The Seven Pillars (Part 13) - Lifestyle Of Obedience & Listening, Jesus, Elijah, & Paul - Rod Mills

​This is a series on the 7 Pillars of the AeroNova spiritual family, the DNA markers of who God has called us to be as a people. 
 In this further teaching on the fourth pillar, obedience and listening, we discus the lost art and practice of followership. God sets us in families, to be spiritual fathers and mothers yes, but also to be followers of spiritual mothers and fathers.
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Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):

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​So we are continuing today. It's been for those of us that are here, it's been a couple of weeks for those who listened in the teaching library, they probably just listened to the other installment, but for us, it's been a couple of weeks. So I'll plug a few reviews in here. But we're on the fourth pillar, the first pillar of the Friends of Jesus and, and this spiritual family and others for spiritual families who are in this kind of this order or this way in God. The first one is, is apostolic prayer, that is we give ourselves to a lifestyle of prayer and the Word. And that is not just people who pray, but people who are given to prayer. This is our lifestyle, individually, corporately family, all the leaves, right. And the leaf family, where are they said Amen. They're all helping with the kids today. So the second one is the spiritual disciplines, there's a lot more we could have said on the spiritual disciplines. But we'll be teaching on those more later on, not in this series. And then the third one was spiritual family and relating to each other in deeply relational ways, what we call New Testament community, what we also call a community of Revelation, what we also call an apostolic community, that is the community that's like the apostles communities when they lead the church, and after the generations after them, where they they didn't lead the church so much organizationally, in the church wasn't like other businesses like it is kind of now where it's kind of like, well, we got for profit businesses, and we got nonprofit businesses. In the early centuries, the church wasn't looked at that way. It was like a family. And we spent much time on this. But that pillar is kind of like the center pole in the tent in a lot of ways. And that's why we spend a lot of time on it, not because it's the most important but because it characterizes such a huge amount of our spiritual DNA very much if you if you come into this spiritual community, or other communities, spiritual families that we relate to, most of them are more spiritual family than they are organizational. Now. That doesn't mean they're disorganization, we're not saying that. But they relate much more like spiritual families. And so do we. And that's the we're describing the seven pillars are the DNA, of who we are, and who people are that we relate to in this ecosystem of the kingdom. And we understand that there are many tribes in the kingdom of God, right. So they're not all like us, we don't expect all the tribes to be like us. Different families and tribes have different strengths, different weaknesses, different DNA markers, if you will, and we're talking about spiritual DNA. So this one is the fourth one, and I call it a lifestyle of obedience, which is listening. So obedience, listening, and the mantle of Elijah. Now, at first glance, when you hear that, it doesn't sound like those three, are all the same thing. But I think you will see they're like a three fold cord, or a three strand cord as we get into this first because obedience in the Latin means listen. So when you tell your kids as a parent, you say, listen to me. You're not just telling them to hear your words. You're telling them hear my words and do what I say, right? That's what you mean when you say, listen to me, or even a husband and wife once a while, you know, if it gets intense, one of the spouses ago, you're not listening to me like you're not heating, receiving. There's a there is a wholehearted receiving. So this word, obedience, the world is afraid of the word obedience. I actually heard a Bible teacher say this one time I I won't say who it is because I have a lot of trouble with him, but not personal trouble, just trouble with what he says. But one day, he says, we don't use the word obedience. And I thought, what? Like, I've never heard a Bible teacher say this. He goes obedience is a word of slaves. And I thought, how interesting because we actually Colin was just teaching on bondservant The other day. Obedience is a way of the kingdom. It's a way of the king. It's the way of the monarchy we live in forever. We love obedience. We love obedience as parents, for sure. But we love obedience as kids also, I'll tell you what, every path of obedience I took to my parents has brought prosperity to my life. So I love obedience. The world does not like words like obedience, humility, submission, they don't like those words, because the flesh doesn't like those words. But when it comes to the king, and the kingdom and his people, we love these words. And then we say, the mantle of Elijah, let me say why, because as we talk about this attitude of obedience, and what we call mutual submission, and submission to one another, and submission of spiritual authority, there is a spirit of obedience in our midst, right? Like when our kids were growing up, they, we weren't perfect parents, we made a lot of mistakes. But they did see this, they did see that my wife did what I asked her to do. And I did what my wife asked me to do. Now, we weren't perfect. We weren't always doing that. But they saw a relationship of this mutual love and submission that that says, what would what would you like me to do? How would you like me to handle this, and we talk through it. And together, they see us modeling, this heart, mutual submission, love and obedience, listening, all these words, I'm throwing them all in the same pot to one another. Now they are going to do what they see not what they're told, right? We don't we don't do what we're told. We do what we say we know that as parents, kids don't do what you tell them. Kids do what you do. And so I'm not saying they never do what you tell them, but they follow. And they imitate. That's the way God made us. And you know, the remarkable thing about kids is they also do it just like you do, if you walk a certain way they walk certainly, if you say a word a certain way, they say a word a certain way. It has never surprised me if I if I meet a kid and they're happy, go lucky. It's amazing how much their parents are happy, go lucky. If I meet a kid and they're sarcastic. And I made their parents no surprise, Apple didn't fall fall from the tree, right. And so we do what we see. And we operate in this. The power of this is that we reproduce after like kind and God's called us to live as a people of obedience, as a people of listening as a people with submissive hearts, one to another and to spiritual leadership and authority in our lives. This is awesome. This is a great blessing. Because literally, what I found in my life is the more spiritual authorities I've had in my life, the more pipelines of heaven's blessings I've had in my life. And the more deep deeper those relationships go, the deeper they go. It's like opening the valves. Many, many times I can name people in situations where I would be in entertaining, a mentoring protege relationship that turned into a spiritual father, son or spiritual mother son relationship. And many times in those relationships, I had peers who saw something wrong with them or had a reason why they they couldn't receive or just had a resistance to this idea of obedience, listening, mutual submission, spiritual father, sons, spiritual mother, son, daughter relationships. And yet this is God's way. This is the way God's called us to. So that's kind of introduction we talked about the scripture where it talks about submitting to one another. We also talked about the scripture where it talks about obeying the leaders over a spiritual leaders we know it's talking about because it says For they keep watch over your souls right. Now, one thing I've noticed is, the more my wife and I would submit and obey one another, the more obedient our kids were. You ever meet a family? And the parents are just like this? Right? Just very rare, very rare. But when those kids start growing up, guess what? They follow that and what my point is that as we live in this way, then when we're discipling and investing into other people, they live this way too. And the more I the more I've come under spiritual authority in my life, the more authority I've had in my life, and so some people have even asked me I had I actually got a call one time from a spiritual authority my life he said, Yeah, well, why are you doing that? Blah, blah, blah. And he was asking me I was like, how can it hurt to have multiple, you know, spiritual fathers in my life? Because this is how God invests into us. And so that was a good conversation. All right, let me see if I can find in my notes here. So, we did look at personal listening and submission, obedience. We looked at mutual listening and submission, obedience, which from the Scripture, we looked at different scriptures. And then we looked at spiritual authority, listening and submission and obedience. So now, I want to pick up here where we left off, as the church has evolved into more of this business model in the West, we as a people, not us in this room, but we as a people in the church, have lost the art and the practice of followership, like followership is not something. I hear this a lot with my students, because when I'm teaching at the university, we talk about the discipleship model. Matter of fact, it's a very common discussion in many of the classes, we talk about the discipleship model. It's amazing how often they will say like this, well, in those days, in biblical days, you know, there was a teacher, a rabbi, and then there were followers who would come and follow them. And I'm like, Yeah. When did the Bible say quit doing that? You know? And so what we've done in our American mindset is we Jesus, we read that scripture, and we'll read it here in a few minutes where Jesus says, take up across deny, deny yourself and follow me. And so in our American mindset, we go, okay, I'll follow you. And I was just talking with a friend of mine this week, who is a leader in a particular denomination, and he knows leaders in another particular denomination, and he said right now, he said, the churches, he said, If you go to Texas, he said, there are large buildings all over the place, church buildings for sale, 25 cents on the dollar, big churches, and I go, what, what are you talking about? He said, Yep. He said, what's happened is when code was over, people got used to watch in church on Zoom and they just stayed home. I'm like, oh, but see, there was no followership model there. There it was. It was more of a participation. Well, you can do that on Zoom. Like you can hear this teaching zoom. Now we've got some folks today are out sick and they're watching it on Zoom, but my point and people from other locations, but my point is this, that they don't have that mentorship spiritual father mother followership model. They don't see that as a biblical mandate. When Jesus says, Follow me. Oh, as an American, I can follow Jesus, I'll watch it on Zoom, listen to a teaching on YouTube, do a Bible study, have prayer, call a friend, and live like this. This is not New Testament Christianity. This is American Christianity, right. And we are citizens of the kingdom before we're Americans, all of us. Every Christian is first a citizen of heaven, we understand that. And then we're very privileged to have this citizenship on Earth. We're very thankful. But ultimately, all these earthly citizenships will end someday, right? Like, we're either going to, we're either going to die and be resurrected, or we're going to be or we're going to come you know, be here for the coming of the Lord him and then we enter another age. So in that age, your true citizenship, your eternal citizenship comes out, we say God, this is the way of heaven to live like this, to live as spiritual family, in this model of, of obedience, listening, spiritual fathers and mothers. The best spiritual fathers are our our persons, people who have been spiritual sons, the best spiritual mothers are people who've been spiritual daughters, and without becoming spiritual sons, it having fathers spiritual fathers, it's very hard to become a spiritual father yourself. In other words, the orphan spirit. Many times plagues people who cannot get that connection. God wants us to live in that connection and in the power of that. So in in our own spiritual family and in those who walk and live in this friends of Jesus way of life. We walk in a discipleship followership model, like the apostles and the prophets. Now that means Old Testament and New Testament. The prophets live this way the apostles live this way. The Old Testament, people who pursued and walked after the Lord will live this way and in the New Testament. Now, there are some I will tell you there are Churches and spiritual orders and people who still live this way I'm not I don't want to say like it's gone. There are many in the in the world not percentage wise, but many throughout the world who live this way and walk as spiritual fathers and followers and what have you. But we see this model as the truest form of what I would I would call spiritual leadership, discipleship and spiritual fathering, in other words and mothering. In other words, what I'm saying is, is I believe this is the truest form. Now, if we go out here now, we know that we know a lot of people in different pair of church organizations that do discipleship, they have different models, like if you one particular group, their model is a lot of Scripture memory, you meet one on one, and then you meet in a group, another group, it's very heavy, relational, and what have you, but they don't, some of them have more than others have, when it comes to spiritual fathers and law and not just mentors, but people who commit for a lifetime. And this is what we're talking about in this particular pillar, is a followership leadership, lifestyle, way of relating, in other words, you guys know, at least one of my spiritual father, some of you know, my, I have two spiritual fathers who are still alive on the earth, and most of them have gone on, but they are leaders in my life. Now, I have other spiritual authorities who are very close to becoming that, but right now they're not because I'm under several layers of spiritual authority. But my point is that they are always my spiritual fathers, they, I don't walk away from that relationship. Otherwise, they were really just mentors. Now some of my friends have, because I tip taught on this honor and our spiritual fathers at the retreat, if you get a chance, go listen to that on the teaching library. But this is very important, because this is a way of life. For us, just like my own natural father is still my father. He didn't quit being my father, when I turned 30. I didn't quit treating him as my father, he was still a source of wisdom and advice and learning. And now even though he's in the heavens, he still might my father, right, he's still my spiritual fathers in the heavens, they are still my spiritual fathers also, they did not cease to be my spiritual fathers. And regardless of how mature I become, they're still my fathers. And as far as I'm concerned, they always will be probably 5 million years from now, if you see me with one of them. And you'll say, well, who's this I'll say, This is my, one of my spiritual fathers. This is that's the way I will relate to them. And in many cases, that will be the case, even in the natural life, let's say, in the temporal life, this was my son, or this was my father, this was my mother. And the nature of the kingdom is that we never lose the value and the riches of these relationships. And yet the world teaches us a different way. When you turn 18 You move on? Yeah, you call mom and dad yet it added up, but there's a lack of that relationship. And God wants us to have more than that. All right, you guys tracking so far? Jesus and Paul teach us that discipleship as its defined discipleship. When Jesus says make disciples, he teaches us that, that it is specifically this leader follower model of living in their ministries. This was not a metaphoric or a symbolic or a mental assent. followership. Are you guys tracking with me? There's, in other words, this is not just a title thing. This is an actual tangible way the relationship happens and takes place. It was that I'll say it this way. It was a person to person followership. Likewise, in the Old Testament, a lie just shows us the same way of spiritual leadership, and impartation and followership and spiritual fathering, and I'm going to throw in mothering too, because it's the same model. Now, you guys know, I've touched on this before, but there's only two prophets in the Old Testament, I can find where they are called spiritual fathers. They're called fathers. And he Elijah called Elijah a father when he was about to be taken up. And he said, My father, my father, he cries out to him that way, and then he LifeShare when he was about to die, the king said to Alicia, my father My father. Now this was not a common title like, Kings didn't just look at prophets and go, my father, my father, right, he's crying out of the depths of the kind of relationship he had with Alicia, this was the mantle that was on Elijah. See, you and I, you cannot come into God's inner circle of influence. Without becoming a spiritual father, mother, you can't do it. It's impossible like you, when you come into the closer you get to the inner gravity of God, like you're coming in to the inner gravity, you're getting pulled in, you're getting pulled in. And the closer you get, the faster and harder you get pulled in you and I will be transformed into spiritual fathers and mothers, this is the way of the kingdom, and we will seek them out. And we will have spiritual sons and daughters, because this is the way of God. Now the world right now is really attacking fatherhood. And the sad part is the reason why the world is in the situation it's in is because an absence of fathers in homes. If you look at places where cities are falling apart in neighborhoods and places in crime, you will see a direct correlation every single time to the fatherhood situation, the lack of fathers in the homes, and yet very few people are drawing these distinctions. Some people are, this is the way God is. And so I believe that's why this happened to Elijah, I don't even think Elijah probably was planning this, like, I doubt if Elijah set out going well, I'm going to become spiritual father, and there's going to be a guy named Elijah. And there's going to be a mantle. And the last book of Old Testament, he didn't even know there's going to be an Old Testament, right. And the last book of Old Testament is going to prophesy about me in the last two verses. And then the man that comes and introduces the way of Jesus will have the mantle of Elijah, and Jesus will tell him that, and then, and then this mantle will come upon the entire generation, like Jesus said, these are all things Jesus said, and the Prophet said, he wasn't thinking that way. He was just getting closer to God in his call. And it's who he became. And it was the anointing and the divine gravity that came upon him. In this force, this divine gravity, this force draws people in, it draws them and goes, Wait a minute, I want to be in the in this, I want to be in this near this epicenter. I want to be in this, this. I'm looking for the right word, but it's kind of like the soul. I want to be in this solar system, you know, kind of thing. Some folks, I said this, they write this off as kind of like, well, that was a cultural practice. And in the biblical times, it was not just a cultural practice in Jesus time, hundreds of years earlier. It was a cultural practice in Elijah's time, also. And we see that I teach on this. And this is just a side note. Elijah was kind of out there on his own. And when Elijah met God in the cave, when he went through the crisis with after a great victory on Carmel, Mount Carmel, he I've heard so many sermons and teachings on Elijah going into depression. Elijah was suicidal Elijah was this and none of that's in the Scripture. It's all just extrapolation speculation. But I've heard a lot of sermons on it. And I sometimes I felt like people were projecting, it's like, do just because you're depressed, don't put it on Elijah. But we know that Elijah was in need, he needed direction from the Lord. And he goes there. And the Lord, you know, some people take it from the statement, and I'm paraphrasing where the Lord says, Elijah, what are you doing here? Well, first of all, God knows many times, God will ask you a question just so you'll talk to him. And he asked him, and Elijah tells him, and immediately, he speaks to him about Elijah. And what he didn't know was that his, his season of significance was not ending. It was just about to begin. Because it was no longer about Elijah. It was now about future generations. Now, isn't it interesting that they had not had schools of the prophets in many generations? And whenever he started investing into Elijah, all of a sudden schools of the prophets start springing up. How is that? Because there was a mantle and an anointing upon him. He had an encounter with God there in that cave, and God called him to impart into Elijah his life. But that anointing spilled out and began to raise up schools of the prophets. And it wasn't just something Elijah did. It was a phenomenon. It was a divine phenomenon. Have you guys ever noticed that when you start obeying God and you enter into pathways of obedience, all of a Sudden, fruit just start springing up around you. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Like, have you? Has anybody noticed this? Am I the only one? Okay, I'm checking to see, I'm serious. Like, you start obeying God. And you know, there's blessings on that. And there's, there's blessings on it. And pretty soon it's like, wait a minute, there's blessings over here and his blessings over here. And it's just pouring out. It's coming from every direction. And this is the nature this is the supernatural nature of God and the phenomena of God in our lives. Like when God shows up, and we're cooperating and yielding and working. Suddenly, it's like, the phenomena of God starts bringing about these blessings and that anointing start, start spilling over into his society around him. And schoolzilla profits start springing up for the first time in hundreds of years. Just felt led to say that but you know, this is the way God calls us to live, like Elijah, like Elijah, like Jesus, like Paul, some folks, after they write this off, they don't realize that removing this practice that how do we get here? How do we get to this place where Western Christianity is like this? It comes from redefining the church and redefining what the church looks like. And then redefining what reproducing disciples looks like. This is important, because right now we might be living, and I think we are in a reality that's, that's off kilter that needs calibrating with the kingdom of God. Matthew 1624, Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after me, he didn't say follow me. He said, let him deny himself, number one, let him take up his cross number two, then he says, Follow me. And Jesus lays it out. He says, For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life, for my sake will save it. And I always find it interesting when I talk about this, because when Jesus called people to follow Him, He did not give them a code of conduct. He did not ask for their resume. And he did not tell them what they were signing up for. That's the wildest part is like they had no clue what they were signing up for. Because Jesus was not interested in people who were going to operate out of the mind. He was looking for heart condition. What is those? Where are those whose heart disposition is toward him? I love in the chosen, you guys have seen the chosen, I love in the chosen, Matthew. Because in there's episodes leading up to his encounter with Jesus, and it's just eye contact. That's all it is. And Jesus looked at Matthew and Matthew looked at Jesus, and you can feel Jesus looking into Matthew so and he saw a man who wanted to follow him. There was no outward indication, it was a, it was a knowing. I love this about Jesus. And you know, Matthew was not one of the 12. Right? You guys know that? Right? Matthew is not one of the 12 apostles. There were many disciples who follow Jesus the whole time and never left. And they were not named one of the 12. We know this, because when they said, We're going to replace Judas Iscariot, they said, here's the requirements. And then they I think they drew a lot. Didn't they draw straws or something? You know, the good old, the apostles, they're so spiritual, you know, they're getting ready to pick the 12th apostle. And they just do it with a roll of the dice. But yeah, so there were all these guys who really follow Jesus. But Matthew, in that in that episode, of course, we know it's, it's a fictional account, but we know it's true, overall, but still, those personal interactions happen. And we know that when Jesus looked at the disciples, not even having met them before, like Nathaniel, remember what he said to Nathaniel, he said, I saw you under the fig tree. Yeah. I love that. This kind of discipleship requires denying our own pursuit route. How does that take place in my life? It requires taking up our cross, it requires huge sacrifice. Now that sacrifice if you notice, God does not twist our arm. Guys, God will not twist your arm. Again, we refer to the chosen and then I'll give you a scriptural account of someone else. Remember Nicodemus, and in the chosen, Jesus had called him to follow and he wanted to so bad. But he just couldn't, you know, couldn't make that sacrifice the cost. We see that with the rich young ruler, which I think nickname is truly what his heart was believing. Whereas the rich young ruler, it took him some time. But you know, the Scripture, Jesus saw that he was taken by his riches. Normally, Jesus did not tell disciples, Go sell all that you have, give to the poor and follow me. He didn't tell Peter that. He didn't tell Nicodemus that. He didn't tell the other disciples that but he told the rich young ruler, because he knew that the man's heart was in bondage to his things. And so he told him, go and sell all that you have. Jesus knew that if he didn't, he was not forsaking all he could not follow Him. And Jesus did not. Try to twist his arm. He didn't say, let's sing the sixth verse of just as I am, one more time because somebody might, you know, some of you know what I'm talking about. It's a huge sacrifice, to learn to walk this way in our lives. And we see this in Jesus disciples, and we also see it in Elijah's life. Don't you love Elijah's example? Let's look at it. First Kings 1919. Elijah passed by him. So here's Elijah. He hasn't called anybody to follow him at this point that we know of. And Elijah has passes by Elijah, Elijah knows who he is. And he threw his mantle on him. Now we know what that means in the Bible. That means he's calling him to follow him. And he left the oxen, literally, he's in the field plowing. And I think, if I remember correctly, wasn't he with the oxen like, he wasn't behind them, like most farmers, he was actually up there in in there with the oxen pulling the plow. And literally, he just takes off like his oxen are still plowing, you know, he takes off and he chases after Elijah. And he ran after Elijah. And in the following verses, Elijah proceeded to kill and sacrifice his oxen. You guys tracking on that most of you know what this means. And then he used all of his farm equipment as fuel for the fire in the sacrifice. Now this is, you know, this is like a farmer taking dynamite to his John Deere tractor that costs $150,000. This is he literally takes all of the implements of his farming, and burns them in the sacrifice to, to sacrifice these oxen to the Lord. He was giving up the securities of his profession, to be all in on the spiritual father son relationship. And this divine calling to be a prophet. He was, he was all in to God's training, and impartation program and relationship. Now, there are many times when all of us have been 40%, in all of us, everybody in this room, you've had times when you're 30%, in your 40%, in your 80%, in your 90%. And so have I. And I'll tell you what, those there's 95 and 100%, those all ends where you get to 95. And you're like I'm all in, if it means losing everything I'm all in. And I'll tell you some of those times were scary. It was scary to pick up and move across the nation even after you know what we'd been done before. It was still scary, because it's change. It was scary to stay. Whenever I was like everybody else is going ahead. Some of you know I mean, for me, that was scary. I knew there was a point in my life you guys know, four years ago when it was Lord says time to retire from the military and move on. And if you don't, that's a minus $6,000 a month. So I mean, Lord does pretty serious. You know how, you know, how's that work, you know, and the Lord says stay done. Don't keep going, stay here, don't keep going. And we've had these points, I'll tell you. The Lord has always called me going, come on, go deeper, you can give up more. You could sacrifice more. You can, you can give up the prestige each. You can give up the money you could give up, you know, and all those things. Every time I've done that the sacrifice was nothing compared to the reward every single time. Every single time. And I look back and now I'm like, man, what was I struggling about? You know, this is the same level of commitment required by Jesus for His disciples, not just the 12. There are degrees of obedience in in our commitment in our discipleship in our followership the call to deny ourselves and take up our cross in God's spiritual leadership followership way of life can always be entered into in varying degrees. Remember that that's very important. I believe Elijah is highlighted in the scriptures, because he did this so well. In other words, I think there's a lot of guys besides Elijah, who did this, Elijah who did this, but I believe if Elijah is highlighted, we know there were 7000 others, right? That's what the Lord said to Elijah. He's like, Hey, you're not the only guy. There's 7000 others who are like you, who have not bowed their need to bail. But I believe that he is highlighted in Scripture. And Alicia is highlighted in Scripture, because they did this so well. And Alicia gave up everything. He understood, this is not a seasonal calling. It's a life calling. You can do this. It doesn't take a rocket scientist. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be especially gifted. But you got to be a really good giver upper. You got to be a really good cross carrier, right. Peter, James and John, I love this. Peter, James and John, are also highlighted in Scripture, throughout Jesus ministry in the same way. Now, guys, I do not believe that Jesus, elevated people to play favorites. Are you hearing me? In other words, I don't think Jesus drew straws and says who's gonna be my inner circle? draw straws, you know, like they did for Matthias. I don't think that that's what happened. Jesus, I will tell you this, these men demonstrated a level of commitment and personal followership, that brought a deeper trust and a deeper relationship that I believe was to be aspired to by all the disciples, when it was time to go to the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus is going okay, who is all in? It's not that the other disciples were not all in. But there is a level of surrender, I believe, there is a level of closeness and pressing in. Now, God is not playing favorites in that anyone can do it. But not everyone does, even in the 12 apostles. Because three were invited to the Mount of Transfiguration. Now, this is speculation, but I believe Jesus could have invited for to the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus could have invited five to the Mount of Transfiguration, where the heavens open, there's a dimensional gateway, and he interacts with Moses and Elijah, right. But Jesus brought those who were all in and their hearts and lives were on a level of trust that they could receive what was about to happen. Does this excite you? Boy, it does me. I'm like, when I was seeing this, I'm like, Lord, help me be like, John, let me be like, Peter. I know Peter made a lot of mistakes. But let me tell you, he got a lot right too. And he's the only guy that walked on the water. Right? I want to be like Peter, James and John. And you know, if you're wondering where James and John got it, was it there? Mom, look at their mom. I mean, she's in there. She she's in there brokering a deal with the king. She's like, Lord, when you come into your kingdom, you know, can you let one of my sons on your right, and one of my sons on your left? By the way, that's the kind of spiritual mothers we need. This is spiritual mothers and spiritual fathers. They open doors, they bring sons and daughters into the fullness of their calling. They are before the Father there before Jesus saying, Lord, Lord, what about my sons and daughters? Can you? Can you get them in there, I want them sitting right next to you. And this is the way they treat them in this life to bring them into the fullness of their calling. So you see, they inherited some of this, they, they had a mother who was contending for their greatness in the kingdom instead of the world don't criticize her. I heard sermons that criticize her, you know, like trying to get ahead, like, no, she's doing it right. She's appealing to the right person. And she's a repeat appealing to him on the right values. Right. Now, the decisions are up to him, but I got a feeling he's got some pretty good in store for those sons right now, today. Right? And this is the way we live as spiritual mothers and fathers. Wow. Lord, I want to be I started praying I had when I got to this point in the study of it, I can't even study hard. I was just like, Lord Jesus, you know, lay in hold of God laying hold of that place in God, being able to say, Lord, if that you call me out on the water, these dudes gave up everything. They gave up everything. They left it all. They left the prestige of the life, they knew, they left the money that they could make. They left all of the things the world admires. And I'll tell you what, when we pick up that cross, nothing but I mean it. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. But there is nothing but God's blessing on the other side. Now, yes, there's challenge. There's spiritual battles. There's, you know, there's overcoming, there's spiritual, you know, the enemy doesn't just sit by when you do this, but we will contend and we will overcome, we will be victorious, as we live this way. These three men demonstrated a level of commitment and personal followership, that brought them into this deep trust with Jesus. It's not something where you can just go up to Jesus and go, Hey, Jesus cannot be on the inner circle. It doesn't work that way. It's coming in and just giving everything to him trusting the master, obeying Him walking close with him. Like Alicia, their commitment was much deeper than their general commitment to God. It was a commitment to the specific relationship of Jesus as a spiritual father and leader in their lives. same was true with Elijah. So my commitment to God will manifest in my commitment to my relationship with my spiritual fathers, my spiritual sons, my spiritual daughters and my spiritual mothers. You see, I'm saying like, it's not like, well, this commitments, just some arbitrary Yep, I'm really committed, because I pray a lot, right? Or I study a lot. It's a commitment to the relationships that will manifest that commitment to God will manifest in the commitment to that relationship. If I say I'm committed, but then I don't honor and walk and follow my spiritual fathers, then how real is it am it's real, but it's partially artificial also. So this is an all out commitment to this way of life of spiritual leadership, followership lifestyle. Peter, James, and John. You know, you guys already know, there was the Mount of Transfiguration, they were entrusted with some of the most profound experiences, this dimensional gateway is a pretty profound experience. I mean, we have to say, That's intense. If you come back tomorrow and say, Man, we were praying last night, the heavens open, Moses and Elijah came down and started speaking to us the glory of God. I mean, it's probably going to define your life as the most intense spiritual experience. But that didn't stop there. And Luke eight, when when Jairus his daughter was dead. Jesus didn't say 12 apostles come on in. He brought in three, same three, this is not an accident. He brought those three Apostles in now. Today, Jesus is doing these things. And I'm like, Lord, when you do on him, pull me in. Lord, I want to be close to those in my life, both spiritual fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, who live this way, because I learn and grow from them. And I want to absorb it and live this way. So that I can see Jairus his daughter raised from the dead. And then the third one was the Garden of Gethsemane. He could have taken all 12 apostles but he didn't When He sweat drank great drops of blood and was in an agony that was on a on a supernatural level. So So what are some of the? Well, I'll tell you next week, we'll explore this. I want to get into some of the characteristics of this leadership followership model, this spiritual father, mother, sonship, daughter ship model, what are some of the characteristics of it now, we've already explored a few of them. But on the next teaching, let's go deeper and say, what, what are some of those characteristics? What do they look like? And I encourage you to be praying and meditating on this this week, what God would show you also, because we'd love for you to be able to share it. Some of these are like a key, that open a door, unlock a door in our lives. Have you ever had felt like he needed a breakthrough, but the door just didn't open. And a lot of times, it's a simple key. Taking up our cross, denying ourselves and following Him is one of the most profound keys that open some of the doors that I've tried to get open in my life, I would spend several years trying to get a door open till I got this right. Until I learned this level of living. And, you know, and I'm not there, I'm not saying I've arrived at all, but to this level of living in denial of ourselves. And, and I'll tell you, for me, I have never been tempted to look back. And I have friends who have who say, Man, I don't know I should have and some of them do turn back. And I'm not saying they turn away from the Lord. But they turn away from certain sacrifices that God called us to, because of money, because of prestige, because of what people thought, because of different things. But you know what? God opened them. God opened the doors he unlocked them. And this is counterintuitive because the flesh does this doesn't appeal. I mean, when's the last time you heard a sermon on what it means to deny yourself take up your cross and follow him? That's not a common teaching that we hear these days, at least? I haven't, you know, but I mean, I know I've heard a few somewhere. But that's not a real common thing. It's not a highly motivational sermon for some people. You know, it doesn't fit the model of some of the churches in earth, moral therapeutic deism that we see often so. Amen. Well, let's pray and then we'll open it up for sharing Comments, questions. Lord, we just want to thank you so much. You're opening our eyes to some of the giants in the faith. And how they say they were able to supersede and overcome their own limitations. And Lord, we just pray help us to be like that. We cry out to you we want to live as Peter, James and John's, we want to live as those who are taken to the Mount of Transfiguration those whom you can trust with the innermost secrets, those who live in close relationships, of obedience and listening with one another and with our spiritual fathers and mothers, so that we can lead others into the greatest levels of blessing they've ever been, because we have been on the pathway that gets there. And so we honor you today. We bless you. We pray help us to receive everything you are saying so that your truths and your secrets of your kingdom will grow up in us in their fullness and full fruition in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. Aaron ova is raising up spiritual leaders in many nations through our spiritual enrichment events, syndicated NetCast international prayer Council network, and numerous international seminary scholarships. Together, we are lighting the fires of revival, fueling prayer movements, and raising up friends of Jesus in the nations. We invite you to partner with us in this extraordinary movement. You can sign up as a prayer and financial partner today by going to era nova.org and clicking give. Please include your email address so that we can send you updates. That's era nova.org. Click give and become a monthly partner today. Invest in some of the most fertile spiritual soils on the planet and give the gift of faith and love today to those with a deep need and hunger to know God. 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