Jerry L. Woodard
God’s promises were never meant to stay in the third person
Six books on taking what God has already said in Christ and learning to say it back — until it stops being something you read and becomes something you know.
2 Timothy 1:7 (AMP)
For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control].
God has not given me fear. He has given me power, love, and a sound mind.
That is the whole method. The verse above is what God said. The line beneath it is that same promise, spoken in the first person by someone it was written to. Nothing is added, and nothing is claimed that Scripture has not already promised.
And the power is not in the repetition, or in the one repeating it. Christ is the foundation. The Holy Spirit is the One who transforms. Scripture is His instrument, faith is our response, and obedience is the fruit. Saying a promise aloud does not create it — it agrees with what God has already spoken, and holds it in front of the mind long enough for the Spirit to press it into the places that still argue back.
Which is why the meaning comes first. Every passage says what it says in its own context, and no declaration should ask a verse to promise more than it does. Understanding the text is a step in the method, not a preliminary to it.
Read the gospel all of this rests on →
Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
What do you need today?
Start with what speaks to where you are right now. Each of these books meets a different need and offers a practical way to put Scripture into action.
I want to make Scripture personal
Learn the method itself, taught through a story.
Turn Bible Verses Into Affirmations →
I need daily structure
A year of affirmations, reflections and one step a day.
I want deeper foundations
Salvation, love, faith, forgiveness, grace and wisdom.
I want to apply it to everyday life
Two hundred affirmations across ten areas of life.
I want to renew my thinking
The cycle behind your thoughts, and where to break it.
I need emotional healing
Fear, shame, anger, grief, envy, rejection, guilt.
The author
Jerry L. Woodard
He grew up in church, loving God and His Word, and spent years unable to explain why his own mind kept wanting other things. The distance between what he believed and what he actually did made real messes more than once. That is what sent him looking.
He found half the answer in John Assaraf’s The Answer, which described where wants and desires actually live — beneath the decisions a person believes they are making. The other half he already had on his shelf. If the subconscious learns by repetition, it can be handed Scripture instead of whatever the world has been feeding it.
Thirty-eight years of studying the mind, six published books, and two more still being written. He serves as an associate minister at First Baptist Church of Delair. He is still learning, and says so.
The series
Six books published. Five belong to the series.
Living by the Word is a seven-part series built to move you from understanding the method to putting it into practice — one principle, one decision, and one day at a time. Five of those seven are written. The sixth published book, Breaking Strongholds of the Soul, sits outside the series and reads on its own.
Living by the Word 