How to Prepare for the New

“If we’re going to go after all that God has for us, we have to get stronger. And whether you’re trying to break family cycles or make big God ideas happen, atmosphere changers can not work alone. To bring impact we have to get STRONGER TOGETHER.

I’m gonna be honest and say that when I was studying, I thought that when I got up on stage that I should pray that the rapture should come.
You guys are a room full of pastors.
I would never have to speak this message and we could just go on and maybe it would be written in heaven that I caused the rapture to come.
But evidently God had another plan. So here we go, child, here we go.
There is this phenomenon that takes place in the earth.
It’s called confluence and confluences.
When two rivers meet and become one river, two rivers join together and become a single channel.
And in the process of them merging, they become a stronger current than they were when they were flowing individually.
It is not lost on me that in many ways, this is a moment of spiritual confluence that there are rivers flowing through the doors each time one of you comes in and that we did not come in here so that we could continue to flow in the same way we have been flowing that we came into this room because we believe that if we were able to have confluence.
If we were able to take our flow and merge it with another flow that we would be a stronger flow.
When we got back home, I’m talking about why we registered to come to this event confluences is more important than influence.
It has been said in business that before you can properly influence anything that first you must have confluence.
You’ve got to go with the flow, confluence with flow.
And the reality is that so many of us want influence first without influence.
We don’t want to understand the culture that we’ve been called to change.
We just want to get in there and lay out our rules and lay out our plans and then we wonder why we are frustrated when our plans are not working.
But did you study the atmosphere that you’ve been called to change?
Confluence marriage is not one person influencing it. It’s confluence.
It’s two people coming together with an idea that makes the other idea stronger as a result of being paired together.
Confluence is necessary in your organizations.
If you do not have influence in your organizations, then they are going to be influenced by the preexisting culture.
But if you have confluence and you can take two good ideas and turn them into great ideas because we are sharpened when we are together.
There’s something about confluence that we must recognize.
If we’re going to stabilize the call, we can create the idea we can start the church.
But if we are going to be effective in our businesses, if we’re going to be effective in our communities, if we are going to be effective in our marriages, this cannot be a dictatorship.
This must be confluence. I have to know what you think. I have to know what you see.
I have to understand your perspective.
I need confluence because I recognize that I am stronger when I flow with you than when I’m flowing by myself.
We are a movement by ourselves, but we’re a force when we’re together.
I wonder how different the church would be, how many people would stay instead of leaving if we knew how to be confluent, instead of trying to build our own ideas of what a Christian is supposed to look like.
And then shun those who don’t, who don’t recognize that we were never called to have a uniform.
We were called to be effective. Jesus.
I wanna set the stage properly because in our text, we’re gonna see confluence.
We’re gonna see a spiritual confluence.
Jesus this moment right here, this moment of me standing here in spite of what I’ve gone through, in spite of the own flow that I was going in, that didn’t look like ministry at all.
But all of a sudden there was this moment where my flow collided with God’s bot that collided with my father’s bow.
When all of a sudden influence took place, I think that’s a word for somebody who’s been wondering if the seeds they placed in their child and the seeds they placed in their community are ever gonna come to fruition if I didn’t say anything at all but stood here and looked you down in your face.
I want you to know that it is a testimony that that thing that you placed in that child is still in them.
I don’t care how they’re flowing right now.
They cannot deny that you put a flow in the earth for them that before they got in trouble, you were praying before they got stuck that you were worshiping.
I know the flow that I created before my child got lost.
And I’m just sitting down waiting for that flow to merge with what God told me, confluence.
I’m not worried when my child is flowing in a way.
I don’t understand because I know that I got a stronger flow that’s out in the atmosphere.
I got a chain breaking flow that’s out in the atmosphere.
I got a demon shaking, hell, trembling flow that’s out in the atmosphere.
And I needed to see Sarah Jake Roberts. She didn’t have to say a word.
She just reminded me that separate flows merge and become a stronger single channel.
So when we find Elijah and Elisha, they represent a confluence.
They were two separate entities, but Elijah threw his mantle on Elisha and it became a single channel.
And so they become one single channel, but they’re about to have another another merging because Elijah is about to transition into glory and because he’s about to transition into glory, that means that the Elijah Elisha channel is about to have a merging that’s going to create a confluence that’s gonna go throughout all of the earth.
It’s called a double portion. Anointing.
I promise you, I studied, I’m gonna lay it out the way God gave it to me.
Just be patient with me as I see this thing, the way he gave it to me.
In order for us to merge into one single flow, we have to recognize that the first thing that happens to us, the thing that we often hate the most is the end of the original flow.
In order for us to become a stronger flow, a single channel in tune with what God has called us to do.
We have to be willing to, to have the end of the previous flow.
The end of the previous current, the end of the previous rhythm, we gotta be willing to let go of some things to become stronger.
And nobody tells you that when you start off dreaming and you start off planning and it’s not until you find yourself in moments like Elijah and Elisha that we recognize, I saw this so much differently that the end of the flow is just as challenging as creating the flow in the first place.
The end of the end of the flow as Elijah is preparing to, to be taken up in a whirl when he knows that he’s gonna be called home this day, he’s gonna be called home.
And so he is dealing with the process of his life changing and I realize that he is rejecting you guys are Bible scholars, you know, the text better than I do.
I realize that when he is pushing Elisha away that he’s having to deal with the fact that Elisha is not gonna be connected to him the way that he once was that their flow is ending.
And I wonder how many pastors and how many leaders are in this room who are having to deal with the end of the flow as they once knew it?
I thought as a P K that, that maybe we were being rejected that maybe we didn’t understand fully where we fit.
And now I realize that my dad couldn’t fully tell us where we fit because he was trying to figure out where he fit the flow that he knew was ending and he was becoming a stronger flow.
And sometimes when you’re becoming a stronger flow, you don’t know where people fit.
Yeah.
Not even, not even your wife, not even your best friend, not even your Children.
I answered the call. I know that this is what God has called me to do.
I just didn’t know that it was gonna cost so much for the flow to end.
Elisha has been with Elijah.
He served him, he took care of him. He was there when he called fire down from heaven.
He saw him perform miracles, he saw him prophesy, he saw him stand in front of kings.
And yet this is a different flow that he’s about to see Elijah.
And this is a different flow and it is not lost on me that in this room as we stretch ourselves and prepare to lay hold of what God has called us to really create an impact that some of us are gonna have to have people be in our lives.
Even if we don’t know exactly where they fit in.
We’re gonna have to be honest and vulnerable enough to let them come.
Even when we don’t know where we’re going, husbands, wives, businessmen, I’m trying to flow in another realm.
I’m trying to flow with more strength. I’m trying to flow with more focus.
I’m trying to make an impact in my life. I’m trying to make an impact.
I want people to know that I was here.
And the only thing about that is that I just don’t know where you fit anymore.
Elijah rejects Elisha over and over again.
He says, stay in Gil for the Lord is sending me on to Bethel and he says, no, I’m gonna go wherever you go and then they get to Bethel.
He says, stay in Bethel for I’m going going to Jericho, he says it over and over again.
And I realized that loyalty is not manipulation, loyalty is a character trait because Elisha decided when I was gonna serve you that I was gonna serve you.
Whether you were flowing in a direction I understood or flowing in a way that I didn’t fit.
I’m gonna be with you whether you like it or not because that’s who I am and that’s what I’m called to do in your life.
So even when you don’t know where I fit, that’s ok because I know where I fit.
I’m supposed to be there praying for you. I’m supposed to be there covering for you.
You’ve been wondering and waiting for somebody to tell you where you fit.
God said if you’re really called, I won’t have to tell you where you fit. You’ll just be there anyway.
If you’re really called, I’ll never have to tell you that I need you.
You’ll see that I need you before I open my mouth. Where are my real people in this room?
Not the people looking for a come up, not the people looking to be seeing the people who are safe.
I’m called to you.
Honey, our life is changing. Our ministry is growing.
I don’t know where I fit. But what I do know is I’m called to you.
Honey, our business is booming. It’s taking off. I don’t know where I fit.
But what I do know is I’m called to you. I used to be the secretary. Now.
It doesn’t make any sense for me to be that. But guess what, I’m still called to you.
I am your wife. I am your husband. And when God called you, he called all of us.
I will not forget the moment when I felt the glory fall on this marriage and I will live until I see the glory fall again to my P K S.
They weren’t rejecting us.
They just didn’t know that the flow was going to change the rhythm.
I’m trying to heal something in this room.
I know what me being here represents.
I know why God had me do it in this season.
I know that somebody needed a sign that they weren’t going to lose their child. I need somebody.
I knew that somebody needed help because they had been lost in translation and they’ve been trying to help their families understand that I’m not really changing.
I’m not really trying to be shady. I’m not trying to reject you.
I just don’t know who I am in this flow. I just don’t know who I am in this season.
And so I’m asking those of you who recognize that the way you used to flow was coming to an end.
I’m asking you to let us be there anyway.
I’m asking you to not push us away even if you don’t know what we can do, even if you don’t know where we fit.
I’m asking that you just allow us to be along on the journey.
And I’m asking those of you who want the attention and the acknowledgement for being called to recognize that it’s not about that anyway, that what it’s really about is making sure that when they look over beside themselves, that they see somebody who could be with them, whether they’ve reached that next level of flow or not, that it’s important that they look over and see someone who’s not judging the pace in which they’re flowing because they recognize just how much strength it took for them to flow in the first place.
It is the end of the flow.
You will know when you are coming to the end of the flow.
When you experience what Elijah is experiencing, he’s got Elisha pulling on him and he’s got heaven pulling him up, Scott one thing pulling him this way and he’s got another thing.
People want to be pulled up, but they don’t want to be pulled on.
So I had to tell you that if you’re not being pulled on, then don’t worry about being pulled up because you’re not doing enough on this level for us to even pull you up.
I’m being pulled on and I’m being pulled up at the same time.
That’s how I know it’s time for me to go to the next level because I feel like I can’t do enough to get to the next level.
So God has to pull me up to give me more width and more depth so that I can lay hold and have resources to take care of what’s pulling on me.
You’re supposed to be being pulled on. That’s a part of it.
I hope that’s validation and confirmation for somebody that you are supposed to be being pulled on and pulled up at the same time.