Christ not only sets captives free—breaking the power of sin and death—but He also gives us gifts. God wants to give His power to His children, to His church. There are some natural gifts like leadership and serving, but in 1 Corinthians we see nine supernatural manifestations of God's Spirit and power. We also see that these gifts sometimes require pastoring or boundaries. Left unshepherded, manifestations can actually be more from the flesh than from the Spirit. A true manifestation of God's presence will honor God and His holiness.

There is an inner voice that God will give to the heart of the honest person with deep inner promptings of the Holy Spirit. No matter what the circumstance is, no matter what threatens to overwhelm us, God’s voice is higher than the circumstance that you are facing today or facing tomorrow. God’s voice brings courage; God’s voice takes those things that are nothing and makes them into something else. Whatever it is that you are facing, let Jesus do what only He can do.

This weekend we heard a lot of great principles at our Marriage + Singles Seminar. Principles are invaluable. We need godly instruction and wisdom, but we must be careful that we don't turn principles into a checklist for performance. Principles are not Jesus. They don't tame sin, and they don't make us righteous. It is only through the New Covenant gospel of grace—Christ's finished work on the cross—that our hearts are changed, an end is brought to sin, and we are made righteous in Him.

There are some who would say that Christianity is on the decline and has lost its significance. We don't see the daily power and presence of the Holy Spirit that the early church experienced. We've become focused on our own needs and self-pursuits. It's time to get our gaze back on Jesus. He is our mission. As we worship Him, pray, read His word and fellowship with Him, our hearts will be called to action—to the lost, broken and hurting.

The harvest of young people is coming, it has already started. There has to come a point of maturity where we put away childish things as the Scriptures say and realize that we are called into the work of God, which is the saving of the lost. We will never bring the name of Jesus into reputation until we are willing to touch the dead in our society and embrace those that God brings back to life. There is going to have to be something deeper coming from the church of Jesus Christ in our time.

Genuine revival, genuine awakening, means coming back to the centrality of the Word of God. If darkness has crossed a line in your life, you don’t have to put up with it. You don’t have to bend your knee to darkness. It is God alone who can produce His own power. When God comes, people change, lives change.

Pastor Gary Wilkerson continues our "Faith for the Greatest Days of Your Life" series looking at the life of Esther. In her story we see a journey from sorrow to success. True godly success can only come through God Himself. He brings about a turn around in identity, family and purity.

Everything the serpent sowed in you will be destroyed; his power will be gone. The cleansing fire of God will come to us and reclaim us as His own. Burn with a passion for God, burn with a love for His Word, burn with thanksgiving for what He did on the cross! Burn with a desire to let Christ be Christ in you! We can only behold the Lamb of God when we come to the end of ourselves.

In the second part of our series Faith for the Greatest Days of Your Life, Pastor Gary Wilkerson looks at the life of Joseph. Most of us have been in a pit of some kind in our life; and if not we're probably heading toward one. Pastor Gary shows us four types of pits—one of which, we may not want to avoid.

“Church” as it has been is simply not going to suffice. You and I are going to have to be ambassadors to the power of God to this generation. Casual seeking cannot be the order of the day. It is a self-sacrificing and sincere seeking of God that will make a difference now. This generation is going to have to have an encounter with the Living Christ!