Frank Santora

Lately I’ve been talking about the power and importance of embracing the dream that God has created you to live out.

Well, how do we discover that dream? I believe Romans twelve verse one and two give us a key. It says, “offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer. Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God—what is good and is pleasing to Him and is perfect. ” Romans 12:1-2

Remember, a dream is one of the primary ways that God communicates His will to us. Well, how can you know God’s will? According to this verse… dedicate all your life to God. Not part of your life. But all of your life. Your time, your talents, your treasures, your relationships, your past, your present, your future, your habits, your holiness, your lifestyle.

All, all, all!

And when you do, the Scripture says then you will know the will of God… what is good and is pleasing to Him and is PERFECT.

Do you know what this word, “perfect”, means in the Greek?  It means, “what fits and matches you”.  It means God’s design for your life. That’s just one key on how you discover God’s dream for your life. So, let me ask you. What part of you are you holding back from God? Because that may be the very thing standing in the way of you and your dream.

But here’s another key…  reserve time alone with God!

All dreams start with God.  Remember, a dream is deep-rooted desire that gives us an internal picture of the future that God has planned for us. Only God knows why you are here. Only God knows the reason for your existence. After all, He is the One who created you. So to consult anyone or anything else as to the reason for you is foolishness. Therefore, if we are going to find out what God has planned for us, we need to reserve time alone with Him so we can hear Him.

And this is so crucial in our day and age, where we are going full-throttle all of the time and therefore not making the necessary time to consult with our Creator. So many times, God is trying to communicate with us and He is getting a busy signal. Well, Pastor I want to pray, I want to spend time alone with God but I’m too busy to pray. Friends, change that thought to… you’re too busy not to pray! You need God’s direction. You need God’s instruction. You need to be impregnated with God’s dream for your life, and you’ll discover that when you reserve time alone with God to hear His voice. As the Scripture says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”  Psalm 46:10

I love that phrase “Be still and know.”

Why don’t we know what God’s dream for our life is? Cause we don’t take the time to be still and hear Him. Being still in God’s presence, reserving time alone with God, is one of the ways that we delight ourselves in God. And something amazing happens when we delight ourselves in God. Look at it with me. “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart” Psalm 37:4  Now this word “give” means more than what meets the eye.  It literally means, “to plant in you”.  So this verse literally says: “Delight yourself in the Lord (reserve time with God) and He will plant desires in your heart.”

Well, what’s a dream? Remember, a dream is a deep-rooted desire that gives us an internal picture of the future that God has planned for us. When we reserve time for God, God plants the seeds of desire in our heart which will empower us to discover the dreams we were meant to live!

What’s a dream? It’s a deep- rooted desire that gives us an internal picture of the future that God has planned for us.

And it’s one of the primary ways that God communicates His will to us for our lives. When God wanted to get Abraham to embrace the fact that it was His will for him to be the father of many nations  (even though Abraham was childless, elderly and his wife barren), here is how He communicated it to him:

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”

Abraham was struggling to believe it was God’s will for him to be the father of many nations. So look at how God gets him to believe this.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”  Genesis 15:1-5 

What does God do? He creates a desire on the inside of Abraham by giving him a picture to latch onto. And as soon as Abraham got the inner picture, “And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.”  Genesis 15:6

When God wanted to tell Joseph, who was just a teenager, that it was His will for him to save Israel from extinction during a severe famine, how did He do it? Joseph had a dream… Genesis 37:5. Communicating His will for our lives by planting in us desires which give rise to an inner picture is a promise of God. “And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.” Acts 2:17

When God wants to steer us in the direction of His will and the future He has planned for us, He gives us a dream… a deep-rooted desire that gives us an internal picture of the future He has planned for us. And if we embrace the dream, if we dream the impossible dream, it becomes a driving desire, an all consuming aspiration that empowers us to live life in fulfillment of that dream… no matter what the cost.

Remember the words from last week’s post from the famous poem/song called “To Dream the Impossible Dream.” This is my quest, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far, to fight for the right-without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a Heavenly cause!!!

Do you want to become an unstoppable force in life? Do you want to enjoy the better and brighter future God has for you? Then dream the impossible dream! Start now!

Rekindle it…  Dust it off… Reclaim it… Embrace it…

Dream!

There is a famous poem/song that speaks to one of the most powerful forces that shapes our future, the force of dreams.  You’ll probably recognize it, it goes like this:

To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe,

to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go. 

To right the unrightable wrong, to love pure and chaste from afar,

to try when your arms are too weary, to reach the unreachable star!

 This is my quest, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far,

to fight for the right… without question or pause,

to be willing to march into hell for a Heavenly cause!!!

 And I know, if I’ll only be true to this glorious quest,

that my heart will lie peaceful and calm, when I’m laid to rest,

and the world will better for this; that one man, scorned and covered with scars,

still strove- with his last ounce of courage, to reach the unreachable stars!

Dreams are the seeds from which reality comes. Everything we see today began as a dream in somebody’s mind. The building we visit, the cars we drive, the chairs we sit in, the flooring beneath our feet, the computer at our desks, and the telephones we talk on – just to name a few. Everything we see today began as a dream in somebody’s mind.

For example, more than six hundred years ago, a Spanish monk by the name of Ramon Lull was severely beaten while preaching the Gospel to Muslims in South Africa. Two Italians rescued him in a boat and crossed the Mediterranean to his home. While he lay dying, he pointed westward over the horizon and said, “beyond this sea is another great continent that we’ve never seen, send men there! Send men there!” One of the Italians that rescued him was Stefano Columbo, a direct ancestor of Christopher Columbus. The words of this martyr were passed from generation to generation until a dream was born in young Christopher’s mind. He spent seven years in the Royal Courts discussing the exploration of the West. After much opposition, he received the support of Queen Isabella of Spain. Today we are living in the reality of a nation that was once simply a dreamland in young Christopher Columbus’ heart.

Everything we see and experience today began as a dream in somebody’s heart. Perhaps Dr. King captured this truth best when he said, “I have a dream.” Do you? Do you have a dream? Are you dreaming the impossible dream that God has for your life? And if not… why not?

Maybe you’re not because someone has squashed your dreams – a family member or a friend – who told you, you can’t, you’re not good enough or that it’s too difficult. Friend, dream the impossible dream. Maybe you’re not because you are afraid – afraid of getting hurt, disappointed or failing. Friend, dream the impossible dream. Maybe you are exhausted, tired, weary, fatigued, beat up, beat down. Friend, dream the impossible dream!

Maybe you’ve allowed time to steal your dream.  Someone said, we start out in life as little risk-takers. The sky is the limit. The possibilities are endless. The dreams are vast and the future is ours for the taking. But then we are taught to grow up and become more realistic about our outlooks. We are conditioned to believe that dreaming is just dreaming and not really something that we should go after in life, and so we become care-takers… anxiously and ferociously going through life trying to hold onto stuff. The job stuff that we don’t really enjoy. The house stuff. The car stuff. The retirement stuff. And we even start stuffing stuff wherever we can find room. Stuff in the attic, stuff in the garage, stuff in the basement. And when we run out of room to put all our stuff, we create bigger spaces for our stuff. And lastly we wait for the undertaker!

Friends, that’s no way to live! Dream the impossible dream!

I believe that’s one of the things Jesus had in mind when the Bible says,  ^“for an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom (Matthew 18:3 MSG). What do little children do?  They dream impossible dreams. That’s how you experience the fullness of God’s kingdom. Dream the impossible dream… it’s your ticket to a better and brighter future!

We live in a world that distorts our belief about God. Our world tells us that God is out to get us, that God is angry with us, and that God sends catastrophe and disaster into our lives. Even the insurance companies call natural disasters, “acts of God.” Our world tells us that God sees every wrong we commit and enjoys paying us back. And the picture we get of God is this cranky, old grandpa who is mad at us and mad at the world.

When we believe that, we expect bad things to happen in our lives. We need to change that belief and embrace what the Scripture teaches us about God.

For example, the Scripture emphatically tells us that God is not angry at us and chomping at the bit to whack us for our wrongs. It says, “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, And His tender mercies are over all His works.” Psalm 145:8-9 NKJV The Scripture also teaches us that God is not watching over every wrong thing we do and holding it against us. It says that  “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”  2 Corinthians 5:19 NKJV Furthermore, the Scripture doesn’t even teach that God’s primary vehicle to bring us to a place of repentance is punishment… it says just the opposite:  “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” Romans 2:4 NKJV

When you read the Scriptures, the picture we get of God is very different from the picture our world paints of Him. The Scripture teaches that God is a good God and He is addicted to doing good for us. When it describes Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, it says, “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” Acts 10:38 NKJV Doing good was Jesus’ hobby!

Last week, my wife and I went on a hunt to find my son a pair of sneakers that he’s been wanting for his birthday. We went to five different stores in three cities and surfed the internet for hours to find a site that had them in stock. Finally, after days of searching we found them and joyfully and thankfully ordered them. We spent that kind of time and energy because we like to give good things to our kids. But that’s nothing compared to the good God wants to do in our lives!

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is of a particular conversation that God has with Moses. Moses, who was always talking to God up on top of a mountain, always hearing God’s voice from a cloud or smoke or fire, decides that he wants more. And so Moses said to God, “God, I want to see what you look like”.  And here is what God said:

“So the Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.” And he said, “Please, show me Your glory.”  Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”  Exodus 33:17-19  NKJV

Of all the things God could have said about Himself, and of all the dimensions of Himself that God could have shown Moses, God chose to highlight His goodness! When you believe this about God, that He is good and that He wants to do good things in your life… it will change your future despite your past or your present!

In my last post I talked about the principle that, in life, we “become what we believe.” Today I want to share with you three reasons why what we believe is so important.

1. It affects the choices we make.

For many years as a child, I would not go swimming by myself in a swimming pool. If I did work up enough nerve to actually dive in, I would swim as fast as I could to the other end (with my heart beating out of my chest and looking back over my shoulder). And I did not relax until I exited the pool unharmed. Why? Because I believed, no matter how irrational it may sound, that every pool had a secret compartment on the bottom that would open up, and out would come a Great White shark! That belief affected my choice to swim in the pool alone. Now that may seem silly, but it emphasizes the power that belief has on the casual choices we make every day.

2. What we believe affects the potential we realize.

Recently, I read about a grade school teacher who, with the permission of the parents, told her class that recent scientific reports had verified that children with blue eyes had greater natural learning abilities than children with brown eyes. She had them make signs that they hung around their necks, designating them as blue or brown-eyed. After a week or so, the achievement level of the brown-eyed group fell measurably while the performance of the blue eyed children improved significantly. Later, she announced she had made a mistake, it was really supposed to be blue-eyed students who were the weaker students and brown-eyed students who were the stronger students… and the results flip-flopped. The potential of these students was directly affected by what they believed, even though the belief was irrational and unfounded.

3. What we believe affects our position of power.

In 1898, a construction party was building a railroad across Africa.  Over a period of nine months, the railroad personnel were haunted by the presence of two man-eating lions. These lions were so cunning and crafty that they managed to get past barricades, huge fences, and around the clock armed guards, to repeatedly drag screaming victims into the blackness of the night. These animals were tracked and hunted, but escaped time after time. Very strange things happened that caused the railroad workers to begin to think the lions were immortal. Guns failed to fire and heavily baited lion traps failed to work. One night, two men fired twenty shots at the distance of ten feet and did not hit the lion. The lions became known as “the devils.” If it had not been for one man, J.H. Peterson, refusing to believe the popular myth that the lions were immortal, the railroad project would have been stopped. J.H. Peterson finally succeeded in killing the man-eating lions, ending the nightmare. Because everyone else believed the lion were immortal, they lost their power. J.H. Peterson didn’t believe that, and he maintained his power.

This reminds me of how some Christians view the devil. They view him as undefeatable, and so they live their lives without any power. They say things like: “well, the devil made me do that”, “the devil’s got a hold on me”, “the devil is controlling my mind”, or  “the devil won’t let up on me and no matter what I do I can’t seem to whip him.” Friends, the truth is, the devil is defeated!

Listen to the scripture, it says:

…having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. Colossians 2:14-16 (NKJV)

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.  Luke 10:19 (KJV)

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:4 (KJV)

Friends, the devil has already been defeated, and now you and I have power over him! But there are lots of people who don’t believe this, and are therefore being defeated in their lives. Matter of fact, the Bible says that eventually there will be those who are shocked when they see the devil for who he really is!

What we believe affects our positions of power. Can you see how powerful belief is in our lives? It affects our choices, our potential, our positions of power… and ultimately our future, because we become what we believe!

There’s an interesting story in Matthew Chapter 9 about Jesus and two blind men. It begins as follows: As Jesus left the house, He was followed by two blind men crying out, “Mercy, Son of David! Mercy on us!” When Jesus got home, the blind men went in with Him. (Matt. 9:27-31 MSG)

Now this is a fascinating story. Here are these two blind men who wanted to see so badly that they followed Jesus all the way to His home. Now, it’s a good bet that Jesus knew exactly what they wanted… they wanted to receive their sight. As such, Jesus asks them an interesting question.

He says, “Do you really believe I can do this?” And they said, “Why, yes Master!”

Do you really believe I can do this? Said another way, “Are you absolutely convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that I can make you see?”

What does it mean to “believe”? When the Bible speaks of faith or believing, it says, “faith means being sure of the things we hope for and knowing that something is real even if we do not see it.”  Heb. 11:1 NCV So “believing” is being convinced, without any physical evidence, that God can do exactly what He has promised. And that is what Jesus meant when He said, “do you believe that I can do this?”

Now Jesus did not ask this question so that, if they didn’t believe, He could say, “well, too bad.” He asked this question so that He could know whether He could go right to enacting the miracle, or if there was still work to be done to get them to the place where they “believed”. But, they did believe, because they had answered, “yes Master!”

Now watch this! Verse 29 says, “He touched their eyes and said, “Become what you believe.” It happened. They saw.” Did you catch that? He said, “become what you believe!” Become what you believe! Become what you believe! And they did… they saw. That’s the power of believing. In life, we become what we believe. Belief shapes our future!

What are you believing for? Are you believing to go higher in life, to rise above your obstacles, to live in health, abundance, healing and victory? Are you believing for better things… greater things? Are you believing that the best is yet to come, and that your latter will be greater than your past? Friends, you will become what you believe! We are what we are today, because of what we believed about ourselves yesterday. And we will be tomorrow what we believe about ourselves right now! Belief is a powerful force in our lives!

Consider this: some of humanity’s greatest minds have examined the evidence for and against the existence of God, and concluded that there is a God. Here are just a few:

Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
Constantine the Great
Roger Bacon – originator of the scientific method
Hildegard of Bingen – theologian, writer and first woman physician
Copernicus – priest, philosopher and scientist
Galileo Galilei
Blaise Pascal
Isaac Newton
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Franklin
Harriet Tubman
Helen Keller
Margaret Thatcher
Albert Einstein
Abraham Lincoln
C.S. Lewis
J. R. R. Tolkein

Now, that’s a pretty impressive list! I think it’s safe to say that believing in God is logical based on the evidence. What evidence do you think is solid enough to base your faith on?

In the 2009 movie, “The Invention of Lying,” starring comedian Ricky Gervais, an interesting concept is put forth about heaven. The movie tells of a modern-day world almost exactly like ours, with one exception: nobody lies. Nobody had ever lied in this world; lying hadn’t been invented (okay, so it’s not that much like our world!) One day, Gervais’ character suddenly says something that “isn’t”. Soon he has the world at his fingertips because people automatically believe anything he makes up. If he says he has money in his bank account, the bank assumes their records are wrong (don’t try that). If he claims he hit the jackpot on the slot machine at the local casino, they hand him all their cash. But when he faces the death of his mother, he can’t bear to see the fear in her eyes as she contemplates “an eternity of nothingness.” So he makes up an afterlife on the spot, to make her last seconds happy.

Unfortunately, the hospital staff overhear him, and word quickly spreads about this new development. Soon people are camped on his lawn, demanding to hear about this place called “heaven”. Using empty pizza boxes as his tone tablets, the good-hearted con man invents God, hell, the Ten Commandments (more or less) and a heaven where everybody gets their own mansion and gets to see everyone they’ve ever loved… as long as they never do more than two “really bad things” on earth (a/k/a the old “three strikes and you’re out” thing) (excerpted from Chapter 20 of my new book, “After You Die”).

What’s your idea about heaven? How do you gain access to it? And is it a real place to you, or is it a lie made up by our society to comfort our fears of life after death?

Eugene Lang was an East Harlem success story, a businessman and millionaire.  In 1981 he accepted an invitation to speak to a class of graduating sixth graders at the public school he had attended. But just before he spoke, the principal revealed that things had changed in East Harlem since Eugene was a student there: over 75% of the students he faced were unlikely to finish high school, much less attend college.  Stunned by this news, Lang made a spontaneous decision.  At the end of his speech, he told the class that he would pay the college tuition of everyone there who graduated from high school.  What was the result? Nearly 90% of the students he spoke to earned high school diplomas, and 60 percent continued on into college. With one promise, Lang more than completely reversed the principal’s prediction. That’s the power of hope. (Taken from Chapter 40 of my new book, “After You Die”.)

If that’s the power of earthly hope, how much more is the power of heavenly hope?  The hope that there is life after death? A heaven to gain and a hell to shun? I believe it is the greatest hope of all and it’s waiting for everyone to embrace… and when we do, this hope becomes heavenly oxygen for our souls.

What are your thoughts?

I think we all have a hope deep down inside of us. The hope that life is indeed more than just random interactions of purposeless particles. The hope that you are more than just a souped-up monkey.  The hope that the universe has a reason for being, and that you yourself have a reason for being within it.  The hope that your purpose, your existence, your “reason to be” lasts beyond just the here and now, the gritty, lousy, harsh, hard, clumsy realities of this broken world.

It is the hope that God loves you,  the hope that He has planned a future for you in eternity, with Him.  It is the hope that you will live forever in love, being loved and giving love in return. The hope that this life is not all there is, that everything does not end in death and decay and pointlessness.

Jesus spoke to this hope deep within each of us when He said: “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.  Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26 NIV)

Eternal life… it is the greatest hope of all! (for more on this subject, see Chapter 42 of my new book, “After You Die”)