Make Your Day Count

What do you do when fear tries to attack you, Dony? We have to rebuke it. You know….. How do you rebuke it thought? We have to pray. We have to pray. That’s right. All right, now here we are on the National Day of Prayer. All right, how do you pray? When fear comes at me, the best thing I can do is go into my prayer closet and begin praying in the Spirit of God because the Spirit knows what I’m facing even more than I even know what I’m facing.

Then you just make it right where you are. Richard Roberts can make a prayer closet right here on this piano bench today. All right, now here’s the reason I’m saying this. So many people think: Well, I’ve got to be in the right circumstances. Now what Dony said is so very important. You know, everything has to be just right in order for me to pray. You know, there are some people who believe if they close their eyes tight enough while they pray something will happen. Friend, it doesn’t have anything to do with your eyes. It has to do with that linkup with your Heavenly Father. So you can make your prayer closet wherever you are. You can pray any time night or day.

That’s right. I’ll tell you what too, Richard Roberts, about how much I appreciate this bunch of people. A few months ago, the first year I had surgery I had a lot of tumors and, thank God, they were all benign and I had just come home from the hospital and I was staying with my mom and dad who are watching this morning in California.

I was out there with them and one night I was so sick and some complications arose and I don’t know how to tell you except I was sick unto death. And your show…. the rerun comes on about 5:30 in the morning in Los Angeles and I had been up all night long and the rerun came on and I was so sick and on the rerun…..

I’m so glad God is not limited by time or space. On the rerun you said, “There’s a lady out there who is having pain in your stomach,” and instantly…. not only is the Word to our ear but it’s to our spirit and something in my just quickened and I said, “God, that’s my word. I’m taking this healing for me.” You just received it for yourself.

Richard Roberts just received it for me. I said, “That’s me.” And you did this the day before, but with God there is no times. He is the God of right now. He’s always now.

When you follow Jesus, He gives you His authority and the power of His name to overcome life’s toughest problems.

On the last night of His life, Jesus transferred His power to His disciples. He told them in John 16:24 NKJV, “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” He was saying, “You’ve not used My name before, but from now on, you will.” It’s like when a businessman leaves the country and wants somebody to take care of his business while he’s gone. He gives that person the power of attorney the authority to conduct his business exactly as he would if he were there.

Jesus has given us His name to use as our power of attorney. All of His resources and everything that He is are available to us. That means He wants us to act in His place exactly as He would act if He were still on earth. We can take dominion over the devil and his attacks and say, “Devil, take your hands off God’s property me!”

James 4:7 tells us if we resist the devil, he will flee from us. And Philippians 2:10 says, At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.

Once when Richard Roberts and I had to fly on a stormy day, I wasn’t happy about having to get on a plane. But as I took my seat, Richard Roberts and I said, “Devil, you take your hands off this plane. I take dominion over you now, in the name of Jesus. The angels are surrounding us, and the weather will not hurt us. The pilots have wisdom, and we’ll make this trip safely.”

We ended up having the smoothest ride imaginable! No matter what the devil throws at you, you can take authority over it. When you use the name of Jesus, the powers of darkness drop to their knees because Jesus has given you His power of attorney.

Before she went home to the Lord in 2005, my mother-in-law Evelyn often shared her thoughts and insights with our ministry Partners on what it meant to her to be a mother. Here’s a wonderful article she wrote several years ago.

What a responsibility it is to be a mother! To have entrusted into your care the life of a precious child is one of earth’s sweetest joys, greatest privileges, and heaviest responsibilities. When you consider you are rearing a life for eternity, it is indeed a sobering thought. I’m frequently asked questions about how to bring up children. No one is a perfect parent. No one has a perfect family. When you’re given that little life to mold, part of what he or she becomes goes back to what you taught that child at home.

I praise God that I am a mother, as well as a grandmother! Sometimes I wish I could have all of my children Rebecca, Ronnie, Richard Roberts, and Roberta little again, down around my knees, just for one day.

I never shall forget the first time I held my oldest child, Rebecca, in my arms. I thought, O dear Lord, help me teach this child how to live, how to love You, and how to meet the struggles in her life. Many mothers today have a more difficult task than I had raising my children because I was able to stay at home. Many mothers have to work away from home, and that’s difficult to keep everything balanced.

My mother was a single parent for a few years after her divorce, and like her, many mothers today work hard to keep their families together. I believe the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit are the greatest tools to have when you have struggles of any kind.

Give God to Your Children

Psalm 119:11 tells us to hide the Word of God in our hearts so that we might not sin. And I believe if you hide the Word in your children’s hearts, when struggles come against them, Scriptures will come to their remembrance and guide them. If your children get off on the wrong track, if they will listen to the voice of God, He can get them back on track. Therefore, our children can receive no greater inheritance from us than having been taught to read the Word, to pray, and to look to Jesus as the One who knows and understands each problem and has a solution.

Children can take into their hearts the truth of God that you give them, and they seldom forget what they learn when they are small.

Remember You’re Not Alone

Mother’s Day isn’t happy for every mother. I think about those mothers who never go to church. I think about those mothers who are in such dire straits that they can hardly put food on the table. And I think about those mothers who don’t know where to turn because they don’t know Jesus. All mothers need to know that Jesus loves them, and that they can give their hearts to Him and receive help from Him in their struggles. Again and again while my children were growing up, I turned to God to supply me with sensitivity, wisdom, and insight for their upbringing. Oral once told me, “Evelyn, we are teaching the children how to become independent individuals. When they grow up, then it’s up to them. We’re not responsible.” But you know what? I have never felt free from responsibility. Once you become a mother, you can never stop being one.

The responsibility of rearing children is tremendous, and it’s not to be taken lightly. But the good news is that we don’t have to do it alone we have a God who is all-wise, standing with outstretched hands, ready to help us. You can reach out to Him today just like what Richard Roberts believe in.

Let me urge you. If you don’t already take an annual physical, you ought to have an annual physical annually. That’s every year. That’s like I was watching one of our Sunday morning programs…. it’s a half-hour program, and I said to my wife, “I’m going to watch our half-hour program,” and she said, “How long will you be?” Richard Roberts said, “Probably 30 minutes.”

But if you have a need to come to the City of Faith this summer, call and make an appointment. You can go through the health-appraisal clinic and you can be assured of the condition of your body. It’s very, very important. Jim, Richard Roberts is grateful that you would come over and share with us this morning. My guests today are Dony and Reba McGuire and also Evangelist Jerry Savelle. They’ll be along with us in just a moment so stay tuned. I will be right back.

Here it is. If you’d like a copy of this album, plant a seed to help me with this television ministry. Here is the cassette, here’s the album. Write me, Richard Roberts, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Or call the Abundant Life Prayer Group and plant a seed on your Mastercard, your Visa, or your American Express. Help me by planting a seed in my television ministry, help me get this program on more stations. I’ll be saying a word about that in just a few minutes. Right now I want to present two young people who have the anointing of God upon their voices as they sing the gospel.

Dony and Reba McGuire. Give them a big welcome. Reba and Dony, I want to ask you, what Spirit are you talking about? We’re talking about the Spirit of God that wells in us. And when it swells up in us, Richard, it makes us not be cowards of what satan is trying to affect us with in our lives. We just keep stomping his face down, we just keep marching right on him because we’ve got the Spirit. We’re walking without fear because we know who our God is and we know who God is in us.

God has always spoken to my husband in a very distinct and direct way; Oral has heard God’s audible voice many times. But God has never dealt with me that way. At one time in my life, I wanted God to speak to me just like He did to Oral and Richard Roberts…until I learned why God deals with everyone differently. One day, when we were dealing with a very difficult problem at ORU, I went for a walk. As I was praying over the problem, I said, “Lord, why don’t You just give me the answer to this so I can tell Richard Roberts and Oral and get this worry off his mind? You speak out loud to him all the time, but you don’t ever speak to me like that!”

Do you know what the Lord told me? “Evelyn, I will never speak to you like I speak to Oral because I haven’t called you to do what I’ve called him to do. I speak to you in the ‘everydayness’ of your life.” Well, that suited me fine, because I am an “everyday” kind of person, for sure!

He’s interested in the little stuff

God speaks to me in quiet ways. He helps me with the little nitty-gritty things of everyday life things that other people might not care about or pay attention to because He’s interested in every little thing that concerns me. For example, sometimes I’ve been expecting company and it looked as if I couldn’t get my house cleaned and the meal cooked in time. At those times I’ve asked Him for strength, and with His supernatural help everything got done, and I would be feeling good when our company arrived!

I’m just an ordinary person, probably much like you. What God has done for me, I know He can do for you because Acts 10:34 says God is no respecter of persons. Aren’t you glad that Jesus loves ordinary people like us? He’s not a God just for Sundays…He’s an everyday kind of God!