 I want to have a serious talk with you. It's time to get serious about the call of God on your life. You know that God has called you. You know that God has gifted you. He's imparted certain abilities, certain graces in your life, and you know there's a purpose for you to fulfill. But in the meantime, what do you do while you wait for God to reveal his specific plan to you? Perhaps you feel stuck, confused, frustrated. You don't know what the next steps are, or maybe you are doing something for God right now, but you don't know how to get to the next place. Well, we're gonna talk about that. I wanna talk to you about what to do and where to begin if you're unsure of your calling. Not only are we gonna be talking about the basics of what to do and how to discover that calling and what to do while you wait, but I wanna share with you about some of the pitfalls that keep people delayed in their calling. But I want you to comment right now, and this is really a prayer that I pray often, and I want you to make it one of your life's prayers. I want you to just say this in the comment section. It's very simple, lead me, Lord. Lead me, Lord. Write that in the comment section right now. You know, we complicate things. That's what human nature does, especially when we worry and we fret and we stress over our lives and where we're going. We complicate things, and sometimes you just need to come back to simplicity. Lead me, Lord. Well, isn't that what this is about? To follow after Jesus, and after you follow after Jesus, as you walk with him along the path that is your destiny, you begin to find what God has called you to do. But you have to be following the Lord. You have to be connected to him if you are to fulfill your call. So let's begin with the first bit of wisdom I wanna give you. So you're in a place in life where maybe you don't know what God wants you to do. Maybe you don't know what the next steps are, or maybe you are doing something for God, but you're looking to get to that next place in your calling, not for self, for the sake of the kingdom, because you know God has purposed you for more. Number one, you have to devote to the basics. Now, this right here is not as flashy as some of the keys I may be giving you here tonight. This right here, many believers will overlook because the flesh looks to be entertained. The flesh looks for activity. The flesh looks for busyness, and not all activity is necessarily wrong, but sometimes we have to come to this place of stillness. You have to come back to this place of focus where we are laying a solid foundation. This is number one, you must devote to the basics. For example, if you're not in the Word, you have no business preaching it. If you don't have a prayer life, you don't belong behind a pulpit. Now, I'm not saying that you have to walk in perfection in order to be used of God, but there must be some level of devotion in your life if you are going to begin to walk effectively in your calling. You will find your calling in him. Your calling is not something that's separate from him. It's not as though you seek God and then seek your calling. No, you find your calling in him. In him, you receive life itself. In him, you receive the strength to continue. In him, you receive revelation and power and grace, but that calling is found in him. It's not as though you say, okay, I'll follow Jesus and he will lead me to my calling. No, it's in him that you find your purpose. He is the all in all. Acts chapter four, verse 13 says, the members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John. For they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus. You spend time with Jesus and that time in his presence will mark your life in evident ways. You begin to spend time with the Lord and you can't help but be transformed. You realize that all ministry, all I should say this, all true ministry is simply the overflow result of your connection with Christ himself. If ministry does not begin in his presence, it's not ministry, it's not a calling, it's a career. If it doesn't begin in his presence, it's not preaching, it's just motivational speech. If it doesn't begin in his presence, it's not a church, it's a club. If it doesn't begin in his presence, it's not the miracles that begin to cause it to grow. It's the marketing that causes it to grow. We are not pursuing career. We are pursuing calling. It's much higher than a career. And so if we are to begin well, if we are to even be set on the right path to where we can fulfill the mandate that God has placed on our lives, then we must come to this place of rest in him and the flesh doesn't like that. The flesh wants to be busy. Now again, let me balance this by saying that not all activity is wrong, but you cannot produce with activity alone any true results of the spirit. Your flesh wants to rush things. Your flesh wants to hurry up and accomplish. And there's nothing wrong with accomplishment in and of itself. There's nothing wrong with growth in and of itself. In fact, the scripture is very clear that we ought to be fruitful in our ministries. But you see, the flesh will pursue those things for the sake of the results themselves and not the Lord. And this is why we have to build a solid foundation by being grounded in him. And if we don't begin with that proper foundation, then what we build is built on instability. Please hear me now. If we do not build it on the foundation of him, then what we build is built on instability. The foundation has cracks in it, pockets of air in it that make it weak, unable to hold the structure that God wants to put in place. And so we must live by the basics. Now again, as I said, this isn't necessarily as flashy as some of the other points that I'm going to make. And often people don't like to talk about these basics of spirituality because they just require seemingly mundane, everyday commitment, just living the Christian life day by day. We so often, as believers, we so often obsess over things that just don't matter. Certain doctrines, certain questions, and I'm not saying doctrine and theology is bad. Of course we need a solid biblical study. It's one of the points I'm making here that's part of the basics is knowing the word. But we obsess over things and we worry about things that just in the big picture don't matter. And this is why we must be focused on connecting with him. It begins with abiding in the vine. It begins with resting in it. If you begin from a place of busyness and stress and angst, then that's what it's going to take to sustain whatever it is that you build. But if you begin in rest in him, if you begin with confidence in his presence, if you begin with connectivity with the Lord himself, that is what produces longevity. So by laying the foundation here early on, you are setting yourself up for longevity. I don't wanna just do a quick work, a work that comes and goes rather quickly. I wanna do something that's lasting, that affects generations, that has marks in eternity, actually bears fruit that affects people's lives and their eternities. And I know that's what you want too. And maybe you're listening to me now and you're saying, oh my goodness, as you're talking, I realize there are some cracks in my foundation. There are some pockets of air if you will that got in as the cement was drying. And I just don't know what to do now. I'm telling you now, it's never too late to begin to make it right. It's never too late to begin to make it right. His mercies are new every morning. You can begin now and say, okay, maybe I have been getting off track. Maybe I have been neglecting some of the spiritual basics. And now you recognize that it's time to get back on track. Okay, so refocus. Beating yourself up over it is not gonna help you. Letting the guilt hang over your head and shaming yourself for the next few months or weeks or whatever it may be isn't going to help you. I'll tell you what's gonna help you saying, Lord, I repent and now I'm focusing. Forgetting those things which are behind, I press on. I press on, this is focus forward. And so we must be people who are recognized as having been with Jesus. That's first and foremost. People often ask me, David, what's the secret to seeing healing and deliverance and the glory of God manifesting in the meetings? What's the secret? There's no secret. When I use the word secrets, I use it to be synonymous with the word keys or points or thoughts. The Bible is quite clear on what we should be doing. I mean, first Peter 1.16, every believer ought to be living holy. Mark 16.15, every believer ought to be evangelizing. John 4.24, every believer ought to be worshiping in spirit and in truth. First Thessalonians 5.17, every believer ought to have a prayer life. Colossians 3.16, every believer, hear me now, every believer ought to know God's word. Every believer, Luke 10.27, ought to demonstrate love. Every believer ought to serve in the church. First Peter 4.10. So there are certain basic things that we should all be doing. Don't tell me you wanna move on to the deeper things if you're not doing the more important things. Don't tell me you want to move on to building the structure if you haven't even built a solid foundation. That is your relationship with Lord. You're not wasting time. You're not wasting time. You're not losing time. You may view it in a certain fleshly perspective and say, well everyone else seems to be passing me by and I'm over here just doing nothing and forget about what everyone else is doing. Let them run their own race at their own pace. I heard one preacher say, you have to run at the pace of grace. In other words, what has God called you to run? What's the pace he wants you to go? Just stick with that. Don't look to the left or to the right and say, what are they doing over there or over here? Just focus on Jesus. Nevermind the timing. You just obey God and leave the timing to him but you have to commit to the spiritual basics. You have to begin here. Live holy, evangelize, worship, pray, know the word, demonstrate love and serve in a church. So that's number one, devote to the basics. The next bit of wisdom I want to give you here for your calling is number two, you have to detach from the world. And I am not talking about isolation and I'm not necessarily just talking about sin. I mean, I think it's rather basic to say that we as believers ought to avoid sin. In fact, we should take it a step further. Not only should you be avoiding sin, you should be avoiding temptation itself. But lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. That's a prayer to be delivered from temptation. So we ought to avoid temptation. Jesus told us to pray that we ought to be delivered from temptation. He didn't say that we should pray Lord deliver me when I put myself in tempting situations. Avoid temptation, get as far away from it as possible. Yes, in fact, that's part of the first point I was making in devoting to the basics, live holy, okay? So that's number one, but looking at number two now, detach from the world, this is different. This is not just avoiding sin. Neither is this isolation to where you drive up to some mountain, live by yourself for nine months and don't talk to anyone. I mean, you do that and it's not necessarily healthy for your spiritual life. There's a difference between going into places of solitude for a season and living a lifestyle of isolation. Those are two very different things. A lifestyle of isolation will kill your spiritual growth. Seasons of solitude, like take a weekend or a week to go in fast and pray and be by yourself, that's very different. So we're not talking about isolation but sanctification. And I'm not just talking about detaching from sin. That's very basic. I'm talking about the next step now. Now you begin to detach from the cares of this world to where you're being craves prayer more than it craves watching a movie. Where you're being craves the word more than it craves playing a video game. Where now you crave time in his presence more than you crave time with friends and family. Now listen to me very carefully because this right here can become a point of legalism if you're not careful. And I've seen it happen in the lives of many believers to where now they look at everyone around them as contaminations of their spiritual life. And that's not how we're called to live. The scripture makes it very clear that as a New Testament believers we're called to live out our faith in community. Not that we rely upon other people for salvation but we rely upon other people for encouragement, for edification. This is what God designed. It's part of how he designed the church to function. We'll just read 1 Corinthians 12-7. That's why he gave us various different gifts to edify one another. And so our spiritual gifts, our corporate prayer lives, our receiving of the word in many aspects was designed to be carried out in corporate settings with other believers. So no, I'm not saying that you have to isolate. And again, this can become a point of legalism to where now you think that any enjoyment of anything is somehow considered sin. No. What I'm saying here is that you have to live in the place that you crave the things of the spirit more than you crave the things of the world. Is it wrong to share a meal with friends? I enjoy doing that. Going out to a dinner with friends and just talking and enjoying the time together and having a good time. Is it wrong to take a vacation with my wife and daughter? No, I enjoy that. So these things aren't necessarily evil unto themselves, but bringing yourself to the place now where you're craving the spiritual more than the natural, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I mean by detachment from the world. James 4-4 says, you adulterers don't realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God. I say it again. If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Again, not isolation, but sanctification. Those who are caught up in the world never fulfill the call of God because they're too distracted. And before they know it, they've spent their whole lives on the couch scrolling through the social media feeds. Before they know it, they've spent their whole lives running in the race of financial pursuit, climbing the career ladders and trying to get those promotions and trying to get that education. Again, nothing wrong in and of themselves. There's nothing wrong with having an education. There's nothing wrong with having a successful career. There's nothing wrong with enjoying time with family and making sure that you're connecting with those around you. Nothing wrong with that. What I'm saying here is that we don't make those things the center of our existence. We don't make those things the entire purpose of what we're waking up in the morning for. I mean, think about, when you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing that comes into your mind? Is it the Lord? Is it connecting with him? Is it worship? Is it the deeper things of God? Or when you wake up, is the first thing you think about something of the world? That's a good test. Again, don't get legalistic about it. It's a good test, a good indicator to us. So we have to make sure that we are detaching from the world. Again, not isolation. Many times, people will disconnect from everyone. The body of Christ, they disconnect from all friends and family. You know, I am the church and I don't need to go to church and they say, I'm the remnant and I find often the people who claim to be the remnant are just the rebellious because they don't obey God's commands to connect with other believers. So that's number two, detach from the world. Number three, develop your character. Galatians 5.17 says, the sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the spirit wants. And the spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other so that you are not free to carry out your good intentions. You know that if you just yield to the things of the spirit, by the very nature of spiritual things, you become more like Christ. And in becoming more like Christ, you become one who will fulfill the call of God. Your gifts may be able to start a ministry, but only your character can sustain it. Now, I understand God is the one who sustains ministries and sure, he'll show mercy to people who maybe are struggling with certain issues and he'll give them time to get those things right, of course. But you know, when it comes to your character, who you are behind closed doors, who you are when no one is looking, think about what integrity actually is. It's not just being a certain way when no one else is looking, that's part of it as I just mentioned. But think more in terms of the integrity of a building, the integrity of a structure, something that's able to hold up under pressure, something that's able to be consistent despite the surroundings. That's what character is, consistency despite the circumstance. Character is consistency despite the circumstance. And so you know you ought to live holy, so what are the circumstances? Whether you're tempted or not, whether you're with others or whether you're alone, your character is consistent. When you make a commitment to something, whether you feel like it on that day, fulfilling that commitment or not, your character is consistent. You see, I think that there are many people, and I know that this may be hard to hear, but you need to hear this. There are many believers who are gifted spiritually, but emotionally and mentally they are immature. Emotionally and mentally they're insecure. Emotionally and mentally they're underdeveloped. And this manifests in many different ways. It manifests in ego, in competition, in slander of a fellow brother or sister in Christ. There's many different flaws that can begin to develop, even secret sin. The enemy is looking to destroy tomorrow's influence with today's private sin. That's for somebody watching right now. The enemy is looking to destroy tomorrow's public assignment with today's private sin. And these are the areas you have to begin to get right. Again, this is not just about sin, this is about the disposition that would cause you to choose righteousness or sin in the first place. I'm talking about your character, who you are. The true mark of a believer is not that they can cast out devils. The true mark of the believer is not that they can heal the sick. The true mark of the believer is not that they can prophesy. These things are wonderful, and we as believers ought to do these things. But it's not speaking in tongues. It's not preaching a great sermon. It's not singing with the anointing. No, the mark of the true believer is the character and the nature of Christ being developed in their lives. Kindness, gentleness, humility, self-control, love, joy, and peace. Where are these things in your life? How do these things hold up under circumstances? When you come under pressure, do you lose your joy? Do you lose your peace? Do you lose your kindness? When you come under pressure, do you lose that ability to say no to temptation? Are you inclined now to behave certain ways, develop character? Now again, these things may not be considered by many to be deep, but this is as deep as it gets. True depth is simplicity. Don't mistake complexity for depth. I think we do that with spiritual doctrine. We often mistake complexity for depth. Okay, I can map out the kingdom of hell, the ranks of demons, the ranks of angels. I can map out the throne of heaven. This is what it looks like. This is what the purpose of this thing is and that over there. And here's my chart about the end times. Here's when this event occurs, this event occurs, this event occurs, or here's my breakdown of how the spiritual gifts operate in the context of public church assembly versus the private lives of believers, right? You can have all that, that's not depth, that's complexity, that's detail, that's information. True depth is the simplicity of Christ's likeness in you. Cares about, I mean, those things are great, so I shouldn't say who cares about it, but I'm speaking in comparison, relatively speaking, who cares about those other things if your character's not fully developed? Your character can't sustain what God gives to you. And so we as believers, if we want to fulfill the call, we must develop the character of Christ. Good character is a magnet for godly purpose. I wanna say that again, please hear me. Good character, I should say Christ-like character is a magnet for godly purpose. Develop Christ-like character and your purpose will be impossible to miss. Some are so afraid of missing the call of God, not realizing that if they just develop the character of Christ in them, that it's almost impossible to miss the call of God. Please hear what I'm saying. Some believers are so terrified that they may make one mistake or miss one key moment or maybe miss one idea from heaven that will completely derail their calls. First of all, we're not that powerful to derail the purposes of God in that way. Second of all, God is more merciful than you and I could ever comprehend. And last of all, it's impossible to miss your purpose. It's nearly, I should say, it's nearly impossible to miss your calling if you've developed the character of Christ. That character nature of Christ in you is like a magnet for your purpose. It pulls you into the destiny of God. So instead of trying to manipulate the circumstances around you, instead of getting frustrated with trying to push open doors and create opportunities and develop certain connections and work overtime to meet with certain people and talk with certain people instead of asking 1,000 questions about some random doctrines of scripture, and that's good, you can study, that's fine. Those are all good things, but wait a minute, what about just developing the character of Christ? Why not just become like Jesus and in so doing, the purpose of God begins to become revealed in your life? But no, what would we rather do? We'd rather somebody prophesy over us. Here's what you're called to do specifically. And the danger of that is that we rely on someone else's revelation. And we just kind of go with it, okay, well, that's what they said, I'm gonna go, people will base their entire lives off of what some prophetic voice told them. Now, we understand that God gives his prophets, wonderful, great, they confirm a lot of things, they encourage, they exhort, that's wonderful. And of course we need the prophetic ministry. Anyone who despises prophecy, I think is misaligned with scripture. They're not doing God's work if they're attacking the prophetic ministry. But what I am saying here is that you can't rely just on that. What if the prophet missed it? You're gonna go your whole life now off of that? I've known of believers who receive a prophetic word. They hang everything on that, like everything. They'll move their families, their whole life is now devoted, and they'll go years and years and years and years of struggle and trial and trying to make that happen. They come back and they say, well, I guess it didn't work. I don't know what went wrong. God spoke, we obeyed, what could have possibly gone wrong? I have to be the one to say, well, are you sure that was God? Did God really speak that to the prophetic voice? How do you know? You look at the word. You know in your own spirit. There's often this confirmation. Now, getting into the details of how to know a prophetic word that's of God from a man made one, that's a whole different message for a whole different time. The point I'm simply making here is that you have to develop the character of Christ in you because you cannot rely on exterior circumstances to help point you to the right place. You can kick down doors of opportunity, you can make connections, you can use marketing, you can use strategy, that's all great. And even if by forcing your way in, you are able to gain some traction, if you don't develop the character that's necessary, it won't last. Can I tell you, nobody is in more danger than the one who was raised too quickly. I've seen it too many times, once would be too many and it's broken my heart every single time, where somebody will be elevated too quickly and people say, well, that's God, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. And they're promoted so quickly and then they just fizzle out. The character doesn't sustain what that promotion brought. So develop your character. Number four, dedicate to service. Do something in the meantime. Matthew 23, 11 to 12 says, the greatest among you must be a servant, but those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. This generation doesn't want to serve. And I say that, I speak of the generation generically. Of course there are many exceptions to that rule and I would actually say that most generations don't understand service, at least not any recent modern times. People don't understand what service actually is. I'll say this, if you cannot serve where you are and you're not willing to do something for God right here, right now, because you're waiting for a great promotion, you're waiting for some great thing to come your way, then you have to begin to look at your motives. Because it's in the season of serving that motives are revealed. I'm heartbroken and I wanna be very careful with the way I say this because my goal here is to encourage you, not to discourage. I'll give you an example. What I've noticed lately, and this is an analogy, so it's not necessarily a spiritual analogy, but it's something I've just noticed in society. I've noticed this trend of the workforce, people who work in retail, people who work at restaurants, people who work at the market, the workforce complaining about customers wanting to be served. And it's almost like this trend online, like I don't get paid enough or who are you to ask that of me? And it's this very defensive, egocentric way of looking at it. And before I was in ministry, I worked for a catering company. Some of you didn't know that. I did a lot of videography. There was a lot of odd jobs I had before I was finally able to sustain myself through the preaching of the gospel. And so in that season, I learned you do your best and the way I respond to difficult people says more about my character than it does about theirs. So you get all these complaints of these restaurants. This is something I was talking to Steve about the other day. And again, I'm going somewhere with this. I'm searching for an analogy that can be more encouraging and I don't want to just necessarily rebuke a bunch of people tonight. You go to a restaurant and the restaurant says it closes at nine o'clock and you get there at 8.30. Oh my goodness, that staff acts like, and they'll go post tick talks about it. These people walked in late and they had a big party and they wanted to be served and they wanted their food cooked right. I'm thinking, yeah, that's what you do. You work at a restaurant. Yeah, you're a server. You're supposed to serve them. Yeah, they have expectations. That's what they should have as customers. And I'm thinking if I ran a restaurant, if I said we close at nine, we're taking customers till nine. I said, if you want to, if I would tell my staff, if you actually want to leave at nine, let's say we close at eight. So this idea of this grunt told workforce, well, I don't get paid enough or I told my boss off and everyone just applauds them. Oh, good job. I'm sure there are some situations where that's necessary. I'm sure that there are some situations where you have difficult work environments or really mean people. I'm not talking about that. But generally speaking, that's the idea in this culture where how dare you ask me to do my job? The problem is that attitude is in the church. That attitude is crept in. And that's just a sign of rebellion. That's a sign of pride. That's a sign of laziness. That's all that is. And it's crept into the church now to where people don't want to serve. You know, I have a prophetic gift. Well, you have such a strong prophetic gift, you don't have to announce it. I have the gift of discernment. If you have a gift of discernment, you don't have to announce it. And then you get these rogue prophets coming into churches. They gather a little group of people unto themselves. They say things like, well, your pastor's not as powerful as me. Your pastor doesn't preach on the prophetic like me. Your pastor doesn't talk about deliverance like me. Your pastor doesn't do this. Your pastor doesn't do merit. And people just attack, attack, attack, attack. Why? Because they're not respecting the order that God has placed in the church. And they want to bypass the process. They want to bypass the service and they want to go right to the platform. Listen, we're in ministry not for status, but for service. Which leads me to point number five. You have to deny your ego. You guard against ego. Competition, the love of fame. Goodness, people of God, preachers are servants not celebrities. Preachers are servants not celebrities. We don't go into ministry to be celebrated. We don't go into ministry to be looked at as important. We don't go into ministry so that others can say, look how spiritual they are. This is a warped view of what God intended. Ministry is service is what it means. It means to serve, to minister. You're serving others. They're important to God. They're God's sheep. And when you see, when I look out at those crowds that come to the services that we do around the world, and I see their faces, I know that I've been given a heavy responsibility from heaven and that those people were put there not so I can stand up there and go look at how wonderful I am, but so that I could minister God's power to them because they need it. Because they need breakthrough. They need healing. They need deliverance. They need the word. And we as servants of God, we minister that. And I'm not just talking about pulpit ministry. This can apply to any ministry where there can be competition, where there can be self-centeredness. And we have to move beyond that. Matthew 16, 24 says, then Jesus said to his disciples, if any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross and follow me. And there's so much ego in the ministry today. You don't know how many times I've seen it. And even in myself, look, I'm not saying I'm perfect. I have to keep that in check in myself too. And I have to watch it daily and say, Holy Spirit, help me. Jesus, I'm clinging to you. Lord, I don't want to go down that path. And I asked the Holy Spirit to remind me every day, remind me Holy Spirit that you could just as easily raise another. You could just with just on a whim, you could take some atheists from off of the street, touch his life and bring them in and do 10 times more than you're doing with my life right now. Lord, you could raise these rocks will cry out, so to speak. And we have to keep that in proper perspective. He is God with us. What a privilege it is to serve Jesus. And I see these expressions of ego. And like you just go on social media. And so often it's about self. And you can see this in exaggerations. You can see this in the way others can brag. Not only that, you'll see it sometimes where we bring people in our circles and we all brag about each other and it's all ego. And we have to, as the church, be very careful with that. You as a servant of Christ have to be very careful because the flesh is sneaky. The flesh will creep up on you if you're not watching, if you're not subjecting that flesh. It will happen. It can happen to anyone. So we must deny ego, deny self. Number six, discover your mentors. Hebrews 13, 17 says, obey your spiritual leaders and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy and not with sorrow. That would certainly not be for your benefit. God has given to us spiritual leaders. Now spiritual leaders are called to guide, not to govern. Every believer needs these three things. They need discipleship, they need friendship, and they need mentorship. Discipleship, that's when I'm pouring into others who are coming after me in the faith. Friendship, that's somebody by your side who you can encourage them, they can encourage you. You can rebuke them, they can rebuke you. And they know you and you're close and you're like family and they're on the journey with you. And then all of us also need mentors, mentorship. People who've gone before us in the faith, we've got to get, and this comes back to the ego, by the way, because you can't find your mentors if you're filled with ego. I've been at tables with generals in the faith. When I'm with generals in the faith, I'm quiet unless I'm asking questions. Now I know some people may not like that. They may say, well, who are they and we're all equal. No, that's pride, that's pride, that's pride. And I'm not saying these generals of the faith are demanding that, but it's ego if you have an issue with that as a younger minister. Why? Because you have an opportunity there to learn. Sure, you can say things and a gracious person who is a general in the faith will probably listen to you and oh, that's wonderful, that's good. You know, they're trying to be encouraging to you. But you miss those opportunities because you think you know it all. You miss those opportunities because you think you're on a level playing field. And people of God, there are levels to the anointing, whether we like it or not. There are levels to ministry, whether we like it or not. There are levels to influence, whether we like it or not. There are levels to gifting. There are levels of spiritual authority in the kingdom of God, whether we like it or not. And this comes back to ego. And if we're not willing to acknowledge that, we'll never receive from those who've gone before us. So when I sit at a table with generals, I become a childlike. I'm listening. I'm asking questions. It's even better when I sit at the table with two generals. Then I just sit and just listen to them talk. And you know, they're gracious. They're kind of every so often. What do you think? What are your thoughts? And I just put it right back on them. You know, here's my thoughts, but what are your thoughts? I wanna hear what you have to say. And I think that that's a good posture to have. You gotta find your mentors. You gotta find people from which you'll receive this idea that, you know, well, we all have the anointing. We all have the Holy Spirit. Yes, that's true, but it's also true that we can learn from others. It's also true that there's great value in asking questions from those, of those I should say, who've gone before us. So discover your mentors. Who are they? And usually you'll be drawn to mentors who are fulfilling a similar call of God that you have. In other words, if you're called to the healing ministry, you're gonna be drawn to people who are in the healing ministry. If you sense a call of God to teach on the Holy Spirit, you're gonna be drawn to people who teach on the Holy Spirit and so forth. If you feel called to be an evangelist, you're gonna feel drawn to evangelists and so forth with all other gifts and leadership offices. So number one, devote to the basics. Number two, detach from the world. Number three, develop your character. Number four, dedicate to service. Number five, deny your ego. Number six, discover your mentors. By the way, if you were offended when I said that there are levels to the anointing, that's an ego problem. If you are offended when I say that there are levels to spiritual authority, that's an ego problem. You know why? You don't like the idea that someone else has more than you. You don't like the idea that you can learn from someone else, that you can benefit from being guided spiritually. And this is just Bible. That's what the Bible says. So number seven, determine your message. Romans 12, four through six says, just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. We are many bodies, we are many parts of one body, excuse me, and we all belong to each other. In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. So here the scripture is talking about the fact that we've all been given areas of grace. We've all been given certain giftings that will help us to fulfill certain purposes within the kingdom of God. Now, let me be clear. Every single believer is called to preach the gospel, that is to declare the message of salvation through Christ by putting our faith in him. That's, of course, every believer ought to evangelize in that sense. But as you'll find with ministry, there are certain areas of grace that God will give the different individuals. For example, some have been given a grace to work with orphans. Now we should all support ministries that work with the poor and orphans in the widow and so forth. But you'll find that some just are drawn to that work. They're graced to work with the orphans. Others for the widow. Others are drawn to working with the homeless. Others are drawn to preaching a ministry or a message of healing. Others are drawn to emphasizing the ministry of deliverance. Others are drawn to encouragement. Others are drawn to teach on the end times. Others are drawn. And we have all these different areas of graces. Now we as the body have to celebrate these because there's this thing called a what aboutism. You'll see it on social media. So for example, if I write something like, there's joy and peace in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Simple phrase, it's absolutely true. You look at the comment section, someone will say, yes, brother David, but don't forget there's also conviction. It's like, well, yes, there's also conviction. There's also 10,000 other things we could mention. But this is what this post is about. Or you'll say something like, we as the body of Christ have to stop making excuses and we should attend a local church. That's a true statement in and of itself. The comment section always never fails. Yes, but brother David, sometimes there are pastors who are abusive and people have to get moving from that church. Well, of course that's called what aboutism. What about, what about, what about, what about? There are always a thousand other things you could talk about. You mentioned one thing, people will point out a hundred things you didn't mention. And that's why sometimes I have to clarify, well, yes, that's true, but this is what the post is about. This is the specific point that was being made. And we do that not just with social media posts. I'm just using that as an example. We do that with ministries. All he ever does is encourage. All he ever does is talk about how God's gonna help you and how you can make it. The Bible says if a man's gift is to encourage, let him encourage. Well, all he ever talks about is hell, fire, and brimstone. All he ever talks about is the judgment of God. What does not the scripture also say to warn the wicked? Well, all that preacher ever talks about is healing or that preacher just talks about the Holy spirit or that preacher just talks about deliverance or that preacher just talks about miracles or that preacher just talks about prophecy. Okay, we understand that in the larger sense every single believer is called to preach the gospel message and we all should be fulfilling that responsibility. But that doesn't mean that we can't focus on our areas of grace, why? Because collectively, together the body of Christ ministers everything. Think about it. When someone stands before God and they've rejected the gospel, the Lord will be able to look at them and say, I sent the encouragers, I sent the hellfire and brimstone preachers, I sent the prophets, I sent the evangelists, I sent the deliverance ministers, I sent the teachers, I sent the pastors and God's gonna be able to say, I gave you many opportunities. All the while, we're busy. Well, you don't emphasize what I emphasize. Are you're forgetting this? Are you're forgetting that? Are you didn't talk enough about this? Like I have this grace to teach on the Holy spirit and leave people into encounters with the person of the Holy spirit. It's one of the great joys of my life in ministry. You know, I get more often than anything else. You talk too much about the Holy spirit. Why aren't you talking about Jesus? I'm saying, well, the Holy spirit points to Jesus. And so by talking, well, doesn't the Bible teach on the Holy spirit? That's the area I'm grace to teach in. Of course, we should teach the whole counsel of God, but you'll find more often than not, I'm talking about the Holy spirit. The same way God's given you an area of focus. You gotta determine that message. Where has God called you? Think of Paul. He was a messenger to the Gentiles. Nehemiah, what was his purpose? He was there to rebuild the walls. Moses, what was this about? With Moses, it was the Old Covenant. I think of Oral Roberts. What was his message? Healing, Catherine Coleman, the Holy spirit, a Smith Wigglesworth, faith, EM Bounds, prayer. So there are graces that God gives to each and every one of us. So myself, I'm an evangelist with a healing and teaching gift who teaches often on the Holy spirit. And by being laser focused on that, we've been able to see a lot of fruitfulness. Why? Because I know what I'm called to do. I stay on target. I focus on what God has given me to focus on. Of course, I win the loss by preaching salvation messages as we all should be doing. But in addition to that, what God has given me for the body are teachings on the Holy spirit, teachings on prayer, teachings on spiritual warfare. These are the areas of grace. So you gotta find yours. You have to find your area of grace. And again, this is not just for preachers and teachers because many of us will not be in pulpit ministry. The question is, what is your area of grace? What is that area of passion? And this is where you might be saying, well, that's what I'm watching this video for. I wanna find out. Well, you do everything I just told you to do and that will become clear. So you devote to the basics. You detach from the world, develop your character, dedicate to service, deny your ego, that's huge. Discover your mentors and determine your message. You shape all those things. It's gonna be impossible to miss your calling if you develop in all those areas. So instead of trying to focus on, well, God just give me a word, tell me specifically what I'm supposed to do because that's what many people want. And honestly, it's lazy. I'm just giving it to you straight. It's lazy. It's spiritual laziness. God, just have someone come and tell me. No, you take the time to develop spiritually, to become mature enough to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis in a way that you're led into your calling. I know that's not the easy way out. I know that's difficult. I know that's frustrating, but you do it any other way. You're taking a shortcut. Any other way you're taking a shortcut, generally speaking, and you'll find yourself in a lot of trouble. Those are dangers there. Dangers if you're not developing first what needs to be developed. Devote to the basics, detach from the world, develop your character, dedicate the service, deny your ego, discover your mentors, and determine your message. Father, I thank you that you are guiding that one receiving this now. And I pray, precious Holy Spirit, that you would give them the grace to develop an everything that was discussed right now. And I ask you to meet them right where they are. Encourage and uplift them, inspire them. Step into the fulfillment of that calling. Jesus, we honor you. May we count the cost. May we count the cost, and may we please you. Jesus, we pour out our lives before you as an offering. And our hearts cries that you would spend us for your glory. Spend us for your glory, we pray. In Jesus mighty name. Lord, deliver your people, break every bondage by praying in the name of Jesus. Every addiction, we break it now. Every bondage, be broken in Jesus name. Every demonic attack, we rebuke it now. Heal your people. Your healing virtue flow. And sense them, let them sense that healing virtue, touching them in the mighty name of Jesus. I want you to say it because you believe it. Say, amen. If you enjoyed this message, don't forget to leave a like. It helps to spread the message even further. And also make sure you subscribe to my channel. Click the notification bell when you do to receive messages on the Holy Spirit, prayer and spiritual warfare, also live streams where people are saved, healed, delivered and empowered. Now I know it's tempting to click away because the lesson has been given, prayer has been received. And often this is the part where people say, okay, I'm out of here because many people know what's coming next. And that is a biblical request. I'm asking you, the people of God, to by your own free will, participate in the furthering of the gospel through this ministry. I know it can be challenging sometimes. I myself have found myself in seasons where giving was a bit of a challenge. Where I would say, Lord, I don't know if I can do this now or Lord, why don't you ask somebody else? Or Lord, I'm not so sure that this is something I wanna do right now. We try to bargain with the Holy Spirit. So here's all I'm asking you to do. Ask the Holy Spirit how you might be able to support this ministry right now. And he'll lead many of you to become monthly partners. He'll lead many of you to give single gifts. He may lead many of you to do both. But whatever he does, I'm asking you to just obey. You know, something I've learned. What you make happen for others, God will cause others to make happen for you. And I truly believe that as you begin to give selflessly for the purpose of the gospel, for the purpose of souls, that God will begin to take note of that and even raise others to help you. We say, Lord, send someone to help me. And we want people to support our vision. We want people to help what we're doing. But then when someone says, hey, help this ministry, sometimes we hesitate not realizing it's all connected. We're all the body. And this was a tough lesson for me. I had to learn that, that I need to be generous. I need to step out in faith. I need to do for others what I wish they would do for me. And as I've done that, I've seen God prosper the ministry as I've taken steps of faith. So I'm challenging you now. Take a step of faith, obey the voice of the Holy Spirit and give a single gift or become a monthly supporter of this ministry. Go to davidhernanisministries.com slash donate to give a single gift. Go to davidhernanisministries.com slash partner to become a monthly supporter. Think of all those things that we support on a monthly basis. Gym membership, streaming services, food packages, you name it, there's a streaming service, there's a monthly fee for everything these days. Why not also support this ministry? Simple vision. We preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit through events and media. And we're asking your help with funding it. The gospel is free and we give it away for free. But the means to deliver this message on a mass scale, that's what takes resources. So I'm asking you to do that now. There's no gift so small that it doesn't count and no gift so large that we wouldn't know what to do with it. So today, help this ministry which is experiencing explosive growth, great expansion, great favor, God's hand is on this ministry. So join with the thousands around the world who support, again, davidhernanisministries.com slash donate for a single gift, davidhernanisministries.com slash partner to become a monthly supporter. You can give from anywhere in the world with most currencies and even cryptocurrency now. But if you're watching online, you tried to give it the website, it didn't work. You can also use YouTube or Facebook but do try the website first and then of course use other means of giving if you have to. Well, that is it for this message and remember until next time, nothing is impossible with God.