I have a few more with us, I imagine we got a powerhouse session for you.
And I just want to say if you didn't catch last month's last month's carry, what'd you
think of last month?
Dude, I, to me, that was, what's that?
Spectacular.
Yes.
It was good of, I mean, I've been running a masterminds for 12 years that, that last
month, what Dion shared was my favorite session I've ever been a part of.
So good.
So many good stories, highly recommend if you didn't watch last month, watch last month.
I mean, you should, hopefully you watch every month, but definitely watch last month.
And so really, really cool.
We got a really powerful session for you here today.
If you don't know, Jess and I are up in Asheville, we're actually doing a meetup on Wednesday.
So we got people coming from all around and going to do a meetup at a barbecue place here
in North Carolina.
So that'd be cool on Wednesday.
And then on Thursday, we launch a brand new book, Faith Driven Wealth.
And that my friend, John C. Maxwell wrote the foreword.
We're very grateful for that, but that launches on when on Thursday, sorry, June 12th.
And so we're doing a virtual book party at 7 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, and we'll be a
lot of fun.
We'll have, I got a special guest coming on there and we'll have a lot of fun.
If you haven't seen me doing videos, something that I thought was really cool when we walked
into this house is they have this, you know, mountain strong Hurricane Helene, you know,
back in September.
And I'll tell you this neighborhood, every second or third home is destroyed.
And so like, you know, it's a meaningful thing right there.
The house, literally the house right next to us is completely demolished.
This area was, you know, hit, you know, very hard.
And unlike Florida homes, they're not, they're not prepared for hurricanes.
And so it's a lot of, a lot of devastation around here.
The roads are, you know, okay now, but yeah.
So we're grateful to be up here and having a good time for sure.
And so I don't want to take a whole lot of time, but after Dion is finished, I'm happy
to hang out and spend time with you guys.
You may have seen, I've been talking about some different concepts, the seven step blueprint
that the Lord gave me.
And so we've been having some fun for sure.
And so Dion, I know you're fired up.
I know you're excited.
What's going on, my friend?
Yeah, very excited.
Very excited.
I love these sessions that we do together.
I think that, you know, being with this team and watching the growth that we've been covering,
we've been getting into some very substantial topics, which you don't often get into even
in kingdom leadership circles, you know?
So yeah, I'm excited, excited about tonight.
Yeah.
Well, I'll turn it over to you.
I'll give you your time and I'm ready with my notes.
Yeah, for sure.
You know, we've been going through a whole series of these kingdom routines, if you like,
or secrets of how do the Lord wants to be with you.
Now when you think about routines in general, I think most people think about this, you
know, as we do leadership courses, you know, like the 10 months of the Brennan School of
Leadership or the one year program for the NSO call for CEOs and so forth.
When we do these, I've noticed a trend.
And the trend is this, that it takes about, it takes about two months.
That's meaning every month, every week for two months, takes about eight sessions to
get people off the performance treadmill.
And because they've just been so groomed into that and to get the permission that the Lord
is giving them, that the way he wants to be with them.
And it's not like they cannot.
And Dion, I don't want to skip past that.
Can you share what do you mean?
I know what you mean.
But can you share what you mean by the performance treadmill?
What do you mean by that?
Yeah.
So I think the performance treadmill and a simple analogy for it is most believers mix
the old and the new covenants together.
And we call this covenantal confusion because we had nothing to do with the old covenant.
We're not Jewish.
And we're included in Christ in the new covenant.
But what happens is most people feel like, so think of a cup and most people think, well,
I got bad stuff in my cup and I can only when I get rid of the bad stuff, then I can have
an expectation that God will come and fill.
the cup with good stuff. And God's plan wasn't to mess with a cup. He wanted to destroy that
cup and give you a new cup. That's why you call it a new creation. So what the Lord does is,
so what the performance trademark is, is that we get into a place where we're never enough.
We're always a day late and a dollar short because you haven't done this, you haven't done that,
you haven't done this. Every time we ask, we ask in a double-minded way, both from the new and
the old covenant. Well, I don't deserve this, so I'm going to ask the Lord, but you don't know,
and then maybe, and well, maybe I catch him in a good mood. It may or may not work. I'll try it.
And so we'll literally try every, what I would almost call gimmick, because, you know, if you
do this and you shout and you confess and you do that, and some of those are fine, but a lot of it
is performance-based, that if you perform right, God will bless you. And this comes from an old
covenant framework, which is first you, then God. If you behave, if you do your thing, God will bless
you. If you don't, you'll get cursed. That's an old covenant way. Jesus, Hebrew says, God found
fault with the old and replaced it with a new covenant built on what? Better promises. Well,
what are the better promises? First God, then you. You know, freely you've received, so freely give.
Freely you've been forgiven, freely you forgive others. So everything in the New Testament,
while there's 630 laws in the Old, there's over 1,050 instructions in the New Testament we could
call, you know, we call them imperatives in theology, and what this refers to is stuff you're
meant to do. Not a single one of those 1,050 stand on their own. They don't start with you.
Because Christ did this, therefore you do that. Everything starts because Jesus, therefore you.
Because God, then you. So what this does is it flips and it shuts down the performance thing,
because Jesus perfectly performed on your behalf. Okay, we're all a bunch of business people here,
so we're all going, that's cool. How does that help my business? So I'm going to talk about
practically how patience is a lethal weapon in the Kingdom, and the Scripture talks about,
you know, it's through faith and patience that we inherit. So let me take a second and just walk us
through a couple of ideas, and I'll share some of my story in this, and not just the idea of it, but
how I learned this idea. And you know, the big idea is the enemy has zero patience.
So think about that for a second, which means that when you operate in Kingdom patience,
you've already won every battle before it starts. Let that land for a second, because I think,
you know, most Christians that I've come across believe that patience is some sort of
passive waiting, you know, just enduring, you know, grit of teeth, get through it until
something changes. That's not what patience is. You know, they think that it's like kind of a
holding on, but patience is actually how you thrive under pressure. Patience is putting your
fight that you're going through into a round that the enemy has no weapons on that battlefield.
So what if I told you that patience is actually an offensive weapon that guarantees victory?
This is a very practical business, one of the most practical business things we can talk about.
So what if the very thing you thought was your weakness, every believer says, well,
I don't have patience. I'm not a patient person. Well, good news, that person died, and now the
new you, which has the patience of Jesus, is in you. So what if what you thought was your weakness
is actually your greatest strength in spiritual warfare? See, patience is this lethal warfare
weapon, since the enemy has no equivalent weapon to match it. He has no patience. I mean, it's what
got him kicked out of heaven, was impatience, right? He wanted to be like God. And so, you know, patience
with some pride can cause a lot of, impatience with pride can cause a lot of damage. So let me
just back up a second. So this is a very, very precious thing that I'm sharing with you because
I learned it in such a painful time in my life. And so this goes back seven years, 2018,
when we've shared, I've shared my story about losing our business and our ministry and basically
everything. And I was facing probably the longest, most painful, darkest time of my life.
There was about, about three or four months there, I just genuinely thought my life was over, that
there was no more ministry. There was, I had nothing to say. I'd been so brutalized through this process.
given me promises back since I was, because I got saved, you know, at 14. So God had given me all
these promises, but there were one or two key business promises that just looked like it was in,
it was just shattered, you know, everything I'd been building up for over 30 years in partnership
with the Lord and prayer and fasting and every Monday morning, getting up and dedicating the
whole morning just to the Lord, first fruits of the week, you know, and I dedicated it when my
kids moved out of, we had a big home, you know, we had a, you know, seven bedroom home, downtown
Atlanta, that we built our dream home. And then of course, as the kids left and went to college
and so forth, I had all these extra bedrooms. So one, I committed to just a thinking room,
and it was white wall, white boards, even had a padlock on the door so that no one could actually
go in there. And that was my place with the Lord. It was like a, my little sacred space. And we
would go there every Monday, and I would just like take down what he said, it's where I wrote
the book wired here on my shoulder, sorry, other side. And, and I, and in this place, I mean, I had,
you know, one 12 foot board and two six foot boards. And I would write up all these things,
every plan. And I was all about innovation from heaven. I wanted to do to say what God was saying
to what he was doing. And it all collapsed. And I was shocked. You know, and I asked, I asked Graham
one day, I was chatting to him, I said, you know, why did God allow that? You know, and he said, he
didn't, he didn't have much of a choice. God doesn't override people's free will. Not everything
that you know, we love this theology that God is in, you know, that God is in control, he is not
in control, he's in control of heaven. And he's ultimately in charge, and his purposes are
immovable. But he's not in control that gave us control of the earth, you can't tell, look around,
you know, and so a lot happens is we sometimes internalize crises, problems as either something
we've done wrong, because we weren't, you know, performing correctly. Or we, you know, it's an
attack from the enemy, which many times it just simply isn't. It's, you know, when a lot of people
exercising free will, or collide 8 billion of us, or 9 billion of us all colliding,
stuff happens, and God isn't going to override their free will, he's not going to, he made a
covenant, he bound himself to partner with us. And so what he does is, he gives us promises
as an expression of his kind intentions towards us. So that's Jeremiah 29.11. And I know the
scriptures, I know in English, it says, I know the plans I have for you. It's not really plans,
it's more like my immovable kind intentions, I know exactly what we're going to do together.
And every time we run into free will and issues and problems in the world, you know, trials,
tribulations, problems, whatever, when that happens, many of us think, well, why is God doing
this, which he isn't. And so the question then is, then, what, how do I resolve the crisis that I'm
in? And it's this, that when when people get in the way, he just works around it. In fact, he's so
confident in himself that he gives you a promise. And he says, all things work together for the good
of them that love God and are called according to his purpose. In other words, his purposes
ultimately get there, whether he has to go this way around or that way around. And so that's why
speculation is such a lethally bad idea in the kingdom. When God gives you an upstairs promise,
we don't speculate to what that means downstairs, what that manifests like. And so when we'll stay
away from that, we just keep ourselves standing in God's heart. Lord, I know you're kind, I know
you're with me, I know you're protecting me, thank you for this promise. I have no clue downstairs
how this is going to work, because everything in my business life right now is in complete shambles.
I just lost 30 years of building a private equity firm, investing in four key companies, and
doing pretty well. And, you know, the way that was the way that collapse was so
inconceivable. And what I was accused of, it felt like they might as well have accused me of being
a pedophile or something. It was just so inconceivable to me, and how that all unfolded.
And of course, the Lord protected me, we went through that. But what I learned in the middle of
that every day felt like torture, absolute torture. And I was trying so hard to be patient, beating
myself up in frustration, tempting to manufacture more patients through sheer willpower. You know
what I'm talking about, the performance treadmill regarding patients, right? I was going to
manufacture patients. And one day, the Lord just said to me, son, can you please cut it out?
He said, he said it so kindly though, you know, could you could you just stop that?
He said you're trying to develop patience like it's some sort of muscle to build
He said but patience my patience is already you have my patience. You and I are one
And so like when you get married everything that's his becomes, you know hers or everyone's who's become his right?
And in this case everything that belongs to jesus became mine and I got a new nature
He's nature in me
So he said you're trying to get patience when you already have my pay there isn't more beautiful
More perfect patience than mine
What you're learning is to walk in it. What you're learning is to practice that patience
until
You know, it has its full manifestation
So yes, it's not a passive thing. Well, I got patience and yet I don't act patient
It's because I don't have to develop patience to use it
So I am practicing patience because that's my new nature in christ
I'm not practicing patience because i'm trying to become a patient person
Now this might sound like a very small difference, but it's massive especially in business in business
We get hit
We get hit hard a lot, you know entrepreneurs, you know, as you know, i've done 27 startups, you know
Which i'm sure I should have got psychiatric treatment for by now
um
But you know that one morning when the lord said son, could you just cut it? Could you just stop?
You're trying to create patience when you don't have to create
Mimicry, you don't have to use mimicry to be love joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness good
That's you've got the genuine article. You don't have to create a you don't have to create an imitation version
You don't have to kind of act patient. So maybe i'll become patient
No, you are patient because you have my patience in you so start with the right identity and the behavior will follow
I was shocked by this
And when the lord showed me that the enemy operates in haste and panic and urgency because he has no patience
So everything's a crisis everything has to be done now
And I realized this thing every time he tries to rush me pressurize me or create urgency whether he's doing it or someone else is doing it
He's already lost because patience isn't my weakness. It's his
Right. I don't need to develop patience. I needed to just I needed to wield it as a weapon
So I started viewing patience as an offensive weapon
Rather than a kind of defensive endurance
You know grit my teeth endure get through it I was trying to survive crisis not thrive in a crisis
So the lord said to me and so graham and I were talking one day and he says to me
He said
My friend, I am so jealous of you right now. I said jealous of me. My goodness graham
I have lost my business. I've lost my business consists of 12 entities
I lost something I spent my whole life being I had a national ministry
I was traveling with all the who's who you know, you named them big preacher names and so i'm sitting in the green room with them
And you know with our with our leadership company
And suddenly I lost everything I lost friends of over 30 years standing
I said how on earth can you he says because when you in the when you get in a situation where you can genuinely
Practice patience because you can't practice patience when everything's calm
right
And I thought about then I said, yeah, and he says you do know it's way more powerful than spiritual warfare
You can shout at the devil if you like or you can practice patience and take him out
That's the difference patience takes him off the battlefield because he has no defensive weapon against your patience
So I want to share three quick keys with you
The first we're just going to call it the patience paradox because it was such a paradox to me
That how you win battles is doing the opposite of what you may have been taught
Like you must just endure while god's in control somehow
Yes, he works all things together, but not because he created the mess but because he protects you and takes you through the mess
He works around everybody's
free will and all their issues
Because ultimately he's he's ultimately in charge
And the reason is because the kingdom's ultimately in charge
so
studying hebrews 612
Through faith and patience
We inherit promises see what i'd been taught even though I had a great spiritual dad
i'd been taught that
Me my patience meant suffering while I just waited for god to pitch up or maybe possibly, you know
Maybe something will happen
But the greek word there
for patience literally means
means remain under, not under pressure, but remain under his faithfulness, remain under
his rest while the promise manifests.
So what you're doing in patience is you're moving from under the pressure of the situation
downstairs to under the pressure of his nature upstairs, not the pressure, but under his
nature.
So you're going to remain under his nature.
Lord, I know you're faithful.
None of the stuff downstairs makes any sense.
It's all chaos and a mess.
But you're faithful and you're good and you're kind and you love me and you're with me and
you're going to protect me.
And boy, did he protect me.
Stuff happened, you know, the rest of the story.
And I just, I still stand amazed today that I get to do this.
I get to sit here and chat to you and share this.
And you know, when we were going through this, the strategy that started to develop in me
is I had to start with recognition that patience is already a part of my new nature.
Right.
Secondly, understanding that God has already said yes to his promises.
The scripture says all the promises are yes in Christ.
And by us, the amen is spoken.
What does that mean?
That means all of God's promises, because you're in Christ, already yes.
Lord, can I have this?
Yes.
But he needs our permission.
That's what amen means.
When we come in agreement with God, it's not just him giving us permission.
You may accept this promise as yours because you're in Christ, but also you have to give
him your permission.
Right.
It sounds, wow, that sounds a little arrogant.
It's not that it's being arrogant.
It's what submission of your will means.
It's the, it's the exercising of your will.
So I realized that God has already given me a yes to this promise that he gave me.
And then I saw my patience more as a joyful anticipation, not sort of a painful endurance.
So when we deploy patience as a weapon against the enemy, we deploy it against his sense
of urgency.
And so you see this with David, exhibit this patience with Goliath.
David didn't rush up to Goliath.
He picked up the stones.
He took his time.
What was, what was David doing?
He said, you know, this heathen, you know, is cursing the God of Israel.
He tucked himself neatly in to God's nature towards him.
He didn't look at Goliath's size and all the rest.
Another one was Jesus sleeping in a stone.
You know, that's ultimate patience in action.
Now remember, this happened just after the disciples saw him feed 5,000 people miraculously
at their hand.
The miracle happened in their hands.
We talked about that last month.
So in that particular case, what was Jesus doing sleeping?
Well they even accused him, maybe he doesn't care.
So you see how they brought his nature into question?
When you don't question God's nature, but question the sense of urgency, oh there's
a storm, we're going to drown, it's going to be crisis, put that into a business context
and you can see, you can have victory over any crisis you can sleep through.
Think about that for a second.
So I'm ignoring the urgency of that, the fake urgency that the enemy throws up.
And so, you know, Daniel continued prayer routine despite the lion's den.
Same thing.
There's a crisis in your face and yet your patience is you retreating into God's heart,
not reacting to the crisis in front of you.
Now the Lord will give you instruction on how to respond.
It's not like you don't take any action, it's that you don't react, but you're not reacting
to the situation, you're responding to the Lord in that situation.
So let's talk about kingdom key number two, I'll talk about the rest weapon.
So how you access his patience without any effort.
Now this is going to sound, because you know, when we're so used to the performance thing,
you know, I'm going to have to just try harder.
No, you don't have to try harder, you know, I used to have such a short fuse, you know,
for anybody who knows or met South African men, you know, we all did the military service
thing.
We grew up really tough.
You know, my dad told me one day, hey, if you come home and you got a girl pregnant
or you did drugs, I'm going to hit for distance.
And I believed him because I'd seen him take guys out physically in a restaurant when they're
fancy restaurants.
Some guy made a comment or said something derogatory to my mom.
And the guy got up, my dad wasn't a tall guy, he was about six foot.
And this guy was like six foot four, he was like a big rugby player.
My dad just hit him so hard in the solar plexus, the guy just folded into the table.
He was as calm as a breeze.
I'd seen him be aggressive.
And so my heritage was that, you know?
Grab somebody by the throat,
whether it's figurative or literal,
then shove them up against the wall
and shut down all their options, you know?
That's a very, very African, South African thing to do.
And so that was my old nature, which I died to.
So that old short fuse, aggressive,
you just come out with all guns, you know, blazing,
I had to get rid of.
I think it's part of why God put me in Atlanta.
It's a counterbalance to me.
I asked him one day, Lord, why Atlanta of all places?
You know, and he said, to be a counterbalance to you.
And I said, okay.
So I had this idea that I was a zero patient guy.
You know, I literally remember telling my youth lead,
I was like 19, look, lead me, follow me,
or get out of my way.
I literally told him that.
And to show how very aggressive and arrogant I actually was.
But then I discovered that I was trying to change
my behavior instead of discovering my new nature.
You see, in the kingdom, we discover our nature
and practice it.
We don't try to fix ourselves.
We don't take the cup and say all the bad stuff,
my impatience in the cup.
God isn't interested in the old cup.
He threw that away and gave you a new cup
and it's filling it with himself,
which turns out to be your new nature.
The great mystery that you and God are one,
you and Jesus are one.
So that's when I learned that peace and patience
work together in partnership.
And peace and patience were something he has
because peace is a ruling power.
Let the peace of Christ do what?
Reign.
Okay, let's back up.
What's my job?
Three letters, let.
What am I letting?
The peace of Christ.
Not my peace, not my imitation of peace,
not me trying to force myself to be peaceful,
not me on a performance treadmill,
trying to act peaceful when I'm not feeling peaceful,
all that stuff.
And what happens then?
What am I letting the peace of Christ do?
Reign.
And so peace is a ruling power.
Now here's the interesting thing about patience
in that role,
is that I learned that the peace of Christ was permanent.
I didn't have to engineer it
because I just, everything was,
I gotta be more peaceful,
I must try to be more peaceful.
That's not the way it works.
That's not, what it is,
is learning that he,
the way the Lord wants to be with you
is he wants to be peaceful and he's patient with you
so that you can be peaceful and patient.
So remember, everything starts with the cross.
Everything starts from God's heart
and then goes to your heart.
It doesn't start with you.
Performance training is,
everything starts with you.
Get your act together or God won't help.
God helps those who help themselves
is an old covenant idea
and it has nothing to do with the gospel
and absolutely nothing to do with the kingdom.
So I had to unlearn so many things.
So I didn't have to try to,
so what did I used to do was what I do now.
What I used to do was try harder to be patient,
try to suppress my frustration
and pretend I wasn't being frustrated,
gratitude thing,
feel guilty when I did that
and kind of try to do better tomorrow.
Then I realized, oh, that's nonsense.
That's me trying to fix the old nature,
which is dead, which is gross
because we don't dig up dead people
and try to get them to behave.
So that's what it's like in the kingdom.
So what do we do now?
What do I do now?
I just rest in my identity as a patient person.
So I start with, I am a patient person.
Why?
Because Jesus gave me that new nature.
Now I'm learning to practice that
because I already have it
and now I let his patience flow.
I'm letting, I'm celebrating every victory.
I can tell you patients in business meetings,
sitting patiently,
I was sitting with a group of our technology,
we used to, in our private equity firm,
we used to own a technology firm
and we had about 25 employees in the company.
So it wasn't a big company.
And I was sitting around with a senior team
and I'm about to take leadership and do my thing.
And the Lord said, don't say anything.
And I said, don't say anything.
The Lord said, don't say anything.
So somebody said, well, here's the problem
and we've got this situation.
And it looked like a really serious crisis.
And I realized every one of them,
even though they were all believers, by the way,
every one of them were reacting
to the urgency of the situation.
And the Lord said, yeah, show the opposite spirit, patience.
So I was really patient.
And I said, Lord, how do you want me
to demonstrate the patience?
The Lord said, be patient with them.
So I was. I listened and the Lord said,
you may ask clarifying questions, but make no statements.
So explain that to me. When did this start?
When does this have to be resolved by? What did the client say?
We're about to lose a major client. What did the client say?
I went through it and I just gathered information.
So what do you think some of the options are?
And I just asked questions. And then I did this deliberate thing.
Every time I was going to answer, I paused for one or two seconds
to show that I was being calm.
And in that simple exercise of showing the opposite
of what the crisis was trying to get us to do,
we're all able to calm down.
And finally, the one guy turns to me, says,
you just walk in the room and we all just feel,
OK, now we can get it done.
And I said, Lord, you know, there was you, you know,
because we host his presence and presence is everything
as kingdom leaders. Right.
And he says, you know, so, of course, he loves that.
So let me give the third key.
Patience is the the enemy's.
It's the enemy's absolute Achilles heel.
And why the devil loses every time when you exercise kingdom patience
is he has no he has no thing to do against that.
He can't argue with it because you can just wait him out.
Because, OK, I don't get it this month.
I get it next year. I get it 10 years from now.
I know the Lord's faithful. I'm good.
What is it? What on earth does he do with that?
What what weapon can he fashion against that?
You see this with Jesus, right?
So Jesus.
Goes into the wilderness, by the way, the wilderness is the place
God sends you and he's happy with you, right?
Jesus gets baptized by John.
John hears the the Holy Spirit to send on him.
He has a voice from heaven saying this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased
and then sends him to the desert.
Most of us go into the desert because God wants you isolated all to himself.
And often God will use these situations.
But if we will walk there in patience and in peace, what did the enemy do?
Try to create urgency.
Hurry, drive him now, now, now.
Instant do it.
And what did he say?
Turn these toads to bread now, right?
Throw yourself down now.
Bow to me and get it all now.
And Jesus, what did he do?
He patiently responded, defeated him every time.
Jesus patience is what shut down the entire battle.
Yes, he used some words, but it was his patience that shut down the enemy.
Because he knows his time is short.
And so he must operate in what I've learned to call fake urgency.
So here's his strategy.
Enemy creates fake urgency.
We must do this now is where we get the word FOMO, fear of missing out.
Your competitors are going to get there before you.
People are using AI.
You're not using AI.
People are going to take your market share.
This new technology is going to take you out of play.
If that client goes away, that's the end of your business, etc.
You know the rest.
And so he manufactures pressure because when you're under pressure,
you can't operate out of your yoke.
Jesus said that.
We've talked about that many times.
Come to me.
You're wearing heavy laden.
Let's say under pressure, stress, burden.
I will give you rest because rest activates your yoke.
Patience, peace, rest.
These are lethal weapons.
Lethal.
And they're so lethal that it takes the enemy off the battlefield.
So this fake urgency is exposed when you exercise your patience.
And you can wait him out.
How long do we need to go?
10 years?
20 years?
Doesn't matter.
How long did Abraham wait?
25 years he waited for Isaac.
He became the father of faith, the father of many nations.
Now, you must imagine what was going through his brain.
You know, he's 90.
He's 100 year old body and his wife's 90 year old.
This desert woman, she dried up long ago.
Her ability to have children had long passed, right?
And he waited.
And through faith and patience, he inherited.
So we can go through lots and lots and lots of biblical examples.
But let me land the plane.
You already are a patient person because you have the nature of Jesus.
You're not practicing to become patient.
You're practicing because you are patient.
Because you and Jesus are one.
So think about this.
The enemy counts on you not knowing this.
Because if he can get you to manufacture or try to make up patience,
patience will always be your weakness.
Because you will see patience as purely a passive thing to endure the painful,
not a powerful thing, not an offensive weapon in which you're standing in God's nature and you're in.
So patience becomes your offensive weapon.
Because the enemy has no patience, it's his fatal flaw.
So every time you rest in your patience, you've already won.
Game over, right there. Game over.
You're not waiting for God, you're waiting with God.
And you say, well, why doesn't God just do it?
Because He's aligning things, and it takes time.
And sometimes people get in His way, and He works around them.
He works all things.
Without overriding their will, He works all things.
So starting today, what if you could see every opportunity
as a way for you to express your patience as a partnership.
Doing it with God, not for Him.
So patience is a ruling power.
And that's why you get to do what you get to do.
All right, let's turn to some questions. Let's talk.
And Dion, can you just repeat the three keys?
Because you share so much.
I just want to make sure people got the three keys.
Sure. Key number one is what we call the patience paradox.
How you win battles by doing the opposite of what you were taught
in religious circles. At least I had to do the opposite.
Through faith and patience we inherit.
The key number one is the patience paradox.
You wait to inherit.
Number two, the rest weapon.
When you access His rest, His patience, because you're in Christ,
not because you're trying to become patient.
Number three is the enemy has no patience,
so it's game over when you go there.
So for the enemy, it's his Achilles heel.
He has no patience, so when you pull out patience,
he has no weapon that can stand against it.
So all he does, so his only little fake weapon is the fake urgency,
because he's hoping to get you out of patience.
So it's like, you've got to do it now. You've got to push.
Go, go, go, go, da, da, da, whatever the stuff is.
That fake urgency is to try to get you out of your patience.
But that's all he's got. But if you stay there, he's got nothing.
He literally just, you know, I love the way Graham describes
the difference between being an overcomer and more than an overcomer.
An overcomer is you practice your patience and the enemy leaves.
More than an overcomer, the enemy already knows you're going to do that
and he doesn't even pitch up for the fight, because what's the point?
By the way, he doesn't have endless resources.
You do, because you're in the kingdom. You have eternal resources.
Enemies on a budget, on everything, time, resources, everything.
So patience, game over. You always win.
Yeah. All right. Questions. Well, we've got Dion here.
Who's got some questions? Go ahead, Kerry.
So as you're talking, Dion, you know, one of the things that always comes to my head is,
I'm always trying to define. So how would you define then the word patience
in the context of, because a lot of times I think patience,
most people think patience as in you've paused and now you're just waiting,
which is kind of what you talked about, versus action with peace.
I don't know. I mean, how would you define patience?
As waiting with God. Yeah, it's waiting with God.
It's not waiting for God. That puts us back into the performance thing.
It's waiting with him. Lord, we're waiting on this. We're waiting on this.
OK. It doesn't matter what the complexities are.
So let's talk about it. So I talked to the Lord one day about that.
Right. And I think I think maybe you're asking a deeper question.
And so if I may, I'll just jump into that. Tell me if this is helpful.
But I asked the Lord about that one day and I said, why do I have to have patience?
When you give me a promise, why don't you just give me the thing?
What's with the waiting part? You know, I get that I'm waiting with you.
But why? And the Lord said, there are a lot of reasons.
Sometimes you're not ready. If I gave you that territory, you can't hold it.
I've got to develop you because I love you enough not to put you in a territory
you can't hold. Right. So I'm strengthening you.
I'm developing you into my image and likeness.
Let us make man in our own image and likeness. Right.
So that's just one twenty six. So, OK, could be that I'm being I'm not great.
I can't hold the territory gives a lot of Christians have breakthrough
and then lose their breakthrough. They don't know how to hold the breakthrough
because they pushed and they became impatient.
Second thing is that the Lord said sometimes nothing to do with you.
It's got to do with others around you. If I if I put you there,
they can't come with you. The ones I want to come with me.
to walk with you, can't come with you yet.
This is particularly true of a kingdom leader or a pastor.
One day we're going through a whole lot of stuff
and I said to the Lord,
what on earth is going on in our family?
He says, well, the enemy can't get to them
because they're in submission to you as elders.
So you're taking it head on.
As men, we often have this in our homes, right?
So enemy can't get to your wife and children,
so it goes off to you.
And so sometimes it's got to do with those around you.
So sometimes it's you, those around you.
And then sometimes it's that the Lord
is making the enemy pay by holding you back.
So it's like a spring load.
Did you know those little cars when you were kids
and you pulled it back and you let it go
and it shot forward?
Sometimes the Lord's literally coiling you up.
So not just when you enter the territory,
but you enter with such force
that it's game over for the enemy.
So I was really intrigued by that.
So in other words, sometimes it's strategy,
sometimes it's you growing up,
and sometimes it's those with you can go with you.
And that helped me to realize it's not all about me.
And when the enemy causes these delays,
sometimes it's honestly, in my view,
90 something percent of what we think is the enemy
isn't the enemy at all.
It's just people being dumb or making decisions
and doing their thing.
We live in a world with others and we collide with them.
So think of molecules in a space.
If the pressure's increased,
what happens to the amount of collisions?
Increase dramatically, right?
So as an analogy, what you're doing
is you're pushing the space out.
What patience does is it pushes the space out
and it takes away that artificial collision issue.
Yeah, I'll give you a couple of things there.
So like the springboard, I think a good example is Peter.
Luke 22, 31, 32, Jesus tells Peter,
Satan has asked to sift you like wheat,
but when your faith returns, strengthen your brethren.
And then he denies Christ three times, right?
And there's all kinds of redemption
where Jesus says, tell the disciples and Peter, right?
Well, Peter was a disciple, but he wanted to point out
because Peter's probably feeling pretty low.
And then the psychological part of the campfire, right?
So there's two places where it's mentioned.
And one, when he's denying Christ,
two, when he's walking up on the beach to see Jesus,
and then Jesus asked him three times, do you love me?
Right, so there's full redemption there,
but that equipped him and sprung board him
into the person that was so bold speaking at Pentecost.
One thing that I needed to tell myself today is,
and I'll share more on that later,
but who by worrying has added one hour to their life?
And Jesus said that.
And so daily bread, staying in step with the spirit,
what can I do today?
Not where's my result or where's my redemption
or where's my victory, but what can I do today?
What can I do today?
Let me stay in step with the spirit.
And because when I look at my next two weeks,
there's a lot going on, man.
There's multiple cities, there's driving,
there's kids, there's vacations, there's commitments,
there's just a lot.
When I look at today, what can I do right this hour?
He'll guide me and he'll guide me perfectly
every single time.
But when I try to stretch it out and look at,
what's the next Friday look like?
It's stressful.
And so.
Well, you said a lot of really important things.
Sorry, Ray.
No, I think you said a lot of very important things.
So let's just pick one of them on staying in step
with the spirit.
Scripture says, we live by the spirit,
let us stay in step with the spirit,
which seems to imply that you can live by the spirit
and not be in step with the spirit.
The inference is there, right?
So you can be a spiritual person
and not be in step with the spirit.
And that's easy to do as it turns out,
but it actually is actually easier for you
when you're in patience.
Because what patience does, it slows everything down.
That might've been in the kingdom,
you're getting rid of the fake hurry.
So you're slowing everything down
so you can take a minute and say to the Lord.
So one of my questions I love to ask the Lord
is how do you want me to be with you in this?
That's a great question.
How do you want me to be with you in this?
Or another way to say,
how do you want me to be before you in this?
But I just like,
how do you want me to be with you in this?
And so, I'll go back,
last week we went on vacation with all our kids.
We booked a big beach house
and all our kids and grandkids came
and we hung out for a week, beach week.
And I asked the Lord that question.
You said, well, you're on vacation.
But I wanted to know, the Lord said, I want you to be as restful as you can be, and manage
the atmosphere of rest on behalf of your family.
Be the touchpoint for heaven of rest and peace.
And we had a fantastic time, very restful, and you've got a lot of little grandkids that
can be noisy, little ones, you know.
And so I think that's really huge, what you just said, Ray, is that the reason we get
into these issues is that we still have it in our minds that we're doing it for God.
We haven't settled the partnership issue yet, that we're in yoke, we're one with Him, we're
doing it with Him.
We're waiting with Him, and when I know that He's faithful to deliver, then it doesn't
matter if I get it this week, next year, or ten years from now.
Because I don't know what territory we're taking, I don't know what I need for that
territory, I don't know how to hold that territory, I don't know who's got to come
with me into that territory, I don't know, you know, what territory we're taking after.
I know absolutely nothing, actually, other than the promise.
And the promise is a beautiful way to lock into God's intent for you.
So don't tie that to a timeframe, and don't tie that to a specific expression, like, oh,
it's going to look like this, I'm going to be able to pay for my bills when that closes
Don't do that part, that's the trap.
Because what, so if I've got two points, any two points here, and the distance between
these two points, right, I can go any direction, I can go up through the roof and down, I can
go from the table down, I can go this way, I can go this way, there's an infinite number
of pathways between these two points.
What's to say the one you speculated on is the one that the Lord's going to use?
So what's the probability you're going to be disappointed?
99.999, very large, close to 100%, because what's the chance you guessed right?
And the reason we guess is because we want to resolve it so we don't have to trust the
Lord.
Our old nature doesn't like the idea of trusting the Lord, and our new nature loves it.
We love being fully dependent on the Lord.
We love that He's your keeper.
So sometimes, here's a more of a secret thing that I do all the time.
When something is going through, I call it the lie of the long battle.
When you've been in a battle for a long time, you start, it starts to develop definition
power over you, and you start to become, you know, you see this in ministry, well I'm the
abused person, I'm the broke person, I'm the failure in business, I'm the, and it gets
definition power, because we've been at it for so long.
Has anybody know what I'm talking about for a second, because I felt a minute to share
this for somebody?
So when you believe the lie of the long battle, what patience does is removes the lie.
Because what patience does is it says I know that you are faithful, Lord.
So I know in whom I have believed, and it settles that issue.
So the lie of the long battle, when we're in a very long protracted battle, I've learned
another trick though, and I've learned to ask the Lord to be the keeper of that point.
Lord, I don't see how this promise is going to come to pass, we've been at it for so long,
would you just be the keeper of this promise?
And that's really been helpful, he says, I'll be the keeper, well I'll put it in safekeeping,
so take the pressure off you, so you don't have to be watching for the manifestation
every 10 minutes, so relax now.
Are we there yet?
Yeah, are we there yet, are we there yet, exactly, exactly.
Well that is a big deal though, Dion, because obviously the word says, forgive me for not
getting the verse off my head, hope deferred makes the heart sick, right?
Right, right, right.
We've all had, I'm generalizing, many of us have had a prophetic promise, something that
was spoken into our lives, where we confirm that with the Lord and it's like, yes, and
then it doesn't happen, and you step into it, you believe for it, you take what action
you believe God is leading you in, but it seems like, just like you mentioned in the
context of Abraham, God didn't say it's going to happen next year, and it was 40 years,
but walking that journey is that point of patience, I love the statement because it
takes it off of me to go, okay, God, this isn't happening in the time that I thought
it was, so how do I speed this up, and you don't.
Don't speed it up, no, no, not at all, that's why we often say slow learning is kingdom
learning, because of the hurry thing.
So, Kerry, so you were quoting from Proverbs 13, 12, I think, and in 13, 12 is an old covenant
idea because our hope is now in Christ, which is permanent.
So when you were in the old covenant, your hope could be deferred.
So your hope cannot be deferred because Christ doesn't defer you.
All the promises God gave you, this may be a little bit of a big idea, but take a second.
All the promises God gave you, gave to Jesus in you so they could never be lost.
Isn't that beautiful, right?
God gives all the promises, all those prophetic to Jesus in you, and he holds them in safekeeping.
Even if you do really dumb and stupid things, it doesn't change his promises because his
gifts and promises are without repentance.
He doesn't take them back.
So there's no, there's no returns.
So in this particular case, when you're thinking about, I was thinking of a really funny thing
Graham said the other day, we were talking about this, and he said, oh, he said, you
know, disillusion, you know, people get disillusioned, you know, we trust him for God, so I'm disillusioned.
So he says, yep, God will dis your illusion, you know, and because he doesn't want you
to live in an illusion.
He wants you to live in truth and reality with him.
So that's a great question, Lord, am I just, is there an illusion that you want to correct?
Have I projected something here?
Have I stepped ahead?
And that's why we have counselors, why we have mentors, probably why you signed up for
this is to get that compressed learning.
What should take 10 years?
What if it can take 10 months?
Because you don't go through the pain we went through.
So, yeah, every single thing we're sharing here, by the way, is is stuff where I've lived
in business and in ministry for many years, and well, some of them more recent, like seven
years ago.
And I'm still learning.
I mean, you never get past that, you know, yeah.
More questions while we have Dion on here.
So, Ray, I think this, what this sets us free from, let's talk about what this sets
us free from.
It sets us free from being over fake pressure.
It sets us free from illusions and speculations.
It sets us free from feeling like we have to manufacture these traits to look more like
God.
We're not trying to look like God.
We have his nature in us.
We are one with him.
It also sets us free from the idea that people made us do something.
You know, I'm a patient person till I'm around you.
You make me impatient.
Nobody makes you do a thing.
You just make me, that guy makes me angry.
She, you know, no, she and he doesn't do anything.
You're immovable in Jesus.
You are immovable in Jesus.
You're in a safe place.
He adores you.
He loves you.
And he deserves for you to have all the fullness Jesus paid for.
Yeah.
Amen.
Yeah.
But that takes away.
I don't deserve.
Yeah.
I was reminded of a great question of, you know, when, when you're building up in your
mind, you know, something is it's difficulty or, or whatever.
I think I first heard this from you, I think, but actually a friend going through the brilliant
plus app brought it to me today.
And that is, what if it gets to be easy?
Inversion.
What if it gets to be easy?
So whatever that thing is that you think is so difficult, hitting diamond or, you know,
paying off the thing or whatever, what if it gets to be easy?
What if, what if, what if we played like that more with those kinds of questions?
What if it gets to be easy and okay, what's, what's that daily bread?
What's that?
What am I, what am I to do today?
What am I, what am I after today?
And yeah, it's different.
Yeah.
You know, Greg McKeon, who wrote essentialism, and then he wrote effortless.
And I've met Greg, he spoke at one of my events now, Greg deals with very high and C level
people in Silicon Valley is an interesting guy, because he's a believer.
And if you read effortless, it's really great book, because effortless is what's these,
sorry, essentialism.
What's the essential thing I need to be doing and say no to everything else, right?
And effortless was, what if I make the essential thing...
a joy. And so the concept of of inversion is what if it can be
easy? Well, the Christian life is so hard. What if it's not?
Yeah, take up your cross. I know. And that is, oh, my life
has to be hard. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. But you did take
up your cross when you follow Jesus. Now you're one with him.
And so a lot of times, we, we drag out the process of
salvation, not not realizing it's a completed thing. By that
I mean, like, take, I have to, I have to die to self. And so
Graham wrote a great thing in his book, I think it's in
newness advantage, or maybe it's in the nature of freedom. It's
called the chapter heading is dying to yourself and having a
fantastic time doing it. See, there's inversion, Graham is
genius at inversion, inversion, like he'll say, with God,
nobody's safe from his goodness, you'll catch you at the end with
the inversion. So he's very good at the inversions, because
that's how the Lord is. So he, he did this, because this was so
simple, a child can do it. Unless you become as a child,
you cannot enter the kingdom, the kingdom is meant to be
childlike in its simplicity. And when you nail it all down,
patience is because you have childlike trust in the goodness
and kindness of Jesus, like a, like a little kid who just
believes dad when he says, you know, I mean, your kid doesn't
come to every morning, so dad, are you sure you're gonna feed
me this week? Are you sure you're gonna feed? When am I
gonna get food? Sweetheart, I gave you breakfast, I'll give
you lunch. But are you sure I'm gonna have lunch? What time is
lunch? Is lunch tonight? But if you translate that into how we
talk to the father, you know,
to say, yeah, I joke with very generous joke with my kids. I'm
like, I just I just fed you yesterday. You weren't you
weren't exactly last week. What's with this greed?
I know.
Oh, awesome. Yeah. Any, any? Okay, Angela, are you raising
your hand? I think you are. Okay. Yeah.
I enjoy. Hello. I just feel like we're going through the fire and
so many, you know, areas of our life, just, you know, things
were going just so great. And then it just seems like, you
know, our salon got vandalized, the contract with the mix is put
on a six month hold. You know, just it seems like one thing
after another, like this new company, I'm with the back
office is such a mess. And my whole 40 team that I brought on
is just like, what is going on? And I'm a doer. And so I just
feel like I'm trying to be patient in the fire. And I know
like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, like God is in, you
know, Jesus is there in the fire with me. But I sometimes feel
like Abraham, I'm like, we got to make this baby. Like, you
know, and I don't sometimes I just, it's hard for me to just
be still and
yeah.
Hey, I, you know, it's, I will say what Graham said to me, I
envy you. And why envy you? Because these, these are some of
the most precious growth times in the kingdom. Yes, downstairs
is tough. And it's really difficult. And that's what James
one tells us about right, says my brethren, counted all joy
when you fall into various trials, knowing what that the
testing of your faith produces patience. See, that's the key.
Then patience has its perfect work, that you may be complete,
lacking nothing. So patience produces completeness. And if
you like, so so so what's happening there is God isn't
testing you to see if you'll be patient enough. He's revealing
the patience he's already placed in you and giving you an
opportunity to make that a ruling power in your life.
Think about this, there is nothing the enemy ultimately can
do to let me drop that in the scripture for you. There is
nothing the enemy can do. There is nothing the enemy can do to
ultimately win. So if he curses you, God turns into a blessing.
If he throws a tribulation, God uses to grow you up so you can
take more territory. So the very thing he used to take list could
get you to take less territory God uses to get you to take
more. He inverts, we talked about inversion a minute ago,
God's a perfect, he's perfectly good inversion. So putting your
eyes on him, take your eyes off the circumstance. We're not, you
know, Abraham faced the fact that his body was old, he faced
the facts, but he believed the truth. We face the facts
downstairs, but we believe the truth upstairs. Lord, you said,
he loves it when we tell him that.
I am holding on to your goodness.
Thank you, Lord, that you're with me in this.
Thank you for your promise.
I'm going to come out of this lacking nothing.
Not even smelling of smoke.
Amen.
Right?
Amen.
So that gives you a place to stand, Angela.
Stand in His nature.
Don't try and stand in your circumstances.
Remember we talked about not being under the pressure, not being under the circumstances?
People say, well, I'm doing fine under the circumstances.
Well, what are you doing down there?
Why are you under the circumstances?
What on earth are you doing there?
What's the point of that?
We live above our circumstances.
That's what makes us overcomers.
It's our unique kingdom advantage as kingdom business people.
We get to live above.
It doesn't mean we don't feel the pain.
The downstairs is, you know, we face the phone calls and the issues and the conversations
and it's difficult, but there's a grace for that.
God's using it the whole time.
So yay, upgrade for Angela.
Amen.
I mean, I'm, you know, when I'm in fronted with, you know, people that need Jesus, I
have no problem being bold for Him and I just, I mean, that's where my heart really shines.
So from going to the conference and leading the guy next to me to Jesus, you know, I know
Jesus is the way, so He does have all the promises.
So amen.
There's a little book, our brilliant books, book things Graham wrote called Hiddenness
and Manifestation.
You go through times of hiddenness and it feels like everything's going wrong and nothing's
lining up and all this stuff and you go through this time of hiddenness and God builds you
up and suddenly there's a manifestation.
So you go through these, think of it as, you know, that you have the waves coming out and
the waves coming in, you know, pulling in.
The waves going out and the waves coming in.
You can't always be in business.
We just want to be go, go, waves going out, waves going out, go, go, go, but there has
to be a retraction for there to be a next expansion, a retraction and a next expansion
each time the waves got further.
I think what we want to, we think if it's in the kingdom, it just wave, it just goes,
keeps going, you know, because we were on a roll at one point, so we get shocked.
So there's these, these, these natural rhythms in the kingdom and God, God uses them to our
maximum advantage.
Yeah, I got a good prayer for you that I feel like that I prayed today and I'll share some
of mine and that is what lies am I believing?
And so it's very likely when you're getting a lot of punches to believe the lie that the
punches will never end.
Right.
So for me, I'll share with you two of my four that I was believing.
I can't handle all that I have and I am overwhelmed.
So there were, those are two lies.
Now, the deeper I thought about this, it was, I'm not going in any direction or making any
decision that the Lord hasn't nudged me to do.
So for him to do that and me to have an overwhelm is a lack of trust.
And so if he's nudged me to take on more responsibility, he's not asking me to do that
without the power to handle that.
So for me, it's a lie.
If I see this new responsibility as I'm not able to handle it, that's, that's a lie.
And so, you know, you might, you know, check that out in prayer.
You know, what lies am I believing?
And then I just said, I rebuke this lie in the name of Jesus Christ.
Father, thank you for rebuking this lie for me.
And, you know, that's...
What's the opposite of that, Ray?
What's the opposite of that lie for you?
Oh, I did that.
So it depends.
So one of them, an agreement I said is I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Right. And so, you know, that...
What else do I use?
All things are possible.
Well, so there was one...
I guess I can't really get away from this one.
But there was one where there's some...
Dion knows what I'm talking about.
But there's something I'm taking on.
And I've just been questioning my smartness around it.
Like, can I handle, like, what needs to be done intellectually here?
And one of the Proverbs is, you know, he who winneth souls is wise.
I win souls every single week.
So do you, right?
So you have wisdom, right?
You win souls, you're wise.
And so...
That was my, my one, two punch of, you know, I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me and, and he, who went as souls as wise.
And so that's how I.
So the question there.
Yeah.
The question might help here is how do I make that relational?
Because I think we get into the transactional space very
quickly when we're under pressure.
So how do I make that comment relation relational that Ray just said?
So for instance, um, raise it.
Okay.
We go for a few more minutes.
Yeah.
So, um, So the way we make that relational is think of it from God's viewpoint.
Right.
So in Angela, in your case, it's an Isaiah 41 moment for you.
The Lord says, I will help you.
I will help you.
Surely I will help you five times in Isaiah 41 says, I will help you.
It's very, very, very Ray in the scriptures.
God repeats himself that many times.
I'll go with you.
Fear not.
So how can he just say, fear not because your emotions are under
your control in that sense.
Not that you control your emotions is that you replace them with
these kindness, with these faith.
Thank you, Lord.
You with me?
It's that internal chaos goes quiet.
That's what rest is.
It's an internal settle down.
So make it relational.
And the way you can make it relational and say, Lord, how do you want me to be
with you in this?
And how do you want to be with me?
So make it both ways.
When you know what that is, now, you know how to be, not what to do, but what to
how to be, and then you can figure out what to do, because again, when you're,
when your mind knows what your heart believes, your mind can then function at
its best level.
It can be most creative because once your heart, Oh, we believe in God's
faithfulness.
Oh, we know he's with us.
Okay.
So what does that mean?
Now we can get downstairs practical, figure out all the strategies and work
it all out.
The mind is, cannot figure out what you believe.
That is a hard thing.
It's with the heart man believes.
So the question here is, what does God believe about you in this moment that you
need to believe about you in this moment?
So that's the opposite of all the, of what lie am I believing?
It's what truth is he believing among me?
See what I'm saying there?
So that's makes it relational, not transactional.
Otherwise we can come put ourselves back under pressure again.
Well, you see, I should be better at this.
How many times are we going to go through the same thing?
Why am I learning this again?
We go, we do the beat up thing.
Whenever you're beating yourself up, you know, um, for me, it was one day I was
doing that because I, I think all entrepreneurs and A type personalities
are very good at doing that to ourselves.
And the Lord said to me, okay, new rule.
You're not allowed to be less kind to yourself than I am to you.
Hmm.
So then my question was, well, how kind are you being right?
So that's a great question.
Lord, how kind are you being to me right now?
Cause a lot of times we can't see it because all we look at is
downstairs manifestation stuff.
Well, I didn't get the contract, so that's not kind, you know, right.
Powerful.
Okay guys.
Well, it's always a joy.
Thanks for the extra time.
Thank you, Dion.
Appreciate you.
Okay.
Excellent.
Thanks so much.
Bye.
All right.
So I've got, uh, I got nudged on several things to share with you guys.
Um, and I think I'll, I think it'll be helpful.
So appreciate you guys.
So first I want to share with you a breakthrough that kind of was on.
And, uh, and then I'm like, man, is this right?
And then I just, I just kept getting new, uh, new things being shown to me.
And so I'm, uh, right now I'm going through the passion translation and I
always, um, you know, I've gone through a bunch of different translations and,
and I always get something, you know, always, always get something new out of.
Like the, the biggest one for me was Galatians three and the
message literally blew my mind.
I'd read Galatians 30, 40 times.
Um, anyway, so I'm gonna give you three, three different scriptures that
to me all point to the same thing.
Okay.
And so I'm gonna start with Proverbs eight, Proverbs eight from the passion
translation, and I'm just, I'm just gonna read it.
Just, you know, enjoy.
Can't you hear the voice of wisdom from the top of the mountains of influence?
She speaks into the gateways of the glorious city at the place where
pathways merge at the entrance of every portal.
There she stands ready to impart understanding, shouting aloud to all
who enter preaching her sermon to those who will listen, I'm calling to you.
Sons of Adam.
Yes.
And to you daughters as well.
Listen to me and you will be prudent and wise for even the foolish and feeble
can receive an understanding heart.
that will change their inner being. The meaning of my words will release within you revelation for you to reign in life.
My lyrics will empower you to live by what is right.
For everything I say is
unquestionably true, and I refuse to endure the lies of lawlessness.
My words will never lead you astray. All the declarations of my mouth can be trusted."
I'm gonna have to put my glasses on here.
That's another story.
They contain no twisted logic or perversion of the truth.
All my words are clear and straightforward to everyone who possesses spiritual understanding.
If you have an open mind, you will receive revelation knowledge. My wise correction is more valuable than silver or gold.
The finest gold is nothing compared to the revelation knowledge I can impart.
Wisdom is so priceless that it exceeds the value of any jewel.
Nothing you could wish for can equal her, for I am wisdom, and I am shrewd and intelligent.
I have at my disposal living understanding to devise a plan for your life.
Wisdom pours into you when you begin to hate every form of evil in your life,
and that's what worship and fearing God is all about.
Then you will discover that your pompous pride and perverse speech are the very ways of wickedness that I hate.
You will find true success when you find me, for I have insight into wise plans that are designed just for you.
I hold in my hands living understanding, courage, and strength.
I empower kings to reign and rulers to make laws that are just.
I empower princes to rise and take dominion, and generous ones to govern the earth.
I will show my love to those who passionately love me, for they will search and search continually until they find me.
Unending wealth and glory come to those who discover where I dwell.
The riches of righteousness and a long, satisfying life will be given to them.
What I impart has greater worth than gold and treasure, and the increase I bring benefits more than a windfall of income.
I lead you into the ways of righteousness to discover the paths of true justice.
Those who love me gain great wealth and glorious inheritance, and I will fill their lives with treasures.
In the beginning,
Oh, pay attention. That's pretty interesting. In the beginning, I was there, for God possessed me even before he created the universe.
From eternity past, I was set in place before the world began.
I was anointed from the beginning. Before the ocean's depths were poured out, and before there were any glorious fountains overflowing with water,
I was there dancing.
Even before one mountain had been sculpted or one hill raised up,
I was already there dancing.
When he created the earth, the fields, even the first atom of dust,
I was already there. When he hung the tapestry of the heavens and stretched out the horizons of the earth.
When the clouds and skies were set in place and the subterranean fountains began to flow strong,
I was already there.
When he set in place the pillars of the earth and spoke the decrees of the seas, commanding the waves so that they wouldn't overstep
their boundaries, I was there.
Close to the creator's side as his master artist, daily
he was filled with delight in me, as I playfully rejoiced before him and laughed and played so happy with what he had made,
while finding my delight in the children of men.
So listen, my sons and daughters, to everything I tell you, for nothing will bring you more joy than following my ways.
Listen to my counsel, for my instruction will enlighten you.
You'll be wise not to ignore it. If you wait at wisdom's doorway,
longing to hear a word for every day, joy will break forth within you as you listen for what I'll say.
For the fountain of life pours into you every time that you find me, and this is the secret of growing in the delight in the
favor of the Lord.
But those who stumble and miss me will be sorry they did.
For ignoring what I have to say will bring harm to your own soul. Those who hate me are simply flirting with death.
And so
for me that whole thing is
the Holy Spirit.
Written by the Holy Spirit, about the Holy Spirit, about listening to the Holy Spirit, and even that last line,
you know, what's the unforgivable sin?
Blaspheming the Holy Spirit. He talks about that. Those who ignore me and hate me flirt with death.
And so
next
I just want to share with you. This is quick. Okay, no more. That's the longest I'm going to read to you, okay?
But in Acts 14,
I just got this
the other day or I think today maybe
so Acts 14
22 it looks like
It is necessary for us to enter into the realm of God's kingdom because that's the only way we will endure our many trials and
persecutions.
And so what I believe both of those are actually pointing us to
is the real definition of Matthew 6 33, which is
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you.
So I think most people take that as a
just
Hey, make God a priority and stuff. I actually believe this is
seek
Seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in every decision that you make and all these things will be added unto you and all
of those promises, those wonderful promises of Proverbs 8
is literally right there for the taking, okay?
And so we have,
and it's interesting how all of this is,
just the last few days have kind of come together.
So right now we have our nine-year-old daughter
in a summer camp, right?
She's in a one-week summer camp.
Now last week, I don't share this a whole lot,
or I'm sorry, last year,
she was in a two-week summer camp, got kicked out.
She's a spark plug, she's intense.
We don't always know how to handle her.
And in talking with, she's very strong-willed,
she's very, very smart.
And sometimes she just don't play well with others.
And so this whole week we're like praying,
Lord, please protect her.
Lord, please help her out.
Like have her be kind, you know?
And so if you didn't know,
Dion's wife, both Dion and Bridget
have ran parenting conferences for,
you know, Christian parenting conferences for 25 years.
And his wife, Bridget, who's wonderful,
she wrote a book called Wired for Parenting.
And I have not read it, but my wife has, and she loves it.
And so I just asked her for some advice.
And so we got on a one-hour Zoom with her today.
And if there's interest,
maybe I can talk her into coming in here
and doing something special for you guys.
She's absolutely brilliant.
And, you know, her, all four of their kids
are serving the Lord, married, successful,
like, you know, it's just great fruit, right?
And so she made me realize something
that when I'm dealing with my daughter
and she's acting out, I do first go to spiritual
and that I see, okay, is she under attack?
Is she into teas, you know, that kind of stuff.
And so I pray stuff off her all the time.
But what I haven't been doing,
which is quite frankly strange,
is I haven't been going to the Holy Spirit
and asking for advice.
I haven't been asking for guidance, you know?
Hey, what should I do in this situation?
I haven't been doing that.
And so I meet with Bridget and Dion's wife.
And so I come up with some questions to ask, okay?
And so my first question is,
Lord, how can I better guide Sabrina?
And the answer, turn to me in every situation.
Proverbs 8, Acts 14, Matthew 6, 3, 3.
And it's just, you know,
I got a whole page of a download with Sabrina.
And so I just want to encourage you
to know that he wants to help you.
And I have experienced where he'll allow things
to get rough to get us to do that.
I'm telling you.
So this morning, no one, you know,
I probably won't share this with anyone,
but you know, this morning I wake up
and I go, you know, I do my full morning stuff.
And so I go to work on my laptop.
I can't read anything on my laptop.
Everything's cloudy.
My eyes are just so cloudy.
I can't, I can't, nothing.
And so, you know, I, you know,
text a few of my, you know, Holy Spirit friends.
And I'm like, hey, can you check my eyes?
And one person was like, nah, I don't see anything.
The other person, and I always liked their,
cause they both come from very different perspectives.
Actually, I texted three of them
and they all come from different perspectives.
Okay.
And the one nailed it.
And I was like, this is actually a divine blocking.
Is there's something that you're doing
that he's trying to help you correct.
He's trying to work out of your life.
And so what I was, what I,
what was happening is I was very stressed.
I've taken on some big roles
with some new projects and things like that.
And, you know, and I'm just, I'm just looking
and there's been this,
just interesting stretching of AI things I got to learn
and this thing and this, and I'm just like.
And I was just very stressed about it.
And so, you know, I got into prayer
and I got, you know, pray about the lie.
What are the lies you're believing?
So I shared with you some of those, right.
Overwhelm, I can't handle all this.
And, you know, and pray those things, you know.
rebuke those things, but if my eyes weren't cloudy,
I wouldn't have prayed that.
And I would have stayed stressed all day long, all day long.
And so, it's never, it's literally never,
look at the situation.
It's never, why Lord, why my eyes?
It's going, okay, Lord, what does this mean?
What is missing?
What do you wanna be for me in this?
What would make your heart happy with this situation?
Like asking different questions.
It's not the cancellation, the termination,
the lawsuit, the foreclosure, the health issue,
the prognosis, it's never the thing.
It's always, God, where are you in this?
Let me go to you in this situation.
And so, it's just very helpful.
And then, yeah, I think that's what I had.
That's what I had to cover.
So, let me know if you're interested in,
I'm pretty sure Bridget would come in here.
She's just awesome.
If you guys wanted her to share some parenting stuff,
it was very, I've read several parenting books.
Her take, very, very different.
She shared with me, I'm sure Dion would be okay with this,
but she shared with me one instance
where one of the older sons was disrespectful to her
and Dion's about to go whip some tail, okay?
And so, Dion tells him, hey, wait downstairs.
And on his way downstairs, the Holy Spirit's like,
don't you dare be tough on him.
And he's like, what, you're, you know,
because we wanna be tough on him.
And, you know, and he goes down there
and he just says, what's going on?
And he just burst out crying.
He was under so much stress.
And, you know, it was, the Lord wanted him to be gentle.
And I'm positive there have been times
where I've blown up at, you know, Sabrina or Graham.
I mean, not as much Graham, but Sabrina,
where I probably wasn't supposed to.
And I should have been asking for wisdom
versus just operate from reaction.
And so, but parenting, that's just a category, you know?
There's, where else do we do that?
You know, where else do I do that?
And so just always turning to him for wisdom,
always, you know, Holy Spirit's crying out
aloud in the streets, in the marketplace,
everywhere from the top of the city, right?
Always crying out for us to listen, gotta listen.
But the enemy loves us paying attention to the situation.
Right, because we're in a situation,
we can't, you know, we can't keep both eyes on,
we can't, you know, we can't have one eye on the situation,
one eye on God, we need to turn to God.
Seek ye first, not the stress of the situation,
seek ye first the kingdom of God.
And so, I hope that helps.
And so questions or anything to add
or breakthroughs, questions?
Always love our time with Dion.
I get a lot of time with him, we talk every day.
And if not, then I'll pray this out.
Okay, and we appreciate your, you know,
our prayer warrior, Rebecca,
she is dealing with a very tough sore throat
and vocal thing that's being healed as we speak.
So we appreciate your prayers for her
and I'll pray this out.
So Father, we're so grateful for you.
Father, thank you for your presence.
You are our Lord and our light, our rock,
our refuge, our redeemer, our protector,
our provider, our source, our everything.
Thank you for all you do for us, Lord.
Father, thank you for helping us to prioritize you
and seeking you always.
Father, we thank you for you always being bigger
in our minds and our hearts
than any situation we ever encounter, Lord.
Thank you for clarity, guidance, direction,
wisdom, strength, and discernment.
And Father, I just thank you for blessing
every single person on here from the crown of their head
to the soles of their feet, Lord.
Father, thank you for blessing their family
and the work of their hands, Lord.
And Father, we're just so, so grateful for you.
You're worthy of all praise,
you're worthy of all glory and power and strength,
and we are honored to be your children.
We thank you in the mighty matchless name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Thank you, Ray.
Amen.
Appreciate you guys.
If you come up with something,
hit me on Vox or you know the deal.
All right?
Will do.
Awesome, appreciate you.
Blessings.