Faith is the Substance

Recently I had a profoundly powerful time of prayer. Using the terminology of the late 19th century revivalist Charles Finney, I prevailed in prayer. It was that sense that I broke through the darkness the devil had cast on my circumstances. As I rounded a turn in the highway immediately at the end of my prayer, I came upon a huge yellow billboard containing a quote from Hebrews 11: Faith is the substance of things hoped for. I had never before equated faith as being the substance of anything. Yet it was immediately clear to me that the very physical essence of that which I hoped for was made from faith alone. As hopeless as things seemed to me as I began to pray that morning, I now knew that the fruition of my dream and my vision would only be realized if I was determined to walk by faith. No doubt, no extenuating circumstances, and certainly no devil would defeat honest faith. As I contemplated this revelation, the following came to me:

Faith happens when we walk right through the fire. Satan is always casting fear and doubt upon us, making us want to crawl up in a spiritual fetal position and give up--right before we are about to prevail! But faith happens when we ignore his attacks and press onward despite all outward indicators. The devil only possesses the power to make us believe a lie. His power is diminished when the lie is exposed. We can have faith yet still miss God's favor because we fear the devil more than we trust God. This is the very thing that causes dead institutionalism. We begin to rationalize defeat rather than believing God. We settle for something far less than God desired for us, and we buy into worldly means to achieve our dismal mediocrity. The end result is either religion or apostasy. But faith can be found in neither, nor can the Holy Spirit.

Therein lies the significant difference between faith and religion. It is why Ichabod was written on the door posts of the temple, because the glory of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit, had departed. For him who has ears to hear...

We Need your Support

Gifts For the World

Please take a minute and go to this site and sign the petition for our new reality TV show and become part of a radical new missional concept that could transform societies.

We're looking for a few good musicians

We are currently doing screenings as we prepare for auditions for what will be a nationally and internationally touring rock and roll Christmas concert series and reality TV show.

These will be full-time positions. Band members will participate in the creative process, and will be part of a weekly reality TV program. We will be working with homeless street kids and orphans in the countries of Ukraine and Moldova at first, and possibly elsewhere as well. We will be taking on the challenge of transforming impoverished villages into solvent, productive and growing communities. It is a huge task, and sometimes a potentially dangerous one, and therefore, an ability to work with children, and a compelling desire to help the poor, oppressed and marginalized of society is an absolute prerequisite.

Base salaries will initially come from grant money and other investment sources, but a very substantial profit-sharing system will make this a very lucrative offer once the project is in full swing. Also, standard song royalties will be paid to those who contribute musically.

This is not for everyone. We need world-class musicians and singers, as well as songwriters and qualified tech personnel, but a commitment to the vision beyond the studio and concert stage is essential.

Please submit a brief bio, demo and/ or website links to me at webbkline@comcast.net. We are getting a huge response to this so far, but we will respond to all who are interested and who submit their materials.

The Raping of The American Public

Last year, 2007, Exxon/Mobil boasted that it made 42 billion dollars profit. Now that's a fairly sizable chunk of change--In fact, if they were to distribute that 42 billion equally between every man, woman and child in the US, it would net each of us a whopping $140,000!!!! That's just the profit from last year alone! If you were to take an average household of 4, that would come to $560,000 per family! Now, if you took a conservative estimate of 10% investment profit, that would come to an annual interest income per family of $56,000!! Worse, the combined profits of all US oil companies exceeded $120 billion, which would give every American citizen a whopping $400,000 each!!

At the same time, the 2007 number of truck repossessions saw a whopping 110% increase over 2006. Why was that, you ask? Well, in short, those truckers couldn't afford to operate any more because of the high price of fuel. So far this year the price of diesel is running over a dollar a gallon more than it was in 2007. One can only wonder how many repo's there will be this year. And if Exxon/Mobil made $42 billion last year, then I guess they'll likely be coming in with a figure in excess of $55 billion for 2008.

Couple that with the fact that the federal government wants to lower the Dow to 8000 points because, as they put it, the American people have to learn how to control spending. Control spending? When we are now spending, on the average, 35-40% of our weekly earning to travel back and forth to work and heat our homes, it seems apparent to me that big oil has already controlled our spending. Something is not only wrong with this picture, it is corrupt beyond any scope of the imagination.

But, once again, congress sits down with the oil barons, just as they did last year, and they stage a mock investigation and the oil barons say the same thing they say every time congress asks them why the prices are so high: "Our profits are in line with the profits of all other industries." Bullshit! The reality of it is that their filthy greed has raped the profits of most other industries--especially the trucking industry. But, the congress quietly accepts their rotten lies once again and that's the end of the story.

When the trucking industry got just a little bit out of hand, government deregulated trucking and the rates dropped dramatically. In fact, many rates are lower today than they were in 1980! I'm hardly one for big government, but it is high time they step in and stop this wholesale slaughter of the working American's bank account. Fat chance of that happening.

I didn't think I would ever say it, but I really think the only choice in November is to not vote at all. Until a candidate stands up against the abject greed of big oil and the military industrial complex, I am convinced we don't have a real choice anyway.