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About the Book
"God's Plan for Your Prosperity" by Morris Cerullo is a practical guide to achieving financial success by following biblical principles. Cerullo shares wisdom and insights on faith, stewardship, giving, and other key factors that play a crucial role in achieving abundance. The book emphasizes the importance of aligning one's beliefs with God's plan in order to experience prosperity in all areas of life.
Jack Coe
Jack G. Coe was born on March 11, 1918 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His father, George, was a gambler and an alcoholic. His parents, although having been Christians, did not attend church. His grandparents, on his father's side were Christians but they were not able to influence their son's behavior. The couple had seven children in all. When Jack was five his father gambled away all their furniture and their house, leaving his mother Blanche destitute with seven children. They were devastated. His mother tried to make a new life by moving to Pennsylvania, but it was too hard. When Coe's father came to her house promising to change she agreed to reunite. The change did not last, however, and George went back to gambling.
Blanche left George for good, but only took her daughter with her this time. The boys were left with their father, which meant they were essentially left on their own. Often they did not have food to eat. Blanche did return to claim them, but could not care for them on her own. When Jack was nine he and his twelve year old brother was turned over to an orphanage. His older brother ran away, but was hit by a car and died. Jack struggled with rejection and abandonment. At seventeen he left the orphanage and began to drink, becoming an alcoholic like his father. He drank so much he had ulcers and his heart became enlarged. The doctor told him that if he didn't quit drinking he was going to die. Not knowing where else to go he moved to California to be near his mother. When he thought he was near death he promised God he would turn his life around and he was healed for a while. The family moved to Texas and he was drinking again. This time he heard God's voice "This is your last chance". The following Sunday he went to a Nazarene church and accepted Christ. He was radically changed. He went to church meetings almost every night, prayed, and read the Word constantly. After a year and a half he went to a Pentecostal meeting and was filled with the Holy Spirit and had a vision of Jesus.
Jack felt called to the ministry and went to and Assembly of God school called Southwestern Bible Institute, led by P.C. Nelson. He left in 1941 to join the army after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He was so committed to God's purposes that he went to church every night. His sergeant sent him for psychiatric evaluation This happened several times while he was in the army. One day he was reading a book by P.C. Nelson on Healing when he fell asleep. He had a dream where he saw his sister close to death in a hospital but he saw a bright light come into her room and she was healed. He left immediately to see her and everything was as he'd seen it in a dream. She was healed and he was changed forever.
In 1944 Coe became ill with malaria. He was sent home because the doctors felt they could not help him. He sought the Lord who told him "preach the gospel". God healed him. He went out to preach and three people were saved. That year he was ordained as an Assembly of God minister. His healing experiences caused him to seek God about the gifts of healing. In 1945 he felt God called him to have a healing meeting. He went to Texas and announced in a church that God was going to heal the sick, cause the blind to see, and the deaf to hear. Those were bold words indeed! A woman received her sight that night. His ministry was launched. He began traveling over the country.
In 1946 God spoke to Coe and his wife Juanita to sell their house and start an itinerant ministry. They purchased a beat up truck and a ministry tent and began to live on the road. In 1948 God spoke to Coe to go to Redding, California. A woman, whose leg was about to be amputated, was healed and the news spread throughout the city. God blessed the couple and for the first time had enough money to be ahead on their finances. Healings and miracles regularly occurred in his meetings.
There were some very controversial things about Jack Coe. He believed that he should have a larger tent than other evangelists and went and measured Oral Roberts tent, then he ordered one larger. His style was dramatic and he often hit, slapped, or jerked people. He also would pull people out of wheelchairs. His speaking style was aggressive as he challenged people to believe God. He suggested that people who stood against him would be "struck dead by God". He was anti-medicine and told people not to go to doctors. He also encouraged interracial meetings.
In 1950 Coe began publishing the Herald of Healing magazine. Within six years it was being sent to over 350,000 people. God began to speak to Coe about opening an orphanage. He collected money for the project at every meeting. He sold his own home and began to build the children's home. His own family moved into the partially finished building so they would have a place to live. Coe eventually bought 200 acres outside of Dallas and built four dormitories and established a home farm. They could support 200 abandoned children.
In 1952 Coe began a radio ministry, which eventually was carried on over 100 radio stations. He also began having trouble with the Assembly of God organization. Although initially responsive to suggestions, he felt their goal was to limit the ministry. He suggested that the Assembly of God leadership had lost the belief in the miraculous and felt that they should be replaced. Needless to say this aggravated the situation. In 1953 Coe was expelled from the Assembly of God church. They felt that he was independent, extreme, prone to exaggeration, and they weren't sure about his ministry style. Coe felt that it was an attack against his success. He told people that "one of the officials made the remark to me that he would not rest until every man that was preaching divine healing in a deliverance ministry, separated from the General Council of the Assembly of God."
In 1953 Coe started his own church in Dallas. It was called the Dallas Revival Center. God spoke to him that it was important for those not getting healed to receive teaching about healing from the Word. In 1954 Coe opened a faith home, where people could stay for extended periods of time to receive prayer for healing. Teaching and prayer were given daily. 1956 was a pivotal year. While Coe was preaching in Miami he was arrested for practicing medicine without a license. This brought national attention to him and the ministry, both positive and negative. He was acquitted of practicing medicine without a license when the trial went to court.
At the end of 1956 Coe became ill. He had pushed himself night and day for years. He had poor eating habits and was overweight. He thought it was exhaustion but it was bulbar polio, a form of polio that affects the nerves. He became paralyzed, developed pneumonia, and died December 16, 1956.
date differently this year - four resolutions for better relationships
It takes extraordinary courage to change how you date. It’s not easy to reset boundaries, communicate better, flee sexual immorality, confess failures, and end the relationship that needs to end. But you will never regret making the right changes. There were moments through high school and college when I knew with crystal clarity that things needed to change, but the costs kept me from changing sooner. What will others think about me when I confess how I’ve failed? What if I fail again, and things never get better? What if the change I need means I’m single and alone again? Like a merciless lawyer, Satan piled up every conceivable reason not  to do what I knew I had to do — to make excuses, to put off decisions, to be almost honest  with friends and family, to stay in unhealthy relationships, to avoid Christ and indulge in sin. I have prayed that the four resolutions that follow might give some the courage to do what you’ve been afraid to do for weeks, for months, maybe even for years. To lay down your excuses. To take up your cross. To welcome what it will cost you today to pursue love in light of eternity. To date differently this year, in a way that says something stunning about your God. 1. Above all else, I will look for Jesus. “Welcome what it will cost you today to pursue love in light of eternity.” If you resolve to change nothing else about your patterns in relationships, resolve to make Jesus the most important thing in your dating. Raise Philippians 1:21 over your next relationship: “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” If to live is Christ, then to date  is Christ. To marry is Christ. To remain single is Christ. He is our reason for living and working, growing and learning, dating and marrying. Above every other priority in dating, look for Jesus. It may sound simple and easy, but Satan wages an all-out war on our hearts and minds to keep us from single-minded devotion. Nothing could be harder. It is emotionally impossible to put Christ before our desires for intimacy and marriage — unless we have the Spirit of Christ. Unless it is no longer we who live and date, but Christ who lives in and through us (Galatians 2:20). Before you entrust your heart to someone else, resolve to love Jesus with all your heart. Before you let yourself daydream about potential futures with him or her, resolve to love Jesus with all your mind. Before you think about knitting your soul with another, resolve to love Jesus with all of your soul first. Before you risk, sacrifice, and work for love, resolve to love Jesus with all your strength. Resolve to love him more than love. And as you give your heart first and foremost to Christ, make sure your boyfriend (or girlfriend) has too — in the deepest places of who he is and what he wants. His faith is not a box to check along with lots of others; it should be the ink that shapes every other box. Whether you are currently in a relationship or might begin one this year, decide right now to date from a deeper, wider, higher love for the Lord. 2. I will grow where I have failed before. One reason we fail in the same ways year after year is that we fail to admit and address our failures. If you have a sexual past or a trail of mistakes behind you, you need to know there is nowhere safer to deal with your failures than in Christ. Someone may have led you to suspect that how you’ve dated has disqualified you from his love, but Christ came and died precisely for the things you’re most ashamed of. The apostle Paul says, The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15–16) “If you resolve to change nothing else, resolve to make Jesus the most important thing in your dating.” Guilt and shame qualify us  for his love. He wants to put his patience and mercy on display for the world by showering you  with mercy and being patient with you . He wants you to step forward, like Paul, to experience what he died to give you. The process begins by boldly bringing our failures before his feet (1 John 1:9), knowing he loves to forgive our wrongs, heal our wounds, and restore our brokenness. If we draw our darkness into his light, he will not only cover our darkness, but dispel it. He will make us someone new, someone different from the stains of our dating history (2 Corinthians 5:17). The process begins at the feet of Jesus, but it does not end there. Those who truly want to change where we have fallen before resolve to seek flesh-and-blood accountability in the specific areas where we have failed (Hebrews 3:12–13). A resolve to grow is a resolve to share with others — to consistently confess our failures, seek out counsel, embrace hard questions, and fold others into our dating relationships. Everyone expects this to happen naturally, and in a few rare instances, it might. In the vast majority of cases, though, this will require extraordinary effort and sacrifice. You will have to care about what other believers think about your relationships more than even they  care about what they think. Resolve to grow where you have failed in relationships — to bring your specific failures to your perfectly patient Savior, to confess your specific failures to another believer, and to pursue specific steps, with God’s help, to overcome temptation and cultivate godliness. 3. I will pursue clarity, and postpone intimacy. Likely you have asked yourself (over and over again) what you’re looking for in a significant other. Most people, no matter who they are or what they believe, ask that question. The more important question that fewer of us ask is this: What am I looking for from dating? “Christ came and died precisely for the things you’re most ashamed of. Guilt and shame qualify you for his love.” For many, the answer is simply intimacy. In the fantasies of our imagination, intimacy may look like a thousand different experiences and sensations, but intimacy is often the grail of great price. Unfortunately, when intimacy becomes the great prize, it also becomes the great price we pay. When intimacy fails to materialize, or fails to satisfy us, or fails to last for long, we have only bartered precious pieces of our hearts for painful regret and deeper longings. Beware of letting your dating be driven by the pursuit of intimacy this year. Date to find precious clarity  from God about whether to marry. The great prize in marriage is Christ-centered intimacy. The great prize in dating is Christ-centered clarity. This does not  mean marry the next person you date, or only date someone you’re certain you would marry; it means make Christ-centered clarity toward marriage the measure of your romance. Am I increasingly confident over time that this is someone I can marry in the Lord? A new resolve to pursue clarity in dating cuts against our impulses toward flirtation, ambiguity, and enticement, and flows into clear and loving communication. Any relationship that cuts against flirtation, ambiguity, and enticement, that intentionally postpones physical intimacy for the covenant of marriage, swims against the current, at least in America today. It will seem strange and awkward to others your age — and beautiful to God. Date for something far more satisfying than physical and emotional intimacy. Date for a deeper purpose. Not because everyone else is doing it. Not because it’s fun. Not because he’s cute. Date because of God. Date for God. Let your love life stem from seeing and enjoying and sharing more of him. 4. I will ask God for help. The most important change in your love life may not be between you and your significant other, but between you and God. Before we try to establish healthy boundaries in our relationship, we need direction from God. Before we go looking for love, we need to seek the Lord. Before we address our communication in dating, we need to address our communication with our Father. Better relationships will begin with God in prayer. “Date for a deeper purpose. Not because everyone else is doing it. Not because it’s fun. Date because of God.” Unless the Lord builds (or rebuilds) our relationships, we date in vain (Psalm 127:1). Unless the Lord watches over you and your girlfriend (or boyfriend), you risk, worry, and date in vain. He knows exactly what you need (Matthew 6:32), where you are weak, and how you will glorify him. Refuse to date anyone unless, like Moses, God goes up with you (Exodus 33:15). And then talk to him about your relationships as much as you talk with anyone else. When passion rises within you, or anxiety creeps in, or confusion clouds your mind and heart, run first to God. No one will help you, keep you, or hear you like him. The best way to discern what God is doing, and how he is directing you, in a relationship this year is to stay close to him. The greater the intimacy you have with him, the greater clarity you will have about who to pursue, what to change, and when to marry.
