(307) “How Is God Expanding Our Capacity?”

0:00 There's a capacity of what you can be filled with. And then how much can you carry? How much can you carry? How much can you carry? So can you carry more responsibility? You want more responsibility? You want something bigger and better? How are you handling the responsibility you have now? God promises in Joel 2 .28 to pour out his spirit on all humanity. Welcome to Global Outpouring, where we contend for that promise outpouring. 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 were so blown away in the last episode by Pastor Tony. We called it a bombshell. We were really resonating with what he was talking about. So this episode, we want to talk about...

0:53 our reactions and how God is dealing with us with regard to the capacity code, like how are we going to increase our capacity? Thanks so much for joining us today. We're so glad that you're with us. Before we get started, we want to encourage you, if you haven't already done so, to go to our website and subscribe to our mailing list, because that is how we can stay in touch with you. And we can give you more than what you're already getting just by listening or watching our podcast. So be sure that you're on our mailing list and cruise around the website. There's a lot of good material there. Lots of things that you can see. There's a wonderful web store that we've got all kinds of amazing materials there. founder has written so many books. I've written some books and there's lots of things. And make sure also that you've clicked on the events tab to see what's going on with Convention 2026. Pastor Tony is going to be one of our speakers and Dean Braxton and Anna Werner.

2:03 Claren McQueen, and I'll be speaking also. And the worship is going to be out of this world. It's just glorious. And you'll have an opportunity to build relationships. That's what we're all about, is building relationships, building community. We want to help you to come into the place that you've always wanted to be. I can't tell you how many people that I've heard. that have given the testimony that I finally found my tribe. I finally fit. So come to this convention. All of the information is available on our website under the events tab about the convention. And there's also a school of translation you might be interested in coming to right here at our headquarters. Tune in to what we've got on our website, globaloutpouring .net. So, Pastor Tony blew us away. And when we were recording, we couldn't take notes. So we went back to take notes. And he's got so much material. So we printed the transcript. And we've marked it up. And we want to talk about some of these things that zinged us about, okay, the Holy Spirit's putting his finger on some things. And what I love, too, is that... I could tell that the Holy Spirit had already been doing some things in my life, putting his finger on some things, and I was already starting to make some adjustments, so that was encouraging. That felt good to really

3:33 say amen to things he was saying, and then other things were ouch. Ouch, hallelujah. Yeah. So what was his opening statement that caught us? Because we've been feeling stuck. Yeah. Your life is not stuck because the Lord has said no to your prayer. Your life is stuck because you cannot yet carry what you're asking for right now. So there are opportunities. There are resources. There are blessings hovering over you. But they're not waiting for your prayers to get louder. They're waiting for your capacity to get stronger. That's it. So the Father is not testing people's desires.

4:13 What the Father is looking at is your personal infrastructure, church infrastructure, your ministry infrastructure, business infrastructure. So it's all about infrastructure. Infrastructure. So it's all about all of the stuff that you need to be successful, right? You know, this reminds me a bit. I work construction for a while. Yeah. And we put in the walls. I mean, the foundation was laid. We came in, we put in the walls. And there's so much infrastructure that goes into big buildings. Yes. You never know it because all you see, you walk in and you see paintings on the wall and building looks nice. But you have no idea what it looks like underneath your feet and to hold everything that was put on top of it and put in it. That's infrastructure. So the Lord is looking at our structure. He's looking at how can we handle things? Can you handle what you're asking for? Can you handle it emotionally?

5:19 Can you handle it spiritually? Most importantly, can you handle it structurally? Are you built strong enough to do this or are you weak, right? So the internal architecture. The systems and the boundaries, they have to be able to sustain the blessings that you're asking for. So it's really important that we get a blueprint from the Lord about how to build our internal structure. Because what you cannot manage, the Father cannot multiply. And sometimes you have to go back to the drawing board. Yeah, that's true. How many times have we? Had to do that. Yeah. So what you cannot sustain, the Lord Jesus will not provide.

6:02 It's not punishment. It's protection. Increase without infrastructure is not a blessing because if it's given to you too early and you're not ready for it, you will sabotage yourself. Sometimes people want increase in results without a willingness to increase in responsibility. Yeah. And sometimes people want a blessing. without the added burden that the blessing is going to bring. Some people want to have added gifting without the growth required to steward it properly. So when your prayer is not answered, you question the goodness of God, or do you examine your capacity? When you're praying for increase, Jesus looks at your financial discipline. He sees how you handle pressure. He looks at your emotional regulation under stress. You know, he looks at your boundary management. He looks at your time stewardship.

7:05 He looks at your relationship patterns. So based on what he observes, he calculates exactly how much you can carry without breaking. That reminds me a lot when we had our big ice storm back in 2009. Yeah. And when it was raining, you could hear trees falling over. You could hear freezing rain. You could hear the limbs breaking off. And then when the rain would stop, everything would slow down. And then if it would start raining and freezing again, you would hear things breaking. And it's just like it took everything to the max. of what it could handle. And when it went over what it can handle, it broke. And, you know, God is so good that he, you know, he won't give us more. It says he will not tempt us beyond being tempted. I think if we look at that. It's 1 Corinthians 10, 13. There's no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful who will not. suffer you to be tempted above that you are able. But will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. So you won't give you more than you can bear with him. That's a tremendous scripture to hang on to. Absolutely. Especially when things are not going the way you want it to. It's true.

8:26 It's true. So he's looking at our spiritual capacity, our emotional capacity, our mental energy, our emotional energy, physical energy. So You stop praying for the Father to give you more and you start praying for him to build your capacity. That's where we need to focus instead of, I want to get out there and do it now. It's about what do I need to let you deal with in me so that I can handle being out there doing something that's more so. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. So he withholds it for our protection. He doesn't want us to crash and burn. Right.

9:09 Yeah. So he says there's three laws. The first law is the law of vessels. And so it's like the blessing takes the shape of the container. And he talks about this, the widow woman that was told to pour out the oil, borrow lots of vessels. Yeah, and borrow not a few. Right. That's what it says in the King James. And then pour. Pour, yeah. And because that's all she had was just a little bit of oil. Yeah. And so she borrowed all the vessels from the neighbors and poured the oil. It just kept coming and coming, filled them all up. And she asked for another one. Another one. And it says that there's no more and the oil stayed, is what it said. But if she had more vessels, it would have kept filling up. Right.

9:59 And so we always keep our vessel open so we can always get more. Oh, that's good. Because we can't. We can't get too much of God. You can get too much of a lot of other things, but you cannot get too much of the presence of God. I mean, it will overwhelm you, which is what we want anyway. But the thing is, don't stop because you feel, I've got all I need for right now. No, you have to keep going, because if you're not going forward or not going up, you might be going down. And I love what Pastor Tony said as the punchline on this. The blessing that this woman had, the blessing she received, matched exactly the capacity she prepared. So it's the preparation that determines the capacity. And so as we're preparing, that's the big thing.

10:54 It's opening up this capacity, okay? So the second law is the law of weight, and it has to do with your capacity to hold up the weight. So there's a capacity of what you can be filled with, and then how much can you carry? How much can you carry? How much can you carry? So can you carry more responsibility? You want more responsibility? You want something bigger and better? How are you handling the responsibility you have now? Right? Wow. Yeah. So the father's going to evaluate your readiness for increase, not your desire for it. Because he doesn't want you to fail. He wants you to succeed. And, you know, it's kind of like in school, you have these opportunities to learn something and then take a test. Yeah.

11:44 And you find out from the test how well you learned the thing that you were studying. Right? in a class that is important for you to pass. If you don't pass it and you have to have it, you get the opportunity to take it again. So, you know, God wants you to learn the stuff you're supposed to learn. Learn this capacity. Learn this weightiness. The glory is weighty. You want the glory? How are you handling the responsibilities you have now? How am I handling the responsibilities I have? What's on your plate. Right. Everything that's on your plate. And how do you respond to the circumstances that require you to stretch beyond your comfort zone? What do you know about stretching? Yeah, that brings up a story. And I've probably told it before, but it bears repeating.

12:41 It bears repeating because it's so good. We had a word of the Lord that was given in our devotions one time many years ago, many, many years ago. And the word of the Lord was, I'm calling you to stretch. And so in my spirit, I went, yes. I'm going to stretch. I will do this. Yes, I'm going to stretch. I received this word. I received this encouragement to stretch. So the workload was heavy and the responsibilities were heavy. And so I just, I kept that word in my spirit. I'm going to stretch. So I kept going, kept doing the right thing. And then we, I think it was probably when we had like a six week road trip.

13:29 That was intense. That was intense, but we did it. Yeah, we did it every year. And we did it every year. And then we came home and we printed the next book that Sister Gwen wrote. And reprinted a few of the others that need to be reprinted. And then there was... Convention. And then right after convention, we went to the booksellers convention and there was no anointing really to help you with that one. And you're exhausted from convention. But somehow I had it in my head that once we got to the month of August, that the pressure would let up. Right. And, you know, I'm stretching, I'm stretching. But, you know, in August, maybe we can kind of take it easy a little bit. But we didn't. And the pressure was there. And the pressure was heavy. And it was getting more and more. And I went to Sister Gwen one day and I said, I don't think I can stretch anymore. And she put her finger out at me and she said, you can stretch limitlessly if you keep your spirit right. And it went into me like an arrow. And it gave me this revelation that, yeah, I can stretch limitlessly. if I'll keep my spirit right. And of course, keeping your spirit right is about staying tuned to the Holy Spirit, walking in the spirit and not in the flesh. It's huge. When the Lord spoke to me when I was 18, he said, I want you, I want you 100 % and I want you right now. And from

15:02 time to time through the years, it's been a long time since I was 18, coming up on 50 years. That sounds awfully old. 68 doesn't sound old, but 50 years history sounds old. But through those years, it's like the Lord reminded me of, I want you 100 % and I want you right now. And it's kind of like, oh, I guess the 100 % that I gave when I was 18 is not the 100 % you're demanding right now. that you're calling for. And that's where our capacity grows. When we realize that, okay, the weight is getting heavier, it requires a new dedication. It requires a new experience of the grace of God. It's his grace that enables us to do these things. It's his grace that gives us what we need to be able to say yes. So you just have to get under the grace spout. And when you're really in love with Jesus, it's easier to say yes. That is the truth, Philip. You've got it. It's absolutely the truth. And I've been meditating on this idea of loving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And especially I've been meditating on loving him with all my mind. That's difficult. Yeah, but

16:38 it's something that he's not going to ask us to do something that is impossible. Yeah, that's right. But it's only possible. If we soak in His love, if we recognize we can love Him because He first loved us, and that increases our capacity. When we increase our reception of His love, it increases our capacity to love Him back. Amen. Amen. So, back to stretching beyond your comfort zone. Yeah. And thanks to God gives us, too. Like, you know, financially or, you know, things we seek after. And, you know, it's just like a person who cannot manage a thousand cannot be trusted with a hundred thousand dollar opportunity.

17:25 It's true. You know, getting back into integrity, you know. Oh, yeah. And the person who collapses under a current relationship demand may not be ready for marriage. It's true. You know, when you have the engagement. Some may only after a month get engaged, maybe after six months. And Sharon and I, we got engaged. It was in February under the influence of the Holy Spirit. That's another story. A love story. We got married in July. And it was a God thing, how he orchestrated everything. But it's just like you don't know how the other person operates until you're married to them. True. You think you know them, but pressures happen. Things will happen. And so it's just like sometimes it's maybe like iron, rubbing iron a little bit. Iron sharpening iron. Yeah, iron sharpening iron. And when you work these things out, and that's what happens when God gives us these circumstances. He gives us things to overcome. Right. Because he won't give beyond what we're tempted. We already told you the scripture that. but things that will happen that are going to cause you to stretch. Right. And the more responsibility you're given, the more, you know, you have to be able to stretch things. And it's just like, you know, I've never asked for promotion ever. You know, that was not my nature. I wasn't a person that would just be forward. Except when

19:00 you were playing clarinet and you wanted to be first chair. Yeah, and I wanted to be first chair, you know, wear that armband as a section leader, you know. Then you were competitive. Then I was just competitive, you know. But you just got to do it all for Jesus. Right. But that's how you grow. So then I'm on the board of directors, you know, the Ministry of Global Outpouring. And you didn't ask for it. I didn't ask for it. And then secretary. And now vice president. I did not ask for that, but it happened. And it was something I had to step into. But when you have to step into something, God gives you the grace to step into it. And he gives you the confidence.

19:40 He doesn't show you everything at one time. On this walk of life that I have been on for these 44 years myself as a believer, if God showed me what things were going to be like up ahead, I don't think I could have handled it. So he only gives us so much at a time that we step into. And sometimes it's like that, the story, or you see the picture with the footprints, why there's only one set of footprints. That's where I carry you. And that's where he carries you through things until, okay, you can walk on your own through this one. Then sometimes he has to carry you again a little bit more. It's true. So it's responsibilities that he gives us for our... areas of influence and everything that he has for us, but we don't want to overstep our boundaries. Yeah. So when we were meditating on this idea of this law of weight, Pastor Tony used the example of the talents that the master of the house gave five to this one and three to that one and one to another one according to their abilities. The first two doubled theirs and the other guy had buried his. And then there's another story in Luke 19 where the householder has 10 portions of money. Okay. And he gives 10 servants each one. And one of them gets 10 back. And the master, the Lord says, so you've

21:14 been faithful with this little. Yeah. I'm going to give you 10 cities. You know, he's coming to his kingdom. I'm going to give you 10 cities. And the next one says, well, I got five. And he says, well, I'm going to give you five cities. And then there's the guy that just, you know, put it in a handkerchief. Here's what you gave me. I didn't lose it. But he didn't do anything with it. God is trying to get us to bear the weight of what we have, become responsible for what we have so that he can give us more responsibility. He can give us those things that we're asking for, for the outpouring. We want to see the outpouring. So what happens if a mentor gives someone...

21:57 before they're actually ready. Oh, yeah. You know, we talked about this a little earlier, like if you're a famous singer or something, you get saved and you're right on the worship team. You know, it doesn't work because it's building integrity. And I remember the facilitator was Al Warner in Niagara Falls, the facilitator of a pastor's table that we were attending. And, you know, he says, I didn't pray for my kids to have anointing. Because I saw some... Because he saw a lot of people that had it, but they had no integrity. They ended up in jail because they had no integrity. Wow. So he said, I'm not asking for anointing for my kids. You don't want to put a novice into the pulpit. Exactly. Even when you think you're ready. And I remember when our founder passed away in 2013 in January. We didn't feel like we were ready to take over.

22:54 I mean, a year before our convention, she publicly handed the ball to us. But were we ready when that actually happened? It's just like it's a shock because it happened suddenly when it happened. And all of a sudden, I'm the vice president and Sharon's the president. And that's not something we asked for right away. We didn't ask for it at all. We weren't ready. 13 years ago is what it is now. But we are a lot better prepared now than what we were then. True. And we just had a unique experience on our last trip. We stopped at Sweetwater, the big music, the Amazon of the music industry. They've got a warehouse the size of five football fields. They have over 600 salespeople.

23:45 And you go through a training, intense training for, I forget how many. Thirteen weeks. Thirteen weeks of intense training. So when you take the phone to take an order, you're going to be prepared. Not like some other music stores, they'll train you for a couple days or a week and all of a sudden you're there. But you're not going to be able to answer questions. So it's a time of training you have to go for to be the responsibility. So you will have the integrity of training that the company wants you to have. So if you take a short survey after here, you want five stars. Yeah, exactly. You want to be the best, but they're not going to release you until you're ready. And that's the way it should be in the kingdom of God. God will not release us into a position if we're not ready. And I remember in Pastor Jeff John's church in Lafayette, Indiana, he gave a testimony. Someone came, I want to sing.

24:36 So the first thing he did was start to clean toilets. Yep. You know, start doing this, start doing this with a good heart. And after a season of time, when he felt they were ready, they had him come and be part of the worship team and said, and there was anointing on it because they learned to be a servant. And that's what God wants us to do in training is to be a servant so we can receive what he has us to receive. And it'll be one step on the ladder of the ladder of spiritual success. To get to the next rung on the ladder and not hit a plateau. We're going into realms. Realms. Into new realms of expansion.

25:17 It's like the rung of the ladder will take you to realms. Oh, that's good. I like that. I had to think of that one through a little bit. That's good. That's good. So the third law that Pastor Tony brought was the law of expansion. And he says, the Father increases provision, everything you need, only to the degree that you expand your own identity, your discipline, and your boundaries. In other words, provision follows preparation. Prayer empowers you through the Holy Spirit and assists you with your preparation. It is when you pray according to the Word of God and you receive the wisdom of the Holy Spirit that you can come to understand that increase does not follow good intentions. Increase follows Holy Spirit, God -given infrastructures that you have allowed to be built into your life.

26:11 So it's God that's building the infrastructures. I'm remembering a... I think it was this morning when we were having our prayer for Israel. One of the ladies brought Deuteronomy 33, 27. And I felt like this fits right here. The eternal God is your refuge or dwelling place or habitation. And underneath are the everlasting arms. His everlasting arms are underneath us as we dwell in him, as we live in him. The secret place of the Most High from Psalm 91. It's living in him that provides all of that provision. And then it goes on to say, he drives out the enemy before you, giving the command, destroy him. So he wants to work with us. He wants to help us develop this expansion and this ability to carry the weight and the vessel, expanding our vessels so that he gets the glory as we give him the glory. When we still want a little bit of that glory for ourselves, it's not going to give him glory. And that's where if you're working in a ministry or a church, you stay within your boundaries. Right. the more you press into God and the anointing in your life, you will realize you can bloom where you're planted. You'll know your boundaries and overstep into somebody else's territory, because then you get contention. And

27:41 of course, there's nothing more the devil likes to do than bring contention into a work of God, something that's going on. And if enough contention gets in and enough of this happens, Things that you can end up going into a church split or something. But if everybody keeps their focus on Jesus, that they keep their boundaries of what the Lord has put them in, trained to be keeping your boundaries, that will bring you into further promotion. It's true. Spiritual promotion. So we all need more capacity, right? Capacity. That's what this is all about. So now he's talking about identity. And this was a zinger for me. So identity expansion means you see yourself according to the word of God. Now, we've heard this, but I don't think we've completely gotten it. I haven't. And one thing Pastor Tony says is he's still working on it and it takes time. And if a bishop says he's still working on it. So identity expansion means you see yourself according to the word of God. And this part's very important as well.

28:51 And as a person who is already operating in the level that you're seeking. So a person asking for wealth while identifying as broke will sabotage every opportunity for increase. Isn't that clear? That is so clear. The person requesting respect while identifying as a victim will unconsciously maintain patterns that invite disrespect. The person wanting promotion. Here we go. This is me. The person want. It's not that I want promotion. It's just that I want to expand into the things that God has for me. OK, that's that's my heart.

29:31 That's my heart. That's my mindset. But while identifying as inadequate, we'll find ways to prove that their inadequacy is a fact, even though it may not necessarily be true. So think about it this way. Sometimes we're striving to be humble. And in our humility, we might identify ourselves as less than what God says we are. And so I guess that would be false humility, wouldn't it? So he says your perceived identity is your internal thermostat. It will not allow your external results to exceed your internal personal concept for long. So discipline expansion means building systems that can operate at the level you want to reach. The person wanting financial abundance must first. build discipline around their current income, right? The person wanting relational harmony must first build discipline around emotional regulation. And that's critical for all of our relationships, right? So we have to build discipline around current responsibilities. And the discipline is the result of following Jesus. This is all about working with him, cooperating with him.

30:57 This is where it's coming home to us. It's good to preach about it, but God wants to take us to the next realm, to the next expansion. So discipline means to say no to the self -life and yes to the life of Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Right? Yeah. In Acts chapter 20, verse 32, Paul says, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and make you strong and enable you to receive your inheritance among those that the Lord has made holy. So the word of God builds my personal capacity.

31:40 And then Jeremiah says, your words were found and I did eat them. So I remember our former vice president, our late vice president, I should say, Colonel Jim Shaw, before Sister Gwen would marry him, she said, you have to read through the whole Bible. You know, he loved the Lord, but he was still a lot in his worldly mindset that he had learned in the world. He was a military man, right? So he's busy trying to read the Word so he can marry this woman. And so he made up his mind, I'm not going to eat until I read the Word, thinking that it'll help him get a good start in the morning. Well, sometimes he didn't even eat until suppertime because he hadn't gotten the Word in because he was still developing discipline, right? And then he was pretty good discipline.

32:34 It was good discipline himself to do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's just that he still had to discipline regarding time. So anyway, he told the story about how he was in Pakistan at one point and he was out in a little field. He just thought it was a nice place to sit and read the Bible, right? Because it was time to read the Bible. Well, he fell asleep, but there were some goats in that field. And when he woke up, he found that a little goat had taken a couple of bites out of his Bible. And he showed us that one of the places that this little goat had a bite was in Jeremiah with this scripture, I found thy words and did eat them. It wasn't a Waco that's sleepiest. No, it wasn't. But you could see in his Bible the little teeth marks, and the part of the page was missing. So the point is that as we eat the Word of God, as we digest it, It becomes part of us. It becomes a part of who we are. Regular food, ordinary food, you eat it, you get energy. You eat it, your body can rebuild cells that have gotten tired and died.

33:52 It enables you to increase your health if you're eating the right kind of food. And so eating the Word of God is going to build us spiritually. It's going to give us what we need, and it's going to fill us with joy. Yeah. So eating the Word, reading the Word, studying the Word, getting revelation from the Holy Spirit. You know, the Holy Spirit was the one who inspired it in the first place. And when you read the Word and say, Holy Spirit, give me something I've never seen before. That's beautiful. He'll give you something you've never seen before. And sometimes you don't even have to ask. He'll just all of a sudden.

34:33 And I've read the same scriptures over and over and over again. And I keep getting new things because he's limitless. And his word is limitless and his spirit is limitless. So he's expanding our capacity as we read the word. And praying in tongues is huge because 1 Corinthians 14 says that he who speaks in a tongue is edifying himself. So you're building up yourself on your most holy faith. It says that in the book of Jude. Building yourself up in your spirit realm, it'll expand you as you continue to pray in tongues. It's just huge. And then Jesus said, every servant is not greater than his master. But the idea is that we pursue becoming like the master. So the more we spend time with him, the more we're spending time in his word, the more we're spending time in... letting his spirit flow through us in prayer, the more we're becoming like him.

35:34 And that's the goal. He wants all of us to be like him. Hallelujah. Amen. So the Holy Spirit is trying to help us do self -assessment, okay? Identity expansion is the result of following Jesus and you become like the one you follow. So when you exercise the discipline of Jesus at your current level, It's now proof of your readiness to reach the next level in Jesus. So that's what I want. I don't even want to call it levels. I want to call it expansions. I want to call it getting into new realms. So it's about getting into a place where we're letting the Holy Spirit work with us in discipline. The person who cannot protect their time cannot be given more time. Right. Well, yeah. The person who cannot protect their energy will not be given more demanding responsibilities. These three expansions happen in order. OK, number one, identity creates the framework. And number two, discipline builds the structure. And number three, boundaries protect the investment. Yeah. And when all three expansions are complete, vision flows supernaturally.

36:56 Not because the father just suddenly decides to bless you, but because you've become the kind of son or daughter that the blessings will now gravitate towards. Wow. Isn't that beautiful? It is. The blessings will come to you. I'm seeing it kind of like a vacuum. Okay. When you've got this capacity increase, something's going to flood in to fill it. Yeah. It's like Deuteronomy 28, isn't it? All the blessings will overtake you. Right. And that's what we want. Right. We want the blessings. And it's a promise from God. Right. The blessings will overtake you if. Yes.

37:37 There's an if there. There is an if. If you are in a place to receive it. Amen. And if you're ready to receive it, if you've got the space for what he wants to give you. Yeah. Because, you know, Jesus will not give you something you're not ready for. It's true. Because at the end of the day, he does not want you to be crushed or condemned by it. Amen. He gives you what you can handle so you can be commended by God. You know, I think a good example here is people that have won the, like the Irish sweepstakes or something like that. The lottery. I mean, big, big amount. And all of a sudden they get all this money. And the stories we've heard, how many of them end up broke because they did not know how to handle it. They could not handle wealth. So even it's like a worldly thing, it's a spiritual thing too. God doesn't want to give you something that's going to really mess you up. Say you get a big, maybe you win $60 ,000, so you go out and you buy a $55 ,000 car. Yep, spent it all. By the time you pay all the taxes and then you have insurance and then all of a sudden your insurance rate goes up. Like I was at the insurance company today asking them about certain cars. And he said, if you have an electric, a hybrid. says your insurance just goes up immensely. Even a little tiny car, they'll say, this little hybrid, why is the insurance so much? Because the parts

39:09 are so much more expensive. Right. So it's like things you inquire before you buy. True. And so all of a sudden you get... get a big wad of money or something. But if you don't manage it right, you don't research, you know, learn to abstain from spending it all. You know, that's the principle God wants to give you. He doesn't want to do something that's going to hurt you in the long run. Right. Well, you'll bite off something you can't chew. Even at the moment, it looks like you got the big enough knife and fork to make it happen. Right. You know, and it ends up hurting you. It's true. So one of the things that's so important that I resonated with is you have to set boundaries around your own reactions. And I find that I have an issue with, as Papa Jim used to say, or Colonel Jim.

40:01 the perversity of inanimate objects. When something goes wrong on the computer, when something goes wrong with this, when something goes wrong with that, when it doesn't act the way I think it should act, I'm finding that the Holy Spirit is putting his finger on my reactions because I'm finding myself reacting to an inanimate object. I mean, it's not that they're animate, but, you know. They can be perverse. And I don't mean that sexually. I mean that they just don't work the way you expect them to. You know, you have to you have to figure out how to talk to a computer. Right. But the challenge is emotional regulation.

40:44 That is so important in ministry. I remember someone, I asked, how is so -and -so pastor doing? He says, well, it depends what day of the week it is. Oh, wow. And I've been with this pastor before in his early years before he was a pastor, and I can understand that too, you know? Yeah. I'll give you a good example of one of the... Amazing miracle man was Jack Cole back when in the 50s and the 50s. And he had an amazing, credible healings in that. But he had a personality that was rough. Yeah. And he was warned by different people says you need, you know, in order for you to continue, you need to learn to not be rough. Yeah. Regulate your emotions. And don't treat people badly. Don't treat people badly.

41:33 Yeah. But he didn't change. And he died very young. Yes, he did. His ministry did not last. And that's sad. So there has to be, like our beloved Papa Dorn would say, you know, be nice to Jesus. Right. Be nice to the Jesus in each other. Right. You know, and even you get someone that kind of rubs you the wrong way in ministry, you know, it's just okay. Just learn to iron sharpen, sharpening iron a little bit. But, you know, get your rough edges off and just take it as a learning progress from the Lord because the Lord may have your work. you know, with someone else that is like that, and he's preparing you for maybe your next position of what you have to do, learning to live or work with difficult people. It's true. If you can work with them with the love of Jesus, it will be better for you, and you will go a step higher of a rung of a ladder in the success of glory. Yes, and really, I think you could take 1 Corinthians 13 as a rule book, as a guide for how God wants us to react to people, how God wants us to think.

42:43 Because it's all about us allowing him to cultivate his love in us. And like I said, it's about receiving his love so that you can also give it. So what we're talking about is making some big changes, but how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Exactly. So Pastor Tony kind of helps us out with some ideas here. He says the first thing you have to do is create a boundary and choose one area where you currently have no limits and establish a clean boundary. Might be a time boundary, a money boundary, an energy boundary. And I remember when Don and Catherine, when our daughter was young, they gave us some really good advice.

43:33 And they said, choose your battles. Don't try and fix everything all at once. You know, children are children and they're delicate and they need to be handled carefully and lovingly. So you choose one thing you're going to work on. Maybe two. But focus on one thing and deal with that until you have success and then find something else. So choose one area and set a boundary. And he says the boundary must be specific. It must be measurable. It must be non -negotiable, except under extreme, extraordinary circumstances like an emergency. He gives it examples. I will not spend more than this amount on entertainment each month. It's a measurable boundary. It's a non -negotiable. So once you've set a boundary, you're going to keep it, right? You're going to choose to keep it because you want expansion, right? And he made a statement that my capacity increases when my chaos decreases. So that's number two. You're going to eliminate one area of chaos. Yeah. And so I remember when I first got saved. So it's a total change of everything.

44:49 And sometimes you have to leave friends behind. You cannot go back to the bar with them or something like that. You know, you keep friends at a distance to witness to them, but you cannot partake of the lifestyle you were. Because I remember when I mentioned some of this before, when I got saved, I took all my records that I had, you know, a lot of records worth a lot of money today. And, you know, my Led Zeppelin and, you know, my this, my that, all that, took them out of their jackets, only been played one time, no scratches, put on a cassette, never played a record again. took each one out, bent it over and stomped on it, make it unplayable, threw it into the dumpster.

45:30 And I told my best friend what I did, you know, later on at the bowling alley where I bowled and hung out. And he says, why didn't you give them to me? And out of my mouth came. I don't want to be responsible for your damnation. I never would have said that to my best friend, but that's what came out of my mouth because I would not want to stuff I had that was demonic and that give to him, you know, get rid of it. And so, you know, the Lord will deal with you to increase capacity, get rid of the things that are causing chaos. Right. And so one of the things that he said that struck home for me. was I will clean up my personal environment. Clutter is attracted to me. And the Holy Spirit was already dealing with me. And I've done some of the clutter cleanup before I even heard Pastor Tony. But he says that it has to be a permanent thing, that we don't just clean up temporarily and then let it... fall back into clutter again. We've got to have the discipline that enables us to be able to handle more things that God wants to give us. Yeah, it's like building a system, you know, that works for you. Right, that's number three. And Oral Roberts, I remember reading his testimony, I think it was his lunch hour a certain time, you did not disturb the man. I mean, he turned the phones off. He says, you do not bother

47:02 me. quiet time in the middle of the day. I mean, he probably had his quiet time in the morning too. But like Smith Wigglesworth, he would read his Bible or scripture like every 15 minutes or so. I think it was 20. Or 20 minutes. But still. I mean, I'm at 20, you know, pull out a little New Testament or something and read scripture. I mean, and I just really get convicted, you know, how much scripture that I read in the morning. But at night, I discipline myself to do the Psalms. You know, I'll do five Psalms. I'll put it on speaker, you know, while I'm brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed. You know, like first of the month, you know, it'll be. Psalm 1, and then I'll go to Psalm 31, Psalm 61, Psalm 91, Psalm 121, and do that for every psalm. You get through the whole book of psalms in a month, and then I just repeat it all over again. It's true. Just getting more scripture in, and it really works because, you know, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Of course, it takes a while to get through Psalm 119. Yes, it does. It does. But you're building a system. And it's a system. A system will replace willpower. When you develop that it's non -negotiable, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. It's a fact of life. This is what I'm going to do. So you can build a learning system. You can build all kinds of systems. Find the system that works for you. Like I've said,

48:34 I'm a Hebrew scholar wannabe. So I've put myself into a class where we're learning Hebrew, where we're learning biblical Hebrew. So I had a little bit of learning before, but now I'm getting where I can read the Hebrew of a verse. So when I'm doing my studying every day, I'm making it a system that I'm going to actually read through that in Hebrew, and I'm still learning what it means. But it's a system. It's something that I'm doing that is non -negotiable. And when I have a system, I don't have to rely on motivation because I've found that there are times when I just don't have the motivation. Pastor Tony said that and I agree. So I have to rely on structure and I have to measure my progress over time.

49:26 Okay, so the next thing is measurement. Number four, measure the system consistently and constantly and faithfully. And then what gets measured gets managed. So number five is I will accept responsibility without complaining. It's so easy to complain. Yes. Like the phone rings and there's nobody to answer the phone. I'm going to choose to answer the phone without complaining. And it gets to be fun sometimes. to talk to people. But, I mean, it's a responsibility. I'm accepting it. I'm accepting it. I'm not going to make excuses.

50:15 I'm going to take ownership of this. Yeah, and it's practicing delayed gratification. That's number six. Intentionally, a number six. It's like you see something you want, you know, and it's a management thing. You know, if you get a lot of money or something and all of a sudden you're spending it, but... I will deliberately wait before getting it, not because I can't afford it, but because I'm training myself. Even though I desire it, I prefer it, but I'm going to say no to it just to practice the D -line. So that's really good. You got the money. I just got all this money. I'm going to splurge shopping. Go to the big city. I remember a worker we had, someone not part of our staff, came down. Working on, got something, you know, got paid, says, all right, going to Branson. You know, it's going to spend all this money in Branson. And a lot of alcoholics, they'll get their paycheck and they'll gamble it away within like a day or two.

51:15 You know, you can't give a person like that a responsibility of a lot of money because they'll just blow it. So it's training. It's just really God training because these are kingdom principles. Right. Because it's all about kingdom. And delayed ratification is dying to self. Yeah. You want the thing. But I'm going to say no. Yeah. And it builds this strength in you. You know, it builds a strength in you not doing because once you overcome that, it's all overcoming. Keep overcoming and it just gets easier. Yes. And number seven is do one action daily that my future can inherit. I want to inherit this future. I want to inherit this thing. So I'm going to do one thing every day. that's going to help me in my future. And I guess really doing that thing about studying the Hebrew, that's going to help me every day. Every day I'm going to do this.

52:08 It's going to help me grow. It's going to help me understand more every day. Before long, I'm going to learn the grammar and the spellings and all of these things. So it's a structure. And I'm going to do that one thing every day that's going to help me inherit the kingdom of God. It's going to help me inherit this new place in him that I really want to go to. So Pastor Tony finished up with, there's three objections that we might have. One objection is, I'm already ready. Your readiness is not measured by desire. It's measured by demonstrated capacity under current conditions. So if you can't handle what you have, you're not ready for more. You're really not. You might think you are. Objection number two is, once I have more, I'll be more disciplined.

53:02 Doesn't work. Objection number three is, I'm overwhelmed. Guilty. Guilty as charged. You know, when you're overwhelmed, you're just kind of saying, I can't do this. I don't know how I'm going to do this. I'm overwhelmed. And this logic ensures that your current limitations become permanent. We have to let go of this overwhelmed feeling. Capacity building happens during difficult seasons, not after them. Yeah, that's good. So the father funds stewardship, not your desire. The Father invests in demonstrated capacity, not in declared intention. So preparation is proof of readiness. Your current circumstances are not punishment for past mistakes. Your current circumstances are training for future opportunities.

53:51 So Father, we just thank you for this training that you're giving us, Lord. We're signing up for new, new training. We're ready to go to school in this new thing that you are releasing to us so that we can come into the fullness of what you have for us in the next season. And we bless our listeners to say amen in their spirits to get with your program so that we can all move forward equipped. And ready for you to flow through us in the outpouring that you want to do in all the earth. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Your review helps the podcasting platform suggest this podcast to other listeners who are also looking for a great move of the Holy Spirit. 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. Until next time, this is Sharon Buss. And I'm Philip Buss.

55:10 God bless you with His overwhelming, loving presence.