The Three Most Powerful Words Order Printed Copy

Author: Derek Prince
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About the Book

"The Three Most Powerful Words" by Derek Prince explores the importance and impact of three key words: faith, hope, and love. The book delves into the deep significance of these words in the context of Christian belief and offers insights into how embracing them can lead to a transformative spiritual life. Prince argues that faith, hope, and love are not just abstract concepts but powerful forces that can shape our thoughts, actions, and relationships in profound ways. Through biblical teachings and personal anecdotes, he shows readers how to cultivate these virtues in their own lives and unlock their full potential.

C.T. Studd

“If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.” - C.T. Studd Charles Thomas Studd ("C.T. Studd") was born in England in 1860, the son of wealthy Edward Studd, who had made a fortune in India. Charles Studd liked sports just like most young men. He had a passion for cricket because it was the most popular sport in England at the time. His older brother Kynaston Studd, was a member of the Cambridge cricket team and well known. C.T., however, wasn't a great athlete but determined to master the sport. He would practice for hours, using a mirror to help him adjust his swing. He kept away from any harmful habits that may diminish his cricket ability. Soon he began to master the sport and became the captain of his high school cricket team. In 1879, when Studd entered Trinity College of Cambridge University, his popularity as a cricket star took off. He became what others have referred to as "the Michael Jordan of cricket," a household name throughout Great Britain. He soon became the captain of the Cambridge cricket team, an idol to students and legend in his time. and he had a particular passion for cricket, the most popular sport in England at the time. Studd was claimed then, and today as the greatest player to have ever played the game. But that is just a footnote compared to what has really marked C.T. Studd's life in history. C.T. was saved in 1878 at the age of 18 by the confrontation of a pastor, who really questioned him as to his personal relationship with Christ. Both his brothers gave their lives to Christ the same day that he did. His passion for Christ diminished as his cricket career grew in college and soon he was hardened to spiritual things. However, in November 1883, his younger brother George got very sick and was dying. As C.T. watched in horror and grief at the suffering of his brother, he reflected, "Now what is all the popularity of the world to George? What is all the fame and flattering? What is it worth to possess the riches of the world, when a man comes to face Eternity?" With a surprising turn, God miraculously healed George and C.T. was so dramatically changed through the event that he consecrated himself to the Lord's work. The things of this world were not worthy of his life, Studd would begin to invest himself in the eternal. C.T. was part of a small group of Christian men at Cambridge, mostly athletes, who were beginning to devote themselves to prayer and the evangelization of the world. Starting at their campus they began sharing their faith openly and telling all of the salvation found in Jesus Christ. Many were being won because of Studd's influence among other collegians. During this time, an influential missionary Hudson Taylor began to challenge the students of England to join him in reaching the millions of lost in China. His high calling and deep passion for China, captured the hearts of these young men at Cambridge, and there was discussion of joining Hudson's mission agency and pioneering to the unreached parts of China with the gospel. Despite a promising career in cricket and the life of comfort he had grown up in C.T. determined to follow God's heart for the world and join Him in reaching China. Studd's decision to go to China influenced the other seven men at Cambridge to live for God's glory and devote themselves to China also. From the rowing team at Trinity, Stanley Smith, Montague Beauchamp, and William Cassels joined. Two students, Dixon Hoste and Arthur Polhill-Turner, were officers who also left a promising career in the military to join Studd. And from C.T. Studd's own cricket team came Cecil Polhill-Turner. Studd faces opposition as well. His father, Edward passed away, causing the family to pressure C.T. not to leave his widowed mother at such a time. His older brother tried to talk him out of going and C.T. simply quoted Micah 7:6, "a man's enemies are the men of his own house." Before going to China, Hudson organized a tour of the college campuses in England, allowing the "Cambridge Seven," as they came to be known, to share their testimonies, and challenge students to consecrate their lives to the glory of God. Through these months traveling and speaking, God drew people to faith in Christ and awakened the church to His global cause. In the last meeting of the tour, C.T. Studd urged students saying, "Are you living for the day or are you living for life eternal? Are you going to care for the opinion of men here, or for the opinion of God? The opinion of men won't avail us much when we get before the judgment throne. But the opinion of God will. Had we not, then, better take His word and implicitly obey it?" Authenticity marked the power of the message of these seven that were on their way to the unreached. C.T. Studd admitted, "Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary." After calling students to obey the Great Commission, the Cambridge Seven, left for China, arriving in Shanghai on March 18, 1885. C.T. Studd had inherited a fortune from the death of his father Edward but gave most of it away, keeping only £3400 pounds. Keeping that only until his wife, Priscilla Livingstone Stewart said, "Charlie, what did the Lord tell the rich young man to do?" "Sell all." "Well then, we will start clear with the Lord at our wedding." And they gave the rest away to missions work. Studd would return to England and America occasionally because of ill health and challenge students to give their lives to the Great Commission. During the beginnings of the Student Volunteer Movement, in 1896 -1897, his brother J.E.K. Studd spoke at Cornell University, having a deep impact on the future point man for the SVM, John R. Mott. Mott walked in late for the meeting and heard J.K. Studd quote, "Young man, are you seeking great things for yourself? Seek them not! Seek first the Kingdom of God!" Mott gathered the courage to meet with him the next day and later said that the meeting with Studd was the "decisive hour of his life". Mott went on to become one of the greatest missions mobilizers in world history. C.T. Studd's work impacted China, India and Africa. Upon the last days of his life he reflected in his life's work saying, "As I believe I am now nearing my departure from this world, I have but a few things to rejoice in; they are these: That God called me to China and I went in spite of utmost opposition from all my loved ones. That I joyfully acted as Christ told that rich young man to act. That I deliberately at the call of God, when alone on the Bibby liner in 1910, gave up my life for this work, which was to be henceforth not for the Sudan only, but for the whole unevangelized World. My only joys therefore are that when God has given me a work to do, I have not refused it." One night in July,1931, C.T. Studd went to be with His Lord. The last word he spoke was "Hallelujah"! By Claude Hickman

you don’t have to get married to be happy

You don’t have to get married to be happy. In fact, until we realize that we don’t have to get married to be happy, we’re really not ready to marry. Disclaimer: I am now happily married. If you’re single, you may be ready to click away, and I can understand why. Too many married people have too much to say about singleness. To be sure, not every married person knows your particular pain and circumstances, but some do. And they may have a perspective on singleness, dating, and marriage that none of your single friends have. I was drunk in love more than once, infatuated in dating, mesmerized by marriage. I started dating in middle school, followed by one long serious relationship after another through high school and college. I thought I would be married by 22, and instead I got married almost a decade later. I said things I wish I could unsay, and crossed boundaries I wish I could go back and rebuild. I’m not some married guy writing to single you. I’m writing to single me. I know him better than I know my wife — his weaknesses, his blind spots, his impatience — and I have so much good news for him. And for you. When I say that you don’t have to be married to be happy, I say that as someone who devoured romance looking desperately for lasting joy — and who knows what it feels like to end up further from it after each breakup. Does Marriage Mean Happiness? One of the greatest hurdles to getting married is our obsession with getting married. We too easily believe the lie that life will never be as good as it could have been if we never get married. The Bible actually says the opposite of that, even though it has many good things to say about marriage. “To be truly happy in marriage, it cannot be the ultimate source of our happiness.” The apostle Paul celebrates singleness over marriage: “I wish that all were as I myself am. . . . To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am” (1 Corinthians 7:7–8). According to him, we don’t ever have to be married to be truly and deeply happy. In fact, marriage may actually threaten the only thing that will make us happy (1 Corinthians 7:32–35). It’s not a command (1 Corinthians 7:6), he says, but counsel from someone who wrote half of the books in the New Testament. Elsewhere, he also celebrates love and marriage as much as anyone in Scripture (Ephesians 5:25–33). But what he wrote about singleness has everything to do with our desires to be married. You don’t have to get married to be happy, but to be truly happy in marriage — and in life — marriage cannot be the ultimate source of your significance or happiness. To be truly happy with a husband or wife, you must be happier in Someone else first. You must be most satisfied in Him. Lonely Hunt for Happiness Romantic love is a heart terrorist unless it is anchored in a higher love. Jesus warns the not-yet-married, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Whoever loves future husband or wife more than me is not worthy of me. Jesus, why would you pit my love for you against my love for my parents, or my spouse, or my children? Because even the best love here pales in comparison to that love, and any love that competes with our love for him jeopardizes our joy. Elisabeth Elliot writes, “The cross, as it enters the love life, will reveal the heart’s truth. My heart, I knew, would be forever a lonely hunter unless settled ‘where true joys are to be found’” ( Passion and Purity , 41). “The happier you are in God before you are married, the happier you’ll be with someone else when you get married.” Don’t recklessly chase marriage for things you will only fully find in God. Fullness of joy is not found at that altar, and pleasures forevermore are not lying in the marriage bed. No, Scripture sings about a higher love and greater joy, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalms 16:11). A Lamp to My Heart Jesus tells a story about ten women waiting for the bridegroom, each carrying a lamp while they wait (Matthew 25:1). Five brought extra oil to keep their lamps lit, while the other five brought lamps, but no oil. Both sets of lamps burned brightly for a while, but as the bridegroom finally arrived — when the women needed the lamps most — five were left in the dark and out of the marriage feast (Matthew 25:10). The lamps illustrate, among other things, the difference between falling in love and staying in love. It doesn’t take much at all to start a romantic flame, but it is much harder to sustain it through suffering, disappointment, and conflict. The happiest marriages have storehouses of spiritual oil other marriages have never known. Their love isn’t fueled by physical attraction or relational chemistry, but by a mutual affection for and devotion to Christ. The happier you are with God before you’re married, the happier you will be with someone else if and when you’re married. The only people who will make you truly happy in marriage will love Jesus more than you. And the only people whom you will make truly happy in marriage are people you love less than you love Jesus. That’s true for every single person. You Need to Fall in Love You don’t have to get married to be happy, but you do need to fall in love. When Jesus was asked about the most important command in the Bible, he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27). To find the love your soul longs for, you give your heart first to God, not to a husband or wife. The best way to pursue the marriage you want today is to pursue God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Again, Elliot writes, “When obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love Him. If I can say yes to that question, can’t I say yes to pleasing Him? Can’t I say yes even if it means a sacrifice? A little quiet reflection will remind me that yes to God always leads in the end to joy. We can absolutely bank on that” ( Passion and Purity , 90). “The best way to pursue the marriage you want today is to pursue God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.” Ten thousand years from now, your marriage may be just a sweet, but short sticky note in the massive filing cabinet of our happy marriage with Jesus. On our ten-thousandth anniversary with Christ, how will you think about your earthly marriage? How will you think about your current boyfriend or girlfriend (or crush)? After centuries without any confusion or fear or sadness, how will you reflect on your days of heartache and loneliness here? The painful desires and waiting will still have been very real, but now small and insignificant compared with the perfect, seamless love and happiness we will enjoy forever. Don’t wait to figure out the source of your happiness until you find a husband or wife. Wait to find a spouse until you’ve figured out the true source of happiness. If we knew just how happy Jesus would make us, we would stop looking so desperately for that happiness in a husband or wife. And then we just might be truly happy with that husband or wife one day.