 Your breakthrough is on the way. I want to encourage you today with a simple message, and that is that faith and persistence in God's eyes are synonymous. The scripture tells us that if we will persist, if we will continue to do what is good, that it is inevitable that we will reap the harvest of good that is coming our way. You've been sowing seeds, you've been working in the ministry, you've been seeking the face of God, you've been praying for unsaved loved ones, you've been trying to get that business to work so that you can fund the kingdom of God. I am here to declare to you that breakthrough is on the way, that you are closer to the goal than you think that God has big plans for you and I want you to begin to pray big prayers to serve the purposes that God has for your life. I'm telling you persist, do not quit, do not give up. I'm telling you, the law of persistence is real. So I'm talking about here today on Spirit Church here on EncounterTV, the law of persistence in this message, persistent faith. Stephen Maktezuma is here with me as usual. He's going to lead you in worship and then we're going to get right into this lesson. Here is Stephen Maktezuma. I want you to believe this, something good is going to happen to you. I want you to expect a miracle. I want you to believe big. I want you to think big. The scripture says he is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask or even imagine. If you can ask it, God can do more. No matter what you are asking, no matter what your request is of God, he can do more than what you are asking for. He can do more than what you are imagining. He can do more than the vision that you see. God has placed in you gifts, talents, resources, and God wants to use your life. God wants to bless you. God wants to expand you. I want to simply stretch your faith. I want to simply expand your horizon. I want you to stop thinking little. You serve a big God. You don't serve a little God. You serve a big God. It's time to stop praying little prayers. It's time to stop thinking small. People are afraid to think big because they're afraid of failure. They're afraid of what others might say about them as they pursue the largeness of the call of God upon their lives. When you begin to seek everything that God has for you, when you begin to truly pursue the destiny that you have in Christ, people will mock you. People will tell you, all be practical, all be realistic. You know what you need to do to those people? Just ignore them. You have my permission to ignore them. Listen to what I'm telling you. God wants to do something big time with you. God wants to do something great with your life. Now, the standards by which we measure greatness vary from what the Bible teaches, and we need to adapt our standards of greatness to what the Scripture teaches. But the truth is that if there is something that God has placed in your heart to do, then you need to be persistent. If there's something for which you are believing, no matter how far off it may seem, you may be praying for someone to give their heart to the Lord, and you've been praying for them for years, and you've been witnessing to them, and you've been preaching the gospel to them, and you've been reasoning with them, and you've been going through Scripture with them, and you've been advising them, and it seems that their heart is hard. Don't worry. Instead, believe. Only believe. All things are possible. Only believe. Think big. Think grand. Think divine. God is on the throne. He's in control. And when you have faith, when you have persistent faith, things have to happen. They have to change. Listen. One thing is going to change. It's either your circumstance or your faith. And so long as you hold to the faith, so long as you keep believing, so long as you persist, it will break. Look at me. I'm telling you, and I want you to believe me because I know that circumstances may dictate otherwise to you, that people may say otherwise to you, that your feelings may make you feel otherwise. I want you to believe this because it's based on the Word of God. If you will continue to do what is good, if you will continue to do what is right, if you will continue to believe, if you'll press and if you'll hang in there, then the breakthrough is right there. The Scripture says in Galatians chapter six, verse number nine, so let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up. That's the difficult part, isn't it? Waiting until the right time. And people who are cynical will say, well, Brother David, you know, you're talking about waiting. You're talking about hanging in there. You're talking about breakthrough. And I've heard all this prosperity preaching before. I've heard all this talk about God coming through. I've heard all this talk about miracles. And some will even criticize and say, well, Brother David, you're talking about miracles. You should be talking about the gospel. I agree that the gospel message is the priority. It's the primary message that we are to be speaking. But every so often, we also have to talk to the church. We also have to encourage our fellow brothers and sisters. Just because one of my messages may be about miracles doesn't mean that that's the focus of the entire ministry. No, the focus of the entire ministry is Jesus, the gospel, His cross, salvation. But we also have to edify believers. And that's what this channel is primarily for. At least our YouTube version of this channel is to edify the believer, is to build you up. It's to encourage you. And then you may be someone who's saying, well, I've heard all that preaching before. And I've believed and I've persisted, but nothing has ever happened for me. Listen, persistence is not just about continuing in whatever it is that you're doing. It's about continuing in whatever it is that you're doing with the right perspective, with the right attitude, with patience, with endurance, with faith. I can go through 10 years of a struggle without faith. And I can go through 10 years of a struggle with faith. That same struggle will produce two different results with and without faith. So you may say, well, I keep going through the same thing again and again and again. Well, I just want to be blunt with you so we can shake you out of it today. It's because you keep failing the test again and again and again. If you find yourself repeating through cycles of life and struggle, it's because you've not passed the test that will cause you to be promoted. Instead of saying, God, get me out of this struggle or God, when is this going to end? You should be asking Him to in that season mold you, to shape you, to teach you what it is that He wants to show you. God honors persistent faith. Luke chapter 18 verses one through eight say, One day Jesus told His disciples a story to show them that they should always pray and never give up. There was a judge in a certain city, he said, who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly saying, Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy. The judge ignored her for a while. But finally he said to himself, I don't fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I'm going to see that she gets justice because she is wearing me out with her constant requests. Then the Lord said, learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don't you think God will surely give justice to His chosen people who cry out to Him day and night? Will He keep putting them off? I tell you, He will grant justice to them quickly, but when the Son of Man returns, how many will He find on the earth who have faith? Jesus equated her persistence with her faith. When we continually seek God, when we continually do what is right, when we continually sow our spiritual seeds, we can be encouraged that the law of persistence tells us that no matter who you are, no matter what it is you are doing, if you will do what is right, if you will continue to do as God leads, if you will continue to walk in obedience and walk close with the Lord, you will reap a harvest. It's inevitable. It has to happen. Listen, either we believe the Word of God or we don't. Either we believe the Bible or we don't. This is why most will not receive the blessing. This is why most will not enter into the Promised Land. It's because they allow cynicism, they allow negativity, they allow sin, they allow a worldly mentality to take their eyes off of the goal that Christ has laid before them, to take their eyes off of the high call, to take their eyes off of the destiny, off of the gifting that He's placed in them, and they put it on their circumstance, they put it on their struggle, they put it on the reasons why they shouldn't believe that anything good will happen to them, and they grow cynical, they grow tired, they grow weary, they grow, I mean really it's depressing, but the truth is God does not want you to live that way. Most people miss the blessing because most people can't handle the process, and that's just the truth. Most people miss the blessing because most people can't handle the process. They will not allow themselves to go through the necessary struggles to get to the place that God has for them. Instead they'll get halfway through, or maybe even mostly through the struggle, and quit right before God is about to bless them. And again there will always be those who say, well I tried that, well no you didn't, because the Bible says if you did you would reap the harvest. We cannot just go through the motions, we cannot just say I'm here, I'm doing something, we have to do and we have to act and we have to live in faith. That is the key, that's the only difference. Worldly persistence is just persistence, but godly persistence is persistence with faith in the promises of God. Persistence with faith in the character and the nature of God. When I persist, when I push through, when I continue to do what God has called me to do, with faith I can rest assured that the seeds that I have planted will grow a harvest. Matthew chapter 7 verses 7 through 11 say, keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking and you will find. Keep on knocking and the door will be open to you for everyone who asks receives. Everyone who seeks finds and to everyone who knocks the door will be opened. You parents, if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not, so if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give good gifts to those who ask him? Jesus said, keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for. Isn't it amazing that we go through life and we give all that we have to do something? We exhaust ourselves with emotion and effort and resource and we seem to push through as much as we possibly can only to find ourselves coming up short. It seems that God is distant, that God is not moving, but it is in that moment. It is in that season where you feel most like quitting, that you must persist in faith. The scripture tells us in James that patience ultimately builds faith. Faith and patience, faith and persistence, they are one and the same. They come hand in hand. They're almost synonymous in the eyes of God. I remember when I first started in ministry, there seemed to be no fruit coming from what our efforts were. Nowadays I can say this because it's not my ministry, I'm not bragging on me, this is the Lord's doing, but nowadays we're very fruitful. We're reaching a lot of people. We have resources coming in. We are in the middle of expanding many things that we want to do for the Lord so that we can reach more souls. But at the beginning, I didn't have all of this. I remember I would put out a video every single Monday night and there are people, again I'm blessed to have people who stuck by me from the very beginning. I have with me here, behind one of the cameras is a man named Jeremy Marquez and Jeremy remembers Monday nights, we would go live. Stephen Moctezuma, you all know Stephen Moctezuma, he plays guitar. He just texted me the other day. He said, you know, I was there from the beginning and I'm going to see this all the way through to the end. But he was there as a camera guy, when we were reaching, get this, every single week, now we're reaching maybe, we're in the tens of thousands on television and the reach is very large. During that season, every single week, our peak audience, this is when we would reach, I'm telling you, this is the highest it would go. We had a great successful night when our audience skyrocketed to 35 people and that was our big audience. And we would, but let me tell you something, every single week, I put together a lesson. I studied with all my heart. I came to be in front of the camera. I presented the best that I could. I dressed the best that I could and I gave all my heart, all my soul, everything I had. I poured into those videos that 35 people saw. I treated those 35 people as if they were 10,000 and the Lord blessed it. I remember I used to write articles, now I write articles, they get featured in some of the major Christian media outlets, the magazines and whatnot. When I first started writing, I believe I wrote for almost three years, quite regularly, almost weekly, for three years, with, get this, zero readers. Absolutely nobody read what I wrote, but I wrote them because I was doing it unto the Lord. And we have to rid ourselves of selfishness. I'm not talking about ambition. I'm not talking about wanting to succeed for self. I'm talking about our desires to see things come to pass that are godly, to see things come to pass that expand the kingdom, to see things come to pass that impact other people's lives. I want to see more souls say, I am not satisfied. I'm thankful, but I'm not satisfied. I want to see millions coming to Jesus. That's my heart. Everything in me, when I wake up in the morning, when we, everything that we do for the ministry, when I wake up in the morning, I'm asking myself, how can we grow this ministry? I'm expanding, I'm working, I'm edifying the body of Christ. Why? So that they can be blessed by the ministry, come alongside of us and help us with our main goal, which is to win souls. Everything in me says, God, I just want to win more souls. And I want to win millions to Jesus because there are people dying every day, many of them without Christ. And I want to reach those people. But before I started expanding in that area, I had to be persistent. I have to be consistent. I had to push through the discouragement. I've been discouraged. If I'm being honest with you, there were times I felt like quitting the ministry. There were times I felt like, Lord, I'm not impacting anybody's life. Lord, there's nothing coming of this. And I would get frustrated. I would even say, Lord, this is all for your glory anyway. Why won't you bless it? Maybe you're believing for the salvation of a loved one. Maybe you're believing for breakthrough in your ministry. Maybe you're believing for breakthrough in your finances. Maybe you're believing for spiritual growth or breakthrough in your emotions, or freedom from a sickness, or freedom from depression or anxiety, whatever it may be, whatever it is for which you are believing, no matter how big, no matter how small, I'm telling you right now. Persist. Don't grow weary in well-doing. You will reap a harvest. The scripture says in Matthew chapter 15, verses 21 through 28. Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tur and Sidon. A Gentile woman who lived there came to him pleading, Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David, for my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely. But Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. Now stop there for a second. Jesus ignored this woman. Listen, you can try to spin it any which way, but Jesus was ignoring this lady. Now I don't think that Jesus was being cruel. I don't think that he was trying to be mean or hurt this woman. I think he was testing her faith. God does not ignore us out of cruelty. God does not ignore us, period. His attention is always on us. God instead will wait not to hurt us, but to process us. There are some things that can only be developed in our character through persistence, patience, and endurance. And persistence, patience, and endurance can only come through seasons. You cannot develop a pure faith. You cannot develop faith that will get you to the next level in a matter of days or in a matter of weeks or in a matter of months. Faithfulness takes a long time to have. That's why it's called faithfulness. You can't do something for three weeks and say, there I was faithful. Lord bless me. No, you have to persist. You have to continue. I'm telling you, I know people who started in ministry around the same time I did. And they're not in the ministry today because they quit because it got too hard because things didn't work out the way they wanted it to right away. I've been in the ministry now for 15 years and I've seen, when I was at my halfway point, maybe seven, eight years in, I've seen other ministries come along and they start out of nowhere and they skyrocket, but then they fizzle out. The Lord told me this morning, not word for word, but he planted this idea in my heart. He told me, he said, listen, this is not a sprint. It's a marathon. This is not something you need to be quick to do. This is something you need to pace yourself for. And so I said, okay, Lord, and this is just something he told me today in my own prayer time. But the truth is we need more patience. So Jesus is ignoring this woman. Verse 23 says, but Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. Now you've got to imagine from this woman's perspective, here she is. She's probably already terrified to speak with Jesus. She's probably already nervous. And here Jesus is and she's trembling. Her daughter is in torment because of a demonic spirit and she comes to Jesus and Jesus just ignores her and then the disciples right in front of her, they don't even tell her to go away. They tell Jesus about her in front of her. Lord, send this woman away. Now how would that feel? How would you feel in that moment? All the pressure, everything would be against you to just say, okay, I quit. I'm done with my request. I've been around men of God who I've learned I have to be very persistent with them, very forceful with them. Some of them like it. That's how they, I guess they're modeling it after Jesus. And I found that doors open for me when I'm persistent, when I pursue, when I don't accept no for an answer. Now I'm not saying try to open doors that God has not opened, but you don't know if God has locked that door. If you don't at least try to open it. So I checked doors. And then once I get through a door, my philosophy, my perspective on it is whatever door God opens for me, I will hold open for others. So other ministries that come along me, my friends, my family, my goal is to take the doors that God has opened to me and hold it open for those who know me, for those who are connected. So my persistence not only pays off for me, but for others. But this woman right in the middle of this, here she is with Jesus. He's ignoring her. The disciples are urging, Lord, send this woman away. She's irritating us. And she begins to feel the pressure, tell her to go away. They said, she is bothering us with all her begging. Then Jesus said to the woman, and he's actually turning her away, guys. This is probably one of the only instances in scripture where Jesus turned someone away who came to him. In the other instances, the people reject him. But look at this. Then Jesus said to the woman, I was sent only to help God's lost sheep, the people of Israel. But she came and worshiped him pleading again. Lord, help me. Jesus responded, it isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs. Now, again, you can try to explain this away, but this is the Bible, guys. This is something that people appreciate about the ministry. I don't try to twist the scripture into what I wanted to say. I just take it for what it says and present it. Sometimes you may agree with it. Sometimes you may disagree. I can do no other thing other than present what the Bible says. Jesus called this woman a dog. It's right there. And so let's read it again. Verse 26, Jesus responded, it isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs. Verse 27, she replied, that's true, Lord. But even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their master's table. And then verse 28, this is the turning point. He says, dear woman, Jesus said to her, your faith is great. Your request is granted. And her daughter was instantly healed. Now think about this. Jesus, for whatever reason, is treating the woman this way. Again, I don't think he was doing it to be cruel. I think he knew that this would be a narrative in the Bible and that we would receive something of it, not just the idea of the connection between salvation and Jews and Gentiles, but also this concept of persistence. He said she had faith. Why? Because she was persistent. Let faith work persistence in you. Keep knocking. Keep asking. Keep seeking. Don't quit. Don't stop. Maybe you were looking for confirmation. Maybe you were looking for encouragement. Here it is. Don't quit. Keep going. The breakthrough is coming. The law of persistence, it has to, listen, it absolutely has to because it's the Bible. It has to happen. That wall will come down. That sea will open. The miracle will manifest. Just hang on. Just persist. Don't allow faith to wane. Don't allow cynicism or doubt to take over your heart. Break free from that today and say, Lord, I'm going to persist. I'm going to keep asking. I'm going to keep seeking. I'm going to keep knocking. As I do that, you're going to process me into one who can receive the answer. That's why God will wait. God doesn't wait. Again, God does not wait to be cruel. God waits to process you so that you can become one who can handle the blessing. It's not a waste of time. You may be saying, I could be doing more. I could have more if only I had this now. Listen, if you had it now, you'd crumble. You couldn't handle it. God is processing you so that you can become one who can handle what he wants to give you. Time is not being wasted. You're not behind. You may be telling yourself, I should be here by now. I should be there by now. I feel like I'm falling behind. Listen, that's not how it works in the kingdom of God. God is perfect timing. He's processing you. Don't rush it. He is waiting to make you into one who can handle what he wants to put on you. He will not give a weighty thing to one who cannot stand under the pressure of that blessing. God is processing you right now. The season you are in, let him do his work. Persist, and when the processing is done, he will grant it. He will take you. He will promote you. He will bless you. Your breakthrough is on the way. I feel faith right now, and I want to pray with you. I'm going to stretch my hands toward you. Stretch your hands toward mine in faith, and let's believe that God will give you the faith and the persistence to endure the process so that you can handle the blessing. Father, in Jesus' name, I pray for that one watching right now, and I ask Lord for a fresh touch of the Holy Spirit. Father, I pray you would confirm your word as only you can. I ask precious Jesus that you would strengthen that one watching, that you would encourage that one watching, that you would let this word, this revelation, this breath of life settle within their spirit. Cause them to be people who embrace your process, Lord. I thank you, Father, for your Holy Spirit, your presence and your power. Now moving in Jesus' name, there's a gentleman watching me. You've been, you're in business, and you've been trying to get your business to go, and it seems that it's not, and your heart is that you would fund the kingdom of God. Let me tell you something. Keep going. Don't grow weary and well-doing. There's going to be a day where you write a million-dollar check to a ministry. I want you to receive that. You'll know if this word is for you because it'll bear witness. You're going to write a million-dollar check to ministries. God's going to bless you, but don't quit. Do not quit. Well, I don't even know how to transition from that. I know I often say that, but it's, you can, I can really feel the anointing and it's hard to go from the prayer to welcoming the new members of Spirit Church. There you are up on the screen. We love you. We are praying for you, and we thank you for joining us from all around the world. If you'd like information on how you could join the Spirit Family or Spirit Church, 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 or the YouTube version of this video, then that link will not appear. Instead, use the information at the bottom of the screen to find out how you can become a member of Spirit Church. It's free. Every week, you'll get an email straight to your inbox, a brand new teaching. You can reply for prayer support, and you're joining in with people from all around the world, over a thousand members now from all around the world. And we really do gather in spirit. Usually at this point, I would read your comments on last week's teaching, but we're going to do something a little bit different. Instead, I have comments from Stephen Maktuzuma's worship playlist. Now, Stephen Maktuzuma has been working on other things, but he is now coming back this year with some more songs. He's been working on songs. We've also been talking about that album. So I know some of you have been writing to us wondering where his new music is. Listen, he's with us long term. Don't worry. He's also going to be coming out very soon with more songs, and then he'll be back on regular rotation. And so these are some comments from his playlist, just to get you guys reminded about that ministry. Ursula writes, beautiful song and voice, God bless you. Melanie Marquez, who's one of our regular ETV viewers writes, so beautiful. It reminds me of the day Jesus set me free and became my Lord and Savior. Brian Alice, I felt the Holy Spirit through this song. Jesus saves, right? God bless you, Stephen. You too, Nick, and Nick is the guitar player. May God use you in his great work and touch more souls through your ministries. Hannah writes, Stephen, it's been such a blessing to watch your growth on this channel and to see how God is using you, praying for your ministry and in counter TV. Now, Hannah, you've not seen anything yet. I'm telling you, we got some big things planned for this ministry, as you guys have been hearing about the expansion, but also with Stephen Moctezuma's ministry. So stay tuned. Mark WN writes, wonderfully anointed and zero ego when worshiping. Thank you for sharing your gift. Well, we certainly do love the worship ministry of Stephen Moctezuma. Go ahead and check out that worship playlist. You will not regret it. Now I'm going to talk to you about something real quick. Don't turn off this video. If you notice, this video is actually some of you may have picked up on it. This video was filmed right after last week's teaching. We released them a week apart, but because of the Christmas season and how things just get during the season, we had to film two on one night. So there won't be any comments from the last week's teaching because there wasn't any time that lapsed between now and then. And also there won't be any update on the fundraiser because, again, it was only just about half hour or so that we filmed the last teaching, but by the time you watch this there a week apart, you got what I'm saying. So the update is still as we know it. We're about 475 partners away from our goal. We started with a goal of 1,000 new $30 a month partners. Now we got 475 new $30 a month partners. The goal is simple, guys. We want to win souls. We do it through worldwide television, international events, and global discipleship media, such as Spirit Church. Worldwide television is Encounter TV. International events is the Encounter Service. And global discipleship media is Spirit Church, the blog, the podcast, and all the media that we put out for the church to edify the believer. Now we want to win souls. We want to expand the kingdom. We want to keep raising an army of believers who will go out in the power of the Holy Spirit and preach Jesus. So this is where we need your help. We want to expand. And so this next phase of expansion will include a brand new facility where we will have Sunday night meetings, where we will do studio audiences, and we'll be able to minister to you in person at both the Sunday night meetings and the studio audiences. I got some real awesome guests lined up for 2017, and I want to bring people in to be there in person with them when we film that. We're also able to do live broadcasts from the studio on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter. That's basically what's happening right now. That's one of the new ways to reach people. We want to make sure we take advantage of that for the gospel. On top of that, we want to open up a 24-7 prayer room. We want to begin doing more miracle services in more locations all across the United States and the world. I'm receiving your invites. We're getting your invites from all around the world. I want to come. We just need the resources to be able to do so. So with that expansion, that new building, all those things plus those events, more often and on larger scales, I'm telling you, it's going to be big. You're going to see a day we're going to be winning millions to Jesus. We're going to see thousands packing in the stadiums to hear the gospel. You mark my words. It's going to happen. You can be a part of it. Get on with it right now. Get on board with the ministry. Partner today. Become a $30 a month supporter. If you can't do $30 a month, do something monthly. If you don't want to do something monthly, do something one time. We have some people who will give $5,000, $10,000, $1,000 one time. And we have people who give $30, $60, $100 monthly. Whatever you can do, whether it's one time or monthly, do it right now. Help us win souls. Help us preach Jesus all around the world. 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 want to 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.