My wife, Carolyn, my family, my staff and I pray that you and your family have a blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

I believe God is doing a new thing during this season and I want to encourage you to believe Him for something radical in your life. Don’t settle for average and refuse to live with mediocrity!

God needs radical people to rise up. Being radical is more than appearing strange, weird, extreme, far out, or rebellious. To be radical is to make a major departure from and go far beyond what is considered usual and normal. I don’t know about you, but I quit being normal when I got saved. It began when I made Jesus the Lord of my life in 1969. My life changed from that moment, and nothing about my life today resembles the life I lived back then.

I believe this is what Jesus is referring to in John 17:16 when speaking of His followers, He said, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” What Jesus is saying is, “Those that follow Me, shouldn’t be marked by the same boundaries that the world has.”

As Jesus’ followers, we have been released from what binds, limits, confines, and restricts the world. I’m in the world, but I’m not of it. I don’t think like the world. I don’t talk like the world. I don’t act like the world. I don’t live like the world. That ought to be the testimony of every believer.

Your life should be radical in the sense of the definitions we’re talking about here. You should go far beyond the norm. I tried norm. I didn’t like it. I was normal for the first 23 years of my life, but for the last 44, life has been far better than I ever dreamed possible.

My life radically changed on Tuesday, February 11, 1969 at 3:00 in the morning. I had been running from God for many years. I did not want to preach; it was the last thing I wanted to do. My passion was cars—hot rods and racing. But God continued to pursue me. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I went into our living room, and I’m standing up looking out the window and I say, “God, why do you still want me? I have been fighting this all my life.”

I knew I was called since watching Oral Roberts on television as a little boy. I said, “God, why do you keep bothering me with this? Why don’t you find somebody that really wants to do this?”

I said, “Lord, look at my life; I’m a failure. What could you possibly do with me?” He said, “Son, look in the Bible. It’s full of failures that I made champions out of, and I can do the same with you.” He said, “Just surrender. Stop fighting it.”

So, I lifted my hands and said, “Lord, if you still want me, I don’t know why, but here I am.” I lifted my hands and accepted my salvation. The next thing I know, this language is flowing out of me. Like rivers. I stood there and prayed in the Holy Ghost, with tears of joy and laughter.

I felt like I was standing in the middle of a field with the sun shining on nobody but me. It was the glory of God. I was oblivious to time after that. Finally, I stopped and I turned, and my wife and my mother in law are sitting on the sofa. I didn’t even know they were in the same room.

I said to my wife, “Guess what happened to me?” She said, “I know!” They were both sitting there crying. I walked over and kissed my wife and asked her to forgive me for having been such a jerk.

Then I kissed my mother-in-law right on the lips and told her I loved her! That’s when I knew this experience was real! I knew my life had radically changed, because my mother-in-law and I had had a few challenges. It’s mainly because she just kept preaching at me all the time, and I didn’t want to hear it. And I might add that there’s been nothing but love for each other ever since that day.

I knew this was not just an emotional church experience, this was the real deal. From that moment the power of God, the Holy Spirit rested on me, and He does to this day. He took up His abode there and remained.

The wisest decision you will ever make is to follow Jesus, get into and live by His Word. Your life will become radical and God will take you far beyond the norm!

In Mark chapter 6, Jesus sends out his disciples to tell others the good news of salvation. I like how verse 12 from The Message translation says, “They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different.” That’s the message that you and I should be preaching to the world, that life can be radically different!

Many churches and Christians are just satisfied with three points and a poem. “A song or two is great, but don’t keep us past noon, because that would mess up our lunch plans.”

BUT I see a stirring on the horizon. In the spirit-realm I see God’s people making a mass exodus out of apathy. A mass exodus out of lethargy. A mass exodus out of religious tradition.

I’m telling you the Church of Jesus Christ is coming alive again. It’s time for another major departure from the usual and the customary. It’s time for another revolutionary change in current and traditional practices. It’s time to go farther and far beyond the norm. That’s what being a follower of Christ is all about!

This change starts with you and your family. Don’t wait for others to help you get excited about God. Your church and Pastor can’t cause you to be radically different. They can, and should, encourage you with God’s Word, but it is up to you. It’s between you and God!

There are two major components to your life being radically different. This month’s teaching resource is a message where I go into deeper revelation on this, but I want to share these two components with you now.

In Acts 4:33 it says, “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all.”

When you experience great power (through the Holy Spirit) and God’s grace (His unmerited favor), it radically changes your life. It radically changes your family, your finances, your mind, your emotions…you are no longer the person you used to be! You’ve got to hear this message!

That is what has happened in my life. And that is why I am so passionate about sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with a lost and hurting world. It’s time to leave normal behind and receive the abundant life available through Jesus’ sacrifice.

It’s time to leave normal behind! Let this Christmas and New Year be the start to a new level of radical faith in God and obedience to His Word. As you do, God’s power and favor will cause your life to be radically different.

Know that my entire team and I are praying for you—you are loved!

In him

PS Here is a link to the prophetic word the Lord just gave me concerning 2014. Read it, study it, and receive it by faith. God’s about to do a new thing, a GREATER thing, in your life! Read the prophetic word for 2014