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"The Power of Self-Confidence" by Brian Tracy offers insights and practical strategies for building and sustaining self-confidence in all areas of life. Tracy emphasizes the importance of self-belief and provides techniques for overcoming self-doubt, setting goals, and taking action to achieve success. The book encourages readers to cultivate a positive mindset, embrace failure as a learning opportunity, and develop habits that promote self-assurance and resilience. Overall, it is a comprehensive guide for anyone looking to boost their self-confidence and unlock their full potential.

Jack Coe

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.

the only certain hope on earth

“It is the hope that kills you,” as many English football (soccer) fans say. Is it not better to have low expectations instead of hoping your team will do well, only to see those hopes dashed in sometimes cruel ways? The world has an idea of hope that sees it as an optimistic expectation that something good may happen in this life or, for the religious, the life to come. People cannot help but hope; it is part of our DNA as humans. We hope for good health, a good marriage, good weather, or an enjoyable holiday. Many even hope for a better life after the life they have lived on earth, which explains why so many claim that loved ones (including animals) are “smiling down” upon them after their death. Much of the hope that is found in the world lacks promise and certainty, which is like building a house on sand. Christian hope is very different from worldly hope. Christian hope is a Spirit-given virtue enabling us to joyfully expect what God has promised through Jesus Christ. It is, therefore, thoroughly Trinitarian. Height of Our Hope Christian hope looks to God because he is “the God of hope” (Romans 15:13). Because of the resurrection of Christ, Peter says that our “faith and hope are in God” (1 Peter 1:21). The degree to which we find God desirable and excellent will be the same to which hope plays a role in our lives. Our view of God will affect the hope we possess. A small god begets a small hope; but knowing God and Christ (John 17:3), which is eternal life, is ground for possessing a hope that bursts forth in our souls on a daily basis. The psalmist describes the blessed person as the one “whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God” (Psalm 146:5). Consider the words of Thomas Aquinas on this: Wherefore the good which we ought to hope for from God properly and chiefly is the infinite good, which is proportionate to the power of our divine helper, since it belongs to an infinite power to lead anyone to an infinite good. Such a good is eternal life, which consists in the enjoyment of God Himself.  For we should hope from Him for nothing less than Himself, since His goodness, whereby He imparts good things to His creature, is no less than His essence . Therefore the proper and principal object of hope is eternal happiness. ( Summa Theologica , II-II.17.2) In short, Aquinas is saying that our joy is connected to our hope, which is connected to our Savior, which is connected to our God. Christian hope exists only when we hope in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13). The height of our hope is God himself. Certain as God’s Promises Certain conditions characterize biblical hope: it must be good, it must be in the future, it involves some degree of difficulty (for example, patient suffering), and it must be founded on God’s promises. Those who persevere, by faith, shall attain what we hope for: the sight of our Savior (Titus 2:13). “Christian hope is a Spirit-given virtue enabling us to joyfully expect what God has promised through Jesus Christ.” This hope of the blessed vision of Christ is based not only upon the fact that we know he will return, but also on the knowledge that God dwells in us. This explains Paul’s language in Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Hope arises from not only objective promises, but also an internal “pull” toward God and Christ by his Spirit. Thus, Christian hope is not about probable hope or about mere conjecture concerning things future, but about great certainty. Faith, Hope, and Love Faith in God through Christ by the Spirit gives rise to Christian hope. Faith and hope bear an intimate relation to one another (Romans 4:18–21; 5:2; 15:13; Galatians 5:5; Ephesians 1:18–19; Colossians 1:23; 1 Timothy 4:10; Hebrews 11:1; 1 Peter 1:21). Faith is the foundation of hope, so that hope without faith is no hope at all. We believe God in order to hope in what we believe. But faith also returns to hope to give it courage to persevere. If faith apprehends God’s promises, hope expects what he promises. In times of trouble, despair, and suffering, faith and hope feed on God and his promises. The difference between faith and hope is not easy to discern. Simply put, faith believes, but hope waits patiently. (Yet there is an aspect whereby faith also requires patience.) God is the object of hope, as it specifically focuses on his goodness to us in Christ. Faith not only looks to God but also trembles at his threatenings (when appropriate). Hope remains free of such fear. Faith and love can relate to a present or future object, but hope looks to the future alone. And of course, faith and hope also bear an intimate relation to love. If hope relates to faith in terms of our expectations, hope relates to love in terms of our desire. Love requires desire, so the more we desire the good, the more we will love it. Equally, hope requires desire. The more we desire what is promised, the more we hope for it. Since faith focuses on Christ, hope will always be present where there is true faith. And since faith focuses on Christ, love will always accompany faith and hope because God and Christ are the object of faith and hope — how can we not love the one we believe has saved us and promised so much for the future? Thus, faith, hope, and love give expression to our Christian life (1 Corinthians 13:13; Colossians 1:4). Hope That Purifies The life of hope yields many benefits to the Christian, such as the expectation of eternal life (Titus 1:2; 3:7), salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:8), heaven (Colossians 1:5), the resurrection (Acts 23:6), the gospel (Colossians 1:23), God’s calling (Ephesians 1:18; 4:4), and our inheritance (Ephesians 1:18). But there is also a “duty” bound up with hope, namely, purification of our souls: “Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). This command follows one of the greatest promises of Christian hope: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Those who have the hope of being made like Christ in body and soul must also have the present desire to be  pure . While in sanctification the accent is often on what God does, here in 1 John 3:3 the accent is on what we do. Christians, if they embrace a hope of seeing Christ face to face, are to purify themselves. In other words, hope has a moral effect. The pursuit of purity arises out of our possession of hope. Hope gives birth to sanctification; and as we are sanctified, we hope even more because we get closer to God. Besides John, Peter also makes this point. He speaks of the future promise of the new heavens and new earth to his readers (2 Peter 3:13), and then reasons, “Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by [God] without spot or blemish, and at peace” (2 Peter 3:14). “Our joy is connected to our hope, which is connected to our Savior, which is connected to our God.” Likewise, Paul writes, “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). The promises Paul speaks of include our adoption as sons and daughters, wherein God makes his dwelling and walks among us (2 Corinthians 6:16, 18). These promises are, of course, realized in this life, but they also await a type of consummation that we can all look forward to (see Romans 8:23). Christian hope has present realities, one of which includes our sanctification. In this matter, our faith clings ever so tightly to our hope, as we seek to be holy as God is holy. Hope Unlike the World’s In the church today, we have underemphasized the future motivation (our Christian hope) for how to live the sanctified life. As with the Lord’s Supper, we do not only look back to Christ’s death but also look now to the risen Christ and forward to the future blessings that await us. This is the purification of the truly hopeful. Our hope is unlike the world’s. The world’s hope is often vague, uncertain, a wish thrust up at the stars. But Christian hope is solid, certain, future, and cleansing. It lasts as long as the eternal God lives, and stands as tall as he stands. He is our hope, for apart from him, no such thing exists (Ephesians 2:13).

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