Hello my friends this is pastor stephen brooks hope you're doing well today this is our morning glory midweek bible study but i i'm taking you on the road with me uh today i'm actually in southern california my wife and i were celebrating the homegoing of kelly's father who has just passed away and we're so happy that he is now in heaven praise the lord yes we do miss him he was a good irishman praise god immigrated from ireland came over to america got married raised a wonderful family uh kelly being one of those children and he was a good man and just before he passed away the hospice nurse called us and was able to put the phone right up to his ear and we were able to speak with him and say our goodbyes he was not able to talk at that point but he could still listen and i went into a vision and i saw the heavenly realm i saw the realm of paradise the realm of heaven where the saints go when they just arrive and it's an area by the river of life and i could see certainly uh certain family members two of them who had passed away maybe 10 or 15 years ago they were there a small group maybe about 20 people were waiting for him there in glory to welcome him home and also his personal angel was there in the room to guide his spirit as he left this world and went over into the heavenly realm praise god my friends one day we also will complete our journeys but till then we must stay faithful and keep on serving the lord and working for him praise god now of course pastor kelly she misses her father if you would like to send her an email of condolence that would be that would be very sweet she would read that send it to contact stephenbrooks.org praise god hallelujah and you know what let me say also that it was about maybe 10 years ago right around 10 years ago maybe a little bit longer that i had an opportunity to lead uh pastor kelly's father to the lord and he was raised in the catholic church but he never knew christ as his personal lord and savior you know you can go stand in the garage for a year ten years it's not going to make you a car that doesn't turn you into a vehicle so you can you can go to a certain place do a certain thing shake the preacher's hand have your name put on the church membership that doesn't mean you're saved and born again and he never was but he received christ one day asked the lord into his heart and you know what the lord took all of that that old irish nature which is really the human nature but he uh he really could cuss and the lord just took that out of him gave him brand new spiritual life and he was a different man after his salvation now he had already given up drinking he was an irishman and he loved to drink had his own bar for a while but he had to lay the alcohol down because it almost killed him so uh the lord set him free from all those things and he lived a good godly life his remaining years upon the earth but i tell you what he was one of the hardest working men i've ever met had a phenomenal work ethic and was loved and by so many people praise god now let's jump into today's message we're going to be over in the book of hebrews chapter 12 we're going to look at verses 1 and particularly verse 2. and let's open up in prayer heavenly father as we go into your word we ask that as we study your word light and illumination would break forth with ending that we can take your word and apply it to our lives today now father we give you all of the praise in jesus name we pray and we all agree and say amen praise god hebrews chapter 12 verse 1 therefore we also since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses and as we know one more was just added to that cloud of witnesses praise god let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us yes my friends we want to live for the lord lay down all the silly distractions and unnecessary weights that would take our focus away from being very effective for the lord and at the same time we certainly want to lay aside all sin sin according to god's word and particularly what the apostle paul said regarding sin is is that sin is very deceptive and it's deceptive like a spider's web you think oh i'll get free any time i want i'll play around with it but it'll never get a hold of me and before you know it you're tangled up and you can't get out but we thank god for jesus who has the power the authority through his name and through his shed blood to set anybody free from any bondage that would desire to be free so look to him and he'll get you up and running because you're supposed to be running praise god and you can't run all tangled up in sin we're all distracted with the cares of the world so get free hallelujah so you can run and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us now in the olympics the most watched event will be the 100 meter dash and everybody wants to know who's the fastest man walking around on the planet well you'll find out but it only takes about 10 seconds and then it's over but this race is more like a marathon 26.2 miles and it's an endurance event so you have to pace yourself sustain yourself but you also have to keep moving forward towards that finish line because it is a race and you do have an assignment you do have a destiny a purpose you're not just here to breathe air eat food sleep and take up space and take up room no my friends god has you here for a purpose and that is going to be fulfilled through the mighty power of the holy spirit let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking unto jesus the author and finisher of our faith looking unto jesus the author now the word author there in the greek it means one who wrote the book or who wrote the material and it also means prince leader chief leader so jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith now there is specific faith such as in uh the faith where we have salvation in christ and we're going to sustain that and walk with the lord and be faithful to him all the days of our life all the way to the end and he is the author of our salvation and he certainly has the ability to get us to the finish line cross it and reach our heavenly reward so he is the author and the finisher but from a different perspective there is not only the general faith like you would have faith for salvation and to maintain that and to finish your course but also faith for specific assignments specific projects things that the lord is going to want you to do while you're here upon the earth and there would be what we would also call like a primary assignment and with a primary assignment this is not going to be 20 different things this is going to be one or two primary things that are your initiative and it's where your focus should be so jesus is the author of those specific assignments and is very careful uh excuse me it's very important that you are careful that you don't see somebody else doing something even if it's a good thing even if it's something that glorify god glorifies god and you jump into that and you start doing it just because well they're doing it well maybe god told them to do it and if god did tell them to do it that's why it's working so good for them but you must make sure particularly on any type of major project those that are going to involve literally demand your attention your time your energy your resources that you know for certainty that jesus is the author of that project and that this is not just something that within your soulish mind you want to do yes you're going to have the uh desires you're going to have various desires and many of them uh they're they're totally pure of course all of them are pure but many of them are not necessarily something that god has actually required you to do praise the lord you know there was a pastor some years back that was a very godly man still is still pastoring today and he's a baptist minister and even amongst his baptist fellow ministers they all look at him as being what they would refer to as a spiritual man in other words this baptist minister he only wants to do what god calls him to do and he's very sensitive to the leading of the holy spirit well this minister he and his church had bought some land to build uh you know a new future ministry facility because they were outgrowing the one they had the one they had only sat a couple of hundred people and so they needed a larger facility and they had the land and the pastor wanted to build something that would be very very beautiful something that would glorify the lord a beautiful structure so he didn't just launch into it thinking well this is a good idea you know he wanted to make sure that jesus would be the author of this building project because here's the reason why if jesus is the author of it he will also be the what the finisher of it praise god and if jesus is not the author of it by the way he has no obligation to bring something to completion that he never authorized or endorsed so this pastor decided to fast for 21 days and you know if you need to make a major decision perhaps you don't need to do something that would be that i wouldn't call it extreme but perhaps that level of commitment now many of you have and that's that's to be commended but sometimes you could get your answer in three days sometimes maybe even 10 days but if it's something big yes you may have to go on out into the deeper waters of the spirit before you can get a very accurate answer i would say this if you're not sure don't move forward until you know that you know one of the worst things is to get in the middle of something thinking that it's god and then you get in there when it starts getting tough and then you realize you know i'm not really sure then then it gets tougher and you're like i don't even know then you're like i want help i have seen ministers good ministers sometimes get in the things that god didn't call them to and whoo and maybe now they're locked into it by a contract some type of a written obligation and they can't get out and it is it's not good and some have even completed things and finished certain projects but because god never endorsed it then within two or three years later the whole thing has collapsed or fall it's fallen apart and it's just not a place you ever want to be you can circumvent all of that by going before the lord and saying lord is this desire something that you're offering in me because if it's a view you're gonna help me to finish it okay back to the pastor he fast for 21 days he's very weak he's very tired he didn't need any food but he did drink a little juice so he's got enough energy to carry out basic functions uh he pitched a little tent out on that grass property up that he was going to build on and there was a little hill so he put his little tent up on the hill uh his wife and children would come visit him every day from about three o'clock to five o'clock on sundays he would come down and get dressed and preach in the church but outside of that time he was just pretty much in prayer seeking god wanting the lord to speak to him lord is this something that you're offering well he got the day 21 and he decided to walk from the grass hill area over into the forest and just walk over there and pray a little bit and while he was walking through the forest he tripped on a route accidentally and he fell prostrate completely on his face with his face on the ground his hands out in front of himself now it wasn't a hard landing there was a bunch of leaves and it was ground was kind of soft but while he was laid out prostrate god chose that moment to supernaturally speak to him and the pastor said this is what the lord told him as long as you maintain this position of humility i will bless what your heart's desire to do here is and i will bring it to completion praise god amen well he got up happy rejoiced he had heard from god and they moved into that project long story short they built a new sanctuary i believe it seats about 5 000 people but everything in it is the best of the best all of the materials all of the uh the quality the workmanship and you know the lord would touch the heart of contractors of even subcontractors when they would sometimes have to make major purchases of materials because it was a multi-million dollar project and a lot of the contractors the subcontractors would just say we're going to do it at cost we're not even going to make any money on it because god's in this and we want to be a part of it isn't that fascinating sometimes even the unbelievers that would be working would also do extraordinary things to go the extra mile so that it was completed so the whole thing was carried out no struggle no strain no begging moaning or groaning or anything like that see jesus is the author and the finisher if he authors it if he trust me if the lord writes a book do you think he's going to finish it see this is his word amen jesus is an author praise god i forgot to say he's also the best selling author of all time and he always will be praise god but anything he starts that he authors it's going to come to completion so anytime you launch into something major because i feel that some of you are bumping up into destiny moments where maybe it's been on your heart for 10 years maybe even 25 years but now it's going to be time to start to put that in motion well when you get that green light of certainty you'll know that yes not only will it be started but it'll be completed so what you need to do is that when you know that you know you need to get it all written out you need to have the plan and not only have a plan but have it itemized and look at cost of what it's going to take to get this done have you ever noticed that dreams cost money praise the lord most dreams whether it's even to build a hospital that's going to cost money if it's to buy a printing press whether it's digital or offset to print nice books or even bibles well that is going to cost money a lot of these printing presses they start the good ones don't start to get 500 000 and up but that's what it takes to do certain types of works praise the lord but the lord when he's in it he'll bring it all the way to completion praise the lord thank you jesus looking into jesus the author and finisher of our faith so plan it all out all aspects of it get the cost down detail the cost write it out itemize things so that you have a good understanding of what you're looking at and uh how you're going to need the lord to move in certain areas and then just begin to pray pray it in and believe god for and just go go one step at a time you know how do you eat a giant steak just one bite at a time if you're a vegetarian how you how do you eat your veggie meal if it's a big meal one bite at a time until it's all gone praise the lord how do you write a book well one chapter at a time but for some that maybe would just be starting even a chapter can uh can seem something gigantic so it just starts then with one page praise the lord speaking of authors jesus the author and the finisher of our faith if there's anything that god knows how to do it's how to write a book praise the lord i felt an anointing on that earlier before recording this that jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith let's talk about books just for a moment for those of you that perhaps have it within your heart to write a book maybe you even already have a manuscript but you don't know what to do with it let's talk about doing your god book getting that completed and bringing that to completion the lord will help you do that maybe there's somebody watching you feel like you've got writer's block that there's something you're supposed to write on maybe you even feel you have knowledge of it but the writing thing just hasn't clicked maybe you feel that writer's block if that's you lift your hand up i'll pray for you right now father i pray for that person that would feel writer's block that for some reason maybe they feel like they're not qualified to write or they feel like well how could i write a book lord i just release the anointing of your spirit to write right in the name of jesus and i just remove all writer's block from this person watching right now i remove it in the name of jesus now father as they sit down on their laptop to start typing it out or however they're going to get this down lord i just thank you there's going to be a flow immediately and the first page will flow and the first chapter will flow and the whole book will be a flow of your spirit and i thank you that they're going to express their expertise in this particular area that there's that that is their specialty and it is going to be a blessing praise the lord thank you lord jesus you know um there is uh one man who wrote a book and it was actually co-authored and that that one book today has sold over 1 billion copies now that would be exceptional but you know he said something he said this book uh and he could say it now that it's been so successful he said this book maybe in a sense the content was not something that was so beyond any other book out there he said a lot of it was how we market it and we just kept pushing the book and even though the book didn't take off quickly we just kept pushing it because we believed in it and now it is sold all over the world by the way that book is called chicken soup for the soul and that book is branched off into many other other types of topics have spun off that same book that the authors have built upon that but uh that's a good selling book now it doesn't touch the bible that still the bible says are astronomical way beyond the billion but i tell you what to write a book and sell over a billion copies i would have to think that the royalty is pretty good on that praise the lord let's talk about authoring a book just for a moment because jesus is the author and finisher of our faith so let's discuss this area just a little bit while we're here together today i've met two people that i know very very well that are good friends that have each written a book that has sold over 1 million copies and that's a lot a million copies i'm not sure if you have ever seen maybe like 5 000 books ever stacked together before because sometimes we hear these giant numbers like a million copies sold and you think well that's you know everybody does that that is extremely rare for anybody to ever sell a book that goes over a million copies you're like you're like one in 500 million there's very very few authors that hit those type of sales like that and it takes a special touch from the lord when we're talking about a christian book to reach a blessing like that so that's that's pretty cool so two of those uh friends of mine they have written million uh plus best sellers praise the lord and i believe that the lord can cause the material the book that you have also the fly pastor stephen am i going to sell a million well you don't necessarily have to sell a million my books have sold over well i'm in the six figures now so you have to understand that a top selling author means that you have sold forty thousand uh copies you've sold forty thousand books but um that is some something that most people never get to a top selling level 40 000 is a lot 5 000 books is um that's about five pallets a stat completely high about as tall as i am of boxes stacked one on top of another on a pallet about as high as i am so when you're talking about 40 000 books you're talking about roomfuls of books roomfuls of books you remember back in the old days for those of you that would have knowledge of printing presses and how the book industry worked let's go back 30 years in time which wasn't that long ago before print on demand revolutionized things but back in the olden days if you're an author let's say you're a christian author and you got signed on with a uh you know with a publishing company you think well this is great they're going to help promote my book and they've got all the avenues to send my book out there and this is going to be good it is and at the same time they're going to want you to purchase some books also so that you're trying to promote your book and that way there's a mutual interest there you know you're trying to push your book out and the publishing company they're definitely trying to push it out because they want to see the book uh do well because they're not in business to go out of business they're in the they're in business to sell books praise the lord well um i was visiting the pastor friend of mine one time and he said um he said uh stephen back there in the back there's some cassette tape some old cassette tapes let's get those out take a look at them and i walked back into his warehouse to grab these cassette tapes he and i were going to listen to and when i went back there i saw shelves and shelves like warehouse industrial style shelves loaded of books and there it's one book but it's all of his copies he had purchased 40 000 copies himself and the book hit its peak and it sold hundreds of thousands of copies but he still had uh within his own inventory 40 000 books left over and i'm not sure if you've ever seen 40 000 books stacked together before whoo that's a lot of books and so things have changed thank the lord in the book printing industry you know if you walk into a bookstore books a million or barnes noble and my books have been in uh these various outlets i would have to say my favorite one would probably be books a million but my books have also made it into barnes noble but when you go into a bookstore such as one of these for example and you see all of these books on all of these shelves you have to realize just to get your book into a bookstore like that is like a one in a million shot why there's there's hundreds and hundreds of millions of books out there and so to actually get your book onto a shelf in a retail store it takes something special praise the lord and that really comes down to what it's all about that would be the content of the book praise the lord so you want to focus on content not the not the cover the cover is the fun part design the cover when the book is done but you wanna you wanna have really good content praise god and before i jump into the content just for a moment let me swing back and say this if you get signed on with the publishing house as an author uh they're going to push your book they're gonna they're gonna want it to do good because they're in business again to sell books so they're gonna try to get every vendor they can to buy it they're gonna try to knock on every retail store they can to get it onto the shelves but they're gonna want you also to have some skin in the game so it's not unusual that they would make a request for their authors to purchase minimum maybe 500 books i've purchased before sometimes 3 000 at a time why they want you to also promote them and so i would you know sell my book at you know on my web store or in meetings and things like that and of course i want to promote my books because i believe they're fantastic they share my revelations my insights i've had from the lord and i know they'll help people so i'm very much into promoting those but today because of print on demand which is a new technology you don't have to purchase 3 000 books up front which is a big expenditure in cost even as an author if you're getting them just above cost that's still a lot of money especially when you're buying books in the thousands but you can imagine back in the old days by having to buy 40 or 50 000 books what if you don't sell through them oh they're gonna sit there until jesus returns just like they were here for that pastor said they're still sitting in that warehouse today why the book hit its peak long long long time ago decades ago she's never going to be able to sell through them i don't know maybe you should just you know box them up and start sending them all over the world for free that's what i would do if i had something like that so anyhow with print on demand you'll never have a a situation like that of all these leftover books or or product material that you don't need print on demand is that let's say your book is on amazon somebody wants to order it it's not like amazon has you know 40 000 copies of your book sitting on their shelves no it's just printed very quickly it is bound and glued and then it's mailed out uh drop shipped to you so it's revolutionized everything uh it's made it very hard for publishing companies to stay in business they've really had to um squeeze their bottom line they've had to rethink how are they going to print because they're working with printers unless they have an in-house printing machine but again like i said those are expensive usually starting at 500 000 up or a million dollars for a good book printing machine so these are all things that you have to think about if you have a manuscript and you feel this is going to bless people you've got options pastor steven i've presented my book to many different publishing houses and they didn't even email me back well hey you you today is a different world i mean you've you can there are so many options today that you can self-publish and it used to be if i went back just 15 years ago in the christian industry you may you maybe only had four or five good options to self-publish and today you have maybe maybe 250 at options and they're all good you probably have at least 40 christian options for self-publishing but then you have all types of other self-publishing options like amazon kindle and on and on it goes and and you might be thinking well pastor steve but i'm not a good writer and i wrote a manuscript and it is so loaded with grammatical errors and i'm not even sure if my sentence structure is right you know there are uh freelancers out there that can spruce all of that up for you there's companies like fiverr now i really wouldn't recommend fiverr there's better companies but i mean if you're on a real limited budget you could at least find somebody on fiverr that's a proofreader that can do an editorial review that can read through your manuscript help you with your paragraph structure uh they can they can fix all of your grammatical errors all your typo arrows and then after that's all polished and cleaned up and then you can get somebody a independent person to format it for you and then finally one final proof and then you know all of the covered design now if you have uh your own company excuse me that's your own company but if you had a publisher sign you on and now you're with the publishing house they're going to do all of that for you that's what's nice about that but at the same time they're going to require a contract and you're going to sign that contract you're going to get royalties off every book that's sold but at the same time they're going to have certain rights over your manuscript over your book and here's something particularly if you're a prophetic writer that you're going to face there are a few publishers out there that are christian publishers they'll take your manuscript they'll do good proofreading they'll help you they yes they want to make sure everything's going to line up doctrinally but there are there are other publishing houses out there they'll take they'll take a pin and they'll take they'll say this paragraph right here about your supernatural experience we we don't believe in that you just need to cross that out and that's that's what you could run into with a lot of the companies that are out there that are publishing companies they're just like oh that's that's too supernatural or you're talking about tongues there oh you said this you said that this is a sin well yeah it says that in the bible oh well we can't say that we have to be politically correct and they'll they'll they'll start doing this to your manuscript okay so if you if you can't you know if you don't want that which i don't which i don't and really when god gives you a topic and a subject and you know what you're talking about and it is doctrinal and in this scriptural you don't need to go around apologizing and trying to uh convince people of why this is real no you uh you need to find a publisher that will work with you uh that values your manuscript and if for whatever reason maybe they're they they already have enough manuscripts and they're already set for that season and they didn't choose yours then you've got you've got countless options for self-publishing and there's many good companies out there that can help you through it step by step if you just need a good proofreader there's companies that offer that if you need proofreading and pagination and formatting uh get it ready to put in book form or on and on it goes everything from cover design there's companies out there that will cover all of that now yes there'll be a price to pay for that but if you self-publish one of the great benefits is that you know uh it's not like you're getting royalties you get you get the entire commission of the sale the all the profit that would come out of the sale that would go to you the the flip side of that is that all the promoting of the book comes to you too so you could have a phenomenal book with great content it could be a revolutionary world-changing book but if nobody knows about it you know then nobody knows about it so there are some things you can do to uh maybe try to lift that a little bit uh one would certainly be to pray and the other would be to do all you can to promote it and there's there's ways you can do that particularly particularly through social media but you can also get endorsements and you'll find out how important endorsements are uh when you you get some good endorsements and people see name recognition is very very important and sometimes people just see a name what is that name that name says uh integrity that name says uh trustworthiness and they'll buy it just off of a good recommendation and so those types of things can really help a lot there's so much my friends about authoring a book writing a manuscript but this is one thing that i would say i would just say write write write write it until it's done don't really even talk that much about your book just write just write write write even stephen king who is um of course he's not a christian he writes all these horror books he just he but he still knows he said if you want to be a good author you have to read a lot of books and you have to write all the time you have to just write write write and the more you write the better that you're going to get at it and even if you feel your writing is still not up to par that's not a game breaker by any means why there's there's editors freelance editors that can take your manuscript and they'll proof it and polish it and they'll make it look beautiful now the content is still uniquely yours they can't they can't alter that or take that away that's something that you have to pour in but um you know there's help out there if you feel you've been stuck or you've had a manuscript and you feel this a good manuscript is just sitting on the shelf well get it back down praise the lord and get moving with that you know i have submitted my manuscript with a major publishing house they've said yes to it and we'll kind of bounce the ball around a little bit as far as you know how details go with contracts and stuff like that and uh we'll see what happens and at the same time uh you know you want to check your other options well pastor stephen they said they said yes to you i guess you'll just sit back now and just uh cruise no i sent the manuscript off to a whole bunch of other companies too one of the uh or actually uh well i won't i won't say too much but one of the largest uh book producers in the world they liked it and they liked it a lot and here's here's something that uh their senior uh uh reviewer said he said stephen your book in its raw manuscript form is cleaner and better than many of the manuscripts we have that are submitted that have already been to have already been through like an editorial scan in other words where somebody goes through there and starts to tweak and change and fix and help and grammar correct and sentence structure he said yours yours is like it's like it's already been done well that's because i've written so many books that you know after a while you just pick up a flow and you can look at your paragraph and you think okay that one's smooth or that one's rough or this needs more polish and so you just keep working on that so those things will begin to shine but i would say my friends just keep on writing until you get it done go all the way with the lord he is the author and the finisher of your book and your faith let me say this also if you do feel you have a very important story or something that is knowledge that you carry that you want to get out there but you just think pastor steve and i i still can't do it but there's still options for you there are ghost writers and all a ghostwriter you know he's not a real ghost he's a person but he's he's a secret person when you read uh the book of proverbs you read about a person named lemuel who's lemuel that's that's king solomon that's his pen name you know sometimes authors you don't like to have a different pen name what maybe makes them feel special or something i don't know i don't really have a pen name just stephen brooks i go by the real me praise god but many well-known ministers they don't write their own books and their books are out there and they're selling like hotcakes and you know what the minister himself maybe wrote seven or eight percent and everything else literally was done by a ghost writer and the ghost writer is somebody who's a skilled writer who will sit down with you know a tape recorder and notepad and just talk to the minister and say now tell me about your book and tell me your heart and just give it all to me and he'll just write it all out and then he'll take that information and he'll turn it into a book and then he'll bring it back to for a review from the minister and he'll say yeah that that's my that's me yeah you caught you've caught my spirit you've caught what i'm trying to say and you're implementing the information i gave you so even if it's not ministry even if it's about uh you know technical stuff about how to make a robot you know you could find a ghost writer that can convey that for you but you have to be able to get that that information over there to them i would say concerning christian books that be careful with ghostwriters and in a sense be careful in any of these areas you if you're writing christian material you're touching the sacred and anything that touches that also needs to understand this this is for the lord so there needs to be clean hands involved not perfect people but clean hands and so it was it was a few years back that one of these ghost writers who had written books he was the ghost writer that wrote some of the most well-known books for billy graham he wrote some of the most well-known books for charles stanley and this ghost writer came out and publicly acknowledged that he was homosexual and had been homosexual for a long time and when he when he goes to writ all of those books he was a homosexual and so um you know the good ministers the ones with the sweethearts they forgave him and said we pray for you we love you we're sorry to hear that we we're not happy about that but you know we still love you there were actually some ministers got so much so mad one particularly that wouldn't forgive him you've ruined my reputation you state my reputation so all of my books i've written 100 of all of them but uh you you'd be surprised uh actually you might not be if you read some of these books some of these uh real popular uh i call them soft books a lot a lot of fluff and stuff like that from the big sellers from maybe mr famous uh christian ministry you read the book and you think what's the big deal it's not much in here well yeah you're right there's not and he didn't even write it somebody else wrote it so sometimes when you walk away after reading a book you're like i don't i don't get it what's the big deal uh there's no big deal it's just they have to get a book out sometimes they're under contract with their publisher and they want a new book every six months so that minister is under pressure to get a book out and he's going to get it out even if he doesn't write it now they're going to put him as the author but that doesn't mean he actually wrote it by the way the books that you read that carry an anointing the minister wrote that you can also as a minister i'll share one more thing you can take your sermons if they are polished and tweaked in a sense where it can fit into word format for you can take a sermon and turn it into a book and the same anointing of the holy spirit that was upon the sermon will rest on the book and i think many of you have found that out as you have read kenneth hagin's books and what maybe you didn't know is a lot of those books the majority of them came from sermons that kenneth hagin preached that his secretary billye brim took and turned he turned she took the words from the sermon and put them into book form i'm sure you have to change just a little bit here and there but the anointing is all over his books same way with bishop david ogidipo you could read his books and they're anointed many of those books were sermons and the same spirit writing on the sermons is on the books praise the lord hallelujah and that also can be a time saver in the sense where you're not having to recreate some new content you just take those messages and change them a little bit so it's still the message but a few of the words you might have to change and you're good to go praise god some of you just real some of you preachers just realize you've got a book right there you can take your 30 best sermons uh that are within a context of one topic bring them all together you've got a book and with a lot of the software that's out there that will that will turn dictation into uh words or into print it'll put it right on your microsoft word document you know what you can do it and the lord is with you jesus the author and finisher of our faith so if you're starting an impossible project look to the lord first get the thumbs up but whatever that project is even if it's a book the lord with uh he'll jump in there with you because he he's authored it and he will help you finish it and it'll be a blessing to many let's pray heavenly father thank you for our time together bless my friends that are watching today strengthen them oh god we thank you oh god that you are author and finisher and father we look unto you for the joy that is set before us one day there will be a reward we give you all of the praise we thank you we thank you father we give you all of the praise in jesus name strengthen your people to complete the assignment thank you father in jesus name amen if you're watching today this message from a hotel room but you don't know christ as your lord and savior you can get right with god right now regardless of where you may be in your in a hotel room or wherever you might be riding across the country on a bicycle listening to a podcast of me preaching this to you regardless if you want christ in your heart right now pray this prayer after me say lord jesus i am a sinner but you died to save sinners like me jesus come into my heart wash all of my sins away i give my heart to you i give my life to you today jesus write my name in your book of life thank you for saving me in your name i pray amen and amen my friend welcome to the family of god blessed be the name of the lord hallelujah now let's take some holy communion together today i've got my great grape juice on the road with me here in this cup praise the lord i better not pour that out hallelujah well it's in there and i've got my unleavened bread so grab some communion with me grape juice and unleavened bread and let's pray over it father we thank you for the bread the juice we consecrate it through this prayer as being holy set apart for you and father as we receive the body and the blood of christ we thank you we thank you for your word so many riches in your word father that jesus is our author and finisher of our faith and all of our faith projects fathers we receive the body of christ strengthened us to stay with it and finish the assignments you have given to us let us be finishers which is your quality your character we thank you father for your strength in jesus name amen let's receive heavenly father thank you for the blood of jesus father if we have committed any sin we ask that you would wash all of our sins away we ask that you would lead us away from temptation and deliver us from the evil one thank you father we lay aside every weight and father we just throw off all sin now father let there be a race to run let us run run run those watching father let him run with those assignments and complete them i thank you they're going to cross the finish line and they're going to be rejoicing father thank you for the blood of jesus in his name we pray amen let's receive praise the lord glory to god hallelujah praise god all right my friends if you've got something to write a book a manuscript children's book cookbook start writing praise the lord and by the way if you have a children's book you're going to need an illustrator and there are beautiful illustrators out there who can uh you got to get the one that can catch your spirit they can catch uh the way that you want to convey it but all i'm trying to say is doesn't matter what your genre is whether it's children's books whether it's um like more like journalistic teaching or medical teaching or things like that or christian content or material or even fiction there are those out there that can help you even if you need illustrators there are those that can help you praise god amen and then when you get right to the end you can have the fun part you get your cover design that's always a lot of fun now they say you know don't buy a book based on the cover but you know what people do and i believe you'll have a phenomenal cover that's a real eye-catcher praise the lord father bless your people let them complete their manuscripts those that are called to be authors and those that are not only called the right books but to author something that would be a special assignment i see them writing i see them working and i see them completing it father we give you praise i bless your people in jesus name amen thanks for watching i'll see you back next time