From time to time I receive letters, phone calls, and emails of encouragement. Many are stories of how God is working and touching lives. I wanted to share a few that I received recently:

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Happy New Year Sam. I wanted to share how your teaching at Manhattan Beach this past summer helped to change my life. I was asking the Lord about the direction in my life as I sensed I was at a crossroads. I also sensed that I was physically moving. During your week of teaching you taught on the "rope holders"... boy, did that minister to me. During that week the Lord kept giving me a single word "Calvary" and through various other "hints" I ended up moving to Winnipeg in October… Up till your message on "rope holders" I really felt that I was headed in a totally different direction.

So a thank you from me to you to start your year! Your teaching was one of my life changing times.
I hope I have the opportunity to hear you again soon!

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Just wanted to say thank you for your help in the last year. Your insight and support has been a blessing to me and the ministry. May the Lord bless you in the New Year.

Fearless to Risk

One simply cannot live without taking risks. Risk is woven into every aspect of our daily experience.
· To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
· To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
· To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
· To expose feeling is to risk exposing our true selves.
· To place your ideas, your dreams, before the crowd is to risk.
· To love is to risk not being loved in return.
· To live is to risk dying.
· To hope is to risk despair.
· To try at all is to risk failure.
- Unknown

“God hath not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and of a sound mind.”
- 2 Timothy 1:7 KJV

If you know you couldn’t fail what would you risk? What would you attempt?

What an incredible Christmas!
I felt so privileged to spend time with our son, daughter-in -law and granddaughter the week before Christmas. Then to come home to NC and have my mother and sister come down for a week. I laughed, ate, ate, went to movies had parties and ate. We had 20 over to eat on Christmas eve after speaking at Hope church at the first Christmas eve service. What a great day.

This season has also been a time I have been privileged to speak each week at Morganton NC First Church. It has been a joy to be home and feel the joy of sharing the message of Christmas in a congregation throughout the season. New Years eve Vicki and I shared the message of the Passover. Passover marks the New Year on the Jewish calender. What a great night we had as people took bitter herbs, a part of the Passover meal put it on bread and then dipped it in the juice of the cup symbolizing the the shed blood of Christ covering the suffering of our sin, past bondage's, tears of the past year. Many left suffering from 08 at the altar. I then shared from Acts 12 the story of another Passover experience, the jailing of Peter and his miraculous deliverance. The expectation of the church as they prayed for his freedom was heard by God as an angel came to the prison. Those in attendance wrote out their expectations for 09 and then Vicki and I prayed over ever person.

Tomorrow I will talk about faith that God responds to. It is not the size of the faith but the believing (pisteuo) that ignites the possible (dunata). Believing the spark that ignites the impossible and causes it to become possible. Believing activates supernatural power that enables what normally would never be possible. Don't worry about the size of your faith. If your believing, then faith the size of a mustard seed, will ignite supernatural power.