You CAN Take It With You

John Tyler

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Tyler has written six books prior to this seventh.

God has given John the talent of writing books, and the talent came only after John nearly died on an operating table on July 22, 1993. Before that near-death experience, John was a faithful husband, a deacon in his church, a Sunday school teacher of adults and 6^th graders. He was a successful businessman who owned and operated three retail stores. Before the operation, God blessed John with over $1.8 million dollars in revenues that he would receive from land sales between 1986 and 2004.

After the near-death experience, John decided to walk away from God’s pathway In 1996, John spoke about D-I-V-O-R-C-E….a word not in the Christian vocabulary.

In 1997, John did walk away from his marriage of 30 years. In 1995, He decided that drinking beer and wine was okay. When a story broke on ABC TV in 1995, about men divorcing their wives, or committing adultery. John told his wife, “I can see how this can happen, and I don’t blame the guys who finally refuse taking rejection at home.”

God could have killed John on that operating table in 1993. His wife would never have seen a divorce coming. John would not have walked away from God for ten years. Everything would have been just fine.

But….God had a plan for John Tyler, and that plan would unfold from 2007 to present. John started his first book in 1997 and has become a prolific author because God has had a purpose and plan for him.

God’s plan was for John to share his experiences with his readers during the time he was away from God…and then share stories of his time with God – after God decided to hear John’s prayer of contrition in December of 2007. Those times proved to be valuable times of learning.

Those experiences have become the basis for God’s desire to teach YOU, the reader, the lessons that John had to learn when God decided to send him to “God’s Boot Camp”. John says, “I would not give up my training time with God for any amount of money.”

John has been on four different paths in his lifetime: The first was a pathway that would lead him to hell if he died.

The second was the pathway toward heaven after God convinced John of his need for a Savior.

The third was when John decided to leave that pathway for a while and head in directions of his own choosing – and that proved out to be a disaster....and a learning experience.

His fourth pathway led back to God’s pathway toward service. The difference this time, is that John happily returned to God’s pathway because it’s the right path to be on. It’s the pathway that leads to happiness, joy, peace, prosperity, and a host of other things that God wants all of His children to enjoy.

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You CAN Take It With You

Message From The Author

God wants to bless YOU, and He wants you to know – beyond any doubt, that you can have lots of wealth - HERE ON THE EARTH, and God wants YOU to know that you can also store up treasure in heaven.

God has a perfect plan for your finances while you are spending your years on the planet.

“I intend to share God’s plan for YOUR LIFE concerning money, and you will be surprised to discover that you have likely been taught wrong about receiving money…and about giving money. God has the perfect plan for giving YOU MONEY and the finer things in THIS LIFE, but unless you learn the truth about MONEY….you will NEVER get to be blessed.”

John Tyler

Tyler Publishing – Box 723, Norton, MA 02766 – USA

Legal Stuff

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, nor stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any means – electronic, or mechanical, or photocopied, recorded, scanned – except by prior written permission by the author or publisher.

Published in Norton, Massachusetts by Tyler Publishing, P.O. Box 723, Norton, MA 02766.

Books by John Tyler are available in online e-book format and/or in hardcover or paperback. Online e-books contain illustrations in color. Books do not contain color illustrations due to higher costs. All e-books are available at this website:www.RelationshipBooks.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations found In this book are taken from the King James Version which is in the public domain. If the N.I.V. are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version â, copyright ã 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House – all rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.

ISBN 0-9674350-8-0

Preface

If You follow every concept in this book, which is based on the infallible Word of Holy God, then, on the authority of God’s Word, I can say that God intends to bless you with financial blessings and He will rebuke the devourer (Satan) so that you will always be bountifully blessed…here on this planet, and you will also store up for yourself treasure in heaven.

I could not have written or published this book without having first-hand experience proving that God has a plan for EACH life, and part of that plan is to provide US with all the resources that WE will need on this earth to accomplish His divine will. God has proven to me, personally, that His Word is true and accurate.

I had to first learn a host of principles from God. He sent me to what I call, “God’s Boot Camp” in 2008. That came about after I prayed this prayer in December, 2007: “Lord, God, please show me what YOUR plan and purpose is for my life because the way I have worked out my plan has not fulfilled me.”

God immediately caused me to go through sixteen months of terrible tribulation. I will touch on some of those trials in this book, but suffice it to say that I would not trade my training from God for all the money or gold or power that I could ever gain from this world.

I now know how God works concerning MONEY. I now know WHY He gives some people MONEY….and most others He does not give it. I now know HOW God goes about honoring His promises concerning MONEY, and I now know how to tap into that resource. I have also learned that God will give you at least ONE TALENT. Mine is writing books.

I now know that God wants, desperately, to be able to trust certain individuals in this world with money….and it may very well turn out to be A LOT OF MONEY that He wants to entrust you with. Can He trust you?

You will answer YES at this time, but after you read this book, you will evaluate your answer once again.

Please READ THIS ENTIRE BOOK - FROM COVER TO COVER before you make any plans. I do not want you to form any opinions until you read the ENTIRE BOOK through at least once. I do not want you to have any preconceived ideas or notions until you read this book.

I (and probably you), have been “brainwashed” at some point in our life to believe that God wants you to TITHE, and if you meet that requirement, God will reward you. This is not necessarily wrong teaching, but it has no bearing whatsoever on how God wants to bless you with MONEY on this side of heaven, and how God wants to bless you on the other side with rewards for doing His work on earth using the MONEY that he entrusts you with…if He chooses to do so.

God WILL choose to do so if you follow every principle that He has left for us and those PRINCIPLES are found in His Holy Bible. New Testament giving is not TITHING, and I must now tell you that you have to read every page of this book to discover the answers to how to tap into God’s resources – and then YOU will formulate a plan for giving and for testing God’s promises for yourself.

Let me start here – with this word from almighty God: “…Remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth” Deuteronomy 8:18. We will start there – at the preface of this book….the beginning…..the introduction to God’s principles for obtaining wealth – here on earth - and for the hereafter.

John Tyler, Author

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You CAN Take It With You

John Tyler

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Cover………………………………………………i

About The Author ………………………………………………………ii

Message From The Author……………………………………..…..iv

Legal Stuff……………………………………v

Preface………………………….……………vi

Title………………………………….……..…vii

Contents……………………………………9

Chapter 1 – Learning God’s Will.…11

Chapter 2 - Salvation First ….……19

Chapter 3 – God’s Plan & Purpose For You............................................33

Chapter 4 – God’s First Principle of Receiving…….........................…….47

Chapter 5 – Patience – God’s Lesson Plan………...........................………..55

Chapter 6 - Why We Never Have Enough Money.......................................

Chapter 7 – What Are The Desires of Your Heart?.......................................

Chapter 8 – Praying For God To Meet Your Needs................................

Chapter 9 - Reserved

Chapter 10 – Separating Needs from Wants…………....................................

Chapter 11 – The Coming Global Crisis……………………..........................

Chapter 12 - Why God Wants To Give You Money…..................................

Chapter 13 – The Bankruptcy Chapter………………..........................…

Chapter 14 - Your Role as God’s Steward…….............................………

Chapter 15 - Tithing- Is It For Christians?………...............................

Chapter 16 - New Testament Principles of Giving..............................................

Chapter 17 – Giving - A Trust Thing………………............................…..

Chapter 18 – A Time Of Testing YOU will Come…................................................

Chapter 19 – Who Gives Power To Gain Wealth?...............................................

Chapter 20 - You Have Lost Your First Love…………....................................……

Chapter 21 – I Am Living Proof of Giving -(God’s Boot Camp)………………………........

Chapter 22 – Put God To The Test……….................................…………….

Chapter 23 – To God Be The Glory….Not You………...............................................

Chapter 24 – You CAN Take It With You!……………...........................................

Chapter One – Learning God’s Will

Before we begin on this journey through God’s plan for YOUR LIFE, and before you discover how and why He wants you to use money, you must know what His divine will is.

Once you know what God’s will is, you can then begin to build your walk with Him based upon His will. His will is the basis for establishing His plan for YOUR LIFE. I wanted to know what God’s plan and purpose was for my life.

I was doing very well in life. In 2007, I had earned the highest amount of money for any year that I had worked - 185,000.

God gave me a gift of $1.8 million dollars in 1986, and I’ll tell you about that in a moment, but that money had nothing to do with my work related annual income.

I owned three homes…a primary and two rentals in 2007. Things were going well. Although I was divorced for ten years, I had a “soul-mate girlfriend” whom I truly wanted to marry. She turned me down in 2005, when I asked her to marry me, but I held out hope. She did love me, and I loved her, but there’s always a story behind a headline, so I will leave this alone for now, too.

Although everything was going better in 2007 than almost any year that I can remember, and I was 64 years old then, there was still something missing in my life. It wasn’t God…I was “saved” in 1954. All of my plans worked out just fine, or so I thought. I made tons of money in my life – millions, actually.

I once owned three Mercedes-Benz automobiles in one year….1986.

In 2003, I bought this baby, and I paid cash for it! It cost me almost $50,000. It was a Mercedes SLK 230 Roadster. The hardtop slid into the trunk electronically. I loved that car!

I am pointing this out to you so that you will understand that I bought almost anything my heart desired whenever I wanted it. I was very comfortable.

This is sort of the same feeling that really rich people must get. Hollywood actors, successful musicians…surgeons, politicians – Progressive “elitists” who have made huge sums of money – or lottery winners -or those who inherit large sums of cash and/or property must all come to a point where “stuff” isn’t the answer to finding usefulness and happiness.

They may end up turning to alcohol or drugs – maybe pornography or sex to stimulate their psyche. They are “empty”…void of “being complete”

That’s the feeling that I was having in December of 2007 – but I was a born-again Christian….and that tells me that ALL people, including Christians, will go through life unfulfilled – unless they have purpose and meaning for their life.

Apparently, when we try to find purpose and meaning on our own – without God’s help, we are heading for a purpose-LESS driven Life. I was prompted to say that because I recall having read Purpose Driven Life by Pastor Rick Warren - published by Zondervan.

I got to page 275 of Pastor Rick Warren’s Book and read, “God wants you to have a Christ-like ministry on earth. That means other people are going to find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts. The things you are most embarrassed about - most ashamed of, and most reluctant to share are the very tools God can use most powerfully to heal others.”

To me, that was probably a prophetic statement. God’s message to me was contained in that statement - that one paragraph from Rick Warren’s book.

God confirmed those thoughts to me a little later when He directed my attention to Psalm 40: 1-3 –“ I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.”

God seemed to be telling me, “John- I want you to continue to write books and go and speak about your experiences while you were straying away from me.”….

…”When your readers get to share your experiences, and see how I gave you a ministry that came about out of your deepest hurts, and how I put a new song in your heart once you inclined your ear to me, they may benefit from your experiences. As a result….MANY shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.”

This, to me, was God’s voice - finally revealing what His plan and purpose was for me. I had no writing talent. I had no ability to put sentences together, let alone write books.

It is God who gives us a special talent (one or several) so that we can bring glory to His name…and so that people will see the results and turn to God in faith, develop a trusting relationship with Him, and begin their journey discovering what God’s plan and purpose is for their life.

It is my hope and prayer that YOU will “sense” that what I am telling you is “right”, and that God’s Holy Spirit will prompt you to begin to do all that God wants you to do. He will then supply every one of your needs from His vast resources so that together, you may both get His will accomplished.

Before that great revelation came to me - and for reasons known only to God, He put the thought into my head that all of my plans that I had made seemed incomplete somehow. I was living only for myself.

In December, 2007, I finally got serious about finding out what God’s plan and purpose was for my life. His plan would, in my opinion, be the perfect plan. It would bring me peace, which I really never felt….even though I was a born-again believer since age eleven. I was a Sunday school teacher, a deacon, a father, husband, productive member of society, politician once. But I was NOT FULFILLED.

I began writing books once again. Somehow, God decided to get some heretofore barren creative juices flowing within me.

I must have written my first book in 1997 – Friendships – Lovers, Huggers & Others, a 150-page paperback still selling on www.Amazon.com, to gain experience for writing more books. Before writing that book (it literally came from out of the blue), I had never written any articles – much less a full book.

God seemed to give me the impetus to write another book in 2004…and my research would continue until 2010 when all of the information that God wanted me to write about was completed. The book would be about the END TIMES and how there are now two factions vying for power in the world.

Both factions want to control the population of the earth by forming a “Global Government”.

This was predicted thousands of years ago – in God’s Word.

As I began to write the book, I started out by believing that we went into Iraq only because George W. Bush wanted to “get even” with Saddam Hussein for trying to kill his father back in 1991 when 17 terrorist bombers tried blowing up his motorcade while Bush Sr. was in Iraq.

As I dug below the surface, and began finding all kinds of information, I started to see patterns of terror emerging, so I dug deeper. Everything that is going on around us fits like pieces of a puzzle, and leads to conclusions that we are, in fact, engaged in two completely different wars right now, and whichever faction wins, gets to control the destiny of America.

We Americans are slowly giving up our rights and our constitution. We are asleep. Not many know what is going on beneath the murky surface of the news headlines, and few know of the outcome. The outcome is just around the corner. Dare to take a peek at these findings?

Now, I know way too much! I almost wish I didn’t start that book and copyright it in December of 2004. The book was incomplete - until 2010. Since 2004 to the present, so many new players have come to light, and this new information completed my book to where I could draw logical conclusions about the two factions that are at war with us. It is my belief, based on Bible prophecy, that Islam will become the dominant religion of the world between 2012 and 2015, and those Progressives who thought they would gain control, will lose all control to Islam, and to the new One World Government.

The Progressive anti-God Secularists who are now in power in the world (Obama et al in the U.S.) are determined to take our freedoms from us. They are determined to fight God at every turn – mainly because they believe they are gods, and that only they can control the “stupid Americans” and get the world into a “Eutopian state” where everyone works for the government, and the government becomes the provider of everything to the masses - food, clothing & shelter.

The Progressives will unite or collude with Islam to gain that world dominance. Then, Islam will turn on them. Finally Satan gets to rule on the earth, and both factions will end up in bread lines – begging for food. Christians (born again believers) will be gone from the earth at that time as a “rapture” takes place.”

Then, literally, all hell breaks loose, and those who remain on the planet will really see very bad things happen. So, God had a reason for me to start that book as my second….although it didn’t get finished until AFTER I graduated God’s Boot Camp.

Right after that, God impressed upon me to start writing another book about heaven….what it is like, and who will be there…and how His people should live while here on the planet. So my third book began to evolve….Heaven-How Do I Get There?.

That book, Heaven – How Do I Get There was copyrighted on February 8, 2005, and finished in 2010 as an online e-book with 542 pages.

I discovered so much throughout my learning experience while writing that book, although the foundations of the book were written before God sent me to His “Boot Camp”.

Here are some of the questions that I had, and God answered all of them for me….so I passed those findings off to my readers in the book

I had a ton of questions before I started reading God’s Word, and doing a lot of other research for that book.

I asked the questions below…and God answered them ALL.

1. Where is Heaven?

2. How Do I Get There?

3. Is it complicated – or easy?

4. Who is there?

5. What is there?

6. Will we still be married there?

7. Who is Satan?

8. Where Did he come from?

9. God tossed him out Heaven. Where did he land?

10. Where was the Garden of Eden?

11. Where does temptation come from?

12. What are the other names of Satan?

13. Near death experiences – fact or hoax?

14. Can Satan be everywhere?

15. Can demons occupy people?

16. Which religion, if any, gets me into Heaven?

(The answer will surprise you!)

17. Will Jews and Arabs ever see peace?

(No, but find out why not!)

18. Can astrologers predict the future?

19. Can demons be cast out by man?

20. What significance might UFOs have later?

21. When are “The Last Days”?

22. What is this thing called ‘a rapture”?

23. Can we test spirits to see if they are good?

24. Is a Messiah coming, or did He come already?

25. What are Apostles? Disciples? Difference?

26. Is God monotheistic or polytheistic?

27. If I am “good”, will I go to Heaven?

28. If I am “bad”, will I go to hell?

29. What is the “Book of Life”? Am I in it?

30. What is the “unpardonable sin”?

31. What is “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit”?

32. If God is so loving, why do people go to hell?

33. Does God use “crippled Christians”?

34. What is my purpose on the planet?

35. Should I go to church?

36. Should I pay tithes (10%) to a church?

These, and hundreds more questions are answered!

The entire first chapter, however, gives the reader a very clear picture of what heaven looks and “feels” like…from the approach toward the 280’ tall walls sitting on twelve beautiful, multi-colored foundations, to the inside where streets are made of translucent, pure gold.

Once someone reads just that first chapter, they feel like this is the place they really should be looking forward to spending eternity in.

I have no fear of death now that I have a complete understanding of where heaven is, who will be there, what it looks like, and a host of other things that I gathered while doing the research for that book.

The “Gospel Message” and plan of salvation for all is intertwined throughout the pages of that book, so everyone who reads it has to make the choice within themselves to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior…or reject Him and take the consequences of that rejection of God’s Son. The consequence of rejecting God’s Son is that God MUST send that person to a place called hell. Hell is extensively covered in the book as well.

Chapter Two – Salvation First

GOD’S WILL – AND PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE

Many preachers and teachers either speak or write articles or books about what the Bible teaches. I can’t say for sure, but I am fairly sure that much of it is “head knowledge”, meaning they have been taught in Seminary what to teach and preach or write about.

The principles found in God’s Word, The Bible, are easy to understand – for the most part. Some areas are a bit complicated, for sure, but those principles can be taught to a congregation in a church, or taught to audiences of readers – or taught to TV audiences from the pulpit of TV evangelists or preachers, but I can tell you that everything written in this book comes from the combination of what God says He will do for us….and my actual experience living it.

Someone can tell me how it feels to go through bankruptcy, but until one experiences it first-hand, it’s only a theory…a feeling of how things might be.

I lived that experience, and God allowed it to happen to me so that I might be able to pass on warnings about bankruptcy to you. Appropriately, I have devoted “Chapter 13” to that issue. Chapter 13 is the bankruptcy law dealing with paying creditors back a certain portion of the money owed them, and the implications of it…versus a Chapter 7 liquidation. One rule allows the Chapter 13 person to emerge from bankruptcy in three to five years, and have it expunged from their credit history in just six years. The Chapter 7 person also has terrible credit, but it stays with them for eight to ten years.

Technically, a bankrupt person is a bankrupt forever because a question on many bank loan forms is, “Have you EVERY filed for bankruptcy?" We’ll get into that in greater detail in Chapter 13.

Someone can tell me what it might feel like to be a multi-millionaire….but I have lived that story as well, so my credibility for this book is experience.

My experiences are my first-hand knowledge of how God sets out to help us, and it is His way of getting us to the point where we can truly trust Him 100% of the time. I have written a chapter devoted to TRUST as well because I had to learn to trust God for everything….my next breath….my next meal….my next dollar.

You, too, will hopefully learn from my direct experiences – coupled with God’s Word….and how they both unite in perfect harmony to demonstrate to YOU that God is desirous of putting money into YOUR hands….and it could very well be a LOT OF MONEY.

God showed me, in 1986, that He could put any amount of money into my hands…hundreds, thousands…or millions!

God arranged for me to buy a piece of land under a very strange set of circumstances. The seller of the land was in jail! He owed over $300,000 in fines to the government, so they put a lien on his 150 acre parcel. I paid him $5,000 for the land….and borrowed the money from one of my credit cards. I then sold the land to a builder for $1.8 million dollars…to be paid out as each house was built. 102 lots were involved, and the builder faithfully paid me $17,800 per lot. He also paid off the $300K in fines, so basically, God handed me $1.8 million in exchange for zero cash out of my pocket! The $5K borrowed from my credit card was paid back with proceeds from the first lot sales. The builder handed me a check for $124,600 as a good faith deposit on the first seven lots.

The point that God was making was that He could choose to put any amount of money whatsoever into my hands – or YOURS, and at any time He deems appropriate.

As it turned out, I would need most of that money in the year 1994….eight years after the deal went together.

I owned three retail stores at the time, and the finance company that loaned money to buy stock (and charged up to 27% interest), called the notes of 625 franchised dealers when our franchisee owner died in a plane fire in 1988. All but two dealers survived the total devastation that followed the notes being called in. I was the other dealer!

The finance company gave all of us 30 days to pay them, or they would confiscate our inventory, our accounts and our homes…and everything else that we thought we owned the day before all of this unfolded.

I owed them $947,000. Try writing a check for that amount in 30 days! I had to file for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy to protect my personal assets, and I sued the finance company for reasons that I can’t divulge here….due to court orders once I won the case in 1994. I did have to pay them the $947,000….but did not have to pay their attorney’s fees of nearly $500,000 (with airfare, hotel costs, etc. to come to Boston)....nor did I have to pay them interest on that money!

I had also given my church $358,000 in 1988 because I said I would.

So, by the time the smoke cleared, I ended up with about $2,000.00 from the $1.8 million because my attorneys cost me $350,000. At that time, I was angry at God because He gave me $1.8 million (on paper), and I only got to see $127,000 of that huge windfall. I remember saying, “God, why did you give me all that money, and then take it all away?”

I ended up walking away from God after the smoke cleared from those four years of court hearings from 1990 to 1994 - when I won the case.

When I say I won the case, I still had to pay what I owed, but I didn’t have to pay their court and lawyer fees and other related charges…plus years of interest.

It took me over ten years of “wandering around in the wilderness” away from God, before it finally dawned on me that God knew, in 1986, that I would need well in excess of $1 million dollars by 1994. He handed me a gift of $1.8 million, which took care of His need for the church to buy additional land for their Christian School, and pay $947,000 to the financial lender to my company, plus $350,000 for lawyers. Those three items added up to over $1.6 million!

The other thing that I finally learned…once I came back to God, was that He can, in fact, put any amount of money into our hands any time He sees fit.

Instead of being bitter, I should have figured it out that God only gave me that money because He knew I would need it, and that “loan” from God saved me from losing my house and my personal credit.

It is likely that, had God just given me the money, I would have lavished it upon myself over the ten year period it took to get it all. Fancy homes, cars…a boat…who knows what I would have bought with it.

That reminds me of stories I read or see on TV about lottery winners. They get millions of dollars that they could use for the Lord’s work…but the first thing they do is buy multi-million dollar houses…then the best of the best and most expensive automobile(s), and some have spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on “stuff” for their new mansions. God will NOT give Christians millions of dollars that they will squander on “stuff”.

If God gives YOU or me millions of dollars, He expects a return of some of that money that He loans us to go back into “kingdom work”. I’ll explain what God wants later.

Before God gives people a dime, He wants something from us FIRST. We’re about to discover what His FIRST requirement is.

I will preface what I’m about to say by telling you what God has to say about what He wants to give to YOU and to me.

Romans 8:32 – “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

God wants to give us ALL THINGS – and He wants to be able to FREELY give them. His first requirement for us to RECEIVE, however, is that He reminds us that He gave ALL people on the planet His Son. God gave His only Son to us as a sacrifice for our sins. Jesus paid the ultimate price for YOUR sins and MY sins when He volunteered to go to the cross of crucifixion…when He took unbelievable beatings to the point where He could not be recognized….and He did it to save the spirits of mankind…all of mankind.

Only certain of mankind, however, can accept this free gift of “SALVATION” from God. Once we accept God’s free gift of salvation, through the shed blood of His Son, Jesus, THEN HE WILL FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS.

So first, and foremost in God’s heart is that YOU and I would accept and believe that His Son, Jesus, came to this earth to minister to people for 3.5 years, then He became a substitute for us on the cross.

He paid for the sins of all mankind, and He was resurrected from the tomb that they laid Him in.

Jesus is the only one who can forgive us of our sins…because He is the one who paid for them…in our place….and He ascended back into heaven from whence He came. That is what believing in Christ means.

After Jesus was bodily raised up out of His tomb three days after the crucifixion, He met with His apostles (eleven of them). As you might recall, Judas hanged himself.

He gave them some instructions. Jesus then went away (I believe that He went to His Father in heaven) for seven days. This resurrection happened on Sunday, April 13, 32 A.D..

On the following Monday, April 21, 32 A.D., Jesus met with His apostles in the “Upper Room” once again. There, He told them all kinds of things, and gave them instructions (over the next 32 days) what to write to finish off all prophecy and what to write in what we now call the New Testament.

Jesus spent a total of 40 days with His apostles before ascending back into heaven. Over 515 witnesses saw Him after His resurrection, according to the Word of God.

While He was with His eleven apostles on Monday, the 21^st of April, He spoke with Thomas…who became known as “doubting Thomas”. Thomas asked Jesus a question, so let’s go to the Word of God to discover the context.

John 14:4-6 – Jesus said to His apostles, “You know the way to the place where I am going. ⁵ –Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ ⁶ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

So, Jesus Himself told us that He is the ONLY WAY to get into heaven.

Later, In Acts 4:12, Luke – one of the eleven apostles, wrote, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

God has a desire. His desire is found in John 3:16 – a very famous Bible verse. “For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

God, therefore, is not willing that ANY of mankind should perish but that ALL should have eternal life with Him – in heaven. That is God’s primary desire – His will.

Jesus spoke about God, His Father’s will, and He told us exactly what God’s will is so there should never be a doubt about what His specific goal and will is.

Jesus said, in John 6:40, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

From all of the above, it should be clear that God’s will is that no man or woman should go to hell, but that all should look to Jesus for eternal life in heaven. Once that person accepts Jesus as his or her Savior and Lord, THEN God says, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

That is our FIRST PRINCIPLE of receiving God’s blessings, starting with the free gift of heaven once we choose to accept His Son, Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

God freely gives us ALL THINGS includes talents to do God’s will…and to do what Jesus taught His apostles to do and preach, and it includes all other resources available to God to get the job done…including giving YOU wealth.

Jesus told His apostles to go and preach this message, and this becomes the duty of a born-again believer.

And Jesus said unto His apostles, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Mark 16: 15-16. It is clear….those who believe and become baptized (by the Holy Spirit and then by water baptism) shall be saved. Thos who reject Christ will be sent to hell.

That said, does it make sense that God would greatly bless born-again believers with ALL THINGS necessary to get the job of telling others about His Son. If they refuse to believe, why would God decide to give them His resources, including His wealth…to just lavish upon themselves?

He would not. So, our very FIRST PRINCIPLE of receiving anything from God is that he wants us to trust His Son as our Lord and Savior.

It is also true that the devil puts money into the hands of non-saved people including Hollywood actors, politicians, corrupt dictators, thieves….you name it, but their goal is to enhance their personal lives. I might also add that money will not bring them happiness. Most of us know that many rich people are unhappy – unfulfilled. Some turn to drugs or alcohol to solve their perceived problems, or their loneliness or inadequacies or any other psychological oddity – including depression.

Some very rich people would trade their millions or billions of dollars for your health if they could. Their money does them no good. Christopher Reeve (Superman) would have given every dime of his money to trade with you and be able to walk again. He was born in 1952, and died in 2004 – On May 27, 1995, Reeve became a quadriplegic, and lived for the day he could walk again. That day never came.

Unfortunately, all of us will die at some point, so when we stand before God, what will we tell Him we did with the money He loaned us? They are, in fact, His resources - otherwise, why can we not take all of our money and other “accumulations” with us after we die?

Some of us think that WE are the ones who give us the power to get wealth. Somehow, we think, "It is our brains – our pure genius, that puts wealth into our pockets and in our bank accounts."

How then do we answer this Biblical claim?: “Remember the LORD your God, for it is HE who gives you the ability to produce wealth." Deuteronomy 8:18.

Before God can give any of us a dime, He first wants us to come to Him in faith...believing in His Son, Jesus.

I have learned that I had to become a “child of the King”…a born-again believer FIRST. That happened in 1954. Then, at some point in my life, I had to learn that I must depend on God for my next breath of air…my next heartbeat….my next meal, and my next dollar.

He is my provider. He is the one who gave me the ability to do things that make money. He is the one who gives me (or YOU) the talent that we need to go out and tell others about His Son, Jesus. He gives us talents to do things that will earn a living (or more) for ourselves and our family.

I will get into some detail about all of those lessons later in this book when I speak about “God’s Boot Camp” that he sent me to in 2007 and 2008.

Before sending me to His “Boot Camp”, I did things MY way. I had to learn to do things God’s way, and that is what paid off for me. Once I got all of God’s principles down pat….He then could finally show me what His plan and purpose for my life was.

What good is a ship without a rudder? It will drift in the ocean for a long time without having any direction whatsoever - regardless of how big the ship is!

Those who still believe that they are the masters of their own universe, and that they control how much money they make…..let me read you a story about a very rich man.

The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.

Sure, this rich young farmer had it made. Life was good…really good. He had plans for his future – just like we do. He planned to buy all kinds of “stuff” with his vast wealth. He had surplus everything, so he decided he would simply build BIGGER BARNS, which cost more money. Money was no object…so tearing down existing good barns was no big deal to him. “Hey, I’ll tear them down and build bigger, fancier barns. Then all of my neighbors and anyone coming by my place will probably say, 'boy, that guy is filthy rich…look at all of his barns….I’ll bet he’s loaded with 'stuff”.

Does that sound a little like YOU? I felt that way before my recent encounter with God in December of 2007. Here’s what happens to US: We buy a car and a home. Soon, the car is outdated…not as nice as others that our friends or relatives – or co-workers own.

“Our house is too small, so why not step out to the bank and buy a much larger house…and we can build a swimming pool to relax in during the hot summer months. Why not buy that new Lincoln Town Car…Boy, that ought to make the in-laws jealous.”

“It’s only credit. Just a few hundred more a month for the fancier car that we didn’t need….and it’s only a few thousand more per month for that really nice house in an upscale neighborhood…..big deal…we only come this way once!”

But, now we have to go back to the Bible to finish that parable – that story that Jesus related and found in Luke 12: 16-21.

“But God said to that rich young man, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” So, we learn more from the God who provides all of our resources.

We learned from that parable that it is , indeed, God who gives us the ability to get wealth…just like His Word told us, and we learned that He can take our breath from us in less that one heartbeat, and we learned that all of “OUR STUFF” isn’t really our stuff, and it will go to those who we leave behind. God only knows what they will do with it. Will they squander OUR STUFF?

Hebrews 9:27 sums it up nicely: “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.”

We all have an “appointment” set – with the one who created us.

Knowing this, that God may let us live for X number of days…or He may decide to snatch us away in one heartbeat, we need to then assess our life to see if we are living our plan or would we be better off knowing God’s plan?

MY DEATHBED EXPERIENCE

On July 22, 1993, the surgeon promised that I’d be out of the hospital in four hours. “Just a simple, minor gallbladder removal", he said. When I woke up, the minister was standing in front of me holding a Bible in one hand and a tulip in the other!

Friends and relatives whom I hadn’t seen in years were gathered around my bedside. Something had gone terribly wrong. I later found out that I had been at death’s door…literally, when the surgeon’s trocar instrument had severed my aorta…a large artery that went from my heart through the abdomen and down to my right leg.

10” scar from being opened up in surgery

I could easily have died on that operating table that day…but God had plans for my life. It would not be until 2007 that I began to discover what His plans were, and not until 2010 when I KNEW what His plan and purpose for my life was. It was to write books.

Just like the money God put into my hands in 1986…to be used eight years later in 1994, God has His plan for OUR life, too. Unfortunately, when we go our own way and do things OUR WAY, we delay or stall God’s plan. He is NOT going to force His will and His plan on our life….but He will continue to work with us so that we someday understand all that He wants us to know.

It’s late in my life, but I “get it”. I finally understand now what God’s divine plan is for our life, and how He wants to implement His plan.

We need to be willing to let Him move forward with us. We need to step aside and learn to trust God with our life.

I trusted Him with my eternal life when I asked Him to come into my life and save me from an eternity in hell. Eternal life starts at birth - FOR EVERYONE. Our spirit will live forever – somewhere.

Our spirit will spend eternity in heaven – or hell, and it is our choice as to where we will spend eternity.

God could have killed me on July 22, 1993. He told the rich young farmer that he should not have planned to lavish his money and his wealth on himself because it is God’s wealth. The rich young man would be taken from the earth that very night….as easily as my life could have been taken during that botched operation. The rich ruler would die. Christopher Reeve would die. I will die one day...and YOU will also die at some point.

God had a different plan for my life, and I am so glad that He allowed me to discover what His plan and purpose was for me. His plan and purpose for YOU is far better than anything YOU could ever come up with, so you will need to ask God to show you what His plan and purpose for your life is.

I did just that in 2007. I asked God to show me His plan because I really screwed my life up doing things on my own.

I guess I always secretly wished that God would just reveal His plan and purpose to me….but I never decided to actually ask Him to reveal it to me.

I was always impatient. I was always the manager of my life, and I managed my business…..I managed people….it’s what I did. So, my “manager blood” flowing through my veins always seemed to prevent me from becoming humble enough to ask for help….from anyone, let alone from God.

Finally, I dared to ask Him to reveal His plan and purpose for me. I had to know. I had to know my destiny and the reason that I was born. He decided that December of 2007 would be the time to know.

Chapter Three – God’s Plan & Purpose For You

I will briefly tell you what took an entire book – Satan’s Games – to write about, and that is how God revealed to me what His plan and purpose was for my life.

I’ll remind us of what my prayer was in December of 2007. “Lord, God, please show me what YOUR plan and purpose is for my life because the way I have worked out my plan has not fulfilled me.”

In less than one short month - January of 2008, God immediately answered my prayer by setting in place His methods to get my undivided attention.

God was about to enroll me in what I now call “God’s Boot Camp”.

I call it that because I recall my military boot camp training days. I spent six hard weeks in boot camp in San Antonio, Texas as a twenty year old G.I. back in 1963.

It was tough to get through boot camp. A lot of G.I.s failed to pass. The reason many failed is because boot camp is designed to break an individual down into a malleable person….one who can then be molded or shaped so that all of us in the military family were operating as one cohesive unit.

We all thought differently, but boot camp made us all have responsibility to and for one another, rather than to remain a selfish individualist.

I called my experience with God – starting in January of 2008, “God’s Boot Camp” because God needed to first isolate me from everyone….similar to how the military isolates us from our friends, family…loved ones, and then God could reshape me or mold me into what He wants me to become – for Him….just as the Air Force wanted to make all of us recruits into what they needed to have us become – for us to meet their needs.

Every young man, in my opinion, ought to join the military because it teaches discipline and responsibility, and most of us men at that age sorely lacked both.

When we graduated, we were all slim, trim, physically fit, men who shared the same goals, and that was to become responsible, trained military men who would faithfully serve our country. To this day, I know my Air Force service number – 10 digits with the letter AF for Air Force and eight numbers. Ask any military man for their service number….they’ll spout it off!

Women, called WACs (Women’s Air Core) were also in the military when I went through boot camp training, but male and female units were separated then. Men were in one barracks…women were in another part of the base altogether.

God’s Boot Camp started out rough, too. In January of 2008, just thirty days after I prayed that prayer asking God to show me His plan…His purpose for my life, my time of testing began.

Let me take a moment to tell you that you need to know what God’s plan and purpose for you is. Without a plan…without a purpose….we have no meaning. You won't get to know what God's plan is until you take that first step - ask Him to show you what His plan and His purpose for YOU. Then, over time, He will show you exactly what His plan and purpose is for your life...and that plan is going to be fluid. It never ceases.

The definition of “purpose” is, “an anticipated outcome that is intended with the outcome being the reason for which something exists”.

I borrowed several definitions from various sources to put that together for you so that the outcome would fit my purpose! God has an anticipated outcome (called a plan), and to put that plan into motion, He has an intended outcome for us that gives us a reason for why we exist.

Our “purpose” therefore, is the reason God made us….we have a divine destiny…all of us.

Once we are born again, we actually become a member - a joint heir with Christ, into the family of God. God then wants to use us to do His will, and His will is that, “All should come to repentance and be saved”.

I have learned, since January of 2008, that God will use me (and YOU) to do great things – so long as all that we do conforms to His plan to win the lost in this world so they, too, can join us in heaven where we will spend eternity with God.

God will give YOU a specific talent or multiple talents that will help Him in His plans to win the lost. He will also give YOU (and me) every conceivable resource available (that He controls and owns anyway) so that others may be won into the kingdom of heaven.

The KEY to success in understanding God’s plan and purpose for your life is to know that the intended outcome of God’s plan is to win the lost souls into the kingdom of heaven. “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

Just like the military wanted me to conform to a certain image – that of a military man – a defender of my country, God wants us to be trained by Him for a similar goal….and that is to fight for the souls of men.

When I say fight for the souls of men (meaning mankind), I mean just that. God is in a battle against evil…against Satan. Satan wants to destroy YOU and every other person in the world, and if he cannot destroy you (only God can take a life or allow it to be taken), then his next desire is to prevent YOU or your loved ones from finding Jesus.

That is the battle we are in. We are in the battle on a voluntary basis. If we wish to serve God, we must help Him to win the lost, and fight for their soul against Satan and his demonic beings that are in the world. To fight, we need armor to protect us, and we need resources (talents and money) to do the job.

That is the ONLY REASON that God will bless you with talent(s) and money.

I want you to know that right up front here, so that if you have bought this book for the sole purpose of manipulating God to get money from Him to lavish on yourself….you have wasted your money on this book. (This is why I give the first 60-pages out for free! That way, you don't spend a nickel until you read 60-pages, and then if you love the book...then pay the $9.95 for the online e-book version).

That said, let me quickly give you some good news, and I will detail that good news later. God will give you an ABUNDANCE of talent and money to get the job done.

I planned to give 90% of all that God puts into my hands above what I call "DAILY BREAD NEEDS." Those daily bread items are food, clothing, shelter, and an automobile - plus our daily bills, if you will.

I will elaborate on how God will meet those needs every day – IF WE FOLLOW HIS PLAN.

God promises to always meet those daily bread necessities, regardless of the economic climate of recession that we sometimes face.

Above those daily bread needs, God will give you more….much more – if He can trust you with it…so stay tuned throughout this book. You do not want to miss even one sentence!

For God to get my undivided attention, He had to separate or isolate me from my family, my friends, my soul-mate…and He also had to prove that He could be trusted for every single need and desire of my heart. But, I was not ready in December of 2007 when I prayed that prayer to ask Him to reveal His purpose for my existence.

I wasn’t ready because everything was going great. I had plenty of money….I had my family around…for the most part, and I had a soul-mate girl friend whom I wanted to marry. I had three houses….things were wonderful. I did it all myself, too, or so I thought!

In January, God shut down the real estate business. I had no sales on my books, and could see none in the future. My bills were about $8,500 a month. My income was only $3,200 a month, and that came from my two tenants in two homes that I owned as rental units. I would soon become $5,000 a month SHORT!

In February, my brother, Verne, fell off a ladder. He fell only a few feet, but landed on his back. After visiting the doctor to find out why his back hurt so much, he was told that he had “multiple myeloma”…bone marrow cancer, and if he was lucky, he might live for three months…possibly up to two years, but his disease was fatal.

So, my brother, whom I love very much, was about to be taken from me…in addition to all of my finances.

I began to think, “What did I do? Why did I ask God to show me what His plan was. Why is all of this bad stuff now happening to me?” I had no answers – at that time.

It gets worse – much worse!

In April, my soul-mate that I loved and wanted to marry began to hint that our ten-year relationship would have to come to an end.

I could not understand this. I had no hint that this was coming!

Soon, I had so much pressure on me, financially, that I couldn’t sleep at night. My blood pressure was increasing, and the stress levels of owing $5,000 a month more than my income increased exponentially by the week.

I began recalling the story of Job – the Old Testament guy who Satan asked God if he could sift him like wheat to prove that Job only served God because God always gave him “stuff”. Satan said to God, “If you let me take his stuff, he won’t serve you.”

I really wasn’t serving God….not at all, but Job’s story kept flooding my mind. When Satan was allowed to harm Job, he did it daily….and I was being hammered daily, too.

Satan took all of Job’s children from him in an earthquake that caused their home to fall in on them. He then had his sheep and all other animals stolen by nomads. Satan would always leave one person alive so they could rush to Job’s front door and say, “Job, I alone have escaped so I could bring you terrible news.”

If I opened my mail, it was terrible news from people looking for money. I did owe them. They did extend credit to me – a lot of credit.

In August, my ex-wife crushed me by presenting me with a court Summons to appear in front of a judge because I didn’t pay two month’s worth of payments that my divorce decree mandated.

Back in February of 2008, I asked her to cover March and April because I had no money coming in. She agreed, in writing, so I thought all was well. I was shocked to receive the Summons demanding all $14,000 that I was still on the hook for.

Apparently, what triggered that Summons was that I had also asked her in February to sign a check for $22,000 that the bank attaches to the bottom of their equity line of credit billing statement. All that was required was a signature. My ex could easily have signed the check, and that would have gotten me out of the trouble I was in.

I took on the debts of $42,000 at the divorce hearing in 1997. I volunteered to take on those debts owed equally by her and me. I had paid that equity loan down to $14,000…faithfully, for ten years….so I honestly thought she would help me out. I even quoted a Bible verse to my Christian ex-wife.

Proverbs 3:27 – “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.” I certainly thought it was within her power to not withhold GOOD from me.

I was totally naïve to actually believe that an ex-wife would extend credit to an ex-husband! I guess I honestly thought she would help me because I would have helped her if the situation was reversed. I forgot for a moment, however, that I was the one who opted to leave, and it broke her heart when I blurted out those horrible words, “I want a divorce”.

That letter asking for my ex to sign the check for $22,000 was misinterpreted by her as a demand of some sort, which it was not. I had said that if I did not get that $22,000, I might have to file for bankruptcy and she would end up with nothing….and she would have to pay the equity line attached to her townhouse that I gave her.

This triggered bitterness on her part (not that it wasn’t there since the divorce), and that bitterness somehow was transferred to my children. None of my children spoke with me after that.

So, up to that point, I had lost my financial footing, I was basically broke. I had lost my soul-mate girlfriend. I had received the bad news that I was about to lose my brother through cancer. I still had my three houses, and my pride though!

Of course, God knew that I would have to be isolated more…but I had no family left and no soul-mate whom I dearly loved. By the way, my soul-mate uttered almost the same words that I uttered to my ex-wife on that fateful day in 1997. “I find that I am not in love with you anymore”.

When God tells us that there are consequences for our actions, He means it.

The thought came into my mind, “What goes around comes around”. Better put, by God Himself is this: “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”.

I confessed to God that He was right….I deserved to now feel the hurt that I caused someone else to feel. My ex-wife’s look when I told her that I could not stand another day of rejection from her…and I wanted out of the marriage…will always be in my mind. It was a crushing blow to her.

When I was told those identical words, it was a crushing blow to me. I cried….just like my ex-wife had cried ten years earlier. I didn’t get over this loss. In fact, it’s now 2010, and I am slowly trying to forget my soul-mate, and I realize that there is never going to be any hope of us getting together. “Ye shall reap what ye sow”.

The pain of that loss wasn’t nearly over by August when more pain was on the way. Oh no….the pain was far from over. I got the summons. I still had three houses and my pride!

As soon as I got that court summons to appear before a judge in September, I notified my ex-wife’s lawyer that I would file for bankruptcy if she sued me for $14,000.

I had paid back the two months of March and April long before receiving the Summons, so it struck me as odd that my ex would sue me at all. Someone put her up to it, that is for sure.

Satan was being allowed to “sift me”, and take all my “stuff”.

I never for a moment thought that my Christian ex-wife would take me to court. I recalled a Bible verse that deals with one Christian taking another to court, and it is taboo in Christian doctrine.

In 1 Corinthians 6:1, I read, “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?” And down in verse 7, I read, “Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another.”

How then, I asked myself, can a Christian sue another…especially two who had four children together and lived with one another for thirty years? I was absolutely crushed by that, I must confess.

None-the-less, I point it out to you so that YOU will know NOT to sue another brother or sister in a court of law….it goes against God’s Word. Don’t do it. Work out your differences, or seek counsel from your church to come to some amicable agreement over a matter.

That said, I did get the Summons, and I did appear in court….and I had made myself ready (without legal counsel) to defend the matter. As it turned out, my ex-wife’s lawyer did not believe that I would file for bankruptcy over the matter of $14,000.

He was wrong! I filed a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy a week before the scheduled court hearing.

When I went to court, the clerk and judge told my ex that she could not re-open a divorce decree, and that I must pay her $135.00 a month until the $14,000 was paid off. I must pay it on or before the 15^th of each month.

What her lawyer accomplished was what I wanted to accomplish for two years prior to this court hearing! I had always asked my ex, who shall remain nameless, to just pay the bill ( I would sometimes run a day or two late because of the timing of my commission checks), and I would pay it when I could, but sometimes it was not paid by the exact due date.

She refused saying, “I’m not paying YOUR debt.” Well, now she has to pay MY debt each month and $14,000 divided by $135 per month means that I may take as long as 103 months to finish paying the debt. That’s 8.58 years from the day of the court hearing, and she cannot ever come after me for any balance.

I felt vindicated for the way she took another Christian to court.

Her husband (she got married about two years after the divorce), stood in front of my face and said, “You are not welcome to come to OUR house - ever.” I looked back at him, her - and their lawyer and said, “Have a wonderful day”.

Since that time, my ex and I have chatted. She even brought a bicycle to my house that she refused to give me saying, “Well, it’s not part of the divorce decree at this point and my new husband might want to ride it.”

I point all of this out to you to demonstrate that you should always work out your marital problems. In hind sight, I never should have left. I should have asked my wife to pray with me about it, and let God work it out. The consequence for sin, and not loving your spouse is a sin, is that the children will suffer, and one family becomes two families….and there are life-long consequences of a divorce -believe me!

Ah, but I still had my three houses and my pride….that is until God allowed the bankruptcy to go through! Once I filed, all of my creditors lost their money. They were going to be paid two cents on the dollar. The mortgage lender who owned my third house…one of the two rentals, was not going to get any money….but my lawyer told me that I wasn’t to benefit from the rental income from September of that year until (as it turned out) one year later when the finance company foreclosed on that property.

My pride went out the window the day I filed.

Do you realize that your town or city clerk (meaning everyone in town) knows when you file bankruptcy. I thought, "How would that affect my business in town…where I did 80% of my transactions?"

Your pride disappears when your name is published in the local newspapers. “XYZ lender has filed a Notice of Foreclosure against John Tyler…blah blah blah” That very long article was, in fact, noticed by my real estate colleagues and others in town.

Pride? What is pride? It all left me. I had no third house….I had no money….I had no pride…I had no soul-mate girlfriend….I had a brother who was dying from cancer, and very seriously sick all the time…to add to my stress levels, and my family…all of them…were basically non existent anymore.

All was gone. I was finally alone. I mean A-L-O-N-E.

Have you ever been totally A-L-O-N-E? It is not a good feeling. Alone, stressed out all the time, no money….now I only had $1,600 a month coming in, but my bills were reduced through the Chapter 13 to $4,500.00 a month.

I would still be $2,900 a month short. There would still be stress.

That was only in September of 2008….I still had a long way to go to graduate God’s Boot Camp.

I finally had to face God and either tell Him that I was done…I would run away and would He please leave me alone…or I could choose to beg Him to help me and to still show me what His plan and purpose was for me. He certainly had my attention at that point because nobody was left in my life….just me and God.

That’s exactly where God wanted me. If you ever decide to sincerely ask God to show you His plan and purpose for your life – be prepared!

I decided to quote from the Book of Job. I read the entire Book of Job because I was living his life. God allowed the devil to sift me like He allowed Satan to sift Peter…one of the apostles of Jesus.

Job said, “Though God slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Job 13:15. That was my answer back to God…in spite of my losses/

“Lord, I am the one who asked you to show me your plan. I will trust you that you will reveal your plan and purpose for my life, and even if you kill me, I will still trust you.”

Things got worse for awhile - because Boot Camp is a training camp. God had to show me how to trust Him more, but before He could show me how to trust Him, He had to show me what His Word says about His promises.

Proverbs 9:10 was brought to my attention. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

I have come to understand many things, but that was the basic training in God’s Boot Camp. To fear the Lord does NOT mean to literally be afraid of God. TO fear the Lord means to give God the reverence that He expects from us. He is Holy. We are not.

He made the world and the universe, and spoke the sun, moon and stars into existence. He is God. He created mankind. He created me. He left us all an “Owner’s Manual" - called The Bible to teach us how to operate while we are alive on this earth.

The rest of that verse told me that the beginning of WISDOM is to reverence God. Then, His Holy Spirit would show me, from God’s Owner’s Manual, what wisdom and knowledge is, and how to understand God through reading His Word.

The Holy Spirit who dwells within us IS GOD. Therefore, He knows how to interpret what God wrote.

Proverbs is full of sound advice, and Chapter four reveals much about wisdom. I gleaned much from that Chapter. For example: Verse 5 –“Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. ^{6 -}Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.”

God’s wisdom comes from His Word….The Bible. He left His Holy Spirit with us to interpret His Words so they are clear to our understanding. We are to continually seek God’s Wisdom….and not man’s wisdom, which is foolishness to God.

1Corinthians 3:19 spells it out for us –“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.”

Proverbs 4:7-9 goes on to tell us, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honor, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.”….

Verse 9- "Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many. ¹¹I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths.”

I get it. Seek God’s wisdom…His plan and purpose for our lives, and in the long run, we will live longer, and that wisdom will promote us…it will get us ahead in life. It will direct our paths in the future, and our path is God’s path.

Verse 12 –“When you go, thy steps shall not be straitened; and when you run, you shall not stumble. 13 -Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is your life.”

Chapter Four- God’s First Principle of Receiving

I can tell you , from experience, that God will honor all of His promises for GIVING to us.

I read this verse, which many have misinterpreted:

Matthew 6:33 reads, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Many have read just that verse and they believe that God has promised them that ALL THINGS WILL BE GIVEN TO THEM IF THEY SEEK HIM FIRST. This is absolutely NOT true.

When you begin to undertake the seriousness of reading and trying to interpret or understand what God is trying to tell you (and me), you need to pray and ask God to reveal to you, His wisdom (because He promised He would do so), through His Holy Spirit who lives within you.

So, when I read that verse, as I had many times in my life, I decided to understand what God was really telling me.

To do that, I had to ready what He said IN CONTEXT. To do that, I had to read the preceding information leading up to that statement – that PROMISE of God.

I traveled back to verse 25 of Matthew 6 and read the context in which Jesus told us that if we put God first, "ALL THESE THINGS WILL BE ADDED UNTO US."

Jesus said, specifically, “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?”

In English, don’t worry about your daily bread needs.

Jesus told His crowds of people, “Even the Gentiles worry about food, clothing shelter…but I don’t want you to worry about those basic daily necessities.”

Jesus continued….”³²For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things.”

He told us not to worry about daily bread needs if we belong to Him. Earlier, He asked, “Which of you can add one inch of height to his stature by dwelling on it? He then proceeded to tell us that we should not be concerned or worried about anything…especially those daily bread needs that God already knows we need.

By the time Jesus got to verse 33, He said, “…instead, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and (THEN) all these things shall be added unto you.”

So, I fully understood that Jesus was issuing a PROMISE to YOU and ME.

“If you seek FIRST in your life, God…and the things of heaven, His kingdom, and seek His righteousness, then ALL of the things I mentioned will be provided for you….food, clothing, shelter…in our case…our Daily Bread Necessities of life….our bills, if you will.

Now, “Seek God’s righteousness”…what does that mean? It is part of God’s PROMISE to provide for you and me our Daily Bread Needs….so we should get to know what it means.

This is why we study God’s Word completely….so we can discover His wisdom and His knowledge about what he said.

I went back to the first recording of the word righteousness and found it in Genesis…the first Book of the Bible. Abraham fully trusted God ….and in Genesis 15:6, God said, “And he believed in the LORD; and God counted it to him for righteousness.”

Therefore, God’s FIRST PROMISE to me was that He would take care of my Daily Bread bills if I would learn to trust Him – to put Him first in my life (Meaning put Him BEFORE all else, including my family, my soul-mates, whether girlfriend or spouse, my finances….everything…and believe in the Lord), THEN He will honor His promise – in this instance, and take care of my daily needs.

He also told me not to worry past midnight because He will be there to provide for my daily needs. Daily needs means TODAY…until midnight. Here are His exact words: Matthew 6:34 –“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”

God later reminded me of the time that He PROMISED to provide the daily bread needs of the Israelites while they wandered in the wilderness for forty years.

He told them that He would deliver “manna” which is a bread that would have to be baked…from the sky EVERY DAY.

He instructed them, through Moses, their leader, NOT to take more than enough to last them for ONE DAY. If the Sabbath was coming, God told them to gather up enough manna for TWO DAYS…or if they took more, it would rot. They tried gathering up the manna like pigs….but it all rotted…just like God told the disobedient people it would.

Jesus later reminded me of how that same theme of trusting God as our daily needs provider should be carried out NOW…in the era of the New Testament Christians.

Jesus told us all how to pray, and in the “Lord’s Prayer”, He said, “Give us THIS DAY….OUR DAILY BREAD.” This is to remind us that, like Israel, God will do as He PROMISED….He will provide our DAILY BREAD needs – ONE DAY AT A TIME. Therefore, because God will provide, we need not worry about any hour past midnight each day. It is a sin to worry and fret.

The sin of worrying and fretting (we call it stress), is that we are failing to trust God.

I find it difficult now and then to look at tomorrow or next week or next month, and know that my bills will be due, and then I see no possible way to pay them, short of a miracle from God (like raining down manna from heaven, and then later, He rained down meat in the form of quail – daily).

This is where TRUST and confidence must come into play. Before I can show you, by my experience, that God can deliver fortunes into your hands, and He can lead people to you who can help further your talents that God gave you, I must complete this chapter on God’s first promise to me to take care of my daily bread needs.

I began to trust in God – although my trust was a bit shaky because I knew that the bills were coming.

After sixteen long months of training camp, God decided to show me that He would NOW begin to manifest His PROMISES…at least that first one – to meet my daily bread needs.

I was faithful to seek God FIRST – EVERY MORNING. I understood that I was supposed to do something FIRST, and then God would maintain His end of the PROMISE or His end of the bargain.

I prayed, faithfully, each morning. How can I pray for God to meet my daily needs, if I wait until late at night to pray? Logic kicked in. I needed to start my day seeking God, so I did. I also go to www.Bible.com, and do a DAILY Bible study with them. It’s available to you, too.

I also listen to Dr. Charles Stanley at www.InTouch.org. He ministers to me, and it is great.

Sure enough, after my 16^th month of trials and testing in God’s Boot Camp, God started to open a few spigots of money so that I could pay my bills.

By April of 2010, God knew that I had a desire to fix up my property because it is my goal (and His, too or so I believe) for me to sell my two remaining homes that are located on one lot (which is why I got to keep them in bankruptcy), and in November of 2011, my 36 months of bankruptcy – Chapter 13, are over, and I can sell the houses and keep the money – free and clear.

In April, God put $40,000 into my hands. That allowed me to pay off several credit cards of my brother Verne’s that he let me use. I had no credit. Oh yes, I nearly forgot to tell you…..God spared Verne. He restored Verne’s health by miracle after miracle….all of that is covered in my book – Satan’s Games. He also restored three of my four children back into fellowship with me. One is a Christian, but a bitter one who hated the way I raised him! God will deal with him over that issue. I asked him for forgiveness over fifteen times, and I cannot seem to get it, so it is between him and God now.

I used much of that $40,000 to pay off those credit cards and another personal loan that my soul-mate loaned me. I had enough money left over to nearly complete all of the projects around the home, and save $6,700 in the bank. That would cover me for about eight months from April to December. I figured that $6,700 would be enough because God trained me to develop a DAILY BREAD BUDGET way back in the beginning of this training camp event.

I also forgot to tell you that God planted an idea in my head in December of 2008. The thought popped into my head to file for my Social Security one year early.

I filed for it, and in February of 2009, I had my first check of $1,743.00 deposited into my bank account.

My budget allowed me to get my bills (with the payment of some of those debts) down to $4,100 a month…so - with the %1,743. and the $1,600 from the tenant, I was still shy by about $750.00 each month….a far cry from $5,000 short each month.

The rental income of $1,600 plus the Fed check for $1,743 adds up to a guaranteed income of $3,343.00 every month. If I get to sell any houses, my income would then be at least $3,500. for the commission, and that would carry me for 4.6 months. ($3,500 divided by $750 shortfall = 4.6 months).

As I am writing this page, it is November 7^th, of 2010, and I am now officially out of money in my bank. I have exactly enough money to take care of all of my Daily Bread Needs for November….but not for December.

“Take no thought for tomorrow, John, I will take care of ALL of your Daily Bread Needs if you FIRST seek me out.”

I must tell you, however, that although God promised that He would take care of me, and I should not worry about tomorrow….I sort of did!

See, this is where God has to teach me (and now YOU) about patience. I have devoted a whole chapter on patience, so we’ll cover that later, but I want you to know how faithful God is when we trust Him completely – which is difficult to do – humanly speaking. God wants us to build confidence in Him, and when we do, He demonstrates that His Word IS GOOD…in fact.

So, I was sweating out the December mortgage and other bills adding up to $4,100. I had no commissions on the books and Christmas is coming. I had other bills added to the $4,100…like $700.00 for real estate board licenses and web site server fees, so I now had to find $4,800 within 30 days.

Because God PROMISED me that He would take care of those needs….although impossible, I prayed.

I knelt at my office sofa….where I pray every morning and many times before I go to bed…to thank God for what he did for me that day, and I said, “Heavenly Father, you PROMISED that you would take care of my Daily Bread needs…yet, I have no money left in the bank and I will need $4,100 plus $700. for other bills, and maybe another $500. for heating fuel by then. I have put your first for all these months, Lord, and if you decide not to help me out, I stand a chance of having my bank foreclose on these houses, and I’m only 12 payments away from emerging from Chapter 13….I need to have you save my house and bring in some money, Lord.”

The very next morning, a customer sent an e-mail to me stating that he wanted to see another house. I have showed this guy houses for almost two years and his price range was only $150,000 maximum. At best, it would bring in $3,750 if the Selling Agent was offering 2.5 % commission.

Generally, they offer only 2%, so I would get only $3,000….but I assured God that if He allowed me to sell this guy a house (finally), then I would be grateful.

Well, the guy saw the house. Each time he saw a house before, he would either not like it, or something would prevent him from buying it…like the lender would not approve an FHA loan for a particular house.

This time, it was different. He saw the house with me, and decided he wanted to buy it. The offer was for $150,000 against $159,900 list price. The Seller finally negotiated for the $150,000, and the lender approved my buyer for that amount. The P&S Was signed within two days, and on December 7^th, I will get $3,750.00….enough to pay all of my December Daily Bread bills, and it will leave me with enough to cover my Daily Bread needs for January and February.

God is good. He keeps His PROMISES. His word is excellent. He performed a 30-day miracle….just in time. That’s how God does it. Just in time!

Chapter 5 – Patience – God’s Lesson Plan

Patience is one of the toughest things I had to learn. I never had patience! As a manager for most of my life, I barked orders off…even in the military as a your sergeant. When I got out of the Air Force, I became a bus dispatcher for Gray Line Bus Company in Boston….barking orders to drivers.

After that, I became an employee doing TV repair for Sears. I hated punching a clock. Soon enough, I opened a service center for TV repair with my brother, Verne. Then, we split off and each had our own retail store and service center. Eventually, I had three stores of my own going, and 13 employees. I still barked orders off.

After those businesses went by the wayside, I became a Realtor in 1995. I am still a Realtor, and love it. I don’t bark orders off to myself anymore, but I never had to answer to anyone…I just did what I thought was the right thing to do in business…and I made a ton of money…..until the prayer of December, 2007!

Here is another PROMISE that God makes to those who love Him and put Him FIRST in their life: “There hath no temptation (Trial or time of testing) taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

God tells YOU and ME that He will not let us go through a trial that is not common to others. And, He will not let us be tested beyond a certain level.

He tells us that – with EVERY trial or time of testing, He will always make a way for us to exit that test…but He may take us right to the very limits of our ability to bear up under the testing.

That is great news! Each time of testing that God gives us should be viewed as a happy time! You are saying, “This author must be nuts to think that going through God’s Boot Camp is a happy time”!

Normally, if I had not experienced these trials, I would tell you that it is very tough to go through….and it will be, but when we graduate….then God has performed two things in our life: First, He has taught us a valuable lesson that we can cling to forever – and we can pass it on to others who will go through similar trials of time of testing or “tribulation” or temptation”.

I had to search the scriptures to discover that the word TEMPTATION in 1 Corinthians 10:13 is substituted for the word trial or time of testing. I went to God’s Word to find the use of the word TEMPTATION…which does not mean that God tempts us.

The Greek word for TEMPTATION is “Peirasmos” –“an experiment, attempt, trial, proving.” God is telling us that this Peirasmos is an experiment for us to go through….a trial…a time of testing or proving”.

In the very first Book of the Bible – Genesis, God did TEMPT Abraham. The Greek word for TEMPT is “nacah”, which means, “to test, try, prove, tempt, assay, put to the proof or test”.

I have to explain the meanings of some verses in the Bible because I have heard sermons on 1 Corinthians 10:13 saying that God will not allow us to be tempted by Satan beyond a certain point.

They came to that conclusion because the first many verses of 1 Corinthians 10 reflected upon the sins of Israel - therefore, these preachers concluded that God was still talking about overcoming sins or temptations or lusts.

What they missed was the Greek word for TEMPTATION, and it meant time of testing or proving.

1 Corinthians 10 did reflect Israel’s lusting after things, but they were banished to the wilderness for forty years because they would not TRUST God when He put them to the test.

That said, I have learned that God was telling me (and now you) that He will put us through times of testing – “God’s Boot Camp”, but He will not test us beyond the point that we can’t take it. He will always make a way for us to escape…whether we learn to trust Him after or during that time of proving or testing us. Every trial is common to man. God will not put us through a trial that is uncommon to man.

Now, times of testing are GOOD. It proves that God loves us enough to chasten or correct us and He does it so that we will come to know what He wants us to know…for our own good, and possibly for the good of others when we pass that first-hand knowledge off to them.

James 1:2-4 proves out my sayings. “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into many different temptations; ³Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works toward patience. ⁴But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be complete and entire, wanting nothing.”

God wants to mature us in His ways. To do that, he sends trials or times of testing our way. It produces patience and maturity within us.

James, the half-brother of Jesus….the one who grew up with Jesus says, in James 1:12-15, “Blessed is the man that endures temptation (trials): for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”

We are blessed when we go through trials and make it all the way to the end…and we graduate from God’s Boot Camp.

And, just to ingrain the fact that the word TEMPTATION does not mean that God tempts us to commit evil, James finished with, ^"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts He any man…”

IF, James says, we are lured away from God’s path by actual TEMPTATION toward sin, it is of OUR OWN DOING. – Verse 14 –“But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. ^{15
-}Then when lust hath conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.”

I spent a bit of time clarifying 1 Corinthians 10:13 because it is a teaching moment of a PRINCIPLE of God that we WILL go through times of testing, and God tests us. He does it to teach us patience and to mature us in His ways.

We cannot mature without testing, so count it all JOY when God takes His time with YOU to test you.

In addition to that GOOD NEWS, I have more! I have learned another KEY PRINCIPLE. When God tests us…He also proves out another of His PROMISES, and this PROMISE is awesome to fully understand.

Here is another PROMISE from God that should excite you. No matter what trial you ever have to face, it will all turn out for your GOOD!.

Romans 8:28 tells us what that promise of God is:”And we know that all things work together for GOOD to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

That verse told me that, no matter what tough time or good time I go through, as long as I put God first in my life, and love Him more than anything or anyone else, He works everything out for my good! Knowing this, I can be patient when trials come my way. I can know that every trial is working out for my good, and it also accomplishes God’s plan and purpose for my life. He just told US that He turns things for our good - for our benefit -those of us who are called ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE….His plan for our lives.

What tremendous peace we can get knowing this PROMISE of God….that everything will work out for our good - because God is in charge. Of course He is in charge when we finally decide to step aside and let him lead. I always used to kick doors open and then motion toward God, “Okay, God…here I am…come and follow me.” I sure had it all backwards. My duty to God is to let Him lead….I shall follow.

I need only to go to Proverbs 3: 5 and 6 to prove out another PROMISE of God. –“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. ⁶In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

TRUST in God….do NOT lean unto your own understanding of how things should be or what path you should take…follow His lead, and He shall direct your path.” This is so simple, folks.

It’s all a TRUST THING with God. When we learn to trust God 100% of the time, He will always maintain His PROMISES. It is when we stray from His pathway that we tend to get into trouble because God will let us take rabbit trails if we choose. There are consequences for choosing to stray for God’s plan and purpose – His pathway that He intends for us to be on.

Patience….let’s get back to that because, as I said, I had to learn to develop patience, and it is not my nature to be patient.

I have discovered, through experience, that God wants us to be patient. When we decide to do things on our own, we are telling God that we do not TRUST Him.

The hardest thing to learn is P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E.

David, one who sinned many times…adultery, murder…you name it, was loved by God because he knew that he loved God and he was always coming before almighty God in a repentant or “contrite” spirit. David came to know that God loved him in spite of his sin. David came to depend on the Lord for everything, including his next breath.

That is what I have learned to do. I’m not there completely, but I’m getting to the point where I can TRUST God for absolutely everything…knowing that He is faithful to work out ALL THINGS for my good.

David learned patience. He tells us, in Psalm 40:1, “I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.” He waits patiently…God listens to that prayer…God hears the repentant cry of each of us.

This concludes your FREE 60-page sample of my new book.

To get the rest of it, please e-mail me and reserve YOUR COPY when it is finished. Or, if you wish to wait, it will be available here on the e-book store at www.RelationshipBooks.com for just $9.95….an every dime received from this book will go toward Christian ministries

I expect that this book might be finished by February of 2011. I’m waiting for God to totally turn on the blessings…and then this book will be complete. I have most of the book already put together in my head, and I shall pass on the truths that I have learned first-hand during God’s Boot Camp.

The only thing I lack is for God to demonstrate HOW MUCH money He will again put into my hands because He can TRUST ME with the money.

It is my belief that God will do that which He has set out to do in my life...long before the last chapter is written. You will know when that is, because this book will have a BUY NOW button attached to it.

My pledge is to return at least 90% of the ABUNDANCE that God places into my care. I have already pledged to give 100% of the proceeds of my books, keeping only the money that I earn from the Diet book and from The Island…neither of which is of a religious nature. Those process go toward my Daily Bread budget.

Thank you for reserving your book in advance should you choose to do so.

John