Pastors Vince and Laura Rizzo

The Supernatural History of Ames International School of Ministry

2009-06-10T10:30:00.002-07:00

The Supernatural History of Ames International School of Ministry
By Pastors Vince and Laura Rizzo

A Brief Personal and Ministry History:
My wife, Laura, and I met in 1983 where she was singing at a local Christian coffeehouse. During that year we lost touch with each other but our paths again crossed in 1985. We discovered that we were both in active ministry and our friendship turned into a courtship and then in God’s timing, we fell in love and were married.

For many years, the Lord trained us and developed our Christian character by opening doors of opportunity to serve in various ministries. We served in almost every position of the church either in a paid position or as a volunteer and worked with many churches doing feeding programs and working with the homeless as well as Christian discipleship programs. This served to be the testing grounds of our lives as we experienced many trials and tribulations, rejection and poverty, but the joy in our hearts never faded because we had fallen completely in love with God and were willing to do whatever it took to do our best for Him.

Jump forward twelve years and in 1997 we received two requests to return home to Fort Myers as my father was intending to retire from the homeless mission that we had helped him establish in 1985 and my mother-in-law was showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease and wanted us to come home to care for her.

This just happened to be perfect timing as the door had just closed in Ocala, Florida where we served as senior pastors of a church with a men’s and women’s rehab program whose headquarters was in Tampa. The parent organization had closed because of corrupt practices which left us horrified, disappointed, hurt, and frustrated and out of our jobs.

Fort Myers being the only open door before us, here we were for the third time and doing what we’ve done for years - working with the homeless in a homeless mission. After about a year and a half, the Lord spoke to me to begin looking for a property to begin a men’s discipleship program at a local facility as about 95% of our clientele at the mission were men fighting addictions. This was not in my heart at all but I had learned to listen to the Lord intently when He spoke. As I began to go look at properties, I asked for some wise counsel from a local realtor who I had met while volunteering at the Kairos Retreat Weekends at the Charlotte County Correctional Facility which is a retreat for prisoners.

During one of these retreats he approached me to tell me that every morning when he woke up the first thing he would think of was Vince Rizzo Ministries and that he sensed from the Lord that he was supposed to help me.

In the past, when situations like this would arise, we would just relax, trust God and watch to see what He would do. So many people make promises they never make good on that we learned not to anticipate, become anxious or worry about any financial matters, which is what trust is and this leaves the matter in God’s hands.

Our Ministry Super-Sized!!
As a result of what the Lord put on the heart of this realtor, in June of 1999 we found ourselves with the key and a map to a $2,000,000 property with a 14-unit motel and a 45 seat restaurant on eight acres in North Fort Myers, Florida, situated on the main highway into town. This realtor had purchased it and was paying $7,000 per month with the end result of donating the property to us for this men’s program that God had spoken to me about.

Be Careful When Someone Gives You Something Free:
Excited beyond belief is an understatement of our rejoicing when this happened, however we soon found out that this 40 year old motel was what we called “the money pit”. Upgrading the property to code was a financial feat. Besides taking on this challenge, our overhead rose from $2,000 to $5,000 per month which was a complete impossibility with regard to our financial situation and we found ourselves in the middle of a zoning battle between Lee County and the surrounding upscale residential housing developments who were almost violently opposed to having our type of ministry in their “backyard” so to speak.

The public zoning issue was actually God ordained as it provided incredible free advertising and generated funding as we were constantly being interviewed on several local television stations and written about in many newspapers and magazines. This also enabled us to help many people in our area as they learned about us and also informed the public when it came to networking with other area agencies.

We also had to face the fact that sometimes when God blesses a ministry, it causes people and other organizations to be offended. We fought spiritual battles we never thought we would and people rose up against us publically that hurt us deeply but we were mature enough to realize that it was all a test. For that reason we prayed for our enemies, we showed love to those who hated us without a cause (even family members) and we forgave those who publically defamed our name.

Then came the day when we won the zoning battle after 27 long months. We then hosted an open house and a grand opening celebration for 250 people. For one year we operated the facility watching as God performed miracle after miracle in upgrading it and providing all our operational needs while men entered our program through the court system, from the streets and from the local jail.

During this time I began attending a local bible school at a church that sponsored me for five days a week for six months. Once I graduated, they invited me to be an alumni instructor teaching international pastors on the subject of living by faith which has been the foundation and cornerstone of our ministry. Between attending school, operating two locations (the Center for the Men’s Discipleship Program and operating the homeless mission simultaneously), we worked seven days a week for almost three years.

At The Top It Began to Fall
By this time, we were becoming a household name. We had been in the news on a constant basis, were invited to and attended hundreds of local events, were members of at least 20 local organizations, hundreds came for tours of our facility including a bus tour, we were listed in the journals and manuals of most local charitable agencies, we worked in conjunction with various local agencies on various projects, 60 volunteers from area churches worked with us and 50 area churches either hosted events with us, sent us more volunteers or took us on to support as their yearly charitable organization.

The sky was the limit until 9/11 occurred. Within six months all the support we received to operate the men’s center on the eight acres completely dried up as it was being sent to the victims of 9/11. Several other local ministries who had no government funding went out of business as their funding too went to the victims of 9/11.

As a result, we lost the eight acre property and resigned ourselves to just running the homeless mission as we still had our volunteers working with us from various local churches who supported us. To some degree this was a relief as our workload was cut in half and we finally had some time off.

The Domino Effect
Then the unthinkable occurred when the owner sold the building housing our mission and the new landlord refused to renew our lease. Apparently that was the turning point to our remaining supporters as now we found ourselves out of a building with no funding and we were forced to go back to work as we could not find another building within our budget.

We were devastated, bewildered, heartbroken and grief-stricken. After six long, hard years of serving our community, feeding just under 12,000 people per year out of a 700 square foot storefront unit with no kitchen and housing men in a free, one year program on a $2,000,000 property, we were out of our jobs, out of our minds with grief and out of answers. Christmas 2002 we held our last homeless church service and served the last meal at our mission. And beyond that our credit died with it as finances failed to pay the last two months we operated the mission. We thought of many alternatives but if God did not come to our rescue there was no reason to continue with it.

When it was all over Laura came face to face with herself. She is eight years older than I am and she realized that she had fallen in love with ministry more than with God. This realization caused her even greater grief because it is very hard for ministers to separate the love of ministry from the love of God. They seem like one in the same but they are not. Also is the dilemma of losing one’s identity in one’s occupation. Being in ministry for 19 years when we lost our ministry, she realized that she defined her life by her occupation. To Laura it was beyond death as she never had children and to serve those in need had become a fervent passion.

A deep part of both of us died.

At that point we just believed God to deliver us as He had done for countless previous months and years. He had ALWAYS brought the money in but we were learning to go with God when God moved to something new. The Israelites had to move when the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night moved in the wilderness and even as Elijah (First Kings 17) was sent in the wilderness to wait for the ravens to feed him and to drink from the Brook Cherith, this too dried up in time and he was to move on from there.

It Had Fallen to the Lowest Point
Our problem was that we kept waiting too long. We kept waiting on God to the point that we both found ourselves at the end of everything. We had not only lost our ministry, but in six months we had no money for anything. We lost phone service, my driver’s license, auto tag and car insurance expired and we could not afford to renew them, we could not afford propane gas for our heat or cooking in our little mobile home during the winter (and Florida winters do get into the 30’s and 40’s during January to March), we were six months behind in our lot rent, we were falling behind in our bills and we had no money for food.

We had reached rock bottom and were actually down to our last meal. As we prayed the Lord gave Laura the verse in John 12:24, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain.” Weeping and sorrow had become a way of life so a verse regarding death and dying didn’t mean much at the time. We were already both dying a slow, agonizing death. Death to ourselves, our desires, our wants and all we had been trained for through the years – everything that we were was being dissolved.

Then God sent us a dear friend who bought us groceries, took us out to dinner, paid a few of our bills and gave us some gas money. That was a miracle in itself because when you run a homeless mission and a men’s rehab-type program, you don’t tell anyone where you live and we only lived less than a mile from our mission. This was the only lady who knew where we lived and we hadn’t seen her in months!!

Then we had to face the future of going back to take whatever jobs we could to survive. Because of the many enemies who had surfaced during the past, we did not feel at liberty to work in the social services industry any longer. The fall of everything had so shocked us that anything in ministry seemed out of the question too as the despair had broken and suffocated our spirits. This was a very dark season.

Laura went back to working as a secretary and I went back to working pest control and I went back to a place called the Money Corner many times as they have a process that “stretches” your paycheck as I was not making enough to pay the current bills and what was left from the past even though I was working 50 to 70 hours per week.

Months later I was going to work out at the gym as I had signed a contract I had to fulfill. While I was in the shower, (God always seems to speak to me in the shower), I felt that the Lord said that He was going to make up the loss of our ministry to me.

God’s Preparation for the Future:
One night I decided to try to further my biblical education and was online looking for a free or low cost online bible college. I did a search in Google for FREE BIBLE COLLEGE and found a school called The Online Bible College (OBC) out of New Castle, Australia. I started taking courses with them and loved it.

Then one night I began chatting with the Online Chat Support Staff and the President of OBC, Dr. David Collins, just happened to be online answering questions. We seemed to hit it off right from the start. As it turned out, this was a real divine appointment and within a few weeks I was running their Helpdesk for over 20,000 students worldwide and was asked to be on their Operations Ministry Team. I had many conversations with Dr. Collins as he was a real innovator when it comes to online education and I had the privilege of being mentored by him personally for about a year.

I then took a job working for BellSouth Internet as a Tech Support Agent learning many ways of dealing with customers online and was a top agent for three months over 300 employees. I ended up being the Supervisor of the Click to Chat Department and it seemed that the Lord was preparing me for the future so I worked at Bellsouth by day and for OBC by night.

I thoroughly enjoyed working for OBC however they began to experience some transitional issues and I lost all contact with Dr. Collins. At that point I decided to leave OBC when I received a call from a supporter of our past ministry who said that she knew a man in a nearby city that was running an online university called Ames Christian University. She thought that we had a lot in common and that we should meet.

The Birth of Ames Bible College:
We finally met the President of ACU after about six months and decided to partner together to start a new online school to operate under the covering of the university. The plan was to create a biblically based online school to enable students to study in a self-paced environment in a low cost program. This challenge allowed my creative abilities and entrepreneurial tendencies, coupled with my past experience to kick into high gear as I developed and founded the college under the university.

Day by day we fine tuned the Ames Bible College website. It was a whole new experience for us running an online school and it was exciting to use the new skills that I had acquired over the last few years. Also Laura’s profession as an administrative assistant and her accounting skills were very valuable to upstart a new business venture.

During this time Laura and I both were taking the ABC courses and both graduated to Ames Christian University and then received our Bachelor of Biblical Studies degrees.

Within the first year of ABC we had around 3,000 students which not only thrilled us but surprised the President. This success was partly due to implementing key ingredients such as the $20.00 administrative fees, the domain name – “free bible college.com”, a variety of discounts and registering various subscription payments which are automatically withdrawn from students’ accounts on a regular basis.

At this point in time, we were again contacted by Dr. David Collins and he had requested that we again work with him. We were thrilled to hear from him however we truly felt that we were doing the will of God in working under ACU and declined his invitation.

Ames Christian University Changes Hands:
One day the President of ACU, Todd Wieland, and I went to lunch and we happened to meet up with the Dean of a college where I was a former instructor. We chatted briefly and when the Dean left, President Wieland voiced that he was searching for a group with a physical school to take over ACU. I was rather shocked as this was our parent organization and if another group assumed leadership I did not know where that would leave us. That night I talked it over with Laura and after praying about it, we decided to approach him about considering us to be trained to take over the leadership of ACU.

Upon hearing our proposal, he pondered the idea and said he would pray about it over the weekend. On Monday he called us and agreed to train us over the next six months and after that he would totally turn the university over to us in January 2005.

One year later we were contact by the Online Bible College when Dr. David Collins passed away in 2006. Our sorrow regarding this was almost overwhelming and we have kept in touch with his parents who are now running the ministry and they asked me to be on their Ministry Team of which I was honored to accept.

The Lord is the Rewarder of those who Diligently Seek Him:
When we first started with Ames Bible College, we were living in a 1969 mobile home. It was like brand new inside but it was more like living outside – we froze in the winter and fried in the summer and every time it rained during the yearly rainy season, we never knew if it would be blown off the planet during one of the various hurricanes that hit Florida frequently. God protected us and grew us until we could afford to move into a small, one bedroom apartment and then He grew us a little more and we moved into a small, two bedroom apartment.

When we took over ACU in 2005, this was when God impressed upon us to step out in faith and to leave our jobs and trust Him to meet our needs. Looking at it logically that would not have been a good move as realistically we could not survive off of the amount that we made from ABC but that is how God trains us and what faith is. Gradually we grew and grew and the Lord was faithful in His promise to make up the loss of our ministry to me. In fact we grew so much that we decided to change Ames Bible College (ABC) to Ames International School of Ministry (AISOM) as we had really gone international.

In the three years that we have had ACU and the five years that we have had AISOM we have never had to go to Money Corner again to pay our bills and the schools have grown to over 24,000 students worldwide as of this writing in December of 2008.

Then by divine appointment I received my Masters and Doctorate Degree through Therapon University.

And then the Lord opened the door for us to lease a beautiful brand new home. For over 23 years of marriage my wife had always wanted a nice home yet she sacrificed it for the ministry. In various ministry positions, we lived in everything from a very old school bus and had to bathe in a mountain stream for three months, to living in a leaky camper, to being caretakers in a palm tree swamp and suffered many such hardships along the way but through it all God developed the fruits of the Spirit in us as we were faithful to God because we loved Him so deeply. Yet, the desire for a real home never went away.

As for me, I love the Internet and have always loved working on computers and God has truly given us both the desires of our hearts.

I have always heard that the Lord closes one door to open another but I didn’t know if He would put us back into ministry ever again. After all that we have gone through what’s so amazing to us is that we are reaching so many more people with the gospel of Christ and preparing them for ministry instead of reaching a few at our homeless mission and men’s discipleship center.

Remember the verse the Lord gave Laura?? ----John 12:24, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain.” Laura has asked the Lord for a hundredfold return when it comes to bringing people to Christ and I believe the Lord gave us AISOM and ACU for just such a purpose.

He tells us not to despise small beginnings because it is one of the many ways that He brings us to the place of completely relying on Him and He is able to show Himself strong. As our faith grows by trusting Him, He grows us by gradually expanding our borders and developing our Christian character.

It has been an incredible journey that has bloomed into a ministry that is reaching 150 to 200 new students per week, is reaching into over 150 nations and is reaching into thousands of hearts to change them for the Glory of God!!

Spiders, Snakes and Faith

2009-06-10T10:30:00.001-07:00

Spiders, Snakes and Faith
By Pastors Vince & Laura Rizzo

This chapter happened five years after the chapter entitled “Tennessee or Bust” so I suggest that if you haven’t read that “test’ first that you do so as you will see some incredible similarities. If you have already read that chapter, please keep the details in mind.

As I begin this, I never, EVER, EVER in all my life figured that ANYTHING could be WORSE than what we went through in Tennessee. But, you know before you read this, that that is exactly what happened and it happened right in the swamps of Fort Myers, Florida in June of 1991. We spent all five years in Tennessee praying to move back to Florida and God answered that prayer as we obtained a small camper and a friend loaned us a 1985 Chevy Blazer to tow it for the drive back.

Arriving in Fort Myers, we soon settled into a less than desirous mobile home park in North Fort Myers which is a place that Jed Clampett would delight in calling home. Living by nothing other than what I call the “fumes of faith”, this time an opportunity came our way to be the caretakers of a 30,000 palm tree farm located off of Six Mile Cypress Parkway in south Fort Myers. (Ya think we would have learned from the first time!!)

Anyway, we gained this position in late May which is just around the corner from the rainy season and we were to be the owner’s “insurance” policy as we were to live on this farm rent free and watch over the property while he went north for the summer. To us this all-expenses-paid deal was like door number #3 on Let’s Make A Deal and we won the grand prize!! We were ecstatically excited at how blessed we were and how good God had been to us.

We had met the owner through a friend of a friend of a friend (Is that a clue??) and the first “friend” gave us the specifics of what the owner of the property was wanting in someone to watch over his property. We stopped by the property a couple times and chatted with the owner and the repairman that was there and took a stroll through the apartment we would be living in and right then and there we agreed to be the caretakers.

The next week we brought our little camper right up to the front door of this makeshift apartment equipment shed combination building and began unloading all our belongings into this place while we were day dreaming of how great it would be living there. By now the owner had left for Michigan and the repairman was still puttering around making his finishing touches.

At this point in our lives we had come to the place where God was the driving force and passion in our lives. We had fallen in love with Him so deeply that we desired Him like a drowning man wants air. We had come through six years of incredible hardships but nothing we went through could shake our commitment and dedication to the all powerful, all loving God we served. The more stuff we seemed to go through, somehow, the more loyal we became because we knew we found Jesus in the storms of life so each “chapter” was a new adventure. We went and did whatever, whenever with whoever and wherever God planted us until He would open the next door for us - -soooooo – quitting was never an option no matter how bad things got because…we wanted to please Him as He was our heart’s delight.

I think this would be a good place for a disclaimer – We clearly see now that anything free is not always good and all would do well to remember that!!! This is really a no-brainer but it takes a few times around the mountain before all the insanities of life start making sense!!

Anyway…two weeks after we moved in and the owner was long gone, it began to rain. We soon discovered that the roof leaked in three different places, every sink leaked and the worst of it was that the toilet would not flush when it rained and it rained like Noah’s flood every day!!! Thus, our daily routine without a workable toilet meant we had to use a five gallon paint bucket and a garbage bag and had to dump it every day.

We also noticed that when it rained the whole apartment equipment shed just kind of sat in the middle of a big pool and there was mud 500 feet in every direction. The whole place was like one big swamp. Even worse was the fact that the summers in Florida are unbearable with 90+ degree heat and intense humidity every day and we had no air conditioning, our Chevy van we’d acquired by then had no air conditioning and a large neighborhood dog kept leaving piles of droppings all around the property. All this produced incredible stress and discomfort and made us rather irritable especially when the repairman the owner had chosen was more of a “Tim the tool man” kind of guy who couldn’t repair a leaky faucet.

We had been working some temporary jobs until we finally got hired as cleaning technicians for United Telephone Company. Each night from 5:00 p.m. till 1:00 a.m. we cleaned one whole floor the size of K-Mart. That was exhausting enough but then we had to face coming home each night. It was an actual feat just getting from the van to the apartment. The moment we stepped out of the van you could clearly hear the sounds of deepest Africa…the mating call of the alligator (and I do know what that sounds like!!), the choruses of tree frogs, an occasional cry of a heron and masses of crickets and swarms of mosquitoes.

However, I was ready… I was armed with a jacket, eyeglasses, an umbrella, an old pair of shoes, the keys, my purse, our lunch buckets, a hat, and a can of bug spray. I carried everything just in case some monster or Big Foot jumped out at me in which case Vince would be free of any encumbrances and be able to easily rescue me. He carried the flashlight.

Five nights a week we had to make this trek to the apartment 500 feet away from where we parked, trudging through the mud, swatting at the mosquitoes, dodging the dog piles, scanning the ground with the flashlight while looking for alligators and snakes and praying to escape all these. Upon reaching the door I would put on the hat and eyeglasses while skillfully balancing all my gear and proceed to hose down the front door with bug spray to deter them from swarming into our kitchen. Once inside, we’d run for the lights and plop down exhausted and then notice what had decided to visit our apartment while we were away. Regularly we would find spiders, snakes, crickets and large ants and about anything else that would do anything to get away from all that mud and water. Here AGAIN, we had spiders and crickets!!

The weekends were also miserable as we would do anything to get out of the stifling heat and intense humidity. It’s pretty bad when you want to go anywhere but home.

One night we had just gotten home and sat down to do some reading before going to bed. I was sitting on the couch and happened to put my book down and put my head on the back of the couch when looked up and saw a spider the size of Chicago on the ceiling in the reflection of the light on the ceiling. These creatures are called banana spiders down here. Most of them are 3 inches across, which includes the body and leg span – horrifying creatures that are as fast as the wind and impossible to catch.

My breath froze as I stared in disbelief as I never remember them being that large. Moving VERY slowly, not daring to take my eyes off that creature, I rose from the couch while telling Vince that he had to kill that thing that night or I would not be able to sleep the entire night. He knows the truth of that statement so he went to get a broom from the shed and then began the battle between he and the spider. I went to putter in the kitchen all the while hearing the swats and bags and doors opening and banging shut as he proceeded from the living room to the bathroom and then to the office. Result? Spider -1, Vince – 0.

Ohhhh, I thought, this is going to be a very L – O – N – G night as I would be spending it in the kitchen which was the farthest point from the office where the culprit was last seen. Resolving to the fact that I would be awake the rest of the night, we both went back to the living room to read and after a while I put my book down, my head back on the couch and there --- there, was that same spider in the exact same spot!! Could it be, I asked myself, blinking in unbelief??? Yes, there it was and I again arose from the couch talking in hushed tones to Vince telling him he had another chance. This time Vince won!

Another night I was in our upright shower when there was an incredible, deafening explosion as if a sawed-off shotgun had gone off right next to my ear. I shrieked a blood curdling screamed in horror and opened my eyes to find white foam everywhere. It was all over me, all over the walls, the shower curtain, the ceiling and floor. At that moment Vince burst into the bathroom, flung open the shower curtain and after seeing I was unharmed, burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Needless to say, I was violently shaking and stunned at first. But then I began to look around to see what in the world had almost given me a heart attack and covered me with foam. It was then I had discovered that the seam on his shaving cream can had rusted through and this caused all the pressure in the can to be released in one huge explosion rendering everything in white foam!! At that realization I too exploded in laughter so hard I could hardly breathe. Gasping for air it dawned on me that that metal can could have easily severed an arm or a leg and yet here I was just dripping wet and white!! I am sure some angel somewhere was full of shaving cream too as God must have had to send an angel to protect me from certain harm – How excellent is His care of us!!

And just to keep you up to speed about how much worse things could have gotten, another night I was in this same shower at 2:00 a.m. and was all soaped up when the water just shut off (why is it always me, Lord?). I yelled in a very accusing tone wondering what Vince had done now and of course he was minding his own business and answered that he was going outside to investigate. I heard him go out the front door of the apartment and then heard him yell, “Oh my God!” as he came running back into the apartment shouting that there was a twenty-foot geyser in the front yard and that he was going to look for the shut off valve.

He finally located it but was unable to repair the pipe and then realized that the entire palm tree farm irrigation system was linked to the plumbing in our apartment. That was another no-brainer and needless to say, a very soapy sponge bath ensued and then the water heater burned out the next day. That meant we didn’t even have hot water for about a week and I sure wasn’t going to have the owner’s repairman fix it!!

Another day Vince had gone somewhere and it was pouring down rain when he left. As the water around the place was around six inches deep, I was just sitting by the window watching it get worse and worse when I noticed a mud puppy struggling in the mud and then he managed to find deeper water and I watched him swim by each window around as he traveled around the whole circumference of the apartment. And for those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s kind of a fish with fins that are more like arms. As I am watching this, I am thinking to myself, what in the world am I doing here????

Now, between the roof leaks, the broken toilet and water heater, the swamp, the extreme heat and humidity, the creatures in and around our apartment, the dog piles, the mud, the unexpected “fun-filled” occurrences, the incompetent repairman who wanted to drop by at any time unannounced and wanted to use our shower any time, the torrents of rain, and fighting all this, I was really a wreck emotionally.

After four months of this nonsense, I was really getting to my limit and I must admit that my attitude was less than joyous. One evening I just happened to be reading Romans 5:1-5:

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience worketh experience and experience worketh hope and hope maketh not ashamed…”

…and I noticed the cross-reference was James 1:3 which is:

“Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”

The “knowing this” in this verse is revealed in verse 2, which is:

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.”

Well, that triggered a real anger within me and I cried out to God in exasperated frustration and said, “Just how do you expect me to rejoice in all this?”

I didn’t get an answer right away so I opened another book I had been reading by Rev. Jamie Buckingham entitled, “Where Eagles Soar”, and I stumbled on a bible verse that ignited my soul and spirit!! Here was my answer!! It was Hebrews 12:26 & 27:

“Whose voice then shook the earth, but now He hath promised, saying, yet once more I shake not the earth only but also heaven. And this word, “yet once more” signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”

The moment I read those words it was as if I was on fire!!! And then I heard the voice of the Lord in my spirit and He said, “I’m shaking you to see that what remains is pleasing to me.” And then waves of the love of God began to wash over me. Tears of joy began pouring down my face as God’s all empowering inner peace overwhelmed me. Through the tears I said, “God, now I can go through anything just for you.” This one verse had released all the torment and gave me an inner peace that forever changed the course of my life.

Everything from that point on began to make sense. I realized that the reason I was here and was suffering through all this mess was because God loved me enough to show me who I really was and what was in my heart. Through all these trials I had made the choice to exhibit all the characteristics of a spoiled child. In essence I was throwing a tantrum!! I was whining, crying, complaining, wallowing in self-pity, I was depressed, frustrated, angry, confused, and I wasn’t talking too nice either.

I was completely out of control and was ruled by my emotions and feelings as I was in bondage to them. The enemy was controlling me and having a great time tormenting me by causing these problems and I was playing right into his hand by giving him the response he was looking for as I was acting just like him. I was plainly exhibiting a sinful nature and my conduct was proving it. The Bible says, “We shall know them by their fruit.”, and I was bearing the fruit of unrighteousness (ungodliness) even though I had a love for God.

Now, the exact opposite of this is really pretty much unknown to the world. When the ungodly are faced with trials and tribulations they respond the same way I did. So, if Christians are acting as bad as those who are heathens, how are they to tell the difference if we are bearing the same fruit they are? But we who call ourselves Christians should be demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit especially during those times. The proper Christian conduct is to exhibit godliness and holiness. We are to be ruled by the Holy Spirit which will then cause us to bear the proper fruit and we can ONLY do this in His strength.

God’s purpose in all these trials was to produce a Christ-like character within me which is what the term “Christian” means. I have heard it called “the sandpapering of the Lord” and I would use the terms “sculpt” or “chisel”, but this refers to the way that God fashions circumstances to produce the fruits of the Spirit in us. The Bible says that if God doesn’t discipline us, then we are not true heirs. These circumstances chip away at the ungodliness in our lives and are only beneficial when we respond in the right manner. If we truly call ourselves a Christian, then we should be exhibiting the characteristics of Christ no matter what we are going through.

Jesus was the supreme example. He never panicked, had self-pity or complained, had rage or acted unholy in any way. He demonstrated powerfully the fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, self-control, etc.

I Peter 1:15 & 16 says, “But, as He which has called you is holy, you also be ye holy in all your conduct, because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”

That is the plumb line and our goal in this life but again, it can only be done “in and through Him”.

God wants us and expects us to live by a code of ethics that is way beyond more than being just religious. It is not the “goodie two shoes prude” way of life but a truly surrendered life that brings glory to God and shows the world what a real Christian is. A true hero of the faith is someone who practices holiness daily and lives his life FOR the god he serves. The word “sacrifice” is something he doesn’t even consider because he is so in love with the one he serves. This person looks at serving God as a supreme privilege and considers it an honor to submit to any kind of sacrifice that’s required.

This is a description of Jesus. He came as a servant and His purpose was to give us life and life more abundantly. He had complete peace and was submitted to God in every situation because His life was ruled by God the Father. He plainly said He did nothing except what the Father wanted Him to do and what the Father wanted Him to say. He went about doing good. He was the epitome of peace, love, joy, and self-control, which again are fruits of the Spirit. Just as Jesus “gave his life” so are we expected to do the same as he said, “He who gives his life for my sake, shall save it.” (Matthew 10:39) His plan for us is to do greater works than he did. John 14:12

It was impossible for Him to produce bad fruit only because He fully surrendered His life to the Father and the Holy Spirit empowered him to overcome every attack of the enemy. He could never have been the real Son of God or the perfect sacrifice for all of humanity unless he was tempted just like we are and yet he was without sin, completely victorious and pure in every respect. (Hebrews 4:15) If He wasn’t pure, his sacrificial life and hideous death would have been in vain and our sins could never be forgiven because his blood couldn’t have obliterated our sins if it was tainted with sin.

If we are living our lives and walking in the Spirit of the living God, we are not going to be given to all the responses of the flesh but we are going to exhibit the characteristics of a life in the Spirit of God -- to live a victorious life ABOVE and BEYOND our emotions and feelings. We will demonstrate the attitudes of Christ especially when we live our lives FOR Him.

I have heard many people say that Christianity is a crutch but it takes a very strong Christian to control himself when all hell is breaking loose around him and yet he remains in peace, he is content, He is focused on Christ and not on his problems and he has true joy within. Again, that can ONLY be done in His strength for the word says, “I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME!!” Philippians 4:13. This is NOT a mind over matter issue. This IS a relationship with the God of the Universe.

The Bible clearly shows us a comparison of living in the flesh as opposed to living in the Holy Spirit:
THE WORKS OF THE FLESH:
Galatians 6:8 “For he that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption…”
Matthew 7:17 “For a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.”
Matthew 7:20 “Wherefore by their fruits shall ye know them.”

Galatians 5:19-21 “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are:
Adultery (unlawful sexual relations)
Fornication (all forms of sexual perversion)
Uncleanness, (immorality, impurity, indecency, lewdness)
Idolatry (inordinate affection)
Sorcery (witchcraft, Occult, New Age practices, superstition)
Enmity (hatred)
Strife (emulations)
Jealousy (indignation)
Anger (ill-temper)
Selfishness (lovers of self)
Divisions (factions, disorder, one of the seven things God hates)
Dissensions (quarreling, debating, disputes, discord)
Outbursts of wrath (rage, indignation, fierceness)
Heresies
Envy
Murders
Drunkenness (carousing)
Revelries (rioting, sinful and obscene activities, lasciviousness)
and the like of which I tell you beforehand, … that those who practice such things WILL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD.”

If you bear the above fruits, your life will be one of torment, destruction, loss, disappointment, unfulfillment and in the end, eternal damnation. Yes, sin has its appeal but only for a season. Any accomplishments or rewards cannot bring true and lasting happiness or eternal value.

FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD:
Galatians 6:8 “But he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
Matthew 7:17 “…every good tree brings forth good fruit…”

Galatians 5:22-25 “But the fruit of the Spirit is:
Love Faithfulness
Joy Gentleness
Peace Self-control
Patience Meekness
Kindness Humility
Goodness
Against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus, the Messiah, HAVE CRUCIFIED THE FLESH which is the godless human nature, with its passions and appetites and desires. IF WE LIVE BY THE (HOLY) SPIRIT, LET US ALSO WALK BY THE (HOLY) SPIRIT.”

If you bear the above fruits, your life will be one of real and lasting peace, maturity, wondrous rewards here and in the next life and you will live out the destiny and purpose in God that you were created for if you continue in Him. The best part is that you will spend all of eternity with Him.

HOW TO DO THIS: Practical Guidelines and Examples

PRAY: Ask God to help you right where you’re at. He can’t help you unless you develop an intimate, daily relationship with Him. Ask Him to help you trust Him. Its not easy communicating or trusting in anyone you can’t see but none the less He is very real and He completely loves you. Pour your heart out to Him. Be honest with yourself and Him. Face who you really are and give it to Him and ask Him to remold and reshape your life. Regardless of how long God takes to answer your prayer, He promises He will answer. Seek him first thing every day.

WORSHIP GOD: Right now, whatever you are faced with, start loving and worshiping God every way you can think of and do it every day. Thank Him vocally and loudly that He is your deliverer. Most of the Psalms were written by King David and he truly delighted in God. One of my favorites is Psalm 34 in which he passionately poured his heart out in love to God. Using the Psalms can help to bring you to more easily focus on worshiping God. Focus on Him and not on your problems, what you are doing for the day, where you are going, what the kids are doing or what you’re having for dinner.

Give your entire attention to God as you would a person you highly respect. Take time to delight yourself in God by actively communicating your heart to God (singing, dancing, and rejoicing in Him, lying prostrate before Him, or focusing on Him for an indefinite period of time). Many false religions actively and visually worship their gods with no regard for anyone anywhere. They unashamedly bow to the ground in public, chant and do this repeatedly throughout each day. How much more should we actively worship a God who gave His perfect only Son as a sacrifice for us, who died and rose from the dead and who is alive forevermore and loves us beyond all human comprehension? Celebrate God in your heart each day and it will bring you joy above all your trials.

Worship can be defined in many ways. Make a concerted effort to care for others because God tells us to love Him first and others like we love ourselves. On purpose determine to be a blessing to others. Matthew 22:37-39. When you get to the point that you WORSHIP God every day for His solution to your problems, it actually brings you peace in the midst of your storms. He didn’t say to cast all our cares on Him for nothing!!! (I Peter 5:7)

READ HIS WORD: So many people don’t know God because they don’t spend time reading His word. Find out who He is and learn how to live by His word. Ask Him to help you understand His word. This will help you to keep from surrendering to temptations. Jesus himself used God’s word to defeat the enemy. Partake of His word daily – feed your spirit on it and take time to spiritually digest it – in it lies the wondrous available secrets to overcoming the torment of the enemy. The New Testament has so many practical applications and examples of the word lived out among His people. Fall in love with God and His Son.

HOW TO ACT: When our words, our body language and our thought life demonstrate godliness and holiness before the Lord, before others and before the enemy, we are learning to be a mature Christian. This is how we grow up in Christ. All of us have weaknesses as we are all human but God, our creator, knows how to help us.

Choose to rejoice in the face of torment or lack or pain or hatred as this honors God and brings Him on the scene and when you rejoice in the face of the enemy, this defeats him. If he can’t cause you to react sinfully, he will quickly leave and when you rejoice in your trials, he just can’t take it. He came to steal, kill and destroy us. He tempts us to misbehave and if we surrender to him then he puts condemnation on us for doing what he tempted us to do and that is usually followed by guilt which drives us away from God. When we submit to him we lose every time whether its short term or long term.

Verbally rejoicing and praising God OUT LOUD for the answer to your prayers, no matter how long the answer takes, is the mature way to handle matters that are completely beyond our control. This develops patience and endurance within us and fully commits the matter into His hands. He can’t do anything with our problems until we leave them in His hands. If we keep worrying and stewing about the problem, that is not giving the problem to Him. Only when we learn to control our thought processes can we fully surrender our problems to Him. That is what real trust is. We entrust what concerns us into His capable, loving ways and in exchange He gives us complete peace about the matter. When we focus on His peace instead of our problem, we become free of that problem and this exchange then enables Him to solve the problem in His time and in His way.

Now, if we don’t handle our problems like this, it’s during times like these that God brings conviction to us and that is what we need to surrender to. Repentance means to change and that is a pivotal direction. Don’t allow your conscience or better judgment to be seared. I believe it was Shakespeare who said “To thy own self be true.” Do not deliberately do things that will bring you pain in the future. Don’t respond to things that violate God’s word because in the long run they will cause you misery and pain. Don’t give yourselves to things that are impulsive, impetuous and unwise. Pray for the wisdom of God and He will give you wisdom to live by that will bring you joy beyond measure.

Whenever you sin, ask the Lord to forgive you immediately. Keep the communication lines open because that will draw you closer to God and the Holy Spirit can work and do greater things through your life.

RECOGNIZE THE ISSUES: I have had many times in my life where I have been faced with a decision. The enemy was baiting me and I could either choose God’s way or the enemy’s way. If it is an issue that causes torment or confusion, it is definitely not from God. The paths that God prepares for us will give us peace. The word says that we should be led by peace. Jeremiah 29:11 specifically says God has good plans for us however the enemy devises a set up with some of the decisions we are faced with. If we take the “bait” there can be regretful results.

The enemy is also a counterfeiter. He will send a false peace as well but the things of the enemy always eventually end in torment or destruction and if we partake of what he offers us, we will eventually experience a downward cycle where our lives get worse and worse.

DO NOT COMPLAIN: Complaining is a very serious matter. In the Old Testament the Israelites repeatedly disobeyed God and complained against Him. Their actions brought an earthquake, a consuming fire and a plague which killed thousands of them.

If we cling to God to help us defeat the enemy, He will help us from giving in to our emotions and feelings. This is how TRUE TRUST AND FAITH IN GOD REPLACES THOSE fleshly responses.
When we truly give ourselves to worship God in the worst of circumstances, this is what I call “giving the devil a black eye!!”

Here are just two of many different examples in the Bible:

EXAMPLE 1: (Daniel 6:1-28)
Daniel was a member of the Jewish royal family of Jerusalem and when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged the city, Daniel became a hostage at 14 years of age. He and three other noble youths were taken into captivity and were groomed to be advisors in the king’s court for three years. Following that Daniel had become known as a seer and a wise man as God was truly with him as he interpreted dreams for the king that none of his other advisors could even attempt. He was then highly favored of the king and was promoted as a governor for his “excellent spirit”.

Then the king desired to place one of the governors as a chief governor over the all the other governors, advisors and counselors and the king was considering Daniel. This greatly threatened the other governors as they desired the position so they tried to discredit Daniel with something that would disqualify him. The problem was, they could find no flaw in Daniel so they devised a law and pleaded with the king to sign this law that would deliberately incriminate Daniel as they knew of his extreme commitment to worship his God. Thus they conspired together with all the other dignitaries of the court and approached the king saying:

“All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the “law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter”. Therefore King Darius signed the written decree.” Daniel 6:7-9

This decree delighted the king as it brought him greater honor but when Daniel heard about it, he went home, got on his knees, worshiped, thanked and petitioned his God as usual and continued doing this which he had done three times every day since his youth.

One day, as he was worshiping, these governors assembled and found Daniel making supplication before his God and they told the king and immediately “refreshed the king’s memory regarding the decree he had signed”. The king tried to deliver Daniel to no avail and was forced to give the command to throw him into the lion’s den in compliance with his own decree. The last thing the king said before they took Daniel away was, “Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you.”

Daniel was put in the lion’s den, then they rolled a stone over the mouth of the den to secure it and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and of his lords that the purpose concerning Daniel might not be changed. The king was so upset over this that he fasted and did not sleep all night. Early in the morning he arose and immediately went to see Daniel and said,

“Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you.”

Then the king released Daniel and no injury was found on him because he believed in his God. Then the men who had devised the decree were brought and thrown into the lions den with their wives and children and were devoured before their bodies had even reached the bottom of the den.

This is a fabulous example of integrity of spirit. The first thing Daniel did when he heard the decree was to go and worship and petition his God. By this time he had seen God do incredible, supernatural things in his life that were evident to all so he knew that God could take care of him whatever the situation.

However, it would have been so easy for Daniel to save himself by justifying that it would be okay to pray only to the king as it would only be for thirty days!! Thirty days!!! That’s nothing!! After all, he had worshiped his God faithfully three times every day for years – what was the harm in praying to someone else for a measly thirty days in comparison to that??

However, Daniel was completely possessed with integrity of spirit as the scripture says. This is a prime example of Shakespeare’s quote, “To thine own self be true”. He determined not to betray his own convictions to please someone else which was to save himself. He placed his full trust and confidence in God to rescue him and God did just that. Even though everything was at stake for Daniel, he refused to give up his convictions to save own his life and instead remained true to his God.

EXAMPLE 2: (2 Chronicles 20:1-25)
King Jehoshaphat was faced with several nations coming to attack Israel in a united effort to destroy them. (Historians believe this to be around 10,000,000 people!!) The King did a very wise thing – he bowed his face to the ground in worship and sought the wisdom of God and instructed all of Israel to do so as well. They fasted, prayed and worshiped God. They also reminded God of His past goodness to them. Jehoshaphat prayed an incredible prayer (verses 7-12) and I can hear his voice rising in intensity as he recounts God’s previous victories. At the end the last thing he says is, “…we don’t know what to do but our eyes are on you!!” At that point a powerful prophecy came forth upon Jahaziel and then it gives his lineage telling that he came from a long line of prophets. The prophecy is God’s answer to Jehoshaphat’s prayer – FEAR NOT!! Then he gives a battle plan and position and the position was WORSHIP!!

When the battle was ready to begin instead of sending out his fiercest warriors at the battle front, Jehoshaphat had his best SINGERS walking ahead of the army while singing HIGH PRAISES TO GOD. Did that make sense? Of course not but IT HONORED GOD ABOVE THEIR FEAR AND PANIC and honoring God will always cause us to win. If you read the story, all 10,000,000 became completely confused and they killed one another as God sent ambushments against them. What a powerful God we serve. That was another black eye!!

OUR CHOICES:
Life is full of choices and we are today where the choices of all our yesterdays have taken us. One of the most profound things I have ever heard Joyce Meyer say is: “Don’t waste your trials.” That means that when the pressure of life is on and we don’t respond correctly, we will continue to go around and around and around the same issues until we do respond correctly. Many Christians run from their trials. If they have personality conflicts on their job, they quit. If their husband or wife isn’t absolutely perfect, they get a divorce or have an affair. If they have family issues, they run out and do drugs or alcohol but these are all the wrong responses. If we continue to live according to our flesh and let our feelings and emotions rule us, we will spend many years in defeat and disappointment because we can’t run from these issues. They will always be there facing us and until we begin to handle these issues with Godly responses, all these trials will be wasted because we haven’t taken advantage of them by growing from them.

The Israelites spent 40 years in disobedience in the desert for a trip that would have normally taken only 11 days because they chose that pathway in their lives. God gave them over to their disobedience and the entire generation (almost 3,000,000 people), died in the wilderness and never went into the glorious Promised Land that God had prepared for them the 40 years previous. Only two people of that generation went into the Promised Land who were Joshua and Caleb.

We are all faced with choices and if we don’t begin making the correct choices now, our entire lives will have been lived in vain. Many choices are purely a set up from the enemy. He sets us up for a fall and if we take the bait, the outcome can be disastrous. So many Christians remain baby Christians and can not go on to the “meat of the word” and the joys of learning that because they refuse to grow. The Apostle Paul speaks of the war of the Spirit and the flesh in Romans Chapters 6, 7 and 8 which shows us how to change God’s way.

Making the right choices ALL THE TIME is what it takes to be a victorious Christian, even when all may be at stake. This is the pathway to success. If we love and serve God faithfully, we will grow spiritually and that is the only way to defeat the enemy and conquer the giants in our lives. And there are so many giants – they were all on page 6!!!

The greatest tragedy is that SO MANY Christians are living in defeat. They never come into the fullness and blessings that God has planned for them because they never fall in love with God, enough to embrace His truths and they refuse to change. Unless they submit themselves to God, they will never live out the destiny and full life that is available and meant for them.

We went through almost 20 years of training that were incredible hardships and pain but through that time God tempered us. Every tear and every trial was worth it all because now God has delivered us on the other side where we now live a life better than I ever thought possible. Now we are seeing God’s multiplied goodness every day but that is because we were persistent in our faith and steadfast in believing that God truly had good things in store for us even though we lived through many years of terribly tough times. Those years were the testing ground for our future.

Growing up spiritually isn’t any easier than growing up in the physical realm yet it is very similar. Going through puberty is hard on everyone. The person is neither, an adult or a child, yet they are coming into adulthood. Spiritual growth is painful as well. It requires complete adherence to God, His word, His Spirit and His Son and the word says that His “chastening is not joyful for the present but grievous, nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.“ Hebrews 12:11. The book of Romans Chapters 6, 7 & 8 thoroughly explain the war within as the old life and the new man are compared to plainly show us the way to a better life in Christ.

It has been said “Those who stand for nothing, will fall for anything.”, which is a quote by Alexander Hamilton and Peter Marshall. I spent 12 years falling for anything because I chose to. Those years are the greatest regrets in my life but once I completely turned to God, He began to rebuild my life. My defining moment was when I took a stand to be exactly what God wanted me to be. I decided I didn’t want to be the enemy’s property any more but I truly wanted to be a child of a God – the God I read about in the Bible who loved me beyond any human love.

That is when I entered a very real war zone. And this is exactly what happens to most Christians because if they are truly serious and repentant then the enemy is furious at losing one of his own. He then floods the baby Christian’s life with everything to take him/her back into sin. That is why once you make the quality decision to follow Christ that life gets worse sometimes before it gets better. The Bible calls it a change in citizenship. We now become heirs of salvation instead of heirs of destruction.

Then the enemy will throw things at you to cause you to relinquish your decision to follow Christ. Everything that could go wrong will go wrong - your car breaks down, you lose your job, you get sick, your children get sick, you find your husband is cheating on you, someone on your job steals your wallet, you get in a car accident, a check bounces, or any of dozens and dozens of things the enemy will do to get you off track and get you away from God and most importantly, to get you mad at God. The enemy will tempt you with drugs, or alcohol or sex or stealing or hatred, fear or any of those things on page 6 again. That is why we need spiritual armor.

In Ephesians 6:12-18 the Apostle Paul writes about our spiritual armor as we are to stand against the enemy and having DONE ALL TO STAND AGAINST HIM!! Standing is not easy because we are born with a sinful nature yet we are all called to a new nature in God and that requires putting our flesh down. We are called to war against the enemy and to submit ourselves to God and resist the him and he will flee. (James 4:7)

Life as a Christian means that we have to WAR against the enemy so we’ve got to be committed, devoted soldiers in the army of God. We HAVE to learn how to control our thoughts, our actions, our attitudes and especially our words. Christ set the example. Can you see Christ complaining to God for anything? Can you see Him anything less than perfect when He did everything from healing EVERYONE to casting out demons, feeding thousands and raising the dead??? Our focus should continually be RELATIONSHIP, RELATIONSHIP, RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD EVERY DAY and out of that flows the power to overcome the enemy and to become wise to his deceptions.

The armor is depicted in a spiritual sense but is meant to be lived out in the physical realm. As we can only defeat the devil when we are holy before the Lord and partaking of Him makes us holy, but we must maintain that holiness continually to become qualified to utilize the armor correctly.

GOD’S ARMOR: (Ephesians 6:10-20)
THE BELT OF TRUTH: The belt of truth girds us and gives us clear direction as He will guide us into all truth. It gives us discernment against all deception.

THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS: When we partake of the Lord daily, it builds us up spiritually and is what makes us pure. Holiness grows from the inside out and when we live our lives honorably, with integrity, honesty, and a godly conviction, His holiness protects us against evil.

THE SHOES OF PEACE: We purpose every day in our hearts to do good unto others. The word says to seek peace and pursue it and it’s even in the beatitudes – “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” God’s peace is so valuable its immeasurable. There were times that we went through terrible, terrible things and yet our hearts were calm, we always were able to sleep peacefully and we had every confidence that God was in control and still on the throne because we knew Him. It is a defining tool as well. We are to be led by peace and this truth will guide you into His complete will. The word says in Isaiah 26:3, “Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.” I have literally lived that verse and it will amaze you how true the word of God really is.

THE SHIELD OF FAITH: We are to have the God-kind of faith. God spoke the universe into existence and experts tell us that the universe is still being created at 186,000 miles per second, which is the speed of light. Once God said it, it has never stopped. We are to have a type of faith that believes all things which is also a description of love in I Corinthians 13:7. In Hebrews 11:6 it states that we CANNOT please God unless we have faith so we are compelled to believe in the invisible, all-knowing, all-powerful God and that kind of faith in God and his word, quenches the untruths and attacks of the enemy.

THE HELMET: The helmet of salvation is meant to protect our thought life and we are to cast down unholy imaginations and keep our minds and hearts pure before God. We are to keep our lusts and passions in check so that the enemy can not take advantage of us. We are to have the mind of Christ and to bring every thought into captivity unto Him.
(I Corinthians 2:16, II Corinthians 10:5)

THE SWORD: The sword of the Spirit is the word of God and we can only use the word against the enemy when our hearts are pure before God and the power and authority that Christ backed His word with are only available to us when our hearts are united in Him. There are no gray areas or half hearted issues with God. If we are not going forward, we are backsliding and repentance is necessary again. Because Jesus related to the disciples that they are to forgive any offenses from anyone indefinitely, we too can be forgiven indefinitely as long as we are sincere. Asking true forgiveness and being sorry for our sins is different than being sorry that we were caught in our sin. Real repentance means that we change our conduct. Eventually God will bring us to the place that we finally get to the end of ourselves and we hate sin as badly as God does. We make real progress when we get to that place because then we will have conquered the sin that had enslaved us.

So…when I had received this impartation from God, rejoicing had begun to be a way of life. The enemy didn’t have his hook in me any longer so I began making real progress. I was incredibly peaceful and just began waiting on God in a whole new attitude. Amazingly all the things that bothered me before had no bearing on me at all. I just didn’t seem to notice them anymore. I had a fresh, new beginning and a real joy and peace within that was really indescribable.

In less than two weeks a door opened for us to rent a nice two bedroom, upstairs apartment with a balcony overlooking a small pool in a lovely setting, in a very convenient location for our jobs and in a nice neighborhood. And all at once all the finances came together for it at the same time – God truly has perfect timing!!! We finally had air conditioning, dependable plumbing and no mud or puppies!!! We had almost no furniture and we slept on the floor for two weeks before we got our next pay checks to buy a bed – it didn’t matter – none of that mattered because inside me was a real tranquility and a present love for God.

My greatest realization was that my real happiness was not in my surroundings, or any given situation or circumstance but in the depths of Christ himself. God had become my strength and source for everything and He has given me a firm foundation and stability in Him that is sure, steadfast and immovable!! He builds our lives one day at a time into something that has purpose, fulfillment and an eternal future.

And…I found that our lives can be joyous no matter what the enemy throws at us or whose swamp we’re living in!!!!!!

“For the Lord restores my soul, he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod (to protect me) and thy staff (to guide me) they comfort me… Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23

TENNESEE OR BUST

2009-06-01T06:36:00.000-07:00

TENNESEE OR BUST

By Pastors Vince and Laura Rizzo

One of the worst and yet rather humorous times of our Christian training began in 1986 in Florida and took us on a journey to Greeneville, Tennessee. Amazingly we saw the mighty, miraculous and sovereign hand of God intervene in our lives repeatedly and learned some incredible lessons along the way…

We married in 1985 and at the end of our first year an offer came our way to live rent free, work at and be the Chaplains of a campground in Naples, Florida. To us this would be a very easy way to save money and I was always open for a change in scenery. Thinking we had nothing to lose, we had an interview with the park managers which proved to be very pleasant as the meeting was held in their lovely double-wide mobile home. They seemed so nice and reasonable and discussing our future positions seemed like such an effortless, natural choice and something we were meant to do all along.

Upon returning home we decided to vacate our lovely brand new apartment in Fort Myers to pursue this opportunity and were excited about embarking on this new adventure.

Our first day there was like a slap in the face. First off, we didn’t pay much attention to the camper that the managers had planned for us to reside in which was a gross oversight on our part. The interview was so “deceiving” that we just expected their camper to be as nice as their home. Wrong!! Upon exploring this tiny, filthy, horrifying mess, I immediately burst into tears at the sight and smell of it. By now it was too late to do anything about it as we had already given up our apartment, put all our furniture in storage and had made the commitment to take these positions. Was this a hint of things to come? You be the judge.

The day after that we started our jobs. My position at the campground was an office check-in clerk for the campers and Vince’s job was grounds maintenance and getting the campers settled onto their sites. Our next problem was that we naively believed the managers would uphold the terms for the positions we agreed to. As it turned out, completely contrary to our agreement, we worked every weekend, every Sunday and every holiday so in comparison to that, the filthy, small camper was soon insignificant. As time went on we just became more miserable and were certain that we’d made a grave mistake in our choice to go there. We then began fervently praying that God would do something—quick!!!

Customarily God rarely, if EVER, moves quickly and even if He does, its usually never within our time frame so while we were waiting for God to answer our prayers Vince happened to notice a 45 foot, 1961 International school bus that was for sale in the back of the campground.

Upon seeing it he sensed that God wanted us to have it so he actually just went and laid hands on it and asked the Lord for it. Within a few days he saw the man who owned it, spoke with him and we got a tour of it. The owner had been converting it to a camper and it had bunk beds for their kids, a customized kitchen table booth, a mid-sized refrigerator, a small kitchen sink, a small porta potty, (funny I never noticed it didn’t have a shower!!) and at this point I was open to WHATEVER would take us away from this cursed campground.

As we began to discuss the deal, we offered the man my car for an even-trade deal as it was a rather nice car, but he really wanted the Volkswagen camper we had. It was only three years old and a dear lady in our church, by direction of the Lord, had packed the thing to the full with everything anyone would ever need to go camping and then had given it to us free and clear. When he suggested that, a thrill came into my soul at the thought of blessing this man as he had a wife and kids and only had a moped (a tiny motor bike) to go to work, do errands, go grocery shopping and he owned nothing he could use to take his whole family anywhere.

Apparently God had intended all along for this man to have that camper van and everything in it as once we completed the deal, he radiated with joy and was praising God for this wonderful transaction. We too, were exceedingly happy and joyful especially since we could move out of the manager’s stinky camper!!

As it was now June of 1987, we spent several weeks working on the bus to complete the conversion and it took much longer than we expected because the heat and humidity were over 95 sweltering degrees each day. Between the heat and sweating profusely we both were exhausted by noon each day. Our upgrade included installing a window air conditioner unit in the back door window and we half killed ourselves getting a king sized bed in the back door of the bus and I wouldn’t suggest that maneuver to anyone!!! Just envision the three stooges taking on that task and it was us!!

Finally finishing the conversion, it was now time to take her out and see what she could do!! Upon our first jaunt with the bus one Sunday afternoon we were traveling towards the Everglades on a two-lane road, and had only gone a few miles when smoke began pouring out from under the hood. I pulled over onto an almost non-existent shoulder that almost dumped us into a canal and Vince leaped out, opened the hood and as he did the engine burst into flames!!!
In panic, he ran back into the bus and grabbed the fire extinguisher which he had just installed the day before, but he couldn’t get it to work!! Yikes!! Then I panicked, ran out and grabbed the extinguisher and began frantically reading the directions to operate it. At that point, Vince’s stress level went into overload and he promptly began losing his lunch on the side of the road as I finally managed to put out the fire!!

Thinking back, it must have been quite a quandary for the passers-by as they were probably quite confused as to which to respond to – the fire or Vince’s performance so no one stopped at all to help us!!!

Anyway, completely exhausted but relieved we crawled back into the bus and just sat there getting our breath when a kind, Florida Highway Patrolman traveling in the opposite direction did and u-turn and stopped to help us. He used his radio to call headquarters to get in touch with the seller who paid for the miraculous, minimal damage and we were on our way in no time!! (The miracles were starting already!)

At least now we knew the bus was roadworthy but we still needed to hear from God what to do about leaving the campground. About a week or two later one Sunday after one of our church services, a little lady told us about a place called Horse Creek in upper East Tennessee that was run by the U. S. Department of Forestry and she said we could possibly be campground hosts there and have a similar living situation there.

Well, that was music to my ears as we couldn’t wait to leave this campground and the annoying managers who had lied to us about everything. We immediately began praying about this and on Monday we called the Dept. of Forestry. They said they would love to have us come right away and informed us that their campground was in the Appalachian Mountains and that they had three huge swimming pools!!!—imagine that!! Not having been to Tennessee before, I immediately had visions of the kind of scenery of Oregon and of the Florida style of three lovely concrete swimming pools – how elegant and dreamy!!!

Finally, we were ready to make the trip and we had both quit our jobs and had purchased walkie-talkies to communicate to each other on the trip. Vince drove my car and I drove the bus as I had had extensive experience driving trucks and had my Chauffeur’s license for five years as I had worked outside construction related jobs before I met him.

Once we left Fort Myers I was as happy as a lark. The trek to Horse Creek was fairly uneventful until we were about six hours south of Atlanta when I heard a big bang from the engine. I radioed Vince and we both pulled over to check it out. As he walked up to the bus, he noticed that there was oil all down the outside of it. He opened the hood, looked around the engine, and not being a mechanic, he closed it, wiped the oil off of it, placed his hands on it and prayed that God would heal it – and God did just that!! (Acts 28:8). We never had a bit of trouble with it from that time on and we arrived at our destination safe and sound six hours later.

However, by the time we reached our destination MY stress level had gone into overload. Each time I called the Dept. of Forestry they could not give me exact directions to the campground!!! Each time I hung up the pay phone I was scratching my head in unbelief asking myself why couldn’t they just tell me where their campground was?? – after all they lived in Tennessee and they should know where their own campground was!!!

Unbeknownst to us many of the roads in Tennessee seem to have been designed and constructed by persons under the influence of alcoholic substances or if you prefer, moonshine!! The roads continue endlessly curling and winding for miles and miles. It turned out that Horse Creek was at the furthest end of one of these roads and was a place less than your average “Mayberry” with the nearest town being 18 miles away!!!

The campground itself was at the base of a huge mountain with ten tent campsites and we soon learned there were NO showers, one OUTHOUSE and NO lights within 500 feet anywhere. And as for the “three swimming pools”? These were nothing but holes in the ground about 8 to 10 feet deep with freezing ice cold, mountain stream water running through them and…where we would have to bathe for the next three months!!!!!!!!! We realized we were totally unprepared for camping up north and my dreamy visions of Oregon and elegant swimming pools turned into nightmares of “WHAT’S NEXT?”

After coming all this way, this was our future. I really remember quoting that line that has the fire and the frying pan in it and the phrase, “What were we thinking?” Here we were again faced with inconceivable, uncontrollable living conditions which we had to accept. I could handle the darkness outside as we did have power to our site and we were still in contact with the civilized world because the rangers installed a phone for us but I didn’t handle the outhouse issue well and as for bathing in water day in and day out that wasn’t frozen just because it was running downhill?? That was another issue altogether!!!!

Needless to say, we didn’t bathe TOO much and fortunately there weren’t too many campers down wind of us. And using the small porta potty we had meant Vince had to dump it in the outhouse every few days – that was another nightmare I totally chose to ignore. When we did have to bathe, our normal bath time schedule in 30 degree weather was:
1. Put our bathing suits on under our clothes and jackets.2. Wait till it was so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.3. Take a large towel and bar of soap and your flip flops or sandals.4. Use a large flashlight to run to the creek.5. Strip down and jump in while screaming at the top of your lungs to dull the shock.6. Jump out to lather up.7. Jump in again while screaming even louder to rinse off.8. Jump back out and hold the flashlight so the other person could do the same thing.9. Run like crazy back to the bus without falling and freezing!!10. Pile tons of blankets on us to keep from hypothermia!!

The upside was that bathing outside at night, makes one very glad that there are no lights within 500 feet!!!

We spent our days praying and worshiping God and studying and job hunting. We found that the norm for Tennessee is to hire and lay off all the same people year after year at all the factories because most of these folks are very clannish. That means if you weren’t born there they didn’t give outsiders a second thought. So here we were in another impossible situation where we had to pray and wait on God –again!!

One thing we really learned was how to trust God and trust that He could take care of us regardless of the situation. We still had some bills from Florida but being caretakers of this campground meant we had no overhead except for food and gas but we were learning that if God could take care of the birds of the air like He said in Matthew 6:25-34, that He could take care of us. And God was there to meet us many, many times.

To most people no jobs mean no money for food, gas or bills, but to us, this is God’s perfect recipe for a miracle. To us this is a time of sheer excitement as we wait to see God open His miraculous hand and make a way where there seems to be no way.

However, it may sound like that was an easy formula to receiving from God but it was incredible training for us which I called the “fumes of faith” because there were times that I thought WE WOULD PERISH!! And, when it comes to perishing I always think of Queen Esther in the Bible when she was positioned to intercede for the lives of the entire Jewish nation. The risk she took to go to the king with her petition to repeal a law to annihilate her people was a life and death decision she had to make whether she died doing it or not. She trusted God to see her through this and so did we.

Sometimes when we thought all was lost and that we would perish, we would come home from job hunting and find another miracle had taken place such as the day we came home and the whole one side of our entire bus was lined with huge grocery bags full of fresh vegetables of all kinds that came from the park rangers. There were about 20 bags in all. We were totally in awe of what God was doing as we told no one but God of our needs. We had been at the end again with no money for food at all. We later learned that all the park rangers owned and ran farms and worked at several different parks part time. In our greatest hour of need God had orchestrated these people to bless us during our times of despair.

As Day Light Savings Time was ended, it was getting darker sooner so we mentioned to the Dept. of Forestry just how dark the park was and they placed a large light fixture behind our bus which was just outside our bedroom air conditioner. This was rather comforting to us as the woods at the base of this huge mountain in the park rendered everything pitch black once the sun set.

However, we really hadn’t thought far enough ahead on this because being that this light was THE ONLY LIGHT IN THE PARK, we were awakened in the middle of the night to find whole families of crickets leaping through the air conditioner vent onto our king size bed!!
Half asleep, half laughing, swatting and beating the sheets we attempted to rid ourselves of over 50 of the noisy creatures who were having a grand time invading our nocturnal bliss!! I finally yelled for Vince to go outside and shut off the light to keep the rest of the cricket population from coming in. Getting back to sleep many hours later I recall even laughing in my sleep after this crazy episode. We saw this as God bringing us moments of laughter from the smallest things to keep us from discouragement and from giving up.

One day in November we discovered a local tent revival. The 30 degree weather rendered very small crowds and we noticed they were getting very small offerings as well. The small crowds made it easy for us to get acquainted with the lady preacher and we found that she too was living by faith. She then invited Vince to preach the last night of the revival.

That evening at the revival Vince sensed that the Lord wanted him to pledge to give her and her team $50.00. We didn’t have $5.00 let alone $50.00, but we knew that we served a faithful God and that He would provide. When the last night of the revival came, we still didn’t have the pledge but Vince went and preached till they were cheering and receiving from God. In fact, the lady preacher was so kind that she had all the attendees come forward and give us an offering as they left and not having ever experienced that type of offering before we just stuffed the money into our pockets.

Later when it was all over, Vince pulled $50.00 out of his pockets for her and we discovered that between the two of us we still had $290.00 left over which to us was a gold mine!! This was just enough for us to pay our few bills, get food and gas, go out to dinner and wait on God again for the next provision. Our hearts were overflowing with joy and excitement that God had met our needs, again!!

Our job hunting finally proved successful when I was hired as a secretary at a local church. The pastor could only pay me $4.00 per hour and I could only afford to work part time three days a week because each trip was 36 miles so it was rather costly. For three months we lived on about $40.00 per week!!!!

On some of those pay days, I remember walking up and down the grocery aisles tears streaming down my face wondering how we could conceivably survive and trying to reason how we would ever have enough money for gas and food, the bills and incidentals. The impossibility of it all was overwhelming and each week I would VERY carefully choose what we could afford and we always tithed $4.00 per week at the church as well. Trust me when I say that it is terribly hard on your flesh to tithe $4.00 per week when you are only making $40.00 per week but we found joy in giving to God as we saw Him lovingly provide for us time and time again.
But, don’t you know that if Jesus could feed 5,000 from one loaf of bread and two little fish that he could care for us just fine on $40.00 per week!!! He multiplied our loaves and fishes each and every week!!!! God would even put us before people who were making much more money per week than us but would be in terrible financial situations. They were living in fear as they did not have enough money to feed their kids and this one family of five we knew were living on was ice milk as the father worked at a dairy.

We would then be able to witness to them and testify how powerfully and faithfully God had provided for us and taken care of us when we put Him first in our lives. These same people would then financially bless us out of their extreme need and the next time we would see them, they had a testimony to tell of the goodness of God in His care and provision for them as well!!! In fact the next week the husband got a promotion and a raise!! When we honor God in all we do, He will honor us in due time.

Now as it turned out, Vince could not find a job so he had the privilege of staying home and praying and seeking the Lord and God would just manifest himself to him and be so real to Vince that he was incredibly encouraged and would then encourage me through the rough times.
Periodically we would get invitations to preach at local churches, which was the result of Vince’s time spent in prayer. The opportunities helped us form local friendships and provided some funding as the churches responded with some support.

By now winter was fast approaching and the situation was getting steadily MORE uncomfortable and annoying. The November-December temperatures were so cold that the mountain stream we bathed in felt like needles piercing your skin. By the time we would run back to the bus, we were so frozen that we had to stack layers of blankets on both of us to be able to stand it. The water actually felt so cold that one time Vince had a terrible headache and he dove in and practically flew out of the water and then realized his headache was completely gone!! (Either that or he was so cold he couldn’t feel it any longer!!)

Anyway, the next problem was that the campground we were in was now closing and we had to relocate to another park. In fact, it was so late in the season that when we moved to this new park we were the ONLY ones there and it was scheduled to close within two weeks. The hand of the Lord also gave us favor there as the park managers allowed us to stay free of charge!
We set up camp as usual but at least this place had hot showers – what a wonderful luxury!!!! But then the trials and challenges began again. This time we faced black spiders with fuzzy white hair on their backs that seemed to be everywhere. One day while doing the dishes I was rinsing a dish when I looked up and here was one of these spiders dangling from the shelving unit above the sink right in front of my nose!! I gasped in sheer horror and it was just enough to get him to drop down in the dishwater right where I wanted him. I thank my God that I didn’t inhale any harder or that thing would have gone right down my throat, hair and all!!

As the days passed it even got colder and we had to run two space heaters all night long because school buses have no insulation. If it was 20 degrees outside it was just about that cold inside and you could see your breath if you sat up in bed.

One night it was just too much for our generator and we woke up to the sounds of explosions and flashing lights on the left side of the bus. Afraid to look but praying it just may be something else besides our bus exploding, we dared to peek outside the curtains to realize that the power box under the bus was self-destructing right before our very eyes at 3:00 in the morning!!
Yes, it was July in Christmas – the 4th of July!! Streams of objects were shooting into the night air with great beams of light that were projecting into the pitch blackness at accelerating speeds. Booms of bangs were piercing the silence of the night as we watched our only source of heat go up in a blaze of glory. I remember just rolling my eyes back, looking over at Vince and pulling the covers over my head and saying, “We’ll just deal with it in the morning!” It was just easier to forget it all and sleep in denial for the rest of the night.

In the morning after investigating everything, we discovered that besides the power box dying that all the water pipes had frozen and burst. At this point we were at our wits end. We again were at the place of no money at all. We managed to temporarily fix things but our attitudes were really beginning to lean towards the disgusted side.

Then at around 11:00 p.m. the very last night the campground was open, we got a knock on our door and were very surprised to see a couple from the tent revival who came to see us and they wanted prayer. (We didn’t remember mentioning it, but we must have told the lady preacher where we were going to move to so she must have told them where we were.)

We were really not in the mood to pray for anyone but we did all the while I was trying to be sensitive to God to see what He would have me bless them with because they were the poorest people at the revival – they put coins into our hands when the lady preacher told everyone to give us an offering as they left the revival!!)

Anyway, God did not tell me to give them anything and spent some time with them, offered them some refreshments and then we said our goodbyes. Once they left Vince went back to being disgusted. Two minutes later I heard another knock at the door and it was the wife of the couple and she shoved something in my hand and I just said “Thank you” to her as I thought it was probably a one dollar bill. We again said goodbye, I shut the door and Vince came out to see who it was just as I opened my hand to see a $100.00 bill!!! We both were just completely stunned. I think I muttered “The wife just gave me this.” I think we just stood there about five minutes just starring at it not believing that poor little lady had given us that much money!!! Then we both did the dance of joy!!! We were just beside ourselves and thanked God and rejoiced all over the place and we slept very well that night as I recall!!

The next day all of a sudden Vince wondered whether the couple had mistakenly given us their rent money in the dark!! We had no idea where they lived or worked and looked for them for a while. Not finding them we went ahead and purchased food and gas and ran into a couple of women who were in the praise and worship team from the church we had been attending and I had been working at. They inquired how we were doing and they just happened to be the managers of an apartment complex just outside of town and by that night we had put a deposit on an apartment and had moved into it and had traded the bus for a nice car at a used car lot in town.

Interestingly enough, the next time we saw the couple that had given us the $100.00, Vince immediately asked them if they had mistakenly given us their rent money. The husband spoke up and said that when they walked outside of our camper and were getting ready to leave, they were in their car figuring out how much money to give us when they looked out toward the woods and saw a pure, white dove fly out of the woods and land on the top of our bus. As soon as they saw that, the wife ran to give us the $100.00!!

In a tiny moment of time, through the most unexpected servants of God, He had provided all we needed. I couldn’t have been more surprised. When you are determined to submit yourself to God, He will shock you with His love at times. More and more He was showing us His absolute faithfulness and loving hand of provision. More and more we were learning to behave during the hard times by maintaining a good attitude and learning to control our emotions and feelings. When we were upset or angry with God and He would answer our prayers, we would feel so ashamed that we didn’t believe and have the faith that He would take care of us.

We were learning not to get upset but to worship and love Him with a joyful spirit continually regardless of what we were going through because we knew that if we didn’t have a good attitude that we weren’t being faithful to Him. If we praise Him before He answers, it proves that we really trust Him and have faith that He is able to deliver us and keep us because He is our portion, our strength, our deliverer, our provider, the rock of our salvation in whom we can trust completely!!!

It is a wondrous thing to fall in love with the one I call Daddy God. Growing up, my brother and I never had a father image in our family – my mom brought us up all alone and Vince also had a very difficult youth as well. Father is a name neither of us could relate to but God cared for us so deeply that He revealed Himself in ways of love we never expected. Getting to know God as a real father is an incredible privilege and honor. We found the heart of God in the midst of desperation and looking back I know it was worth every moment of that desperation because soon, it wasn’t about the money, it wasn’t about jobs or preaching engagements, it was about falling in love with a God who not only gave His own Son but continued to give and give and give.
This whole journey was meant to pull us much deeper than survival or supply, it all was meant to create deep within us an unrelenting passion and devotion to the One and Only God who is alive forevermore and who loves us beyond all intellect, all knowledge, all circumstance, all there is.