(257) “Restoring Purity in the Body of Christ” with Jeff Symons

0:00 Nobody ever takes accountability for those inaccurate prophecies. And I think that we all have known that those things have been an issue. It's just coming to the surface now where I actually think it's the Lord refining us in a way that we can have purity in the Spirit again. God promises in Joel 2 .28 to pour out His Spirit on all humanity. Welcome to Global Outpouring, where we contend for that promised outpouring, and we equip for that outpouring so that we may engage in that very outpouring. I'm Philip Buss. And I'm Sharon Buss. Welcome to the podcast today. We're so glad that you're with us. We have with us today our friend Jeff Simons, who is going to be one of our speakers at the convention 2025 coming up in St. Louis. And we encourage you to be there with us. But we're going to have a discussion about the things that the Lord is showing him and leading him to bring to the body about restoring purity in the body of Christ. Thanks for joining us today. If you haven't already done so, before we get started, we want to encourage you to go to our website, globaloutpouring .net. Make sure that you're on our mailing list, our email list.

1:26 so that we can stay in touch with you, keep you informed of what we're doing. While you're out there, you can also look at the event page for Convention 2025. We have all of our speakers lined up now. We're going to have Siggy Oblander opening for us, and Tony Kemp will be ministering, and Dean Braxton, and Jeff Simons is one of our speakers. Jean Little, and I'll be speaking also, and we're just going to have a glory time in the presence of the Lord. His presence is always so amazingly manifest at this convention because He just loves to connect with us, and we love to connect with Him. We'll have deep worship.

2:08 tremendous intercession and we'll have flags of the nations around the room and you can pray over the nations. There's tremendous intercessions going to go on and opening the word, it'll be deep and glorious and you'll be able to make new friends and relationships that'll go on for eternity. So we want to encourage you to plan to be with us May 21st through 24th in St. Louis. at the St. Louis Airport Marriott Hotel. It's going to be a glory time. Please make your plans to be there. Well, Jeff Simons, it's such a pleasure to have you with us on the Global Outpouring Podcast again. It's been about a year or so since we've had you with us and since you had us with you on your podcast. So welcome. We're glad you're with us. Well, thank you very much. It's good to be here. We were chatting before we started.

2:59 on this, just trying to get the mind of the Lord of what direction he wants to take us. First of all, I just want to say that we're looking forward to having you with us at Convention 2025 at the St. Louis Airport Marriott Hotel, because I feel like there's such a connection in the spirit. When we connected a year ago, I just really felt like there's a real connection. And then you came here for the Eclipse event that we had in April of last year. And we just felt like family right from the get -go. So I don't know if you have any leading yet as to what you're going to be ministering on at the convention. But if it comes out in this conversation, that would be good. But we just want people to get to know you. And we'll encourage folks to go back to the recording that we did a year ago.

3:49 And we'll put a link to it in the show notes. So you have your own podcast, the Kingdom Awakening podcast. That's the name of your ministry. Oh, and tell us that little piece that you told us a year ago about. of the names that you were possibly considering for your ministry. What was one of those? Well, there was outpouring international. There was global outpouring was one of the ones that I was considering. And those two are what we were considering too. Isn't that a stunning thing? I just love that. Yeah. That is so amazing. So you have that podcast and you have a podcast with John Mark Baker called Minor Prophets. And I've listened in on some of the things that you have been tackling, talking about the stuff that's going on, the exposures that are going on in the church, in ministries where people who have not been acting according to the word of God are being exposed for it. What I heard that you and John Mark were sharing together, I appreciate how you handled it. Just give us a little bit of your heart about that subject.

4:56 Well, first, thank you for appreciating how we handled it. Not everybody had that response. It's interesting because it's dancing a fine line, right, where there's entire camps that have been publicly stating things against charismatic ministers for a long period of time. They don't have an audience to the charismatic church because they denounce all things charismatic and cessationist and things like that. And we're coming in saying, OK, we're not in that camp, but we are acknowledging that there's issues in our own stream of the body. And and then the other extreme of that is those that have. I'm going to use my language, that have idolized individuals to such an extreme that they have a hard time acknowledging when one of those leaders or ministries does something that is either unbiblical or wounding of people.

5:56 And we're not in that camp either. We need to be able to discern rightly. And there's places where we're trying to address. unbiblical practices that we have in the charismatic movement. As people that are in that movement, I speak in tongues and prophesy and pray for the sick and have encounters and miracles. My salvation story, I got saved and shortly after went to heaven. So I don't know what the different levels of charismatic are, but I have a shofar and I have a tallit. So that puts me up there. You may not catch me with the flags, but I'll think about it. So it really started, John Mark came as a guest onto my podcast on Kingdom Awakening. And we found that we both had a heart for seeing purity come back to the charismatic movement.

6:55 Yes. And we started to find these areas where the things that we were quoting and saying didn't align biblically. Come on. And it was hard because you kind of have to distinguish between, okay, am I, we'll just take prophecy, for example, right? So in 1 Corinthians, we are commanded. One prophesies and the others judge the prophecy. Now, it doesn't mean you judge the prophet. It means you judge the prophecy. Well said. And the challenge that we have is we need to be able to say, okay, this is good. This is bad. That's accurate. That's inaccurate. And a lot of times, depending on somebody's background in our movement, they have their identity connected to certain aspects of this. So to them, if you judge...

7:46 a prophecy, oh, you're judging, you're saying I'm not a prophet. And we're actually, we're not making any statements about, you know, offices or titles or anything like that. But we're saying, okay, we need to judge prophecy. We're supposed to be doing this. Yes. And it's a clear example of what we have lost. And I want to make sure that I'm clearly stating this is my opinion. I believe that we have significantly lost credibility to the world. We lost a lot of credibility in 2020. We've lost credibility since then, where there are certain prophetic voices that are saying that they're going to heaven and seeing Santa Claus and fictional characters. Which, okay, so we have a bunch of bad things that are out there. That wouldn't be an issue. if we were actually calling balls and strikes. If we were saying, okay, for example, say that our podcast existed two years ago and we had people that were on and sharing the prophetic word for the year and things of that nature. And somebody said, in this next year, we're going to have World War III by the end of 2024. And then 2024 rolls, comes through in the end of 2024. I then have a responsibility to the audience. to clarify and say, we have this person on, and we can't particularly speak to what they were hearing or not hearing, but we know that that word did not come to pass. And it means that we need to

9:17 then view future words with a higher degree of scrutiny. It doesn't mean that we fully discredit the individual. Oftentimes, it's a learning experience. True. I remember there was a time, and this was fairly early in my, and my growth in the prophetic where I had a friend call me and he said, Hey, give me a, give me a word from the Lord. And you know, if you, you get a reputation and people, it's well -intentioned and you know, they just want clarity from the Lord on a particular subject. And I, I saw a picture of somebody running. So I, you know, I immediately spiritualize it and said, OK, well, the Lord is saying that you're running your race and that you need to persevere and endure and you're going to run your race well. And, you know, I forget what all I said because it was wrong. But he said, well, I'm going to receive your interpretation. I was I was asking the Lord what I needed to do to lose weight. And so it was a literal word that I spiritualized rather than just taking what I heard and communicating that. So I'm not saying that we can't miscommunicate things, but we have made the exception the rule.

10:33 And I think this is true in a lot of different things, actually, where we have exceptions biblically for a conditional versus an unconditional prophetic word. There's times where you have an option whether or not you see the fulfillment of the word. So an example of that is Agabus giving the word to Paul and Paul says, you know what, I'm going to go to Jerusalem anyway. He didn't have to. He had a response to seeing that fulfillment. The problem is most of the time the people that teach on conditional prophetic words never get an unconditional prophetic word and they don't get them accurate. So it's creating a loophole where I'm never accountable for anything prophetic. So I think that we have to get back to authentic prophecy, to not trying to be the next superstar of prophetic and have the next gigantic word.

11:24 Because like I was talking to one of the leaders from International House of Prayer, and he was talking about the challenges that he's had with individuals that have sold their homes and relocated based on doomsday prophecy. from certain ministries. And he said, it's so damaging to these families to have those types of things. I'm like, yeah, you're right. And he said, and they never get fixed up. They never get cleaned up. Nobody ever takes accountability for those inaccurate prophecies. And I think that we all have known that those things have been an issue. It's just coming to the surface now where... I actually think it's the Lord refining us in a way that we can have purity in the Spirit again. Absolutely. You know, I have continually been repeating the Scripture, everything that can be shaken is being shaken, so that that which cannot be shaken will remain.

12:22 And that's a good thing. It's a wonderful thing that our Father cares enough about us to bring us correction. You know, correction is not rejection. Right. And we have to have correction or else, you know, Paul says we're bastards. If you don't get the correction, you know. He disciplines those he loves. Exactly. He who he loves, he chastises. Exactly. So we have to embrace these things. And God said, I'm starting at my church. But he's wanting to shake everything. everything is being shaken. And we're seeing more of that now, that everything is being shaken so that that which cannot be shaken will remain. And it's a good thing. We just have to say thank you to our Father and run to Him, run to that mercy seat, because that's where we get back on the purity train, you know, the righteousness train. That's the path. It's the path. It's the derrick. It's the way. And our father spelled it out for us so clearly in his word. It's Isaiah 35, 8. And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it. It shall be long to those who walk on the way. Even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. So even the very simplest of people, if they'll just get into line with the word. You're not going to fall off the way if you get where you understand there is a soulish,

13:55 fleshly way, and there is a spirit way, Holy Spirit way, a word way. And what does Romans 8 say? Verse 14, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. And that word sons is the mature sons, the ones that are old enough to... have been working with dad long enough that they know how he thinks and they've been trusted with the checkbook and the keys to the office and they can write contracts for dad and sign contracts for dad and dad will say, yeah, I'll stand behind that, you know, because they're mature. They've worked with him long enough.

14:35 That's where we've slipped a lot, where we have not. I mean, the whole point of the fivefold ministry is to bring up everybody in the congregation into a place of ministry rather than being out there as, you know, I'm the hero. And I'm not saying that specifically about anybody, but there can be that tendency to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. Right. And one of the themes that's kind of come up a few times recently is the sins of Eli. And, you know, that's something that's been repeated from multiple different sources that have said, I feel like we're dealing with the sins of Eli. Yes. And while I think that's true, I also think the Lord impressed upon me one time that Samuel, when Israel first cried out for a king, it was because of the wickedness of Samuel's sons. to deliver Israel from under the sins of Eli through Samuel, Samuel repeated the same thing. It's very true.

15:47 That Samuel still didn't train up his sons to walk after the Lord. And you could look not to identify any particular ministry, but you could go back to the Kansas City prophets and say, okay, they identified issues with Paul Cain and with Bob Jones, and they had the courage to confront those leaders at that time. And now those same ministries that had the courage to confront then are the ones that are being challenged now. And I think that in many ways, and I've said this to several other ministers in this process, we need to be able to say what's true and say what's false, say what's good and say what's bad. And at the same time, not think of ourselves as more highly than we ought. It's not like we are incapable of making the same error. And we need to make sure that we don't rebuild the thing that the Lord seems to be tearing down right now. the removal of idols, again, using my language, idols in the church where we have worshiped people instead of worshiping the Lord. And we will take a person's word and elevate it. If we're honest with ourselves in times, we'll elevate a quote from a certain minister above clear scripture.

17:03 And, you know, so it's idolatry. And actually, it doesn't help that minister either. You know, that when Israel. Forgive me for bouncing around a little bit. But, you know, when Israel, when they come out of Egypt, right? The Israelites, right when they come out, they go to their neighbors, the Egyptians. They are given all this gold and all the blessing and everything. And they plundered Egypt, right? Yeah, right. So then they're out in the wilderness. It's been a minute. And they're waiting at Sinai. Moses is up there. And the very thing that was a blessing to them, given to them by the Lord, is what they melted and made an idol out of. The thing that was meant to be a blessing to them and to their household, they turned it into an idol. And I think we've done the same thing. The ministers of our day are meant to be a blessing to the body, to contribute to the body, and to serve and undergird us. But in many ways, we've turned them into idols, which was, it's to their detriment and to ours. I think we have to be intentional to avoid repeating that same mistake. Yes, absolutely. Before we hit the record button, we were talking about, you made a comment that I thought was quite amazing.

18:17 You said we're gaslighting ourselves and calling it faith. Can you explain that? I think that's just a huge, huge statement. Well, gaslighting is kind of a buzz term, buzz word right now. Explain that, because not everybody will know that word. Back when we had gas stoves, if somebody asked you, did you leave the stove on enough times, even if you had turned it off, you might start to think that you had left it on because somebody tells you enough times. Gaslighting is essentially, I tell you something as though it's not true and just keep saying it over and over until you believe it. Sounds like the media. Yeah, I think the term maybe originally started when we had gas lights before electricity. And the first story that I've heard about is that this man was trying to convince his wife that she was going crazy. And he would turn the lights down and make her think that he wasn't being truthful and trying to make her think she was crazy. Gotcha. It's essentially lying over and over. Contradictory to what you know to be true.

19:23 Yes, to make you think you're crazy. Right. If it's to somebody else, it's to convince them of whatever it is that you're lying about. You know, the sky is green, the sky is green, the sky is green, whatever. We gaslight ourselves and we call it faith. And there are certain teachings that can be incorrectly applied in a way that cause people to practice this. For example, a friend of mine had his marriage blew up recently, and he got divorced, not to his own fault. But in this process, he started to realize, oh, there's things I've done wrong in my marriage. And he starts to acknowledge these different areas of his heart where he had prioritized ministry or prioritized other things other than his marriage.

20:14 Again, it doesn't. mean that that was necessarily the the only thing happening right but then all of a sudden he said i heard this message and i realized oh i'm righteous by faith i'm you know father thank you so much that i am i am by faith i'm right and and i said hang on a second you were having a moment where you were authentically repenting and you just shortcutted yourself from that process to say that because the reality is repentance can be painful Oh, yeah. Sure. Humbling. Humbling. Very humbling. It's acknowledging that you have done something wrong, that you have some way affected somebody else. And if it wasn't somebody else, another human, the Lord, and acknowledging ways that you have wounded somebody. It's not a fun process, but it is part of the process to acknowledge how our... decisions and actions and words have affected others. And if you shortcut that process and say, you know what, by faith right now, everything is perfect.

21:20 That doesn't change the reality of what you've done. It doesn't change your inner heart even. What it is, is you're lying to yourself so that you feel okay. It's a way of trying to appease your conscience rather than actually doing the harder work of acknowledging. what the root issue was going on in your heart when you were doing those things. Right. Yeah. I've said for years that we all want to be humble, but we don't want to have to go through humiliation to get there. Right. So that's why it's important that we humble ourselves rather than. He'll exalt you in due time. Yeah. It's not right away time. Yeah. You got to walk through the whole thing. You got to finish the process. Absolutely. And I heard a story of a pastor the other day who he was sharing of how when he was early on to becoming a pastor, he had significant pride in his heart.

22:18 And he would go to this donut shop for these leadership meetings with his leaders and he was meeting there every week. But he was so prideful and dictated to them what they should do that he got fired shortly after, after being on staff at this church. He gets a job at the donut shop. And one day he sees the leadership group come in that he used to lead. And the owner tells him, I want you to go wash the windows. He says, no, please, anything but washing the windows, anything else. And the owner said, no, you need to wash the windows. And the Lord told him. First window, second window, and he gets to the window in front of him. And the Lord told him, it wasn't humiliation that I desired for you. It was humility.

23:07 And I think that humiliation, it's one of the ways that we get it. But it doesn't have to be that way. Right. If we're stubborn, if we double down in pride, the reason humility is a requirement is it creates space for us to receive his grace. Oh, that's beautiful. But if I'm full of pride, I actually can't receive the grace that God wants to bring to me. Very true. And I was just looking up at scripture, you know, humble yourself. In the sight of the Lord. In the sight of the Lord, he'll exalt you in due time. And that due time is Kairos. Oh, there you go. So it's a season. Yeah, it's a certain moment of opportunity that isn't always there. How long is your season depends how. Humble you are. How quickly. How quickly you admit that you need help. Because really, we can't do this, even this on our own. It's a work of getting into agreement with the Holy Spirit when he's trying to polish and root out things that don't belong there. And, you know, iron sharpens iron. So sometimes he puts us with other kind of people that are just. Way too similar to ourselves. What are they used to polish diamonds with? Other diamonds, yeah. Other diamonds. Yeah.

24:26 Oh, wow. It's just as hard. Let your light shine. You've got to go through some polishing. That's true. Never thought of it that way. But it's worth it. Yeah. Absolutely. Anything Jesus does for us is worth it. Yeah. Yeah. And I see that out of all of this correction that the Lord is bringing us. He's going to bring us into a place where we're going to be more palatable as believers to people who don't know Jesus. You know, there's a movement out there of people who are, they call themselves ex -evangelicals because of church hurt or whatever. And I heard a quote recently that there's no hate like Christian love, where people have encountered fleshly Christians. instead of Christians that are flowing in the love of God. The love of God is real. But the soulish nature, that's the part that we have to work out our own salvation in. Applying the finished work of Jesus, applying that grace, receiving that grace so that we can humble ourselves and admit that we're wrong and get back on the wagon of rolling with Jesus. Right. Sometimes we want the Lord to directly say everything to us. We only want to receive it from Him. And sometimes it can be harder to receive when it's, like you

25:58 mentioned, that other person, that iron sharpening iron. So I have a practice that I do for my ministry. And I had a friend that just challenged me to increase the way I do it. It's actually, I covered it briefly. my book, which is the importance of correction. So every once a year, I ask all of the board members for our ministry to seek the Lord intentionally asking him correction that he has for me. It can be personal. It can be, it can be for the ministry. It can be any of it, anything. And inviting that correction where if I can get that practice down. I won't be shocked when people give me feedback of you did something wrong here or you need to correct this where it can become part of where I'm more receptive to correction from the Lord. And I had a friend who I was sharing this with him and he said, I would challenge you to have your kids ask you too. And I was like, oh, that's good. That's a really good idea. And I did ask my son. I don't remember if he had something.

27:07 If he did, I wrote it down, but, um, actually, no, I remember he hasn't got back to me yet, but the, um, it's teenagers. Yeah. Maybe dad, you didn't let me borrow the Mustang to go drive when I wanted to, you know, but, um, but really what we, what. if we can get this as a common practice, what we start doing is we give people permission to say the things that have been going on that they've been feeling or negatively experiencing us because not everything is, is something that you're doing intentionally. You may, I mean, in all likelihood you're doing it. You're not aware of it. You're not aware of how other people are receiving you. Yeah. That's why Jesus said, father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Most of the time people don't know what they're doing. Right. Some of. you know, call it in the charismatic, we call it Jezebel and in psychology, they call it narcissism. Okay. Call it what you want. Most of the time when people are operating in those things, they don't know that they are like that to them. It's normal. This, this is what they experienced and this is normal for them. And if they can have enough humility to ask the question of, okay, am I doing something that is contrary to how the Lord would have me either lead or, you know, whether it be a family, a ministry, whatever, then you can start to adjust those things and not assume. And this is what most of us do, right? We assume that we're doing

28:38 everything correctly and we just keep going until the Lord says something or we hit a dead end and we're like, oh, wait, what was that? You know, and it doesn't have to be that way. Right. Absolutely. What else is the Lord speaking to you about besides that? kind of thing, looking at the body of Christ and seeing where we need improvement. What else is the Lord saying to you? Well, one I've just been asking the Lord, a lot of times He'll speak to you even through people's accusations. If we can get an ear for it, where even somebody that doesn't have the Lord's heart on something, there can still be elements of truth in it. that if we can humble ourselves and listen to. So I've been asking, since we've done the Minor Prophets podcast, we've had a handful of negative responses that I actually, I enjoy taking those before the Lord and asking, Lord, okay, what of this? Because it's actually, if we can, again, if we can have that right heart posture, then it means that negative things can quickly be turned around into refinement of character. Beautiful. So I've been asking the Lord, okay, Lord, is my heart right when I said this, when I did that, those types of things. And interestingly, as you mentioned before, the Lord is shaking everything that can be shaken. And humility is the key right now.

30:04 Judgment is coming to the house of the Lord. The Lord is the one doing it. And I also believe that the Lord is restoring authentic shepherds to the body, those that care primarily about the people, not about building followings. And I'm not saying that we haven't had that because I believe that we have. Yes. I think it's really the minority that have had these issues, right? I hope. I hope it's not the majority. You know, I'm reluctant to say just because. a lot of times and i'm sure you guys have seen this for me anyway i assume when i get a word from the lord that it somehow it has some broad meaning to everybody and you know or at least i did at some at one point and i don't think that's necessarily representative of the entirety of the body so just because he says something to me about the you know the stream that i'm in it may not apply to others i don't know is what I would say. I think that we have, there's plenty of authentic pastors that are just serving in their local church and doing their best to build up people on a weekly basis.

31:06 Yes, absolutely. It's interesting. You know, one of the words that was coming or swirling around was the spirit of accusation or the accuser of the brethren, right? And I was asking the Lord, I'm like, Lord, where are these? Are these happening right now? And is this something that... am I functioning in any kind of accusation? And he kind of walked me through, okay, what is an accusation? Accusation is a false witness. So something that never happened. An accusation is something that's been redeemed. So you've repented for it. It's under the blood, but the enemy, this is what we see with the accuser, the brethren standing when he's standing before Joshua, right? And he's accusing him, but the Lord then changes his robes, right? So something that's already been redeemed or it's something true. And the intention or motive is to tear down. And when he said that last one, I was like, okay, when we're having these conversations about hard subjects, our goal is never to tear anything down. But that voice is going out there right now where there are those that are trying to, to tear things down. And unfortunately it's usually, and I'll just use this example because it's already known. for example, with Mike Bickle and IHOP, it was the people that were trying to silence all of these victims. They were accusing them of, you're just trying to take over IHOP, or you're just trying to tear down Mike Bickle.

32:38 None of those things were true. There was no evidence of any of those things. It was just throwing accusation out there to try to draw attention away from the real thing that was happening, which was unfortunately significant. misconduct. Bad behavior. Yeah, yeah. We don't want the censor overlords to get us, but yes. Right. Horrible, horrible behavior. So is the spirit of accusation out there? Yeah, it is. And we need to be aware of it. That's why we need to speak the truth and speak it in love. But that doesn't mean that we don't speak the truth and it doesn't mean that we stop loving. Right. Yeah. And we're going a little over time, but I'm going to throw this at you anyway. You know, it's interesting. Have you ever thought about how You know, when Paul, when he's brought in front of, I believe it was in front of the Sanhedrin's Acts, it's Acts 23, where he actually intentionally sows discord between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Start a riot. Where he used that because their ability to attack one another actually caused a disruption and it exposed an issue. Right. I actually think that we're seeing some of that happening right now in the church where there's some of the conflict that's happening is the Lord is allowing it because it's exposing things. Yes. Yes. You know, he's after a pure bride without spot or wrinkle. Right.

34:09 That's really the bottom line. And when we are not focusing on his heart, on his ways, on... I remember hearing somebody say that there are rabbis, Orthodox rabbis, that will not marry a couple unless they look like brother and sister because they need to be that much alike in order for them to have a successful marriage. One of the things that I always tell young people that are considering, where's Mr. Right, where's Miss Right? I'm looking for the one that I want to spend the rest of my life with. And I tell them how God put Philip and me together. And we have a very successful marriage. Mostly, I think, well, mostly because God's in it. But a lot of it has to do with the fact that we were raised in a similar way with similar thought patterns.

35:08 Our parents raised us in church. I was not raised Pentecostal like he was. But I got into it when I was 13. Well, you got filled with the Holy Spirit before I did. Yeah, right. But you had been exposed to it and I hadn't. But anyway, my point is that our lifestyle and our upbringing was very similar. And I'm not saying that you can't have a successful marriage if you don't have that. But what I'm saying is that our father is looking for someone just like his son to be able to marry him. and the body of Christ is meant to be that, that we're being refined by the Holy Spirit, like Galatians 5, where you've got all of this long list of fleshly works, and then you've got this list of the fruit of the Spirit. And if you read the fruit of the Spirit, you're looking at the character of Jesus. Right.

36:10 So he's after us to work those things out in us. And the more we yield, the easier the process will be. And if we're really honest with ourselves, it's the only thing that really matters. Yes. And I was having a conversation with a friend the other day, and we were talking about the unspoken caste system. And Christian ministry. And I said, you know, at the top, it's itinerant minister if you're full time itinerant. And then, you know, if you're not if you're a pastor and you have an occasional conference here and there, then, you know, you're you're slightly below that. You know, people want to hear what you have to say, but you're not quite to that top tier where you get to travel all the time. And then, you know, below that, it's just, you know, full time local pastor. Your needs are taken care of. And, you know, people have a they have a need for. for you to shepherd over them, but you know, it's, and you get paid that way. But, and then below that, it's, well, a lay pastor, you know, you're, you're doing, or lay minister, you know, where you have a job and it's, you got to take care of your family, but your ministry thing isn't doing well enough that you're fully, you know, and it's, it's interesting how, and I see it as somebody that has a full -time job, you know, and it doesn't, it doesn't matter to me. Sometimes people will receive you differently.

37:36 when they find out you have a job. Or if you're an itinerant minister, you show up and they're like, oh, they're finally here. The anointing has arrived. And some of them are scoundrels. Right, right. And I think you can have honor and hear what I'm saying, not what I'm not saying. There's something right about honoring people and things. Absolutely. In that we have actually in some passive way, we've communicated that when you're a really high performing Christian or you're really, really super spiritual, you're preaching conferences and or doing big crusades.

38:21 And that is so contradictory to what we see in the gospel, you know, that we should be storing up treasure. in heaven not treasure on earth yeah and and what we do for the least of these what i if i give a cup of water to a child that's and i do that in his name that is doing it as unto him right and The things that we do, and this is a big part of the Sermon on the Mount, is the distinction between you say, but I say, you say, but I say. And you go and pray for people publicly to be seen by men so that they may honor and esteem you. But I say when you pray, go into your closet where your Father is the only one that can see you. Yes. You know, so we've made the Christian and I think we've, we've communicated kind of passively. I don't think that anybody would, would actually say, you're really, you know, you're really a super Christian when you have a book deal with destiny image, you know, and I'm not knocking destiny image or, you know, I'm just, I'm making jokes, but the, but what gets communicated to people is they start to think, oh, I want to be as spiritual as. Heidi Baker and a Bill Johnson. And those things are okay. Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ.

39:38 But we need to, in that pursuit, recognize that this is not about becoming the next big speaker. The gospel is about how do I steward my time? How do I take care of the coworker that I'm interacting with? How did I steward that relationship? What did I do when I drove past the same homeless person that's begging for food money every day at the corner you know so those things actually matter more in heaven than whether or not you had an itinerant gig and and i say that as somebody it's one of my favorite things to do by the way is preaching conferences and i'm super excited to to be with you guys in may i just i love it but i also don't over emphasize it and i have to have a check in my heart a guard rails in place you know so I want to make sure that the things that I do are primarily before the Lord.

40:35 And the reason I do them is because I know their eternal significance, not just in a conference setting. It's important to be faithful there too, but also when I'm at home with my wife and kids and how I steward those relationships. Very true. Everything in between. Very true. You know, you're going to meet, have you met Dean Braxton before? I haven't. Okay. So you're going to meet him at this convention. And we've had a couple of podcasts with him that covered a subject because he spent an hour and 45 minutes outside of his body. His body was dead. The medical team was working on him for an hour and 45 minutes, and he finally came back. In the meantime, he was with the Father and Jesus in heaven. And one of the things that he tells, and we'll put links to the podcast where he's talking about it in the show notes, he talks about In heaven, they communicate thought to thought rather than speaking.

41:33 And everyone greets each other with, how can I serve you? And it's all about service. It's all about how can I serve you? And everything in heaven is alive and intelligent and can communicate the grass and the flowers and the rocks and the atmosphere and the mountains. trees and you know everything is alive and and communicating and he talks about how like even the plants as he arrived were welcoming him and that's how they were serving him so my whole point here is that we have so often i think in the body is in our attempt to honor and and perhaps in in the idea of idolizing that we have put such an emphasis on serving the top echelon and not the one on the street that needs help. You know, how can I serve you? How can I serve you? And, you know, I just think it's so important for us to be tuning in to the Holy Spirit and not just do stuff because you see it with your eyes in the natural realm, but that we become so tuned to the Holy Spirit that we get that nudge. to speak to this person or to do something for that person or to serve them in a way that is beyond their expectation.

43:02 Like to give the cup of water to a child, like you said. Those are things that we do on earth as it is in heaven. And it's our service to one another that God is looking for in ways that we don't really grasp that in our culture so much. But that's heaven culture. Yep. That's one of the things that is so much on my heart in this podcast is that we help equip people to do on earth as it is in heaven. Amen. It's like when Jesus was washing the disciples' feet. Yes. Being a servant. Right. I'm modeling this for you. Yeah. Here's what leadership should look like. Yeah. Remember our last night in China?

43:49 Oh, yeah. One of those, the pastors. Came out with this. It was cold. It was about 48 degrees. Yeah, it was cold inside. In the church. And they came out with this hot water, stuck our feet in it, and they just started working all over on our muscles, our back, and the pastor. Yeah, washing our feet and massaging tight muscles. It was amazing. Wow. But it's a culture of service. Yeah. So I think we could learn a lot. about serving and humbling ourselves to serve one another. The reason why Peter said you shouldn't wash my feet, I believe, as you look at how the disciples were seated at the table, Peter was in the position where he should have been washing everybody's feet because there wasn't a servant to do it.

44:41 If there's a servant, the servant does it. But if it's the last guy at the table, that should be washing people's feet and peter didn't feel like washing everybody's feet so he didn't and that's why jesus did it it's it's about learning to humble ourselves and serve one another in in ways that you know the world doesn't teach this right and you know i don't know about y 'all but i'm i'm sure you've seen this too the place i see it the most is on the mission field you know when when you're in impoverished third world countries where being a leader is at your expense. It's pouring out of yourself. It's a service. That's where you get to see it really walked out. And for me, that's, well, one, that's where I come alive. I love missions. I know that I belong on the mission field. The most fulfilled I feel is when I'm out there. and eating awful things, but enjoying people that just love the Lord. And it's really maybe selfish isn't the right word, but I feel like when I come back from mission trips, I receive way more than I give. Yes, it's beautiful. And just experiencing the body in that way. Yes. And I'm hoping that we will have a good representation of people from many nations coming to this convention.

46:10 I hope they'll be able to get visas to come and enjoy being together again like we have in years past. But these last few years have been difficult in terms of getting visas and so on. So we hope they have success this year. and that you'll get to meet some people from other nations that you haven't been to yet. I know you've been to several nations, and I love what God is doing in your life, opening doors to new nations. So before we close, would you pray for our listeners, just as the Holy Spirit leads? Sure. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the example that you gave us in Jesus. Yes, Father. Or the example of humility, of going low. Yes. Father, for those that are confused by exposure, by things that they've put their heart in, that ministries that they've put their trust in, that have let them down, Father, I pray that you would connect them to pastors, to leaders, to those that can encourage them in their walk and their destiny. Lord, let the real things that they experienced of you in those places, let those remain and let everything else that can be shaken, Lord, let it just fall to the floor. Yes. Yes, Father. Father, bring us back to this place of authentic Christianity.

47:40 Yes, Lord. Forgive us for every way that we have idolized people, where we have overlooked the downtrodden. God, give us hearts. Like yours, Jesus. Lord, give us hearts to be near to the brokenhearted, to go low. Father, I pray that you would restore compassion to the body. Yes, Lord. Thank you, Father. And Lord, we thank you for what you're doing. We thank you for the move of the Spirit that we're seeing in high schools and college campuses. God, I pray that you would continue them, that you would increase it. Yes. Thank you, Father. Lord, let this be the time for a nameless and faceless generation to rise up. Yes. Lord, that a move of the Spirit would be released in our nation. Yes. Father, I pray for the Spirit of Elijah to come, to restore the hearts of fathers to sons and sons to fathers.

48:34 Yes, Father. Restore relationship. Lord, I pray that Christianity would look like relationship again. Yes. Relationship with you and relationship with each other. Lord, we bless your name. And we magnify you. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Check out our website at globaloutpouring .org to find out more information, read our blogs, connect with us, and donate. You can also browse our web store for life -changing anointed books.

49:24 Until next time, this is Sharon Buss. And I'm Philip Buss. God bless you with His overwhelming, loving presence.