We Become Prisoners of Fear, Doubt, Discouragement, and Other Paralyzing Emotions ... But you can become a
PRISONER OF HOPE

Book Excerpt:

"The letters that I receive from people day after day as a result of our television ministry tell me that many of us become victimized by the emotions of discouragement, disillusionment, fear, doubt. I would like to present to you in the pages of this booklet the possibility of your becoming a prisoner of hope.

There are times in our lives when we are overwhelmed by the circumstances we find ourselves in. But generally speaking, there are a lot of us who really don't believe that we're going to make; we have lost hope.

While it is true that God does prune and develop our lives, the truth is that God is not really the way we often picture Him. He isn't a knife happy surgeon. But you say, "Don't you believe in the chastening of the Lord? Don't you believe in the pruning of the Lord?" Yes, I do; but when it comes to pruning, the scripture implies that it is done once a year and only in cases where there has been no fruit or completely dead branches. Any farmer will tell you that it is only done once a year.

Our lives are filled with struggles. It's in those struggling times that God wants to come to us as our Heavenly Father and to help us and to develop us. I want to tell you something. It's scriptural to have struggles. It's normal to have struggles. Let's look, together at Romans 7:21-25: "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death/ Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!"