The Seven Pillars (Part 28)-Pillar 7-Discipling Nations, Lampstand Families & Recognizing Revival's Fires - 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 teaching on the seventh pillar, the call to the nations, we talk about the key to revival in the nations: cultivating the fire of God within our own families.

Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):





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​So I think this is part 28. Teaching, I'd have to look on the on the teaching library. It's either think what are yours was teaching 201, maybe this is 202. I don't know. But it's part 28. And we are on the final pillar, the seventh pillar of what we call seven pillars of the Friends of Jesus. Now, this is also of our own ministry or Nova. But these are what we recognize, as seven I call them spiritual DNA markers have our own spiritual family and other spiritual families in the earth that we're working with and partnering with. And this is really fascinating to see how this is emerging in the earth. And we just put a name to it, we called Friends of Jesus movement, we didn't start it, we didn't create it. We just we just named what others are telling us they're seeing, we're seeing this in churches in the United States, spiritual families overseas. We're seeing this all over the place. And I believe this is the early beginnings of, of many of the spiritual revivals that are going to be in this next generation. And we'll talk more about that today. Because when I say the word revival, a lot of people get a certain image in their mind. And it's not necessarily what we're talking about. So I'll try to review that today. But in your notes, if you have the notes, I'm going to just do a slight review on page 8788. Just a little bit of review. But one of the things when we talked about what we do as a spiritual family, and this will connect in because this seventh pillar, do you remember what it is? We're called to the nations, right? Where we believe this is our call as a spiritual family. And we see this and others that our primary call is to the nations, which is the ethnos. That means then the Greek people groups. So a lot of our focus is not like on this neighborhood down here in that neighborhood over there, like a traditional local church, nothing wrong with that. That's just not our focus. It hasn't been from the beginning. Our focus is on the nation's, whether it be a people group in Denver, that we ministered to last week, people group in Portland, where we're ministering next week, or people group in southern Alabama, that where we're going here in a few weeks, or Guatemala that we're in here in the next month or a couple months. You see what I'm saying? It's not so geocentric, as it is God's called us to the nation's and we see this among many. But someone says, Well, what do we do? Like, if you look right now seems like a small group here. Yeah. But what we do is train spiritual leaders and raise up spiritual fathers and mothers, that's what we do. And if you look at the fruit of the last seven years, you see spiritual leaders, and fathers and mothers all over the world right now, because of what this little family does, if you will. And our little family has become now what we call a spiritual ecosystem is it's kind of a big family, but it's not geocentric to one particular area. And so that's manifested in the prayer streams, and in the ministry events and the relationships and the partnerships that we have with various people. And this is important for us to note because of our call to the nation's, and what we see as a kindred spirit in many others. So in effect, we do this, but we do this through the seven pillars, we do it through prayer, through the spiritual disciplines through living and relating a spiritual family. That's why we believe God's called us, we could have gone and rented a building and said, Okay, we're just going to get a bigger and bigger meeting. But that wasn't God's call for us, much like many other spiritual families that are mission focused also. So the, the question is, who are we? So if you say, who is Aaron Nova? We're a multinational mission. That's what we do. But we're a grassroots mission. So if you notice most of what we do is by relationships. We don't advertise most of the things we do we do it by relationships. And somehow we still end out with a lot of people that we're ministering to, but we do it by word of mouth by relationships, and it's very organic, but it's very intense. No. So we are really a grassroots multinational mission, who trains up spiritual leaders and, and raises up spiritual fathers and mothers. This is critical raising up spiritual fathers and mothers is the key to generational transfer. This is going to be a key theme in our retreat this year. Because raising up spiritual fathers and mothers, we're not just talking. A lot of people think when you say Father, mother, they're thinking about the biological function. Oh, a father is someone who has children. Well, really, yeah, you did that. But how long did it take you to do that? You guys know, it didn't take you very long to have kids. But it takes you a long time to raise them. And then once you've raised them, you realize you're not done. You're still God, God calls me to still be a father to my children. Even though my children are now in their 20s and 30s. I'm still called to be their father. Right. And I'm called to be a father to the grandchildren a grandfather at that, but still a father figure. So the calling is primarily relational, not biological. See what I'm saying. And God, when we operate this way, in the church, we operate relationally in the church, and I'm talking about these deep relationships we talked about I believe in pillar three, especially I tried to sprinkle it all in the the whole series, becoming spiritual fathers and mothers is not something you do when you're in your 50s. It's something you do when you're in your 20s, if possible, earlier, if possible, you think about it. Some of you became parents at a young age, I became apparent at a young age, right? God doesn't say, Well, you get it all together, and then you can be a dad, right? He doesn't do it that way. He lets you do it when you don't know anything about what you're doing. Right. I know, there's some moms and dads out there to say, Man, you didn't know. And the older you get, the more it's gonna scare you. You're gonna go wow, I didn't know anything. I thought I knew something. But I didn't know anything. That's intentional. It looks like God made a mistake. But it's intentional. Because it will help us to be humble and say, You know what, I think I need some help here. Well, and that means you're open to mentoring, you're open to other spiritual fathers and mothers speaking into your life and helping you with the parenting piece. Because parenting is not a perfect art. It's something that you learn and you grow in and you have skills, and you do your best, and you have wisdom, and you just keep learning and you keep growing. God knows that if God wanted your kids to have perfect parents, he would have had Jesus be the dad for everybody, and nobody else, right. But he knows how to do this. He knows how to raise kids. And he knows how to do it with imperfect people. The same is true with spiritual fathers and mothers. If you notice, when we get you guys out ministering and teaching in the nation's we, that we don't try to get you to perfection or get you to have three college degrees before you do it. Right. It's like no, come on, let's learn it's on the job training. Come along, let's see what God will do. You'll be surprised what's inside of you and what God will do through you. In many people, especially we operate in, in these places in the world where and in our nation where the soil is fertile. So that to the world around us, we're kind of like, we're a spiritual family and multinational grassroots mission, reaching out to the nations raising up spiritual fathers and mothers and spiritual leaders. I like to say spiritual leaders first, normally, leaders are not as hard to raise. And again, we're not talking about organizational leaders, I'm talking about people who influence out of their relationship and resources in God. That's what we mean by spiritual leaders. And spiritual fathers and mothers, a lot more work to raise them, but they are the people who will bring generational transfer both to their natural families into their spiritual families, now to heaven and to eternity. We are the church. So there's a there's another perspective, I call this three perspectives. One prism. So if you look in this prism, you see, yeah, to the world around us, we're like this grassroots, multinational mission to Heaven, to eternity, we are the church, and then to ourselves. We're just this extended family, you know, we're nothing special. You know, that's kind of way we look at it. Like we're not this baby. We're just a group of spiritual family meeting together, eating together, you know, worshiping together, singing a few songs, worshiping the Lord. We're simple people. This is not rocket science. And that's what I love about what we do. It's relational. And I love Woody and Janae story when they started the mission house in Los Angeles, because you talk about how simple it was in people don't realize how easy Easy This is because anybody can be family because everybody has a family. And even the people that don't have a family in the family of God, they have a family. This is simple. What we do is simple. So I wanted to review that part. And then we asked a couple of questions last week, and you guys had some great answers. But I want to review them as we transition now into today's teaching. And I asked this question, why are spiritual? Why are spiritual friendship and close spiritual family so important in the Great Commission, and I believe this is why they keep the great commandments at the forefront. And they provide the energy and the grace and the overflow. And I told this story I said, you know, I'm amazed at how many friends I have, who've been in the ministry over the years who are burned out, guys, listen, there's way too many of them. I heard, I can't remember this statistic. But I recently heard this statistic of how many people leave the ministry every single week. And most of them say they're burned out. If that's happening, something's wrong with the Ministry right? Now, when you think of ministry, and I think a ministry, we think differently, because in many places in the church, they think clergy and laity. But we don't have the same distinctions there. In other words, that line is usually drawn by by where you draw your salary. But we don't look at it that way. We believe we're all called to serve as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we won't teach on that today. But that's our belief. In other words, you and I are not called to be pew sitters. We are called to be active in the kingdom. And I love the guys that park the cars and hold the umbrellas at the in the parking lot. They are wonderful, thank God for him. But God has more ministry for us. And I'm telling you, there's a lot more inside of the you than what you know, there is ministry to minister, even beyond the gifts of helps, and God is activating us in this work. Don't limit yourself because of where you draw your salary. That's ridiculous. Most of the great leaders of the Bible throughout the Old and New Testaments were not Levites. They were not priests, most of the apostles other than St. Paul. Were not rabbis, right? They were just working men and women. They were just people who did the work of God, and God called them. And they answered the call. And even Paul, who was a who was a Pharisee, who was the equivalent of a PhD in theology of his time, ran his own tent making business. He was a businessman, right? And so this whole idea of that separation, we don't have it, but I'll tell you this, keeping the great commandments at the forefront. The great commandments are the spiritual nuclear reactor that brings energy, because now I tell you being in relationship with God's people, I don't just mean casual. I mean, we're in relationship, we're ministering to one another. I'm getting some somebody else is wanting to teach here. Yeah. She's so excited about the Lord, Amen. So this whole idea that the spiritual family in the great commandments, loving God and loving one another and living in those love relationships, have you ever noticed how much smoother a family operates? When the marriage is great? Compare a family where the marriage is awesome. To a family where the marriage is falling apart. Big difference in that family. And you better know those kids know the difference. This idea of the marriage is going awesome. In the husband loves a wife and a wife loves a husband and they love the kids and in the the love is overflowing like Niagara Falls, that family it works. It's like it's amazing what they can do. It's amazing how you can raise kids in that environment. This is the great commandments in operation. And if those great commandments are in operation, it makes us a lot more able to do the Great Commission. Right? But so many times we focused first on the Great Commission and the work rather than the relationship first. Secondly, we asked this question we said how do we raise spiritual fathers and mothers in the faith and in the nation's? If this is really a simple answer, and there were some good answers and they were on the money with this. You raise spiritual fathers and mothers by being a spiritual father and mother. spiritual fathers and mothers are formed by spiritual fathers and mothers. And so we we talk a lot about what that means what that looks like we won't today. But now we're going to transition into some key words and phrases that I believe describes the DNA of the Friends of Jesus of this movement of people we're seeing and in our own spiritual house, as well as in many other places. One of them is living in deep spiritual friendship. What's the difference between spiritual friendship and regular friendship or friendship in the world? What do you think the difference is? Anybody? I know it's kind of a deeper thought. So you may it may not come to you immediately. Usually, when I asked these questions, it's like five minutes later, it hits people. They're like, Well, wait a minute, I know. You know, it's good. Because when you first ask it, it's penetrating. spiritual friendship, means that we have a relationship that goes deeper than the surface. It see your soul desires, deeper friendships. Even if you don't know it, your soul desires, friendships, where there is a bond, that that fills the thirst of the soul, this of the spiritual part of us also, it's not enough just to be surface level friends that talk about the weather and talk about work, talk about clothes, talk about what we like and what we don't like, even though that's a good start. But when it we need those things, but then we go deeper. And we talk about what's on our hearts. We talk about where we need help, where we're struggling, we talk about to others, we help others when they share, they are able to share what's on their heart, and where they're struggling. And then we're able to minister and there are wounds that get healed. I'll tell you this, I have been amazed at the people I've known, who go through counseling and struggle through this and struggle through that. And they'll come and ask me, many people come to me for counseling, say, What do you think I should do? And I would say I think you need to get in a spiritual family. This is I've been I've been doing this for decades. Now. I was telling people this in 1989. So this is not I this is a lesson that came to me, I learned it, I saw it operating in people's lives, where many of the issues they were struggling with, started healing, the wounds started healing, because they got into a healing environment. You know what it's like when you're around the wrong kind of friends. You get around the wrong kind of friends, and they're immature. And they're this and they're that I'm not saying don't reach out and bless them and love them with God's love, but they're not going to bring the healing that your soul needs. And those solutions and the breakthroughs in the prayers. A lot of times it's a much deeper spiritual friendship that brings breakthroughs that that you may not get. And you recently I was having dinner with a friend of mine. And he started sharing with me how he was suffering in his life from a deficit of friendships. And so as he told his story, his heart was so weighed down. And he said, You know, I met with a friend. And he goes, I don't know why I didn't, I wasn't, I was just isolated. And I wasn't connecting with friends. And I wasn't connecting with spiritual friends, because I met with a spiritual friend, who just encouraged me and said, I'll pray for you. And then it goes. for months and months and months, I have been carrying this 1000 pound load on my back. And he says, literally, the next day, there was breakthrough breakthrough. The following day, he goes, the next week, this happened the next week that happened. And he goes, when I went home that day that I met with my friend, I felt 100 pounds lighter, because he met with a spiritual friend. And then there was spiritual breakthrough on top of this. And a lot of times, in our friendships, we're eating potato chips, and God has the best steaks right over here for us. Sorry if you're vegan. But God's got the best steaks right over here. And you're over here eating potato chips, and God's like, come on, you know, I got a lot better for you here. You know. And so I I'll tell you this, and you guys know I've said this, I don't know hundreds of times maybe. But people say a lot of times ago rod you You seem really spiritually strong. And you seem this and have you had so many victories in your life and I'm like, I'm no stronger than anybody else. I had the same battles everybody had just like it says about Elijah and in the Bible, he had the same struggles, the same challenges as everybody else. The one thing I will tell you is this. I tried to always hang around people who were closer to God than I am. And I still do. I try to hang around people will enroll with people who pray more than I do, who are more spiritual than I am who are stronger than I am, who are spiritually faster than I am. And I'll tell you guys, listen, that's the key right there you do that, and 99% of your life will be different than if you don't. And I'll I have good friends who still they struggle in this. And they struggle in that. And it's like, what do I do? And I was like, Well, I've told you 100 times, I don't know what else to do. You know, it's really that simple. It's really, really that simple. And this is the power of what we do. We live in deep spiritual friendship, another key word or phrase, close spiritual family, New Testament community, that's also a pillar, you guys know that? The community of prayer and what I call spiritual, communal living. Now, I don't mean, we all move into the same house. I'm not talking about that. But I'm talking about the community that has communion, that communes with one another and with God, in Acts 242, the the writer of Acts, Luke puts four things on the same level, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer, and the past apostles teaching apostolic teaching. Now think about this, he puts all four on the same level. That's why when we meet together, we eat together, right? We break bread together, when God's people come together, and God's people break bread together. It's not the same as breaking bread with the world. But there's a spiritual communion, that happens because our hearts open. Now, if our hearts open to people who have living water, the interactions will lead to deeper things in time, if we keep doing them. It's kind of like your vitamins. If you just take your vitamins once a month, probably won't help you much. But if you take vitamins every single day, you take vitamins and minerals, and you eat the healthy food you need every single day, and not once a month, I guarantee you, you will be a healthier person that they're going to help you. And that's the that's the nature of communal living. Another key phrase is training spiritual leaders, spiritual fathers and mothers generational transfers another one. And we say this great commission from the overflow of the great commandments. Some of these are the pillars that we've talked about. But I wanted to just throw out some phrases to give you a feel for what you already know. And then we talked about this pillar ministry to the nations. Now these phrases and the seven pillars, they do not simply describe this kindred spirit that we call friends of Jesus, they also reveal check this out a methodology. Here's where this is where it gets really interesting. It's not uncommon to see the emphasis in missional work. And when we say missional, we're talking about people reaching people doing the work of God in the kingdom of God. Many times the focus is on strategy. We have the strategy, we have this plan, we have this you know you name it. Now I love strategy, you guys that know me know, I love strategy and everything about it. It's actually four of my five top Strength Finders is strategic, strategic domain, the number one is strategy. So that tells you something about me. So it's not that I don't love strategy. I love it. But it's not the core substance of the Great Commission. Jesus didn't say, Go and make disciples of all nations. And the main way you're going to do it is by strategy, right? The key is making disciples. It's the relational part of investing into people. And so the way we invest into people's buy relationship, it's not by going to another class, another seminar, those are good, they're not bad. I'm not saying they're bad. But another class, another seminar, another, fantastic teaching, all of these things, they are not enough. It's not enough. If you just come here and you hear me teaching you leave, that's not enough. That's like putting a vitamin in your mouth and then taking it out once you know 10th of its dissolved and you just don't, you know, that's not enough time to absorb what God is doing. This is primarily disciple making of the nations is inherently a deeply relational activity. And how do we know it because that's the way Jesus did it. The main way Jesus did it was he invested in and 1000s of hours of relationship and then he took those people that he was in relationship with, and minister to the people that didn't know him. The phone Because of Jesus ministry, we thought when he was on the earth was the masses. But within a few 100 years, everybody started to realize the focus of his ministry was the 12, and their extended friends and family, because that's who God used to change the world. He didn't use the multitudes he use the people Jesus invested into, to change the world. And I want to tell you something, you may not know it yet, but you are a world changer. Listen, this is for you. This is not for somebody else. This is for you. This is for you. This is for you. This is for each and every one of you see the vision of God that you are a world changer. You are not just and you could fill in the blank. You can't say I'm just a soldier. I'm just a locksmith. I'm just a banker. I'm just a professor, I'm looking at you guys who have all these different jobs. That's not just that's not even your primary identity. That's what you do. But that's not your main thing. God has called you to be a world changer. Not your pastor. I mean, yeah, hopefully your pastor. But you see, what I'm saying is, look in the mirror, you are the world changer. And you and I only get a window of time, I promise you, you guys are all younger than me. You're gonna get to a point you're gonna go. That went fast. Man, it went by quick. We have this window of time, don't say I'm a world changer after my kids are grown, or after I have enough money, or I have to have this and that and the other. I love you know, you guys didn't wait. You just said yeah, we're going with you. We're gonna, we're gonna go minister with you. And that's what you did. And by doing that, you immediately started investing into a people group who's carrying a fire, and you live fires in people. You are a world changer. But to, but we have to go small to go big. You hear with discipling you have to go small, to go big. And that's why eight years ago, the Lord started challenging me. I had all kinds of big what the world calls big opportunities. What I was doing, the world was saying was big. But God says, can you go small? Because big or small? And I'm like, Yeah, Lord, man, if that's a man, I want to do what you want me to do. And you know what, I've done this long enough. And I've done God's first best, and I've done God's second best. And I've done God's third best. And every once in a while I've been way off course. And I'm gonna tell you bullseyes better. That's probably in the Bible somewhere. I know it is not in those words, but Bullseye is better. God's Will the bullseye of God's will is a great place to be. I love the way Dick Duncan says it. He says, Lord, I want to do this. This is what he prays. And I'm almost quoting him verbatim. He says, Lord, I don't want to do your will. Now when he told me that the first time I was like, well, it goes, Lord, I don't want to do your will. He goes, I want to do your pleasure. I want to do the things that bring you the greatest pleasure in your heart. And I thought, that's a good prayer. I liked that prayer. He said, God, your outer wills not enough is what he's saying. I want to do the best. And so several years ago, we sensed God asking us this question. We since the Lord asking us, how do you disciple a nation? Now, guys, that is a big question. So here, we're having a per Council. And I don't know you guys, Doug. And Jennifer might remember the year I can't remember, it was several years ago. And the Lord says, How do you disciple a nation? Now? I'll tell you guys, I'm old enough now that when God asked me a question, I don't answer. I wait. Because I'm like, okay, when God asked me a question, usually it's because he has a penetrating answer that takes time. And so I, you know, I used to just answer right away, and now I try to wait and say, Okay, what is God saying? What is he trying to point out to me? And so I thought the answer was going to be some kind of strategy. How do you disciple a nation? I thought the Lord was going to have some strategy, some top down kind of answer to this approach. And then what God begin to show us is this. You disciple a nation, by discipling families. The families are the building blocks of a nation. That doesn't seem profound. But it it is a grassroots approach, which is what I said earlier, what God is calling us. So it's, it's kind of like setting fire to a tree. Say a tree is like a family tree. It's a family. And there's this family tree and you set fire to this tree. And then you set fire to another tree, and then you set fire to another tree. Well, a few trees catch on fire. What happens? If the conditions are right? The winds blowing and it's dry. Pretty soon you have a forest fire, we call it a forest fire when the trees catch. So in the fire, forest fires don't get started because an arsonist goes out in the woods, and sets 1000 trees on fire. That's not how forest fires start. We know around here while wildfires are crazy around here some some seasons, you can't even I mean, you know, I saw I saw one of the Fire Orders Woody, we were talking about this. And man, they didn't even want a guy smoking a cigar next to the brush. I mean, it was like don't even barbecue. They're like don't even turn your barbecue grill on. Because if you do, you might set a fire when the winds blowing kind of thing. Here's my point that people don't have to set 1000 trees on fire to set the forest on fire. It takes the sparks in the right place with the right conditions. And so God says how do you disciple a nation to use the fire analogy, it's, it's to help set the family trees on fire. And that's what the scripture Jesus talked about the oil costs. That's the Greek word for household. Remember, when he said go into a house. And if they receive you be accepted, and he tells you how to do this, you go into a household. And then you're reached and you and you say set, don't keep moving about stay in that household. And then Minister from that household, and then you'll reach the relationships that are there. This is how we disciple nations and God began to show us it's not a top down approach. It's a bottom up approach. And that's what we mean by grassroots. So even when we go into the nations, whether they be in this country or other countries, we go into the family, spiritual family relationships and family relationships of people. And this is the way we operate. And God showed us this is how you disciple a nation. The problem is in ministry, it's not always impressive. I guarantee you, if you have a ministry that fills a stadium with 50,000 people, I promise you, the believers will be impressed and the unbelievers will be impressed. But God didn't call us to impress. God called us to disciple and to disciple nations. And the reward of discipleship is extraordinary. And Jesus, what Jesus said concerning the widow, let you know everything he said she gave to mites. And she gave more than everybody else. Because she gave out of the little she had, she gave everything. If you and I give what we have, I'm talking about time, energy and money. If we just give what we have. You don't have to have special gifting. You don't have to have Billy, you don't have to be Billy Graham, you don't have to do all those things. But God knows Wait a minute, this is your chance to set your eternal destiny. Because what is going to happen is there is a mirror reflection and a parabolic mirror reflection of rewards in the age to come. That has everything to do with your calling in the age to come. See, we've focused so much on our calling here we forget, the main call of God is not in this life, the main call of God is the call in the age to come. And if God has called you the problem is we don't have a frame of reference. So I can't it's hard for me to go well now. If the Lord has called you to be the president and the age to come and you're like what the President mean, and I'm like God, I have no clue what it means. The point is that there are great callings, Paul called it. the upward call of God, if we've studied this before, this upward call, there is a full call in the age to come. And Paul's indication was he was wanting to get people into that calling. And the way we do it is by faithfulness in where we are called here in this life. And a lot of people who are Christians give up on that high calling in the age to come either because they can't see it or understand it or because they think they're not very gifted in this life. And Jesus goes, remember the widow, remember the widow, you may not feel like you have a lot of gifts, but if you give what you have, you may not feel like you have a lot of money but if you give what you have, and I'm not talking about like most of it's not like the rich young ruler, there are very few where Jesus said hey, go sell all that you have his he had a problem where those riches had his heart, right? He didn't. Most people he didn't say go sell all that you have right? But what he's saying is give your time I'm giving your energy and give your money. And you may feel like well, Lord, I don't have much gift. Or Lord, I don't have much time. Well, what time do you have? What gifts do you have? And if you don't know what gifts you have, here's what I would challenge you to do. Go with us, go with me, come with me. And where we go to do ministry, in these places, and peoples that we see, just go and see what we'll see what's inside of you. Because I promise things will start coming out of you that God has put in you, your gifts. And when you water, the seeds, they will grow time, energy and money. Because listen, one of the things God called me to do years and years ago, was to raise up help people walk into their spiritual wealth in eternity. Now, that's a hard concept because wealth is something in the earth that is different than it is in the heavens. And I told you guys the the story many times about the guy wanted to take his gold to heaven. And I just told that last week in the school spiritual leadership, do you remember me telling that if you don't, I can retell it. So there's a guy, and he wanted to take his gold to heaven. You guys ever heard of that guy, he wanted to take his gold with him. I know Mike's heard of that guy. He wanted to take it, he had saved up all this money, bought all this gold, sweat all this gold, he wanted to take it to heaven. And so he petitioned the Lord says, Lord, can I bring this gold to heaven, and God did something he hardly ever does. He said, You know what, I'll let you take your gold to heaven says when you die, just have all your friends, get that gold thrown in your casket and bury you with it, and you can take it with you. And so they did. And so you know, when he entered into the pearly gates, here, he comes in, he's got loads of gold with him. And as they come hauling in the gold into heaven, everyone looks at him with a puzzled look. And they and they finally, one of the angels looked at him and says, You brought pavement with you? I know it's corny. But my point is, it's hard. When we think of heavenly rewards. It's hard to fathom what a heavenly reward is, isn't it? It's difficult. But yet Jesus talked about heavenly rewards, as one of the top subjects he discusses in the Gospels. So it must be important to him. So the ultimate, I think a reward, of course, is Jesus Himself, I want to be close, I want to be in the close relationship and in the innermost relationship now, in this life, because we get caught up in all kinds of other things. A lot of times the flesh goes, well, that doesn't seem like a big deal, we're all going to be close. Things are not It's not like everybody's gonna go to heaven, it's gonna be like communism, everybody gets the same. Everything. The scriptures are very, very, very clear on this. So I asked you this, are you seeking that that upward, the upward call the I think I'm quoting the King James, new king, James Version, he calls the upward call, it means the high calling in the age to come. There will be people I believe, who surprise us in the age to come. Because very few people knew their name, I think there'll be some famous people as well, who will also be in their, their full call in the age to come. But this is our call as a people is to help people walk into this now. And this is critical for us. So I pray that as we are looking at discipling nations, we see that God is using the great commandments in the Great Commission to pull us into that preparation. This life you think about for somebody who's going to live forever, this is all very short. This is all like a second compared to living forever. So why even go through this? And what that's another teaching for another day? Why does God white? You know, if that's the case, why don't we just get saved, and immediately we're off, we're in eternity if this life is so short. But this is a proving ground when we set the record, and faithfulness to God. So more and more families are crying out for this fire that we're talking about the trees where we set the fires, we were talking about the fires of God, more and more families are crying out for this. And the fire is small in appearance, but it's enormous in potential. Check that out. Now, what do I mean? I think back to when our kids were young. And the Lord told us is I want you to build an altar in your home. Not physically, not a physical altar, but I want you to build a spiritual altar in your home and I said, Lord, how do we do that? And he says, I want you to establish a time of family prayer, teaching interaction with me. And I want you to do this as if My family every week, I want you to meet with me as a family every week. And so we started doing that. Now, guys, it was not easy Sundays. I mean, some days the kids are acting up, y'all know what it's like. And sometimes they're not interested or this is going on or that. And so we had to really learn through that. Well, how do I get them interested? Well, I found out real quick. If there's if they're teaching or sharing, then it changes the game a little bit. So I had them start teaching in diapers, so they were young. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. When they were young. I said, Okay, this week, you're going to share, and we got them involved in sharing. And sometimes we'd integrate biblical movies into it. Sometimes we would do different activities. We'd have whiteboard prayer, but we would bring in what was going on in their lives. What do you want to pray about? Well, this is hard at school, or that's going on, or these kids in the neighborhood here this morning, kids beating people up, you know, whatever it is, those were big issues to them, but we engaged with God as a family. Well, I thought, as I thought, just as a dad, I'm like, Yeah, we're having this little prayer time with our kids. You know, it didn't seem like a big deal to me, if you will. The only reason I held held to it so strongly was because I felt like we had a word from God to do it to build a family altar. And so we held to it and we did it. My kids will tell you, man, we did it. Whenever Sunday night. We did it every week. I mean, yeah, there were times when I was gone, or something, and then they would do it, even with me gone. But the point is, it felt small. A lot of times that fire of God we're carrying in our families don't seem like a big thing. You know, when this wildland fire started here a few months ago, and it started burning through a neighborhood up north here. I'm sure the welder who was welding when the spark that sparked over to the weeds that lit the fire and burnt that whole section, probably didn't think much. He didn't think he had a big fire, right? He didn't think, Oh, I've got a big fire here, it's gonna set a forest fire, right, he was just dealing with some sparks and his welding. My point is this that we are carrying as families, this fire of God, and this fire, if we will tend these flames faithfully, they will bring larger fires in the coming generations, because they will bring generational transfer, and they will cause they will literally usher in the moves of God, every move of God in the earth from the beginning of time started with a Noah who lived in evil places and evil times and evil people and said I will not compromise I'm gonna pursue God. And the Bible says that Noah was perfect. That means blameless in his generations. We just did a teaching at the School of spiritual leadership last week, talking about how God had set no aside and no has set his family apart so that his family would be set apart in his generations to know God. And I'll tell you what, you say, Well, you know, I got a difficult spouse, or I've got a difficult child or I've got a difficult, don't make excuses. Just do it. Because God will change that spouse, God will change those children. God is in the transformation business. But as we do this, God is calling us to be faithful with these fires. And when the enemy goes, Oh, that's not a very important flame, you're carrying it just that little candle or that little fire you got there. It's not a big deal. You can skip family prayer time, it's not a big deal. You don't have to pray with the kids at night or pray with your spouse in the evening. Or have that time of sharing, by the way, just fried chicken for you parents. You have a captive audience with kids at bedtime. That's when I did most of my discipleship with my kids. Is that bedtime? Because when I would go into pray with them, they don't want to go to sleep, right? I do this with my grandkids too. If they spend the night, I've done it with my sit down, we'll start talking. And man, they're full of questions because they know the next thing is that lights gonna go out. Right? And so they're full of questions, and they're ready to learn. And so I'm in I'll just tell him about things. And I'll tell him about life experiences and how God delivered me and what happened. And tell them the stories. Kids love stories. People love stories, tell your stories of how God delivered you. You've got a lot more of them than you think you do. But if you don't tell them, you'll forget about them. I'm not saying you won't know that happen, but you'll forget to tell them if you don't tell the stories. And as you tell those stories about how God saved you and God did this and God provided and this miracle and that happened and this breakthrough and then they started having their battles and your praying through their battles. Listen, that's one of the reasons you if you were off into parenting now, but this is important, and it has a spiritual application, and it's all about carrying the flame, when we're talking about carrying the fire. If if you just teach your kids the Bible, it's not enough. They can't just see God as someone as a character in a book a long, long time ago, we have to bring God into the family now. So what happens if we have prayer with our kids? And we're talking about things and we had a whiteboard? So we'd put it up, we'd say, What do you want to pray about? And they'd say, wow, you know, I got this problem, or I'm struggling with that, or this is going on. Those are little problems to you, but they're big problems to them. And I still remember times when I was a teenager, and I was really struggling with some, or when I was a kid, I mentioned it to my mom and dad, and I love my mom and dad, but sometimes they didn't realize how big the problems were to me. And they're like, Oh, don't worry about it, you know, blah, blah, blah, well, it was little to them. But it was big to me. And so you get into the you get into the trial with the kids, and you bring them into you start praying about it. And now they are engaging God in the challenge. Now, I didn't stop there. If I had struggles, things going on a problem at work a problem? My kids will tell you, I would share it. Now. I mean, the most I could. And I would say, you know, I'm having this and that struggle, or we're praying for that. Or we were getting ready to go through another move in the military. And we'd say, where do you want to live? We pray through all this. What ended up happening was, the kids started engaging God in the process. So now God is no longer just somebody in a book. He's somebody that our family interacts. And we prayed about this, and God came through. And then the Lord spoke to us and says, This is where you're going to move next. And we're like, Okay, Lord, can you tell the army then God tells an army we get ordered? Whoa, wait a minute, when they live miracle after miracle breakthrough, after breakthrough, breakthrough after breakthrough, what's happening is we're cultivating the flame in those children's lives. And yes, they have problems. Yes, they have difficulties. Yes, they're like the rest of us. They have hang ups. They're not perfect, we understand that. But they start to relate to God and realize, whoa, this is not just a God in the Bible, he's the same God who's in our lives. He's the same God working in us here today. And God becomes real, we're carrying this flame. And not call these and we did a whole teaching several years ago, on Lampstand families that Lampstand what Jesus talked about, the churches carry lampstands, we talked about Lampstand families where the fire is burning the lampstand, remember, was the menorah in the temple, and it would be burning and that flame represented the flame of God in that place. And in our families, we are wanting to be Lampstand families, we don't just want to be Christian families. We want to be families that have the fire burning in us. You can tell when a family has the flame. And there's just so low, they almost gone out in the zeal and the passions not quite there. And they're going through the motions, and they're checking the blocks and their problems and this and that. And the other verses whenever that family lights the fire in the flame of God and the passion and the grace and the energy for life and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and Revelation starts coming out like Man, I've never heard God this well, and God starts speaking and God is interacting with the family. These are Lampstand families don't say that's for another family, not ours. Don't say that's for somebody more spiritual than us. Because this is God's call. And if God calls us God can do it. But we have to engage him, right? We have to do those things He calls us to do and when we do, this fire is burning. Now, these families that we're talking about Lampstand families have thrown off the spirit of mediocrity, and they've refused to be arrested or lulled to sleep by the rat race. I'm talking about the rat race of chasing money, chasing promotion, chasing jobs, chasing prestige, chasing all those things the world says are important. And Jesus. Guys, listen, I got a lot easier away for you here. He says, Just seek first the Kingdom. All these other things just be added to you. And many of you have lived that story. You started seeking first the kingdom and all of a sudden this was added and that was added and this was added. You've had some of you've had so many things added if you pinch yourself If you can't even hardly believe you are where you are right now. And if you forgot how good it is, think back to when it wasn't good. Right now, everyone, if you just think back right now, you can think back to a time in your life when it wasn't as good. And some of you are old enough to think back when it was just bad, right? And you look at yourself now and you're like, wow, Seek first the Kingdom. And God says, I'll keep adding to you, I will bring the blessings to you. But focus on the kingdom, make the king and the kingdom, your pursuit, your only pursue your center pursue, you make the king in the kingdom, your pursuit. And I promise you, I can guarantee you like no insurance policy in the world, that you will be blown away by what God will do now. Don't do it like this. Don't go out and water the tree, look at it for an hour and go Well, I didn't do any good. It didn't grow. I know a lot of people do that with discipline with their kids. They go, Oh, I discipline them and it didn't work. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? Like, that's not the way it works. You don't water a tree one time and then springs up two feet that night. Right? It's you have to keep watering the tree. And listen, that's what I'm saying is just keep doing it. Keep maintaining the fire, and God will cause it to grow. And you may not realize how much it's grown this, the tree in the front of our house. Some of you have seen it that giant spruce tree. I looked at the pictures the other day from seven years ago. And I couldn't believe it. I was like, Man, that thing was tiny. I thought it was always a big tree. Because it was big to me back then. And I didn't even realize how much that tree with that giant Christmas tree was growing. Somebody say amen. Oh, man. So these fires are the fires of tomorrow's revivals in history? Can you see that? Maybe you can't see it? Can you believe it? Because Jesus says All you need is a little faith, you need enough faith to believe it. You can believe it. I will tell you, if you met me when I was a kid, you would have put no money on me for a future. Now I'm talking about when I was a little kid, because I didn't have anything really going for me. We were poor. I was angry. I was a mean, kid, there was just it was all bad. It was just pretty much all bad. But people were praying for me. And you know, there was a transformation in my heart. And then there was a transformation in my mom and dad a couple years later, and God begin to do things. And I'm going to tell you that I believe in miracles because I've lived the miracles, many of you have lived the miracles. And I'm telling you don't think God won't use your family or your children or your generations because he wants to, when you pray over your family and over your generations, you know, you are praying in the will of God. It's if you know you're praying in the will of God, what better place to be. If you know, it's hard when you're praying and you're like, Lord, I kind of like to get this vehicle. But I don't know if it's your will. That's harder, right? But when you're praying and you know for sure, like I know when you're praying for the faith of those kids, when you're praying for the faith of those people that God's called you to disciple, you know, you're praying in the will of God. So you can pray with assurance and pray with faith. Do you guys love this as much as I do? Amen. To many people, we're going to close it out here to many people. Revival is powerful meetings, gatherings, and large stadiums and churches and powerful large group worship. Now all these things are good, but I believe hear me on this. I believe the coming revivals in the church will not be like that I believe they will flow like rivers, through families and relationships and various groups in society. See, when we say revival, a lot of people think we mean oh man. There's this one church and there's an outpouring, and they're having services every day and night. And people are coming in. And these miracles are happening. Yes, that's revival. I'm not saying that's not revival. But I'm saying that revival does not just come in one form. revival comes in many forms in the coming revivals are bigger than that, because they are not going to be limited to like this one church that we heard about and everybody's flying into. It's going to be like a river that flows through families through spiritual families and through various groups and societies. And I believe that two qualities will characterize the revivals that are coming, that they will be relational and they will be transformational. I'll say it again, the revivals will be relational. And they will be transformational. Because you can go to some big meetings and powerful things can happen. But the question is, are people being transformed? Many of them are Yes. And many of them are not, I believe what's coming is rivers of revival that flow through groups, people, groups, families, demographic groups of different kinds, and they will be relational. And they'll be transformational. And now that the world is over 8 billion people, it won't be like it was in the old days, it will be a lot of people. But it won't look like it did in the old days when when the earth didn't have that many people. Amen. Well, hey, we're going to, I'm going to close it here. And then we'll have a time of sharing after we close the recording. But I want to ask you to bow with me, Lord, we just thank you, that you've called us to the nation's. And Lord, we ask you give us a vision help us to see more clearly what you're doing so that we can believe and have faith even more. And Lord, we thank you that you right now have a great dream for every single natural family and every spiritual family, that there are dreams locked up in the heart of God. And Lord, we pray draws nearer to you, so that we can start to unlock and see those dreams, in your heart for our families, for us, Lord, that we are called people of God, to do the work of the Kingdom, the Great Commission was not something for people who are paid staff on a church, that the Great Commission is called to your people, your commission to your people, to be ministers have this good news, this gospel so that we can do the good work of the Kingdom and give our lives our hearts our everything to the kingdom of God to the King, Jesus, in Jesus name, Amen and 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 Aaron nola.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. Their lives will be better because of your generosity, and Heaven will be greater because of your love. We pray that you will be drawn ever closer in your walk with God and that you will see his dreams unfold in your life in extraordinary ways. Thank you for your faithful prayers and gifts that enable us to take the Friends of Jesus movement to the nations as we watch the rise of the presence of God in His people throughout the earth.