Would you be willing to be married to a pathological liar?
I don’t think so.
Would you want to do business with someone who can’t keep his promises?
No, thank you.
Would you want to work with a boss who isn’t a man of his word? (Imagine if at payday, he says, “I know I promised to pay you a salary but I’ve changed my mind. I don’t feel like paying you a salary today.”)
Here’s the deal. Life on planet earth would totally breakdown if everyone starts lying. The only reason why society can still function is because there are enough people who don’t lie.
And that’s why despite all your big problems, your life can be beautiful and happy and glorious and successful. Because your God cannot lie When He says something, you can be sure that it will happen.
The Difference Between You And God
The Bible says that God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19).
When you speak, you’re describing reality. But when God speaks, He’s not describing reality… He’s creating reality.
When I say, “I’m handsome,” I’m describing reality. (Sorry for my hallucinatory example.) But when God tells me, “Bo, you’re handsome,” He’s not describing, He’s creating reality. He’s imparting handsomeness into me. (I apologize. I don’t have delusions of grandeur, I have delusions of gorgeousness.)
Why? Because God isn’t just telling the truth.
He IS the Truth.
Let me tell you the story of the prophet Elisha…
Success Goes To The Bold
You may be more familiar with the prophet Elijah, the guy who brought down fire from heaven. The guy who stood with Moses and Jesus in the Transfiguration. The guy rode up to Heaven in a fiery chariot. Well, Elisha was the disciple of Elijah. The sidekick, the understudy, the successor, the heir-apparent. (Forgive me for my crude and juvenile analogy, but if Elijah was Batman, Elisha was Robin–minus the briefs worn outside the pants.)
One day, Elijah knew that he was in the pre-departure area to Heaven. Before he boarded Chariot Airways, he asked Elisha, “What do you want?” (See 2 Kings 2:9ff)
I love Elisha’s answer. Elisha said, “Give me a double portion of your anointing.”
I love the spunk. The guts. The audacity. If Elisha were Filipino, he would have played small. He would have been embarrassed. The Filipino Elisha would have said, “Naku, huwag na lang, nakakahiya naman…” (Never mind, I’m embarrassed.) Elijah has to insist three or four times before the Filipino Elisha would say, “O sige na nga, mabahiran mo lang ako ng maski isang patak ng iyong anointing, masaya na ako…” (Just give me a drop of your anointing and I’ll be happy…)
But Elisha had the nerve, the gall, the boldness to ask for double. He asked for big things because he believed in a big God who blesses us in a big way.
And guess what? He got it.
God didn’t say, “Ang kapal mo!” (You’re thick-faced.)
God actually gave Elisha what he asked for. Because Elisha wasn’t asking for himself. He wanted double anointing because he wanted to doubly serve God’s people.
I’ve noticed that in life, success goes to the bold, the daring, the courageous. Success goes to people who ask big things from God.
Let me ask you… When was the last time you were bold? When was the last time you became ambitious for God? When was the last time you asked something big from God?
Let me tell you what happened next to Elisha…
He Almost Got Double
Elijah, in his lifetime, performed 7 miracles.
Elisha, in his lifetime, performed 13 miracles.
It was almost double.
Good enough, right?
Well to God, almost isn’t enough. If God says you get double, then you should get double. Because God cannot lie.
Soon after Elisha’s death, a group of Israelites were burying a man. Because they were in a hurry, they threw the dead body of their friend in a cave. But that was the cave where Elisha was buried. When the dead body touched the bones of Elisha, it came to life and the man walked out of the cave (see 2 Kings 13:21).
Can you imagine how crazy that scene was? The ex-dead guy runs after his friends. “Hey, wait for me!”
When his friends turn around and see him running towards them, they probably screamed and ran away! I bet the record for the 100-meter dash was broken that day.
That was miracle 14.
Why? Because God cannot lie. If he said double, then it’s going to be double.
Here are three lessons I’d like to share with you…
Lesson #1:
Be Firm With Your Dream
When it comes to pursuing your dreams, there’ll be times in your life when you’ll have to choose between your faith and your feelings.
Your feelings are your friends. But they’re not your masters. Your feelings are the windows to your soul. But they’re not your soul.
There are days when your faith and your feelings will conflict with each other. When you feel discouraged, disappointed, and depressed… Acknowledge your feelings, but don’t follow your feelings! Follow your faith.
Your faith that says, “God cannot lie. You can trust Him.”
Listen To Your Feelings But Follow Your Faith
If you’re facing gigantic problems right now, your feelings may be telling you, “It’s all over for me. All is lost. Throw in the towel. Give up! There is no more hope for me…” But today, your faith is telling you, “I’ve already won the victory. I can’t just see it yet. But it’s already a done deal. I’m a conqueror. I’m a champion.”
Right now, your feelings may be telling you, “My body is sick. My doctor says I’m sick. The results of my medical exam say you’re sick. So I might as well die right now…” But today, your faith is telling you, “God is healing me. And I’ll grow old to a ripe old age. I have many more years of service to the Lord.”
Right now, your feelings might be telling you, “I’ll always be poor. I’ll always have debts. I’ll always be asking for money from friends and family.” But today, your faith is telling you, “A day will come when I’ll have no more debts. A day will come when I’ll have a river of money flowing into my life. A day will come when I’ll have another problem–the problem of having too much money.”
Did God Really Call Me To Preach?
When I was 13 years old, my prayer group leader prophesied to me, “Bo, God will anoint you with Wisdom. You will preach the Gospel all over the world.”
I held onto this word. And I began preaching in our small prayer group of 20 to 30 people. And I seemed to be doing okay. People were telling me that they were blessed by my simple words.
But one day, for the first time in my life, I was invited to give a talk in a Bible Seminar. My audience was still 20 to 30 people. But I was intimidated by the word “Seminar”. It felt so official. So formal. So serious. What was I, a 14-year old kid doing there, giving a talk in a Seminar?
Because of my fears, my talk bombed. For fifteen minutes, I mumbled through my talk. I meandered my way from one confusing point to another. I was perspiring cold sweat. My tongue was twisting, my voice was squeaking, my knees were shaking. At that point, I wanted to be an ostrich–I wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury my head.
When I finally sat down, the Seminar Organizer had to stand up on stage and say, “What Brother Bo was trying to say was…” He had to give the entire talk all over again.
After the event was over, the Seminar Organizer took me to one corner and said, “Bo, it’ll be better if you just limit yourself to speaking to kids only…” Ouch. I felt crushed. In other words, he was telling me that I was a terrible. In my heart, I felt God’s call to preach was over.
My feelings said, “Perhaps God made a mistake. Perhaps I made a mistake and heard God wrongly. Perhaps I’m not really called to be a Speaker but to set up the Audio Speakers for the prayer meeting.”
But my faith said, “God chose me to be a Preacher. God anointed me. God appointed me. Sure, I failed today. But I’ll learn from this failure. The best is yet to come!” The next time there was an opportunity, I gave another talk. And another. And another.
So far, I’ve been preaching for 34 years.
God’s promise came true. God cannot lie.
Friend, let me warn you: There will be days when you’ll doubt God’s promise for you. Feelings of despair will cloud your thinking. You’ll hear yourself say, “Maybe I heard wrong. Maybe this isn’t what God wants me to do…”
When your feelings and your faith contradict with each other, listen to your feelings, acknowledge them, accept them, but follow your faith alone.
God cannot lie. You can trust God. Because God’s promise will come true.
Did God Really Call Me To Write?
When I was 20 years old, I felt God calling me to write.
So I wrote my first ever book, When My Brook Runs Dry.
People who read that book told me how blessed they were.
So I kept writing more magazines, more books,…
Not long after that, a priest came up to me and asked, “Brother Bo, when will you finally write the real Word of God?” Disturbed by his question, I asked him, “Father, what do you mean?”
He said, “So far, you’ve been writing about stories, jokes, and other petty things. You’re giving people candy. When will you give your people real meat?”
This was early in my writing career, and again, I felt very discouraged. This priest was telling me that I was a terrible writer. That I wasn’t really giving God’s Word.
My feelings were telling me, “Give up your writing. You’re only entertaining people. Not really giving God’s Word.”
But my faith was telling me, “Don’t stop. This priest doesn’t like your writing. But how many people have written to you, telling you that they’re blessed by your books? This priest is a scholar who wants you to write like a priest. But you’re not a priest. God has called you to write in a particular way!”
Thank God, I followed my faith. Today, I’m writing my 28th book.
Here’s my second lesson from Elisha’s story…
Lesson #2:
Be Flexible With Your Deadline
Elisha’s 14th miracle didn’t happen until after his death.
When your dreams don’t come true, perhaps there’s nothing wrong with your dreams. Perhaps there’s something wrong with your deadlines.
Dreams should have deadlines, but they should be flexible.
It’s important to have deadlines. It’s important to say, “I’ll launch my business by January 2013” or “I’ll lose 20 pounds by December 2012” or “I’ll be debt-free by July 2014” or “I’ll own my house by January 2015.”
Deadlines are good because they push you to action.
But I believe that your biggest dreams should have flexible deadlines. Precisely because they’re bigger than you are, you don’t rush these things. You wait–with profound reverence–for a confluence of blessings to happen, for a tipping point of miracles to take place.
Why doesn’t He rush? Because God’s priority isn’t your destination but your development. God’s priority isn’t the dream but the dreamer.
Be flexible with your Deadlines because God is very flexible with time. The Bible says With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. (2 Peter 3:8)
My biggest dream is to build 1000 Feasts around the world. People always ask me, “When will that happen?”
People are shocked when I tell them, “I don’t know when that will happen. I just know it will. I don’t have a strict deadline for this dream. Who knows? Perhaps it will happen in 2020. Perhaps in 2025. Or even later. All I know is I’m enjoying everyday that we’re making it happen. I’m positive that it will happen in my lifetime, because I plan to live a long and happy life. But I won’t get depressed if it happens after I die. Because the dream is bigger than me.”
Lesson #3:
Be Free With Your Details
Your dreams must also have details–just don’t be attached to them. You need details because details fuel your imagination–and imagination is more powerful than your intellect. You need details to make your dream visible and palpable.
For example, if you’re praying for a car, tell God what brand, what model, what color, and what features you want in your car–if you want a back sensor, leather seats, a DVD player.
But at the end of the day, if you really trust God, give Him freedom to alter your details to give you the best possible car that you need for your life.
Always be open to God’s best.
Why Didn’t God Give Them A Child?
I was talking to Rolly and Donna Espana, leaders here in Feast PICC. They’ve been serving God for decades. But no matter how much they prayed for a child, the child never came.
It’s easy for his feelings to tell them, “You’re incomplete. You’re inadequate. Because you don’t have a child.”
I had lunch with them last week. With deep emotion, Rolly was telling me what his faith was telling him. He said, “Brother Bo, God has made me complete and lacking nothing. Why? I may not have any biological children, but by God’s grace, I have so many sons today! Many young men from our community visit me, talk to me, ask for my fatherly counsel, and seek for my fatherly blessing.”
I felt so blessed talking to Rolly and Donna.
They dreamt of becoming biological parents to two or three children. But God wanted them to be spiritual parents to thousands.
Be free with the details.
Our Most Common Mistake
I love telling the story of how I was fixated on a 500 square meter property for our Community Center. It was a foreclosed property that the bank was selling. I wanted it so much, I’d visit it many times–and when no one was looking–I’d raise my hand towards it and “claim” it to be ours. (If I saw someone walking on the street, I’d pretend I was just checking out the fence.)
I was tenacious. I told the tiny Light of Jesus community then to pray and fast. I even scheduled a 3-night vigil to pray for the place. We also went into massive fundraising. We went Christmas Caroling in August.
But one day, we received the news: Someone else bought the property from the bank. We were devastated.
I remember our prayer meeting the week we found out. It was as if I was attending a funeral. Some people were even crying.
But ten years later, something happened.
Read to that line again. Ten years later–God made our dream come true. We finally acquired a property.
But the details were very far from our details.
It wasn’t 500 square meters. It wasn’t 1000, or 2000, or 5000, or even 10,000 square meters.
God gave us 50,000 square meters. (On that land, we built Anawim, our ministry for the abandoned elderly.)
This taught me that God’s measurements aren’t my measurement. We think too small for God.
I was asking for 500 square meters, and God must have been laughing at me, saying, “You won’t be able to do what I want you to do. Just wait.”
You know what our most common mistake is when it comes to making our dreams come true? We think too small and think too fast. But I’ve noticed that God does the very opposite: In our minds, God thinks too big and too slow (at least compared to our busy, frenzied lives)!
We think too small. Learn to think big. Enlarge your vision. Because we worship a big God who wants to bless us in a big way.
We think too fast. But God is never in a hurry. He loves taking His sweet time. He enjoys the journey. I repeat: He doesn’t prioritize the dream, he prioritizes the dreamer. He prioritizes you–what you become in the process of making your dreams come true.
God cannot lie.
You can trust Him all the way.
Receive His Promises Today
Let me end with a prayer of blessing.
Remember what I said above–that God doesn’t describe reality but create it?
Read this prayerfully and receive this blessing…
When Jesus says in John 10:10, “I have come that you may have life and have in abundance,” He’s not only describing that reality, He’s making it that abundance a reality in your life right now.
When He says in Philippians 4:19, “you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you,” He’s not just saying nice words, He’s imputing divine strength into you.
When He says in Romans 8:28, “all things work for good to those who love God,” He’s not just saying a pretty slogan, He’s actually re-engineering and maneuvering circumstances to transform your problems to become your potentials, your trials to become your treasures, and your burdens to become your blessings.
When He says in Philippians 4:13, “all your needs will be met according to the glorious riches of Christ,” that means He already has sent the miracle to you and its on its way! (From what I hear, God uses DHL to send our packages of miracles to us. DHL for Delivering Heaven’s Love.)
May your dreams come true,
Bo Sanchez
PS. Your journey to prosperity starts here! Learn God’s Way of blessing your financial life. How? Join my How To Be Truly Rich Seminar on August 9 in Pasig and find out how. To change your financial life, click the link below:
