Dr. Jim Richards

Knowing God as Father is essential to a life of prayer. Unfortunately we tend to use the word Father with little realization of what it means in our lives. If God is our Father and we are His children and heirs, then everything about our approach to God changes! As heirs we already know that all He has is ours. This is the end of questioning, pleading, or seeking to determine if God is willing. This is the very reason Jesus taught us to connect to God as Father before we deal with any of our needs. Join me this week in Impact CyberChurch and discover the freedom of Knowing God as Father.

Struggling to have a prayer life? It seems that the majority of believers struggle to have a meaningful prayer life! Everyone wants to connect with God, but religion has made it so complicated, mystical, and legalistic that it is nearly impossible to have a loving, faith-filled, and vibrant prayer life. But no more! Starting this week I will help you move into New Covenant prayer based on the finished work of Jesus. No more legalism, no more toiling… just praying and getting results! Join me this week in Impact CyberChurch for Effective, Fervent Prayer!

Of all the truth religion leaves out, omitting the truth about the heart may be the most destructive. Until faith is alive in our heart it’s only intellectualism. Nothing with God is real if our heart isn’t involved. When faith in the heart isn’t involved godliness turns to works righteousness, truth turns into the doctrine of men, and love becomes selfish manipulation! Everything in our walk with God loses its foundation of power in our lives until it’s embraced with faith in the heart. Yet, when the heart is involved we open the door to the eternal and we connect with God on a level that can’t be intellectually grasped. Faith in the heart moves us to immovable, miracle-working, mountain-moving faith. This week in Impact CyberChurch I want to introduce you to the secret of Faith in the Heart; it will change the way you walk with God!

Perfect faith is what we all long for. It’s the kind of faith that believes and remains immovable until it actually sees the manifestation. Perfect faith has many undergirding components, and the very first is patience. Patience is the ability to endure. When taken within the context of its use in Scripture it’s the ability to endure under pressure without wavering. Pressure is what causes us to waver: When wavering we have moments of complete trust in God and then we move to questioning or even fear. The Scripture is very clear that a person who “wavers” lacks the capacity to “take hold of” that for which they believe. This week in Impact CyberChurch we will discover God’s incredible instructions for Moving from Dead Faith to Perfect Faith.

One of the greatest misunderstandings of New Covenant faith lies in the Old Covenant idea that we are attempting to believe so God will give us something instead of believing what God has already given us in Christ! So, the greatest struggle of faith isn't, “What can I get from God?” The greatest struggle of faith is, “Do I believe what I already have in Christ?” I don't need to get healed, I need to let go of the beliefs I have about trying to get healing. My so-called faith, to get anything from God, is actually a testament to my lack of belief in what was freely given at the cross. Everything we need for life and godliness was given freely at the cross. New Covenant faith believes in what we have been given, and Old Covenant faith tries to get something to be given. Join me this week in Impact CyberChurch as we talk about The Finished Work of Jesus; make the shift from Old Covenant faith to New Covenant faith and start enjoying the life God has freely given.

Faith doesn’t begin by trying to believe what God will do. The beginning of faith is who God is! Religion has twisted the image of God to such a degree that people read the Bible and still can’t see the obvious truth: God is good and only good! While many seek special revelation to understand God, the true disciple looks to His Word. His Word is light, i.e. the revelation of His character and nature, His wisdom and all that we need to know to live life at its best! Join me in Impact CyberChurch this week and let’s examine Faith and the Word of God. You’re going to discover a new value and comfort in God’s Word like never before.

The first law of getting whole and well is to stop killing yourself! It does no good to learn everything you need to know about being whole if you insist on destroying your life. The thing that causes us to never find wholeness for our heart is rooted in the thoughts, imaginations, and beliefs where we see, experience, and imagine ourselves as less than God says we are. When you see yourself the way God sees you, you will walk out of the prison of your past. This week in Impact CyberChurch I will help you recover sight of who you really are in Christ!

Religion places inordinate emphasis on getting right. It presents the idea that God cannot and will not love and accept you until you “get right.” Then they provide their own personal list of what it will take to get right with God. God the loving Father, on the other hand, sent Jesus so we could get whole. Everything God desires to do in your life emerges from wholeness. Join me in Impact CyberChurch this week and finally break free from the demand to get right by your works, and discover the loving journey of getting whole!

Everyone has their own personal past that robs us of the future God desires for us to have. Join me this week for Impact CyberChurch as I share some of my personal history. I will share how I came to believe I was unlovable and destroyed every relationship I had until the Love of God made me whole. This week I will help you find the path to a life of wholeness through the love of God!

Walking with Jesus is not a journey of testing and hardship from God. It is a journey of healing and restoration. In the Old Testament Jesus was presented as a Shepherd who desires to restore our soul: our thinking and emotions. In the New Testament we are told He wants our soul to prosper; He wants to heal our broken heart. Our highest call is to be in an intimate relationship with our Father and Creator. That can only happen when we are made whole through His healing love! Join me this week in Impact CyberChurch and let’s make the journey into the restoration of our soul!

We don’t see with our eyes; we see with our brain. Our brain interprets the images that come through the eyes and we believe that to be reality. Likewise, we don’t perceive with our brain. Our five senses receive data from the outside world that is interpreted by our heart. That perception of the world is what drives all of our reactions to the world. A person suffering from PTSD (no matter how moderate or extreme) is reacting to a world that only exists in their perception. When our perception is different than reality our reaction is always inappropriate. Those dealing with past emotional pain are never capable of dealing with the present. Their inappropriate reactions to the present are not based on what is happening in the present, but based on the perceptions of a broken heart. According to Jesus, the prison of the brokenhearted is a prison of perception. Join me and others all around the world this week in Impact CyberChurch as I help you find freedom from The Prison of Perception. When your broke

The Bible describes the fruit of a broken heart as a person in the darkness of a prison whose doors have been open but, because of their inability to properly perceive the world around them, they don’t realize that freedom is theirs. In other words, they succumb to a false perception. This is spiritual PTSD. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that “...the heart is deceitful…” That word literally means “covered with footprints.” As such, it becomes wicked, i.e. chaotic and beyond knowing. This is a picture of someone who has experienced so much pain from past trauma that they have no capacity to know themselves or know the world around them as it truly is. Jesus also said He came to proclaim the Year of Jubilee. In the Old Testament this was a reference to all financial debts being paid. In the context of the New Covenant this refers to all our emotional debt, all of our sin, and all that brings us death and pain being paid off completely. Join me this week in Impact’s CyberChurch as I share the good news of Healing t

Emotional debt is all unresolved pain of our past that is deposited into our cellular memory and subconsciously controls our life! Everyone is making payments on their emotional debt. When we have the opportunity for happiness, success, and fulfillment those buried traumas arise and destroy that opportunity. Lost opportunities are the payments we make on our unresolved pain of the past. The new trauma is like the interest on a credit card, no matter how often we pay, we just can’t pay it off! When you find yourself sabotaging current opportunities you can be sure you are dealing with past pain. This repeated process will destroy your capacity to be the person you want to be, live the life you want to live and have any hope for the future. Join me and tens of thousands of others around the world in Impact CyberChurch as I share insight into Freedom from Emotional Suicide.

The ultimate devastation of any form of PTSD is that the person loses the ability to be themselves. Whether your PTSD is from the trauma of war, a failed marriage, sexual abuse or rejection, the result is the same: loss of your true identity! The heart is the real you. It is the seat of all deep feelings and beliefs and it is the combining of spirit and soul that comprises your true identity. As such, it is the seat of self-awareness; therefore, it is impossible to see ourselves as God sees us when our heart is broken, i.e. when we are suffering from spiritual PTSD. Join me in Impact CyberChurch this week as I share Spiritual Healing for PTSD. I want to help take you beyond the pain of PTSD to the ultimate healing: recovering your true identity!

Everyone has pain from their past that negatively affects their life. Jesus called this a “broken heart.” In fact, dealing with healing the broken heart was so important it was the very first message Jesus preached when beginning His ministry. A broken heart is a form of what we call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is when a trauma of the past causes us to react to current situations in ways that are irrational and destructive to our present life. Join me this week as I share about overcoming the pain of the past in my new Impact CyberChurch message Emotional PTSD! I want to help you leave the past behind and enjoy the future God promised!

For eight weeks I have been equipping you to make the ultimate core decision that would guide every aspect of your life: choose the life and blessings of God! If you have missed any of these messages go to our website and watch all eight messages. If you want to learn even more and get all the tools to make this transition, check out The Supernatural Power of Making Decisions. In this last message I will help you identify the ultimate culprit that constantly works to undermine your faith and confidence: unworthiness. Nothing creates more powerful limiting emotions as feeling unworthy! Unworthiness, like many other destructive emotions, is buried so deeply in our subconscious that we only know it’s there in the moments when facing imminent danger. I want to give you some exercises to help you determine if unworthiness is, in fact, stealing the life God has promised in Jesus. Then I want to show you how to move past this spiritual cancer! When unworthiness has lost its hold it is just a matter of Stepping

When Jesus told the Jews they were blind they became irate. We read it and wonder why they were so closed; yet, when someone implies that we don’t really see the truth we react in a very similar manner. The concept of being blind doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t see anything; it can mean our sight or perception is blurred or darkened. The truth is we are all partially blinded by our past. Many of the truths we do see we only see partially. In many instances we know a truth intellectually but we have never been able to move to a place where it actually benefits our life. The main thing that limits our perception and ultimately our understanding is our past experiences. We interpret the present by our past. We limit God’s promises based on past successes, failures, and painful experiences. Our past creates an emotional loop that causes us to see the world and life a certain way. This limited view affects our choices which falsely validate our perception. It is a cycle few believers ever overcome. Join me this

Religion has tried to make us believe there is some special unique time in the future when all the factors are aligned, you have jumped through all the religious hoops and suddenly you find yourself in the perfect timing of God; then He will finally answer your prayer or meet your need. This type of thinking removes our focus from the Lord Jesus and His finished work to an endless pursuit of an elusive, nondescript, undefinable moment when it is safe to trust God. This entire concept of the timing of God is contradictory to the New Covenant which says: now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2). Sadly, we have reduced the word “salvation” to only apply to the “born again” experience. But salvation includes everything Jesus did for us on the cross: saved, healed, delivered, blessed, prospered, protected, set apart, and everything else included in our joint inheritance with Jesus. This means we are never waiting on God; He is always waiting on us to move from hope to fait

All too often we want to believe God but we find ourselves in the same place as the man who said, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” In other words, we do believe but we aren’t fully persuaded. We believe but we find ourselves wavering from time to time. We would realize this as a very normal part of the journey into unwavering faith except for one thing. For a half century we were told that we could not admit our unbelief because it was a bad confession. What a dilemma! I’m struggling with my faith but I can’t admit it because to do so would destroy what faith I have! It is exactly this kind of pop-theology that has driven people away from faith and into deeply conflicting doctrinal delusion. We must be comfortable with where we are in the journey of faith about any given issue. God does not condemn us when we haven’t reached the place of immovable faith. In fact, the Bible shows us that He will lead us on a journey of persuading our heart. Abraham, the Father of Faith, spent somewhere between 25 and 37 ye

Sadly, we have been influenced to make decisions and resolutions around behavior alone. We decide to do or not do something with the hope of improving our lives. At least 25% of New Year’s resolutions are broken in the first week, many within the first 24 hours! Why do we find ourselves going back to the same behavior when we so desperately want to experience change? Maybe after we decide the behavior we need to decide if we want to be the person who can live that behavior. Jesus taught us to count the cost of our decisions. The cost we do not factor into most of our choices and the primary decision we must make is, “Do I want to be the person who lives in a way that supports this behavior change?” The question, “Who do I want to be?” must be answered before the question, “What do I want to do?” If you cannot see yourself being the person who walks in the new choices you have made, you will never be able to live those choices. Join me this week as we discover the biblical reality that our identity must prece