John Bevere - How to Maximize Your Calling
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Well, guys, we're here at the final lesson, and you know I think I could do ten more, but what I'm really hoping is that by the time we're done with this one—and we pray—that you guys have the tools to know why you're called to do what you're called to do, to discover it, and to enter into it. This session today is really important. We're going to ask the question: How do I maximize my calling? Now, of course, God is the one who gives the increase, but we have to cooperate with God's ways in order to maximize what he has called us to do. This session is so important!
Okay, we understand refining; we understand being led by the Spirit; we understand all these things, but how do we maximize now? Well, I'm going to have to go through a lot of scriptures here at the beginning to really set up what I want to say to you. So, the first scripture I want to look at is Romans chapter 12, verse 6: "Having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them." Now, let's not just sit on them; let us use them. I want to highlight three words right at the beginning here.
First of all, I want to highlight the word "grace." Remember, Paul said right from the very first lesson we had that our calling is according to God's grace. You cannot fulfill the call of God on your life without the grace of God. The problem is that most people in America see grace as just a cover-up. They see it as forgiveness of sins; they see it as salvation; they see it as a free, unmerited gift. Now, this is true: the grace of God forgives our sins, and the grace of God is our salvation. You can't pray enough to earn it; you can't do it all right. But what a lot of people don't understand is that grace also empowers us to do what we can't do in our own ability. All right?
So my definition of grace is: it is God's empowerment that gives us the ability to go beyond our natural ability. If you look at 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9, God himself says to the Apostle Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power"—God refers to his grace as my power—"is made perfect in your human weakness, your human inability." Peter says, "Grace be multiplied to you," and in 2 Peter chapter 1, Peter refers to the grace of God as his divine power.
So again, it is God's empowerment that gives us the ability to go beyond our natural ability. Now, the other word I want to emphasize in that scripture is "gifts." The Greek word for "gifts" is "charisma." If you add an "m" and an "a," you get "charisma." All right? So that's the word for gifts in Romans 12:6. What is that? It is a specific gift of grace that empowers an individual to fulfill what they were created to do.
What's one of the charismas in my life? Writing. You know, I scored a 370 on the SAT in English. In all my travels, I've only met two people who scored lower than me in English on the SAT. English was my worst subject in high school; I couldn't write a paper, let alone a chapter. But yet, when God spoke to me in 1991 and said, "Son, I want you to write," I laughed. I said, "God, you have so many kids in the earth; now you're getting us mixed up with one another." So I did nothing because, I mean, I can't write! Well, ten months later, two women came to me from two different states within two weeks of each other, and they both said the same thing: "John, if you don't write what God's giving you, He's going to give the message to somebody else, and you will be judged." When the second woman from Florida said it two weeks after the first woman from Texas said it, the fear of God hit me, and I said, "I better write."
So I got a blank sheet of paper and I wrote "contract" on top. Okay? I wrote a contract with God and I said, "God, I think you're making a huge mistake. I don't know how to write, so I need grace because I can't do it." And I signed the contract. If I would have done it right, I would have said, "I need charisma," and signed the contract. Now the books are over ten million in distribution; they are in 93 languages. I am in awe. But you know what? Nobody knows more than I do who wrote those books! My name's on those books because I was the first guy to read them. Okay? I know they came from God.
So that's charisma. Another charisma in my life would be speaking. I mean, I put my wife to sleep the first time she heard me preach after we got married! But then when I became youth pastor, the pastor said, "Get up and share." The whole crowd was cheering and roaring, and I'm shaking like a leaf. My wife looks at me and goes, "Who was that?" That charisma came on my life! All right? And that was the authority that I spoke to you about in the last lesson.
So now I want to go to another scripture that will introduce the third word: "Let a man consider us as servants of Christ and stewards." We are all servants of Christ, everybody watching; we are servants of Christ. But he said, "Let him consider us stewards." What's a steward? A steward is one who manages another's property or affairs. So a steward manages what is owned by somebody else. What are we stewards of? Charisma! My ability to speak is not my ability; my ability to write is not my ability; it's God's ability he placed on my life. Now I'm a steward of it.
See, here's the thing: when you're a steward, you can do whatever you want with the gift that God puts on your life. So you can steward that gift however you want to. Okay? Are you going to use it to build the kingdom in obedience to God, or are you going to use it for yourself? The gift of God that's on my life isn't for me; it's for you! Yeah, my ability to speak is not for me; it's for you! My ability to write is not for me; it's for you!
Okay? If everybody knows a good friend of mine, that Navy SEAL I told you about—I love that guy! Oh, he said to me, "The last person a Navy SEAL thinks about is themselves or herself. We think about everybody else in the platoon; we're the last ones we think about." I was like, "Oh my gosh, that one will preach all day long!" So, a steward is one who manages.
Now, I want to look at a scripture that brings all three of these words together. Look at 1 Peter 4:10. This is amazing: "As each one has received a gift"—the Greek word for gift is what? Charisma! You've got a great memory! "Minister it, not sit on it. Minister it to one another!" So it's not for you; it's for one another! Right? "As good stewards of the manifold grace of God." We are stewarding the manifold grace or the many different charismas, right? I want to emphasize that all our giftings are different, and I love the way the Apostle Paul compares us to members of a human body.
If you look at my body, I have different members, and each of the members has unique abilities that other members don't have. My fingers can do things my ears can't do; my ears can do things my stomach can't do; my stomach can do things my feet can't do; my feet can do things my liver can't do. Happy is the man or woman who knows their gift and their calling and operates in it. Miserable is the man or woman who operates in somebody else's gift.
Wouldn't it be really weird if when I woke up this morning, I came in, and I said, "All right, after taping, my thumb said, 'All right, mouth, you've been preaching for 30 years; I'm doing the speaking.'" My thumb is not gifted for that! Okay? But my thumb can pick up a pen. It's hard for my mouth to pick up that pen. Okay? Yeah, it was a miserable attempt; it just can't be done. My thumb can pick up the reading glasses and put them on when I need to read! I mean, it's God's gifts. And you know what God says? He says the parts of the body that are not seen He bestows more honor on than the parts that are seen.
You know, legs get a lot of attention. You know, I'm sure, right? People looked at you and said, "What a set of legs! What a set of legs!" Right? Come on! I'm sure Jonathan said to you, Brandi, when you were dating, "Ah, babe, you've got a set of legs!" Right? Legs get attention, but you know, a person can live without a leg! Right? I know a guy who plays in the Senior PGA Tour; he lost his leg in a car accident, but he still plays. There's a kid in high school when I played high school golf; he had one arm; yet he was the number two man on the team. He played golf with one arm! You can live without an arm and live without a leg, but you can't live without a liver! And I've never heard somebody say, "Jonathan, what a liver you've got, dude! That liver is amazing!" No! A liver is an unseen part, but it's more important, more valuable than the seen parts of your leg and your arm!
So don't ever despise—listen to me—the calling and the gifts that God has placed on you. You may think, "Gosh, I'm really not serving God. I'm not on a platform." The platform's the seen part! Guys, don't ever despise the part of the body that God made you! Amen? Amen!
All right, so now we're going to go back to Corinthians, and I want you to look at this. All right? "Moreover, it is required in stewards that one be found faithful." Everybody say it: faithful! The one requirement God has of us as stewards is that we're faithful.
Now, I've done leadership meetings all over the United States, and I'm not going to embarrass you guys because I've embarrassed plenty of people with this, but I ask them, "Tell me your one-word definitions of faithful." Let me show you the number one responses I've gotten all around the country: steadfast, dependable, loyal, devoted, trustworthy, truthful. These are the majority of the ones I've gotten. You know what? I've never heard from one person in one group, one leadership group: "multiplication!" If that's one of the most important definitions of faithful.
Yeah! You say, "John, how do you get that?" Remember the parable of the talents? Okay, there's a great king, a great lord, right? He calls his servants and delivers his goods to them, to each according to their own abilities, right? He gives five to one, two to another, and one to another. All right, let's personalize this: he gives Ashley five, he gives Dave two, he gives Larry one, right? And he goes on a long journey.
So Ashley and Dave get to work and they use the gifts that were given to them. Now, they're called "talents"; it's a measure of money, but this is a parable! I believe Jesus is talking about our gifts. So they use them, and they multiply. Ashley gets ten; Dave multiplies his two to four. But Larry, he's lazy; he buries his gift.
So the lord comes back and he settles up accounts. Ashley comes to him and says, "Here's your five that you gave me, and here's five more; I multiplied what you gave me." You know what he says? He says, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Now, look at this! The only thing he said was that she did—he didn't say that she was on time at work every morning; he didn't say that she was dependable. The only thing he talks about her doing is multiplying! That's the only thing in the whole parable: she multiplied five to ten. "You were faithful!"
So God sees being faithful as multiplying what he's entrusted to you. "Over a few things, I'll make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord!" Well, Dave is the same way, and he gets the exact same reward: "Well done, good and faithful servant!" Right? Then comes Larry. Larry says, "Here's your one talent; I feared you." Now, there's problem number one—he feared his master. He didn't know his character! He did not know the character of his father, of his master. In our case, it would be our Father!
Okay? So paralyzing intimidation will cause the gifts of God in our life to go dormant. And then he said, "I saw you as a hard man." Right? I feared, and I saw you as a hard man. He didn't know the character of his father, and he was afraid. Those are the two things that will hold you back! Look what his master says: he says, "You wicked and lazy servant." Now here's the common mentality in the church: we think, "Hey, I've got my little business; I'm making enough money to feed my family; I go to the church and I usher; I'm faithful." Not according to this parable! According to this parable, you're wicked and lazy!
So you know what that tells me? That God views in regard to our callings those who maintain as wicked and lazy and those who multiply as faithful and good! I want you to stop and think about that!
Now, watch what happens here; it gets worse. Okay, look at this next frame: "So take the talent from Larry and give it to Ashley, who has ten talents." Can I make sure that we all understand this? Larry ends up with zero; Ashley ends up with eleven.
Now, I'm in prayer one day; I'm just reading my Bible, and the Holy Spirit speaks to me. Now guys, I want you to listen to this. He said, "I am not socialistic in my thinking." This is God speaking to me. He said, "I'm capitalistic in my thinking." And I thought, "What?"
So let me show you the socialistic God! Okay? If there was a God and he was socialist, this is what he'd do: he'd give each of them three! He wouldn't give Ashley five; he wouldn't give Dave two; he'd give Larry each three. Now, of course, Ashley and Dave are still faithful and Larry is wicked and lazy. So what's going to happen? Ashley and Dave are going to end up with six; Larry is going to end up with three, right? So the socialistic God would take one from Ashley and one from Dave and give it to Larry so they all end up with five. That's the socialistic God.
He's not socialistic! Ashley ends up with eleven; Larry ends up with zero! So look what Jesus says! Watch this, guys: "For to everyone who has—in this parable—who is the person that has? The person who multiplies! More will be given, and he will have an abundance. But from him who does not have"—that's the person that maintains—"even what he has will be taken away."
Look what Jesus says in the Gospel of Luke! I think I have this—yes! "He who is faithful in what is least is faithful in much."
Now, I want to say this again: "He who multiplies in that which is least will multiply in that which is much. He who is unjust in what is least is unjust in much. And if you have not been faithful, if you have not multiplied in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own?"
Let me tell you why God doesn't give amazing businesses to people. It's because when they're working for other companies, they don't multiply; they don't work with the passion they would work with if it were their own. Well, God says, "If you don't have the character to work in that company the way you would do on your own, how can I give you what is your own?"
And so multiplication is a key! I look at our life, Lisa's and mine. You know, here we were traveling and ministering at little hundred-member churches, and God told me to write. Yet no publisher wanted me to publish any of my books. And I just wrote—spent a whole year writing my first book; then I wrote another book. And you've got to understand, I've got babies; I've got to be the mailman for the ministry; I've got to be the secretary for the ministry; I've got to sort the mail for the ministry, and I'm writing a book and traveling.
I didn't have time! I honestly was like, "Okay, I'm going to write this book even though I'm doing all these other responsibilities." God watched me write that book when no publisher was interested. Matter of fact, two publishers I approached said, "You're too preachy; we don't want to publish you." I think the book—we raised up some money, printed the book, and sold it in the little churches we were at. Okay, eighty people got the book, but nobody else in the entire nation or any other nations was getting the book. And I'm like, "God, I know you've called me to write a book to the nations!"
So God then says, "Write another book." And I'm like, "Okay, here goes another year!" And no publisher wanted that. And then a publisher picked up the third book, which is called "The Bait of Satan." Well, the book exploded! It's pushing two million now! I remember I was frustrated because when I go preaching in churches, I could preach a chapter of it.
One day, God said, "He's faithful." So He said, "I want you to create studies." And I preached twelve messages, thirty messages, got a professional company to come out with a workbook, and had some guys on my staff call the churches we had gone to. They started sending them "The Bait of Satan" and "Undercover" studies. Churches started tripling in their attendance! This is no joke!
And they start telling other churches, and other churches, and then pretty soon now we're over 20,000 churches using our studies! And so then I'm in my basement— I'm in my basement, May 31, 2010—and God said to me, "You've been faithful with the English-speaking community." And this is where the entire message came from. He said, "Now I want you to get your messages in the hands of every pastor and leader in the world." And that year, we gave 271,700 books to pastors and leaders in 54 nations, I believe it was, that year. The next year, we gave 1.3 million; the next year, we gave 2.4 million; the next year, 2.7 million; this year, by the end of the year, it'll be 3.6 million, with a total of just over 12 million resources physically out there—10 million resources all over the world!
If you would have told me I would have done that 30 years ago, I would have laughed you out of the room! I said, "First of all, I can't even write! So how can there even be a book?" But then one day, I'm digging through my little file of prophecies, and I noticed I had this prophetic word given to me in the early 1980s, and that prophetic word said, "You're going to be a nourishing tree from which nations are going to draw and mature." And he said, "I'm raising up an army of people to stand with you in the work I've called you to do."
And I'm sitting there and I look at this, and I go, "There was the glimpse he gave me, and now here it is being fulfilled!" And I'm only 57 years old. Man, what's 10 years from now?
But God expects us to multiply! The first commandment is "be fruitful and multiply." God wasn't just saying, "Have babies." He was saying, "Anything I give to you, return it back to me multiplied!"
Now, can I show you this scripture? Revelation 17:14, and this is going to pull everything together. Are you ready for this? Are you ready for this scripture? "The Lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with him are called"—remember?—"chosen"—remember?—"appointed, chosen, and faithful."
They're called; they paid the price to be chosen. And once they were chosen, they multiplied. And that's the ones that are going to be with the lamb when he comes back and overthrows the Antichrist! Is that not amazing?
Let me show you one final scripture: Romans 11:29. Write this down in your notes, everybody—just write this down: "For God's gifts and his call are irrevocable." Do you remember I said it's not too late? It isn't too late; it isn't too late to do what God created you to do!
You know I preached this message at the Hillsong conference a few years back, and I remember a pastor was just livid! It was a female pastor, and she saw my office manager—our Australian office manager—in the hotel after the service, and she said, "He couldn't have been serious about what he was talking about!"
And my office manager in Australia wisely said, "Well, yeah, he was serious. He means what he says." He said, "Why are you so upset?" And she said, "Well, as a young girl, I had dreams and visions of me ministering to Filipino people, and I have been the senior pastor of this church in Australia for 35 years." My office manager in Australia said, "What are you going to do about it?"
And she just kind of said, "Well." We found out a year later she turned her church immediately over to her executive pastor shortly after, and she's in the Philippines. And this is exactly what she said: "I'm having the time of my life!"
What does it mean? God's gifts and his calling are irrevocable. He never regrets the extension of his grace or changes his mind! Here she was; she'd already been a pastor for 35 years! God never changed his mind about the Philippines. And so now here she is today, in the Philippines!
I look at Bill and Patricia, working as IT people until he's in his mid-50s, and now here he is today in Africa, impacting all of West Africa! The gifts and callings of God—they're irrevocable! So here's the good news: I don't care how old you are; I don't care where you are in life. Just start seeking God now! Diligently pay the price and obey Him, and then multiply what he's entrusted to you, and you will be one fulfilled person. You will be one of those called, chosen, and faithful!
Have you enjoyed this? Yes? I want to pray for you. I want to pray that you would fulfill the call of God upon your life. I need you! We need you to fulfill the calls of God in your life! Because you know, if just 20% of my body is functioning, I'm not a very happy body. But if 100% of my physical body functions perfectly, because God created it that way, I'm so grateful. I just know Jesus is so looking forward to 100% of His body on Earth functioning fully!
So let's get you into that place; we need you into that place! Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray for every person under the sound of my voice. Lord, I pray for these five precious ones that have been around this table and for everyone watching online or by video, however they're watching. I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you would hear from Heaven, that you would know the exact steps you're to take next, and that you would fulfill and multiply in your calling.
I pray, Father, in the name of Jesus, for the obstacles and the hindrances to be removed, and I pray for your presence to come upon them even now, and even speak to them now, Lord! Speak to their hearts about the exciting, exhilarating call that you've placed upon their lives. I ask this in Jesus' mighty name! Amen!
I want to say one last word: don't ever dread the call of God upon your life! Because let me tell you, there's a scripture that I love. It says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He'll give you the desires of your heart."
What that means is He will place His desires in there! I looked at everybody in the ministry, and I thought, "The last thing I am ever going to do is be a minister of the Gospel!" But yet, I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing now! I mean, back then I wanted to play in Wimbledon! I wanted to be a PGA golfer!
But I can tell you, even when I was young, and I was in my little Honda Civic driving up and down I-95 with our two little boys in the back seat in car seats, I was as happy as could be and fulfilled as could be! Yes, I went through trials and tribulations, but you know what? I was fulfilled because I was fulfilling the desires He placed in me!
Don't be afraid of the call that God has placed on your life! You will be the happiest, the most fulfilled, the most satisfied person because you are doing what He's created you to do! Thank you so much for investing in yourself so that all the people impacted by your ministry will be impacted. I'm delighted to labor with you in this great harvest field that we get to labor in for our Lord Jesus Christ! I wish you all the best in Jesus' name!