Stephen Crews: Why Intimacy With God Must Come Before Ministry

Hungry work without holy fuel only scorches the wick. We open the new year by digging into the parable of the Ten Virgins and asking a simple, searching question: are we carrying oil or just waving lamps? With Stephen Crews back in the studio for our Covenant Alignment series, we frame this moment in Tevet, a month in the Hebrew calendar known for divine strategy and instruction, and we focus on building an inner life that can bear the weight of our calling.

Together we trace the parable verse by verse, drawing out clear meanings: the lamp as ministry, the oil as intimacy with the Holy Spirit, and the midnight cry as the moment that reveals reality. We talk about why even sincere people grow weary, how delay exposes our foundations, and why the wise prioritize presence before performance. From Mary and Martha to the sober warning of Matthew 7, we keep the spotlight on one theme—knowing Jesus matters more than doing things for Jesus. You can’t borrow oil; you must buy it in the secret place.

We get practical with rhythms that cultivate oil: steady prayer that reframes decisions in God’s presence, fasting that quiets the flesh and clears the static, and Scripture that anchors discernment so we hold tightly to what God is saying and loosely to our first interpretation. We look at Abraham’s long wait to show how perseverance is disciplined fidelity, not mere survival. If burnout has crept in or your lamp feels dim, this conversation offers a path back to intimacy, clarity, and resilient joy.

Subscribe for more on covenant alignment, share this episode with someone who needs fresh oil, and leave a review to help others find the show. Then tell us: what practice will you adopt this week to tend your oil?

Chapters

• 0:00 New Year, New Series
• 3:19 Tevet And Divine Strategy
• 5:33 Ten Virgins Parable Introduced
• 8:03 Verse-By-Verse Breakdown Starts
• 12:58 Lamps, Oil, And What They Mean
• 18:28 Delay, Drowsiness, And The Secret Place
• 24:13 Wick Versus Oil: Avoiding Burnout
• 29:23 Mary And Martha: Posture Over Performance
• 33:53 You Can’t Borrow Oil

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:44

Howdy folks, I want to welcome you to another episode of Life Are on the Fire, and here we are, 2026. Years seem to be flying by, but we have today for the first podcast episode of Life Are on the Fire in the year 2026, we have back in the studio Stephen Cruz by popular demand, actually. And no, he's become a Steve's become a regular here and is doing a podcast series with us now called Covenant Alignment. So today we're going to be looking into that for a bit, but kind of taking maybe a little bit of a caveat from that and focusing on one of the parables that Jesus taught. And Stephen, welcome back in the studio. And we really love having you here. And just, you know, people from Mozambique to Mobile, from Bangkok to Bangor, Maine, are going to be listening. So uh just uh uh bring us the word of the Lord, brother.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44

Amen. Shalom everyone. Welcome to Life Around the Fire. Today, we're not gathering for information, we're gathering for alignment. So let's take a breath, let's still our hearts, and let's enter the way of this teaching and this time together. And so we just we came out of the Hanukkah season, which was the month of miracles. And it was a time when we rededicated our own temples and readied ourselves for his work and the expansion of his kingdom. And now we are currently in the month of Tevet in the Hebrew calendar. It's the 17th of Tevet to be exact. And Tevet is a month for God to release divine strategy and instruction. This month of Tevet marks the beginning of a season of preparation and expectation. This is a month to align with God's instructions and prepare to walk in obedience. When I think about preparation, there's one parable that comes to mind, and that's the parable of the Ten Virgins. It's found in Matthew chapter 25. And if we look back and listen to the previous episodes on covenant alignment that we did, we see a theme and we see a thread of this issue of preparedness. You know, we talked about beholding and becoming before with Psalm 27. We talked about Abraham and Genesis 22. Worship is the culture of the kingdom. We talked about the secret place as well. And in Matthew chapter 24 and chapter 25, there are four parables that Jesus is teaching on. And they are messages for us today in 2026. They reveal what Jesus would say if he were speaking to us today. And the parable of the Ten Virgins is about the order of one's life. And it's found in the 25th chapter of Matthew, verses 1 through 13. And so today we're going to break down each verse, and I want to encourage you as you listen, I want you to see this teaching through the lens and with the mindset that true freedom comes through disciplined covenant alignment with God's purposes. And so I'll be reading out of the amplified version Matthew twenty-five, verse one. Five of them were foolish, thoughtless, silly, and careless, and five were wise, far sighted, practical, and sensible. For when the foolish took their lamps, they did not take any extra oil with them. But the wise took flasks of oil along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delayed, they all became they all began to nod off and they fell asleep. But at midnight there was a shout. Look, the bridegroom is coming, go out to meet him. Then all those virgins got up and put their lamps in order, trimmed the wicks, and add oil and lit them. But the foolish virgin said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, because our lamps are going out. But the wise replied, No, otherwise there will not be enough for us and for you too. Go instead to the dealers and buy oil for yourselves. But while they were going away to buy oil, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast, and the door was shut and locked. Verse eleven. Later the others also came and said, Lord, Lord, open the door to us. But he replied, I assure you and most solemnly say solemnly say to you, I do not know you, we have no relationship. Therefore be on alert, be prepared and ready, for you do not know the day nor the hour when the Son of Man will come. And so we see this distinction and within the parable. There's five foolish and there's five wise. And as we begin to go verse by verse here, verse three, the foolish took their lamps, but they took no extra oil. And so when you think about being prepared, this is a great example of the time and the season that we're in. And so the virgins themselves, there's five wives and there's five foolish. The lamp is the ministry that brought God's light. The oil equals intimacy. And obviously the bridegroom is Jesus. The number ten represents the community of believers in the scripture. It also represents completion as well in a time of testing. But in verse 3, the foolish were pursuing ministry before acquiring oil. They had a misplaced confidence in their weakness, and they didn't properly count the cost to follow Jesus. The foolish were spiritually unprepared. However, in verse 4, the wise were prioritizing staying connected with the Father's heart. And so they were more focused on having intimacy with the Lord before activity. They were more interested in obedience before sacrifice. And so they were they were concerned about covenant faithfulness. And it in the scripture all the virgins were set apart. When you think about being a virgin, you think about being pure and set apart. They all had their lamps, they all had a ministry before the Lord. But it was an issue of the oil, right? And so the foolish didn't have extra oil, and lamps without oil are non-functional. Verse 5. While the bridegroom was delayed and they all became drowsy, they slept. At a certain point, we can't tell who was wise and who was foolish. Because they all fell aslept fell asle asleep at the same time. So it will be evidence all what we've been doing in secret. We've talked about the secret place before, our prayer life, sitting before the Lord, and so our private life will tell on us eventually. We can only fool man for so long. However, the heart sees the Lord sees our heart and our heart will tell on us from out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks as well. So verse 5 is saying, while the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. So at a certain point, everyone fell asleep. You couldn't tell who was wise and who was foolish because they all fell asleep. And so the question here for us today is how do we how do we respond during the the delay when it's about God's timing and not ours? Are we going to be foolish or are we going to be wise? Because even the wise can grow weary. However, but the wise are smart enough and have intimacy with the Lord where the Holy Spirit's drawing them, where they can remain prepared and faithful because of their intimacy. So the questions here for today are Are you a former wise one that is now living foolish? Or have you been foolish from the beginning? You know, we can be sincere and love Jesus, but still become foolish over time. The answer is to return to repent and turn back to our first love and make an effort to encounter him at the heart level. Remember, the word says that when we draw near to God, he draws near near to us. And so he's not that far away when we draw close. Moving on to verse six at the midnight hour. Everyone will look the same until the shaking comes or the hardship or the bridegroom. Then they all trim their lamps. And the the lamp is not the focus here, the oil is. The oil fuels the flame, the wick only carries it. And so the lamps have a wick that must be trimmed a certain way. And when the wick is trimmed just so, the flame burns perfectly even, and the flame burns longer. And this is symbolic of a well-rounded Christian. The oil comes up the wick to burn, the oil burns, not the wick. In the parable, Jesus doesn't emphasize the lamp, the ministry, how flashy, how big, how big it burns, what your call is, how you prophesy. Jesus makes it about the oil. And when you burn a lamp with no oil, the wick burns and it burns out fast. And this is how people get burned out in ministry where they're working for success versus working from success, which is the love of Jesus Christ. So it's not the hard work, it's doing the work with the wrong spirit or the wrong heart posture. And meaning, no having no oil means we're we've become foolish. The wrong spirit has come in. We're walking in pride or self-righteousness or religious works, had knowledge. And so two great examples is uh Martha and Mary. If you know the story in Luke chapter 10, Martha was serving with the wrong spirit and the wrong heart posture. While Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus, Martha was serving disconnected from Jesus' heart. She was anxious and distracted, and she wasn't doing bad things, but her heart posture showed service before resting in his presence. And that is not good. Mary chose intimacy first, however. And so the oil itself, what what is the oil? The oil represents the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. It represents an inner reality, not an outward form. The oil of intimacy before activity, presence before performance. And so the only way to cultivate oil is to cultivate it in the secret place. The secret place is a place of total surrender to the Holy Spirit and the will of God. It's about spending time with God alone, choosing the spirit over the flesh, where we can gain an eternal perspective, a place where our soul can be vulnerable and intimate with God. And the warning here is we don't want to live outside of vibrant connection with God. We certainly don't want to go and do ministry. We are all leaders and called and equipped to to be the light and to be his hands and feet. And so if we're not careful, ministry can take the place of knowing him. And so we cannot give our oil away to anyone. It has to be bought in the secret place. Verse 8 says, Give us some of your oil. Our lamps are going out. The foolish realized that they were running out of oil and they inquired of the wise, hey, give us some of your oil. But verse 9 says, the wise said, Go to the dealers and buy for yourself. There is a process. We have to invest ourselves in a costly way, which is valuable and priceless. We have to position our heart to receive it. It's Psalm 27. One thing I've asked of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to choir in his temple. Christianity is a relationship, folks. And in a relationship, we have to spend time with the person. And storing oil is about our relationship with Jesus as the bridegroom. And without the oil of the Holy Spirit, no one is ready to meet ready to meet him. We have to build history in God. And we will find him when we seek him with all of our hearts. Verse 10 says, and the door was shut. Without oil we cannot progress forward. We can only make lateral moves. The door will be shut when we don't have oil. Oil is the only way that the door will open. Jesus tells us to watch, therefore, in verse 13. We need to watch. We need to our prayer life needs to be vibrant. If you're stagnant right now, I encourage you to just open your mouth and begin to pray where you're at. We need to be students of the word. We need to watch what the word says. We need to watch what the Holy Spirit is doing. We need to stay connected to the to the to the body of Christ to get confirmation of how the Spirit of God is moving. That way we're not doing our own thing and putting God's name on the end of it. Because there is a warning. We can do church and we can do Christian ministry, and all these things can slowly take the place of knowing Him. And these results are no more oil, which equals burnout. The warning here is found in Matthew 7, verse 21 through 23. Jesus says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day when I judge them, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, and driven out demons in your name, and done many miracles in your name? And then I will declare to them publicly, Jesus says, I never knew you. Depart from me, you are banished from my presence. You who act wickedly, disregarding my commandments. And so, how does this all connect with covenant alignment? Well, we can do ministry, and it can slowly take the place of knowing Him. We can get caught up in the mundane and the in the day-to-day events, and we can rely on last week's conversation or last week's prayer time or last week's uh scripture reading. The Lord says that man shall not live on bread alone, but by everywhere that comes and proceeds from the mouth of God. And so this is a a call to relationship. The beautiful thing about prayer and your prayer life is it eliminates all competing voices. And so if we're in a month in God's calendar where He is releasing divine strategy and instruction, there's only two ways to position our hearts to receive that. Because if you're anything in a place just like any just like me, I need divine strategy and instruction in my life right now. There's only two ways that we can receive that. It's through prayer and fasting. And so we gotta make time to pray. We gotta make time. We need to pray and ask the Holy Spirit and rely on his leading to when we can fast and seek his face. This new year of 2026, a lot of ministries around the world are start off a 21-day prayer fast. It's never too late to start one. It's never too late to get on your own intimate schedule with the Lord fasting. And so as we engage in God-centered fasting, we will do it in his strength and by the power of his spirit. At the end of the day, we're the ones that need him. He doesn't need us. He wants us to come to him. The Lord will build his church. However, he uses, he wants to use humans. We've seen that from the beginning. There's been a plan A, there's never been a plan B. Since Adam and Eve fell in the garden, Yeshua came to redeem what was lost. And so being fruitful to go ye therefore and be fruitful and multiply, we gotta we can't we can't birth things on our own. The Lord says any anything that is man-made is built on sinking sand. We have to be founded on a firm foundation, and our lives and our ministries have to be built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. And so if we're in a month of divine strategy and instruction, what does this look like in your life? We could be doing things and not even realizing that the Lord isn't with us anymore. You know, in that verse we just read, Jesus is saying, you know, hey, I never knew you. The people are saying, hey, we we did many things in your name. And we're saying I don't, I don't, I didn't know you. I didn't tell you to go do that. And so that's a real scary verse for me personally. I don't want to be doing things and putting God's name on the back end of it and asking him to bless it. So, how how do we cultivate oil, folks? Here at Life Around the Fire, we always talk about adding another log on the fire. So, fasting is a great way to cultivate oil. Fasting is all about removing, replacing, and tearing down idols. Abstaining from food for the purpose of placing our flesh into submission to our spirit. The spirit has to be first, the soul second, the body third. We need to subdue our flesh and our carnal desires, and we need to eliminate all distractions. When we fast, trust me, all distractions will be eliminated. All competing voices will diminish and cease and go silent. There will be a point in the fast where the spirit will take over. And so we have to remember that when we don't feed our bodies, they get loud. When we don't feed our spirits, though, they get quiet. And so if you feel like you're distant from God, you can't hear from God, it may be a time for you to pray and fast and seek the Lord. And remember that when we fast, we're replacing food, you know, whether it's food, technology, we have to replace whatever that is that we're thing that we're removing, such as food and technology, and we replace it with the word and prayer. We have to feed on the word of God. Our spirit can only take the lead if we feed it more than our flesh. And we have to also remember the benefits of fasting may not be seen right away during the fast, but the results will be evident afterwards. And so the template for fasting is found in Matthew 6, chapter 6, verse 17, when Jesus said, And when you fast, Jesus didn't say if, he said when. So he's expecting us to be fasting. There's many scriptures where you see ministers of the gospel, you know, Apostle Paul and Peter, they're ministering with times of fasting in the Word. And so I encourage you to seek the Lord about a fast that the Lord is nudging you too fast. There's many resources out there available, including the Word. You have the typical Daniel fast doing fruits and vegetables. We have no meat. You have the water fast. So I encourage you to do that. And so as we step into making prayer a priority, we need to understand that prayer is nothing more, nothing less than communing with God. It's a relationship, it's talking with Him. Prayer is in our heart, not out loud. And this is the essence of intimacy. Where we draw near to Him in spirit and in truth, where we we live in awareness of His presence, which is our heart posture. It's a continual seeking of His guidance, where we view everything in the light of His presence. We sift every decision and interaction with others through Him. Asking ourselves, where is Christ in this moment? Being mindful of our interactions. Through prayer and fasting, we can discipline our hearts and our minds to yield to God's presence. And when we do this, we place ourselves as a worshiper before him, doing everything for the love of God. When we fix our minds upon his holy presence, the Spirit of God that lives in you, we begin to cultivate and store oil. This is the essence of the secret place. When we say cultivating oil, you know, there's a funny saying that I saw that says, the end of the age, store guns, store food. No, we need to store oil, the oil of intimacy. We need to have set times to pray throughout the day. We need to sit before the Lord just like David did in Psalm 27. We need to partner with God through prayer. We need to pray God's word back to him. We need to find out what burdens are on God's heart, find those out, and then pray them back to him. That's called intercession. We need to be open with no agenda and have an open heart. Our heart must be surrendered first before we can pray or ask the right thing. Our prayer life should be about other people and the kingdom of God, advancing his kingdom. Matthew 6, verse 33 says, Seek ye therefore the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these other things will be added unto you. And so us being blessed is a byproduct of seeking first his kingdom and being about our Father's business. Praying God's will to be done is extremely important in our prayer time. In order to know the will of God, we have to know the Word. We have to be students of the Word. The Holy Spirit, when we're fasting and praying, will confirm what we're hearing through the Word. So we must pray for God's will to be done. When the Holy Spirit speaks to us, we need to hold tightly to the discernment and loosely to the interpretation. When we receive something from the Lord, we need to take it back to Jesus. We need to be humble and wait for Him to give us the answer, to give us the interpretation. We don't want to build a wrong theology or a doctrine off the wrong interpretation. So it's easy to jump to conclusions that, oh, this is what this means, this is what this vision means, and this is what this word means, this is what XYZ means. We need to take back what we're getting and submit it back to Him and wait on the full understanding because we only know in part and see in part. And so that's a key key when we're praying and when we're fasting and when we're reading the word is submit everything back to Jesus and He will make our paths clear on our decisions. And so when I think about the parable of the Ten Virgins, when I think about covenant alignment, when I think about this month of Tevet, the Hebrew calendar, a month of divine strategy and instruction. And we see in the parable there was a delay. We're currently in a delay in the body of Christ. The second coming of Yeshua has not been come yet, right? We're in a delay. This parable is directly related to us here in 2026. So how are we choosing to live out our lives in the midst of the current delay that the parable is speaking about? I think about Abram. We talked about him, Abraham back in Genesis 22, with sacrificing his promised child on the altar, Isaac. But if we go back a few chapters, we realize that Abraham had to wait approximately 25 years until the promise came. Abraham was in the land of Canaan for ten years with no child. He was about 75 years old. And then after 10 years, so God gave the promise, he waits ten years, and then Sarai has this idea with Hagar. And it produces Ishmael. And then after that mistake, another thirteen years before God changes Sarai's name to Sarah, and Isaac comes forth. Think about that. A promise. Some of you have been given a promise. Has it been twenty-five years? The parable of the ten virgins is no different. What are we doing in the delay? Galatians chapter six, verse nine says, and let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. And so as we begin to wrap up, I'm gonna leave you with this thought. Perseverance is not merely endurance, but a disciplined commitment to remain faithful to your God given purpose despite challenges, distractions, or delayed manifestations. Galatians chapter six verse nine reveals that kingdom impact requires the discipline to continue sowing good seeds even when the harvest isn't immediately visible, trusting in God's perfect timing and covenant promises. So folks, the question is not whether the question is not whether we have a lamp, whether we have a ministry. The question is whether we have oil. And so as we wrap up and in today, I encourage you to be wise, to stay intimate, and remain steady.

SPEAKER_01: 31:51

Thank you, brother. I uh I like what you said when you you made this comment that if we if we don't feed our bodies, they get louder. If we don't feed our spirits, they get quieter. Or the voice gets softer. That's true, man. That's just so true. And and the uh whole aspect of covenant alignment as we focus more and more in on it and we see it as I see it as I adapt myself and have myself, you know, in line with the covenant of God in his calendar, things uh that I uh heard in my heart I see they're not so much random, they're actually part of God's calendar. And that we're in seasons and uh we're in a real season right now, and it's good for us to take advantage of what's available in that season. So thank you so much for what you're doing and presenting this to us because it's very, very, very important for each and one of us. And I like hard words. I like the ones that make my toenails just kinda like burn. And with my toe, I gotta curl my toes in a little bit because I need those. I I need them. I don't avoid them. I I I kinda gravitate toward them because they're the ones that really do the trick. But would you do us a favor, Stephen, just kind of cap us off in prayer here, and then we'll uh we'll we'll give people a little bit of instruction in the end. But if you just do that, please. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 33:27

Thank you. Dear Heavenly Father, we just we thank you for your word.

SPEAKER_01: 33:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 33:33

There's a lamp unto our feet and a line to our path, Lord God. Lord, we thank you, Lord God, that you are with us, that you are closer than the air that we breathe, Lord God, that you are closer than the air that we breathe, Lord. So we just turn our hearts to you, Lord. We ask, Abba, that you would do it only you can do, Lord God, that you would breathe on the embers of our hearts, Lord God, so that we can burn brightly for you, Lord, that you would release divine strategy and instruction to your people, Lord, all over the earth. Lord, you know exactly what we need and when. So, Lord God, may we just surrender to you right now. And we wait on you, Lord, for your timing is perfect. We thank you, Lord, that we can trust your leadership, that your timing is perfect, Lord God. So where we are weary, we ask that you would strengthen us, oh God, in the name of Jesus. Where we are distracted, we ask that you would bring focus and clarity in the name of Jesus. Where we are weak, we ask that you would put a rod of iron in our backbone, oh God, to stand up for righteousness in this generation. We love you, Lord, and we thank you for your word that does not return void to you, Lord. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_01: 35:03

Amen. All right, folks, we love you. And if uh you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, please feel free to drop us a line at lifereonhear at gmail.com. That's our email address, or you can just type in Life on the Fire and look us up on the web. We would love to hear from you. In the meantime, God bless you. Adios, amigos.