Mike Bickle emphasizes the Lord's intention to create an international family of affection, highlighting the need for believers to embrace shifts and changes within the body of Christ rather than resist them. He shares a profound revelation received during a trance, stating that those with a control spirit cannot fully experience God's kingdom, which includes possessiveness and territorial attitudes. Bickle encourages the congregation to relinquish personal rights and celebrate the movement of people across different ministries, as this aligns with God's purpose for unity and growth. He warns that the upcoming season of increase will require a kingdom mindset to avoid the pitfalls of anxiety and division that often accompany prosperity.

Really hear from your heart tonight. We thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen. Tonight I want to talk about the Lord's purpose to raise up an international family of affection. It's a phrase that he gave me back in October 1990. He spoke to me on two different installments, I'll say, in a very dramatic way, and I want to give a little bit of the story of what had happened and then to apply it to our context in this hour here at IHOP. In 1990, I was on a 30-day trip to the UK. I was with John Wimber, and John Wimber brought from the United States about one or two hundred people on this huge ministry trip. We had five main conferences and just a multitude of satellite conferences, and we just went throughout the length of the land throughout the UK and Wales and Ireland, Scotland and England, etc., and I mean the different main cities, the capital cities, actually, and others as well. And at this time, it would have been the most significant month in John Wimber's ministry in terms of the amount of people that he spoke to in person. They estimated that 50,000 people registered for these conferences. I mean, they were huge conferences just all over the land, and that was an exciting time, and many of you know the name John Wimber in the vineyard ministry. Some of you wouldn't be familiar with that name, but I was traveling with John for three years right about that time, and the Lord spoke, and he said that he was going to be shifting things in the body of Christ and realigning and reassigning people throughout the body of Christ strategically, and he was doing this in order to establish an international family of affection. This is what is on his heart. This is what he wants, and he would be moving people around and placing them strategically at different streams and tribes in the body of Christ, and the Lord wanted his people to understand this and celebrate it and rejoice in it instead of resisting it. Now, it's our natural way to resist shifts and changes of people that we love and care for, and the body of Christ typically, when somebody says, I got to make a move and I got to do this and that, often they'll say no, no, and they'll try to talk them out of it, but the Lord's into this. I don't mean everybody who has an idea to do something different, the Lord's in, but but he's strategically doing this in a global way. Now, this shifting concept and process is also happening in a local way here in our IHOP missions base. I anticipate, I can sense it very clearly, that 2007 is a year of a lot of growth and a lot of shifting and changes, and I'm not saying that so much by the spirit, I'm saying that more by the natural. I can see the process is already in place in the natural in about five or six areas where some significant increase, particularly God TV, beginning to be significantly involved in transporting across the nations the message in the prayer room from here, but there's several other things as well, and this is going to bring increase, it's going to bring stress, there's going to be some shifting, departments are going to be shifting, and one guy is going to leave this department, go to another, worship teams will be shifting, of course that will always be happening, and the Lord even has a purpose in some of this shifting, just like in the grander scale and the global dimension, he's doing it strategically so that he joins people in new ways and for very specific purposes, but he's also doing it locally within ministries to have an impact to join people together in new combinations, so that was part one of the word that he was going to shift things and establish an international family of affection that we should rejoice and go and say yes to him and not resist this, and that's a huge thing because we naturally resist changes of people that we really love and care about. Paragraph b, this encounter with the Lord went to another level, is that I was caught up in a trance on October 5th, 1990. I've had a couple trances in 30 years and what a trance is, from my understanding, it's when you're in a dream vision state but you're fully aware of everything going on around you but you're seeing clearly like in a dream state. I've had that happen several times where I heard the cars, it was four o'clock in the morning but the cars were, I could hear them out there honking and people talking and I was awake and yet I'm seeing the Lord face to face and the rest of the hotel room I don't see because it's in a dream state but I hear everything going around me. I heard people down the hallway and doors shutting at four in the morning and so you're fully awake but you're completely caught up in a in a living interactive dream state and the Lord was standing there talking to me face to face and He gave me one of the most significant revelations, obviously if He's going to speak at that level it's going to be very significant and I was to speak this at this conference at these five main conferences, I was to speak this revelation that He gave me and at that time I thought that was the point of it but as the years have gone by, I've come to understand that this word was really mostly for IHOP for such a time as this. That as I had the dramatic experience in August 1984 when I had the heavenly visitation, I thought it was for then but that's mostly about IHOP and this international youth movement that the Lord has spoken about so often that He's raising up around the world sovereignly in all nations. It's a wonderful thing to behold and so the Lord often gives words you know a decade or two or longer before the word has its primary application so that when you're in the midst of it several decades later there's not a chance at all that it was fabricated or that it was adjusted to meet the need of the hour because you have the decades, several decades of time in order to for the word to season and to be established and to get clarity about it but I feel confident that the word the Lord spoke to me on October 5th 1990 though it was applicable in that hour for me and for the people that I was speaking to, it is mostly was given to me for this group of people right here. I'm talking about the IHOP missions base and for such a time as this and here's what He said, He said to me very strong. He said this sentence, He goes no one with a control spirit, no one with a control spirit can fully experience my kingdom. Of course instantly a control spirit I'm not understanding exactly what He means by this but I see Him with my eyes, not in my mind's eye but I actually with my eyes I'm looking straight at Him. He says no one with the control spirit can fully experience my kingdom. Paragraph C, then the Holy Spirit spoke to me in this in this trance state that a control spirit consists of a spirit of possessiveness and a and religious opinions. This was the the phrases He gave clearly. It was a spirit of possessiveness that we would feel possessive and territorial is another word that I'll add on. Now I always thought a control spirit was somebody that was a little pushy or a little nosy you know like well that person's got a control spirit but a control spirit is not just a person that needs a little tweaking on their personality on you know on their relational skills. A control spirit is a very important significant negative thing. I mean it's important to discern this and the control spirit I believe is operating powerfully in the body of Christ today that we have strong powerful religious opinions against other ministries and God's doing something that we don't have a clue what He's doing. We don't know why He told them to do it or what He's even about in telling them to do it. You know if all the information was put out on the table that could be known about why somebody's going to make this move or that move if all the information was known we would still know less than one percent of why the Lord's telling the person to do that. And so the Lord was saying this He goes I don't want a control spirit. I don't want a spirit of possessiveness or territorial uh you know where we have the sense of ownership. We own the people and the resources that God has put into our hands. Beloved when the blessing of the Lord comes and the Lord puts resources in your hands and in mine and people and influence we do not own that influence. It's not ours to decide what to do with. Though it's very common to just kind of proceed business as usual it offends the Lord and the Spirit of God is is not happy with that approach especially when He gives increase in prosperity and in an intentional definitive way when the Lord blesses somebody whether it's money, honor, influence and it's clearly the work of God He takes it personal if the people don't see that it's from His hand and for His purposes. Paragraph D the Lord continued to look right into my eyes and He said this all personal rights must be relinquished. Paragraph E the Holy Spirit gave me two verses Psalm 24 1 the earth is the Lord's and all that it contains and those who dwell therein the earth is the Lord's and all it contains all of the money all of the resources and all of the people that live in the earth belong to the Lord. So the Holy Spirit spoke this He said the earth is the Lord's and the idea is the Lord I didn't understand that now I mean then but I understand it now that I'm going to bring many many people much resource much influence to IHOP but it is mine and I want the leadership team I want the worship teams I want the department heads I want them to live as though I own their worship teams they do not own them though they've invested themselves in them same with department heads we'll have different move uh you know we have maybe 20 departments in the missions base here and and people make changes and sometimes that disrupts some of the leaders ahead of departments because they've got everything just fixed and then the person shifts over and it just kind of uh it's very natural I understand that I've had that uh that negative emotion uh several times myself over the years and I understand it but the first thing the Lord wants us to do when change comes is to say this Lord what are you saying what is your will our our natural response is to say no to talk the person out of it to resist it to maybe go behind the scenes but what he wants us to do is exactly opposite he wants us to take a step back to ask the the the added the extra question to take the extra step and to dial down and to actually ask him what are you saying what do you want in this and if we will do that then we will have in place an opportunity to resist this controlled spirit that is just naturally a part of of who we are and when we gather together the Holy Spirit said the next thing revelation 410 he says they shall cast their crowns before him they shall cast their crowns before him now the 24 elders I believe are the redeemed are literally 24 men or women from history and the crowns are that which they did in obedience and in sacrifice I mean costly sacrificial obedience and the Lord rewards them with crowns I mean these were things that were costly these were things that were right they were in the Holy Spirit they had right attitudes and the Lord gives them crowns but when they see the full truth before the Lord of who he is and what the real truth is about how they did it and where their dedication and how much the Lord rewarded them the elders they cast their crowns these these uh accomplishments in the spirit that were achieved in the right way with the right spirit with devotion and obedience and faith they said no they're yours oh God and they cast them down before him this isn't giving up wrong things this is yielding the right things that are rightfully ours I mean when the Lord gives you a crown that crown's really yours and you really deserved it from his point of view but he said even if you deserve it and it's really yours and you you obtained it in the right spirit in the right way still the Holy Spirit said in this trance cast the crowns before him that's the only safe way to go forward now paragraph g the Lord in this experience this is the first day I mean the first day of the 30 days just arrived and the Lord tells me I want you to say these things in these conferences now again there's 50,000 people signed up at these four five main conferences and all the satellites and what what uh many of you won't know is that at that time 1990 there was a lot of controversy coming against me coming against what was called the Kansas city prophets there was no real there was no really such a group and all honestly there's about 15 or 20 people that people out and about clustered together half of them didn't live here and most of them didn't even like each other but they were they were clustered together as as this defined team that was establishing this new order of Christianity it was all uh kind of a strange thing to uh to hear the stories of these Kansas city prophets that uh and uh and the perception of it but anyway a lot of negative things were said and put on websites and even to this day those things from the websites from 88 and 89 and 90 I mean 89 and 90 are still up and and people look at them and and they were uh there were on many of the front covers of Christian magazines throughout the western world they would talk about the Kansas city controversy it was a quite well-known thing and this these conferences were these 50,000 coming these satellite conferences in this 30-day period they were all very aware of the Kansas city controversy and the prophets are they real are they not real are they false what's what meaneth thou this why does John Wimber bring them to England there was just a whole lot of a hubbub uh about this whole thing of the of the prophets so the Lord says to me in this trance I want you to say these things in other words say that no one with the control spirit will fully experience the kingdom of God you must relinquish all of your rights you must lay your crowns down like I'm going to say this to the leadership of the United Kingdom and so I tell the Lord I said Lord I actually say this phrase I go I can't I'm in a controversy and the Holy Spirit thundered I have a controversy with my people and it went through my being like thunder I have a controversy with my people now that controversy related to the control spirit and I was supposed to say this to thousands of people and I was the one on trial not them they were trying to figure out if I was a cult leader or not that that kind of was one of the secondary questions they wanted to settle in 10 of these conferences and so after this trance is over paragraph h the spirit I'm wide awake I mean I'm awake through it it's just you're in a dream state talking to the Lord face to face I mean the room was kind of like in a like clouds all around I'm looking at a face to face and then it lifts and I'm just wide awake there and I and I am just absolutely awestruck by the by by this experience and trembling and I have this mandate I have to say this and so what happens and remember what the Lord said into it it says nobody with the control spirit will fully experience my kingdom and the Holy Spirit spoke in in the context of this and he said that that it means kingdom power manifestations of power and then the spirit of power hit my body in such a strong and a violent way I've never experienced anything like this and my body it touched me violently my body was just just completely uh being uh disturbed by the Holy Spirit I don't know how to say it it just I was shaking and trembling and I didn't know what was going on it was four in the morning I was wide awake and I don't know what's happening to my body and the Holy Spirit just put a token of his power touching me now I didn't realize that he was going to release that power in the meetings when I gave this utterance I didn't know that was going to happen but it did throughout that 30 days and I didn't actually realize more specifically is that was a token of the power that he is going to release when his people live free of a control spirit and the message was more about IHOP and this hour it was about 15 20 years ahead with this young adult movement he was speaking then about now even though I I was to to give uh this I was to say this at that time and the Lord bore witness to it in power but now I understand the Lord was saying that was a token that was a down payment it's about now because I'm about to bring the Lord's about to bring significant increase to IHOP in the next five and ten years the the uh voice of what the Lord wants to be said is going to go through from this place in in dramatic ways around the world and I'm saying that actually with uh with a sense of apprehension because I know when this kind of thing happens often more negative happens than we ever imagined when when the Lord orchestrates this kind of thing well the power of God hits me in a dramatic way so I go and I tell John Wimbert and I'm saying John I said I had the most incredible terrifying experience this morning I see him later on that that uh that morning and I said you know you're the apostolic authority here you know I'm a young guy and you're the old guy I said I submit this to you and uh I don't want to say it I figure if I submit it to him you know play the humility card I can get out of this thing and John goes great he goes I'll use my apostolic authority he said tongue-in-cheek and I then will tell you to get up and speak it I said oh no I said no John I just don't feel like you know I feel like there's a lot of questions about who I am what I'm about that wouldn't really be the most appropriate he said well if you're if you say I have the authority well then let me use it get up and speak it and obey God oh great so I I get up I'll just tell one of the one of the experiences I'm at one of the meetings there's 8 000 people there and many of the of prominent leaders in the body of Christ in England 20 years 30 years older than I am established ministries a lot of credibility they're sitting throughout the audience and I'm supposed to say this and and the implication is clear you guys have a controlled spirit and I'm here to set you straight you know like oh my goodness I am not going to say this and so John uh gives me uh one of the sessions and and I mean I am really insecure I am really nervous I am just completely uncomfortable doing this and so you know I didn't have to say it in a certain way I just had to mutter it I just had to uh you know and so I got up and I looked down I wrote it down and I looked down and I said and the Lord says that nobody with a controlled spirit will fully experience his kingdom you must relinquish all your personal rights okay the Lord has a controversy with you okay I said it's so pathetic but I did say it I looked down I did not look up I truly did I'd love to tell it the other way but it wouldn't be true and so I had people stand up I go this relates to anybody you know if you just pray on your own or whatever you know and I had them stand up and I don't remember I just know there were 8,000 people in in at the conference you know the there was a huge auditorium like Barlow Hall and and you know maybe a couple thousand people came down forward and I thought I just was so uncomfortable I was embarrassed saying this because again you don't probably fully grasp all of that was in the air negative and and I was the guy on trial not them but in the Lord's court he says no no I want my people free of this and so they come forward and I just say Lord release your power I mean I don't raise my voice I just Lord release your power and the power that hit me on my bed on October 5th at four in the morning hit these people standing up there and hundreds of people went just flying back under the power of God demons were coming out of multitudes of they're on the ground like bacon like frying bacon they're in convulsions I mean demons coming out and manifestations and and different folks came to me afterwards what was that and it was a power release that I have never seen uh it was several times actually with Paul Kane I'd seen things like that and with John Wimber as well but certainly never in my ministry before or after have I ever seen anything of that magnitude it happened a couple times in that 30-day period and I mean I was so weak and and just kind of pause and just go off that for a minute you know it's not our personalities that help the Holy Spirit out I mean we kind of get this you know man of God on the mountain and we're going to come down here and we're going to just by the force of personality help the Holy Spirit who's hovered over the face of the earth and power and we're going to help him uh have power you know like and if I really feel jazzed up and the Holy Spirit's relieved because then he could really be powerful as long as Mike's jazzed up but if you know if I'm weak within you're like oh no he's in a bad mood it's not going to work now you know the father says to the son it's nothing like that it's nothing like that at all it was the absolute it was pathetic in in the in the sense of leading a ministry times lord let's do something and power hits and this happened a couple times and I was really awestruck I couldn't get way to get home to try it out on my church you know and had a few folks I thought that should get hit by this you know and well I came home it went flat and nothing happened at home and so it was a you know total zero on that but uh the lord wasn't even he wasn't the point of it now I understand was I'm that's not even what I'm wanting to release right now through you but I want you to know that's a token of what is coming I will release the power of the resurrection and it will be effortless on the human being's part all they will do is say what I tell them to say and they can say it in the weakest frame that they can say it and my my uh power of the resurrection will move without any hindrance when my people declare it when they're in unity with me I remember once I'll just tell another story I I'm just remembering a similar thing when I went to the big catholic charismatic conference in Italy and there were 58 000 people at the conference and uh this old priest in his 80s was sitting on a chair and uh he did the same thing he he muttered this little prayer and they were translating and I heard he says lord help your people lord visit your people and thousands of people I mean one or two thousand at least or three thousand or more you can't count it demons were coming out of people with such force and power people were flying back and on the floor again just like a like a bacon on a frying pan with the the energy of god was on them and the conflict of two realms was it was the most remarkable thing I'd ever seen in my life of that magnitude I just uh just I'm recalling that as I'm sitting here as I'm standing here you're sitting here and uh the the the idea that the spirit moves when he wants to sometimes people think well this is kind of like a bad atmosphere nothing's happening you don't have a clue what's going to happen next the holy spirit is so powerful and he so does not need us to be in a good move mood to move through us paragraph j or i i come home and i'm not going to spend much time on this point but it's significant and i've never really shared this publicly i came on with bob joe and bob jones i talked to him i got right off the airplane and came and i had a meeting with him and he said i had a visitation of the lord he said i saw i saw the lord visit you he goes the lord stood before you he says you stood before the lord didn't you i said bob i did on october 5th he says yeah that's about it was right about then he didn't have the date actually he said it was right at the beginning of this 30 days that you've been gone he said the lord gave me genesis chapter 28 and he's gonna he's going to he's going to release genesis 28 you're gonna see this release and the reason i'm mentioning it now i don't want to develop it right here is that this genesis 28 that i have written there were where the angels of god were ascending and descending as jacob who was the manipulator he was the deceptive one when when he uh wrestled with god and god changed him in chapter 32 the power of god was released in jacob's life and then and he was telling me bob was saying that in the days to come this young adult movement you're gonna see the the ladder of god being released in the lord's timing in the midst of these people and the ladder of god is this angels ascending and descending he said so whatever the lord told you when he met you face to face in that encounter uh he will release power it will be the angels of god breaking in and it and it was clearly nothing short of the angels touching these people to the power of the holy spirit in these ministry times and the and the thing that excites me and and challenges me is this this is the kind of power that god is wanting to give to his people that's the exciting thing the challenge is he is serious that no one who operates in a controlled spirit will move in this power no one this ihop will not move in that kind of power except we face the controlled spirit and we relinquish our rights in a deep in a consistent way before the lord now we're not going to earn his power that's not the point it's just that if we still are using god's power for our own means of possessiveness which so often happens in the kingdom of god when god gives the greater dimensions of power and these issues are not dealt with in our heart we will use the power of god for our own means if we cannot release the money and the honor and and the influence without the power we will never have the ability to release it to god when we have the power and it's very clear that many people have a a little bit of power right now you know if i was talking on a scale of one to ten which it's uh you know it's a not a an accurate way to even talk about this you know there's a few ministries in the world today that have level two or level three of power there's a handful that's not what he's talking about experiencing the fully experiencing my kingdom he's talking about a level eight nine and ten it's not existing in the world right now that i can see it might be happening in the underground church in china somewhere like that but it is not happening anywhere that's observable the kind of power that i'm talking about and the the lower the lower measures of power a little bit here and there but beloved we god has postured us and called us to be to be believing him and be in the way of the deeper and the greater measures of his power this was for the young adult prayer movement not just here all over the world this promise is for this young adult prayer movement but god is insisting what jesus said they cannot operate in a controlled spirit and just to say it again a control spirit is that somebody's a little pushy and a little nosy and kind of bugs you that's not a control spirit that's just kind of you know a little personality quirks a control spirit is a possessiveness and territorialism that is so easily all of us are are just easily operate in that it's just a very very easy thing to do it it takes the grace of god not to operate in it so when i say control spirit i'm not talking about a demon spirit i'm talking about an attitude it's an attitude that what god has given me is mine even lord i'll bless you but it's mine top of page two our inheritance in god in this age and in the age to come we have an and here's the principle of the inheritance this very important principle of our inheritance we have an eternal inheritance in every person every city every ministry that we've ever sewed into with love now if you have sewed in which hopefully all of you then the city you were before here and almost everybody that's a part of ihop came from another city besides kansas city the 98 plus if you put time labor intercession blood sweat tears money in any ministry in any person in any city you have an inheritance in this age and in the age to come with that person that city that ministry because you move the inheritance is not over at all it's not remotely over however if you don't celebrate in the in the shifting in the changing you lose the joy of that inheritance at this age you don't lose the inheritance inheritance is still yours but you lose the joy of it you can't feel the power of it but it's still yours from god's point of view jesus said in matthew chapter in luke chapter 6 verse 38 give now that's time money love prayer tears encouragement just put what you want in that uh in that verb give and the lord says i will return it back to you i will give it back to you and i'm going to multiply it good measured press down shake it together running over in four different descriptions of how it multiplies it is impossible for you to pray for saudi arabia without having an inheritance even though you're here and have never been there you have an inheritance in every place in every person you've ever prayed for that's how it works you cannot give without it returning back to you in god's kingdom god will cause it to be running over he'll put it into your bosom it will touch the deepest places of your heart it will be meaningful and it will be powerful when the person that you've taught or encouraged or or blessed in any way it will be returned and jesus went on to say for this for with the same measure that you use what god has given you time energy money tears prayer whatever measure you use it will be measured back to you there's many passages in the word of god that that uh verify and confirm this reality so we have people that have been a of this spiritual family and the lord has many i mean hundreds over the seven years have been here and they're in another place and the lord wants them to know that they have a profound inheritance here and we as a spiritual family can't say they have an inheritance with them it's real and if we celebrate and bless the moving and the shifting we enjoy the inheritance we can see it when we bless then we can see the inheritance when we don't bless we just ignore it or we don't or we get a wrong attitude about it or we have a spirit of judgment about it the inheritance is still there because you cannot give without it being returned back to you we just don't enjoy it we cannot see it and it's a most marvelous thing as god is raising up this international family of affection like i'm thinking and just you know in some real prominent ways i'm thinking of of a kirk and d in north carolina and all the families that went from here to there they have a major portion in this place even now and we have a major portion with them and what they're doing i'm thinking of the humphreys in atlanta we have an inheritance with them they have an inheritance here the walsh is in new zealand and the list goes on and on i think of nick and maggie uh siren in in in jerusalem and rose margo and and carol and and and the inrights and different ones that had a place here and if we if we bless them if we get behind them and bless them and rejoice and celebrate it's a wonderful reality now what happened what's happened in a number of of people that have come to kansas city to be part of ihop in the last seven years it's that the place because you know you know so many i mean you know probably a couple thousand by now if we added them all up that have come here for a season many of them the group back home was annoyed they said you can't go there and they viewed you as a resource that would help their ministry that they were losing and so they said bah humbug in various ways and so you came anyway and your feelings were hurt some of you and so you said bah humbug back and you're saying well i don't need to go there anyway i'm you know dusting the you know shaking the dust off my feet i'm just done with it and the lord's saying no no don't do that don't do that if they would bless you they would have a bag of gold here in kansas city that is theirs in relationships but in spiritual reality what is happening there would touch them in a way that would really matter and so if they don't bless you coming because if you've come and you've been sent by the lord and 99.9 percent that have come have been sent by the lord it's a very simple thing that's not a hard thing uh you don't think oh no i'm probably the one who didn't no don't go there i rebuke that spirit then then they have an inheritance with you but it goes the other way around even if they're annoyed at you and it's really kind of a compliment the only reason they're annoyed is because they actually they like you it's a backdoor compliment you know someone goes boy they're really mad at me i go they really like you see the see the upside of it if they said i don't care if you go i said then you should be a little bit like hey what do you mean but even if a little if some of them are annoyed if you are blessing them back you still have an inheritance with them and it's alive and you can feel it and you can you can't see the inheritance if you're not blessing and if you're not rejoicing you can't see it it seems like it's gone far away and it's not paragraph b the lord is orchestrating strategic shifts realignments he's taking some main families from all the different streams and tribes in the body of christ and he's intermingling them with other streams and other tribes in the body of christ he's doing it strategically and when the lord shows us this we don't want to be in a religious opinions we don't want to have a control spirit and say that can't be god i mean how could it be god if you're leaving because you're not going to be by me it can't be god besides he didn't tell me anyway and the analogy that i use is through history the the kings of europe uh would have their children marry into another royal family of another nation and the reason is because one nation wanted an inheritance in the other nation and actually worked but and they were trying to stop wars many times it didn't stop the war the war came a little bit later and had a different twist to it but that was the idea but the holy spirit's doing that right now he's taking the best from one stream and just sovereignly putting them in another stream long term or short term we don't have to know again if all the knowledge was out and you could know all the knowledge that was known in the natural realm as to why in what we still wouldn't know more than one percent of of what the lord knows about why he's sending them here or sending them there or vice versa or verse visa but if we will if we will take a step back and say lord we we celebrate what you're doing we're not resisting it we love this and the lord is pleased with that and so many good things can uh connect in a very very powerful way okay paragraph f we naturally seek it's very natural to protect our honor our money our influence our relationships we naturally seek to protect our honor our money our influence our relationships that's the most natural thing to do a spirit of self-protectiveness creates anxiety when one of the key people the key people on your worship team is now they're going to join another worship team it's like the most natural thing to do is go that can't be god i bind it in the name of jesus or the same with the moving of departments or the same of of people from our midst the lord putting in other streams or the lord taking people from other tribes and putting them here and when they come we are to receive with celebration the stream or the people they came from we are to it doesn't mean we have to agree with everything they ever said or did but we see the goodness of it we go this is a marvelous thing the end the inheritance level is going up and this is what the lord wants he wants an international family of affection but the spirit of control will actually stop this from happening and it's the most natural thing to do is to operate in spirit of control it creates anxiety division and so much unnecessary pain we need to be cheerleaders for one another no matter if they stay or go or stay and go three different cycles we are cheerleaders for the international body of christ in the family of god now when we celebrate with a free spirit then there's unity and increase happens if we can celebrate the change even though we might be the we might have a momentary sense of loss if we celebrate it then we have a free spirit and unity and connectedness and i tell you because you've given it will be returned to you in this age in the age to come there will be so much increase in goodness but we just by nature have a paradigm that says no when something in our downline in our sphere of influence is going to go to another person's sphere of influence whether it's locally within the i-hop world or whether it's internationally from one stream to another there's something in us that just automatically says no or if the lord sends you just to say i'm losing my inheritance and beloved we only lose it if we get into a wrong i mean we don't we don't ever lose it but we only lose the joy of it if we get into a wrong spirit but if as a people if we sew this into our dna we can celebrate the coming and going of of all kinds of people for years with an open-handed and free spirit and have a just have a ton of fun when it's cut when it's happening paragraph g there is more anxiety in prosperity than poverty it's really true in poverty and i'm not i'm not talking about starvation poverty there's some significant anxiety there i'm just talking about in and having lack i'd rather say it that way and most people feel they have lack it's a it's a you know i they don't have much money much honor much influence and they don't have much to protect and they imagine if they had a you know a worldwide influence or they had millions of dollars and they had a significant uh place of honor that they would just be stellar and what they don't know is that more honor money and influence actually creates a whole lot more anxiety unless that we have really embraced the kingdom spirit but this is the hour to do it because i see the lord and again i say this with trepidation i see the lord visiting ihop and i see all kinds of of honor and finance and and uh influence and prestige and then things are going to take a spin on it and people are gonna i mean you know if if if five if five worship teams in our midst sang a song and sold a million copies each one of the five it would create so much confusion in our midst well i kind of helped with that song too and i don't like her spirit or his spirit they're taking the money and the credit and they wouldn't even matter if nobody ever would have sang the song besides you know just in that meeting i mean prosperity creates tremendous stress and tremendous anxiety tremendous uh things that are in our hearts come to the surface and so the lord's telling us ahead of time through this trance you know 16 years ago don't have a control spirit i hop that word was for us i'm about to visit you and it will actually it will be paragraph h here i go we're approaching a season of increase this is glorious yet it's a very dangerous time for a ministry because history shows us that many many ministries over history i can i can uh i can describe several of them just out of my own experience in 35 years of walk with the lord they have a five or ten year season of increase maybe even a few years less but ten years later they are spiritually set back because of the increase you know when they're in the midst of it they think man it couldn't get better than this this is from here to the end the season of increase passes another five or ten years pass a whole lot of negativity happened a lot of wrong attitudes there was not a kingdom atmosphere there was not a kingdom attitude in the midst while the increase was going in relationships are broken and people are jaded and they're bruised and ten years later that ministry is actually far worse off than if it never would have had that time of increase so time of increase is actually a dangerous time it could be a time of tremendous setback so when the lord says no one with a controlled spirit will fully experience my kingdom he's talking about the power of the kingdom but i'm i'm looking at this and i'm saying lord this is a serious time we're approaching and it's going to have an element of kind of having a little bit of fun to it kind of exciting because some of it will be new but it will get old pretty quick you know it's kind of new for there'll be some excitement some extra attention and you know on tv and things will happen and people will come and wow you'll be on tv hi mom you'll do that a couple times and you'll quit doing that and you'll get old it'll become nothing in a little bit of time i mean it will it's like everything it has its day and then it's then it's different but i feel very sober about this about the season that's in front of us and i feel uh you know i went in our dna that we're going to ask paragraph i mean roman number three the kingdom question that i want this just sewed into our uh into our spiritual dna that when the lord blesses us the automatic question that we ask we take the extra step in the decision making process and we actually quiet ourself and sincerely ask the question lord what do you want what do you want you know the big opportunity comes and everybody's excited and the most natural thing is wow it's a win-win for everybody why not and the lord says you know what it's not your influence it's not your money it's not even your story i invited you to it it's my story and the truth is i don't want you to do it well lord it's a great opportunity everybody's happy everybody makes money everybody gets honor i mean what's the big deal and the lord wants us sober about this because it is dangerous to go forward and increase without the spirit paragraph b top of page three we naturally make decisions the most natural thing for us to do is make decisions that give us an advantage over others whether it's a department head i mean department leaders moving between i mean people moving between departments or worship teams or people moving in between different streams in the body of christ or or our relationship to other ministries the most natural thing to do is to decide that which gives us the advantage without even asking the lord what he wanted the most natural thing to do is take the highest price that you can get that's natural that's the problem it's natural and sometimes in our alliances we have some real significant kingdom alliances that were born of the holy spirit and in our alliances there are going to be occasions and many where the lord wants us not to have the upper hand not to have the advantage of the situation to actually lose some of what we could have had because it was the will of god for the other stream to get the greater blessing kind of you know the way you do you sit around the table and whoever kind of has the greater finesse of negotiation and you know they can kind of make the deal happen the lord says that's the world and my kingdom when i bring ministries together i want you to sit around the table all your agendas are open you ask the holy spirit you do what i tell you to do that's the way forward and that's the dna we want in this place because many of you are going to have all kinds of deals and opportunities in the decades to come i think it's going to surprise you at the amount of of opportunity that's actually going to happen in this prayer movement i don't mean just here i'm talking about with with kirk and d and and billy and and the and walsh's prayer movements everywhere there's god is about the prayer movement establishing it in the earth i think of some of the strategic alliances though that the lord has put us in i mean really sovereign ones with with ywam we have a dynamic relationship with ywam and the two names i think uh of first john dawson and mark anderson we have this dynamic connection this family tie and the lord wants us to interact with them in a way where they get more of the stuff than we get when we interact with them they actually get the better deal he he wants us to go into those relationships with that mindset i mean for real not just kind of a cool announcement but for reality another uh really a strategic alliance that we have is with asher and trader and the tikkun team over in israel and coach mccartney uh and his uh ministry touching israel who's connected to these guys and i'm thinking of these kingdom alliances i think of lou engel and the call is the law as he's had these seven uh calls in so you know in stadiums a number of them and he's revving it up again so to speak i mean the lord's recommissioned him to relaunch it he's going to go to stadiums around the world and the lord has called us to be together to celebrate uh what's happening and then the most recent of course and and the hugest in terms of numbers is with uh uh god tv and roy and wendy alec and that's going to bring so many opportunities but the lord wants us to approach these uh relationships with not what can we get from them that they will give to us but it's a very opposite spirit it's holy spirit what would you like to happen even if we give more than we get back now i realize that most of you aren't involved in even any of the decisions related to any of that right now but i want this dna in your spirit i want you to to have a an inclination a mindset that is seeking the mind of the spirit not just the sure advantage and so i want to obey this word as a movement do not have a controlled spirit you must relinquish all of your personal rights i want us to obey this from the newest intern to the most seasoned leader among us leading the departments and the schools and all the different things i want this thing straight through every level i want the new ones uh impacted with this spirit paragraph uh g paragraph g this passage that was we're so familiar with this one thing i've desired of the lord psalm 27 4 i dwell the house of the lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty and we never do the end to ask the lord what he wants to inquire of the lord it's not only about gazing on beauty that's the beginning that's the fountain we can we never graduate from that for billions of years that will be our primary calling but david said and to ask god what he wants this is one of the most powerful characteristics of king david it said in prosperity david didn't own the kingdom the kingdom was always god's when he his greatest at the height of his power and influence it was still god's kingdom in his mind it's the most remarkable thing i think this is one of the truly remarkable things about david the only thing that i uh even think is more remarkable is how much confidence he had in god's mercy i mean this guy could blow it and be right back as a first-class citizen by the end of the day as though nothing ever happened i mean this guy is like wow but david had this ability to have tremendous prosperity and it never dawned on him it was his that is so rare in the earth and i'd look at ihop in the next 10 and 20 and 30 years of the lord terry's there's going to be significant increase and there's going to be 20 30 40 50 one or 200 leaders and a number of you are sitting here and some of you are 20 right now and you'll be main leaders in the ihop world and these you know one or 200 leaders that make the decisions the lord i am so jealous that this spirit is in us look at the next passage in samuel chapter 5 second samuel 5 it's the one right there which we're not even going to go through it but here's the point is that king david when he was attacked by the philistines the philistines twice in this passage two different times he's attacked by the philistines he could have wiped out the philistines easily but before he would dare attack he asked the lord he went he told the the leader of the army go hang on hang on he went into gaze on the beauty of the lord and he inquired both times he inquired he said lord are you in this are you in this i mean david get with it we got you know we're uh you know 50 wins no losses of course he's in it let's go david goes no no i'm not going on yesterday's blessing because my point isn't even just about increasing the kingdom i want to do the will of god and david paused to inquire this is a huge part about david's life go to paragraph h this is the most one of the most remarkable things about david the second samuel chapter verse one it is so remarkable i i want this to really get a hold of you it said what had happened is david has just finished seven or eight years running from saul in the wilderness here's king saul he's got an army of three thousand men whose commission is to kill david to kill him three thousand men against david he's been running seven or eight years the prophet samuel the great prophet who with all of israel respected has already said on several occasions you are the king of israel thus says the lord david knows he's king of israel can't lose saul dies and when saul dies all of david's guys going you're the king of israel this is awesome because all that saul had left because his sons died in the battle with him he only had one son left who was a man who was not a man of war and he was not a politician he was a weak son terms of military and political might he was absolutely zero hindrance for david david could have taken him out within an afternoon and so his guys go david saul is dead his warrior sons are dead only the little guy who doesn't you know who you know gets a little squeamish when you talk about war he's the only one left you are now the king of israel and david says stop they go stop what do you mean stop we've been seven or eight years sleeping out in caves man i mean we've been with you it's time to seize our opportunity and david says the most incredible thing second step you want it happened after this david inquired of the lord he says i'm gonna go ask the lord they go ask him what the prophet already said you're the king he goes no i'm gonna go ask him he said lord shall i go up shall i go up to any of the cities what city because what the implication is i should go up to the main city to gibia where the capital was at that time because jerusalem wasn't uh under israel's hands at that time gibby is the main city that's the capital in other words should i go up and sit on the throne but he didn't say gibby says should i go up and the lord said to him go up and david he had permission good the conversation is over the lord told me go up but david took it a next step he goes where where and the lord says hebron not gibia not the capital i just want you to have a little bit of the kingdom david comes out of the prayer time he tells the guys guys good news good news and bad news the good news is i know the will of god and he's pleased it's strategic the bad news is i'm not going to be king for a while and his guys were really upset by this they go wait seven or eight years why did you even ask that question and when the lord said go up just leave it there don't press it and say where david said no i want the will of god i don't want to be king i want to be obedient this is such a major uh insight into king david's heart next paragraph paragraph i i'm going to end with this this is second samuel chapter 2 i mean second samuel chapter 5 verse 12 this is one of these other great ones now it's it's uh seven or eight years later david finally becomes king you know he waited seven or eight years out in the wilderness then he waited another seven years at hebron to be king of israel he's been waiting 14 years and finally the lord says this is now time for you to be kingdom king now after 14 years of waiting second samuel 5 look what he says and so now david knew the lord established him as king david says i know the lord did it i did not i did not manipulate myself into that place of honor i'm positive it was god's will now here's the good news about doing it the right way when you're in that position you know god put you there you don't have to worry when you go to bed at night because god put david there he goes no this wasn't me tricking the guys uh you know and getting in the position i am positive i was put there by god i don't have anything to concern myself with because god put me there but it goes on uh more than that it says david knew the lord established him as king over israel and that god exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people israel david knew not only that god made him king he knew why he was king do you know why god wants to anoint you do you know why god wants to anoint ihop because god wants to anoint whoever he anoints across the world for the sake of others not for the sake of ihop when god's power touches ihop it's not so that ihop is glorious it's for the sake of delivering other people and david knew that he was made king not so that david would be king david knew he would be king for the sake of the people of israel he knew that he would be king for others because david had this this spirit about him this spirit of inquiring before the lord well let's stand before the lord you know i think of the lord is going to move some right and left here and there and our posture is such that lord we're celebrating i think of uh different ones the lord's already set out in other other places and i just want us to take a few minutes and to celebrate who they are but i'm thinking of some of you right now that you left the city you were for and the lord sent you here but they didn't bless you and you don't feel the joy of that inheritance and you're saying man i want to feel that or maybe you got your feelings uh were oppressed by this and you felt negative and you said man i i gotta get into the right spirit and i've got to get my inheritance in some places maybe not the last place maybe it was the place before there's a place that you sowed love and blood sweat and tears and and god says that's you got an inheritance there you're not done there and if it's any of you in the room that are that you don't feel the joy of your inheritance from them or to them and you would like prayer i want to invite you to go ahead and come on up right now if you would it's gonna take a minute and just have you just come up and let us pray for you then what i want to do is i want to pray for these people that we have sent out and we've sent out hundreds actually i mean in in the general sense they've been here and we've blessed them they went out but i want to get in groups of small groups and pray for those that we have sent out in a uh in a more specific way with like i want someone to raise your hand and then cluster around to pray for kirk and d and z hop we are so okay just just let's head up high yeah and go stand in the aisle there and we're going to get some folks uh around rick there and we're going to pray for z hop z hop needs a building we're part of their inheritance we need to be jumping in with them because we've been doing it quite a bit lately anyways a number of you have been burned by this standing with them we're in this together with them others praying for uh billy and mary beth anybody raise your hand right over here okay for atlanta so different ones from across the room go over there and pray there okay for uh for the walshes in new zealand for aaron and christie somebody raise your hand okay right here go ahead and stand up and so or just go towards the back a little bit matt we're going to pray for them okay the house of prayer in in jerusalem nick and maggie anybody lift your hand right back there nick and maggie and throw and pray for not throw in but pray for rose and margo and the whole gang there and the inrights and just right there just cluster around there and there's there's hundreds of others and any of you that have somebody else that's been here and you say you know we're gonna take a minute and bless them just in a minute i i'm gonna have you raise your hand just be thinking right now someone you want to get two or three of you and pray for okay i want to pray for our strategic alliances ywam john dawson mark anderson somebody raise your hand okay raise it high okay right there just go back at the aisle there so they can find you handful of you get together we're just gonna speak blessing over our relationship with ywam with asher and trader of the tikkun ministries and dan juster and coach mccartney anybody that will pray for there okay just raise your hand real quick wave it okay sir hand raise okay i okay right there okay just come out in the in the aisle cutie pie it's donna edwards cutie pie