“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…
but wise men store up knowledge”
(Hosea 4:6, Proverbs 10:14)

Last night, I concluded my 30^th private small group coaching call in three weeks. I held those calls so I could meet many of you and hear your feedback on my online coaching program. The response has been moving indeed. We’ve had callers from Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas sharing their hopes and dreams and looking at the vehicle God has given us to mentor, coach, motivate and inspire you.

If you were on the call, then you were given a backstage pass to our Learning Lab where you have access to a complete Biblically based audio business library anytime day or night with nearly 40 hours of high impact success training complete with corresponding, downloadable PDF’s of PowerPoint content. You had the chance to see much of the Rainforest MBA program and see portions of 24 digital video courses filmed on locations in various rainforest regions and to realize that the principles that make the rainforest thrive are the same principles that will make your business thrive.

I showed you an impressive list of the mastermind mentors like Zig Ziglar, Henry Blackaby, Ricky Skaggs, Ken Blackwell and many others who desire to speak into your life through this medium anytime, anyplace that you have a good internet connection. You learned about the unlimited access pass that you have not only to hundreds of pages of documents, thousands of dollars of success training, but also to write me as often as you wish with any questions regarding your goals, your vision or your business and I will answer them twice a month online. To top it all off, you have full access to the spiritual development library and online business devotional by video to enrich and strengthen your walk with the Lord.

Next week, we are bringing an end to those conference calls. We only allow about 12 people to a call, so we can actually have a conversation with you at the end of the call if you so desire. We are a little over half way booked up next week, but still have some open slots available. If you want to acquire a strong spiritual footing in the marketplace with Biblical business and success training like you’ve never seen elsewhere, then next week is your last invite to come to a private, small group coaching call. Simply reply to this email and indicate your time preference for Tuesday or Wednesday at either 9am, noon or 3pm Eastern Time to secure your time slot. Please offer several options in order of preference, so you are sure to get a spot even if your first choice fills up.

These calls will NOT be recorded, so please don’t take a time slot unless you actually intend to be on the call. If for any reason you can’t keep your time slot, please email us ASAP to cancel so we may allow someone else that time. This is not business as usual. I am taking this time very seriously and investing it in you. I look forward to sharing details with you on the call.

Let me challenge you today to look into the Scripture and see yourself. See the manifold provision of God for your life and instead of seeing it as generic in nature, see your name written on that promise! It is you that was made a joint-heir with Christ (if you suffer with Him), not just someone else. It is you that is Abraham’s seed and has become an heir according to the promise.

It is you that is seated in heavenly places with Christ, not just the other guy. It is you that has been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, not just some spiritual hero of yours. It is you who has been given the promise to do the works Christ did and greater, if you believe. That choice is yours. What are you waiting for? It is you that was told that all things are possible to Him that believes, not some other nameless, faceless person.

When Peter said, By His stripes you were healed, he was talking about YOU. So here’s what I suggest… Look at the Scripture as though it were a mirror. (Isn’t that what James said?) How can you know what you look like without a mirror? The Word is a mirror and tells us the truth about who we are and what features are ours. Stop looking in the mirror of the Word as though it were a picture of someone else. It is YOU that it is trying to reveal!

Look in the mirror of the Word today and see yourself for who you really are. You are someone valued and greatly loved in the eyes of the Lord. God has made all the provision you need for life and godliness. Look in the mirror today and realize, perhaps for the first time, that it is a reflection of who God intended you to be.

There is a lot I didn’t say for the sake of space, but I am stepping into a new realm in my walk with Him in the marketplace. I have sent out an invitation for those who hunger for the same things to join me on my walk in the marketplace where I am sharing my spiritual journey and business insights. That call has been very well responded to. So much so, that  we are booked solid again this week with the private, by invitation only small group calls and have decided to extend the offer another week.

If you would like to be get on a private call with me and about a dozen folks where I will share some details of my journey, what God has given me and what I am doing to make both the spiritual content and business wisdom available in an unprecedented way, then please reply to this email and state which day (Tuesday or Wednesday) and which time (9am, 12pm or 3pm EDT) is best. Please give two backup choices as well. Cheryl from our office will confirm a time with you.

If you have already been on a call with me, I will be sharing the same vision you heard, so there is no need to book again for a second time, but you are welcome to tell a friend if you like. My goal is to pass on to you in the most effective way I can, the insights, revelations and wisdom He has given me for both your business and spiritual life so we can make a bigger impact in the marketplace and extend His footprint in the domain we’re called to.

I have never seen anything like what I am about to share with you, nor had anyone on any of the previous calls. At the end of our call, I will invite your feedback and look forward to getting to know you better. These calls will NOT be recorded so please don’t take a time slot unless you actually intend to be on the call. If for any reason, you can’t keep your time slot, please email us ASAP to cancel so we may allow someone else that time. This is not business as usual. I am taking this time very seriously and investing it in you. I look forward to sharing details with you on the call.

As you may have noticed, I’ve made a solemn decision to take God at His Word. I am done with preaching the Word through the prism of my experience, but rather declaring what is true and letting my experience catch up. This is not the decision of a youthful, new convert but rather a decision made by a seasoned Christian professional who is tired of leaving all the good stuff in the gospel until we get to Heaven.

So much of the influence the church has on the culture is limited or muted at best because it is done with human strength using natural means. To a large extent, we are the Red Cross or the Kiwanis Club doing good works in the name of Christ. While people are touched by these acts of kindness and often come to know Christ in the process, it is not electrifying the culture, nor is it presenting Christ for who He fully is. We are selling Him short. Way short! (Not this guy… Watch this)

We need to reveal Him as He really is. Wasn’t it John who said, “As He is, so are we in this world”? (1 John 4:17) What happened to that? What was He like? When He fed the poor, it was miraculous. When He ministered to the sick, they were not just comforted, they were healed. When the disciples were impressed at this, He told them that whoever believes on Him would do those and greater works.

I don’t know about you, but I am coming out of my tomb of doubt and unbelief. I admit I’m still staggering and somewhat wrapped in the grave clothes of good intentions that cover up my true condition of relative lifelessness, but I have heard His call to COME FORTH and I have risen off that cold slab in the dark and I’m stumbling towards the light.

As I rip off these grave clothes that have long hindered me, I find the light rather blinding, but am nonetheless very excited by the possibilities I see. God has given me a new lease on life and I will never go back into the tomb again while still alive. I am grateful for the opportunity to share with you this journey and for those of you joining me on this journey.

With peace and love.

“If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.” Mark 9:23

I have another confession to make. I am really dissatisfied with my Christian life. I am not dissatisfied with God, but rather how far below I am living from what He makes available to us. To some extent, I was conditioned to grow up in Christ and still be impotent, weak and powerless in matters of faith. On occasion, I have witnessed or experienced the undeniable power of God show up and release dramatic and instant healing or an abundance of provision when there seemed to be no way. But I want more and God makes more available… to him (or her) that believes.

You see, when Jesus spoke, He was helping you and I understand reality. He was DESCRIBING reality. When He said that ALL things are possible to him that believes, He wasn’t waxing eloquent or trying to be merely inspirational. He was describing REALITY. He was explaining the way things really work. When I measure my life to this Scripture, I realize just how little I really believe at a gut level, or should I say, at a heart level. I want my knowledge of Scripture to so deeply penetrate my heart that I am forever ruined for the ordinary.

In fact, that has already started. Friends… (May I call you friends?)… I am done with low living. I am done with explaining away spiritual truth because I cannot manifest it in my own life. From now on, I will endeavor to speak the Truth, to declare as true what God has said. I will no longer modify it by my experience. I will cease filtering the Word and adjusting the Word through the prism of my experience. Instead, I will let my experience catch up with the Truth of His Word.

As I head down this path, I invite you my friends to join me. Together, we will explore and experience the Truth of His Word in ways we have always secretly hoped for. For those of you who want to walk a little more closely with me and some of the other folks who read this blog, I invite you to a private, by invitation only, conference call next week where I will share with you some details about how God is helping me coach, train and inspire using the latest online tools available.  Here’s what one attendee last week had to say about the conference call…

“Just wanted to thank you for including me in the web cast this morning.  Michael’s material in itself represents a solid body of work for kingdom purposes….but the website really takes it all to a remarkable level.  Not so much that it enhances the value of the material (which it does), but more that it exponentially expands the possibilities for infusing it to business interests around the globe.

As you know, I am not easily impressed, but I think what God has done through Michael’s work is beyond impressive…it is inspiring.  Inspiring to know that God has been able to use Michael’s efforts to bring all this to a point of fullness in such a short time.  You and I both know that unless God builds the house, they labor in vain….  When God is clearly at work, it becomes easy to give one’s self to promoting the initiative.”

If you want in on that call, please respond to Cheryl at this email address and she will schedule a time when we can meet in a small group conference call with about a dozen folks on the call. That way I can speak directly with you and hear your heart as well.

This morning I wrote about “super abounding” and concluded by inviting you to one of several private conference calls with about a dozen folks on each call. The reason for the call is to personally invite you into my inner circle of those who wish to tap into and download both the spiritual insights and business wisdom God continues to share with me.

A few months ago, my wife and I began praying that God would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of our understanding being enlightened that we might know the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.  What He is opening up to us changes everything.

It would be easier for me to simply walk in the light He has given me and profit greatly, supporting ministries and doing kingdom work, but I feel constrained by the Holy Spirit to open this up to those of you who resonate with the message and insights He has given me. I have spent the last several years building the base to enable me to do this and the last year, creating the vehicle to accomplish this efficiently and effectively. I have never seen anything like what I am about to share with you.

I have opened up my calendar for several small conference calls, an hour in length, where I can share my heart with you and show you what I am talking about and how, together, we can make a much bigger impact than any of us can on our own. My goal is to pass on to you in the most effective way I can, the insights, revelations and wisdom He has given me for both our business and spiritual life.

Yes, it would be far easier for me to have several hundred on some kind of teleconference where you listen and I talk, but I want to meet you over the phone and give you the opportunity to ask your questions and give your feedback as well. That’s why the small group setting. As it turns out, we immediately filled up our available slots for this week, so I am opening it up for a few calls next week as well. If you want to join me on one of these calls, simply reply to this email. You will need to be online in front of your computer to see what I will be sharing.

These calls will NOT be recorded so please don’t take a time slot unless you actually intend to be on the call. If for any reason, you can’t keep your time slot, please email us ASAP to cancel so we may allow someone else that time. This is not business as usual. I am taking this time very seriously and investing it in you. I look forward to sharing details with you on the call.

“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:” 2 Corinthians 9:8

Paul is telling us that God is able to make all grace super abound toward us so that we, always and at all times, will have thorough sufficiency in everything, so that we may super abound, excel, have enough and with some to spare for every good work. So here’s my question… Are you experiencing that level of super abundance for every good work?

It’s going to take a few blogs to get this across, but let me begin with a couple of basics. First of all, God loves you. He would never, nor could never lie to you. Therefore we know that His word is true! Yet most are not experiencing what He promises. So many of those who are, only experience it occasionally and when it happens, we get all excited and shout and testify and make a big deal out of it. Being amazed at God coming through for you is a sure sign of a hard heart. Here’s why…

When I tell my wife that I’m depositing funds into the household account, she doesn’t hold her breath hoping against hope that I will follow through, nor does she call all our friends with giddy excitement when I follow through on my promise. She knows and trusts me.  But with God, we act surprised like we just won the lottery when He provides abundantly for a pressing need, precisely because we don’t know Him very well, nor do we fully trust Him. After all, His ways are higher than our ways or some such excuse. Consider this…

Jesus was walking across the lake during a storm one night which rather unnerved the disciples, but when He got in their boat and calmed the storm they were amazed beyond measure. Seems like a reasonable reaction, but Scripture says they were so amazed because they understood not the miracle of the loaves and fishes they had just witnessed, for their hearts were hardened.

Jesus wants us to be in the place where the miraculous doesn’t astound us. After all, the miraculous is really only the manifestation of laws we weren’t taught in school or seminary. What looks miraculous to us is not at all miraculous to God. Jesus walked through walls and a host of other things because He operated both by natural laws and by those unseen laws which we are unschooled in, but are accessed by faith. Now this is getting scary, but exciting…

I promise you that I have stepped into another level on my journey. It’s as if God has pulled back a curtain and is showing me things that have long mystified me, but now begin to make perfect sense. As I walk in them, my world is changing in measurable and practical ways. I want to share those with you if you are interested so, I’m inviting you to a private conference call this week. When I say private, I mean about a dozen or so folks on a call so I can know everyone on the call and share what’s really going on and invite you personally to join me on this walk. You will need to be online to see what I have to show you.

I will be sending out another email with more details, but spots are filling fast so if you would like to be in on a call with me, please reply to this email so Cheryl, my trusty administrator, can schedule you in on one of the open spots.

“And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:19

God loves me. This I know. I have begun to discover the love of God which surpasses knowledge. How is it possible to know something the Bible says is beyond knowledge? Knowledge, in the strictest sense, is an intellectual function, but God’s love far surpasses intellectual attainment. It’s the difference between seeing water and being in water. It’s the difference between seeing a bird fly and actually experiencing flight in a hang glider. The kind of love that surpasses knowledge is experiential love.

That is so far above the kind of love that is knowable. And when you know - when you really know that He loves you in that way, everything changes. Faith arises. Fear evaporates. Joy breaks in. Possibilities surface and the world becomes a different place for you. It has for me.

The most important revelation you can have in business or life is that God loves you. That is not theoretical, philosophical or even theological. It is not intellectual, hypothetical or merely emotional. It is factual, evidential and transformational.  It is unfathomable, unimaginable, uncontainable and completely unconditional. And when you know this at your core, you seek out His presence, not out of duty, but out of desire.

And He meets you there. The things He shares with you are both wondrous and practical, wise and powerful. What a difference a revelation can make in someone’s life. I received an email from South Africa yesterday from a man who told me that he was able to apply successfully the things I teach in Selling Among Wolves, achieving sales averaging $1,000,000 per day for all of 2008! And God has given me so much more to pass on!

In fact, I felt the Lord prompting me this morning to invite those of you who have found help or value in this blog over the years, who want to learn those things He is showing me, who are engaged in any kind of business activity to join me on a private conference call limited to about a dozen folks per call. On that call, I will be sharing with you what the Lord is doing in my life and how that can affect you in your vocational or ministry calling in a very big way.

The reason for the small group is that I will be inviting those interested into an inner circle of communication where I can download, in a coaching environment, the wisdom and life He is imparting to me and I want to know and actually speak with those who will choose to travel this road with me. The time has come and there is much I have to share with you. If you want to be invited to the call, please reply to this email or send one to my office at admin@michaelpink.com so we can confirm a time. We will begin scheduling our calls next week.

I want to thank you all for reading, passing on and commenting on my recent blogs concerning healing. Some of you replied to the email directly with a personal note to me, but those are received by my office, simply because I cannot respond to all of them. I did see one from a brother who began by telling me that he loved me and has been blessed by these blogs for 4 years, but that I was completely wrong on this subject.  I am sure there are many who feel that way and that’s okay with me. If we can walk in love toward one another, that’s more important than agreeing on every finer point of our faith.

I will invite all who share his view to consider the possibility, no matter how remote it may seem to you, that perhaps I and many others, who see what I see, have climbed a different section of the mountain than you. Perhaps we have plumbed the depths of His Word in different places than you. That wouldn’t make us smarter or deeper or anything special at all. It’s just that we have explored and experienced something that previously we had not seen, but now we do. Something that previously we argued against or were turned against for whatever reason, but now we have had an “aha” moment and see, as it were, for the very first time, a perspective we may have disdained or at the very least disagreed with only months ago.

If you have been a Christian for any length of time now, you have probably already encountered understandings and revelations that stand in opposition to how you earlier believed. That is why I walk softly toward those who disagree with me. I have found that I continue to grow in my understanding of Him and His Word and things I once thought were cut and dried, were in fact, all wet.

My wife and I pray almost daily that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ would give unto us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of our understanding being enlightened, that we may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of His glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ Jesus when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principalities and powers, might and dominion and over every name that is named, not only in this age, but in that which is to come. I would strongly urge all of you to make this a regular prayer from your heart and watch what happens between now and the end of the year!

To those of you who wrote words of encouragement and support, I am most grateful. In fact, beyond words. Some of you have never or perhaps only rarely, posted on this blog but you did this time to simply add the word of your testimony and strengthen mine. Thank you for that! For all of you that care and those of you who are searching, I continue to offer up what limited view I have of the wondrous work of Christ. More to come this week…

“And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” (2 Cor. 12:7-10)

The purpose of this blog is more about equipping believers to succeed in the marketplace than anything else. From my perspective, it is hard to succeed in the marketplace when we’re broke or when we are sick, so I address these topics from time to time to give my understanding of a Biblical way to walk out our faith in the marketplace.

Lately, we’ve been discussing the subject of healing and whether it’s God’s will to heal or not. I maintain that it is God’s will to heal every time, but not all are healed. Why? For the same reason that it’s God’s will that none should perish, but some do. Christ came to destroy the works of the devil and give us eternal life. He said that whoever would believe on Him would have that eternal life. He offers salvation to us all. Many reject it and perish. It is not God’s will (2 Peter 3:9) but many do perish. He also offers healing to us all and many will argue till their dying day that healing is not for everyone. I say, be it unto you, according to your faith. I have no issue with those who disagree. Walk in the revelation you have. You will be known by your fruit, as am I.

One question that came up a fair bit was, What about Paul’s thorn in the flesh? What does Scripture say? “there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me“. Seems pretty clear… His thorn in the flesh was a messenger, not of God, but of Satan, sent to buffet him. The thorn in the flesh term was a common usage term in the Old Testament to describe ungodly people who afflict you. For example, Num 33:55 says in part, “But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which you let remain of them, shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein you dwell.” (See also Josh 23:13, Judges 2:3) So I believe the thorn in the flesh was sent by Satan to persecute Paul for preaching the gospel.  He asked the Lord to remove that persecution, but we aren’t redeemed from persecution, so he was told that God’s grace was sufficient. As Paul later said, “All that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” (2 Tim 3:12)

Paul goes on to explain that he would rather glory in his infirmities, which is a word that means weaknesses, but can and sometimes also mean sickness. (In Romans 8:26, Paul explained that the Spirit helps our infirmities which was referring to our weakness in not knowing how to pray and later he told Timothy to use a little wine for his frequent infirmities which was clearly sickness.) Paul took pleasure in his weaknesses because he discovered that when he was weak, he became strong by God’s power. How was he made strong in weakness? It was by the grace which was sufficient for him. What is grace? It is God’s enabling power working in and through us helping us do what we could never do in our own strength. Paul wanted to be delivered from persecution, but God gave him grace to go through it. The results were so astounding that he said he would rather glory in his weaknesses because that is when he experienced the power of Christ most profoundly!

Some argue that Paul had an eye condition because some folks loved him enough to pluck out their eyes for him. Well, I’d give my right arm to do some things, but please don’t take that literally. It’s an expression meant to appropriate high value. If anything, the Galatians who made this comment about his eyes were the same folks who first saw Paul after he had been whipped, beaten, buried under a pile of stones and left for dead. When everyone went home, he was revived and walked 20 miles to a town in Galatia. I’m guessing he still looked pretty beat up! Betcha he had a black eye or two also, but I speculate.

By the way, I am not suggesting Paul never got sick. In fact, in Galatians 4:13-15 he said, “You know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first… for I bear record that if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.” He may have been sick or this might have referred to his weakened condition after being beat up and stoned to death (or near death). Either way, it was only at the beginning… Paul recovered and went on to do many great things.

Some maintain that there were folks healed in the Bible who did not have faith. That is true, especially those dead folks that Jesus raised up! (o-: But guess what? Jesus had the faith and He healed them. There were some folks born blind and God got glory from healing them. He did not get glory by sitting them down and explaining a lesson to them. He healed them. Some came to Jesus with faith and others didn’t know who He was, but Jesus healed them. He never sat them down and explained to them that this sickness, disease or malady was God’s way of teaching them a lesson.

There were some born with imperfections. We live in a fallen world with weakened immune systems, damaged DNA, harsh environmental factors, etc. Some come out of the womb broken or incomplete. My first child was born with Down Syndrome so I am not unacquainted with this. What is God’s response as demonstrated by Jesus? He healed every malady, from deformed hands and arms to blind eyes, to sickness, etc. He turned no one away. So God made every one of us, including the deaf, dumb, blind, etc. But before the fall, it was not so. People were not born defective. The fall wreaked havoc on creation and it groans to this day waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. Selah.

But Christ came to destroy the works of the devil - not to use the devil’s work as sermon material to teach some higher lesson. We can learn lots while sick, but we learn much more from learning to receive healing. I have been asked, what about this famous person with Parkinson’s or that famous woman in a wheel chair who are solid Christian people? Why aren’t they healed? Ask those people. They will tell you that they believe they are in God’s will doing exactly what He planned for them. They are resigned to the fact, that this is God’s will for them. Be it unto them as they have believed. Did they at one time believe in healing, but were disappointed when it didn’t come? I don’t know, but what I do know is that I will take God at His word over what someone else says their experience is.

Am I living out perfect healing in my life? Not yet, but in the last few weeks, my wife has been healed of a multiple nodular goiter after being diagnosed twice with the condition. This occurred without drugs or surgery, but rather as a result of reconciling herself to the Scriptures concerning healing, of which there are many. Furthermore, her arm was badly damaged in a head on collision over 25 years ago and has been disfigured until about a month ago when she noticed it was almost back to normal. We still have a ways to go, but as I said recently, we have left the station and I am merely passing on to you what I see along this journey.

Now listen, the thing I don’t like about blogs is that you can’t cover all the bases without turning it into a long drawn out thing which folks won’t read, and even then it only triggers more questions. So I know that I am leaving many things unsaid, but I will leave it to you to do what Chrissie suggested in last week’s comments, to seek the Father and the Holy Spirit to teach you. Seek Him for clarity. Believe me, I still have questions, but I am finding more answers than ever before. Most importantly, I am finding Him and that is the prize worth everything to me.