Matt Hagee - A Life of Multiplication
Matt Hagee: Hello, and welcome to "The Difference". Have you ever asked yourself, "What is your God-given purpose" and "Does he have a plan for you"? Today we're not only going to discuss that very topic, but we're going to show you in the Word of God how you can take the multiplication factor in your life and see God's promises come to fruition. John Bevere is here to share with us from his latest book. You don't want to miss it. We'll be right back after this.
John Bevere: All of us have a call of God on our life. And every single one of us are given unique gifts by God to accomplish that calling. However, many are not accomplishing this calling because they're paralyzed. They're concerned possibly they may miss God or they may do something wrong. I don't know what spirit of influence you're in. You could be a businessman, businesswoman, stay-home mom, in healthcare, in education, in the arts, in government. I don't know. But one thing I do know: you are called to multiply.
For years, I saw being faithful as only being dependable, reliable, consistent, trustworthy. However, the day came, and I remember when it happened when God opened my eyes to show me one of the most important definitions of faithful is to multiply.
What I want to do in this book, I want to help you discover your gifts, I want to help you develop your gifts, and I want you help you multiply your gifts, so you can build the Kingdom of God effectively on this earth, as Jesus has commissioned you to do.
For years, I saw being faithful as only being dependable, reliable, consistent, trustworthy. However, the day came, and I remember when it happened when God opened my eyes to show me one of the most important definitions of faithful is to multiply.
What I want to do in this book, I want to help you discover your gifts, I want to help you develop your gifts, and I want you help you multiply your gifts, so you can build the Kingdom of God effectively on this earth, as Jesus has commissioned you to do.
Matt Hagee: Welcome back to "The Difference". Kendal and I have so enjoyed having our dear friend, John Bevere, here with us today. And John, we've talked about the way that you and your family are ministering to the nations of the world through Messenger International. "X: Multiplying Your God-Given Potential", this is what book for you, as far as number?
John Bevere: Number 22.
Matt Hagee: Number 22?
John Bevere: Yes, sir.
Matt Hagee: And here is something that I admire greatly and have experienced personally: the consistency of quality and excellence. It's a testament to your diligence, because 22 books is in and of itself a fete. But 22 good books, that's...
John Bevere: That's the gift of God.
Matt Hagee: That's a whole other thing.
John Bevere: That's what I'm talking about.
Kendal Hagee: But you said the king did it. You don't write a book unless it's from God.
Matt Hagee: Therein lies what I'm saying about experienced it personally: you know? When I had the opportunity to become more familiar with messenger, it really changed my perspective on how the body of Christ works together, because my context for reaching the nations was training up somebody within your congregation and then sending one individual into an area that they felt called to go. And there's certainly historical context for God doing great works through missionaries like that. I'm not discrediting that. But that was my only perspective. This is how I saw the operation and function of reaching nations. And then I was able to find out how Messenger International resources to your statements earlier about the local church.
John Bevere: Right.
Matt Hagee: You not only resourced the local church here in San Antonio, Texas at cornerstone by providing this kind of content to pastors like me, but you, through the direction of the Holy Spirit and what you believed God leading you to do, have resourced hundreds of thousands of churches in some of the most distant, remote parts of the world. And the way you're doing it is by giving these resources to pastors...
John Bevere: Right.
Matt Hagee: ...So that, as voices of influence in their own community, they can reach their church. Now see I understand that, because I'm the voice of influence at cornerstone. The members of cornerstone trust me. I'm their shepherd. So when you tell me about a pastor in Uganda, or you talked about a pastor in Albania, or you talk about a pastor in a place where the church is underground like Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan, these are places where Messenger International is taking these kinds of resources and they're giving them to that pastor so that that pastor can reach his community, reach his church, and touch their life in a very significant way. Where do you see people utilizing their God-given gifts to multiply that?
John Bevere: Well first of all, you've just said so much.
Kendal Hagee: I know. I want to take notes.
Matt Hagee: But I only do it in a minute and a half.
John Bevere: A minute and a half? Alright. I've got to do this quick.
Matt Hagee: No, no, no. I did it in a minute and a half. You can talk all the want.
John Bevere: It was so much good things that you brought out here. First of all, um, a plane can go nowhere with just a fuselage. You need the ins system. You need the engines. You need the wings: right? Messenger International is just a piece of this puzzle. We've been able, and when I say, "We," cornerstone's included, you and Kendal, and John and Diana, and the whole congregation.
Matt Hagee: We made it a focus of our missions outreach, because I came home. I told dad: I said, "Look: I have seep a way that we can take the resources of our church and leverage it all over the world". And he said, "How"? I said, "Through Messenger International".
John Bevere: So we've been able to give away over 41 million, now, resources to pastors and leaders in 111 languages in 226 nations. So we're 15 nations short, right, of the whole world. We've done this together. We realize that we're just a team member. You're a team member. So the whole football team that won the Super Bowl six times was not just Tom Brady. Although, he's playing so good with Tampa Bay right now: he had to big part. But that's another story. But what you've said that's so crucial about understanding this is a couple things. If I send a missionary from America over to a country, it takes seven years for him to really learn the language, the culture, and everything about the people: whereas...
Matt Hagee: And most don't last that long.
John Bevere: Right. Whereas, if I put the Word of God into a national, he's raised up with that culture. Secondly, if I build a building over there for them, they're still dependent on us. But if I give them the faith through the Word of God, because Jesus said, "My church would be built on revelation knowledge".
Matt Hagee: Absolutely.
John Bevere: So we gave Bibles to China. And the Chinese came back and said, we gave them "The bait of Satan" and a Bible. They came back and they said, "Please spend the money on 'the bait of Satan,' not the Bible. We have Bibles". And this is the underground church.
Matt Hagee: Yeah.
John Bevere: And we're like, oh my goodness. So, you know, I realized: God, is this going to appear weird that I'm raising this money to give books? But then the revelation came to me that Jesus said, "I'll build my church on revelation knowledge". So the other natural aspect of it is if you look at dale or Andrew Carnegie, from 1883 to 1918, he built over 3,000 libraries. He was a Philanthropist: right? In all but 1701 of those libraries were in all of three states of the United States. When did the United States become a very powerful nation? Between 1880 and 1920. Why? The public was given knowledge.
Matt Hagee: They had access to it.
John Bevere: And so now, what's so exciting is this is what we've done together is we've built an unbelievable app by one of the finest app-developing companies in the United States. Now we've put a million and a half resources in Iran: right? That pastor in Iran can hit one button and send "The bait of Satan" course, "The bait of Satan" book, "The bait of Satan" audio book to every single person in his underground secret church with just his iPhone, with just his android, with just his tablet. So I really believe...
Matt Hagee: It's technology that a dictator cannot control.
John Bevere: And I believe that's our Roman road. If you look at it, the Roman road started 300 b.C. Why? Those shipping lanes and the roads to the whole known part of the world would be developed right when Jesus came, when he was born so that the apostles could reach the whole known world. This is the last days. Jesus is about to return. This is why I love this ministry so much. You actually believe in the second coming of Jesus.
Matt Hagee: Looking forward to it.
John Bevere: Actually, me too. And now our Roman roads is actually wifi.
Matt Hagee: Yeah.
John Bevere: It's the ability to communicate globally. And what's happening right now in space, they are literally trying to make wifi available for the planet. Hey, it might be wrong intentions behind some of that, but who cares? We're going to, Roman roads were there wasn't great intent.
Matt Hagee: Rome used the road to dominate the world so that they could control it. They lost control, but the body of Christ is still here and moving forward.
John Bevere: Yes. Yes.
Matt Hagee: And you know one of the things that I've tried to communicate, and I know pastor hagee has tried to communicate, and I've heard you share it the same way: when we get to eternity, there will be people from all of these nations. There are going to be people from some of the most outer parts of the earth. And there's going to be people from some major metropolitan areas. And there's going to be some people that we've never seen in this life. But they'll have the ability to recognize that it's the seed we sowed, it's the things we did, it's how we connected the dots: that we were able to get them into the opportunity to hear the message, receive it by faith, and then grow in their own grace and their own power.
John Bevere: So what would happen in the world of construction? In the world of our classrooms? In the world of our hospitals? Our stay-at-home moms, who are actually one of the most important, and I even write about that in the book.
Matt Hagee: Absolutely.
John Bevere: Okay: what would have if everybody got this? If everybody had the same mentality of Stephen had? And everybody realized that the value of what I'm good at is actually a God-given gift to help me to stand out in the arena of the world that I'm called to? You know in the book, I do describe, um, a guy that asked to have a meeting with me, who was a multibillionaire. And it's pretty funny, I will say. I want to set this up, because it's an hilarious story. I'm getting ready to speak for one of the Bythell Group conferences last year in Dallas at the Big Arena. And the guy over it calls me and goes, "Man, there's a multibillionaire, he's doing a, quote, 'God tour'". I said, "What's this God tour"? He says, "He's flying his private jet around and meeting with certain ministers that he wants them to speak into his life and help him to sharpen him. And you're one of them". And I went, you know this is so interesting. Yes, I'm doing it. So at the Tulsa arena, I think it's the Tulsa arena, or whatever it is in Dallas, they set up a room. We had a three-hour lunch. And this guy actually really ended up ministering to me, because the first thing he said to me, and this is when I was all ears. He said, "I was floundering in the marketplace. I knew God had called me to be a businessman, and I was doing horrible, because", he said, "John, I was doing everything in my own strength. I was doing everything according to the books in the business world I was reading". He said, "I was your classic businessman doing everything right but failing". And he said, "I'm sitting in church one day and I'm watching my pastor preach. And the thought comes to me: he's called to do what he's doing and he totally relies on the Holy Spirit to do that. I'm called to do what I'm called: why don't I rely on the Holy Spirit"? So he said...
Matt Hagee: What a powerful thought.
John Bevere: Oh, my gosh, that's so. So he said, "I sat down every morning and I'd just get a piece of note pad in front of me". And he said, "I'd just write down the things the Holy Spirit would tell me to do". And he said, "John, some were so crazy unconventional". He said, "But I thought I've already failed: I'm going to just do this". And he said, "Sure enough, it started working". He said, "One thing I did, I did it 20 times. The Holy Spirit told me. I thought what in the world does this have to do with business"? He said, "I did it and now I own 20 hospitals in Vietnam". And he told me how he bought the second largest bank in the world. He told me how, now, he's developing jet engines that run on batteries that will work. And he said, "We're just about four years away from launching this thing". And I'm like, "Ah"! And so here now he's flourishing. He's got people's attention in the business world, you know, because he's so successful. But he gives the glory to God. So now think about it: if he's reading all the books on how to do business and all of that, people go, "Man, you're so successful". "Well you know I have this education and I've read this book and that book". How much greater that he goes, "You know I was a failure in business. Let me tell you how I became so successful"? And if you look at Isaiah, God speaks through that prophet and says, "I'm the Lord God that teaches you how to profit". God's will, Moses prayed, actually, twice. Well, he didn't pray this twice. He prayed it with emphasis. He said, "Make our efforts successful" in the book of Psalms in I think it was 90, 91, or 92. And he said it again, "Make our efforts successful". Jabez, "Make me successful:" right? Why? "Because I want to be a witness for your glory". I actually, I hope I'm not dominating this conversation.
Kendal Hagee: No, this is perfect.
Matt Hagee: This is why we brought you here. Kendal gets to listen to me talk all the time.
John Bevere: So I'm sitting across the dinner table in a restaurant in Detroit. And the guy sitting there said, "John, I don't know if I've ever really shared with you my testimony". He said, "I was on the senior design team for General Motors". And he said, "As a member of the senior design team, because we are such a unique team, they would do an analysis on us for our productivity, because we're so important to General Motors' success". He said, "So they would do a cost production analysis on us once a year". And he said, "Basically, the cost production analysis is what our inventions made the company and what our inventions saved the company". They'd add that together to give each employee's cost analysis for the senior design team. He said, "So I'm reading in the book of Daniel that Daniel was ten times wiser, more innovative and creative than the best leaders in Babylon". And he said, "That wasn't his assessment: that was the king of Babylon's assessment". And he said, "I started thinking: Babylon was the most successful nation in the world". These guys come from a little country: right?
Matt Hagee: Yeah.
John Bevere: The leaders in Babylon had been taught by the best scientists, the best leaders, teachers in the world. He's coming up with all these ideas. And Daniel gets promoted. He's coming up with ideas they never thought of. He gets promoted above all of them.
Matt Hagee: Quickly.
John Bevere: Yeah. So he said, "John, I threw my Bible down on the desk when I read this in Daniel: that he distinguished himself among the government officials of Babylon, because Daniel 6:3 says that". He said, "I threw my Bible down". He says, "I should be ten times better than anybody on the senior design team". So he said, "I started praying". What's he doing? He's activating his faith to get that grace. He said, "That year when I started praying, the number two man in the entire senior design team was 30 million dollars," his cost production analysis. He said, "I was the number one man and I was 300 million dollars".
Matt Hagee: Wow. Ten times to the tee.
John Bevere: So he was ten times and that's exactly what he was praying. See, I'm firmly convinced we don't have results like this because we're not praying accurately. We're not believing accurately.
Matt Hagee: You have not because you ask not. And then you ask amiss.
John Bevere: So I wrote this book because I want to, not only do I help people identify their gifts, develop their gifts, but I want people to have the faith to develop their gifts. Because it's no good. I'm not trying to develop your natural abilities. I want the supernatural ability, because the Bible shows that it's actually God's ability that he entrusts to us.
Matt Hagee: Yeah.
John Bevere: I want people to develop that.
Matt Hagee: And you illustrate it so beautifully so many different ways in the book, not only with real-life stories of conversations you've had, but the scriptural foundation for individuals to be able to go search it out in their own Bible and be able to see it for themselves. But over and over, it just echoes as a theme because I mean as you're sitting here discussing this individual, who prayed for a ten-fold increase and his distinguishment above his team, you know, and you're talk about having the faith to activate it: the Bible says, "All things are possible to those that believe". And oftentimes, because we like this sacred secular thing, we say, "I can believe God for a miracle. I can believe God. I can believe God". And God's saying, what if you just believed me for a great idea when you went to work tomorrow? What if you just believed me to answer that question? What if you just believed me to help you have the best Monday that you've had in a long, long time? Because I think so many times we want to give, you know, we want to save our faith for the big things, because we like to think it can be wasted. You know I've only got so many tokens and once I'm done with my faith tokens, I'm just out. But you build faith because you continue to believe that if God can help me do this, then he can help me do this, and he can help me do this.
John Bevere: And when you watch him do it.
Matt Hagee: Yeah.
John Bevere: I mean our prayer should make a difference in this world. And a lot of us pray like it's only going to matter in the next world.
Matt Hagee: And Jesus taught us, "When you pray, pray this way, daily bread, give us this day our daily bread. Give me Monday's bread today because I can't get Tuesday's today".
John Bevere: Right.
Matt Hagee: You know, and so I think that there's a lot of people who are watching. And I think their ears are hearing what we're saying. And there's a part of them that in their heart, they want to believe it. But if you were across the table from, you know, the 20-something-year-old mom, who's wanting to know: am I making a mistake by giving up my career to raise my kids, or the 40-year-old professional who says, "I've done this 20 years and I don't know if I've got another 10 in me:" or the 65-year-old grandfather, who says, "I really hope I'm making a difference". How would you encourage them to believe today that they can multiply their God-given potential?
John Bevere: First of all, I would say, "You have unique gifts in you that all of us need. I mean what God has placed in your life is needed by others. That gift isn't for you". And so the question is, are you going to release, are you going to get into the river and are you going to just float with the river, or are you still going to stay, say ankle deep, knee deep, or waist deep in order so that you can maintain control? Once you really get into that river and you allow the Holy Spirit to lead you in what you were doing, whether it's stay-at-home mom, whether you're walking into a classroom of a public school, whether you're walking into the hospital as a nurse, whatever you do, if you understand that you are uniquely, supernaturally gifted to do that and you begin to believe for that gift to begin to activate, then, I don't care if you're 65, if you're 25, you are going to begin to flourish. Smith Wigglesworth woke up to what was on his life when he was in his 50's. It's not too late.
Matt Hagee: Amen.
John Bevere: We need your gifts. Whether you're 80, whether you're 60, whether you're 40, whether you're 20, whether you're 10: we need your gifts in the body, because those gifts aren't in me and I need what you have. Because the body builds itself up by what every part contributes. And what the part contributes is supernatural abilities. So I want to believe for you right now that God will put his grace upon you in such a profound way. And the Bible doesn't say, come sheepishly to the throne of grace. It says, "Come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in a time of need". There is need in your world right now. And so there needs to be grace, charisma manifesting for that world that is in need. And God will lead you to the people that your unique gifting will benefit. And so Father, I pray for every single person watching this program. In the name of Jesus, Lord God, you have placed at least one but probably many gifts upon this man or woman who's listening right now. And I'm asking in the name of Jesus that their faith would grow: that they may receive the grace of God to be able to change their world and build your kingdom, Lord, in such a way that will bring joy and pleasure to your heart. I commit this man or woman to you, and I pray that as they continue to read your word, the Holy Spirit, you'll open up more revelation to them. Because Jesus said the church would be built on revelation knowledge. Open up that revelation that will make them effective in their world of influence. In Jesus' name, we pray. Matt, Kendal, and I agree, in Jesus' name, that this is done. Amen.
Matt Hagee: Amen.
Kendal Hagee: Amen.
Matt Hagee: When we come back, we're going to have one more final segment so that you can see how God is using everyday people like yourself to change lives all over the world. You don't want to miss it. We'll be right back on "The Difference".
Matt Hagee: John, one of the things that you and Lisa have partnered with Kendal and I on and believing to see change a generation, is our sanctuary of hope.
John Bevere: Oh, I love that.
Matt Hagee: It's another place where the unseen is doing even greater things than the seen: you know? People see the facility. People see the lives of the children that are coming there and the young ladies that are finding a refuge where they can have their baby and give it a life sentence instead of a death sentence.
John Bevere: Yes.
Matt Hagee: But without hundreds of people willingly saying, "I'll be an unseen part of that work," and making the difference in the lives of those individuals who are there, we don't have the ability, not only to accomplish the work today, but not to see the harvest of that work tomorrow.
John Bevere: It's the most beautiful collection of buildings. It's so well done. And I think about when a person is pulled out of a death sentence, pulled out of a hopeless situation, they become so grateful.
Matt Hagee: Would you just close our program by praying for people, who are watching: that not only would they be encouraged, but that they wouldn't give up: and that they would recognize that God's plan and purpose for them is greater than they could ask, think, or imagine?
John Bevere: Absolutely. You know, I'm reminded, Father, in Jesus' name, of what the apostle Paul wrote. He said that he would keep you strong to the end: that you might be found blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ: for it is God who works in you, my brother and sister, not only just to will to do his will, but to do it. So Father, I'm asking that your empowerment, the spirit of the living God, would be upon every man and woman that is watching right now. I speak strength into your heart. I speak strength into your mind. I speak, in Jesus' name, endurance into your life. Jesus prayed, not that Peter would avoid the trial, but that he would not lose his faith. So Father, I pray that faith would actually grow. When the enemy tries to discourage, when the enemy tries to throw down, when the enemy tries to stop, which he will not do with any brother or sister watching this program right now: I pray that their faith would not fail, but actually that their faith would grow and mature and develop through these situations. And so Lord God, in Jesus' name, we pray today that every single person watching this program would now not only discover their gifts and operate in their unique giftings that you've placed on their life, but that they would multiply them for your glory, honor and praise, in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.
Kendal Hagee: Amen.
Matt Hagee: Kendal and I want to thank you for joining us today. We want to thank you for all that you do to make an impact for God's glory on this earth. The book is titled "X" but the content is about Multiplying Your God-Given Potential. God bless you and thank you for being with us today on "The Difference".