Editors
Voice In The Spirit of Love Praise the Lord everybody! The Bible says let everything that has breathe praise the Lord (Psalm 150:6). That means you and me! So every day we should just praise God for everything He is and everything He is doing in our lives. And with that, I am so happy to share with you that Red Wine Magazine is constantly developing. I have been pregnant spiritually with Red Wine and the magazine is growing and touching souls all over the world. So much so that we are getting ready to embark on a journey to put it into print. We would love your prayers and support. If you have stories of things God has done in your life then please share with us so we can share it with others all over the world. There are so many people dying because they don’t know God. And then there are those who are familiar with Him but are denying His power and won’t let it redeem them. So if you are redeemed and if you are reading this, you probably are, I am asking you wholeheartedly to share your stories. You are giving God the glory when you tell people what He has done for you. There is nothing better than having a relationship with God. I can tell you there is nothing better! I have lived on both sides of the fence now and this is by far the best. Thank you for reading Red Wine Magazine. I hope you are enjoying spring though we are getting ready to move into summer. Great things are ahead of you! God bless you! Dr. Diana
Dr. Diana
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Lazy The Beast Named
Executive office RED WINE Magazine, Incorporated 17503 La Cantera Parkway, Suite 104-193 San Antonio, Texas 78257
Editor-in Chief Dr. Diana Hardy
Editorial Staff Deborah Chiaravolliti
CONTENTS
5
If You are Sick You Can Be Healed Now
8
Whose Opinion Matters
9
He’s Got Your Back
10 Too Close to Victory 11
Writers Dr. Diana Hardy Erica Johnson
Graphic Design Karen Hue Gustavo
Trust Fund Baby
12 Your Faith Is Hanging In The Air
Website Design Gagan Masoun 3 I Red Wine JUNE
How I Beat Cancer
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God
has given every man the measure of
faith (Romans 12:3).
if YOU ARE Sick YOU CAN BE
Healed Now
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T
Open your heart and tell Him about what you are facing.
hese are pretty big words and a very bold statement to make. I have never met a doctor who could tell me with all certainty that I could be healed. I have met doctors that have given me ibuprofen, antibiotics and other drugs for conditions that I have gotten throughout my life. But there are some conditions that doctors just say are incurable.
Trust
I found out early that doctors are not the end all. They have book knowledge and experience with the human body. They know a lot and they do serve a real purpose. After all God made them to help us. But there are some conditions we get that doctors can’t cure like asthma or AIDS. There are some sicknesses that doctors say can never be cured like diabetes which is untrue because you can change your diet and your blood sugar can return to normal. You just have to research it and see how others have done it. They have changed their diets, stopped eating carbohydrates and started eating more fruits and vegetables and they have been able to balance their sugar; getting rid of the need to take insulin. So I am not talking today about medical science because there are clearly limitations on what doctors and science can do. I am going to be more precise for you because you may be struggling with a horrible disease that is so debilitating it has changed the course of your life. Diseases like multiple sclerosis, cancer, Parkinson’s disease. Those are things people don’t even want to talk about let alone have to face.
Here’s a pretty powerful,
bold promise
that God makes because He can do this
Him.
Spend time with God and tell Him He is the only one who can heal and will
heal
you.
I no longer suffer with chronic asthma. I developed Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) in adulthood and He healed me. I no longer have IBS. God delivered me. Will conditions try to attack your body? Yes, they often come through diet and lack of exercise and other things. But God is a healer. He goes by the name The Great Physician because there is no
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He can heal you right now if you just believe you are healed right now. You don’t need lightening to strike or any fanfare. Just have a real conversation with God about your healing and believe it! Even go and tell your family and hold on to it. And if you start to struggle in believing go to God and tell Him your faith is weak and to strengthen your faith. He will do that too! Bless you! Dr. Diana
in your life.
In Exodus 15:26, God emphatically says He is the Lord which heals you. He reveals who He is and then says He can heal you. How about that? This is a promise only God can keep. He told Israel He would not put those diseases on them like He put on the Egyptians (Exodus 15:26). In another place it says that by His stripes you were healed (Isaiah 53:5) meaning He already did what was necessary because “were” is past tense. All you have to do is claim your healing. What proof do I have? I know it because I was a very sick person since childhood. I was born sick. I had eczema and chronic asthma. And it wasn’t until I met God and started to appropriate the scriptures and believe His Word that I was able to experience healing. In fact I approached Him on Exodus 15:26 and I told Him I could believe Him for healing according to His Word and He promised me He would heal me. And He did!
We trust people every day. We trust our boss to pay us. We trust boyfriends not knowing whether they can be trusted. We trust people all the time that we shouldn’t. So why not trust God? If you believe that He is, and there is proof everywhere. The four seasons, the trees that grow, the animals you love and that love you back, all of that is God. So you have proof positive He exist.
disease He has ever failed at healing. He knows right where to target in your body to set you free from that. I have had God send angels to me to touch my body while lying in bed in horrible pain and my staff had to come around and help me. So I am reaching out to you today not because I read this in the Bible and thought it was a nice thing to say. No, I am reaching out to you because God wants to heal you and you want to be healed. What’s in the way? Your faith. If you tell me you don’t have faith, I will tell you that is not true. You have faith. The Bible says that God has given every man the measure of faith (Romans 12:3). You just choose what to believe in. You just have to make a decision to believe God and that He will hear you. Spend time with God and tell Him He is the only one who can heal and will heal you. Even if it is just 15 minutes to start with, spend dedicated time with Him every day, not while you are on the phone or watching TV. Turn everything off and go someplace private and spend time with Him and be sincere when you speak to Him.
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WHOSE
OPINION I was reading about the death of TBN co-founder Jan Crouch. We should not be sad because she is now with the Lord whom she worked tirelessly to let the whole world know about. Jan’s faith moves me even more so because God actually gave the vision for TBN to her husband, Paul Crouch. Jan really had to step out on faith and not only believe God but believe the God in her husband. That’s an extra step in the process. They started with rented cameras in a small studio with a shower curtain serving as the backdrop. And now today God uses TBN to reach millions of people all over the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what we need to remember.
Erica Johnson
Matters?
them anyway. Our opinion of anyone or anything will never out rank God’s opinion. And that’s that.
by a season of weakness or a moment of failure. Consider how God has used them and whether He continues to use them. That is what matters.
NO ONE’S
And when the temptation arises to judge or condemn, and it does try to get you, consider that you would not like to be defined by your mistakes. So celebrate God’s opinion of you and those around you and let that be the only one that matters.
opinion of you will ever out rank God’s opinion.
All kinds of comments and reports pop up about the failings and flaws, some real, some not substantiated, of people when they pass away. But I will not be moved by any of these things. The only thing that matters, the only thing that will have any real posterity is what we do for God. “But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.” (1 Corinthians 3:13-15). Paul and Jan Crouch were used by God to spread the gospel to millions of people all over the world for decades. God knows their personal successes and failures and He used
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When He wants to use you, all you have to do is yield to Him. Give no thought or worry to what people think about it. Peter cut the soldier’s ear off right in front of Jesus (John 18:10). Never occurred to Him that the same Jesus who performed miracles could have stopped the guard Himself. That same Peter denied the Lord Jesus Christ three times (John 18:15-27)! Can you imagine? One minute he tells Jesus, “Thou are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 16:16). And the next minute, every time they ask Peter if he knew the Lord, he denied Him. But Peter the Apostle is a pillar of the church and was used mightily by God despite his mistakes and moments of weak faith (Matthew 14:29-30). There’s that saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.” We will all encounter brothers and sisters in Christ, some in leadership, that have made questionable choices or even flat out screwed up. But we shouldn’t define them
Obed-Edom was fortunate enough to have the Ark of the Covenant in his home for several months. He was very, very blessed the whole time he was appointed to house the ark. So much so that when King David heard about how blessed he was, David ordered the ark to be brought to Jerusalem. But to get to those blessings, Obed-Edom had to experience a not-so-great event (2 Samuel 6:1-12). You see King
put on a play that no one came to see. On the last night of the play, he had decided if no one showed up, he was going to give up on his dream. He said a prayer and that theater started to fill up with people. That’s why the Apostle Paul tells us, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13). Depending
He’s
Got
Your back Erica Johnson
David left the Ark of the Covenant in Obed-Edom’s care because Uzzah died while trying to steady the ark. This made David insecure. He felt if a priest like Uzzah could offend the Lord, then surely someone like him would be doomed in the presence of the ark. So Obed-Edom had to walk pass the king and step over the dead body of Uzzah to get his blessing. Sometimes we have to walk pass and step over people we may love or who have been in our lives for a long time. We may have to let go of the status quo to reach our blessing. That saying, “It’s darkest before the dawn” can be quite true for anyone right before they get a major blessing from God. It can seem like everything is going wrong, going the opposite of what you have been praying for but then a shift comes and you are walking in your blessing. Abraham had to leave his home and most of his family, wander the land and eventually part ways with his nephew before he could walk in his blessings (Genesis 12). David was shunned by his family and ended up living in a cave with debtors and thieves before he could literally sit on the throne of Israel (1 Samuel 22). Media mogul Tyler Perry often shares his story that he was living out of his car and had just spent his last money to
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on who you are, you may have to go to some dark places right before you get that blessing. But know that the dark places prepare us for the pinnacles of our lives. And also remember as David said,
God is with you
whether you are in the depths of hell or the highest point of heaven (Psalm 139:8).
Just continue to believe that God has got your back. Be obedient, pray often and keep your faith no matter what the situation looks like or feels like. The Bible assures us that, “. . . Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5). Weather the storms, the ups and the downs. God will make sure the blessing on the other side is worth it. And more importantly, you will grow closer and more reliant on the One who made you and loves you unconditionally.
t o Too Close Victory Erica Johnson
Changing your mind can change your life. We often try to change our behaviors first but seem to easily slip back into behaviors we have engaged in for a long time. The change really needs to happen in our minds first.
The mind is so significant, that God tells us to get the mind of Christ
The Bible tells us that we will be like how we think (Proverbs 23:7). That’s why so many makeovers don’t last or we divest time and money in how we look but we still don’t find happiness because the real, life-changing key is changing how we think.
(Philippians 2:5).
There was a blind man in the Bible whom Jesus laid hands on (Mark 8:22-26). The man could then see but his vision wasn’t clear. He said he saw men but they looked like trees. Jesus laid hands on him again and it says that the man looked up “intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly” (Mark 8:25). The man looked intently, meaning with a firm, focused look and with determination. You see, he made a decision that he was too close to his healing to settle for blurry vision. As Jesus touched him the second time that man decided somewhere inside of him that he would see clearly. So when he opened his eyes, he focused firmly determined to see clearly. Sometimes you just have to decide to change in your mind instead of just doing things that symbolize change outwardly. Most of the time, a diet is just a set of rules that we break when we feel like it. But when you change your mind about food in and of itself and decide that certain foods are harmful to your body and make you feel bad, it becomes easier to turn them down. Once your mind is onboard, your behaviors will follow. We serve God with our minds, so that’s where the change has to happen first (Romans 7:25).
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A blessed, happy, fulfilling life can merely be one decision away for you. The best decision you can make is to follow Jesus Christ. Trust me on this. Millions of people over thousands of years have tried it and had great success. Deciding to live according to the Word of God and pursue your divine destiny is the first step to the life you have always dreamed of, it truly is an adventure. Forget everything you know about church and religion and decide to have a real, intimate relationship with God your Creator. The blind man decided he was too close to what he wanted to give up. You have to make that same decision in your own life. You are too close to victory to give up. Make the decision that you will get that blessing, that you will be healed and happy and that you will pursue the purposes and plans of God for your life. This is your opportunity to see clearly, like the former blind man. Don’t miss your chance, just make the choice today.
TRUST
Fund BABY Erica Johnson
Most people are familiar with the time Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22). Abraham packed up his stuff and his son and went to the place the Lord instructed. Just as he raised his hands to slay his son, God stopped him and spared Isaac. God instead had provided a ram in the bush for the sacrifice. But God noted that Abraham really believed in Him because he was willing to sacrifice his only son. You may think that Abraham ended up not putting anything on that altar to be sacrificed to God but he did. He put his trust. He trusted that whatever happened God was still God and he could still trust Him. So Abraham gave his trust as a sacrifice. I say it was a sacrifice because we can place our trust in anyone. We do it every day. But when we place our trust in God, it is a type of sacrifice because we could have placed that trust elsewhere, no matter how misguided the choice. I’m not sure if you have figured it out yet, but nothing we give God He actually needs. He asks us to give it and He wants us to give it but don’t be fooled into thinking He needs it. It is in fact us that need it. You see, God takes everything we give and somehow gives it back to us. He just will not be out-given by a human being.
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Every time we trust God, it goes into a trust fund for us. When you tithe, God doesn’t see your money, He sees your trust and faith in Him and His Word.
When you worship Him and praise Him, He sees it as you trust He is who He says He is. When you pray, He hears your words but all He sees is a child that trusts Him to work out the situation. When you serve Him, He sees your trust in His plans and purposes.
Every time you trust God and do it His way, a deposit goes into your trust fund. So when you face those big storms in life, you have access to the trust and the faith needed to get through the storm and come out victorious. So don’t be afraid to be a trust fund baby. People may mock you and even shun you but you must remember that every act of obedience, ever word of praise, every act of trust means something to God; so much so that He finds a way to get it back to you when you need it (Galatians 6:7). You can stand before any challenge with the confidence that God can handle it for you. You have a trust fund.
So you see whatever you give God, He makes a deposit in your trust fund. That’s why He said bring Him into remembrance. When your child is out in the streets struggling, you can access your trust fund and say, “God
We think of trust fund babies as privileged and spoiled but guess what? In God we are privileged and spoiled. God said if the birds and flowers don’t worry about how they will survive, how much more valuable are we, His children? So will He not make provisions for us as well? (Matthew 6:26).
remember when you did this for me? Well I need you to get my child and keep them safe.” When the doctor says it is cancer, tell God, “I served you before my body was afflicted and I am going to keep serving you so please heal my body so I can do it with excellence.”
You’ve been given all things that pertain to life and to godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Don’t be ashamed to tell the world you are a trust fund baby. And remind them they can be too!
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t fAI h your
is
hanging in the balance This article was not on the agenda for this issue. The reason why I am including it now is because, as I was working on the computer, the Lord said to me “faith.” I knew He wanted me to talk to you about faith because as I was thinking about the articles and writing them down, He implicitly included that as though it was missing from the list of articles. It is quite fascinating when God speaks and inserts His thoughts into your thoughts. I think that you should count it as an honor that God desires to talk to you about faith. Especially since Hebrews 11:1 tells us it is a substance. That is amazing to me because a human being did not create faith. It was
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created by the Creator which is Jehovah our Father. Only He knows what it is composed of but whatever it is, know that it is one of the keys to the kingdom. The Bible clearly states that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). So no matter what your good deeds are, you can give millions to charity, volunteer your time, be what the world calls a good person but without faith you can’t please Him. And pleasing God should be high on your agenda and if it is not high on there it is time to put it on there. Anytime God would enter my thoughts and loudly speak the word “faith”, it means that you need it.
outside of His Word or His laws. Because you are not going to get it. It is frivolous to ask for something that is against the law. Ask God for a promise He made in His word, something that is real important to you or that will take you out of the trap you are in now whether mental, physical or emotion.
If we have
faith
we are assured that the thing we believe
GOD
for we have already. In other words, it is as good as done. But it doesn’t stop there. In between your asking and believing for it, you then have to wait for it to materialize in the natural. This is where many fall short. You lose patience waiting, not trusting God that He knows how to bring to you exactly what you need. It is probably not going to come exactly the way you want it to come or how you want it to look. The process may look different but it will get you right where you want. Just cloaked along the way.
God said His thoughts are not your thoughts and His ways are not your ways (Isaiah 55:9).
But God has given to every man the measure of faith (Romans 12:3). So your faith right now is in the balance because it is either going to bring you what you want or bring you something you don’t want. What do I mean? The faith that God has given us, we often times use it to believe the wrong things or people. Faith and trust walk hand in hand and you start trusting the wrong people in your life. You know where that can go; it can bring a lot of destruction and chaos into your life. And for many it has done that already on some level. But when we put that trust and faith in God, asking Him for something and not questioning in your heart that He will do it, He will bring you that thing in the season you need it. And He is never late so you don’t have to worry that He will miss the appointment. Your faith is going to be tested throughout your walk with God. If you are not serving God, it is time to put the faith you have and trust God. You know when He says in Malachi 3:10: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” Prove me means test me. God is telling you that you can test Him. So test Him with one thing. But be sincere in your request. Don’t ask Him for something that is
Your faith
is going to be tested throughout your walk with God. If you are not serving God, it is time to put the faith you have and
trust God
When I needed a home and I had bad credit and no money, I struck a deal with God. I cut a covenant with God in other words. I told Him if He would give me a house so I could get my children out of the environment they were in NYC where drugs were being sold all around the place; I would serve Him for the rest of my life. He gave me that house shortly thereafter in 2001. I am telling you it will work if you work it. Use your faith but put it in God; don’t misplace your faith. He is trustworthy. If you invite Him into your life, which is so easy, just ask Him to come into your life and be your Lord and Savior. You have to confess with your mouth though that you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross and was resurrected on the third day. If you can believe that and invite God into your heart sincerely, He will be there for you and stick closer than a brother (Psalm 18:24). But you can’t have Him riding gunshot meaning as soon as you get what you need you forget about Him and not tell people what He has done for you. Don’t be ashamed. Jesus said if you are ashamed of Him He will be ashamed of you (Matthew 10:33).
Your faith is
priceless because it can get you in the
presence of
God, protect you, bring you wealth, health and love.
It can get your children out of trouble and reconnect your family. It can do anything you simply have to use it. It is a treasure. Don’t give it to people who don’t deserve it. Put it in God. Have an open, intelligent conversation with God. Open your heart and tell Him everything that is confronting you and what you need. And what you will do for Him. Don’t expect Him to do everything and you not be willing to love Him back and serve Him. Be three for Him and tell others about Him. That faith was put there for a reason. It is time that you get the blessings you deserve and rise up out of your dilemma. 17 I Red Wine JUNE
Lazy The Beast Named
Look at him. He looks really relaxed doesn’t he; the guy on the cover? He’s laid back chilling out, relaxed. Doesn’t look like he has a care in the world. You may wish you could be laid out like that right now. Nothing wrong with relaxation. Most of us need it with stress being so high in life and all the stress-related illnesses out there. More and more people are becoming depressed because they are stressed out about their life. Jobs, family, bills, if you are above ground you have a lot of things on your mind.
When I thought about this article I was reminded of how often we meet people and allow them in our lives. Sometimes we are looking for a significant other and we think we want to
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spend time with someone we are attracted to. At first they look great. Like the guy on the cover. He looks like he probably would be a good catch for some woman out there that is looking for a husband. But how many times have you met people and allowed them into your space only to find out it was not a good thing after all. Ladies, how many men do you know that it started out great and they knew the right things to say? And vice versa for the men as well. Imagine meeting a guy who has all the right words. He is a gentleman and opens doors for you. He is nice to you. Then you make a commitment and things go south. Then he starts being verbally and/or physically abusive. I know you didn’t see that in the beginning. And he didn’t tell you that. And for the guys, she didn’t tell you because believe it or not there are a lot of women out there that are verbally abusive to men.
Proverbs 19:15 says that laziness brings on deep sleep. Not like a coma but it means that you lose a sense of who you are because you are not doing anything. You are not living your purpose. You are not using your gifts or abilities and you cannot help anyone because you need to help yourself first. Ecclesiastes 10:18 says that through laziness the rafters or the roof sags and the house leaks because of idle hands, meaning that the elements put wear and tear on your roof so unless you take care of it eventually you will have to replace it. Unless you have a metal roof (laugh). But for most people who have a home you know if you don’t take care of your home it will slowly start to deteriorate and you will lose your investment. And it is just due to laziness. Laziness can stop you from making a simple phone call about your home.
My point is you didn’t know when you met this person they would be like that. Well the same thing happens in the realm of the spirit when we deal with all of these spirits that are in our lives. You may not believe in spirits but boy are you in for a rude awakening. First of all, you are a spirit. You are body, soul and spirit. You are a spirit with a body and you have a soul. And when you die your body goes into the ground but your spirit goes back to the One it came from which is God and He directs where it goes from there. So there are other spirits in the world. The Bible speaks of angels and spirit beings.
Laziness is something that God despises. He is the one who said if a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
The spirit I want to talk to you about is lazy because that’s his name: lazy. People say, “Oh, he’s just lazy. There’s nothing wrong with him.” But lazy is a demonic spirit. It is not a good spirit. There are only two types of spirits in the world: either they are from satan or from God. This spirit called lazy is faceless to us but he does exist. God has things to say about laziness.
life because the power of life and death is in
It is one thing to relax and take some downtime because you need it, like a vacation. Going on a three week vacation doesn’t make you lazy. A vacation is for relaxing and doing nothing if you want. But it is for the person who works and their family. It is not for the person who is lazy. Lazy is a category by itself. It means you can do nothing all day long. There are people with jobs that are lazy. They let others end up doing their work.
There are different degrees of laziness that are instigated by the spirit of lazy. People oppressed by this demon end up having those symptoms in their life. Some are lazy in areas and some are totally lazy, they just don’t work at all. They lay around the house all day.
power in you.
God does not like laziness because you will never realize all the
benefits that God has for you and you
will never help the people He wants you to help. Laziness will take you down to the grave. It stagnates and destroys your life day by day. Stop speaking it over your life and your children, family and friends. Come out of agreement with it completely. And things will begin to slowly turn around for you. Dr. Diana
So stop coming into agreement with
laziness. Stop speaking it over your your tongue (Proverbs 18:21).
So whatever you say about yourself is what is going to
manifest.
So don’t say you are
lazy.
Instead confess you are going to live according to the will of God and that you will walk in your destiny and use the gifts and talents God put inside of you. Begin to ask God to excavate the hidden treasures inside of you and start to do what you know to do. Do what your hands find to do (Ecclesiastes 9:10). For example, if you are good at cleaning, then clean. If you say you don’t have any skills and can’t get a job, put an ad in for cleaning and you’d be surprised at the response. Get some $9.99 business cards, do something, but don’t be lazy. Fight that spirit through prayer and bind that spirit over your life. Ask God to deliver you and mean it. If you are a Christian, God has invested
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