 Are you feeling frustrated with where you are in your Christianity? Do you feel that there is a tedious, tiresome effort about your spirituality? If you're struggling with holiness, with worship, with prayer, with devotion to the Word, then today on Spirit Church I want to simplify the matter for you. And I want to teach you the one thing that you need to do, the one thing that you need to guard, the one thing that you need to have, out of which all things will flow. This will simplify your spirituality and it will lift the burdens of religious thinking off of you. And I believe that today as you hear this message on the secret place that God is going to speak to you, God is going to inspire you, and the Holy Spirit is going to breathe afresh upon your spiritual walk with the Lord. I'm excited for you because I know that you're about to be refreshed and you're about to go into a deeper place, a deeper walk, and a deeper knowledge of Christ Himself. Stephen Mockezuma is here with me as usual. He's going to lead you in some worship and then we're going to get right into this lesson here on Spirit Church on Encounter TV. Here's Stephen Mockezuma. No one else can touch my heart like you do, and I can search for all eternity and find, there is none, there is none. No one else can touch my heart like you do, and I can search for all eternity. Luke chapter 10 verse number 38 where the scripture says, As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a village where a woman named Martha welcomed them into her home. Her sister Mary sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he taught. But Martha was worrying over the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me. But the Lord said to her, My dear Martha, you are so upset over all these details. There is really only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it and I won't take it away from her. What was this one thing that Mary had discovered that Martha had missed? Martha was busy with work and it could be an analogy for ministry, for our service to the Lord. It could be an analogy for all of these things we keep track of in our mind that we feel we are lacking in. You can become very discouraged when you look at the progress that you're making and find that it's not the kind of progress that you want to be making. Maybe you want to be a person of prayer and find that your prayer life is not quite where you want it to be. Maybe you want to be someone who's devoted wholeheartedly to the Word of God and you find that your devotion to the Word is lacking. Maybe you want to be someone who is a worshiper by nature, who seeks the face of God, who is aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit on a moment by moment basis. And if we're not careful, we can go down this checklist and become discouraged when we find we ourselves are not in keeping with this checklist. And we go off and we mark this thing and we take note of that thing and we criticize ourselves in one area and another. Now, to be clear, I am not against growth. I am not against self-evaluation. David the Psalmist wrote, search me, O God, and we need to have this type of openness with the Lord, where we open ourselves to the knowing eyes of the Lord, where he can see and reveal and mend and transform those things in us that need transforming. However, when the focus becomes those things, when the focus becomes our tasks, when the focus becomes this list of spiritual duties that we are to be keeping, we become like Martha. We're busy and we're so busy that we miss the whole point. Mary had discovered a fellowship with Jesus. Mary had discovered a connection with the Lord, a personal connection with Jesus. Martha had missed it. Now, what Martha was doing was not wrong in and of itself. She was preparing a meal for the Lord. Often those things that we do for the Lord, though they can distract us from the Lord, are not wrong in and of themselves. But if we're not careful, we can become so consumed with our list. We can become so consumed with the standard that we are trying to keep. And it's good to keep that standard that we fail to connect with God. And so, while I am all for holiness, while I'm all for discipline, I am all for devotion to the Word, you've heard me teach on it countless times, I must stress to you that there's one thing, one thing only that you need to cultivate, one thing, and one thing only that you need to guard, and that is the secret place. The secret place is your private time with the Lord. The secret place is your devotion to Him that is free of ambition and earthly motives. The secret place is the place that you go to connect with Jesus undistracted, that you go to connect with the Lord without an agenda. It is the place that you find the depths of the Spirit. It is the place that you find safety and security. In my own life, I found that whenever I've entered into seasons where my prayer life and my secret place began to lack, I found myself entering into old mindsets. I found fear and anxiety and sadness and heaviness tried to overtake me. And I've realized that there's only one place I'm free from those things. There is only one place I can truly go to find peace, to find joy, to find sustenance, to find spiritual strength, and that is in the presence of the Lord in the secret place. Psalm chapter 80, verse number 18 says this, So will not we go back from thee, quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. What's powerful here is that the scripture is showing that first the Lord must quicken us, and then we can call upon his name. Now, when I talk about the secret place, I'm not talking about just prayer, because the truth is that you could at any moment that you want offer a prayer to the Lord. You can at any moment that you want begin to worship the Lord. You can at any moment that you want begin to seek his face in the Word. That's the truth. And that fellowship never goes away. You are connected with the Lord 24-7. I taught on this last week on the abiding presence of God. The presence of God does not come and go in the life of the believer. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, his presence is a constant in your life. However, what I am talking about are special moments where the Lord will send to you an invitation to draw you in to a deeper place. There are seasons where God will call you upward. The scripture says that we go from glory to glory to glory. He calls us from one glory to another glory. What is glory? Well, the Father has declared you justified. The Holy Spirit makes you sanctified and the Son in you is glorified. Whenever you hear of glorification or the glory of God, it has to do with the attention and the magnification of Jesus. It has to do with the adoration of the person of Christ. So then, to go from glory to glory is to go from being like Jesus to being more like Jesus to being more like Jesus. Going from glory to glory is not blessing to blessing. It is not promotion to promotion, but Christ's likeness to Christ's likeness. So then, God will call us to these places of glory. He will call us to seasons where he takes us to a deeper level in our prayer lives. And these are things of the Spirit. Not everyone is going to understand what I am saying. Some people will say, well, what are you talking about? I don't need any more than I already have in Christ. Christ died and he gave me everything that I need. And that is true that Christ died and he finished the work and he gave you fellowship with God. But it is up to you to pursue the Lord. Why would God tell us to seek His face if He didn't need to be sought? Why would the Lord tell us to grow if there were no levels of spirituality? If you can grow in something, it means there are levels to it. I can grow in power. I can grow in favor. I can grow in ministry. I can grow in spirituality. And that tells me that there are levels. People don't like to think that there are levels, especially in this generation. We want to create an even playing field and we want to make everybody equal. And while everybody in the Spirit has the equal opportunity to pursue God to the greatest depths, not everyone will take Him up on that offer. So then God quickens us first in these special seasons. God quickens us first and then we respond. Quicken us and we will call upon Thy name. John chapter 91 verses 1 through 7 says, His truth shall be Thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, Nor for the arrow that flyeth by day, Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, Nor for the destruction that wasteeth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at Thy side, And ten thousand at Thy right hand, But it shall not come nigh thee. The scripture is talking about the protection of the Lord, being in the dwelling place of God. But the scripture says, In order to receive the benefits of the secret place, the secret place has to become a lifestyle and not an occasional visit. It says He that dwelleth in the secret place, not He who occasionally goes to the secret place. The secret place is your time alone with the Lord and He calls you to it daily. He calls you every day, He welcomes you every day and it is up to us to respond to that invitation. You have to realize that the fact that God has called us to go into the secret place and to have fellowship with Him, that fact is amazing. That He would want fellowship with us, that He would welcome us, not only after saving us, that He would welcome us into the depths of His presence. Let me tell you something. There is no substitute for the secret place. You cannot say I want to do ministry and not have a secret place. You cannot say I want to be anointed of God and not have the secret place. You can't want to preach the word with the anointing of the Holy Ghost and not be in the secret place. The secret place is the key to all things. The secret place when you cultivate that with the Lord, when you set aside that time for Him, when you choose to respond to the invitations that He has given to you, you are entering into a place of power. You are entering into a place where God can truly transform you, where God can truly make you one who is anointed for His use without the secret place where nothing. Without the secret place, we're just like Martha, running around busy with no real power, with no real connection, with no real fellowship with the Lord Himself. You want to preach sermons, you want to write songs, you want to open up ministries, you want to live the Christian life, you want to win souls to Jesus, all of it comes from the secret place. You cannot be anointed of God. You cannot be empowered by God without the secret place. There's no substitute for prayer. There is no substitute for a prayer life. People ask me all the time, Brother David, what's the key? How do I get a ministry like yours? How do I have what you have? And they look at what I call the glamor of it. They see here, I'm preaching to you on this edition of Spirit Church here on YouTube. Sometimes they'll see encounter TV on the television program. They'll come to the miracle services where they see hundreds healed, where the presence of God moves, where people come from all over, some of them fly in from different nations, some of them stand outside and wait for the doors to open, some of them drive in from hours away. And they say, I want that. I want to write books. I want to preach on platforms. I want to be on TV. But the truth is, this is not what my spirituality consists of. You take all that away, and if I didn't have that secret place, if I didn't have that connection with the Lord, what would I have? What do you think I draw from to give to you week after week, month after month? What do you think I pool from to create these lessons, to create the podcast that some of you maybe who watch this probably don't listen to? It's a whole different audience. And it's different material. Or who watch in counter TV, which again, it's different material. Or who come to the events. It's different revelation. It's fresh bread for every single thing we do as a ministry. You take all that away. I go to an event. People gather, you see those things that you love to see. But guess what? After those services, just like you, I go home. Just like you, I get in my car and I drive home. And then I'm there. Sometimes just me and the Lord. When I travel, like some of you saw when I was in the Philippines and I went and stood in front of almost 3000 people, began to declare the goodness of God to them, saw miracles happen, tumors disappearing, people walking who were unable to walk for years, hundreds getting saved, almost a thousand youth and young adults getting baptized in the power of the Holy Ghost. It's a rush, it's a charge. But then I had to leave that stage, go backstage, enter the car and go right back to the hotel room where it was just me and the Lord. And you know what? All of this, it's really nothing. What is this anyway? If I don't have the Lord. Take anything and everything from me. Give me Jesus. Take the world from me, but give me Jesus. Take the ministry from me, but give me Jesus. Without Him, I don't have an identity. Without Him, I have no power, no substance. I have nothing to give you outside of Him. This is the power of the secret place. You have to guard and cherish your time with the Lord. The Lord invites you into deeper places, places where you will be shaken to the point of awe. I understand God as our Father. I understand He's loving and He's kind and He's merciful. But God wants to take you to the place where you are shaken to your core. And that only happens in the secret place. There's no secret action that you can take. There are no shortcuts. You really do want God to use your life. That's wonderful. I'm not against that because I want God to use my life too. I want Him to continue using my life. And I'm not saying that the ministry is not important to me. I'm saying that the most important thing in my life is this secret place. If I don't have it, if I didn't have it, I would lose my mind. You may say, Brother David, how? You have no idea. I wouldn't even tell you. I would lose my mind if I didn't have the secret place. The pool on my life, the demand that is on my life, that people pool on you, I couldn't handle that on my own. It's the Lord. It has to be the Lord. There's no secret. It's just a matter of obeying God and getting into the secret place. If you don't set aside that time for the Lord, forget everything else. If you don't set aside that time for the Lord, you're done before you even get started. You are finished before you even get started. You cannot birth something in the flesh and expect it to be sustained by the Spirit. Even the starting point has to be spiritual. And so there's nobody there in that secret place to see your performance. When you pray to the Lord in secret, when you seek His face, when you set aside that time to worship Him and adore Him in that secret place, you are proving to the Lord that your faith is genuine. Why? Because there's nobody else there to see it. Why would you pray in private between just you and the Lord if you didn't believe the Lord heard you? We must guard this. We must cultivate this. And we must cherish it. The people you see most anointed of God, most powerfully used by God are the ones who spend the most time with Him intimately in the secret place. Don't seek His face with false motives. I think about Judas. Think about this. Judas knew where to find Jesus. That's how he betrayed Him. Judas used the secret place for personal gain. He betrayed the Lord with a kiss. His knowledge of where the Lord was and His worship, the kiss or His adoration of Christ was used for personal gain. There are some people who will seek God for personal gain, who will pursue that secret place for personal gain. Don't be like Judas, who seeks the presence of the Lord, who knows the secret of the Lord and abuses it. The scripture says in Psalm 25 verse 14, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him and He will show them His covenant. When you go into the secret place, when you cultivate that, that mighty and powerful relationship with the Lord, you come out of it with greater revelation. You come out of it knowing things about God. There are things I know about the Lord I won't share with any of you. Maybe I'll share it with my closest circle if the Lord permitted me, but there are some things that the Lord told me it's not even time to share yet. And these aren't necessarily things that contradict the scripture or are brand new, they're just things that are personal. But the truth is that when you go into that place, everything gets set into its proper order. You're no longer keeping track of all these things. It's no longer tedious and tiresome. It's no longer burdensome and heavy. It's no longer religious and systemized. It becomes focused and powerful. And when you focus in on that secret place, when you seek the face of Jesus with all that you are, and when you cherish your time with Him, and when you guard your time with Him, and when you become jealous over your time with Him, then you'll see all those things go into order. Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 says, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these things shall be added unto you. Jesus said the greatest command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is to love God with all that we are. When you come out of that secret place, there's a glow about you just as there was upon Moses. When you come out of that secret place, you're carrying an atmosphere with you. You become someone who people can see the presence of God on you. You're dripping with the anointing. You are saturated in the oil of the Holy Spirit. And everyone you touch and everything you come into contact with is transformed, is changed. Even when you open your mouth and talk, people get a hunger for the presence of God. That's one of the greatest markers of someone who's been in the presence of God. When they talk about the Lord, other people get hungry for Him. Other people are inspired with the holy jealousy to say, I want that too. And hopefully you want that too. Let's pray and let's believe that God will help you to discern those moments where you are to lay aside for Him. Let us pray and ask the Lord together to invite us in to say, Lord, I wanna know your presence. I want to seek your face. I want the privilege of paying the price for your presence. It's a privilege to pay that price. There is no sacrifice here because everything we give is return, tenfold, a hundredfold. There's no such thing as sacrifice. He made the sacrifice. Sure, are there things that will be difficult? Yes, but ultimately at the trade-off, it's no sacrifice. Stretch your hands toward mine and let's believe that we will be people of the presence. So Father in Jesus' name, I pray for that one watching right now, who is so hungry for your presence, who desires to see your face. I pray, Father, in the name of Jesus, that that one watching would become a steward of their time, would become one who is so hungry for your presence that they would drop everything to seek you. Lord, give us a hunger for you. Help us to see the privilege we have in prayer. Help us to seek your face. Holy Spirit, you're the only one who could give us these desires. We ask, quicken us. Quicken us and we will call upon your name. Quicken us and we will call to you. Invite us, Lord. Welcome us, Lord. Into your presence. Into greater depths. Help us, Jesus, to cherish the secret place. In your name we pray. And I want you to say it, if you agree, say amen. Well, I felt the anointing on that and I pray that it encouraged you. I wanna welcome now the new members of Spirit Church. There you are up on the screen, as I always say, because I always mean it. We love you, we are praying for you and welcome to the Spirit Family. Now, if you'd like information on how you could join Spirit Church or the Spirit Family, then go ahead and click on the link that's just about to appear over my head. If you're not watching this on YouTube, maybe you're watching a different version of this video, then that link will not appear. Instead, use the information at the bottom of the screen to manually find how you can become a member of Spirit Church. Spirit Church membership is 100% free. You are not obligated, though we ask you to become a $30 a month partner. You're not obligated to sign up to become $30 a month partner. With the Spirit Church membership, you're gonna get a brand new teaching every single Sunday sent right to your email inbox. You're gonna get prayer support. All you have to do for prayer is reply to those emails or call our prayer line and we will be in prayer with you. I'm gonna read your comments now and these comments are from the Abiding Presence of God, which was the last edition of Spirit Church. Melissa writes, this video pretty much said everything I was dealing with. Thank you, David. This video touched me. I was in tears. God bless all. Well, Melissa, I'm very happy to know that you were blessed by that lesson. Stefan writes, thank you for sharing this message. There were times in my walk with God, I felt that I am alone and there is nobody to help. But this message really brought me encouragement. I am not alone and that all three, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are always with me. Thank you and may God bless you. Hosanna Alem writes, seriously perfect timing. Thank you for your ministry and all you do. Well, thank you for watching and I pray that you guys are sharing these teachings with your friends. You know, I encourage you, share this video. You have no idea who is going to be blessed on your wall and it's funny, even though people don't like or comment, you'll be surprised how many people secretly take a look at the content that you post. So post this, post the videos, share them, help us grow our viewership so that we can touch more lives. Another commenter writes, I just am in awe of how God works. I clicked this message as an escape while I and my best friend are in the middle of our struggle. Every word pierces my heart and soul. I cried heavily and truly believed God is speaking to me through Pastor David. God is so good. God bless this ministry. Anadale writes, bless you. I am really blessed by God's teachings through you all the way from Egypt. Wow, you're watching from Egypt. Thank you for watching Spirit Church on Encounter TV all the way in Egypt. We love you and we pray you are blessed. And the final comment here, this commenter writes, thank God for this message. I've been going through a lot of emotional struggles and relationship problems with family. I felt God talking to me the whole time. I cried and prayed to God saying I felt him distant. I received an email and clicked on the link. God spoke to me through your message. The Lord is so amazing. Thank you, Jesus. God bless everything this church is doing. Well, we are a ministry and I'm glad that you were so blessed by that. And you know, these are the lives that are being impacted. If you would like to leave a comment or me to read your comment, you can go ahead and leave a comment here on this video. Remember to make it succinct, make it unique. You can even raise questions if you want. Even objections that are politely raised. I will address here in the comment section of this video. So go ahead, comment now and we will be sure to review all those. And maybe your comment will make it on the next edition of Spirit Church. Now don't turn off this video just yet. I need to update you. Every week that goes by, we get a little bit closer to our goal. And so now we have less than, I think it's around 475 partners that we need at the $30 a month level to get us to our goal of the thousand new $30 a month partners. Now, those of you who are partnered, stick with it. Don't stop. Do not stop giving. I pray you plan on doing this long term and that you and I will work together for years to come. I'm your ambassador to the nations. I'm your ambassador that you're sending the gospel through and together we're touching lives all around the world. This expansion of ministry is going to include what it's not limited to, our brand new facility, which will allow us to do Sunday night meetings, a 24 seven prayer room. It'll allow us to bring in studio audiences so that we can bless people in person. It will allow us to do live broadcasts from the set and it will also allow us to translate some videos. It will allow us to do events, many, many more events and on much larger scales and overall it's basically just to help expand the ministry. This building being a cornerstone of the expansion phase but it's not all that this is about. We are about souls. We wanna keep winning souls. You've been watching this. Now is the time I just spoke to our real estate representative today. He's a real estate broker, very good friend of our ministry. He's in pursuit now because I know you're gonna come through for us. So here's what I need. I need you right now to sign up to become a $30 a month partner and let me be honest with you. Even after we reach our goal, guess what? I'm gonna ask for more partners. You know why? Because we wanna constantly expand the ministry so that we can constantly reach more people. You mark my words, you're gonna see a day where we are reaching millions for Jesus. That's right, millions. And we're gonna see millions come to the cross. We're gonna see millions come to repentance and we will spread the glory of Jesus all around the world in the face of all the darkness that is coming against our world today. It is the best time right now to spread the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ all around the world. So go ahead, sign up right now. Don't say someone else. Don't say some other time. Now is the time to do it. Let me hear from you today. Sign up to become a $30 a month partner. Again, your gifts of any amount, both one time and monthly, are gonna help us continue to expand and to reach the international events, worldwide television and global discipleship media. Well, that is it for this edition of Spirit Church. Until next time, remember, nothing is impossible with God. Hey, what's up guys? Thank you so much for watching Encounter TV. My name is Stephen Moctezuma and I wanna encourage each and every one of you to subscribe to Encounter TV. Encounter TV features hundreds of videos that will help you draw closer to the Lord. We feature worship, miracles, teachings and so much more. Encounter TV, experience the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit.