The Seven Pillars (Part 25)-Pillar 6-Raising Spiritual Leaders And Obstructions To Spiritual Authority - 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 our last teaching we talked about the spiritual authority that imparted to us in the Great Commission. In this teaching on the sixth pillar, raising up spiritual leaders, we discuss the obstructions that keep people from operating in that authority.

Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):





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​We are almost finished teaching on pillar six, Doug told me the other day that we've been we've been in the series almost a year. Yeah, so we, and you guys know, we don't teach on it every week, we've had a lot of other teachings intermingled however, I was looking at the notes. And some of you have me send you the notes. And then I update them again and again and again. So if you have the notes, and you want them again, send me a text or something, and I'll send them over a PDF to you. But the notes are up to 86 pages. And it's filled with a lot in the seven pillars. We're on the sixth pillar. And what is the sixth pillar? Do we have anybody that can remember? Or are you like me, and you forget what you taught on two hours later? Anybody remember what's the sixth pillar? Close raising up spiritual leaders. Yeah, which, by the way, spiritual mother and father and comes in and several of the pillars, but especially the mantle of Elijah. I am like, Doug, I tend to remember the things that are just heavy on my heart, you know, like that theme that just manages keeps coming to me, those are the first ones I think of, so I've had to train myself to think through them in the order that we're teaching them. But it's raising up spiritual leaders. And this originates, of course, in the Matthew 28, great commission. And one thing that we have said again, and again, over the years, about our own spiritual family, but also many that we're noticing, who operate in the same DNA is that we operate first in the great commandments. And it's in the overflow of the great commandments, that the Great Commission works. That's how you enter into it. And I have known people who enter into the Great Commission, but get burned out in ministry and an investment into others. And a lot of it has to do with operating in the great commandments living in a passionate, overflowing love relationship with God that turned that overflows into the Second Great Commandment, which is one another, that overflows into the Great Commission. And so raising up spiritual leaders, as part of that, I will read the Scripture, if you want to look with me, some of you haven't memorized Matthew 28. So Matthew 28, these are the words of Jesus, he said in verse 18. All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth, Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Now, there's a lot wrapped up in this. But what we have just introduced last session on this was this aspect of spiritual authority. Now, this is what Jesus said, regarding authority, All authority has been given unto me, why does Jesus say this? Because he wants us to know that when we are sent out, we're not just out doing a good deed, that we have been deputized, that literally, we are carrying with us the delegated authority of Jesus into the Great Commission. This is very important. Have you noticed that when you go into the nations or a nation, that everywhere you go in a different nation is a different government is a different set of laws? It's a different set of authorities. Jesus wants us to know when we go into the nations, you are operating as an ambassador out of an authority that is above them all. Can I get an amen from that? There is an authority that we're operating in, that supersedes all human authority on the earth. We're talking about governmental authority that comes from the authority of Jesus to commission his people into the Great Commission. So this authority that we operate in is critical. To make disciples is very difficult if you don't operate in spiritual authority. And you and I both have had experiences in our life, we could probably look back on most of us and say, Man, I was trying to make disciples. I was trying to train up leaders, but I wasn't operating in the spiritual authority that God called me to. Now, there's a lot of reasons for that. But I, you know, I've heard many teachings on the Great Commission, but very seldom do they really emphasize the authority that Jesus says he has to give us this commission. Now, when you receive a commission, how many of you show of hands have received a commission in the military before? Few right? When you receive that commission, that commission is by an authority who has that authority in this nation. It's a commission from the President of the United States, when you receive that commission, you literally are being delegated an authority from someone. Now, I've always thought this is interesting. Because if you're commissioned in the military, I was surprised when I first became of age and joined the military, when I found out a commission was from the President. In fact, I was shocked, because I thought it would be like, well, here's your commission. It's from the Secretary of Defense, or it's from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I was shocked when I learned that the Commission comes from the highest authority in the United States. The President, Did that surprise any of you guys? It man, it didn't mean you didn't think about it. Think about this. And this is very similar, at least it mirrors this great commission, when you receive a commission from Jesus, you are receiving a commission from the highest authority, so that when we go out to invest and train up spiritual leaders, what we call disciples, when we do this, we are operating in the authority as an ambassador of the monarchy of heaven. This is critical for us to get this, because when you operate in authority, you can break spiritual powers, you can't when you don't. And we have many stories in that somewhere in our teaching library, many testimonies here among many of you and your families. But there is a tremendous spiritual authority that is given to us and we can walk and how deep we walk in that is dependent upon us. Now, we started last week to explore what some of the obstructions were to us operating in that authority, as we understand the Great Commission, in other words, what we know about the Great Commission, what are the obstructions that keep people out from operating in that, and the first one we discussed was, some folks walk in a deficit of spiritual authority, because they do not live under spiritual authority. Now, again, I revert back to the military officers, if you decide that you're not going to operate under authority anymore, you're just going to go out and start giving orders and telling people what to do. And, and it has nothing to do with the orders you've been given, or the authority, you've been delegated in those areas, all of a sudden, you're on your own. And they have they have legal terms for that. But that's not how you operate in spiritual authority, either. So we operate, we looked at this obstruction, when people don't live under spiritual authority, then they start to lack spiritual authority. I've had many good friends and acquaintances over the years, who went out and did some things. And then when they were struggling, and there was struggling with breakthrough, and this and that and the other, and they would ask me, man, what's going on as a well, let's talk about this. Who's spiritual authority in your life? Well, Jesus says, Well, what about and I would name a pastor or a leader that we had served under I said, Well, have you talked to them about it? Well, they didn't send us out. They we just did this on our own, you know, and you start doing this little audit and you find out man, they just thought it would be a good idea to do this, but they really didn't operate in that delegated spiritual authority. And there's variations of that. The second one we looked at was some people walk in this deficit, simply because they don't do the great commandments and the Great Commission like, you understand that if you have been deputized, and let's say you're a police officer, you've been deputized, you have a badge and you sit in your house. Well, that badge is not going to do you much good, right? Like you're not exercising it. So yeah, you have it, but you're sitting in your home, and you're not exercising or walking in that authority. There's a lot of people who don't walk in this, this great commission, because they think the people on the stage should be doing it. They think that Oh, that's for the worship leaders or the pastors or the missionaries. And the Lord has called all of us to operate in this. And this is what I love about the way you guys do ministry about the way we do ministry is everybody is deputized to operate in the Great Commission, but we get to do it. Now, you probably notice that we don't require anybody to do things like we don't say, Well, you have to do this. And well, you have to do that. You got to have some initiative to step up and say, Well, hey, I want to be a part or I want to invest. And that's the way we operate as a spiritual family. So you operate in initiative, and we'll ask what's, uh, Hey, would you like to do this, we matter of fact, some of you saw this, we had postponed the school spiritual leadership, because of the snowstorm. We're doing it next week, next Saturday, when we go do this, you're invited, you're invited to be a part. Now, we don't usually invite you the first week to be a teacher or something because you want to come and participate, find out what it's about, learn about it. And you know what, there is plenty of ministry opportunity, we will have breakout times when we're praying and praying for people and investing into them. And it's incredible. It's an awesome time. But all of that is open to people who want to go do it. And I'm just using one example. There are hundreds of examples. How involved do you want to be? How involved in the Great Commission do we want to be, and then we help other people walk into this. Now, when you and I take that badge, and we go out that front door, and we start doing it, we will find that the authority is being in part it upon us as we operate in it. I use the example a few weeks ago of the story and Andy Griffith where Barney five had to go out, and the guys were selling food on the side of the road. How many of you have seen that episode. And he's scared because they start bullying. And he's real tough. You know, he's real tough, he gets up there. And he's real tough until they start bullying him. And then he gets scared. But he had to go through that process in that episode where he finally had to point to his badge and say, it's not me telling you, it's this badge telling you. And many times in operating in the Great Commission, we have to do things that are a little bit scary, we got to step out of our comfort zone. But let me tell you, there's plenty of opportunity to operate in the Great Commission, if you and I are willing to step out of our comfort zone. And I'm telling you this, many of you already know this, but I repeat it because you'll be able to repeat this and invest this into other people. So one of my main goals when I'm teaching is I know many of you already have this. I'm not teaching it because I think you don't know it. I'm teaching it because I found that if you teach it enough, it starts coming out of people. And a lot of times they think it's their ideas, I don't care. It doesn't matter. I know, many, many times some will go you know, I was thinking the other day about and they'll start sharing something. We've just touched on it like three times. But I'm I don't mind if they I'm just glad it's coming out of them. I don't care about who gets the credit. Do you see what I'm saying? Whenever you own it, that's good. Like whenever you're speaking and you're like, Man, I'm seeing this, I'm seeing this and you share it. That's wonderful. It doesn't matter that we go Well, you heard that over here, you read that it that doesn't matter. What matters is that it's coming out of your spirit, and you are sharing it. So when I share these things with you, I pray that it will just get digested in your spirit so much that it the words of Jesus become a part of you, and they become a part of me. Amen. All right, well, then the third obstruction, we started to explore a little bit. And Doug touched on this when he mentioned spiritual fathers, some walk in a deficit of spiritual authority we see in a great commandment because they quit being followers. And we're going to talk about this more. And some never become followers. I understand that. But the reason why I said it this way, was because over the decades, I have seen this a lot. And I'm not talking about people who quit walking with the Lord. I'm talking about people who quit having mentors and spiritual fathers and mothers in their lives. And then so we're going to pick up there where we left off. But I want to say that the fourth one, I just want to introduce the fourth one also. So we've covered all for some walk in this deficit, because they become proud and they lose humility, the humility that was given to them, and we'll talk about that as well. So obstruction number three is where we left off. The prerequisite of the Great Commission is that we ourselves are followers in We talked briefly about this in our earlier section. And it's counterintuitive to the world's paradigm, because the world teaches us teaches us that there's this point where you become a leader. And you really don't have to follow so much anymore. It's not there. I'm not talking about not being under authority. So those if you notice, we separated those out. What you know, one obstruction was people who are not under spiritual authority. Well, there are people who are under spiritual authority, but they quit becoming followers. And if you remember our principle, we taught the Do you guys remember the 111 principle of Paul, First Timothy one, I mean, First Corinthians 111, where Paul said, Follow me as I follow Christ. And then second Timothy two, two was what I call the two to two principle. And it's easy to remember that way. And Paul tells Timothy to invest in the faithful men who will be able to teach others also. And so he shows us for generations, but in both examples of the 111, to two to two principles, Paul shows us this, this chain of people who follow him as he follows Christ, or the four were Paul, Timothy, faithful men and others. And there's this chain reaction, there's this power that operates now I have made, I have made it, an endeavor of mine, to study men and women 75 years or older, who are passionately invested in the kingdom. So I've been doing this now for over a decade, studying men and women that I know or have known, who are 75 years or older. And they are filled with the passion and the calling, and the investment and the energy. And I know some of you guys that are a little older say, well, energy, you know, that's a big deal. I remember talking and really this started a little over 10 years ago, when I was talking to a man I greatly respect, very highly accomplished, in the natural and in the kingdom of God. And I was in he was turned 75. And I said to him, I said, Well, I bet you're looking forward to the next thing, something and I can't remember what it was. And he goes, Well, he said, Now he goes, you'll understand when you get 75. But he goes, I'm just I'm losing my mind, I don't have the same energy and motivation that I used to have. And I just kind of looked at, I was like, I was kind of shocked when he said that I understand 75 years old, you're not gonna have the same physical energy, I got that part. But he was telling me that he didn't have the same motivation that he had when he was 35 or 40 years old. And that bothered me. Because I thought, Lord, when I'm 75, I hope that fires burning hotter than ever. And this brother, I greatly respect him. And I still do, I greatly respect him. But it put me on a journey on a quest to talk to an interview people who are 75 or older, and they're still just invested into the kingdom. Now, fortunately, I have two spiritual fathers who are that way. One is 76 this year, and one is, I think, 79 or 80. This year, and you know, one of them. And some of you know both of them. And so I started asking them a lot of questions. And one thing I learned is about these guys, and about others that were like them, is they're always learning, and they're always following. Are you hearing me? I'm not talking about spiritual authority, necessarily. That can be too like brother Dick dunk, and you guys know him dig spiritual fathers in his 90s. And he's still alive. And he still calls him. And he told me the other day, he said, he goes, Yeah, he goes, he called me the day. He hasn't real deep voice like this. And I know who he is. I've known who he is for 35 years. And he goes, he has a real deep voice. And he said, Brother Dick, I found you I was looking through my rolodex that tells you how old he is. Because a lot of you don't even know what a Rolodex is. But he is still engaged in mentoring and fathering him. And here he is almost 80 years old. Now, here's what I've noticed about him about these spiritual fathers, is they're always learning. They, you know, that when they when I when I go to a place where they are, even though they've had all these years of investing, when I start teaching, man, they'll start taking notes. Or afterwards, they'll say, Hey, let's go have coffee. I want to talk to you about this. I want to ask you what your thoughts are. You see what I'm saying? They're still learning. Now think about following for a moment. What does following mean, if someone and this is a lame example, because it doesn't mean the same thing but it does have some overlap. If you follow someone on social media, you are listening to what they have to say. Right? Like, if you're a follower of someone on social media, every time they say something or put something out, or maybe every few times, you're late, you're like, Okay, you're KNN, what are they saying? What are they saying? Well, that's kind of what following is, it's not the same thing. But it's kind of in that they're following means that we are in essence, this, remember when we talked about flocking, we talked about geese flying in formation, it's one thing to just be in a gaggle of geese. But it's another thing when they fly in formation. Because when a goose falls, it falls in behind another one in formation, they literally that one in front of them literally saves them almost 50%, like 40, some percent of their flying energy, it's their receiving from them in effect. And this is something that, that we've taught on, but there is this essence of following that I see in these old timers who really, really have this gift to absorb and learn grace and receive, constantly be receiving. And they are being they are being filled, and and nourished in ways that many people have already quit doing because they've retired and they've become comfortable. Right? And I'm not talking you can be physically retired and still be engaged and following and, and picking up and learning and growing. Or you can be stagnant. So in my own life, being a follower of being a disciple has meant being a follower, not just being a follower of Jesus. But being a follower of teachers, mentors, spiritual fathers and mothers. And you know what proteges disciples like, as I grow older, what I'm finding is is that I can learn from some of the youngest ones, things that I didn't know about or that I didn't see. And that's part of being a follower is you're like, literally, you're like you're absorbing here, you're absorbing there, you're reaching out. And there's this essence of following, but especially with our spiritual fathers, mothers, mothers and mentors, and I think that's probably why you said, because that's kind of where we left off, Doug. That's why you said spiritual fathers and mothers, when we were talking about where we are, these are people who, also and this is not just true spiritual fathers and mothers, but people that we grow close to, they're not afraid to tell us when we're off base. Do you have people in your life who will tell you when you're off base, when you're wrong? Now we're getting somewhere. Now, seriously, don't you want somebody to tell you before you go on American Idol, and you can't carry a tune in the bucket, and everybody's been singing your praises, and you get up there and that you've heard me say this, I go, Where are their friends? Like, their friends are not real friends, they wouldn't tell him the truth and go, Hey, listen, either this is not your gifting or you got some work to do. You're good. I don't want you to be embarrassed before the whole world, right? And the people who love you or the people pull you aside and say, Hey, listen, this might not be quite right. Let's talk about this. Can I help you? Through those are important people. And being a follower is having those people in my life. I've learned this, if I'm a follower, people are a lot more likely if we have the relationship, you have to have the relationship. If you don't have the relationship, then you won't have this. If we're if we're a follower, have a follower spirit. We love people submit to one another. Many times people are more willing, willing to talk to us now. We can't make them I understand that you're always going to have folks that that won't, but you kind of get the get the gist of it. And I mentioned this, many years ago, the Lord rebuked me, because he said you need to stop finding faults with your fathers and mothers. And I was like, Lord, man, please forgive me. Because he said, you know, you're looking and you're looking at okay, well, they're doing this wrong or that wrong? Well, first of all, you're gonna find out some of those things aren't wrong, it's just gonna take you some time to learn that. But also what ends up doing is it inhibits you from being followers what what the Lord was telling me. And you know what some of those faults I mean, they continued and I learned from them, but I learned from them in a spirit of love and loving them, and seeing that they still have riches to give and invest into my life. And if I had continued looking at it, I would not have been able to receive those riches. And guys, listen right now, I won't do it because we're recording but I can just start naming people's names. I can see their faces of people and so many people could not receive from them because of this little thing or that the other, whatever. And I'm like, okay, you know what, this doesn't get easier with time, it gets harder. You know, the older you get, you tend to get a little grouchy here. I know you're not all that way, but some of us are, you tend to get a little bit more grouchy, a little bit less tolerant about certain things, you're like, Oh, I know how it goes, you know. And, and, and so the best among us that I have seen, that I've been able to learn from, they really have become more gracious. And they didn't let that life Jade them so much, even though life was mean to some of them. And that's a choice that we have, we can become cynical, or we can become soft. And so my prayer is Lord helped me to be soft. And the perceived discrepancies that some people found in my fathers and mothers guys, listen, they turned out to be part of the DNA that made them such good fathers and mothers. And I shared this at the very end in our last session, I have three close spiritual mothers in my life. One is my own mother, and to other ladies who have been really invested hundreds of 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s. But hundreds, if not 1000s of hours into me and into my life. Now, some of you've met some of them, they are tough ladies. And my own family can say yeah, they're tough ladies, they are tough women. And matter of fact, you think they all were in the military for 50 years, because in the army or the Marines anyway, they're tough ladies. And so a lot of people had a hard time. But you know, what I look back on my life, what a gift. What a gift they were, what a gift they are. And so what the Lord was showing me is like, look, the things that you considered rough edges was what I used to carve who you are today. And I taught you to work with people, and I taught you to be merciful. And I've taught you to be more gracious. And I've taught you to be humble and let people tell you things you don't want to hear, even when they say it in ways that you don't like, right? And what a gift. It is many times things that God brings into our life and people God bring into our life, we miss the gift of God, because we're looking at them through this, whatever paradigm that we have to filter out their qualifications, or to filter out what we consider to make them qualified, instead of just saying, Lord, what is your desire, and the Lord goes, I think this is a good idea. You need to develop a relationship and learn from these people, and they love you and they care. These are people who've invested intensely into my life. And they still care today. And they still love us today. They still love me and my family today. So this is really, what does this have to do with a great commission. We talked about living under authority, but also the fact that being a disciple means that I am a follower. I am a disciple. And Protestants have gotten really good at this more than the Catholics, we've gotten really good at saying, Well, being a disciple means that I'm a Christian, and that I just do everything direct with Jesus. And I love going direct. I love going VFR direct with Jesus. But there's a whole lot of chapters where Jesus says all these other people have a really important role in my life. And there are things that if I'm going to receive them, he's going to give them to me through them. Now, you guys know there's a bunch of scriptures in Corinthians, all through the New Testament of things that God will give, but he will do it through people, because it helps me become more humble. It helps me to learn to be more gentle, it helps me to learn to be teachable, but also, you can teach followership if you are a follower, right? If you are really good at the at the spiritual art of following and have people in your life that you can follow and that you trust in and I have those. And you know, it's to a point now where some of the, the, the men and women of God that I follow, they're dead, and you say, What do you mean? I go, Well, I'm still listening to their teachings, and I'm still reading their books, and I'm still reaching and grasping, but don't pick all dead people. You need to pick people who are alive also. Because you need people to interact with right? You guys, listen, the flesh if the flesh gets gets its way, if that old fleshly man gets his way, he'll get you isolated. He'll get you in an environment where you look in the mirror and You think things about yourself that aren't true and you don't have anybody to ask and you're isolated. You don't have people to speak into your life you don't have people to, to impart, and you're constantly reinventing the wheel and different areas of life. And that's where the enemy wants. He wants to cut us off and separate us, so that the more separation he can get and cause us to isolate. Have you ever noticed? When you get into sin, you tend to isolate? Medlin? Now, right? Or, if you're mad, and you don't want to forgive somebody, what do you do? Now I know you guys don't do this, but your flesh or tries does any? Right? What's the old flesh tried to do? The flesh tries to separate isolate. That's where the enemy wants people. Because if he can get them isolated, he can cut off the authority that they're given, he can cut off the transfer of authority. So whatever authority you have in your life right now spiritual authority that's been given to you legally, you're receiving in your living condition? Are you satisfied with where that's at? Or would you like to continue growing? I want to grow in that more. And in order to grow in that I have to be connected to the body in that way. So everything I have in life was given to me. And most of it did not come from God directly. What about you? Most of the things in life that I've received did not come directly from a word from Lord many have many things have in the word in scriptures in prayer. But a lot of it came from to from God through other people. And to receive from other people, there has to be a follower Spirit in our hearts I'm talking about. I'm not talking about being like ignorant sheep that just follow anything. We've got a whole lot of that going on in the world today. We're whatever sounds good to people they follow. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about where our hearts are pliable, and malleable to the people who carry the Spirit of God, to the people who speak the words of the Lord. And I'm not talking about just pastors, anybody who speaks words and encourages admonishes and rebukes and all of these things. And lots of that learning came from God through other people. This is discipleship, right? If everybody was supposed to get everything direct VFR direct from God, we wouldn't even need discipleship, we would just say, Oh, you've been saved, you don't need to be discipled. Just go live your life in a prayer room somewhere, and you'll be by yourself and you'll be good to go. Right? But in discipleship, we're being discipled. Now, we used to make this mistake when I was younger. In our zeal, we believe in discipleship, praise God. But what we would do is we would say, Well, who discipled? You? What's wrong with that question? Can y'all help me? What's wrong with that question? Who discipled? You? One and not many? Absolutely. What else? Because it kind of gives you the feel that if you're a, quote, mature Christian, that you had a period of life when you were discipled. You're done. I don't see that in Matthew 28. It to me, it doesn't, it's not like Well, I'm a disciple the first 10 years. And then if I, if I grow, and I'm mature enough, now we think that way, because we were little kids, and we were like two feet tall. And then we grew to three feet, and then we grew to four feet, then we grew to five feet. And some of you never pass five foot four or five, but some of your six foot plus, we don't have any seven foot people here. But then you stopped right, your body stopped growing. But did you stop growing? No, you're still learning, you're still growing. And so we tend to take what we see in the natural and look in the spiritual and think, Well, I'm grown up now. I don't need to stop playing anymore. Now we don't say that. But we would say who discipled you as if you had some discipling praise God and now you don't need that you just disciple other people now? Well, we are still disciples. And that's what followership is, in the authority that Jesus is imparting comes to us, when we walk this way. This is an obstruction. Many, many older Christians, I find and I don't mean older and age, I mean older in their history with God, that they start. They stop being followers. And, yes, it gets people into trouble. Beth and I were discussing how impartation has come in to us over the years come to us over the years. So this week, we've been listening to a series from one of my mentors that we listened to back in the 80s, the 1980s before some of you were born, and we were listening to this. And it's funny because I remember, I couldn't read I couldn't tell you what he said. As in there beforehand. But when he says like, I remember this, you know, and then he gives an example like, I remember that. And then he tells a story. And I remember that, and the, the management's and the teachings, and all of this. And we were talking about this, we said, you know, isn't amazing that when we were listening, the facts and truths were going in into our head. But something else was happening. Those truths, were going down and transforming our spirit, so that we parented differently, so that we lead spiritually so that we walked in a spirit of victory that we had not known before. And those words literally shaped our souls and fought transformed us and who we are, then the words that transformed us the truths of God that transformed us, we forgot about him. Now we didn't, they were still filed way back there somewhere in the back, because when he says them, we remember them. But the fact is, even if we didn't remember them, the words already had a transformation effect in our hearts. And Beth was talking about one particular statement he made, he was talking about child rearing, and he was teaching on the promises of God. And he said, some things she goes, You remember when he said that? We never parented the same after a few sentences of what he said, You know what I'm talking about. Just a few words, just a few sentences. And he says, and we're like, that changed us forever, in how we parented. Now, we forgot about the words, but by that time, the truths of scripture and of God had already transformed our spirits. And so that even when the mind wanes within time, and we can't remember certain things, have you ever noticed that a lot of times you just intuitively, your spirit is tuned in, even though you may not remember the scripture or the truth, or whatever it is, and you have an instinct in the Spirit, you know, and there's a spirit of victory, or there's a spirit of continuing for God's best, and you don't remember the scriptures that got you there, but they transformed you. Right? And this is the nature of how God transforms us. Well, guys, listen, I don't want to quit transforming. I don't want to just wait until Okay, well, you got 100 areas in your life that are no longer caterpillars. They're now butterflies and go Well, that's good. Because the Lord's gonna wait a minute, what about the other 1000 caterpillars in your life? Don't you want them transformed to this is the nature of discipleship. So when we walk in this kind of followership, it's alive in us. We don't become dead Christians are kinda like, close to death Christians. I'll never forget my kids. When we went to you guys know, we spent years in the military, and we went to a particular chapel, and you know which one I'm talking about. We're going home and I'll start crying. There was our first Sunday there. And this is terrible. And I go, what's wrong, and they go, it's like a funeral home. And I said, Guys, listen, every place we've ever been, God was always faithful, to bring his spirit and to bring life and revitalization. But we should never forget that we can become that funeral home. Don't ever forget that. And I'm not this is not to scare us. It's to say, Hey, don't quit becoming a follower. Jesus says, a woman's to have a heart of a little child, how's a little child operate? A little child is always asking questions. You moms that have younger kids right now, they wear you out with questions. And no matter what you say, then they got a why question. Why is that? Well, you tell them well, how come that isn't? What you tell them that and they go why is that? Because I see this and Baba. And they always have another question. Another question. Another question. We need to be people who are asking questions, our hearts are hungry. And this is the nature of a disciple. Don't you love being discipled by these kinds of people? I love it. I love being discipled by people who are followers, because they're just full of life. And they're, they're like they're listening to so and so they you know, I was reading such and such the other day. Oh, I was listening to this teaching the other day. Oh, I was, you know what I gotta tell you. I'm so excited about this scripture that I was. That's one thing I love about the prayer Council streams. Because you can tell when people are alive and when they're flowing. And listen, guys. I know some people say, Well, I'm just waiting. I'm sharing anything in the last three months because I'm just waiting on the Lord to prompt me. Okay, something's wrong. You need to step out more you probably need to start saying, I'm going to share this and Lord unless you tell me not to or something. My point is Is that the heart that is following and receiving is almost always giving, almost always giving. And don't let your heart levels go down. Don't let those levels go down. Being a follower means I'm reaching. I'm saying, Well, Jennifer, what's the Lord been showing you? You said the Scripture. A lot of times you'll send out a scripture and man, I'm like, I'm looking at my mate. Wait a minute, this has reminded me something the Lord spoke to me, keeping our spirits alive, so that that level in our hearts doesn't go down, down down. I was reading this week about Lake Mead, have you guys been reading about Lake Mead? It's in the news a lot, because right now they're finding people who were killed by the mob in Las Vegas. And that's where they dumped the bodies in Lake Mead, you know, decades ago. And so yeah, in all kinds of places. And so now that lake is getting so low, that the sins of the past are being revealed. But here's what I wanted to make a point is, we used to fly years ago, when I was in the Air Force, we used to fly over Lake Mead a lot. And man, the water was all the way up to the top of Hoover Dam. And now if you look at it, it's not the very top but very close, very, very, very close, I can show you pictures of what it looked like. Now they have what they call the bad bathtub rings. It's so far down, that there's bathtub rings going up, up up up up where the water levels used to be. And I thought, man, isn't that like the heart? And the Lord was asking, so does your heart have bathtub rings, Lord, because you know, when there's plenty of water in that lake from the Colorado River? Do you know it powers, millions of people hydroelectric power, it powers millions of people through that hydroelectric plant those generators. On top of that it provides water to millions of people. And the Lord was showing me says, Rod, you don't want the water levels of your heart to get lower. In order to do that we need to be followers. And that's part of being disciples. And man, I'll tell you what, when your heart is full, and you've been hearing from God, and you're listening, and what the Lord saying through other people, you are ready to disciple you have a fresh word from God, you are you're full of life, you're like a child, your heart is light, and not heavy, and you're willing to share. Have you ever noticed when your heart has bathtub rings and starts going down suddenly, is there's not too much water coming out of the spillway? We don't share as much. We don't give as much or with or we get, we get intimidated. Because we're like, wow, I don't know if this will really, you know, in the Lord's calling us to be followers, their hearts are filled, and filled and filled. Following is more than an activity that people do. It's also an impartation. And this is where it's different than social media. Social media. Yeah, there's some similarities. Because if you're in social media, you're following what people are saying. But what it doesn't do is it there's not an impartation. And in spiritual following, there's an impartation, like we're talking about with this teacher and mentor of mine, where whenever someone shares something, you just received more than a truth or a nugget. But that truth in that nugget, the Holy Spirit takes it and he goes, it goes down with his hands into your heart and start shaping your heart. And he was gonna look, this little area where you're struggling with forgiveness smoothes it over grace comes and forgiveness just flows, or this little area where, where I'm putting gentleness in your heart in a way that you didn't have before. Or I'm going to end bring wisdom to you. That's more than the wisdom of the mind. It's going to literally bring an instinct into your spirit will you will know and perceive and be able to navigate mazes in life you couldn't navigate before. And the Holy Spirit comes in. And there's an impartation that molds the spirit, the heart, the soul, so that there's more than just following is more than just a fact going from one person to another. The shaping of the human soul and the transformation. No one just a warning. I've seen you know, guys, I tell you as I get older, I'm given a lot more warnings. And the reason why is because of the tragedy stories, the tragic stories I've seen that bother me so much. And anytime you hear me say here's a warning, here's a caution. Most of the time when I say that, it's because I'm troubled by seeing it again and again and again. In people's lives that I have loved and cared about so much in life. And I've watched power, the power and wisdom of leaders gradually wane and drain. Kind of like like me like we're talking about because they once knew followership and the kingdom. And they abandon it. Now, they didn't abandon it, no one goes, well, I'm gonna quit becoming a follower. I'm just gonna, I'm a leader now. And I got this going and they don't do that. What happens is, over time, it becomes gradual, and they stop flocking. Remember, we talked about walking and flocking, and they stopped flocking. And it's not uncommon to get caught up in the business of church or Christian things and lose this valuable art and skill of followership. followership is a it's an art. It's really something that I don't even know how to teach. And I'm trying my best here today. But really the best way is find people who are good at it and just walk with them. And you learn it. And that's why Dick Duncan has been such a rich blessing to me in my life, he has mastered this. And I realize if you asked him, he'd say, Well, no, have got part of a master, but I'm just going to be learning more. And that's, that's what we all should do. But he has really demonstrated to me how to be a follower, as a leader, as someone who carries authority, or as someone who's a spiritual father, or is someone who is really investing into other people, and yet having the heart of a child and being a follower, so that we can maintain that discipleship status in our hearts, which gives us more ability to receive more authority to walk in, in the kingdom. It's not that there's more authority. It's not like you're earning it, I don't mean that. It's like it makes us able to receive it. Does that make sense? Like in other words, if I come and I asked you for a bowl of soup, and you're having serving soup out over here in the kitchen, and I bring a little bowl? Well, you're gonna give me a little bit, right? If I bring a big bowl, you might still give me a little bit unless I tell you, you know, I'm really hungry today. Can I have some more, and you'll put more soup in my bowl, because the bowl is bigger. And really being a follower is about being able to have the capacity to receive and the desire it doesn't do you any good. If the bowls over in the cabinet, you got to get it out and have that desire to receive it. So in the kingdom of God godly followers, I said this last week, when we ended godly followers make godly leaders and godly leaders make godly followers. And these are those people who learn to walk and flock walk with God and one another, and flock with the people of God. And when I say flock, we don't mean random flock. We're talking about geese flock, right? Where there's a, there is a formation. Man, the cool thing about geese is they can fly for 1000s of miles and not wear out. Because they fly in formation. And I honestly think they kind of enjoy it because every time they pass, they're all honkin, it's like, you know, it's done. It seemed like they're having a good time. At least it feels that way. I don't know if it's true, but it feels that way. We cannot overemphasize the importance of spiritual leaders remaining spiritual followers. And many of the problems in church leadership today that plagued the church with sin, and compromise. I believe this is my theory based on just years of studying this. It's the absence of spiritual fathers and mothers in the lives of leaders. And it's the absence of leaders who still walk in the art of followership. And I was recently reading a newspaper article in a national newspaper that was describing the sin and seduction that has gripped a particular church group that's in many of the major cities of the world. And I don't know if it's true, but the article claim that one of the main leaders in the movement is not even a Christian anymore. And I read the story and you guys know, I read the stories a lot when I see them, I read them, I want to learn from them, the glaring deficit in the story that I saw, and I know a little bit more of the story, because I know by relationship, I'm connected to some of the people who are in the in the story. And one of the glaring deficits in the story is the absence of leaders who do not have robust relationships with spiritual fathers and mothers. And they no longer had anybody they were following. I'm not saying they weren't under spiritual authority, like yeah, they had an authority over them. But it's not enough just to be under an authority, I need to have the heart of a follower. Otherwise I'm just in a formal relationship. And having that heart of the follower. You know, in this case, they didn't forget how to lead, they were leading just fine, or I say just fine. They forgot how to follow. And so they quickly became not quickly but they soon enough became derailed from the call of God. And guys, listen, it has affected the kingdom on major levels, some very important ministries and churches. And this brings us to our last point. And I probably will save this point for next next time together. But I will introduce it to you I know I mentioned it before. And the last one is humility. Now, there are many things that obstruct us from walking in the spiritual authority that Jesus wants to give us in the Great Commission, I understand that you could probably come up and name five or 10 other things. But what I'm trying to do is say, what are the main snares that can pull you out? Or steal away from us? The the blessing of spiritual authority in the Great Commission? What are those main snares? And how can we avoid those snares? That's really the goal of this little section in this pillar on raising up spiritual leaders now we could have just taught on raising up spiritual leaders. But what good is it if we teach that, hey, this is our pillar, raising up spiritual leaders and making robust, powerful people, men and women of God, disciples who walk with God and impact their generation. But we don't say something about the authority that it's required to walk in this, and the snares that that literally steal away their opportunity to walk in that authority. I'm just telling you guys, things I wish somebody would have told me a long time ago, really, I'm trying to share some of those with you. Amen. Let's pray together, Lord, Father, we're just oh, we want our hearts we want to be followers of Jesus, and followers of your servants. Lord, that we may be full of life, full of innocence, full of a desire to learn and to give, to receive Lord and to teach. And this is our desire. We pray, Father, that you will cause these truths to come alive in us. We pray in Jesus name, that you will resurrect these truths and transform our spirits and make us like little children who are receiving asking questions and stepping in deeply and also in the same way being givers in your kingdom. And Lord, we just will be careful to give you all the glory, all the credit. All the Praise belongs to you, King of the universe. Jesus is King, a man and a man. 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. 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