Bill Johnson - How Your Courage Restores Identity and Purpose
Well, good morning! It is—no, yep, still morning. Nice to see you; glad you showed up. Benny and I, uh, actually just got back from England. We did, uh, an event for HTB (Holy Trinity Brompton) in London. Great church, great people—Nicky Gumbel and that whole tribe, just amazing what they are doing. Um, how many of you have heard of the Alpha Course? The Alpha Course has really swept all over the world; it comes from that church. Brian and Jen, they, uh, love going there. It’s fun to go somewhere where I’m Brian’s dad, which is there, I think, as well as Argentina. Then we were in Harrogate, England, and I did a leaders' advance. It was a wonderful time. Eric and Paul were both there as speakers, and it was fun. I’m afraid I’m going to be known there as Eric’s dad because he was so well-loved that, uh, I’m going to be Eric’s dad there. So this is good; I’m just getting known by my children, and that’s wonderful. And my wife, too, so I’m going to end up carrying her suitcases pretty soon. So it’s a good thing!
In between those two events, Benny and I went to Switzerland for five days, and, uh, somebody put us up in an incredible, five-star hotel overlooking Lake Geneva. Oh, goodness gracious! I thought we might have died and actually gone to heaven. It was just so beautiful. We took a tour of probably the premier chocolate factory in Switzerland—oh, glory to God! I, you know, let’s just be honest here—wow! You get to this one part where they have all their chocolate laid out, and believe it or not—some of you won’t believe this, but it’s true—you can eat as much as you want. And I found out for the first time in my life that there’s actually a limit to how much you can eat. Your body starts calling you names: «Bill, you’re a fool! No, not another one!» My wife is still recovering from that experience. Me? I got over it quickly, and I’m ready for more. But my body is much more used to sugar than hers. Oh, goodness, that was so fun! Just being with friends, and of course, at the European leaders' advance, being with Eric, Paul, Randy Clark, and Heidi Baker. Anyway, it’s great, and it’s just wonderful to be home. This is, ah, this is where I like to be.
There’s a sign out in front of a church, you know, they have signs, and they give messages to their city. This church called Hillside Church just says, «Blah blah blah, just come to church.» I love that! This one is a personal favorite: «Having an education is important, but having an awesome fishing boat is more important.» More important! Yeah, sorry that—there are just some of us who like that one. It’s like somebody said, «Money doesn’t buy happiness—that’s why I went and spent it all on fishing equipment, because fishing equipment makes me happy.» So, all right.
The preacher stood waist-deep in water at a river baptism talking to a group of people on the riverbank when an obviously drunk man wandered down into the crowd. The preacher spotted him, pointed him out, and said, «Sir, would you like to find Jesus?» The drunk shook his head yes and wandered down into the water. The preacher grabbed him, spun him around, put him under the water, then pulled him up, grabbed the front of his coat, and yelled, «Did you find Jesus?» «No,» said the drunk. So the preacher repeated the baptism for an extended ten seconds, held him under the water, and pulled him up again. «Did you find Jesus?» «No,» cried the drunk. So the process was repeated a third time, except the preacher held him under for thirty seconds. He then pulled him up, and the drunk said, «You almost drowned me!» The preacher responded, «Yes, but did you find Jesus?» The drunk replied, «No, are you sure this is the last place you saw him go under?» Uh… I think that’s funny—that’s like the church bulletin; you know, some bulletins will have the sermon titles for the week. One sermon title for the morning service was «Jesus walks on water.» The evening service was «Looking for Jesus.» I just think that’s, all right, all right—that’s just apparently a bad sense of humor. Not everybody agrees.
All right, open your Bibles to 1 Samuel 14. 1 Samuel 14 is a great portion of scripture we’ve studied before, but it’s been a number of years, and I just thought today would be kind of a fun day to look at this passage. The subject, uh, for today is courage, and I feel like there’s a grace where the Lord is imparting a gift, another level of anointing for courage. Courage is such a big deal: courage moves heaven. Courage has a domino effect on people around you. Um, it’s not true that any of us live under ourselves. You may be well-known; you may be hardly known or not known at all; all of our decisions actually affect the world around us. There are not only the people who know us—when they see a decision we make, a courageous decision, whatever it might be, we have an effect on that—but it also releases something into the atmosphere. Courageous people actually change the atmosphere.
And, uh, here’s the thing about the things in the kingdom—when Jesus turned water to wine, at the very end of the story it says, «And these signs Jesus did, manifesting his glory.» Now just think for a minute—what did Jesus do? He did what he saw the Father doing. That was heaven’s response to a problem. And then it says, «These signs Jesus did, manifesting his glory.» What is it telling us? It’s telling us that every time there’s a kingdom activity, heaven responds by releasing glory. Isaiah 60 carries this theme out: «Arise, shine, for your light has come. Deep darkness covers the people, but his light will appear upon you.» What’s it saying? You arise; you do your part, shine with whatever radiance you carry, and he will respond with glory. Amen?
Now, I don’t know if you know this, but it’s all about the glory of God. That is the single focus and ambition. The scripture says the glory of the Lord is going to cover the earth as the water covers the sea. What’s the point? There’s an end product, an end goal; the Lord desires everything to be immersed, bathed, baptized in his glory. How important is the glory, that manifested presence of Jesus? The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory. So glory was the original target. The glory of God, the manifested presence of Jesus, was actually the initial target for every human, every person alive—including creation—to be immersed in and live in this manifested presence of Jesus. When sin happened, we fell short of that target. But when Jesus forgave us, bought us, healed us, and delivered us, he restored us to the target, which is still the glory of the Lord. Yes, that just came up. I just thought it’d be nice to tell you—when you get courageous, guess what? You attract the glory, and that’s what it’s all about.
So all right, uh, 1 Samuel chapter 14—we’re going to start with verse 6. Actually, I should tell you something first; the previous chapter is where Saul really blows it. He started off as a pretty good king. He started off with humility. He was not, uh, arrogant. He didn’t use power for personal gain. He actually was a servant of God, a servant of the people. But he became very impatient. He wasn’t developed in his own walk with the Lord, and the weightiness of responsibility he just crumbled under it, became very arrogant, egotistical, and ended up doing all the crazy things that are in opposition to the things of God. In the previous chapter, the Lord actually rejects him; in fact, it says the Lord starts looking for a king, a man after his own heart. So the Lord is looking for someone whose heart is actually fixed on him. Then, of course, he finds David.
But in this moment, we see a story about Jonathan. Jonathan is Saul’s son, and Jonathan is an extraordinary man of courage, an extraordinary man of tremendous character. He became just the closest, closest possible friend to David before he was king.
All right, all of that—verse 6: Jonathan said to the young man who bore his armor, «Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few.» That phrase is one you’re going to want to remember beyond today: nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few. Jesus faced a crowd of perhaps 15,000 people, and he had a child’s lunch. It’s impossible to feed the crowd, but with God, all things are possible, and it was more than enough. God is not limited by size. We get troubled by size, by numbers, by time—like how much time is left until this problem, uh, you know, has to be solved? We get under pressure because of numbers, time, size, and the Lord just isn’t; he doesn’t have that Wall Street mentality. He knows that he can take a child’s lunch and feed a multitude.
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is where Israel, the people of God, were actually starving. Some of them had turned to cannibalism, if you can believe that. It was just horrible. And the prophet prophesied that they would have plenty by the next day. Twenty-four hours later, something that was absolutely impossible became doable because it was the word of the Lord. And the people of God feasted the very next day. So they went from nothing to feasting because the Lord said, «By tomorrow at this time, you’ll be feasting.» You see all these things throughout scripture that are a part of shaping the renewed mind. The renewed mind is neither impressed nor intimidated with numbers; it’s neither impressed nor intimidated with size; it is neither impressed nor intimidated with a problem.
Hallelujah! Man, I feel like we could just camp on that one statement for a while. In any given day, most of us face situations where news reports something happens, this bill comes in the mail that we didn’t expect, whatever it might be. It could be any number of things—relationally, financially, doesn’t matter. But where there’s that impact—do you feel like you just got hit in the gut? Because we still get impressed or intimidated by size. That’s so good! The renewed mind thinks differently. The renewed mind actually comes from the realm of unlimited supply towards a problem. It’s not fantasy; it’s not I imagine money in my bank account. I imagine power coming out of my hands; it’s not imagination. It’s not mind over matter. It’s a reality that we abide in and live in. That’s why Jesus said, «If you abide in me» in that realm of the kingdom, because he is the kingdom. Amen? If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you can ask anything you want. In other words, nothing will be impossible to you. Why? Because you live from the realm of abundant supply towards problems. Renew our minds, Lord!
All right, let’s keep reading, so that whole sermon was free. Now we’re going to get into the message. We have a number of verses to read, so just be patient, and let’s, uh, let’s read this. So, uh, Jonathan says, «Come! Let’s go to the other side, the uncircumcised.» Verse 7: The armor bearer said to him, «Do all that’s in your heart. Go then; here I am with you according to your heart.» Jonathan said, «Very well, let us cross over to these men. We will show ourselves to them. If they say to us, 'Wait until we come to you, ' then we will stand still in our place and not go up to them. But if they say thus, 'Come up to us, ' then we will go up, for the Lord has delivered them into our hand, and this will be a sign to us.» So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines, and the Philistines said, «Look! The Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden.» And the men of the garrison called to Jonathan and his armor bearer and said, «Come up to us; we want to show you something.»
How many of you remember when you were like twelve years old, and, like, some kid sixteen wanted to show you something? It was never good—it was never good when somebody said, «Hey, come here, I want to show you something.» That’s what we’ve got going on right here. The Philistines are going, «Hey, come here; I want to show you something.» Yeah, I’ll bet you do! Jonathan said to his armor bearer, «Come up after me, for the Lord has delivered them into the hand of Israel.» And Jonathan climbed up on his hands and knees with his armor bearer after him, and they fell before Jonathan, and as he came up after him, his armor bearer killed them.
All right, let’s just stop right there. This is just a good story; it’s bloody, but it’s a good story. Just pretend it’s demons, and it’ll help make it easier. All right, here’s the deal: Jonathan and his armor bearer—Saul is in another place; the soldiers are there; they always seem to be battling the Philistines; they’re out after it again. Jonathan and his armor bearer together—there’s just one soldier and one kind of equipment manager—and they look across this little valley. Over on the hillside over here is a whole group of the Philistine army. Jonathan has a plan; he said, «Now, Jonathan is a trained soldier, but I think the Lord was just on him putting his plan together.» He said, «Let’s do this: let’s get out here in the open; let’s make sure they see us.» Which, if there are two of you and there’s a whole army, getting into the open means you’ve lost the element of surprise. All right, so mistake number one: element of surprise, click, it’s gone! So they say, «Let’s get into the open; let’s make ourselves known.» If they say, «Come up here,» then we know the Lord’s given them into our hand. But if they say, «Stay right there, we’ll be to you,» then we’ll just stay here. So I don’t know what their plan was if that happened. Yeah, I guess it doesn’t matter.
So they stand in the open, making themselves known. The Philistines go, «Oh, look; the Hebrews are crawling out of their holes where they’ve been hiding.» And then the guy says, «Come up here; we want to show you something.» Jonathan turns to his armor bearer—this to him is confirmation that God has given them into our hands. What’s the problem with this? They aren’t on their hands and knees—here’s the hill—you want the element of surprise. Once that’s gone, you at least want to be higher than your enemy; you want to have position. They don’t have position, and they don’t have surprise. Not only that, they’re crawling on hands and knees to a waiting army. This is like the worst military plan, second maybe only to sending a choir out to battle first, which Israel did on more than one occasion. So the Lord just brings about victory different than we do, and sometimes we lack victory in certain areas because we don’t want to do it his way because his way doesn’t make sense to us, but it makes perfect sense to him.
So Jonathan goes, and they say, «Come on up.» So they crawl up on their hands and knees to a waiting army that wants to show them something. They’re on hands and knees. When they finally get to the top of the hill and the waiting army is there, ready to show them something, Jonathan is the first one up, and they all fall before Jonathan. The armor bearer forgets to hand the sword to the soldier, which is Jonathan, and the armor bearer comes up and kills everyone! This is a good story! The armor bearer, who’s not the soldier, gets up; he’s so excited that everybody fell, he thought, «Let’s get them while they’re down!» Demons, of course—let’s get those demons while they’re down!
The verse, uh, 14—"The first slaughter which Jonathan and his armor bearer made was about twenty men within a half-acre.» Verse 15: «There was trembling in the camp, in the field among the people. The garrison and the raiders also trembled; the earth quaked; it was a very great trembling.» I love this verse! I think it’s the coolest verse! In Philippians 1, it says, «When you and I say no to fear, it only reminds the devil he’s doomed.» That’s awesome! When you and I resist fear—now just picture this scene—when you and I resist fear, what happens? There’s this wave of intimidation over the demonic realm, and they begin to tremble because they are reminded they have a death sentence. That’s huge! Isaiah deals with the same concept.
So here we have Israel: two guys—not Israel—two guys are courageous; they stand up in the face of an opposing army, and they bring about such an extraordinary victory that the news of their victory spreads, we’ll find out in a moment, into Israel, but also into the enemy’s camp. The news goes through the enemy’s camp; it says the people trembled, the soldiers trembled, the raiders trembled, everybody trembled so much so that the earth itself began to shake. Wow! I think we’re going to learn—I hope we learn something in the next ten years or so—and that’s that what happens to us affects the planet. We don’t have time for the study today, but here’s a good example. The courage that intimidated the enemy brought a response out of the earth. When the Bible says, «If my people repent of their sins, I will heal their land,» I think he’s actually referring to land. In Romans chapter 8, it talks about the people of God coming into their place of identity. We actually find out who God’s made us to be—that the earth groans and travails for that moment coming, and when it happens, the earth is released into the same liberty that the people of God step into. In other words, your freedom affects the planet.
That’s good; that’s a good point! Now, here we’re going to get to the heart of the message. There are two results or responses to courage that are two of the most inspirational verses I can find in the Bible for, uh, that are in this story. They are the result of the people of God having courage. All right, look at this in verse 21: «Moreover, the Hebrews who were with the Philistines before that time went up with them into the camp from the surrounding company. They also joined the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan.» Okay, here’s what’s happening: we’ve got Jonathan and the armor bearer; they bring about a great victory. The word gets back to Saul—the whole army rallies together—and they figure, here’s an opportunity for us to really bring destruction on the enemy of Israel, which is the Philistines. And so they all rally together.
Here is an outcome of this courageous act of Jonathan and his armor bearer: look at verse 21 again. «The Hebrews who were with the Philistines before that time went up into the camp from the surrounding country. They joined the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan.» What is this saying? Picture this: you’ve got Hebrews, Jews (not our coffee shop, Hebrews), Jews who are no longer identifying themselves as Israelites. They have completely abandoned the whole concept of being the people of God. They have now joined themselves in language, in conduct, in clothing, culture—everything—to be a Philistine. Picture an army, a Philistine army, a whole regiment of soldiers, and picture in that group are Israelites that you can’t tell are Israelites because they dress the same as everybody else, they talk the same as everybody else, the same language, everything, same culture—and they’re in that number.
Then this word comes back that Jonathan and an armor bearer did some courageous act and they actually wiped out an entire regiment of the Philistine army. The word comes back—just the news of courage from one of God’s own awakened a sense of personal identity that they have been burying for who knows how long. Suddenly—if you can picture them—stripping off the garb, the Philistine garb, the Philistine identity, and they run over to the Jewish camp, to the Israel camp, to fight against the very people they had spent their life with. Something about courage calls a sense of purpose and destiny out of the hearts of people you wouldn’t know could ever be touched by the things of God.
Now I’ve watched this for years. I’ve seen some of the stories that have circulated that have come out of here, and I’ve actually watched—I’ve visibly been able to watch the impact of a story, a word, a testimony, an encounter upon somebody who came to a meeting who literally was just there because they got dragged there, they got bribed, or brought there, or whatever, and they’re in the meeting. They don’t have any hunger or desire to be there, and here they sit in that meeting. Suddenly, there’s a word that comes forth about a courageous story, and they find out why they are alive.
I remember a number of years ago, I was praying—I was doing a conference with Randy Clark up in Spokane. A pastor, a wonderful man, came up and said, «We were praying for specific things,» and he came up and he said, «I was in a motorcycle accident—I forget how many years ago—like 10, 20 years ago, and he was missing—he, uh—destroyed 2 inches of bone in his femur.» So when he sat down, his leg was actually 2 inches short because it had grown, but the bone wasn’t replaced, so his leg was 2 inches short. We’re talking, he says, «You know, I never even thought of having this being prayed for,» and he wasn’t even asking for prayer—he was just kind of confessing it had never crossed my mind to have this prayed for. I said, «Well, why don’t we just go for it?» So he sits down, and I grab his leg, and sure enough, or he sits down, and I can see by his knees they’re back two inches, two full inches. I hold up his leg, sure enough, two inches, and I begin to pray and command it to grow. So it starts to grow, and I said, «Do you see that?» He wouldn’t answer me. So it’s growing more. «Do you see that?» He wouldn’t talk to me; he wouldn’t talk to me. He’s just watching because I always tell him, «Watch; I want you to see what’s happening.» So he’s watching it grow, and finally it comes all the way, and I said, «Did you see that?» And he looked at me and he said, «I don’t believe what I just saw.» That’s exactly what he said—exact words: «I don’t believe what I just saw.» He stood up—his 16-year-old daughter walked up, and he turned to her and says, «I just got healed.»
Fast forward about 45 minutes to an hour later, he comes up to me later in the meeting, and he says, «I found out why I’m alive.» One experience completely redefined the rest of his life! I mean, redefined the rest of his life! Here we have stories that circulate here for years. One of our early stories, very fun, with Chad Deadmond, who was going to a grocery store, a local grocery store late one night to get some donuts—one of the basic core food groups. He went to get some donuts, and as he walked by, you know, cash register number three or whatever it was, he notices a lady with a hearing aid. He stops and finds out, if I remember right, she’s 100% deaf in one ear and 50% in the other and asks if he can pray for her. Long story short, he prays for her, and her ears are opened; she’s just weeping and weeping at the counter. The gal behind the counter, you know, checking the groceries, she starts crying, and they both, you know, one of them says, «This is God.» The other one says, «This is God.» Chad gets in— «Yes, this is God.»
He turns to the gal behind the counter and said, «God wants to do more in this store; can I use the intercom?» She looks around and goes, «Yes!» She showed him how to do it. So Chad gets on the intercom and says, «Attention shoppers! God just came into the store and healed a woman who was deaf at cash register number three!» Then he had the wisdom to take her and said, «Tell people what God just did for you.» She gets on the intercom and gives the testimony. Then he gets the intercom back, and he says, «God wants to do more in this store tonight!» He said, «Somebody here needs a new hip!» «Uh, carpal tunnel syndrome.» He starts calling out these words of knowledge.
So picture this: you’re in a grocery store shopping and you hear a testimony over the intercom. And so as he’s standing there, he says, «If you need a miracle, meet me at cash register number three.» So people are coming down the aisles, looking around the corner to see if—is this legitimate? See? There he is standing there. So a crowd finally gathers, and the woman that needed the new hip, she’s on one of those electric carts, you know, scooters, and she comes right through the middle of the group. She goes, «I’m the new hip!» And so Chad prays for her—I don’t know if he even laid hands on her—he prayed for her; she ends up getting dramatically healed, she’s up dancing, uh, giving praise to Jesus all around her scooter. Crowds started to gather even more! A guy who’s a concert pianist and piano teacher, can’t play—carpal tunnel so bad—he comes through and says, «Do you think God would heal me?» He gets dramatically healed, and the story just goes on and on!
So Chad’s thinking, «Man, I got a crowd here; I should preach.» So he shares—he preaches the gospel and he gives the altar call, you know, like a Billy Graham altar call kind of thing at cash register number three. They raise their hands, you know, he gives them the appropriate time, they put their hand up, invites them to know Jesus, they pray, they get born again at cash register number three! That story, I know for a fact, has gone around the world. I remember when it started here! Chad was just one of our young men that stepped out, but that story, like the Lord breathed on that! I’ve watched people just hear that, and suddenly this countenance that was cast down begins to rise. Why? Because people that completely lost their way—people who have completely identified with the lifestyle of sin for whatever reason, maybe it’s personal failure, maybe they were just really hurt by the actions of other people—who knows what happened? But they ended up in this camp here where they look like, dress like, talk like the enemy’s camp.
Yet when the story of extraordinary courage is released, people want to leave the cave! People want to strip off the Philistine garb and run into the middle of a battle because they found out why they’re alive! Your courage has that effect! Your courage, whether the story included your name or not! People—as I look around this room—courageous decisions. Some of you just faced crisis and tragedy in your family, but you got up the next day saying, «God is good!» That took incredible courage to do that, and your story is permeating the hearts of those that are hiding in caves. Your story is permeating the hearts of those who lost all hope of ever being a part of what God was doing and have actually joined the other side to fight in opposition. Yet your story of courage—maybe it was your boldness in giving witness; maybe it was praying for somebody in a public place or a difficult situation and God answered with a miracle; it could be any number of things—maybe it was a courageous gift that you gave to somebody who was really hurting, and God answered and provided for you in a supernatural way. These stories of great courage just—they permeate through the church, and you know what they do? They restore us to our identity, because we were born in a line of courageous people.
We were born again into a family who is known by courage—that’s who you are! And your courageous acts—never compare yourself with someone else—that’s depressing! Just be different than yesterday! Just be different than yesterday! You know, for one person, they can dance in front of the room and shout and sing and have their hands raised till they touch the ceiling! For that person, it takes hardly any courage. But for another, maybe it took all the courage in the world to put your hands up like this. Maybe just singing out loud to where you could hear yourself took all the courage in the world! And it’s just that we move past what’s comfortable.
What’s, uh, comfortable for us? The Lord—I believe with this message, I felt like— I felt like I’ve shared this before. This is all old stuff I’ve shared before, but I felt like there was a gift of God about to be given to people as it pertains to courage, that he literally was just handing out a gift of courage. And the cool thing is we have brothers and sisters that are wearing Philistine garb, talking the Philistine language, that forgot who they are! But your story is going to awaken something in them, and they will flee from that and run into the purposes of God. There are others that are hiding. They’ve protected themselves; they’ve insulated themselves in their hearts and their minds. That—that is being released in this hour is going to awaken people out of that lethargy, out of that place of personal confinement into a place of victory.
Why don’t you stand? There was no one more courageous than Jesus— I realize he’s God—but what he faced, you know? He hung naked on a cross with you and me in mind! He bore the penalty for our sin! That was courageous! So that you and I could have life! There’s always a chance in a crowd this size that there are people here—you just don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus. You don’t know what it’s like to be forgiven of sin, born again from the inside out, changed internally because of the faith you’ve put in Christ—the willingness to repent for your lifestyle of sin and to turn to Jesus—that’s not your life. And I don’t want to end this thing today until I’ve given a chance for people to come to Jesus, to be changed because of simple faith in what he did on your behalf. If you find yourself in this room today and you’ve never surrendered your life—and that’s what it is; it’s surrender to the only one who has the right to rule it—the crazy thing is it’s the most liberating, freeing relationship imaginable because he’s such a good father.
If you are here this morning and say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave this building until I know that I’m at peace with God, until I know I’ve been forgiven of sin, I’ve been brought into his family. I will turn from my sin, from my way of life, and I will follow after this Jesus.» If that’s you, then I want you to put a hand up right where you’re standing; just say, «Bill, that’s me.» Just put a hand up. I’ll wait just like 30 seconds is all I wait for these, so if that’s you, do it quickly. We had—right over here, thank you. Yep! Anybody else? We had, I think, four or five this morning, six maybe, first service—anybody else, real quick? That’s you, just say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave until I know that I’m right with God.» Yeah, right, yeah, I see that hand there. All right, anybody else? All right, great! Then I’m going to assume that everyone’s in the family already. All right, I know we have overflow and we’ll have people take care of that as well.
I’d like to ask this one individual—would you come down here? I need the freedom team to come down here. Just come on down here; beautiful! I love it. I love it! Yeah, right here. These people I know and trust, and they will pray with you, and it’s going to be good. Let’s have the ministry team come to the front quickly. I want to pray over you. How many of you are ready for a new grace in courage? I honestly believe it was released in the speaking, as it often does, but just put your hands out in front of you in some way, and let’s just make a corporate agreement together. I want to hear rumors of your courage in this next month that just are earth-shaking.
Yes! So, Father, we look to you. We trust you, and I ask—let there be the release of supernatural courage, the gift of courage over this body of believers again! Help us to take it to another level with great wisdom, great accuracy, but great courage. Lord, I pray for those that are facing impossible health situations. Give them courage to trust in your goodness! For those who are facing economic crisis, courage in you as a provider! For those who have faced family difficulties and breakups—God, let courage be restored to each one, we pray! God, manifest yourself in the midst of a courageous people! We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen! Amen! Amen!