Leon Fontaine - Your Personal Capacity
I want you to know that you have something called your personal capacity. Everybody has a personal capacity and that capacity is determining every area of your life. Happy, sad, etcetera. And when God works in our lives, He always gives us something that grows. And so just life itself. Just the blessings itself put pressure on you. If you don't believe me, wait when you get married. And then if you're married, wait till you have a kid. That doesn't add a little bit of pressure. Let's add two kids, three kids. Let's add prosperity, a house, a car, insurance for both. Then you got, like, it doesn't matter what goes on in life, even the blessing has to be managed. But for me, I noticed that as I begin to study others. I would go to secular conferences, church conferences. I would meet with some of the greatest leaders and God gave me an ability to get around some of the greatest leaders on our planet.
And I noticed that some of them were just, they didn't know how explain it. They didn't have a bigger education. They didn't have a different personality type, but they had something. And I just recognized that I needed that. I noticed there were other leaders that I would talk to that were highly educated. But that didn't mean at all they had personal capacity. As we would develop and grow the church, I would put someone in charge of a department who is very skilled as a worker, very educated, did very well in all that they had gone on. Then I would put them in charge of a department and the pressure would just take them out. You'd see them crying around the corner, or ,you know, one person was upset with them and it's just destroyed their whole month. And I couldn't put my finger on what it was because there's a plethora of things that we all need to grow in but I begin to zero in on this thing called capacity.
And I'm going to take the teaching today from Matthew chapter 25 because Jesus taught this. And a lot of people think, "Well, that's just a business. I came here to get spiritually fed and you're talking about business"? The problem with the church today is we have separated the secular, the business world, and the spiritual. Nowhere in the Bible is there a secular world and a spiritual world. And you and I have to learn that management, administration, leadership is all taught all through here. How to put systems into your family. How to put systems into your marriage. How to put systems into your health. This thing is so full of successful teaching and it goes with the presence of God, the Spirit of God, the Word of God. And you've got to stop separating them.
And so today as I dive into this, I pray that if one thought can help you. But let's listen to the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 25:14, he says, "The kingdom of heaven is like"... What is the kingdom of heaven? Oh, is He talking about the place called heaven? No. Because nobody is in heaven, um, having to build their own career. This is talking about the kingdom of heaven. In this world there are two kingdoms. The kingdom of darkness and it's here to kill, steal, and destroy. And use anybody it can, any leader it can, any government it can, any person it can. Kill, steal, destroy, and simultaneously is the kingdom of heaven. And in this kingdom, you and I are to rise up. And we are to basically run this planet. God never designed the planet, go, "Let's go find somebody that cheats, lies, steals, hates God's people. And that should be the person who's got making the most money. That should be the person that's governing".
Are you kidding me? We got to wake up. And this is a big issue because Jesus, this is the way the kingdom of heaven is like. And He goes on to say that a man is traveling to a far country calls his staff together. His team and he delivers his goods to them. His resources. To one he gave five talents. Now, I hear people teach on this. That God's given you talent. Well, I get that. That's not what this means. A talent is a certain amount of gold. It's a certain amount of resource. So I'm going to use words today that make sense in modern day vernacular. This guy's going away and he gets three people together to handle his resources. Hands one guy five bags of gold. Hands another guy two bags of gold. Hands another person one bag of gold. No, let's just stop right there. Someone's going, "Yeah, he handed me one. He gave you five. What's the problem here"? God is a respecter of person. See? See? He gave one person five. He gave another person two. And he gave one person one.
Now, that's actually not true. Let's read the Scripture. It says that he gave each one of this, and then he said he gave it to them according in verse 15 to their ability. Oh, he's not giving it out according to gender? Men are better than women? Not a chance. He's not giving out according to skin color? Nope, not even in there. Your personal capacity is the greatest indicator of your life increasing and going to where you want, or being a mess and pressure and emotional and distraught and upset and unhappy and quitting and leaving, etcetera. And so he said, he gave to that one guy five bags of gold because he had an ability of five. He gave to the guy with the two, two bags of gold because he had an ability to handle two. And he gave one guy one because he had an ability to handle one. The guy with five, he actually stewarded it. He went and traded and worked and he made another five. He now has an ability of? Ten! The guy with two, stewarded that ability, took the resource and he went out, and he now has an ability of four bags of gold.
So I want you to notice, that if you have a certain amount of ability, God will always give you the resource to match your ability. Now, the guy with one, had an ability of one but he didn't steward it. He did something really ridiculous. But I see a lot of church people doing this. He just buried it. And the master comes back and says, "You lazy, lazy staff member. You took the one that I gave you. And you, if you weren't going to do anything with it, why not put it in the bank, I could get some interest. And so he took the one away from the guy with one and he gave it to the guy with ten". Again, look at God. What a respecter of persons. But if we follow the principle of the parable, people are given what they have an ability to do something with. And when God gives you a bag of seeds, He doesn't want a bag of seeds back. He wants an orchard.
So everything that God gives you, has the potential to grow. I'm going to give you a quick look at something that this parable is saying. It is saying that your ability, plus God's resource, plus your stewardship of it. Which is what the guy with one didn't do, is what your personal capacity is. And you can increase your personal capacity. This is not about how, okay. There's incredible ways to increase your personal capacity. You could access your beliefs, access your skill base. Get into the Word. Get to know God. There's just so many ways and I might get to one today. I just want you to understand that when the master was handing out something. He wasn't handing out ability. He wasn't handing out faithful stewardship. He was handing out resource. You have an ability. And if you mix your ability with good stewardship, which stewardship means just get going on it. Just start doing something with it. Just begin to move instead of just do nothing and pray and bury it. Your, your, you begin to change your ability. You literally begin, your capacity changes.
We've got to understand that in life, there's nothing stopping you for more. God has not set a limit on you. You know, the issues not how much blessing God is pouring out. The limit is in how much capacity you can handle. The Bible says when it comes to tithing, you know, I believe, and Sal and I give ten percent of our income, of everything that comes in we give it to our church. And with the Bible says give. And it says He's going to open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that you can't contain. Isn't that interesting? You know, if I were asked, if God wants to pour out blessing, and this is the person's capacity. That cup is, what is that? 10 ounces, 12-ounce cup maybe. So the capacity of that cup is 12 ounces. So God is always blessing. The Bible says over and over that He pours out His blessing. You have no room to contain it. It's beyond anything you could ask, think, or imagine. That Bible is filled with that. God never stops pouring out resource.
So here's the issue. This is a person who has a 12-ounce resource, and God doesn't stop pouring out resource. So it's very special and it's very cool because that resource just keeps coming and coming and coming. Now, here's the problem. Once it's more than you can contain, there's not a thing you can do with it all. All I'm doing is washing the table, washing the carpet. I can't, you know, if I had like a gallon, I could go do something with a gallon. If I had a whole five, I could. But you see, the capacity is only 12 ounces. So it doesn't matter how much we pour into this thing. It's never going to get better. When you see this, and you recognized resource always follows capacity. God always blesses. And, or you could just put the blessing that's already been commanded upon you. Which is pouring itself into your life. You have to ask yourself. Do I have the personal capacity to have it, handle it, and do something with it? Now, if you don't, what's really fantastic, is you can change. We can continue to grow.
Now, you have an emotional capacity. One of the things I've really developed in my life, and I'll tell you what I'm good and what I'm not good at, is emotional capacity. You can talk to my kids. You can talk to my sons-in-law. You can talk to my staff. People, anyone who gets around me. They just couldn't tell you a story of me losing it. Maybe one or two. Sally could but, because it's just, it's something that I've just developed. I've developed this area of emotions and thinking. And now physically, I've had to be careful because as the pressure and the stress is increased. You know, now running four organizations and they all need staff and millions of dollars. And people can blog about you, lie about you. You can go viral on things you didn't do all across the nation where everybody comes against you, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It never seems to affect me emotionally. But now in the past, it has affected me physically. I've ended up in the hospital two times. So they could, I was so sick three times. And they couldn't figure what's wrong. And by the time I got out of there, I already knew. So personal capacity isn't just one thing. It's this ability.
Now, you can take a look at somebody whose careers really going somewhere. You know what, in order, given his thinking time, his physical time, chronological time, is taking it away from his wife, taking away from his marriage. So success in a career, man or woman, can begin to affect your marriage. It can begin to affect your ability to parent. It can begin to affect your mental health. It can begin to affect your physical health. And so just life and just being successful is going to put pressure on you. If I, in this building, I think this is a three-storey or four-storey building. So let's say that I decided to add another four storeys to it, make this building really successful. Now, we got an eight-storey building and it handles it. We got a twelve storeys but things start falling apart. The success of the building puts pressure on everything designed, built, and made before it. So in life, as you want to go succeed, be blessed, have a great marriage, have raised great kids, go generational, at the same time handle money, careers, influence the nation. All of this stuff doesn't just require a skillset. It requires you increasing your personal capacity.
Now, this is fantastic news because God has no limits on you. God has not said, "You're a fiver. You, you're a two, dude. You, you, one. You just go bury it, sucker". Like, no. God hasn't decided that. And you can change your ability by adding just great management by stewarding. All of us are stewards. Nobody owns. Someone say, "Well, I made this stuff myself". And I said, "No, no. Your gifts are from God". When you got born again the Bible teaches you and I, that we are not our own. But we have given ourselves to Christ. That means our gift, our influence, our position, our money, are all God's and we are stewarding them for Him. So you say, "Leon, that's because you're a pastor". No. If you're a business person, you are to be stewarding that for God. If you are in government, if you're in teaching, wherever you are, every believer should steward that position, their money, their influence. All that needs to be stewarded for God. And God wants to take you to places that will blow people's minds. And He said, "My yoke is easy and My burden is light".
So when people start to pressure on every side, you go, "That's not for you". Just a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just a minute. Don't say it's not for you. I see people quit their marriages. I see them quit their jobs. I see them leave their cities. I see them leave their church because there's something they just can't handle. Well, is that an issue? Or do you just need to increase your personal capacity? Someone tells me, "Well, I just left my -, I'm telling you right now, man. I could not handle it". Okay, so you couldn't handle. I have no problem with you quitting your job and some people should. But did you first of all increase your personal capacity? Well, I don't know. I wonder. Well, I just couldn't handle this marriage anymore. I'm just done. I'm finished. I'm so, I'm done! Done! Done! Okay. You're done. And so, and some marriages are, okay? But now is it done, or is it just your personal capacity? What do you mean?
You see, everybody goes through hard seasons. And your ability to handle hard, your ability to handle pain, your ability to recognize that, I just need to handle this. When people talk to me and they go, "I am so done"! Why are you done? Because of an emotion. Because you just decided you're done. Don't. Don't do this. Don't determine your emotional health by you deciding you're done. There's things that you need to believe. There's things that you should never say. This thing called personal capacity is crucial. And the one thing that I was going to leave with you because you have to study it on your own. Is that what I found was stunning for me as a leader, I had to learn, unless my health kills me, or I have an emotional breakdown, or I have a marital breakdown, or a family breakdown, etcetera, etcetera, are all signs of reaching my capacity. Change your capacity. God will help you. You've got Holy Spirit who is going to be here to equip you and change you.
Galatians 5:22 and on is one of the most stunning things you can do to increase your capacity. It's called the fruit of the Spirit. And we've all looked at it. Yeah, should be joyful. Ha, ha, ha. Walk in love. Ha, ha, ha. Just a minute. The power of love is so significant people will lay down their lives. The power of joy is so stunning. That joy is your strength. And when that, that quiet but powerful joy is there, people can't trick you, lie to you. They can't make you jump out of the frying pan into the fire. What about peace? A peace that passes understanding. And Jesus says, "My peace I leave with you". There's one of the things that I would develop and I continue to develop in my life is the strengths of Holy Spirit who's in my human spirit. And I've found out that I could develop patience. And you go, "How do you develop patience"? Well, you begin to work with it. You have an ability, okay? And God's blessed you with a born again spirit, a healthy body. So now, you must add to that your ability to steward that, to manage that. So work at it.
Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography or biography teaches how that he would develop each of these strengths this way. If you want to develop patience, he would write patience on a sheet and carry a little book around with him. And he would say, "I'm going to be more patient". Now, patient is not waiting. Patience is how you wait. It like my old joke about that guy. Fourteen people back at the Safeway check out and he goes, "Hey, we're patiently waiting back here". There's one word that doesn't belong in that sentence and that's patiently. Now, he's waiting but not patient. Patience is a powerful force. That stops you from being stressed out by any chicken little and by any emergency, okay?
Now, developing patience, he said, he would write patience down. And then each day when he felt his patience slipping. He would put little X under patience. So he became aware of his patience. And he'd be talking to somebody and all of a sudden, he said something, or he could see, his ears turned red. He starts to lose patience with this person and he put a little X. And all it did was make him aware, and every time he got, was beginning to move towards impatience. He would rein himself in. What's he doing? He's stewarding himself by working at it. And so as you begin to recognize that your capacity is going to be the thing. Can you be successful in career and still chase your husband around the house. Can you be successful in finance and all the stresses of business, etcetera, and come home and still play with your kids.
As a paramedic, I'd picked up dead bodies, go into fires. I went into screaming. And I can't even share half the story. And then I would go home to my wife. And yeah, little girls at the time. And they had no idea what I was going through, and she expected me to come home and to bubble and perk. This is me talking. And ah, and I come home and I just want some space. You have no idea what I went. You know what I saw today doing it? And one day I realized that my little girls don't care what I went through. They want Daddy, full-on Daddy playing Barbies. They want full-on Daddy laughing, chasing them around, playing. And so I can't use what I have been seeing and doing and blood up to my elbows and the screams and the people angry at me and mad at me. And with someone running around with a gun, and all the stuff that I would go through, then I would go home. And so I began to recognize that I'm wrecking my marriage. I'm wrecking, I'm not a much of a dad if I'm going to keep this up. And so I began to go into the Word looking for a principle and I found the principle of the prayer of casting your care. And I said, "Okay, God. I need to do this".
So every day when I got home, I would pray for a little while in the car on the way home. And then when I got to the door, I go, "Bang! It's right here God. I now hand You the care of everything I've smelt, everything I've heard, everything I've watched, everything I've done. My fear. My anger. My shock. My dismay. My, all the stuff, I just cast my care on You. And I'm walking in to be the best Daddy and the best husband I could possibly be". You must increase your personal capacity. God did not design us to succeed with accompanying failure. He designed us to succeed. He said that His, that He has blessed us with all things, not just some things. And so wherever you're falling apart. Wherever you don't think you can make another step. Wherever you feel like this is good as it gets. Whenever you think you maxed, you finished, you done.
Remember this, Holy Spirit is your helper. And you're designed to live life at a level higher than anybody walking the planet without Jesus. You're designed to succeed, to laugh, to enjoy, to make so much you can support His church, to get up and influence in government. We're called to be the head and not the tail, above and not beneath. That means talk to your kids in a way that lets them know, whatever you're going to do, you're going to succeed at it. No one gets married and goes, "I hope I don't succeed". Why has religion destroyed us? And let's get back to the actual Word. God's going to take you on an amazing journey. Just be aware of your personal capacity. And it'll stop you from quitting prematurely, blaming your mother, blaming your spouse, blaming your pastor, blaming your city, blaming the color of your skin, blaming your gender. And let's just look to God and let's live beautifully. Keep growing. Life is exciting.