Early in our marriage, I wrote in my Bible beside Mark11:23˗24, “Richard and Lindsay to have children.”

I wrote that when I was facing surgery for a tumor on my ovary which meant I would never be able to have children.

That tumor was like a mountain…but I knew Mark 11:23 & 24 said I could speak to that mountain, and it would have to obey. I could have the things that I desired, which was to have children. So I claimed the promise and the power of these two verses.

Praise God! He miraculously healed the tumor, and today Richard and I have three beautiful daughters!

There is power in the Word of God. We can stand upon His promises, speak to our mountains of need, and receive the things we desire from the Lord!

The sixth rule of faith is: Lose yourself in the Lord.

Naaman, the great general, the leper, received and believed the message from the little servant girl and the soldier. He had a change of heart. He obeyed God and was willing to lose himself.

Losing ourselves in obedience to God is something we should give the highest priority. We should lose ourselves to the limitless power of Jesus Christ whether we understand it or not. Many times my heart tells me to do things I don’t understand or can’t see how they can work. But obedience is the key. It doesn’t make any difference whether you understand the message or not, as long as you know it’s the voice of God. So Naaman dipped himself in the Jordan River seven times.

The seventh rule of faith is: Get a point of contact.

A point of contact is something you do, and when you do it, you release your faith. Elisha said to dip seven times in the Jordan River. There was no power in the water. It was just a point of contact for the releasing of Naaman’s faith. A point of contact sets the time to release your faith.

Can you picture Naaman as he went under the water a second and third time? The soldiers were all watching, expectantly waiting to see what would happen. Finally, Naaman went down a seventh time, and when he came up, he looked at his hands, at his arms, and at his legs. The Bible says, “and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy” (2 Kings 5:14). Wherever you go, whatever you do, if you operate your life by the principles of God’s laws and rules of faith, you, too, will have access to God’s unlimited power.

Begin to believe and use a point of contact to release your faith to God. Then expect that your miracle is on the way!

The servant girl told Naaman to go to the prophet, but instead he went to the king of Israel and presented him with a letter. When the king read the letter, he said, “Who do you think I am? Do you think I’m God that I can make people alive or dead?” (See 2 Kings 5:7).

The fourth rule of faith is: Put your faith in God, not in man.

When Elisha, the prophet of God, heard what had happened, he sent a messenger to the king to tell Naaman to come to him. Naaman gathered all of his soldiers and chariots and left for Samaria. Elisha had received a special word from God that something had to change in Naaman in order for him to be healed. What happened next would be the deciding factor of whether or not he would be healed.

The fifth rule of faith is: Accept the correction of God.

Naaman went to Elisha’s house, and Elisha sent a messenger out with a message, “Sir, Elisha told me to tell you to go wash seven times in the Jordan River. Your flesh will be restored, and you will be healed.” (v.9)

Naaman got in his chariot and left, shouting angrily, “Does he not know I’m the General of the Army? I won’t bathe in a filthy, muddy river!” (Paraphrased)

One of Naaman’s soldiers approached him, saying, “Sir, you were waiting for the prophet to strike his hand over the place where you needed healing. Instead, he told you to do something absurd. But, Sir, if you go home now, you are going to die. If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? Sir, I think you should do what the prophet says.”

Naaman replied, “You’re right. The prophet knew about my arrogance. He knew there had to be some kind of change in me or nothing could happen.”

You have access to unlimited power if you’re willing to operate by the laws that govern faith. God is waiting for you to discover His power.

Second Kings 5:1˗15 tells of Naaman, the national hero of Syria. He was well respected and mighty in battle, the commander-in-chief of all the expeditionary forces of Syria. It was shocking news when Naaman’s personal physician told him that he had leprosy.

Naaman’s troops had captured a young girl from Israel who was a servant of Naaman’s wife. She sent word to General Naaman, saying, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” (v.3)

Naaman believed the message and set out on a journey that would teach us God’s seven rules of faith.

The first rule of faith is: Recognize sickness and disease as the oppression of the devil.

Sickness DOES NOT come from God. Sickness is an oppression of the devil. It is definitely NOT your friend. Sickness is death reaching out its icy hand to take you out of existence.

The second rule of faith is: Go where the power is.

The little servant girl knew where the power was. She knew that Naaman needed a healing, and in those days there was no cure for leprosy.

The third rule of faith is: Believe the message.

Naaman believed the message of the power of God, and he acted on it to receive his healing. If you feel there is no power in the church where you’re worshiping and you need God’s power, then ask God for a place where miracles, sign, and wonders are happening by the hand of God.

Many people say, “You can’t buy healing. You can’t buy miracles from God. So what’s the point of planting a seed-faith gift of money?”

First, a seed-faith gift of money helps us focus our faith. It’s a reminder to us that we are not trusting our money — or any material thing — to meet our need. We are trusting God.

Second, our money is valuable to us and giving it makes us stop and think about what we are doing.

Third, a gift of money unto God is also something that we can know without a doubt is pleasing to Him. As Philippians 4:18 says, “Having received the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.”

Fourth, giving something tangible — like money — also helps us use our faith in a practical way. Our faith becomes an ACTION; it’s wrapped up in something that we DO. It gives us a moment and an experience that we can look back to, and cling to, as an ACT of releasing our faith to God.

The important part of planting a seed is not the SEED as much as it’s the FAITH. If you don’t put faith with the seeds you plant, you’re just giving money. On the other hand, if you plant seed according to God’s Word — you can attach your faith to it, believing that God is your Source and that He will perform the miracle. Then your seed becomes seed-faith. It’s seed with faith connected to it.

Don’t just give to be giving. Give so that it triggers your faith. Give to the point where you are saying in your spirit, “I’ve got to trust You, God — and I do!”

That’s true Seed-FAITH. That’s the kind of seed sowing that can really work.

Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. – Ecclesiastes 11:1

I was reminded of this verse recently when I received an unexpected letter from a dear Partner. She wrote: “Oral, when I became very ill with asthma and bronchitis and didn’t get any better, I began writing to you for prayer. Then as I started to plant seed or ‘cast my bread upon the water’ as the scripture says, it began to come back to me in the form of wonderful miracles greater than I can imagine or contain.”

“I am now healed of asthma, and my husband, who has been an alcoholic for many years, is being delivered. My grandson, who used to be sick most of the time with ear infections, high fever and other illness, is now the picture of health. I know that your prayers and faith and ministry are helping to bring miracles, answered prayers, and hope to many others also.”

Believe for your MIRACLE today as you cast your bread (plant your seed) upon the water to God!

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, said the Lord of hosts, If I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. – Malachi 3:10

God is crying out to be proven. His offer is like a car dealer saying, “Take that car out. Drive it around the block. See if it isn’t what I say it is.”

God says, “Prove Me to see if I’m not God, to see if I don’t own the earth and the fullness thereof. Prove Me to see if I cannot open the windows of heaven for you. Prove me.”

When you plant seed, it opens the windows of heaven. God doesn’t pour money out of heaven. He pours out ideas and concepts. And one idea can change your whole life. One idea can turn your family around. One idea can get your body healed — one idea.

Malachi 3 is the advantage chapter. In it, God gives you the advantage over satan, the god of this world. The god of this world will take from you. But the God of time and eternity will give to you. His challenge is: “Prove Me, try Me out. It’s trial time.”

And you must bring the best of the first of each year’s crop to the Tabernacle of the Lord your God. – Exodus 34:26 (TLB)

When I was a little boy, our family lived on a farm. We children had to help my father in the fields. And one of the hardest parts was the harvesting of the corn – pulling it from the stalk, shucking it, and putting it in the barn.

In those days, we gathered the corn in wagons pulled down the rows by mules or horses. When my brother, Vaden, and I would bring a wagonload to the barn, Papa would have us climb up in the wagon to pitch the corn into the barn.

One day we were throwing it in right and left (and at one another sometimes) when Papa suddenly stopped us. He said, “Wait a minute, boys. Take the biggest ears and pitch them into a special pile over here. Put the rest in the barn.” When we asked why, he said, “We must not eat our seed corn. The seed from the biggest, best ears is what we’ll plant next year for the biggest, best harvest.”

This is precisely why God wants us to give Him our best. Because that’s what He multiplies back. Your needs and mine are so great we can’t afford to eat or use our best seed on ourselves. We need to let God have it to grow into His best harvest for us.

I once heard about a military jet pilot who taxied his supersonic aircraft into takeoff position on a runway only to have the tower controllers say, “I’m sorry, we can’t give you permission to take off right now. There’s too much traffic in the pattern.”

After a long pause, the pilot, knowing that his aircraft was wasting hundreds of pounds of fuel idling on that runway, asked the tower, “Would it be possible for me to take off within the confines of the runway?” After another pause, the FFA controller responded, “Yes, within the confines of the runway you may take off.”

Aircraft were circling the airport in preparation for landing. This pilot, however, intended to take off so his aircraft would rise quickly in the open space directly above the airport, staying completely out of the way of the other planes.

The pilot began to move his plane down the runway and when he got about half way, he got to air speed, pointed the nose of his aircraft almost straight up in the air, cut in his afterburners, and poured on the power. That jet rose almost straight up into the sky, quickly soaring high above all the other aircraft in the area!

Friend, that’s what a burst of faith can do in your spirit!

Are you having difficulty today believing God to help you find the way through a problem or circumstance that is hemming you in? Ask God to turn on the afterburners of your faith. Ask Him to release His power into your life to help your faith soar heavenward!

Jeremiah 1:12 says that God watches over His Word to perform it. When we go along with exactly what the Word of God says, He is obligated to watch over His Word to perform it.

As my children were growing up, they learned to trust that I meant what I said. When I would tell my children, “I give you my word. Mama promises this is what she is going to do,” they could turn around to me and say, “Mama, you promised!” I was then obligated to honor what I had said.

You see, they were not making a demand on what they said: they were making a demand on what I said. I put myself in the position to watch over my word to perform it. I obligated myself.

God did the same thing. When holy men moved by God’s Spirit wrote the Word, God said it would work. He told us to use His Word in Jesus’ name, and He said He would watch over His Word to perform it. We are not forcing Him to perform it, because we can’t force God to do anything. He is simply doing what He said He would do.