PRAISE FOR
THE FAVOR OF GOD
For far too long, people have not recognized God’s true desire for His children to be blessed and free from lack in every area of their lives. The Favor of God outlines what God’s Word has to say on this subject and clearly illustrates how to bring freedom to pass in your life. He challenges the notion of lack and defeat and shows how God’s children can lay hold of the principles of His kingdom. You will not only be blessed, but your life will also be changed forever!
Christine Caine
Director of Equip and Empower Ministries and Founder of The A21 Campaign
There are a number of people talking about the favor or grace of God. It is the message of the hour, and it is much needed. Yet when I heard Jerry was expounding on the subject, I was ecstatic! A man of humble beginnings, he is undeniably one of the remaining generals in God’s present-day army. God is using Dr. Savelle to declare the message of favor in such a way that even the burned out and backslidden are persuaded. The Favor of God dares to defy popular religious notions. It infuses the reader with the courage to believe beyond conventional limitations. After reading this book, I believe you will be armed with the initiative to thoroughly change your circumstances.
Creflo Dollar
Founder of Creflo Dollar Ministries
I have known Jerry Savelle for more than 30 years as a mentor, author and minister. I always refer to him as my “spiritual father”! Jerry has lived his life as a consistent witness to the abundant life of grace and favor that comes with our belief in the goodness and love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I highly recommend that everyone read and study The Favor of God. This book will be a great encouragement to you as you learn how to live each day expecting the favor of God to be actively operating in your life.
Meadowlark Lemon
Basketball Hall of Famer, Class of 2003
Jerry Savelle has long been one of my favorite ministers and teachers of the Word. His exhortations are filled with a perfect combination of Scripture and real-life examples to aid in stirring our faith and understanding the Word. The Favor of God is an excellent example of this balance. Within its pages, he lays out the Scriptural foundation and rock-solid principles of our Christian rights to the unmerited, unending favor of almighty God as it manifests in the favorable treatment that is available in our daily dealings. His real-life examples will stir your faith to believe that you can experience the favor of God in every area of your life—that you, too, can be God’s favorite.
Buddy Pilgrim
Minister and Founder of Integrity Leadership
Former President of Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation
Published by Regal
From Gospel Light
Ventura, California, U.S.A.
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Printed in the U.S.A.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Other versions used are
AMP—Scripture taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
GNB—Scripture taken from the Good News Translation, Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
KJV—King James Version. Authorized King James Version.
THE MESSAGE—Scripture taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
NASB—Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
NIV—Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
NLT—Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Phillips—The New Testament in Modern English, Revised Edition, J. B. Phillips, Translator.
© J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 866 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022.
TLB—Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible, copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.
© 2012 Jerry Savelle
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Savelle, Jerry.
The favor of God / Jerry Savelle.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8307-6413-6 (alk. paper)
1. God (Christianity)—Love. I. Title.
BT140.S28 2012
231'.6—dc23
2012017965
Rights for publishing this book outside the U.S.A. or in non-English languages are administered by Gospel Light Worldwide, an international not-for-profit ministry.
For additional information, please visit www.glww.org, email [email protected], or write to Gospel Light Worldwide, 1957 Eastman Avenue, Ventura, CA 93003, U.S.A.
To order copies of this book and other Regal products in bulk quantities, please contact us at 1-800-446-7735.
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Understanding God’s Favor
2. Getting a Revelation of Favor
3. We Have a Heritage of Favor
4. Growing in God’s Favor
5. Moving to a Higher Level of Favor
6. Consistent Favor Requires Consistent Obedience
7. Positioned for Favor
8. Ten Benefits of Walking in God’s Favor
9. A Designated Time of Favor
10. Supernatural Favor for Our Time
Appendix: Testimonies of the Favor of God
INTRODUCTION
The man seated to my right on the flight to Amsterdam looked at me as if I had a frog on my forehead.
“What in the world are you talking about?” he asked.
After reading an article I didn’t agree with on the front page of a national newspaper, I had just declared out loud, “I have the favor of God; therefore, this will not affect me!”
The man must have thought I was speaking to him.
“I’m sorry. I forgot where I was for a moment,” I said, hoping my apology would put an end to the conversation before it even got started.
You see, when I’m on my own airplane and I read something I don’t like, I just talk back to it. Doing so on a commercial flight is not such a good idea, as I was about to find out.
My fellow passenger persisted. “So tell me, what will not affect you?”
I read him the portion of the article that reported that many of the major nonprofit organizations in America, such as the United Way, the Red Cross, and even several large Christian ministries, had seen their contributions fall steeply as a result of the downturn in the economy. The article went on to say that the current year’s financial forecast for nonprofits didn’t look good, and the situation wasn’t expected to improve anytime soon.
Having listened intently, he asked, “Well, what’s that got to do with you?”
“I’m a minister and the founder and president of a nonprofit organization, and I’m decreeing in faith that neither the economy nor this forecast will affect me.”
Based on his next question, I could tell that my answer didn’t sit well with him.
“What mak
es you better than them?”
“I’m not saying that I’m any better than them, but I have a covenant with God that entitles me to walk in His favor,” I explained. “That’s why I’m decreeing that this economic situation will not affect me. My ministry doesn’t have to suffer just because other organizations say that the economy is affecting them.”
He just glared at me and said, “Whatever.” Then he opened his newspaper, raised it up in front of his face, and didn’t look at me or say another word for the next eight hours. When we landed in Amsterdam, he stood up, gave me a quick glance, and walked off. Apparently he was still irritated because I wouldn’t join the recession and allow someone else’s standard to be my standard.
Several days later, while I was ministering and distributing food in Tanzania, I received word from my office back in Fort Worth, Texas, that they had just opened an envelope containing the largest donation the ministry had received all year. Oh, how I wanted to find the guy who had sat next to me on the plane and say just one word to him: “Whatever!”
The Bible says, “For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous; with favor You will surround him as with a shield” (Ps. 5:12). Another translation puts it this way: “You surround them with your favor” (NIV). The newspaper reported that the economy was down, and organizations were headed for a tough time, but I can attest that the favor of God surrounded me and the ministry He had entrusted to me. As a rendering of 2 Corinthians 4:1 that I particularly like says, “Therefore, since we do hold and engage in this ministry by the mercy of God [granting us favor, benefits, opportunities, and especially salvation], we do not get discouraged (spiritless and despondent with fear) or become faint with weariness and exhaustion” (AMP).
We don’t have to be afraid of anything that is going on in the world. As believers, we’re surrounded by the favor of God. It goes ahead of us, and it comes behind us. It goes everywhere we go. When the favor of God is on us, opportunities will come our way—opportunities for increase, for promotion, for success and for benefits.
If you’re faced with a challenge related to what is happening in society today, tapping into the favor of God will change your situation. Perhaps you’re trying to sell a house in a down market, or you want to buy a home but you can’t get credit. I’ve been there, and I’m telling you that the favor of God will change your circumstances. It will open doors for you, and it will even change rules and regulations for your benefit.
In 1997, I wrote a book titled Walking in Divine Favor. This book has since gone all over the world. Back in the late ’90s, I visited a number of churches that had taken some of the confessions about favor that I’d included in the book and used them when they prayed over their tithes and offerings. At some of the places where I went to speak and minister, I was introduced as “the Favor Man.”
If there’s one thing my ministry has become most recognized for over the past decades, it’s the teaching and preaching about God’s favor. I’ve taught people all over the world the importance of declaring God’s favor out loud on a consistent basis. It’s not enough simply to think about God’s favor; the way we tap into it is by declaring it out loud—just like I did on that airplane.
Now, you would think that with so much recognition and so many opportunities to teach about the favor of God, the Favor Man himself would never allow his application of such a significant revelation to fall by the wayside. But that’s exactly what happened to me. I didn’t do it consciously, but at some point I stopped being consistent with my confession. I thought a lot about the favor of God, but I was not declaring it as I once had done. As a result, the victories I experienced were not as consistent as they had been in the past, and my battles of faith lasted a lot longer than they should have.
When I sought the Lord about this, He reminded me that I had let the revelation of His favor fade from the forefront of my attention and practice. He said, “You’re not declaring My favor on your life as consistently as you once did, and consequently, you’re not experiencing as many extraordinary things happening in your life.”
Notice that God didn’t tell me I needed some new revelation that nobody had ever heard. Instead, He pointed me back to a truth He had already revealed to me—one that I had let slip. The apostle Paul said, “We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip” (Heb. 2:1, KJV). In modern-day vernacular, Paul is saying that we need to get back to the basics.
Imagine the coach of a once-proud professional football team that started a season with four losses and no wins taking his team to the locker room and saying, “Gentlemen, I’ve discovered what’s missing; I know why we’re losing. We need to come up with a play that nobody’s ever seen before.” You and I both know that’s not what it’s going to take to make that team a winner again. I’ll tell you what the coach is going to do. He’s going to take his team to the locker room, pull out the chalkboard, and point his players back to the basics.
I recently watched a documentary about Vince Lombardi, the famous coach of the Green Bay Packers who led his team to back-to-back league championships and two Super Bowl victories. Lombardi never had a losing season as a head coach in the NFL, perhaps, in part, because he began each new season by holding up the football and saying to his team, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” In doing so, he was preventing his players from ever assuming that the basics were not relevant. It didn’t matter that these seasoned athletes had won the Super Bowl; Lombardi still always started with the most fundamental truth about the game: “Gentlemen, this is a football.” Then he went on to the Xs and Os—to blocking, tackling, passing and receiving—making the players go through these essentials over and over again.
He told them, “I know I can’t reach perfection, but you will learn how to strive forth like never before under my leadership. And as a result, we will get as close to perfection as we can.” Lombardi’s insistence on sticking with the basics enabled him to achieve a winning percentage of almost 74 percent in the regular season and an astounding 90 percent in the postseason.
As impressive as these statistics are, his success on the field is not Lombardi’s greatest legacy. At his funeral, one of his former players eulogized him with these words: “He not only taught us how to win at football; he taught us how to be winners in life.”
In Psalm 30:5, we read that God’s favor “is for life.” God wants us to be winners throughout our entire lives, which is why He has given us His favor. As believers, this lifetime of favor is one of our biggest assets, but we’ll never achieve the victories God has in store for us if we don’t tap into that favor.
My purpose in writing this book is to help you take hold of the favor of God that is already yours. We’ll begin by laying a basic foundation concerning the heritage of favor that is ours as believers. Next, we’ll learn how becoming favor-minded and being consistently obedient to speak the Word of God in faith will move us to a fuller experience of favor in our everyday lives. We’ll study 10 specific benefits of God’s favor as outlined in the Bible, and I’ll share personal stories of God’s favor in operation in my own life.
Some who read this book will be going back to the basics by revisiting the revelation they received years ago, just like I did. Others will be hearing these truths for the first time. Regardless of whether you are a seasoned believer or a newcomer to the revelation of the favor of God, I can promise you one thing: You are about to experience the favor of God operating in your life like never before.
I invite you now to join me on a journey of faith as together we tap into the favor of God.
1
UNDERSTANDING GOD’S FAVOR
If there’s one thing that has blessed me more than anything else over my 40 years of ministry, it’s the revelation I’ve received about walking in the favor of God.
I’ve come to understand that when I consistently declare the favor of God over my life, extraordinary things happen. I’m not talking about an occasional surprising occ
urrence; I mean that extraordinary things happen on almost a daily basis.
I have seen the favor of God open doors for me that no man could shut. I have received preferential treatment in matters ranging from the mundane to the astonishing. I have witnessed God’s favor change rules, regulations and policies, when necessary, to get me exactly where God wanted me to be. Having seen the favor of God work so powerfully in my own life, I can assure you that it will bring you through even the toughest times and the most overwhelming of circumstances.
The New King James Bible identifies Psalm 102 as “a Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the LORD.” The psalmist begins, “Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come to You. Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my trouble; incline Your ear to me; in the day that I call, answer me speedily” (vv. 1-2). He gets right to the point with God, doesn’t he? To paraphrase, he’s saying, “God, I need an answer fast. Don’t talk to me about being patient; I need to hear from you, and I need to hear from you now.”
The psalmist goes on to say,
For my days are consumed like smoke,
and my bones are burned like a hearth.
My heart is stricken and withered like grass,
so that I forget to eat my bread.
Because of the sound of my groaning
my bones cling to my skin.
I am like a pelican of the wilderness;
I am like an owl of the desert.
I lie awake,
and am like a sparrow alone on the housetop.
My enemies reproach me all day long;
those who deride me swear an oath against me
(Ps. 102:3-8).
This man was in a situation where not only were his enemies coming against him, but other people were also mad at him. Things had gotten so bad that he was unable to make it through the day without weeping. The trial he was going through was so consuming that it stayed on his mind 24 hours a day.
Oftentimes when we’re in the midst of a trial, the problem we’re facing becomes so overwhelming that we forget our covenant with God. As a result, we become problem-minded rather than being solution-minded. The psalmist apparently struggled with this same tendency:
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