With our words we can either bless or curse our future. We need to consider God's best for us and turn the talk about failure into talk about favor - not saying what it looks like in the natural but what it looks like to God.

We often ask ourselves: why do bad things happen to good people - or more precisely, me? But instead of that question, we should ask ourselves: why do good things happen to bad people?

Ken Mansfield, former US Tour Manager of Apple Records, talks about his time with The Beatles - and about losing everything but eventually gaining the only thing that really matters.

Faith is not a coping mechanism. Faith opens our eyes so we can see that God is already at work on our behalf. It's a power to change things that God doesn't want us to accept - things that he wants us to have a breakthrough in.

We shouldn't make the mistake of mistaking hope for faith. Also, faith in God is more important than having faith for things. His grace, the grace to endure God's "no", is sufficient for us.

The source of our faith is the grace of God, not prayer, bible study, church attendance, tithing or rule keeping. His unmerited favor, not our works, make us people of faith.

Faith does not exempt us from hardship, tragedy and adversity. Real faith is proven in the furnace of affliction, in the time of adversity.

This world is not transformed by nice ideas - it's transformed by people with the substance of faith operating on the inside of them. But are you building this faith foundation or are you more concerned about a good facade?

God wants to heal us - but are we just sitting back and wondering why he isn't doing anything or are we willing to stretch out our hands to him to receive his healing power?

Transforming our minds into the mind of Christ isn't a one-step action. In fact, there are eight stepping stones that build on one another to reach that goal.