I don't want to write hopeless words to a hopeless world; I am not hopeless. I have hope in Jesus that I will one day see his face and know the grace that saved me. His kindness has led me to a life of worth. Though confused, I no longer doubt my meaning in life - He is my meaning. His life is my own. I honestly don't believe that I came upon this by accident. Jesus' mercy has given me a hope of eternal salvation and peace in my heart. Even when others believe that I should be in other places, doing other things, I know that He will lead me with his eye and show me the truth. I need to learn to trust him and not those who are afraid I am making a mistake.

Jesus came to save me in my sin and give me a new life. I am called according to his purpose. There is nothing that I can do to gain a better claim to what he has for me. Adhering to inadequate and wearisome practices such as going to four church services a week, though certainly not hell-worthy, adds nothing to what loving Jesus already supplies. I needn't obey futile acts of self-denial I believe God has told me in order to obtain necessary ministry tools, especially those miraculous wonders that God allows. To illustrate, I have friends who have been convinced that if they will give up NutraSweet, God's power will be able to flow much more freely when he asks that they touch someone's cancerous eye believing for it to be healed. In the event that a healing does not occur, the reason may be traced to those praying rather than God's will.

Dying to the flesh, a gradual process of self-deprivation, praying in tongues, and intense worship in order to achieve a more anointed position in the throne room of God, is believed by many to be to the Christian what 26k runs are for the marathon runner. This exercise regimen is based on Paul's "dying daily" passage in 1 Corinthians 15 and theoretically prepares an individual for more powerful/anointed ministry times. During personal prayer and worship, a Christian is encouraged to pray and then pray some more until their prayer
language has upgraded from a common tongue used in everyday prayer to a more powerful, anointed language. This language often sounds more authoritative and is believed to be related to a closer encounter with God. It is at this point that one can truly hear from God and trust that God is speaking because the flesh has been quieted for the time being.

The process of dying, if embraced, will eventually allow the breaking forth of the waters of God's glory upon the Earth, the result of which would be mass-salvations and miracles. Until Christians learn to be holy, defined as totally set apart (NutraSweet and all), we delay Christ's manifestation of the
Gospel of the Kingdom, his domination and anointing, and the manifestation of the Sons of God. The only way to set people free from demons, heal people, and see them saved, according to this message, would be to accept the requirement of an anointed Christian, namely dying to the flesh, and follow the process that slowly whittles away one's flesh man, or individuality, until the flesh and soul are dominated by the Spirit. Those aware of this responsibility would rightly conclude that they are the reason for the withheld blessings of God on the Earth.

It is believed by some that as one progresses through the ranks of self-denial, God requires more time and energy to operate at the current level of anointing. Whereas last year you may have spent one hour daily in intense worship and prayer in the Spirit to see healings, for example, you may now need to pray for three hours to continue at that level. Additionally, God will test his children with seemingly meaningless requirements to the end that they deny their flesh, allowing them to better hear him and thereby increasing the level of anointing in which they operate. God begins to call people on things that they allow, such as movie ratings, on a process-oriented scale. It may have been alright to see a PG-13 movie when you were first saved, but for God to use you in the manner that he wants, you may be required to drop to PG or G, or to give up movies altogether for a season to die to your 'Self'.

I don't believe that God, a father, would do that to any child of his. My dad never asked me to take out the garbage to train me to obey when he yells, "Watch out!" when a car is about to hit me. Nor did he ever suggest that I give up smoking so that he could teach me to drive a car. It should be concluded that God, our father, does not request that I *(UNFINISHED)*