And then one short little verse, part of a verse from Zachariah chapter 4 verse 10. For who has considered insignificant the time of small things? Has your spiritual life grown stale? The fire that once burned in you just seems to have died down. Somehow you don't seem to have the faith that you used to once have.

You find you're struggling with weaknesses that you thought you had overcome a long time ago but they they seem to start showing again. It seems like suddenly the enemy is winning with every attack that he brings against you. You ever feel that way? Have you found lately that some of these things been manifesting in your spiritual life? Well if that isn't the case, I want to tell you firstly that this did not happen overnight.

It happened slowly bit by bit over time and probably you didn't even notice it at first. You know the scripture speaks about Samson, how he was so sure of the strength that he had that he could always just jump up and use it until they cut his hair. And it says when they'd cut his hair and they came and he heard the cry the philistines are upon you Samson.

He jumped up as before and he did not realize that the power had left him. You know this happens to us subtly slowly over time. We don't realize that we are losing what we had but then suddenly everything seems to overwhelm you.

Suddenly it all just seems to be gone. It's not there anymore. You can't understand.

What happened? I was doing great. I was serving the Lord. I was on top of things.

My faith really worked. My prayers were answered. I seemed to have everything in hand and under control but now suddenly it's all gone.

It is the little things in life often that count more than the big things. Do not ever consider insignificant the time of small things. The scripture says because small things are very important.

Small things like what? Like reading the word. Perhaps when you first got saved or when you first got anointed with the spirit of God and you excited for the Lord you consumed the scriptures. You couldn't wait to get into the word and read.

But now you know it just it just doesn't seem to have that same appeal to you anymore. And you find getting into the word is something you you've got to kind of make an effort to do it now. It doesn't seem to become naturally anymore.

You know it's not that I never get into the word. It's just that I don't read it as much as I used to. What about spending time in the presence of the Lord? Setting aside time for prayer.

Perhaps there was a time you could spend hours in prayer. But now life has caught up with you. There's just so many things in your life and you know you should spend time with him in prayer.

But somehow it's you just never seem to get to it. The words that we speak. How positive are the things that you say? Do you find yourself speaking words of faith? Do you find yourself speaking God's word? Or do you find yourself speaking the words of the world around about you? And the words that you hear from the world around about you? Do you find yourself continually using the expressions of the world? It's just my luck.

I'm scared to death. It's filled with negativity. It's no more positive words coming from your mouth.

You face circumstances. You interact with people and the first thing that comes out of your mouth is some negative gem. Or you don't realize the power of those little things in your life.

You don't realize that over time they begin to affect you. How much time do you put? How much effort do you put into expressing the love of the Lord to others around you? You know I'm busy. You know I don't have to tell everybody I love them.

I don't have to go out of my way to do loving things. I'm not harming anybody. I'm not doing anything.

I'm not tearing people down. I'm not doing anything negative. But yes but how much are you showing the love of the Lord? How much of your day do you spend walking in the spirit and how much of it do you spend walking in the flesh? Well you know walking in the flesh comes naturally.

We don't have to think about that. Walking in the spirit takes an effort. It takes a choice and if we don't make that choice guess what? We're going to walk in the flesh.

How much time do you spend taking your stand against the enemy of the spiritual life? Or satan now begun to attack you and instead of rising up and standing against them as the scripture says, resist the devil and he will flee. What are we doing? We just hang in there. Pressing on.

Just keep going. I'll just brush it off and carry on. I can handle this.

I know I know how to handle the enemy. He won't overwhelm me. I can handle this.

After a while you find you can't handle it anymore. What went wrong? Well what's our big excuse? I don't have time isn't it? I don't have time. Well you know I don't have time to sit and spend hours reading the word.

You know it takes quite a while to read a chapter from the bible. Well how about reading 10 chapters a day? Better still why don't you read 20 chapters a day? What? I will never have time to read 10 chapters of the bible in a day. Somehow I do find time to watch that favorite movie, to watch the sports that I enjoy.

Somehow I seem to find time for those but getting into the word I don't have time. Now listen perhaps you don't have time. Perhaps life is busy.

Perhaps you are indeed spending a lot of your time doing the things that are necessary in life. Earning a living. Coping with the problems.

And you're saying well I really don't have extra time to set aside. I can't put aside an extra hour a day to get into the word. I can't put aside an extra half an hour a day to set aside a time of coming into the presence of the lord to pray.

Life just catches up with us. It's a fact of life. Do you know what happens? Although within ourselves we know and we even say to ourselves I really should make time to get into the word.

I really should make time in prayer. I really should make an effort to walk in the spirit. Somehow we just never get around to it.

Let's never get around to it. That's always our excuse isn't it? Well one of these days I'll do it when I get around to it. I saw a funny little thing once in a magazine.

They printed this round graphic and on it was the word to it. T-U-I-T. And they said they should cut this.

You should cut this out and you should carry it with you wherever you go. So the next time you say I need to get around to it you can't say that anymore because you now have around to it sitting in your pocket. We just never get around to it.

Now there's some laws in this world and in this life and in the creation that God's created. Laws that always work and God has set it up that way that if we follow these laws that work. Laws like the law gravity.

They are consistent. They are continuous. They never change.

And one of the most powerful laws of all is the law of compound effect. What is compound effect? Perhaps the best place to start looking at that is when it comes to money. If you invest money regularly it will begin to grow in size.

Even at a very low interest rate gradually it will increase in size. And the thing with this is it doesn't increase fast. It increases very slowly.

So when you start out with a small amount after a while the amount of increase is almost insignificant. You've put an amount of money in the bank and after a year the interest is hardly worth mentioning. But if you leave it for another year what you put in plus the interest begins to accumulate more interest.

And the next year you get a little bit more. And so it goes on and increases. And if you leave it in for long enough eventually it will come to the place where it has grown to the point where each little bit of increase and compound interest gets bigger and bigger.

And suddenly you have this large amount of money. You see we can't wait that long can we? We think you know if I had a lot of money to invest in the bank right now. If I could put a million in the bank right now at a reasonable interest rate at least I know I'm going to get a good return.

Heck I could probably even live just on the interest. That's like saying if I could just spend an hour a day in prayer. If I could just spend an hour a day in the word I know I'm going to get results.

And you know what you may make a valiant effort and set aside that hour today. You may even manage it tomorrow. If you are really a strong world person you may even manage it for a week.

But I can tell you what's going to happen you're not going to keep it up. Because those extra two hours a day are just too much for the average normal person to handle. You see there's a law of compound effect.

And the law of compound effect says that if you continue to invest small amounts continue consistently it's just a matter of time and things will begin to grow and they will begin to expand and the growth will begin to get faster and faster. Sowing produces a harvest and eventually produces a crop. So there's a law of sowing and reaping.

What you sow you will reap. If you continue to sow seeds you will eventually reap a harvest. Again we kind of want it to happen overnight.

We want to plant our seed water it and go out the next day and pick our fruit. But it doesn't work that way. We've got to sow continuously and wait for the growth to take place.

You see it always starts out slow. We want to get rich quick. We want to find some way and we're looking out there for people who have discovered the secrets to wealth.

This guy became wealthy. He was a millionaire before he turned 30. What was the key and the secret to his success? If I can somehow find it and do the same thing as him I will get wealthy very quickly.

Those of you who want to get physically fit you want to get fit very quickly. I want to do a few exercises and by next week I want to be at the peak of fitness. So what am I going to do? I'm going to kill myself doing hours and hours of weight training and aerobics and running and all sorts of things to try and get fit quickly.

Well you may even get a degree of success. You're not going to keep it are you? You're going to lose it very quickly. I want to lose weight quick so I'm going to go on a crash diet.

You know what fasting which is the ultimate diet I found the maximum that you could possibly lose in a day is a kg by fasting but it doesn't continue. It goes for a short while and then your body levels out and then you're not losing weight anymore. So there's no diet is going to make it any better but we want to find the latest fad diet that's going to cause me to lose weight very quickly and people out there are making promises you will lose so many pounds in so many days.

Doesn't work and even if it does work you cannot maintain it. I want to do great things for the Lord tomorrow. I want faith to move mountains.

I want to perform miracles and heal the sick and raise the dead. What do I need to do Lord to get these things? Some people think they have to go on long periods of fasting and prayer. Some people think that they got to get rid of this sin in their life and try and live holy lives and make this great big super super effort to be a good Christian.

Then God will use me. Have you tried it? Doesn't work because you see we've got to do it God's way and we've got to learn to be consistent. We can't be impatient and say I want it done and I want it done now.

You got to use the law of compound effects. Your spirit needs exercise just like your body needs exercise and you're not going to have one little simple exercise system that done once or twice is suddenly going to make you fit whether it be physically or spiritually. Your relationship with the Lord needs exercise just like every relationship.

I believe the most important relationship in life is the marriage relationship. If you do not exercise your marriage relationship it grows stale. If you do not daily pour out love your marriage grows stale.

Words that are spoken have great power and communicating with your spouse has an amazing power to maintain a marriage. But we get busy. We spend all day at work.

We come home. We're tired. We're weary.

You don't have time to sit and say so how was your day? How are you doing? Are you okay? Can I help you? Can I be there for you? We're too busy and eventually the relationship turns stale. How much more your relationship with your heavenly bridegroom? How much time do you spend communicating with him? How much time do you spend telling him that you love him? Again the excuses my life is full. I don't have time but you see you can make time.

I'm going to show you how to do this in a way that you are very able to do. Over time your spiritual muscles if they are not exercised begin to atrophy and lose their power. Over time your faith that seemed so strong that you could almost move mountains in believing God it starts to weaken.

There was a time when you spoke a word and the enemy would turn tail and run because you knew your authority. You knew who you were and you had faith in the Lord and you knew how to use his word. Now when you speak to the enemy he goes and he laughs at you.

You try and rebuke sickness and disease and you get worse. What happened? What happened is the little things that you allowed to come in the way eventually stole and robbed you of everything that you had. You see it doesn't take huge amounts of action to bring change in our lives.

The key is not the amount of time or the size. The key is the repetition doing it over and over again. I read an article some years ago in the Reader's Digest.

I don't know if they've disproved it since but it always inspired me. It was entitled six seconds a day and they said if you would just learn to flex a muscle like an isometric thing where you flex a muscle put it under pressure and hold it for six seconds. I said that muscle will begin to grow.

You don't have to do it all the time just six seconds every day. If you did it they said your muscle will begin to grow. Well do you have time for six seconds or you know I'm too busy to spend six seconds on exercise.

Now if that's your excuse you're really now you know you deserve what you've got quite honestly. Yeah I'm trying to offer you an out here so please don't fight me on this. It doesn't take a lot of action but the key is not six seconds.

The key is six seconds a day every day continually without stop. That is the key. You've got to start out with small actions and you've got to do them daily, continuously, persistently without fail.

If you do that the compound effect will begin to work. Over time that small little effort will begin to grow. I've used this illustration before and I think it's a good one so I'm going to add it again.

They say that if you hang a large piece of iron that's very heavy and next you hang a cork just on a carton and you pull the cork back and you let it hit the iron. Well the cork's just going to bounce off the iron because it's so light but they've proved that if you will do it consistently 24 hours a day over and over and over again eventually that iron will begin to swing as a result of the impact of the cork. The compound effect.

Every time that little cork hits the iron it imparts a bit of energy into that iron until eventually there's enough energy to make the iron move. See that's the law of compound effect. You may feel like your little efforts and your little prayers are like that little cork against a huge piece of steel.

But if you will do it consistently eventually something will begin to happen. How much weight can you pick up right now? Somebody will give you a really heavy weight. You see these bodybuilders they come with a huge weights.

You just try and pick up a small portion of that weight and you'll probably find it's much too heavy for you. But you know what you can start with a small weight. With me I usually start just with the bar because that's heavy enough already.

You notice how much the bar alone weighs on a barbell? My goodness you know I could exercise with that bar and feel I've done a bit of exercise. So you know what you may feel stupid standing there with this bar while everybody's got these great big heavy weights. But if you'll pick up that bar and every day just do a little bit of exercise with it your muscles will begin to grow and then you can add slightly heavier weights.

And as your muscles grow more you can add more heavier weights until eventually you're also picking up these heavy weights like everybody else. But we got to start with the small things. You can start by spending a short time daily in the word.

You say well you know how much time do I need to spend in the word? How much of it do I need to read? Start with one verse. Just one verse of the Bible. So which verse of the Bible do I read? Well if you insist on having a physical Bible open it and read the first verse that your eyes fall on.

If that's what you want. We have electronic Bibles these days. I've just written a Bible app that will give you everything that you need.

You just pick my random verse option and read a random verse. Do that once a day. You think you could find the time to do that? You could do it while you're sitting in the bathroom.

You could do it anywhere. Start there. Well if you can make a little bit more time why don't you read the whole chapter? Even better.

And if you could really make the time you could read several chapters. But don't try and bite off more than you can chew. Start with something small and say make up your mind.

Okay what I'm going to do now is every morning when I wake up first thing I'm going to pick up my phone and I'm going to pull out a scripture. Or I'm going to read a chapter of the Bible. Start with something small and make it a consistent daily routine.

Now I challenge you to try this. Probably the best time is first thing in the morning when you get up or last thing before you go to bed at night. Oh you know I'm really tired.

Just take an extra five minutes to read a chapter from the Bible. I'm not saying go and have a heavy Bible study. Just read it.

Just read it and let it sink in. You'd be amazed. I challenge you to try this for just one week.

One chapter. Only one chapter of the Bible each day. Use my Bible app and you can pick a random chapter.

You don't even need to think which chapter you should read. Just read anywhere in the Bible. It's God's Word.

And then you need to take time to talk to the Lord. You know we made our prayers so complicated. We stand.

Bring our list. We've got to launch this rocket. It takes so much effort.

You know it's like 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. We have a whole countdown. You know to launch this rocket of prayer that I can get into the spirit and pray effectively. You don't have time for that.

No, no, no. Start by trying this. When you wake up in the morning.

First thing you do is you get out of bed. You say good morning Lord. I love you.

I want you to go with me today. You think you could find time for that? Now just before you go to sleep. Speak to him and say Lord I love you.

I give you my night, my sleep. I ask you to watch over me as I sleep. Simple prayer.

Simple conversational prayer. And you might be saying well you know these are silly little things. Yeah but are you doing them? Are you doing them? Well you know I just watched this 90 minute movie and my mind is turning over all the events that took place.

And that's what's in my mind as I go to sleep. Stop right there just before you do that and say Lord I invite you to be with me as I go to sleep. Thank you Lord.

Give myself a fresh day. Simple little prayer. You try it.

You pick the time of day that suits you and give it a try. You see you can pray on the run. Just like you can talk to anybody on the run.

You know a lot of the time we do it standing up. Doesn't matter where you are. You can talk and hold a conversation to somebody.

You can ask for help. Why can't we do the Lord the same way? But you see the problem is we don't practice his presence. We're not aware that he's there.

We suddenly at the end of the day think you know I didn't even think about him today. Come on. I didn't even think about him today.

You know I had so many things on my mind. Things were really tough at work. It's been a struggle.

We've got problems. We've got financial problems. We've got difficulties.

Did you share them with him? Did you say Lord we got problems? I know you're going to help me and I thank you for it now in Jesus name. Small little things. Work it into your daily life.

Work it into your daily life. Change the words that come out of your mouth. Learn to say positive things.

Well if you know if you spend more time in the word the chances are the word would sink into you so that when you speak the word starts to come out of you. So if you are finding it difficult to say positive things why don't you try and give this a try. Try and speak and say something that includes the scripture.

Well I don't know much of the scriptures. You'd be surprised how much of the scriptures you know. When you stub your toe what's the first thing you say? I do.

I speak in tongues. Sometimes the tongue that we speak is not a tongue that we want the Lord to hear. Is that not true? What are the words that are coming out of your mouth? Make it a habit to speak the word.

In everything give thanks. Giving thanks always for all things. Gotta praise the Lord.

Find something positive to say in every circumstance that you face. Now the chances are you're going to not do that. You're going to say something negative and as you say that negative thing you can stop rather say no I shouldn't have said that.

Change it. After you've just let out your anger against somebody stop and change it. Takes practice.

Takes practice. And if you practice it often enough eventually it'll become a good habit. You'll find it easily more easy for you to do.

Speak to your problems and sit and worry about them. I don't know what we're going to do if the money doesn't come in. We're not going to pay the bills.

They're going to take away the car. We're going to be in trouble. I didn't say speak about the problems.

I said speak to the problems. Big difference. You debt in the name of Jesus you will bow because the Bible says that every knee shall bow.

So debt you are bowing to the name of Jesus and I'm telling you that you are going to be removed. Have you tried that? If you did it often enough you may eventually come to the place where you actually begin to believe that it's going to happen and you'll be amazed how it starts. Speak to your desires, your hopes and your dreams.

Don't speak your fears. Speak your desires. Speak the things that burn in you.

Speak your hopes and your aspirations. Speak them out. Sometimes we're afraid to tell other people in case it doesn't happen.

Well you know I am going to rise up and God is going to use me. I'm going to pray for people and the power of God is going to be manifest. I'm going to stand up and preach and people are going to be blessed.

What happens if it doesn't? It's not going to happen. I'll tell you that right now. But if you'll start to speak the positive, if you will start to speak it into existence, if you will start with the compound effect and speak those words again and again and again, it'll begin to grow.

Maintain a spirit of praise at all times. There's an interesting passage in the book of Ezekiel. I don't like some of those major prophets like Ezekiel.

They're very complex. He had this vision of the temple and it's quite complicated but one part really impressed me. He said as he looked he saw that out of the side of the temple some water was flowing and it began to accumulate into a stream and an angel appeared to him with a measuring rod and measured the distance from the temple.

It says a thousand cubits. Well a cubit is about 18 inches. It's supposed to be about the length of a man's forearm.

So that's like about a foot and a half. So we're talking about about 1500 feet which is just under 500 meters. And he said by that time the water had accumulated to the point where it had reached his ankles.

And they measured again another thousand cubits and this time the water was coming up to his knees. And again they measured and this time it was coming right up here to the top of his legs. And the last time they measured it was a fast flowing river that he couldn't get over.

Now many famous explorers of the past have made it their life quest to find the source of one of the big rivers. People have sought for the source of the Nile. And you know what they found? A little stream trickling from the mountain from the dew.

But now the Nile is a huge river. But the source is not huge. The source is always small.

But as that water continues to flow it increases. Have you ever sat on the side of a fast flowing river and just looked at it and wondered where all that water came from? It's continually flowing past you. Gallon after gallon.

Liter after liter. Where does that water come from? But it started actually with a small little stream. Sometimes a few little streams that gathered together and added their water until it began to accumulate.

If you will start with your small little stream. If you'll start to pour out and give out and invest and sow into yourself and into your spiritual life. At first you may not see much effect.

But give it a bit of time. And over a period of time you'll begin to see something is happening. It's starting to grow.

Continue to give it more time and will grow even more. And if you leave it long enough it'll eventually reach the place where there is an abundance. See you're gonna reap what you sow.

According to the law of sowing and reaping. But here's how the law of sowing and reaping works. You always reap more than you sowed.

You may sow one little seed but when the plant gives a harvest you're going to get many seeds back. There's a law called the law of use which says if you use something it will grow. Use your muscles on a regular basis and they begin to grow.

Don't use them and they atrophy and disappear. What you don't use you're going to lose. You don't have to make a big use just a consistent use.

You'll see growth taking place. Your current spiritual condition is a result of what you have been doing or not doing on a daily basis. What you have lost happened slowly but it doesn't have to stay that way.

Why don't you go back to adding simple small daily actions to bring it all back. The key is repetition. Do it over and over again consistently.

And before you know it the old feelings are going to come back. The old power will return and not only that as you continue it will grow and increase to far beyond what you had before. Don't look back to the good old days and wish I could be back there.

I wish I could have a relationship with the Lord like I had back there. I wish I had the anointing that I had back there. No.

He's got so much more for you. The first step doesn't lie to you. Lord please will you do something.

Lord give me a revival. Oh I'm just gonna go. Somebody's gonna lay hands on me.

Gonna zap me. Gonna fall on the ground of the power of God. I'm gonna get up changed.

Yeah until tomorrow because if you don't change your habits you're gonna lose it that quickly again. As you continue on a daily basis with the small things you'll be surprised how quickly it begins to accumulate. And you know the great thing is when it accumulates it gets easier and then you can make more effort.

You know when you're putting small little amounts of money in the bank there's not much money for you to use. But after it begins to grow you can start taking amounts out without really affecting the growth much. When you have built up your muscles so that you have a degree of fitness you can have times of relaxation when you're not exercising because you're not going to lose it.

When you are continually building your spiritual life and the power of God in your life will come to the place where that power is available on tap at all times. You're not only going to return to where you were you're going to go far beyond. And even the things that you've desired and thought about lie in your hands.

But the key is you. The key is for you to make a choice. The key is for you to do something.

In that passage I read beginning Peter spoke about taking our starting point our faith and start adding some things to them. And the one builds onto the other. He said supplement your faith with this and supplement that with that and supplement that with that.

Just keep building it up building it up. Before you know it you're going to reach a place of spiritual maturity and strength that nothing can move you. Now I know that's where you want to be.

I know that's where I want to be. The key the starting point is to start adding these small things to your life on a daily basis until it all comes to pass. That is the only way folks that you are going to be able to stay on top.

Amen.

Post A Review For This Book