stull

Over the last few days. I keep seeing the word miracle. I believe the Lord is saying that we are in a time where He is releasing miracles in our lives and in the lives of those for whom we pray. I have seen the manifestation of this word released in my life in a small way, but I want more. I believe this word about miracles is for the body and especially the body of Christ in Selma. Just simple ask the Lord to release this in and through your life. He will give you many opportunities to minister to people as you are out and about in your daily activities. I’ve asked Lord to help me ‘tune in’ to what He wants to do wherever I am. In 1 Corinthians chapter twelve, the biblical word miracles in the original Greek is rooted in the word ‘dunamis’, from which we get the word dynamite. Simply, miracles are the release of God’s power. Also, I like the definition of miracle on my dictionary app. It states, “A miracle is a highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, to accomplishment that brings very welcome consequences.” If we are ready and willing to receive, then He is ready and willing to release the impartation.

Song of Solomon 5:16 “His mouth is full of sweetness, and He is wholly desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.” Ephesians 2:7 “so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” 1 Peter 2:3 “..if you have tasted the kindness of our Lord.” Romans 2:4 “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”

As believers, we were wired specifically to hear God’s voice. He loves to speak to us. I know for me, I had to learn to distinguish His voice among all the noisy clutter in my mind, and sometimes it could be confusing. There are so many factors that shape our thinking, plus we have a real adversary that is hurling his thoughts like arrows in our minds trying to deceive us into thinking that his voice is God’s voice. One of the verses the Lord used to help me on my journey was the above mentioned in the Song of Solomon, which states that His voice is full of sweetness. Also, He used many others to let me know that His voice displays His kindness. Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit, which is His very character. Jesus said that His sheep hear his voice and that they won’t follow the voice of a stranger. Let’s ask Him to help us distinguish between the sounds that deceive us and His wonderful words to us. The test of authenticity is kindness.

Philippians 1:6 “For I am confident of this very thing, the He who began a good work in you will perfect (complete) it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:13 “for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Isaiah 66:9 “Shall I bring to the point of birth and not give delivery?” says the Lord, “Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb?” says your God

Recently, I was listening to a song titled ‘Prophesy Your Promise’ by Brian and Katie Torwalt. In the chorus, there was this statement that caught my attention-“….I believe You God, ’cause You finish what You start, I will trust You in the process.” Once again, I was reminded of how incredibly faithful the Lord is concerning our lives and concerning what He has promised us. His guarantees are based on His nature and His faithfulness to us, not our faithfulness to Him. As scripture states, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful because He can’t deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). As we all know too well, trusting Him in the process, is where our greatest struggle lies. The enemy of our soul loves to tell us that we have blown it and we will never see His promises come to fruition. or he tells us that we haven’t done enough to merit the completion. Of course, all of these statements are lies. According to Hebrews chapter 6, there are two unchangeable characteristics about the Lord. One, He loves to promise us good things, which He will work out, and two, He doesn’t lie. So lets start thanking the Lord today for His incredible words that He WILL bring to pass and for the journey He has for each of us. Remember, it’s all about the trek to the destination, because it’s on this adventure where we encounter the Lord’s presence and where Christliness is formed within us.

I Kings 8:15 The Lord spoke with His mouth to David and fulfilled His word with His hand 16) Now the Lord fulfilled His word which he spoke 24) You have spoken with Your mouth and have fulfilled it with Your hand 26) ….let your word be confirmed which You have spoken. I Thessalonians 5:24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He will also bring it to pass (some translations say ‘who will also do it”) 2 Corinthians 1:20 For as many are the promises of God, in Him (Jesus) are yes, therefore though Him is our Amen (our declaration)

The Lord used these verses the other day to remind me again that He not only is the Promise Maker but He is the Promise Keeper. In other words, He not only speaks the promise or word to us, but He also makes it happen in our experience. As it states in Jeremiah 1:12, “He watches over His word to perform it.” What encouragement! I believe for every situation we face, the Lord has a particular word fashioned just for us. However, I believe our response to His word determines how quickly the promise becomes a tangible reality. Truthfully, our unbelief can hinder the promise. Therefore, I believe our response should be two-fold. First, we are to believe. We believe by keeping the word before the throne. Simply, we remind (not that He needs reminding) the Lord of his oath to us by declaring that it will be done. One of my favorite quotes is ‘we act like it is so, even when it isn’t so, in order for it to be so, because we know it’s so, because He says it’s so.’ There is something powerful about speaking the personal words that the Lord has given us. Tc and I pray each morning, and we proclaim His promises and we thank Him that He is going to bring them to pass, which carries me to my next point. Second, we give Him thanks. I was reading today in Jeremiah 33. In this passage, the Lord was promising healing and restoration and other good things. Their response to His proclamations was to bring the Lord a thank offering. The thank offering they brought was as follows: “Give thanks to the Lord of hosts, for He is good, and His lovingkindness(great word which means so much, but one is His loyalty to His covenant) is everlasting. I’m so thankful He makes it simple for us. We believe the word, and we thank Him for it. Thats what faith looks like

Over the last few years, the Lord has been given me greater revelations of His awesome grace. Like I stated in an earlier post, I use to think of grace as more of a concept rather than a tangible reality. I thought of grace as anything God gives us that we don’t deserve. However, I’ve discovered that grace is so much more. Grace is practical and substance. Grace has a face, and the face is Jesus ( I don’t know who said that, but I like it). A while back, we were having a clergy meeting where we sought the Lord for a couple of days. We called the meeting ‘The Joel Summit.’ During that time and even though it can’t be defined, we penned a working definition of grace. What we came up with is as follows: Grace is God’s limitless and continual affection, acceptance, ability, and activity as a free gift in the person of Christ flowing from His goodness to you, in you, and through you.

First of all, I want to thank everyone for your continued support of   Lazarus Ministries. TC and I really appreciate your prayers and your donations. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful support group. We love you all!

Every time I prayed about what to write to you in this newsletter, I was reminded of a word the Lord gave me personally for this year but I believe the Lord placed this word in my spirit today because it’s a word for the body of Christ, as well.

The word was that He was bringing all things into order in my life. So daily, I pray for the manifestation of this word and I have seen it come to fruition in many areas.  As a way of encouragement, I continue to see numbers in consecutive order everywhere.  For example, I seem to look at the clock when it’s 1:23 or 2:34. Out of His goodness, the Lord is  constantly reminding me of His word to me.

When the Lord steps in a situation, He always brings order out of    chaos. Years ago, the Lord told me to get the nets mended and ready because there was going to be a great harvest in Selma. I believe that the word about bringing everything into order and the word about the harvest go hand in hand. He is preparing you and me for an outpouring of the Spirit.

So, if this word bears witness to your spirit, then receive it and, like me, the Lord will begin to bring all things into order in your life, as well.

A Partaker of Grace with You,
Craig

John 1:14,16,17 ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth………For of His fullness we have all received and grace upon grace……. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized (came to be) through Jesus

2 Corinthians 9:8 ‘And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.’

Romans 5:17 ‘Those who receive the abundance of grace……will rule and reign in life through the one Christ Jesus

I’ve always thought of grace as a spiritual concept that conveyed an idea rather than a tangible reality. Simply, I perceived grace as getting something we as believers didn’t deserve and mercy as not getting something we as believers deserve in light of the finished work of the cross. In other words, grace was all the blessings we have as Christians to enjoy, while knowing that we did nothing to warrant it.

However, for a while now, I’ve been on this journey discovering the riches of His grace. I’ve learned that grace has a face and His name is Jesus. Grace is the ability and activity of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life. Like faith, grace is substance. It’s something we possess and receive as a free gift by faith. As scripture states, it’s our sufficiency in everything, the abundance for every deed, and the power of Christ in our weakness.

Through this learning curve, my prayer life has changed. A constant prayer of mine is “I receive the grace to do this” in everything I face. I know by believing this I am receiving His ability and His activity by faith to face whatever circumstance I may find myself. My prayer for you all is that the grace of our Lord Jesus would become a reality in your daily experience. Take it out for a spin.

Love y’all,
Fr. Craig

 I teach a Bible study on Tuesday evenings and we have been in the book of Joshua for a year-and-a- half. It’s an awesome book, full of Old Testament ‘types’ that give insight into New Testament realities. The theme we have been focused on is Possessing Our Possession. You see, God had already given Israel the land of Canaan and had defeated their enemies before Joshua led them in to possess it.  Their destiny lied in the principles of taking the land as their inheritance. In the same manner for New  Testament believers, Jesus has already blessed us with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians !:3).”

Lately, however, in the Bible study, we have been focusing on a place in Canaan near Jericho called Gilgal. Gilgal was a place where Israel first camped when they crossed the Jordon. The Lord told Joshua to set up twelve stones they had taken from the Jordan River and to set them up as a memorial. In Gilgal, they were circumcised, observed the Passover, ate the produce of the land, and had a revelation that the Captain of Lord’s Host (Jesus) would be the one fighting their battles.

In short, Gilgal was the place from which all their campaigns were fought, and it was a place where they would come back and rest after a decisive battle. It represented a place of victory and rest. To New Testament believers, Gilgal correlates to the reality of our being seated with Jesus in the heavenly places. A place where “it is finished” and everything has been accomplished.Further, it’s a place where the enemy has been defeated and placed under Jesus’ feet, which means they are under ours as well.  It’s a place of rest from which we live and face everything in life. It’s walking in union with the resurrection power and life of Christ.

To sum up, the Lord is always taking us back to ‘Gilgal’ to remind us of who we are in Christ (our identity) and to remind us of all that we possess in Him.

I (TC) recently went through a time of stress concerning the potential of what could and is already happening in our country.  Realizing that stress is not from the Lord, I asked for His word.  As He started to speak, joy filled my heart. I remembered the words He’s spoken in scripture.  Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world, and that, as the darkness spreads, the light will grow brighter. In other words, “I win.”

It doesn’t mean we won’t have great persecution but where the gates of hell rise up, Jesus promised they would not prevail.  So we can’t focus on the darkness but are to be looking for the brighter light.  We are to set our eyes on the promises of God and look intently for them. He not only promised harvest but He commanded us to look for it.  It is coming.

The challenge for us as Christians is to say, “not my will, but yours be done” and then become very yielded and awakened to His purposes.  As we set our faces like flint to His will, we will be filled with great joy, peace, and grace to do His bidding.