Believe That You Can: Moving with Faith and Tenacity to the Dream God Has Given You

Jentezen Franklin is a God-sized dreamer! His book Believe That You Can will inspire you to dream bigger than you’ve ever dreamed before and equip you to achieve everything God has planned for you.

—CRAIG GROESCHEL

SENIOR PASTOR, LIFECHURCH.TV

AUTHOR, CHAZOWN

There’s something incredible about discovering your God-breathed dream and destiny, but more powerful still is pursuing it with your whole heart. Jentezen Franklin is a great friend, an inspiring teacher, and a fellow dreamer. His wisdom and experience gained in pursuit of the amazing call on his life will inspire you to realize the divinely implanted dream God has placed in you!

—BRIAN HOUSTON

SENIOR PASTOR, HILLSONG CHURCH

Jentezen does an exceptional job of revealing the riveting truth and severity of God-given dreams and the vital role they play in you fulfilling your destiny. Wherever you are in your journey, this book will empower you to embrace the process, keep climbing the mountain, and be reassured that He is building character, faith, and strength in you along the way. It’s biblical, relational, and practical in its entirety and will impact you to the core.

—JOHN BEVERE

AUTHOR/SPEAKER

MESSENGER INTERNATIONAL

Nothing is more important, after you come to know Jesus Christ, than to get God’s dream for your life. It’s the reason you exist and your purpose for living. When you don’t have it, you just drift around. It’s only when you discover why God made you and what He wants you to do with your life that God makes sense. God shapes our dreams, and then they shape us.

—RICK WARREN

PASTOR, SADDLEBACK CHURCH

AUTHOR, THE PURPOSE-DRIVEN LIFE

If you need encouragement to keep your dreams alive, empowerment to bring your dreams to full fruition, or if you need to be reminded that God is faithful and you are not forgotten, then this book is for you. Prepare to be blessed, expect your life to change, and watch your God-given dreams come true while reading these anointed pages written by God’s man and servant Jentezen Franklin.

—CECE WINANS

AWARD-WINNING GOSPEL RECORDING ARTIST

MOST CHARISMA HOUSE BOOK GROUP products are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchase for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. For details, write Charisma House Book Group, 600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, Florida 32746, or telephone (407) 333-0600.

BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN by Jentezen Franklin

Published by Charisma House

Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group

600 Rinehart Road

Lake Mary, Florida 32746

www.charismahouse.com

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked NASU are from the New American Standard Bible—Updated Edition, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., publishers. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked THE MESSAGE are from The Message: The Bible in Contemporary English, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Design Director: Bill Johnson

Cover Designer: Justin Evans

Copyright © 2008 by Jentezen Franklin

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Franklin, Jentezen, 1962-

   Believe that you can / Jentzen Franklin. -- 1st ed.

         p. cm.

   Includes bibliographical references.

   ISBN 978-1-59979-348-1

  1. Dreams--Religious aspects--Christianity. 2. Visions. 3. Success--Religious aspects--Christianity. 4. Vocation--Christianity. I. Title.

   BR115.D74F73 2008

   248.4--dc22

                                                            2008033596

E-ISBN: 978-1-59979-537-9

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Who’s Been Dumping on Your Dream?

1 Write the Vision

Your dream is a very specific vision for a very specific outcome. Your dream is powerful because it comes from God. Write it down as soon as you can, and keep track of it.

2 Discovering Your Mission in Life

Dreams that are from God go through a process of birth, death, and resurrection. Let the biblical story of Joseph remind you of the stages of the journey of your dream.

3 You Will Come to Vision

A vision from God will stop you, send you, strengthen you, and stretch you. Keep standing on the revelation every step of the way. God will build your confidence the same way He helped Gideon see himself with new eyes.

4 Take Hold of Your Dream

God will make sure you find your dream and destiny. The stages of discovery are: I thought it. I caught it. I bought it. I sought it. I got it. I taught it! Here is how to hang on tightly to it once you have it, lest doubts and fears loosen your hold on your dream.

5 Unfolding Your Dream

Fulfilling your dream is an unfolding process. It may be fast or slow, and your initial passion and favor may give way to a time of testing and difficulty. Keep looking to God. He will bring you through to the fulfillment of your destiny.

6 Making Assets of Your Liabilities

New strength will arise from your times of testing. Often your liabilities will become your assets as your weakness is converted into God’s strength. Here is how to persevere past the limitations and hindrances that will come against you.

7 Living in the Faith Zone

God will use your circumstances to keep you living in the faith zone. He will show you how to break through every barrier. Learn three secrets to success from the Old Testament farmer Shamgar: start where you are; use what you have; do what you can.

8 Don’t Let Go of Your Dream

Caleb said, That’s my mountain, and he held on to his dream for forty years of wilderness wandering. Although he was realistic, he had no fear of the giants in the land, and he never wavered in his vision.

9 Keep Climbing

To fulfill the vision God gives us for our lives, we have to break through old ways of thinking and acting. Be a mountain climber, not a camper or a quitter, and you will conquer your mountain!

10 Never Doubt Your Vision

If God has His hand on your vision, you never need to second-guess it. Don’t be discouraged or despise small beginnings. He may need to adjust your assumptions and your motives, but with His help, you can learn the sure signs of a true vision from God.

11 Never Too Old

You’re never too old to dream. Consider all of the people who did not start following their dreams until they were old. Regardless of your circumstances, you can shoot your arrows of faith and praise and see amazing results.

12 Put Away Your Measuring Stick

God created you for a high call. Do not ever put limits on what God can do. Believe you can fulfill His high call on your life. You can do it!

Notes

Acknowledgments

IWANT TO EXTEND A SPECIAL THANK-YOU TO my precious wife, Cherise, and our five wonderful children. Because of your love and support, I believe that I can.

Thank you also to those who have labored to make this work possible: Richie Hughes, my staff, and the Charisma House team.

And finally, thank you to the faithful congregation of Free Chapel and all of the Kingdom Connection partners. All things are possible to those who believe.

Introduction

WHO’S BEEN DUMPING ON YOUR DREAM?

IHEARD A STORY ABOUT A COUPLE IN Southern California who lived in the foothills of the mountains. One day as they were hiking through a canyon, they noticed wild mushrooms growing everywhere. They decided to pick the mushrooms and take them home. They invited some friends over for a mushroom party. No, they didn’t smoke them; they cooked them. They sautéed the mushrooms, breaded them, and fried them. They made mushroom omelets, mushroom salad, and mushroom soup. They even concocted some mushroom desserts.

After dinner, as all of the guests were gathered at the table, having a great time, the host went into the kitchen with the leftovers. He had an old, lazy cat, so he decided to feed it with some scraps from the table. The cat gobbled up the mushrooms.

Some time later, the host went back into the kitchen and found the cat lying on the floor, foaming at the mouth and panting for breath. He immediately phoned the veterinarian, who advised the man that he and his dinner guests had better get to the emergency room as soon as possible to have their stomachs pumped. The vet suspected that they had picked poisoned toadstools instead of mushrooms.

After going to the hospital and having their stomachs pumped, the people finally made it back home. They made their way into the kitchen, expecting to see their cat lying lifeless on the floor. Instead, the cat was in the corner of the kitchen with a brand-new litter of kittens!

Imagine that! Have you ever felt like that? What they thought were death pains were, in reality, birth pains! It may look like your dream is foaming at the mouth and panting for its final breath, when in reality you’re closer to giving birth to your dream than you’ve ever been.

If you are discouraged and feel as though your dream is dying, don’t give up! Don’t give up too soon on your dream. It may be you’re just having birth pains, not death pains. It’s always too soon to quit. When you’ve been through hell, what’s five more yards? Keep going. Keep dreaming the dream that God has put into your heart. If it were easy, anyone could do it.

It’s always too soon to quit.

It can be the same with you and your life. You can misread the message of your circumstances and thereby miss your destiny. As you read this book, I want to equip you so that won’t happen. I want to equip you to believe that you can reach your dream.

When you begin to pursue your dream, somebody will always emerge to try to steal it. Often it will be someone who never had a dream of their own, or if they did, they abandoned it. It could even be a family member who constantly reminds you of what God couldn’t or wouldn’t do through someone like you.

The question is not can you dream, but

do you have the courage to act on it?

What do you dream about? What has God enabled you to see that does not yet exist? You will never outdream God! Listen: God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! (Eph. 3:20, THE MESSAGE).

God loves dreamers. He’s the giver of new dreams and the mender of broken ones. When you dream, you move closer to the way He sees things. In that moment, you rise above your limitations; you move from where you are to where He wants you to be. In other words, you begin to see your goals in their completed state. The question is not can you dream, but do you have the courage to act on it? Is there a dream in your heart? Has life buried it? Have others told you it’s too late? Don’t you believe it!

Pursue your dream no matter how far-fetched it may seem, for dreams are like children—they’re your offspring. They’re the joy of your present and the hope of your future. Protect them! Feed them! Encourage them to grow, because as long as you have a dream, you’ll never be old! I’m talking about a God-given dream that leads to God-honoring results. God has a dream for you, and if you will seek Him, He will reveal it.

Your dreams usually won’t arrive with the sound of blaring trumpets. You can miss them. They are very fragile. They tend to come very gently, and they may grow very slowly. Dreams are almost like a divine mist, and one harsh breath from some critic can dissolve it. All it takes is one negative word from a cynical person to crush a dream.

You need to be careful of dream assassins. Make sure you’re not assassinating your own dream, because you may be your own worst critic. It’s OK to talk to yourself, but not at yourself. Be careful not to talk yourself out of your dream. Instead, talk yourself into it. Believe that you can fulfill your dream, and you will!

Are you in a bad marriage? You can ask God to give you a vision for a healed marriage. Do you have money trouble? Dream for something better than being messed up financially for the rest of your life.

I use the words dream and vision interchangeably, and both of them are related to your destiny. The book you are holding will help you steer as you move along the journey of your dream. My dream is to help you unlock your dreams, and my prayer is that you will step out in faith to claim your destiny.

God is a dreamer too.

You are never more like God than when you’re dreaming, because God is a dreamer from the beginning. His nature is in you, and that’s why you can look at something that appears to be nothing going nowhere and believe in it. God makes things out of nothing, and He has passed on to you the ability to do the same thing—to make something out of what you cannot see. Faith is reaching up and grabbing hold of nothing and holding on until it becomes something. Dreaming things into existence is God’s specialty. It shall be even though it is not is the very nature of the God who created you in His likeness.

He created you and me so that He could bring His kingdom to the world. He inspires and energizes our dreams so that He can accomplish what He wants to accomplish. He looks for people anywhere who will take seriously the dreams that He has placed in their hearts, believing that all things are truly possible with this God of the dream.

Be careful not to talk yourself out of your dream. Instead, talk yourself into it. Believe that you can fulfill your dream, and you will!

You may have a dream to become the greatest musician in the world, or to start your own business, or to become a professional athlete or a doctor or a lawyer. If the Holy Spirit has gifted you, and if you spend time with Him and He empowers you to practice and become skilled, you can do it. The important thing is to spend time with God, because when you spend time with Him, He unlocks your dreams and empowers you to walk them out.

Believe that you can.

I know this works, because I’m living it myself. At one time, all I had in my life was a dream. All I had was something inside of me. Around me I didn’t have any parts of the dream yet, but something in me kept saying, It’s out there! It’s out there! It’s out there! Go after it. There’s ministry out there.

When I was single, I had the dream of a beautiful wife. And today I have a dream wife; I really do. I don’t know where I would be without my wife. I don’t know what I would do without my wife. Cherise is beautiful inside and out. With her, God has given me dream children. They’re beautiful. They’re healthy and strong. They love God, and they want to do God’s will. What more could a man ask for?

I remember almost two decades ago when the Lord called me to Gainesville, Georgia. When I drove into the city the first time, all I had was a dream. I had a dream that God would raise up a mighty church here that would be able to touch the nations for Him, where people would get saved, where deliverance would flow, and where people would be filled with God’s precious Holy Spirit.

Now I’m standing right in the middle of the fulfillment of that dream. The church is growing so fast that anything I could write about it would be outdated by the time you read it. In my finances, I’m living a dream life. I have a beautiful home. Now I have blessings all around me. Sometimes I feel like saying, Lord, I’m like those who dreamed. (I’m sure I must be the person Psalm 126:1 was written for.)

These days, I travel all over the world. I’m preaching in the nations of the world, preaching for my heroes, people whom I never dreamed I would meet, men and women of God whom I