“For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” (2 Corinthians 1:20)

I have been writing about the favor of God raining down on us in 2009. This will be an incredible year despite the biggest economic storm we have seen in our lifetime. But here’s the really big news… You will miss it if you are passive about it. Faith requires action. Just because you are a Christian doesn’t mean you will get in on the rain of favors falling from Heaven this year. All the promises of God are received with a “Yes!” and an “Amen!”

A few years ago the pastor of the very small country church I attend in a cow pasture made the statement that he believed our new building, less than a year old, would be paid in full on the one year anniversary. When he said that, an “Amen!” popped out of my mouth before I knew what hit me. The pastor locked eyes with me and agreed with me with another “Amen!”

I knew in that moment that our building would be paid off despite the fact there were only a couple dozen families in the fellowship and none of them above middle class. It would require over $50,000 in a single offering. On that first year anniversary there was an apple box you could drop your offering in if you thought of it because there was no formal taking of the offering. In fact, I never heard it mentioned after that one comment in the middle of his sermon many weeks before, but on that anniversary date, without any prompting or prodding from the pulpit the building was paid for in full!

The kind of “Amen!” I got when the pastor mentioned he believed the building would be paid off on the anniversary date is the same kind of “Amen!” I have in my heart now for the rain of favors falling from Heaven. You can get in on it too if you wish. Our success is not contingent upon the state of our economy and God wants to show Himself strong in the midst of the calamity. Are you ready to be the vehicle through which He does this? Say “Yes!” and “Amen!” to His promises. Be specific and act on your belief. Don’t just talk about it.

“Arise, shine; for your light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.” (Isaiah 60:1)

I want to go on record as saying again there will be turbulent times this year and that is creating a context for great blessing for those who have eyes to see. God is raining extraordinary favor, but most do not see it. They do not believe it. They seem to relish the thought that God is getting ready to hammer America. Make no mistake, hard times are coming, but in the midst of the darkness God is saying to you and I, “Arise, shine; for your light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.” Do not miss this.

This is our hour to shine. God wants to illuminate the world with His glory. He wants to shower favor upon you, but you will miss it if you do not believe. Without belief you will not be established (Isaiah 7:9). Without faith it is impossible to please God. This favor is not so you can live luxuriously while everyone else suffers. With great favor comes great responsibility.

Many of you reading this feel you don’t deserve His favor. You are correct. You don’t deserve it, but the good news is that favors are always and only handed out to the undeserving. If you deserve it, it is not a favor, but rather a debt and God is no man’s debtor. Your biggest obstacle in receiving the favor of God is less about faith in God’s ability to deliver on His promise and more about your inability to accept what He gives you simply because He loves you.

“For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” (2 Corinthians 1:20)

This morning I saw a picture of the free favors of God profusely abounding in 2009. They were raining down from heaven more like the kind of rain that has big drops and looks more like spitting than a downpour. You can see the individual drops because they are big, but not so many as to be considered a deluge, though it is usually an indicator that a deluge is on the way.

In the vision that played out for me, it was obvious that most folks couldn’t see the rain because it wasn’t physical water. It was the favors of God falling from Heaven for whosoever would receive them. I could see them and I was running out excitedly with a bucket to catch all the favors I could. My plan was to fill the bucket and then get another bucket and keep filling them until the rain of favors stopped. (To everything there is a season.)

It reminded me of the widow that was besieged by creditors and Elisha told her to borrow all the empty pots she could get her hands on. (See 2 Kings 4:1-7) Is anyone reading this besieged by creditors today? Then on Elisha’s command, she poured out the oil she had in one pot into all the others until every pot was full from just one pot of oil. The supply only ran out when her capacity was exhausted. She set the limits of her capacity by the number of pots she collected. What is your capacity set for in 2009?

Here’s what I believe God is showing me. Get in on it if you want to. In 2009, God will be raining favors from Heaven. I am speaking of unmerited blessing just because He delights to do so. But these favors have to be caught. You need to get your faith bucket out and run outside and catch them. Hebrew tradition says that the way you catch God’s promises is to say “Amen” to them. When you say “Amen” you are saying “I believe. So be it!”

Most folks are going to choose to receive the promises of bad news, of economic turmoil instead of the favors of God. They will believe the news that is neither fair, nor balanced instead of the promises of God. Here’s the deal folks. It’s going to be both! A lot of turmoil is on the way but it is ALSO the year of abundance of favors. This will be our best year ever and it can be for you as well.

I am telling you that God is raining down favors right now. My suggestion to you is that you boldly ask God for favors. BE SPECIFIC. He is handing them out left and right. In fact, He is raining them down. Boldly come to the throne of Grace. Receive His favors. Expect great things this year. Don’t be dismayed by the bad economic news nor get your joy from the seemingly good news that may pop up when the stock market has a good day. Say “Yes!” and “Amen!” to the promises of God and you will catch them. What are you waiting for? It’s raining right now. Get your bucket and go!

“Every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” (John 15:2)

In my last blog, I wrote about the Kapok Strategy which is the wise use and deployment of human resources within a company which sometimes calls for release or redeployment in another role of members of the team. It may seem harsh, but it is much worse when the company goes under for good and all jobs are permanently lost.

Consider what Jesus taught about the vine: If a branch is not fruitful, He takes it away. Who are you to be nicer than Jesus? Your goal as an employee or a business owner is to be fruitful. As an employee in a down economy, you better be looking for ways to increase your value and add profit to the company or you may find yourself among the branches taken away. It’s going to take some creativity, some initiative, some courage, but if you don’t take appropriate measures to make yourself too costly to lose, you may end up being too costly to keep.

The thing is that all your inefficiencies for the last few years have gone largely unnoticed because there was cash in the kitty. Now the water level is low and every inefficiency or bad business practice sticks out like old roof tops in an artificial lake when the water is really low. If you don’t adjust, you will be adjusted. It’s that simple. Having said that, laying employees off is not the first line of defense against declining profits in a contracting economy. Join me next week as I share some creative strategies for increasing your profitability and sustainability in hard economic times. Until then, be fruitful.

Recently, I shared with you how one upscale casual restaurant where I live had increased their profits January of 2009 over January of 2008 by 40%. That was a $12,000 bottom line increase in just one month and it occurred while industry revenues were down 15%. Two of their national competitors have filed for bankruptcy, not able to withstand the drop in sales.

The reason why our favorite casual steakhouse is actually thriving and not just holding on is very simple. They refuse to be paralyzed by fear. They are taking action and the actions they are taking are as old as the rainforest and fresh as today’s rain. The first strategy they employed is what I call, the Kapok Strategy. The Kapok tree grows in the rainforest and is one of the few species that actually towers above the canopy level.

During the dry season when resources are scarce, (very little rain), the Kapok tree will drop most or even all of its leaves, depending on the severity of the drought. Leaves on a tree represent the workers in your company. They receive the light (vision) and combine it with water (information or know how) and CO2 (effort) to produce wood or fruit, etc. Leaves are the front line workforce that keeps the company running, but during dry times, the Kapok tree will shed many of those leaves. The Kapok Strategy is a human resource management strategy.

The restaurant that increased profits did so in part by controlling labor costs. They decided they didn’t need six ladies working the hostess position and cut it back to three. They decided they didn’t need 15 servers when the doors opened and brought them in as the day wore on, sending them home as the demand left. They eliminated any slack in the human resource department. They either let the leaf (worker) go or they trimmed away their idle time.

Many of you may find this harsh. The Kapok tree has no emotional issues about letting the leaves fall. God designed it that way because if it tried to nourish all the leaves during the drought, the whole tree would die and there would be no future for any of them with that tree (company). Two different friends of mine lost their businesses in 2008. They each believe if they had made the difficult decision earlier to let people go, their companies would have survived.

They kept them out of compassion and they kept them longer than they could afford to and in a misguided attempt to be kind and caring, the whole ship went down.  Between the two companies, it represented about 200 permanently lost jobs. How much better would it have been to let go all but the skeletal staff (trunk and branches) to run things until the drought ended and then they could hire back when the economy came back, thus restoring the lost jobs.

Was it really compassionate to hold on to staff longer than resources allowed? That may have been the motivation, but in the end not only did the leaves go, but also the entire tree. As you weather the current economic storm, take a look at your human resource management strategy. Get rid of the slack. Either remove the underused and excess or redeploy them into another form of productive use. Just don’t allow idleness or waste if you want to survive this storm. In my next blog, I will continue with the other two strategies. Until then, pursue Him.

“That you be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself, Saying, Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.” (Heb 6:12 - 15)

Many of you are familiar with my teachings on the three levels of living modeled by the Outer Court (natural principles), Inner Court (spiritual principles) and the Holy of Holies (supernatural principles). It’s available in download format here. In this passage from Hebrews we see that we are to obtain the promises meant for us by a combination of all three.

First of all, we are not to be slothful or lazy. That means we are to engage ourselves in work. We are to apply ourselves with all diligence to the vision. God does not reward slackers. It seems we have two camps here. The first would rather pray and be “spiritual” than actually do the work that needs to be done. On the other hand, there are those who would rather work 16 hours a day than to actually slow down and grow in spiritual strength.

We must strike a balance and the rest of verse 12 tells us that work is combined with faith and patience. Patience is one of the fruit of the Spirit. It is a spiritual discipline, the result of having what you think you know about God tested in the crucible of life. The word translated as patience literally means “calmness in the face of suffering and adversity”. Are any of you suffering? Are any of you in adversity? Remain calm. How? By pursuing God which means you can’t be so focused on work and activity that there is no time for meditating in His Word, seeking His face and listening to what He may say.

The third element is faith. It is the potentially mountain moving force that can change everything but yet we are told to combine faith with work, not only here but also in James, and to exercise calmness in the midst of the test. By the way, it is in calmness that we best hear the still small voice that is the Lord. Getting to the place of calm is critical. From this place, we hear the rhema word of God. That present word that the Lord speaks, that in hearing it, ignites faith. The kind of faith that moves mountains.

It seems that the work reveals the limitations while developing in us patience. The patience creates an atmosphere where we can hear and receive what the Spirit is saying. When we hear God speak to us, (faith comes by hearing), we have faith and faith if it is living always produces more works. Work, faith and patience. Don’t leave home without them.

People generally don’t like problems or storms in their life. They want everything to go smoothly, but it rarely does; finding someone who is able to bring peace to their storm is of great value and those peacemakers who solve client storms, will be thought to be the offspring of God (Mat 5:9).

It is important to bring peace to your prospects and customers, but as the saying goes, “You can’t export what you don’t have.” Peace begets peace just like agitation begets agitation. You must determine to find the place of peace before you engage the client. And for that, you will have to go to war.

Not against flesh and blood, but against all those spiritual forces which try to keep you out of peace. Why do they fight you so? Because the best decisions are made from a position of inner peace and the worst are often made during a lack of peace. The Bible teaches in Proverbs 3:17 that all the paths of wisdom are peace. If you want the wisdom of God, it will be found on the path of peace.

How often we get off the path of peace. And don’t our children or spouses or coworkers or even clients know it? Find the path of peace and you will have wisdom enough for all your clients, friends and family too. Jesus said, “In your patience, possess your souls”. So how do you find the path of peace? You must choose it with perseverance and determination. You know what peace is; Fight to obtain that. The writer of Hebrews said, “Labor to enter the rest.” It’s the hardest work you will ever do and perhaps the most rewarding; for in that place, you will find everything else you need for life and business.

Has business slowed down?

Are you feeling the financial pinch right now? Do the names Bear Stearns, AIG, Bank of America, Citibank, Washington Mutual, GM, Chrysler or Ford ring a bell? They’ve all been slammed by the financial hurricane that’s affecting our entire economy. If some of the brightest minds working for some

of the most trusted corporate names in the world with some of the largest cash reserves in history got knocked down during this storm, what is your plan to survive and even thrive in these unprecedented times of change?

We are living on the cusp of the greatest opportunity of our lifetime…

The financial storm is opening up unprecedented opportunity for those who have eyes to see. You

can sit around and complain about the tough economy or you can seize the moment, reinvent your business, your job or your life and thrive in the midst of colossal change. In the rainforest, when big trees

fall it creates an abundance of opportunity for the early adapters (the little guys). But you’ve got to see things differently. What used to work, no longer does. If you seize the moment and change, the opportunity is immense!

Think about this…

The rainforest uses no currency, yet produces a super abundance of supply. On occasion it may experience a storm, but it knows no recession. When a storm does come and blows down a few of the big

canopy trees - that only makes way for a hundred new smaller trees to take off like never before. That’s what’s happening in our economy right now. A few of the big boys have been blown over and it’s making room for the smaller guy to get ahead - Lots of smaller guys.

If you need a reversal of fortune…

Spend an afternoon with us and learn powerful strategies adapted from the oldest, most successful business model on the planet - the rainforest. It is the most fruitful, productive and diverse ecosystem

on the planet despite having limited capital, (poor topsoil) to work with. How God gets abundance from scarcity is what every business, every household, every entrepreneur needs to know - especially in times like these. I spent 3 ½ years traveling the rainforests of the world, researching the findings of scientists the world over to uncover the most fascinating and powerfully effective business model on the planet! You owe it to yourself to spend 3 ½ hours of your life to see how you can pull out of a slump, reverse your fortune or simply accelerate your growth with less effort.

What You Will Learn…

• One simple habit anyone can do, but few know of, that in nature results in a growth rate 13 times higher than those without that advantage.
• Time management strategies designed to keep the pests at bay that that produce a growth rate 10 times higher than what otherwise occurs.
• How Jack Welch, CEO of GE harnessed one rainforest principle to grow his company by $1 billion every 3 weeks for 20 years!
• How to acquire what you need without cash, bartering or debt.
• How to find unlimited potential in what you already have and turn under-utilized resources into cash - now!

Join me at the Palmeiro Center on the campus of Mississippi State University behind Humphrey Coliseum tomorrow at 1:00 pm. Contact WFCA radio station with any questions and/or to register (662-547-6414) Tickets are $20

Yesterday, in the dark hours of the morning while seeking the Lord about what to share with you, I came close to telling you that the stock market would be hammered that day. As it turned out, our morning study and prayer time was extended right up to my first phone appointment, so I didn’t get to pass that on except to the two individuals I was on the phone with. Of course, the market was hammered, but I don’t have a horse in that race. It serves only as one of several economic indicators that I keep up with. If you subscribe to my R.A.I.N. Report, you already see through our looking glass and are learning what to do to get your economic house in order.

Last week, we sent out no blogs as my wife and I were in the Panamanian Rainforest with forty dynamic men and women of God who were there to experience first hand how the principles by which the rainforest flourishes can work for anyone in business. The men and women who came were of exceptional caliber and a bond was formed that none of us expected. Not only did we canoe back 2000 years in time to an indigenous native village, but we got to see the lushness of God’s creation totally unaffected by the current economic slowdown.

God has given us a model (the rainforest) that visually demonstrates how any of us can turn scarcity into abundance. It requires study, openness and discipline, but the fruit is well worth the effort. Our flight returned to Miami Friday afternoon and before heading home, my wife had a dentist appointment lined up in the Ft. Lauderdale area. The doctor treating her is a biological dentist and well worth the 3 ½ hour drive each way for a visit. I asked him if he was feeling the impact of the economic crisis and he told me just how much business was down.

The next morning, I emailed him three rainforest strategies that if he applies them will without doubt not only stop the loss, but actually grow his business in 2009. They work without fail in the rainforest and because they are transcendent principles ordained by God, they will work in any other context such as business or ministry.

Well, the next night my wife and I went out to dinner to a popular upscale casual restaurant. I asked the manager how business was and he told me that January was about even with the previous January, but profits were up 40%! On the very same street two other popular steak house chains have recently filed for bankruptcy.

I delved deeper and found that the same three strategies I recommended to our dentist were the very ones the successful restaurant chain was using and prospering with, despite the tough economic times. The others had not adapted to the times and like several other restaurant chains, will soon be off the scene altogether creating even greater market share for the steak house that is successfully implementing rainforest strategies, even without knowing that’s what they are.

If you like the benefit of this kind of revelation for your business, you might consider taking our online business assessment which is free when you subscribe to the R.A.I.N. Report and includes a 30 minute consultation. Check out the R.A.I.N. Report here.