John Bevere - Strategic Ideas That Will Help You Multiply the Blessings in Your Life
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Hey everyone, welcome to lesson 8! I’m so excited about what God is doing in you, but let me tell you, the best is yet to come. Let me begin by saying this: with each passing year—yes, I’m 61—I can say I talk like this. With each passing year, it’s becoming more and more apparent to me the value and importance of a strategic, inspired idea. Now, what am I talking about when I say that? Let me give you some examples from the book—just a few.
The strategic idea to throw a piece of wood into bitter water so that millions of people can drink fresh water. A different inspired idea to strike a rock to provide water for millions. A strategic idea to march quietly once around the walls each day for six days, and then on the seventh, walk around seven times, shouting and blowing a ram’s horn to gain entrance into a city. The strategic idea of having thousands of warriors get down and drink from a brook, so you can separate the ones who keep their eyes on the battlefield from those who take their eyes off it. The strategic idea to eat vegetables instead of the king’s meats, so that you could be stronger and wiser. The strategic idea to take a small lunch, bless it, and break it, so that you could feed 5,000 people. The strategic idea of having water pots filled with water, so that you could present the best wine of a wedding feast. The strategic idea to spit in mud and put it into a man’s eyes to regain sight. The strategic idea to tell a group of men not to jump off a sinking ship, so that their lives could be saved.
Listen, that’s just a few of them. Strategic ideas help us enter into multiplication. In all the things I just mentioned, do you see a common thread? The strategic ideas involved using what the recipients already possessed. In every case, the divine provision was wrapped up in the familiar. It was either something they had or a repositioning of themselves. So let me say this statement, and I want you to write this down, because this is such an important point to multiplication: God often gives strategies using the ordinary in an extraordinary way to get extraordinary results.
I want to say that again: God often gives strategies using the ordinary in an extraordinary way to get extraordinary results. Proverbs 4:7 says, «Getting wisdom is the most important thing you can do.» I’m going to read it one more time: «Getting wisdom is the most important thing you can do.» Often, a form of divine wisdom is an inspired, strategic idea. James says if you need wisdom, if you need a strategic idea, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But there are two conditions to receiving that strategic idea. James goes on to say just make sure you ask empowered by confident faith. So that’s the first condition: you have to ask in faith. You can’t ask with a wandering attitude or a doubting attitude or a «Will God really give this to me?» attitude.
Hey, He wants you to have this strategic idea to impact other people’s lives. Without doubting that you will receive, for the ambivalent person believes one minute and doubts the next. Being undecided makes you become like rough seas, driven and tossed by the wind; you’re up one minute and tossed down the next when you are half-hearted and wavering. So there’s the second condition: being half-hearted. All right, so you’ve got to ask in confident faith, and you’ve got to ask with a fully believing heart. When you’re half-hearted and wavering, it leaves you unstable. Can you really expect to receive anything from the Lord when you’re in that condition?
So again, I want to repeat: confident faith and not having a half-hearted, wavering attitude. Bottom line: the strategic idea is a gift from God, and once received, it will open us to another realm of effectiveness, empowering us to multiply.
So let’s go back to my story. All right, so «Bait of Satan» was now an international bestseller. Over 25,000 churches in the United States had been using the curriculum. I was so excited that people’s lives were getting transformed and that God was multiplying this message. But I didn’t realize that there was another level of multiplication that God wanted me to reach. Remember: if you’re faithful in that which is least, He will entrust you with more.
So here’s what happened: Lisa was in England, speaking at a women’s conference. The date was May 31, 2010. I had just finished playing a round of golf—yes, I wasn’t being very spiritual. I remember coming home; the house was empty—our kids were out of the house, and nobody was around. So I went down to my basement, grabbed my Bible, and just felt led to open up to the Book of Daniel. I’m reading the second chapter of Daniel, and all of a sudden, the Spirit of God filled our entire basement. I got real still and heard a very clear voice say, «Son, you have been faithful with the English-speaking community. Now I want you to get your resources into the hands of every leader and every pastor in the world who cannot afford them.»
I was like, «What? Every leader in the world? Every pastor in the world?» But the thing that really got my attention is when He said, «Son, you have been faithful.» At that time, I didn’t connect the word faithful to multiplication. This was the very catalyst that began my understanding of what it means to be faithful—it means to multiply. I’ll never forget this moment. I didn’t know what to do; I knew God had spoken to me.
So we walked in a few months later—it was actually January of 2011, so it was seven months later—and I was still trying to figure out how to do this. We had a meeting, and everyone around the table was managing different departments. I said, «Hey guys, you know my dream has always been to give away more books than we sell. We’ve sold millions of books, so we’re not doing very well. How did we do last year, 2010? How many books did we give to pastors overseas who couldn’t afford them and gave to them for free?» Somebody went through their papers; I think it was my international director, and he said, «We gave away 33,000 books.»
I said, «Gosh, that’s pathetic! This year I want to give away 250,000 books.» Well, the whole room went dead silent. My wife describes that moment as, «She tasted throw up in her mouth when I said that.» I remember the room was silent, and the first one to speak was my oldest son, who was our chief operating officer. He said, «Uh, could we maybe start at 100,000 this year and step it up gradually to get there in a couple of years?» I said, «No, no, no. I want to give away 250,000 books this year to pastors all over the world.»
He started telling me why we couldn’t do it. «Do you realize all the translations, the costs, the fees of printing and distribution? How do we do it?» My international director was saying, «I believe we can do this,» but Addison kept saying, «But it’s so much involved.» He kept challenging me for about 20 minutes. Finally, I slammed my fist down on the table. I don’t know if I was being fleshly or godly, but I slammed my fist down and said, «We’re giving away 250,000 books this year!» The whole room went silent, and the meeting was adjourned. It wasn’t a very happy atmosphere.
Well, the next day, my son said to me, «Dad, I’m a little shaken by how you talked to me.» I said, «I didn’t ask you if you think we should give away 250,000. I said we’re going to.» I said, «You know me; I’m a team player. Many times I ask you what you think, but there are times when I say we’re going to do something, and that’s not up for discussion.» He said, «Dad, could you just pray about it over the next 24 hours?» I said, «Okay,» but I actually didn’t really pray about it. I think I prayed a half-hearted prayer because I already knew.
So 24 hours later, I said, «Yeah, we’re going to do it.» Three weeks later, I was in Florida in a hotel room typing a book. I think the book was «Relentless,» and my team knows not to call John in the morning when he writes because that’s my best writing time. But my cell phone rang, and I noticed it was the office. I thought, «Uh-oh, they know not to call me; this must be important.» So I picked it up.
Well, I heard jovial atmosphere laughing, and it was my oldest son, Addison. He said, «Dad, I have news for you.» I said, «Sure.» He said, «There’s a businessman who heard through the grapevine—not even through our mail out—that you wanted to give books to pastors overseas, and he is giving Messenger International a $300,000 check!»
I went, «Wow!» The largest offering our ministry had ever received up to that time was a $50,000 check. I said, «Do you see now why I was so persistent about giving away 250,000 books?» He said, «Dad, I don’t care if you tell us to give away a million books; we’ll believe!» What it did was it boosted the faith of the whole team. That year, we ended up giving away 271,000 books to pastors and leaders in, I believe, 46 nations of the world. I’m talking nations like Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Jordan—Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam. I could go on and on.
In May of that year, our international director and I were in Beirut, Lebanon, preaching to pastors from all over the Middle East. I remember a pastor from Iraq came up to my international director and asked if there was any way he could meet with me. I said, «Absolutely, yes!» We sat down in the lobby of the hotel. This young man, 36 years old, had fire in his eyes. He said, «Pastor Baff, I really see you as a father in my life. I have read everything I can get my hands on, which isn’t much. I even used my credit card to download your messages from your website.»
I remember when he said that, I wanted to crawl into a hole. I thought here is a pastor from a war-torn nation like Iraq using a credit card to get messages. I checked out; I didn’t hear a thing that guy said. I went up to my room and screamed. I’m telling you, I screamed, «God, You have got to help me come up with an idea of getting these messages into the pastors' hands all over the world!»
From that frustration came an idea: a couple of days later, I thought, «You know, we’re giving away these physical books in Farsi, in Arabic, in all these languages, and all they get is the book. What if we put a DVD-ROM in the back of the book? Because a lot of these nations have computers that can take a DVD-ROM disc. What if we put hundreds of dollars of resources on that DVD-ROM? What if we put the whole curriculum on that DVD-ROM? What if we put one of Lisa’s books? What if we put a New Testament of the Bible?»
So I went to my international director and said, «Can we do this?» He said, «Yes, we can do it.» We started planning. I remember sitting down with my team in August of that year. I said, «Guys, we’re going to start giving away books with $500 of resources on the back on a DVD-ROM.» Well, do you know what happened? One month later, a man flew from the state of Texas to Colorado, where we live. He asked to meet with Lisa and me. He got a room in a hotel boardroom, and we sat down.
He started crying and said, «John and Lisa, I know you are giving books to pastors who can’t afford them. I want to help you do it.» He slid a check across the table, and it was a check for $750,000! Well, you know what? That helped us with the next year’s seating. But then I started realizing, «How do we continue to pay for this? Are businessmen going to just keep showing up or sending checks, or are businesswomen going to do the same?»
God spoke to me again in prayer—out of another situation, another frustration. «How are we going to keep this going? How are we going to sustain this?» He said, «Son, you’re known for golf—run a golf tournament! You’ve got a beautiful hotel here in Colorado Springs called the Broadmoor, where the U.S. Open is held. Run a golf tournament and raise money for these nations.»
I’ll never forget it. I went to Addison and Lisa. This was January of 2011, but I backed up a little bit. I said, «I want to do a golf tournament. I want to invite people from all over the United States so that they can have an opportunity to be a part of a team that’s going to resource pastors all over the world.» Well, that first golf tournament raised $340,000. Then it was $750,000; then it went to $1.3 million, and it eventually got up to almost $2.5 million.
Well, you know what happened the next year? The first year we gave 271,000 books away; the next year, we gave $1.3 million in resources to pastors and leaders overseas. The next year, it was $2.7 million in resources, and it kept growing and growing. Now, on average, we give away 6 million resources to pastors and leaders, and as of the date of this lesson, we have given away over 37 million resources to pastors and leaders in 227 nations of the world. There are only 241 nations. We only have 15 more nations to go, and we are coming up with a website where these pastors can get these curriculums, these studies, and these lessons that you’re watching in their language, on their iPhone or on their Android.
There are people that live in huts and tents, but they’ve got an Android; they’ve got an iPhone. What are we doing? We are doing what Jesus said: we’re discipling the nations of the world. Could we ever have done this in our own ability? No, never, ever, ever. I think now I have a better understanding of what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, «I labored more abundantly than the other apostles, yet it was not I, but the grace of God that was in me.»
I had no idea when I was a 20-year-old man that one day we would affect millions of pastors and leaders' lives all over the world with resources that God had entrusted to us. I would have said there’s no way this would happen, but yet God did it through these principles that I’m sharing with you. Let me tell you: one servant multiplied his five to ten, and the other one multiplied his two to four. Don’t judge by the magnitude of what we’ve done; just understand that God will have you multiply. You’ll come to a certain level—it’s not where you’re to coast, because there will be a next level of multiplication, and then another level.
To him who is faithful, more will be given, and he or she will have an abundance. If you multiply, you will be given more, and you will have an abundance. To me, there is nothing more important in life—nothing more important than impacting lives with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You could give me the most beautiful homes and the nicest cars; it wouldn’t bring any satisfaction. What brings satisfaction is building the kingdom of God—not in my own ability, not in our team’s ability, but in the grace of God.
I want to say this: it is because of a team coming together, a family coming together of our team members at Messenger International. We have about 45 of all these businessmen and businesswomen who have joined together. I remember Lisa and I were in the nation of Armenia; we had several pastors that had come from Iran and Afghanistan. We went into a separate auditorium; there were hundreds of them. We were not allowed to take pictures for their safety, and I will never forget looking at them. I said, «You know, you look at Lisa and I as heroes. We are not the heroes. Do you know who the real heroes are? It’s the businessmen and women who have given millions of dollars—the pastors who have given millions of dollars to resource you.» I’m telling you, almost every one of those pastors started weeping, because here they are, being persecuted in a nation like Iran; they’re having to do church underground, in secret, and yet they’re being resourced with the Word of God because a team came together and cared enough to build the kingdom of God. That is what brings Lisa and me great joy and satisfaction.
Nothing in this life could satisfy us more than seeing these pastors, who are in such desperate need, begging to be fed with the Word of God. Well, this is what God has intended for you: He’s intended your multiplication to go to the next level, and the next level, and the next level. Often, He will give you an inspired, strategic idea to reach that next level so that you can impact more lives for the kingdom of God. I hope you got something out of this, and the next lesson is going to get even better!