This is your hour. There is greatness in you. God is calling you out of the ordinary, out of what was, out of what you’re used to. He has things in your future that are going to break barriers. You’re going to go where no one in your family has gone. It’s going to be unusual, uncommon. Everyone is not going to understand, some people will find fault, try to discredit, think you’re missing it. That’s okay. No one that’s ever done anything great has done it without opposition, without critics, without people thinking they were off course. Keep your face set.

The seeds always hint to us that life comes out of depth.
As outer encasement corrodes in the ground, they enter light verse fourth.
Yeah.
And everything that dies in you is only so that something else can be born in you.
Yeah. There are people who, They grew up in a, in a, in a simple background, uh, had their share of challenges, not as many as you.
But they had their challenges.
And yet, they come out angry, they’re bitter, uh, bitter toward god, bitter toward the world, they anesthetize their pain rather than deal with their pain
— Mhmm. —
in in your book crushing, you you you talk about how If we believe in a sovereign god, we can see that these are ordained struggles that make us the people that we are.
Right. What where did you pick up on that?
I mean, if if you hadn’t have known that, Bishop, you might have become bitter.
I, you know, uh, some of it came from not being allowed to feel sorry for yourself. Yeah.
Uh, some of it came from my mother’s, uh, relentless tenacious commitment to to you standing up.
Some of it came through being I was born in between two dead babies. Oh my.
The one before me and the one after me died, I was the one that lived.
Okay.
And and so I learned early that life precious. And then my father died when I was sixteen. Yeah.
And that that there’s nothing like lowering your father in the ground to make you breathe life more deeply as if you might not have tomorrow because now you’re aware you could possibly not have tomorrow.
My greatest birthday was my forty ninth birthday because he died when he was forty eight.
And when I became forty nine, I broke the curse.
So so that was a great thing for me to to to to to do that.
This this whole notion and this this fidelity that I have, uh, with with the scriptures, and particularly with the whole crushing thing, came while I was sitting out on the terrace.
Uh, I I got this word from the lord that comes to me and the strangest kind of way.
Uh, that the seed of the woman would bruise ahead of the serpent, and the serpent would bruise his heel.
And they’re sitting out on the terrace I saw in my spirit, the bruised hill of Jesus.
And for and then and then the next flash I saw, the the the stained feet of women stomping grapes in the wine press.
And and the bruised teal of Jesus and the stomping of the feet on the crushing of the grapes brought me to the Passover Cup.
And
he said, this is the new testament in my blood.
And suddenly, I recognize his affinity to the grape that the grape itself would tell us that the only way to extract the most valuable part of the grape was for it to be crushed.
And the only way to get the essence of Christ was for him to be crushed.
And out of that crushing comes to Revelation, that that crushing is not a destination.
You don’t get stuck in it. It’s transportation. It’s transportation.
I don’t I don’t know anybody whoever became major in any area of life, not just church, any area of life who who was not propelled by the force of some level of crushing.
Yeah. Something something that could have killed you and should have killed you became the catalyst and the urgency through which you evolved into your, the highest expression of who you were meant to be.
Can I read you what you said?
Sure. It’s gonna sound better when you read it.
Listen to this. It’s from the book crushing.
Um, crushing places revealed that there is more to our lives than we had planned.
The truly invaluable, marvelous, and eternal aspects of our identity an ultimate destiny are displayed in us there.
It is in the midst of painful crushing.
That we realized that the blessing found in the production of fruit in our lives was never the master’s end goal.
Our latest crop of fruit was merely part of an ongoing greater process.
Yes.
What you’re helping us do, at least what you helped me do, I think all, um, all of us, is you’re helping me, uh, in interpret the tough times of my life.
Mhmm. Right? You’re you’re telling me that there’s a a plan that there is a purpose and that I’ll get through them.
Absolutely. I’ll be better on the other side of this. Absolutely. Am I am I
you’re, yes, sir. You’re hitting it exactly right.
And I am telling you that the greatest part of you is still somewhere down inside of you and only pressure will get it out.
Only pressure.
Yeah. That you have not seen who you are in the pleasant moments when you smell the blossoms on the vine and feel the sun drench on your face.
That you were raised not to be fruitful, but to be crushed. The grapes wouldn’t
I wish I could highlight that.
Oh, silver tone itself.
Uh, the the the the grape is one of the few fruits that is raised to be crushed.
You know, with crushing in mind.
Yeah.
Christ was born to die. Anything short of that would have been failure.
That’s why when Peter tried to stop the crucifixion, he called him a devil and said get behind me and he called Judith friend because he understood that he was raised like the grape to be crushed And so he did not re the the Bible says that Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.
But he did not rest his head until it was on the cross.
And understanding that for this purpose came I into the world. And not that you love suffering.
He despise the shame. He despise the shame. But for the joy that was set before him.
So he would be on the crushing and he saw the wine. You see?
And and and understanding that wine is taking that that grape into most powerful expression.
And it is putting it in its most eternal form.
And and life crushes us from time to time because nothing else will get out of you.
The hidden treasure that we have locked up in Earth and missiles, but to be crush.
Amen. Amen. Are we ever beyond crushing? Do you ever live long enough where you can say, oh, good.
I’ve got all the crushing behind me. It’s just It’s just harvest from now on.
You you you know, you you know, the the funny thing about it.
I think periodically wherever there is purpose and wherever there is resistance to that purpose, pressure releases us from that resistance.
And the more that we yield to the process But but the problem today is that we don’t preach process.
We we preach promises. Yeah.
So we have raised a generation of people who who see god in promises, not process.
So you go to church on something and you hear about the promises of god, you go home to the process.
And when you encounter the process, you say, well, god is not in this.
And I would argue that God is more in the process than he is in the promise.
Is everybody taking notes? You can say amen.
He’s in the process or than the promises. Absolutely. The promises only make sense.
Alright.
Because of the process.
When you pass through the waters, I’ll be with you. Yeah. When you go through the fire, I’ll be there.
His promise is to be with you in the process.
And and and there are things that you cannot learn about him until you are in the process.
There is a revelation of his glory that only comes and the frustration and the disruption of your life.
He said I’m a present helping trouble. If you avoid the trouble, you’ll avoid me.
The the literal language of Hopishama. I am present in trouble. I am revealed in trouble.
I I show myself strong. When men forsake me, then the lord will take me up.
See, so so so it was good for me that I had been afflicted.
Had I not been afflicted I would have never known the glory of God. Exactly.
So all through the Bible, the Bible keeps the very symbol of our faith is a crushing place across and the emblem of suffering and shame.
It’s not a crown. No. You know, it’s not a crown. It’s not a throne. It’s a cross.
Who makes an invitation from across the Jesus? Yeah. Yeah.
You know, if you make an invitation, you say, come go to Hawaii, you know, you know, let’s go to Swit and Jesus says, come on.
Let’s go to the cross. That’s a hard that’s a hard invitation. Take up your cross and follow me.
Come on. Let’s not. Yeah. You you know, who wants to go do that. Okay?
If the only way you can follow that kind of request is to know that what is on the other side is greater than anything that was before it.
And and, um, and understanding that is what this book is all about.
Let me just interject one thing quickly because we’ve talked about graphic overt questions.
But I want to warn the audience about invisible crushings that come from forces that you cannot see like stress and heartbreak and pain.
Nobody has to be sick or lock you up or you don’t have to come out of prison.
For you to be crushed by stress.
Uh, science teaches us that the same part of our body that reacts to physical pain The same signal goes to your brain from emotional pain.
It sends out the same stimuli throughout the neurological them when your heart is broken as if it would if your leg was broken.
Really?
So you don’t necessarily have to incur physical injury to be crushed by emotional stress.
And we are living in a time of of unseen forces bearing down on our soul on a daily basis.
Everything is going so fast. Technology, social media, We’ve got everybody saying everything about everything all of the time and the whirlwind that we’re in right now is the wine press.
The whirlwind, the the spinning, the mad spinning of our lives, causes the the the centrifugal force of being spun around call this pressure all by itself.
And and in that fast pace that we live in, There is a certain amount of invisible pressure.
And the strange thing about it is you feel the pain. You sense the pressure.
And you can’t see the source.
So all of a sudden, you’re getting the impact as if there were an assailant.
But there’s no assailant that you can see. Yeah.
And and god says you could you could either see it as the wine press or you can see it as a potter’s wheel.
But the more it spins, the more he touches it, and the more it changes in the spinning.
And if you are not prepared for disruption, then you’re not prepared for resurrection.
Yeah.
Not prepared for disruption.
Yeah.
You’re not prepared for resurrection. Yeah.
What I hear you saying to us is is don’t try to escape your troubles.
No.
But lean into them.
Lean into them.
Lean into them.
Lean into.
And and and say, god, what are you telling me? What are you teaching me?
Consider it all joy, my brethren?
Yes, sir.
When you face various trials and tribulations.
Yes. Yeah. And and I’ll be honest. That’s not the that somebody said, that’s not easy to do.
Uh, it’s not something that you do from the place of your emotions.
It’s something that you do from the place of your teaching.
I went through a period in my life that I was just being crushed. My heart was broken.
I was worried. It was one of the most distraught moments in my life.
And I was literally crying when I told God this, I said, Lord, I hate this. I absolutely hate this.
But I love you.
And I know you would not allow me to go through this if it were not for my good.
And though tears are running down my face, and I cannot see my way out, If if you suffered me to be bruised, it is only to make me better.
And so I trust you when I can’t trace you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because he that have began a good work in me.
We’ll bring it to completion.
She’ll bring it to completion. You cannot convince me.
You cannot convince me that he’s not for me.
And if whatever he ordered for me to face, when it’s all over, it has got to end for me because I am con the the the relationship that I am the most secure of is him.
And the reason I am so secure is there’s nothing about me that he has not considered.
Start to finish.
There’s not all things are naked before him with whom we have to do. Yeah.
You know, my I could disappoint my wife or disappoint my children or disappoint my mother.
They could find out something about me and change their mind about me.
God could never find out anything about me.
I cannot be surprised.
Yeah. He cannot be surprised. There there’s nothing about me that he doesn’t already know.
He’s already made up his mind about me.
He has rendered his verdict.
He has rendered his verdict, and there is there for now. Yeah. No condemnation.
Condemnation.
Yeah. So whatever he ordered for me to go through and process. Right.
Well, you yay though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and you should fear no evil for thy heart with me, thy rod, and thy staff, they comfort me.
That prepares a table before me. In the presence of my enemy.
So I’m knowing if my head — Mhmm.
— with oil, my cup my cup runneth over You can’t have the run over if you could don’t go through the valet of the shadow of death.
Yeah. And and and listen at hope screaming in his ears in the darkest moments of his life. Surely.
Not maybe, not hopefully, but surely. Surely. Goodness and mercy.
She’ll follow me.
She’ll follow me all the days of my life.
And when it’s all over, I’m gonna dwell in the house of the lord. Yeah. Fred.
I love it. That’s good. I love it.
So when when we stand, you and I over short caskets and small graves and children burned in fires, It isn’t always possible to explain —
No, sir.
— suffering. Yeah. Uh, it isn’t always possible to to make people, uh, rejoice in that type of agony.
I teach people just survive it.
That’s what we have to do.
Just survive it. Don’t try to understand it.
Right. Right.
Disurvive it. Because if if you survive it on the other side of it, you’re gonna see something that makes it in retrospect make more sense than it does today.
It does.
Yeah. Yeah. Looking back at the rearview mirror, Uh, it’s not that it was ever a wonderful thing to go through, but had my father not died when he did.
I wouldn’t be who I am. His death was was the birth of my ministry.
You see, and and the the seeds always hint to us then life comes out of death.
As the outer encasement corrodes in the ground, they enter life burst forth. Yeah.
And everything that dies in you is only so that something else can be born in
you.