God Is Shaking What Man Has Built

In this episode of The Morning Charge, Joshua continues reflecting on the book of Acts and challenges listeners to consider how far the modern church has drifted from the original pattern.

This message focuses on the difference between what God builds and what man builds. It highlights the danger of replacing the presence of God with systems, personalities, branding, and activity, while calling believers back to prayer, surrender, discipleship, and dependence on the Holy Spirit.

This episode is a direct reminder that the church was meant to be born in fire, sustained by God’s presence, and centered on the mission of Jesus.

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- Real Talk. Real Jesus. Real Life. -

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Morning Charge. This is your moment to slow down, breathe, and get your spirit aligned before stepping into the day ahead. Life moves fast, responsibilities pile up, voices compete for your attention. But before the noise of the world takes over, this is where we come back to what actually matters. This is a place for honest conversations about faith, life, purpose, and everyday battles we all face. No pretending, no religious performance, just the truth. Because following Jesus was never meant to be complicated. It was meant to be real. So whether you're driving to work, you're getting the kids ready, or simply taking a quiet moment for yourself, you're in the right place. This is real talk, real Jesus, real life. This is the morning charge. We've gone through the book of Acts. We've learned how the apostles lived, how the disciples developed, how the gospel spread, how even through persecution, God moves. Even when you feel like you're in a wrong place or you're feeling like the enemy is just really attacking you, God moves. He moves through the tests, he moves through the trials, He moves through, He moves through our everyday lives. The book of Acts really showed us that. It showed us what the church was and getting back to a simpler time. See, the religious sect had their man-made ideologies put together in what they perceived was the gospel or what they perceived was the truth. And they took some truth and they put it into their own systems instead of just instead of just having the truth as what the truth was. See. And you got to remember there was about a period of, and you you Bible scholars that are more knowledgeable than me, apostle, you you know, but I believe there was a there was a period of time, wasn't there like 400 years between when the prophets had spoken to silence up until the point when Jesus came? Wasn't there like a four, it was like a 400-year period of time where there was silence. And you know that man had to step in when the prophets weren't speaking, those prophetic words weren't coming. That's when the religious really put their hands on things and made the religion and the church, the synagogues, what man needed to make it to make happen what needed to be made happen. You know that had to have happened during that time. And so our views for 400 years got very distorted. The Gentile view was already distorted. All right, just no hope. But Jesus came and he pulled together not just the Jews, but the non-Jews, the Gentiles, and the Holy Spirit now falls upon all flesh. Jews, Gentiles, every nation, every tribe, every tongue, women, men, children. There is no junior Holy Spirit. There is no Holy Spirit here that's different than no, it's the same Holy Spirit all around the world. And God is bringing us back to the roots of that, that the Holy Spirit is available for everyone, everywhere. But man, we've got ourselves in the way. So I want us to kind of talk about this a little more this morning. He just will not let this go. I'll move when he says to move. So I'm doing more of a continuation from yesterday. Father, I thank you, Lord, for what you continue to give me, these downloads you continue to give me. Lord, I give you permission to move in this place today. Holy Spirit, will you come? Will you speak to our hearts, Lord? Speak to our minds today, so that we can begin to understand the ways that you want us to walk. We can understand the ways you want us to talk, the ways you want us to act, God, the ways, the the lifestyle, Jesus, that you portrayed here on the earth. May we glean from that and may we become one with you so much that we begin to walk that way. We begin to talk that way. We begin to love the way that you loved. We begin to see people the way that you saw people. Lord, we need your help. Jesus, we need your help. Come and speak to us, Lord. Break down every bit of ideology I may still have in my heart, Lord. Come burn in me to where it burns away the things that should not remain, and it sets on fire the things that need to be set on fire so that I can burn for you, Lord.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

We love you, Jesus. We love you, Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

So we're asking ourselves a serious question now, especially coming off the book of Acts. We're asking ourselves several questions at this point. If what we have read is how the early church lived, how did the modern church drift so far away from the pattern? But when we read the book of Acts, we don't see a powerless church. We see uh we see church, we see people who are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, and then they begin to move in that power. We don't see churches that were being built on the image of somebody, the church of Paul. We didn't see churches that were dependent on certain personalities, although, although Paul did have to, he had to write letters of correction throughout these churches because they're like, you're fighting, and we see this today. You know, we've gone through this through Romans and 1 Corinthians, and he's writing letters and saying, you know, you're talking about this leader and that leader, and people like this leader better, so they're all leaving this house church to go over. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. This ain't got nothing to do with that guy, but it has everything to do with Jesus, and you're wrong for saying that guy's better than that guy when we're all on the same playing field. But we didn't see this in the beginning, people being dependent on certain personalities, and honestly, that's where the Western church is going wrong because, ooh, I like this guy, ah, I like that guy better with what he's got to say, and he presents it better. We have to be careful in that. If God has placed a mantle of pastoring or a mantle of teaching, he's given this person this gift to do those things, we should never point the finger at that person and say, Well, you're not good enough for me, but this dude is. We got to be careful. And you need to look at the people that God has placed you around. And if he has put you in a certain place to glean from somebody who's speaking into your life, you better be careful before you start pointing the finger at that person and saying, Well, this one, hmm, this guy over here may present it better, but this is the one that the Lord said, listen to because he has something to impart into you. We got to be careful with where we are, what we're doing, what we're saying, how we're saying it, why we're there. If you're there based on a personality, you're lifting that person up, and if they fall when they fall, it's gonna fall real hard. Okay, that's been the problem. The church now is obsessed with things like what? Being comfortable. They're preaching comfort and just a certain aspect of the gospel that he's the provider and he is. I mean, but God never called us to comfort, but we have made the gospel a little comfortable in the Western world church. It's all come down to branding. I'm very careful when I when I'm putting things together and I'm putting things on social media because I'm just it just makes me it. Like certain like branding and stuff. I'm like, this is about Jesus, pointing people to Jesus. This is about helping people, okay? And I have a heart to help men, especially men who are in the workplace, that are in management, or men that are they own their own businesses and they get their priorities. That's why I made this workbook. When you, when you, when you when you when you when your priorities are out of order, your life is out of order, and you wonder why everything is just why is this falling apart? Why is my marriage falling apart? I mean, me and Brandy never got to that point. Praise God. She gets a little frustrated with me because my mind wasn't in it to win it. But I still have man moments from time to time. I'm not perfect by any means, but but it's about being present where you are and have a heart to help people. We should have a heart to help others. Where you have been, your testimony should help be somebody's solution today. So think about you're like I'm no help to nobody. Yes, you are. You've been through something, you've been through storms. All of us have been through something. We've all endured something. You have something to share with somebody to help somebody and make a difference in somebody's lives. Especially, you know, those seasons where you've been through and felt like you didn't have anybody to talk to and you went through it alone, but God brought you through? Be that somebody you wish you had had then and speak truth and love and walk with somebody today through something. Because you do have something to offer. Amen. You do have something to offer. When we read or when we read through Acts, we saw what? We saw people who were hungry for God. They were hungry for more of God. They were people that were so devoted in prayer, it was the forefront of their life. They took that praying without ceasing thing very seriously because there is no separation in your life. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit and you have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life, you're filled with the Holy Spirit, there is no separation in your life at this point. It's not like you have your time with the Lord in the morning and you'll see him again tomorrow morning. He is with you when you make your coffee. He is with you when you get ready to go. He is with you in the car when you go to work, or you're taking the kids to school, or you're going to the store, or whatever you're doing. He's with you while you're doing the errands or going to work or whatever you're doing. He is with you when you come home. He's with you when you're in your family, he's with you when you're asleep. Hello. Do we understand? He is with you. Omnipresent means he's always there. But yet we have compartmentalized him. Well, he's at church on Sunday, and he is he is in my prayer time in the mornings, and that's it. He is always with you. And they understood this. The apostles, the disciples, all of these guys understood that he was there and they were devoted in prayer. They talked to him all day long and they relied on the Holy Spirit for everything they said, everything that they did. Jesus says, do not worry about what you will eat or what you will drink. For if I can take care of the birds, should I not take care of you? Did you know that we as humans, we are the only bit of God's creation? Do your own homework. Hello? I'm going to throw something at you. Go look it up. We are the only bit of God's creation that can worry. When we choose to worry, it's as if we are telling God, you can't do it. But yet we worry and we hurry and we try to pull things together. Brandon, good morning to you. Scoot scoot, welcome in, Brandon. KT, thanks for your heart, mees, y'all, as you're jumping in this morning. I see y'all down there. But we're the only bit of God's creation that worries or has the capabilities to worry. The birds understand that he's going to feed them and take care of them. Many, all the animals understand. But yet we worry. And when we worry, and somebody brought this to my attention one time, when we worry, it's as if we're telling God you can't or you won't. You're looking at your finances, it doesn't make sense. You may go, well, what about and how? Give us this day our daily bread. Lord, you're going to provide today. You're going to come through today. And he always will. Rarely does it come the way that you thought it was going to. Rarely is it going to look the way that you thought it was going to look or happen the way you thought it was going to happen, but God will move. And it's a matter of his timing. The Bible tells us that everything has a time and a season under heaven. Even that. Always and forever. Trust him. But Josh, you don't understand. I may not understand your situation. I may not understand your full story of where you come from, what you've been through, what's going on in your life. Now, I don't know all the details, but what I do know is when you begin to hone in on the things of the Lord and you begin to trust the kingdom principles and you begin to walk out this life the way that this book teaches us, things begin to shift in your life. And what happens is people will encourage you and you'll get started today and not see the results and tomorrow you like I tried. The guys in the early church didn't do that. They got up, and if they didn't see what they thought they were supposed to see today, they got up trusting that that wasn't the day I was supposed to see it. But Lord, if today be the day, Lord, will you move? I'm going to trust you with everything today. He's a part of every decision we make. We need to include him on every decision we're making. They were hungry for God. They would go after the Lord. They were filled with the Holy Spirit, devoted to prayer. These were people who are walking in holiness. They were walking in boldness. They were walking in simplicity in their life. They were walking, sacrificing their flesh every single day because they were ones that carried the fire. If we want to be ones that carry the fire, we have got to be willing to devote ourselves to the same things every single day and trusting the Lord when it doesn't look like or it didn't go the way we thought it was supposed to go. That's our problem. Trust. Taking everything on ourselves, worrying to the extent we can't see how the Holy Spirit is moving. When you're so filled with worry and doubt, the Holy Spirit has no room to move within you. You have to lay all that at the foot of the cross, and you're like, I just can't let this go. That's because you got to do it in his strength, not yours. These are the principles we have to live by. Amen. I'm sorry, Echoes. Anyone else having issues this morning? Let me know if you are down in the chat. Hopefully things are going well. If not, swipe out and come back in if it's messing up. Amen. Amen, Roy and Vanessa. I see you have y'all going through your situation. God will restore everything better than what you had. And that's just, I mean, you you y'all just pray into that and speak that every day. There's been times in our lives where our finances didn't line up the way that they were supposed to. But instead of like worrying over everything, we begin to declare and decree in the name of Jesus, Lord, you are going to move and every bill will be paid on time every time. I'm speaking to our bank accounts right now. We will shall it shall always have what I need in our business accounts, in our personal accounts. You guys have to continue to pray over these things.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

You guys, you've got to learn how to use your mouth to speak. Amen, Mama B. That's that's good advice. Mark, I see you there.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

You have to forgive things that happened in your childhood. I'm gonna stop for just a second. You have to forgive those that came against you that did wrong, and you have to name them by name. This is a part of that crossing to freedom journey we did back about a month ago. Is you have got to forgive. Catherine said it. And it's hard because you're like, you don't, once again, it's one of those you don't understand what they and see, when you begin to talk like that, it does something on the inside of you, but you have to forgive. When Jesus taught the disciples, they said, How do we pray? He said, You should pray like this. A part of it was forgive our trespasses and those who have trespassed against us. In other words, the people we've done wrong and the people that have done wrong to us, we have to forgive them. And then at the end of that whole prayer, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, after he prayed that whole thing, he recapped it and said, and said, You have to forgive. He didn't recap everything. He came back and he said, Hey, you get you have to forgive. This is the, in other words, this is the most important part of this prayer. You have to forgive those that have come against you. And then you begin to ask for his forgiveness for the things that you have done based on the things that others have done to you. Hurt people, hurt people. Healed people, heal people. So you got to forgive those and release them. Okay, here's the thing. You we really don't have the power to forgive ourselves. We really don't. We have to ask the Lord, Lord, will you forgive? And He will. He is a good, good father. Amen. He is a good, good father. You've forgiven everybody but yourself. That's because you don't have the power to really forgive yourself. You have to go to the Lord and say, Lord, forgive me for my sins. Come and search me and know me, see if there be any wicked way in me. Just begin to pray the Psalms over yourself and say, forgive me and list out the people that you've come against or the things that you've done. Begin to list out the situations, allow him to take care of business and drop that off at the cross and leave it. And leave it. That's the starting point. That's the starting point. And that's the problem we have. We have so many problems. And somebody explained it really good one time about we really can't forgive ourselves, but we come before the Lord and say, Will you forgive me? And the Father's forgiveness is what washes over you. And just let the Father's forgiveness wash over you today. And that's it. And then we go based off of Romans. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you are one deep-seated, rooted in Christ Jesus, I in him, he in me, there's no more condemnation. And then if things begin to come back up in your mind, don't beat yourself up. You tell the enemy, He's got to get out of here. I've forgiven those I need to forgive, and I my Father has forgiven me. You have no foothold in my life anymore. And you shut the door to the enemy. Don't invite him back in. Amen. That's just it. That's the long and short of it. It's it's it can be a very, very difficult process, but a very necessary process for you to go through. Amen. He loves you. Oh, Father, we'll go as far as he wants us to go today. Amen. I just feel like we're taking care of business in here because honestly, if we want to be like the apostles, like the disciples, those that are walking after Jesus, we have to have freedom. There's a reason we went through the whole crossing to freedom journey. Amen. There's a reason we went through that whole thing because if we aren't free and we haven't asked for his forgiveness in our lives and we haven't forgiven those that have come against us, it's really hard to fully walk out this life with the Holy Spirit making decisions because you're making a whole lot of decisions based on the hurt in your life.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Well, welcome in, Pyro. Welcome in this morning. I'm glad to see you in there this morning. Yeah, Brandy said, get healed so you don't bleed on people who didn't hurt you. Oh my goodness, that's so good. Do not, I don't know if it'll let me put that up here, but well, glory to God, it did. Get healed so you don't bleed on people who didn't hurt you. Remember, hurt people, hurt people. Healed people, heal people. Once you receive healing, then you can begin walking out this life based on the Holy Spirit. Glory to God. Amen. Well, Sonia, we just pray, and anybody who's in this chat, if you're dealing with the same things, if you're dealing with bitterness, with anger, forgiveness, right now, family members or yourself, just say, Lord, I forgive and list them by name for and list what they did and say, I release this for me now. And Lord, I close every door to the enemy. Lord, send these tormentors that were assigned to come against me because of this hurt. Send them away now in the name of Jesus. And I cancel every plan of the enemy against my life right now. May it stop today. And Father, will you forgive me for and you list out all those things? Just get real and raw before the Lord because he wants you to get real and raw. Job was a man that got real and raw, and he lamented throughout that book. Go read the book of Job. We've been through it in here before. But he was one that lamented with the Lord. Even when he never renounced God. He renounced his own birthright. Oh Lord, I don't even want to be here if this is the way life is going to be. But he got he was real and raw before God, and God restored everything in his life. Even when his wife came against him, his friends were speaking against him, trying to get all this. You've got sin in your life, and you've got this and you've got that, and they didn't understand. But he knew God, and he was an upright man. And through all the pain, he turned and gave it all to God, and God restored everything in his life. God wants to restore everything in your life. Amen. Oh Jesus, thank you. So let's get ask ourselves this question today. And it this is not a question of did God change? God's not the one that changes. And if we're not careful, we can get that distorted view in our mind. Oh, God, he's changed. No, God never changed. He never changed his mind. The question is whether where did we step in the way? God never changed. The gospel, the gospel never lost its power. It still has the same power it's had. See, because we're not careful, we word things the wrong way. Well, the gospel doesn't seem like it like it used to. But man has stepped in the way. Even through our healing process of this, see, we the world's given us this distorted view on this the way life's gonna be, it's always gonna be this way. Your mom and your daddy was like that, and your grandparents were like that, and you're gonna be like that. But our words have power, and we can cancel the assignments of the enemy, going back 15 generations and to all generations before me now, or and after me, all generations after me. The buck stops here. You make a decision, you speak rightful over your stuff. Somewhere along the way, man's got all up in the middle of what was supposed to belong to God. Man has stepped all in the way of the things that belong to God, and we have got our hands on things, and we're the ones that play Holy Spirit. Well, if the Holy Spirit ain't moving the way that I want him to move, then that we're gonna we're gonna produce whatever needs to be produced here this morning or this evening or this whatever. No. The church was never meant to be built on what I mentioned earlier. A bunch of big personalities who, ooh, I like these people, and oh, I like to glean, oh man, these people right here. This is just this is it. It looks right, it sounds right.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

The church was meant to be born in fire.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Think of the people, think of the people in the Bible, the people that God used. Well, the Lord uses all kinds of what I call broken soldiers. Think about think about this for a minute, because we we have made the Western World Church, we've made things about a show, and I want to go to the biggest place with the most lights, the best sound system, and the most, the most uh charismatic dude that's up there. He can really drive it home and he just pumps me up. And we we've based all of our all of our I don't know what you want to say. We've based a lot of the gospel off of that. And that's not right. Okay that's that's not right. Abraham, he was old, man. He was when the Lord decided to use him. Elijah was not the most stable according to the word. He wanted to unalive himself. He was he was not the most stable dude. Joseph was abused, as we see. Job went bankrupt, lost everything, got sores on him, but God used him in a mighty way. Moses had a speech problem, he could not talk correctly. Gideon was afraid. Samson was a womanizer, Rahab was a prostitute, the Samaritan woman was divorced, Noah was a drunk, Jeremiah was way too young, according to the culture and the standards, to be of any effectiveness. Jacob was a cheater, David was a murderer, Jonah ran from God, Naomi was a widow, Peter denied Christ three times. Martha, worried about everything, was always really busy, had things to do. Zacchaeus was what? Small and money hungry. The disciples even fell asleep while praying. Remember? The word tells us that. And Paul, who was Saul before, he was a Pharisee who persecuted Christians and then became one of the most powerful voices, even going to Rome there at the end of Acts. So that means God used common day people to do mighty big things. God wants to use you to do mighty big things for the kingdom. God wants to use your testimony to speak mighty big things into other people's lives.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

But if you never crack this open, you'll never know. If you never crack that open, you will never ever know.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Be one that cracks that open. So you know, so you understand who you are. But God used these people, these imperfect people for the sake of his mission to bring hope to the world. God wants to use you to bring hope to the world. So the next time you feel like I'm not good enough, I'll never amount to anything. I can't be a voice for the Lord. I can't remember the people I just told you about who are documented in this book. These are just the people that are documented in here. There are tons of them living for the Lord. May you also be one. May I also be one. The church of Acts was born in fire. They were born unto surrender. They did, they dove deep into prayer. They were ones that had a holy fear, a rightful fear of the Lord and awe and trembling in wonder of the Almighty. But over the years, a lot of the church has traded those things for things that look good on the outside, but things that didn't have any sustenance. They don't have any substance to them. There's a whole lot of show on the outside, but there's a shell on the inside. A lot of broken people that chose not to get healed, but to build kingdoms. And those kingdoms will pass away. And we see a lot of them crumbling. Because we've built so much faith in things and stuff. We've left God out of the equation. I'd rather be around a group of people who are meeting out in the middle of a field somewhere. No sound system. Just those that are hungry for the Lord that all gathered together than I would walk into a big state-of-the-art facility that looks so great and sounds so great and it's so great. God's taking us back to a simple time. He's getting us back to the basics. Now I'm not knocking anyone's building and sound systems, and but if you're gonna have all those things, be one that was burning with fire before any of that came along. Be one that is still on their face before the Lord, even though things have escalated to a certain level here in earthly standards. Be one that is consecrated to the Lord. The problems lie where intimacy was replaced with activity, being a whole lot of busy, looking all kinds of good, but the intimacy is gone. That's one of the greatest failures of the church over the last several decades, is that we have taught people how to stay busy for God without being with God. Let's stay busy with God. We're gonna implement this program and we're gonna implement this program and we're gonna implement this program, and everybody is so busy and they're so burnt out and they don't even know why they're doing what they're doing. We became experts at activity. Yeah, and the enemy, the enemy can even distract us with God things or God-looking things, all these good things. And these things do serve, it can serve a purpose. But if you put them in the wrong place on the priority list, well, we have all of these things going on, and I got God here. Well, God's got to be here, and everything else flows here. Hey, look, I mean, over the past several decades, we've we've been good. We know how to attend church. We know how to attend, we know how to serve, we know how to build, we know how to organize, we know how to post all the special things on social media. We've gotten real good at doing all the things, but how many of us know how to abide with him, how to spend a little time with him, how to get back on our face before him, the one. Jesus said in John 15, he said this, that we're to live in union with him, because apart from him, we cannot bear lasting fruit. A lot of us have been putting a lot of miracle grow that we formed and stirred together to pour on the roots to try to get a harvest real fast rather than enduring the process with the Lord and allowing him to take us the way. Apart from him, we will not bear lasting. I want you to get this today. We won't bear lasting fruit. It did not say that you wouldn't bear fruit. There's a lot of things that are fruitful, but there's coming a season that where man has put his hands in the way so much in the midst of this stuff. Till this season there was no fruit. And I'm so tired and so worn and burnt out. And see what happens when you're tired and you wore out and you're burnt out and you've been running and you've been gunning and you've been burning the candle at both ends, you have not been sustaining things. See, God is the one that sustains the fire. We are the ones that carry the fire. So when we interject too much of ourselves, I'm just being real and honest with us this morning. When we interject ourselves into the situation, there may be some immediate fruit right now. But when you get tired and you get burnt out and you get stressed out and you're wondering what's going on, it's almost like the tree has brought on a disease. When a tree gets diseased, it stops producing fruit because now it is in survival mode and it's trying to just keep the tree alive. It cannot concentrate on fruit because now it's just trying to pull all the resources to the places that are hurting. If you feel broken, you feel tired, you feel stressed out, but you've been doing a whole bunch of good things, it's time to get back before the face of God and say, God, what am I doing wrong? Because when you begin to feel those ways, that means it honestly means you're doing something wrong. The seasons in my life that I can go back and look at now where I was burnout, I was stressed out, I was just ready to move on. God didn't tell me to move, I was just ready to be done and go. I had interjected too much of myself. We are to live in union, life union with him, because apart from him, we can't bear lasting fruit. Our lives were never supposed to run on our effort. We're never supposed to run on our effort. Our lives were never supposed to be fueled by how much we can get done and how much hustling we can get out here and do. Do and pulling, do and pulling, do and pull. We're gonna be the biggest show in town. I'm gonna pull together all these programs. We're gonna get all these people in here and we're gonna get them in here, and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna get this done, and we're gonna get that done, and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna. Are you building his kingdom? Are you building your kingdom? I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it. If you keep saying, well, we gotta, and I gotta, and you gotta, we need to go back. Well, the Holy Spirit says, get yourself around a group of people where because you can hear from the Lord, I can hear from the Lord. Get yourself around a nucleus of people that hear from the Lord and you all pull together of what the Holy Spirit is doing instead of just a whole bunch of. Because I can tell you the dictatorship model of church is over, and that's what's broken, and that's what's falling right now. Let's get them in here because I mean, we've built this building and we have all this debt and we've got we've got to pay for all this stuff, you know, because we've built, we have built church on the if you build it, they will come model. That's not how the church model was supposed to be. This is not a theme park. This is the holy place. And the Lord wants to, he's looking for a dwelling place. If he's looking for a dwelling place, he he wants to find hearts that are hungry. That it ain't about all the stuff and the things, but it's about his presence, hosting his presence. It was never meant to be sustained based on charisma. Our life was supposed to flow from communion with Christ. Over the past decades, we've built ministries without abiding. We've built platforms without praying into what God really wanted to do. We have brought in crowds, but no discipleship. Oh my goodness. Because I'm telling you, discipleship's one of the things that we've dropped. We've dropped the ball. We've built our systems, and we've built these systems so well that they can even continue to run even when the presence of God is not there. The appearance of. I'm just telling you what they where things have slipped and where things have gone over the last decade. Things can run so well even without the presence of the Lord. That's not good. I want to sense his presence. I want to know his presence. I want to, I want to, I want to to to to hang in it until the Holy Spirit arrives. And honestly, the Holy Spirit should be coming in with me. This is this is this is a mode of failure in what we have allowed to be built over the last decades. I want us to understand success in the kingdom is not how much we can continue to build. Success in the kingdom is how deeply we remain connected to the vine. Success in the kingdom is how well how well we can just get in his presence every day. That is success. That's kingdom success.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

I want I want kingdom success.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

He said, Go and make disciples. That is what Jesus commanded us to do. He didn't say, go and get as many people here as you can. He didn't say, go get this big old facility and put all this stuff in here and get all these people in here. I'm not trying to tear down any churches or anything. I hope y'all know my heart today. I'm just talking about we've got the cart before the horse. We got the horse trying to push the cart. Instead, the horse is supposed to be in the front pulling this thing. If the Holy Spirit ain't pulling your wagon, things are not set up correctly. I mean, and this is where the Lord has had me stop the past few days. I'm like, okay, Lord, where do we go from Acts? He said, You're not done. Lord, I want to move on to something a little more positive. But he's like, I'm not done showing you things. If we want to be able to make our way back to our original design with him, we have to understand the brokenness of, we have to understand what is broken before we can allow him to move us past those broken places. I'm just saying. Our assignment was never just to get people in the room. That was not the assignment. We missed the assignment. Our assignment was to teach people how to follow Jesus, how to apply the gospel to their lives, how to obey Jesus, how to walk with Jesus, how to unalive to our flesh, and how to live a transformed life. There are people still coming to church that are so They don't know who they are, and their situations are a mess, and life is bad. And they've been going to church for years. That is sad. That is an abomination. And us as leaders need to look in the mirror and say, what in the world? What is the mission again? Hey Lord, what's the mission? What's the mission again? Show me the mission here because I'm seeing a lot of lives. If you're seeing people and they're coming in every day or every time and they are the exact same and you have not seen transformation, something is wrong. Now, it doesn't all lie on the leader. You can take the horse to the stream, and if the horse does not drink, well, I not much I can do. Not much we can do at that point. Amen. But we've got to understand the mission again. We have to understand the mission. Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed my people, you have scattered my flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Verse 8, got it. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings, says the Lord. This is the prophet Jeremiah speaking here. But I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds, and they shall be fruitful and they shall increase. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking, says the Lord. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will rise to David a branch of righteousness. A king shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In his days Judah will be saved, Israel will dwell safely. Now this is his name by which he will be called the Lord our righteousness. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that they shall no longer say, as the Lord lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, but as the Lord lives, who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Woe to the shepherds.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

You've driven them away, and the biggest thing that I pick up here and not attended to them. God says, I'll gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries that I've driven them and bring them back to their folds, and they shall be fruitful and they shall increase.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Hello? They shall be fruitful and they shall increase. God thank you for rescuing us from situations.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

He said he would set shepherds over them who's going to feed them. And they shall fear no more nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking. We don't have time for this surface gospel, this this man-made gospel that doesn't even really go based on the word, but it sounds good and it feels good to the flesh. There's a lot of churches out here are feeding the wrong thing. They're accepting things that aren't acceptable and they are and they are they're not speaking the truth in love. We got two sides of the ditch. Hello? He's still in the people business. Amen. We're living in a day now where we've seen the Lord driving his sheep out of the wrong folds. If there's something going on with the shepherd, I mean, even James, the book of James tells us leaders are going to be judged more harshly.

SPEAKER_00 49:17

God is he is he is redirecting his sheep as they need to go.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

He loves us so much he will put his children in places where they need to be. What's in the head rolls down to the tail and eventually is exposed. It is exposed. I have been in, and I won't name any ministries by name, but I've been in some places where it looked like the gospel and the gospel was being preached. It looked good, it sounded good. But when I would visit these places, there was just a weirdness about it. I I'm trying to be very careful in the way I say things. But you could just sense something was off and it was very cultish. And you're like, mmm, this is not good. Those are some of the ministries that I have seen fall over the past couple of years. Something was wrong with the culture, something was something was off, something wasn't quite. You can see, you can know, you can discern, and then you watch the Lord. The Lord will show you things, not to blab your mouth, but the Lord will show you things so you can go into prayer and intercession over things.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

But the Lord is breaking down these broken systems.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

He's breaking down all these broken systems. All these polished systems. He's breaking them down. We're getting back to a more simpler time. Father, I thank you, Lord, for for where you have where you are putting us and where you are taking us. Lord, I thank you for where you're leading your people right now, and you're leading them into a time of truth. Father, Lord, we're we're walking through a time of justice. This is like walking through the days of war and roses, where the Lord is doing mighty things, but there are there is a war taking place right now, even within the church world, and what we thought things were. But see, there's things that are crumbling right now so that the Lord can come and He can rebuild his kingdom here on the earth. There's a people and a remnant that are working their way back to the garden again. I'm I'm one of those people. He's breaking down everything I thought I knew. He's coming back for pure and spotless pride. That's it. Lord, continue to break down what I thought I knew and replace it with things I need to know. Lord, your word. Impart your word into my heart, impart your word into my mind, into our hearts, into our minds, God. Point us back to you and your word. May this get deep-seated in our hearts as we continue to move forward with you, God. Father, I thank you, Lord, for what you're doing now in this hour and in this time. Continue to open our eyes as we continue to follow you through this. And we just give you honor, glory, and praise in the name of Jesus. That's today's morning charge. Before you move on with your day, take a moment and let what you've heard settle into your heart. Faith isn't just something we talk about, it's something we live out in the ordinary moments of everyday life. Wherever today takes you, remember this. You don't walk into it alone. God is already ahead of you, working in ways you may not even see yet. Stand firm, walk in wisdom, lead with love, and don't forget who you belong to. Until next time, keep your heart anchored, keep your faith strong, and keep living out real talk, real Jesus, real life. We'll see you on the next morning charge.