David Ravenhill emphasizes the eternal priority of worship in the life of a leader, asserting that after all earthly ministries are complete, worship remains the ongoing ministry in heaven. He stresses the importance of personal spiritual integrity and the responsibility leaders have to their congregations, referencing biblical passages that highlight the need for leaders to maintain their spiritual health. Ravenhill warns against the dangers of seeking personal gain through ministry, urging leaders to focus on their motivations and the eternal impact of their actions. He encourages a commitment to prayer, integrity, and unity within the body of Christ, reminding listeners that God values the heart's intentions over mere actions.

Priority after all the evangelism, church planning, and all that is all done and gone and we're all there in heaven, the one ongoing ministry that we'll all have is worship. A billion years from now, we'll still be worshiping. It's amazing isn't it? Okay, we've got a few minutes. Let me just touch on, and I've already touched on this a little bit, but ministry priority and this now deals with the priority of the leader. I've touched on it before. Let me just refresh your memory. 1 Timothy 4 verse 16, pay close attention to yourself. Again, make sure your own spiritual walk with God is kept up to date, so to speak, on a regular basis. Acts 20, 28, take heed to yourself and to the flock. 1 Corinthians 9 verse 27, I buffet my body and make it a slave after lest I've preached to others. I myself should be a castaway. Paul knew what it was to subdue the flesh, and Pastor Kurt talked a little bit about that, you know, not going back for that third or fourth helping. And that word is not, I buffet my body, but, but I buffet my body. There is a, there is a difference. I know a lot of, a lot of people are going to be disappointed with that revelation. Acts 6 verse 4, we will give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. Again, the attention is given there. And then you've got 2 Chronicles 1 7, Solomon's request, or Solomon's response, I should say, because God came to him and said, Solomon, whatever you want, I'll give you. And he said, give me wisdom, understanding, knowledge, so that I may know to go out and come in before this great people of thine. Again, notice he understood, these are your people, Lord, and I'm going to be held responsible for how I handle them. James, is it 4 verse 1? Let me give you the exact reference, because I don't, says, be not many teachers, thus incurring the greater wrath, or the greater judgment. And we need to realize to whom much is given, much is required. James 3 verse 1. Let's write that in there too. So there is a responsibility that we have, there's a priority in life to keep our own lives right with God, keep our relationship with God, our prayer life, we walk in integrity. All of these things are absolute priorities, but the greatest priority is obviously that of worship. Let me just take you back for a moment, because we've only got a few minutes left, to this portion of scripture here in Song of Solomon. I want to share with you something that's had a very profound impact on my own life. It's something Mike Bickle shared with me many years ago. He was reading this portion of scripture where God came to Solomon and said to him, whatever you want, I'll give you. It's interesting, actually, if you back up one verse, it says, and Solomon offered to the Lord a thousand burnt offerings. One burnt offering was all that required, and so Solomon is lavish in his giving to God. The next verse says, and that night the Lord appeared to Solomon and said, ask whatever you want. In other words, it's almost like one of those, you know, one upmanship a little bit. You know, you're not going to brag that you gave a, you know, I'm going to, listen, whatever you want, Solomon, I'll give you, you know. And you can never out give God, but I do believe that God responds to the way in which we give. And there's a direct correlation, I believe there, between the lavish giving of Solomon, in which he gave way beyond what was necessary, a thousand burnt offerings. And then the Lord coming to him and saying, listen, whatever you want, I'll give you. And Mike Bickle was reading that one day in his devotions and began to think to himself, you know, that that's an incredible thing that happened to Solomon. You know, I can't imagine what it would be like to, you know, be in Solomon's place and have to, you know, fill in the blank, so to speak. And then God took him to the New Testament and it says, whatever you ask in my name, I will give you, you know, John 15 and other places. Two of you be agreed, you know, on earth is touching anything. And the Lord took him to those verses and he said, he said, I've left this principle in the word of God throughout every generation as a revealer, God said to him, as a revealer of the hearts of men, because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And he said, this generation came along and they saw that principle, whatever you ask, you can have. And he said, this generation came along and asked for prosperity. He said, they didn't ask for revival. They didn't ask for the heathen for their inheritance. They didn't ask for holiness. They didn't ask for any, anything other than make me rich. Quite a revelation, isn't it? In other words, they found a principle and applied it to meet their own ends, not to meet God's needs or to satisfy, you know, the heart of God, but to satisfy their own needs. God, you really mean that, that whatever I ask, yeah, then I can have my, you know, mansion and I can have my Rolls Royce and I can have my Rolex watch and, you know, and Lord, you know, and Lord, you know, and the whole prosperity movement was based, basically around whatever you want, you can have it. But he said, I left it there to reveal the hearts of men because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And Solomon did not ask, notice God picked him up on that, because you did not ask for yourself riches. I'll give you that as well. I'll throw that in. But you asked for that, which was going to be part of my kingdom. How do I handle your people, Lord? Give me wisdom. Give me understanding. Give me insight. Lord, I've never been a shepherd before. And Lord, this is your flock you've given me. You know, it's almost like a father, you know, the guy shows up to take his daughter out on the first date. Listen, let's get one thing straight. When I say I want her back at 1030, you know, don't you dare go over the speed limit. You know, he's entrusting his, you know, his prized possession, his daughter to, you know, some guy that she's met, you know, three days before or whatever, you know. But Solomon's a little like that. Lord, you give me your, these are your people. I don't know what to do. And so that area of motivation, what is it that motivates us? Winky Pratt, he said to me, maybe 30 years ago now, he said, David, I've been thinking about something lately. He said, when we stand before God, he's not going to ask us what we did. He's going to ask us why we did it. It's a frightening thought, isn't it? He's not going to ask us what we did. But Lord, I built the biggest church in Gig Harbor. I didn't ask you why. Well, Lord, you know, I was determined to show, you know, that Cottage Hill group that we could build a big church, you know, us charismatics. And, you know, what's my motivation? Competitiveness, you know, making a name for myself or whatever, you know, he won't ask us what we did. He'll ask us why we did it. And that deals again with this hard issue all the time. You know, again, what is my priority? Not unto us, not unto us, but to you in any glory. And we've got to keep that as a constant priority, that worship of God. Lord, you are to be number one in my life, in my ministry, in my calling. And I don't care, you know, if I get any name recognition or not, I want to one day stand before you and hear you say, well done, now good and faithful servant. That's my only desire, Lord. Whether I'm recognized in this life or not doesn't make any difference. My dad always used to say, David, don't forget God keeps the books. God keeps the books. And, you know, my dad used to jokingly say, you know, if everybody's speaking well of you, God doesn't sort of go to his chart there and say, oh, I didn't realize Ravenhill was that popular. I better put him up here. You know, and then when everybody's speaking evil of you, God says, oh my goodness, I better shift him back there. It doesn't make any difference. God keeps the records. And he knows. He knows the hours you've put in. He knows, you know, the faithfulness and he will reward accordingly. And so anyway, those are some principles. Let me just touch on the others. The next one is eternity. By that I mean keeping everything with the eternal perspective of realizing that, you know, this is just a very brief sojourn here on earth. Diversity is another one, a variety, a recognition of the various gifts and the members in the body of Christ and the need to not try and be the jack of all trades and the family. And then the adversary. There's an adversary out to do everything you can to destroy us. Another one is integrity. And then the last one was unity. And I'm sure I'll keep going as the days go on and add to this list. But those are some of the ones that we haven't covered. Diversity, a variety, a variety of gifts, variety of ministries and so on, you know. And then the family, the need to be adversary. Integrity. Swear to your own hurt. You know, as the Bible says. And then unity. How good and unpleasant it is for brethren to be adversary. Okay. That's 3 o'clock. We had actually said 3 or 3.30. If you don't mind just hanging around a little bit. I expect Michael J. has got some things that he wanted to draw you into. There's just two things that I want to present to you. One thing I want to ask all of you to do. And then the second thing I'll ask some of you to do. The first for all of you, would you look back over your notes right now? Now some of you are not going to need to look over your notes. What I'm asking you to lock onto, is there one thing? This has all been just excellent and applicable and just, you know, something we can say, I see it, I understand it, I feel it, I can put my hands on. But is there one thing that for you personally, just run your account, just hit the center of the target for you, for where you're at, for who you are, for where you're at in this season of life, for just, I mean, here you are trying to be a child of God, trying to do your best to keep moving forward, and hopefully with enough confidence that you can invite others to follow you, you're in a leadership position. Is there one thing that you just knew, Lord, it's all good, but this especially is for me today? If so, put a star by it, underline it, circle it, make, write it down again at the end of where your notes, so you can start, and would you please do this? You know, there's a place in scripture where the Lord came and taught the multitudes, and he taught them all the same thing, but then there was a very small group of people when he dismissed the multitudes and wouldn't leave, and followed him away and said, what do you mean? I mean, you've got my attention, but I don't understand all of this. What do you mean? And he said, to you, it's been given to the rest of them, they got all they're going to get. To you, it's been given to understand. What distinguished those people? They said, well, I'm not just coming for what's common, and I'm willing to pursue beyond what's common to get what's extraordinary. I'm willing to pursue the Lord himself. Would you do that with this thing, whatever it is? Would you take it home and would you say, God, I know there's more here. I believe you, you've opened a door for me to look into, maybe even put one foot across the threshold, but there's more in him. Would you pursue him in his word, by prayer and meditation, with each other, through discussion about this thing? Because I suspect that whatever it is for you, there are some others who might want you to pass some of it along for the rest of them. I don't know. If so, then you should come to Uncle Jay or Chuck or myself and say, hey, God has really shown me something here, and I believe it will be profitable for us all. But don't, don't settle for the initial deposit of something God has identified today, that he wants to do much more. I'm asking you all to do that. I wouldn't be surprised if we were all to do that and come back together and find a program that we're able to minister to each other, that would help us to become who we're supposed to be as a being. I believe that if we pick any God-given group, in this case, a congregation and leadership team of a congregation, we cannot have what we want, we cannot have what God wants us to have. Can we please do that? The second thing I'm going to invite some of you to do, and you're free to decline, there's no other plan, but if during the course of David's teaching, you, this is not busy work, but you have a question that you want to ask this man, and you didn't want to stop him because the flow was just going along, but you just want to say, would you please just tell me a little bit more about this, or you said this, and here's what about this? If there's a question you want to, that's just burning, you know what's there, and you want to ask him, then you'd be willing to entertain the questions, and we'll do that, and then I expect Michael to get some stuff. Okay, Q&A. You said something, it was my words, that I don't know if it was exactly, but you said everyone will have their water loose for the time, and I'm just wondering what yours was, or if there's more you want to share? Oh, yeah, I think my most difficult time in ministry was four years in California with YOM, where I, nothing to do with YOM in that sense, but where I was running a printing press, and knowing that God had a lot more for me than just doing that job, and yet God teaching me day after day after day, as I saw that thing, you know, just flipping out pages of the Advance, which was a little magazine we put out in those days, newsletter, you know, teaching me patience, and willing to wait the timing, and I think there was a frustrating time, but it was a time when I knew that, you know, it was a season where God had sort of set me aside somewhat, and I just had to wait for God to give the, you know, the order to move on. So that was, you know, that was a very difficult time. Is this still on tape? Maybe we could click it off for a moment. How did you respond to the man that was so hurt by YOMI? Just befriending him, talking to him, you know, he sent me an email after that, and just said, you know, I'd like to stay in contact, and you know. I'm asking because my, I have an interest in my own life, because my father managed one of the most prestigious men's clothing stores in Washington, and he clothed some of those men. And so he's incredibly judgmental of us. I'm trying to, other than walking the walk, yeah, yeah. I guess, you know, the biggest thing is just, you know, live the life. And it's sad, you know, I mean, it really is. I, it's hard not to become cynical. It's hard not to become, you know, embittered. It's hard not to sort of name names and, you know, sort of fight back and so on, you know. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I guess, you know, it comes back to the fact that shall not the judge of all the earth do right one day, you know. And I often think that when Jesus said, enter into your closet and shut the door and pray and blah, blah, blah. And he said to those that stood on the street corner, they have their reward. And I'm sorry, I wonder sometimes in eternity, if some of these ones that have, you know, had everything going for them, so to speak, and the Lord will say, you had your reward. You know, you had your big house, you had the applause of men, you had the recognition, you had the lifestyle, you had your cruises and your big, you know, your airplanes and you had your reward, you know. And now this little girl that sits in the dust there in Mozambique, you know, it's her turn now to have her reward. You know, she was stripped of all that. I didn't want it. I didn't aspire to it, knowing that, you know, she was doing it, knowing that one day she was going to receive a, you know, a reward, a crown. And now it's time for a crown. In the meantime, I think, you know, it's sad that it happens. I mean, Paul says the gospel is blaspheme because of you, you know, addressing the church. He said, you guys are causing incredible reproach to be brought on the church, you know, because of your lifestyle and so on. It happens, you know, but it just should not happen to those that are in leadership and especially those that are, you know, major leaders. They should be more humble and more loving and condescending and, you know, simple and blah, blah, blah, and the rest, you know, but unfortunately they're not, you know. And all I, you know, I take that word entitlement. It's like, you know, I've been in the ministry. I'm entitled to my reward now, you know, so bigger this, bigger that, bigger, you know, and yeah. And I don't know, you know, we're epistles written and read of all men. And I sometimes wonder, I think of one young man that traveled with us in the awake Americas. He was part of a huge ministry that's on television. And he said to me personally, he said, David, he said there were nights when I would cry myself to sleep. He said, we would travel in the van with this man of God and just his immediate team. And he would tell off colored jokes. And he said, I will go home. And he said, I would weep myself to sleep. You know, I could name the guy powerful ministry, you know, but just stuff on the edge. And I think, you know, there was one young guy that was being mentored and obviously in the wrong way, but I mean, you know, disillusioned because of the whole thing, you know, so yeah, it's sad. Mm hmm. You said something that I wrote down as God offered devil-delivered affliction in order to strengthen us. And, you know, you mentioned a couple of other commonalities that set us up in the body of Christ. And I think one of them seems to be that we're always supposed to defeat the devil. We're always supposed to defeat him. If anything that comes by his hand, surely should not be. Would you maybe speak to that? Yeah, I mean, there are times obviously when God gives the enemy permission like Job to work either for God's glory, you know, and the mysteries to a degree. But again, you can't, you know, the devil has to have permission to do what he does. If you look at it in the big picture, I mean, he had to have permission to treat Peter the way he did. He had to have permission to treat Job the way he did. And so I think in that sense, you know, the devil doesn't have unrestrained power. And so we've got to discern, I guess, I suppose that's the big word, discern, you know, whether this is just an attack of the enemy or whether this is something God has permitted for some reason. But certainly, you know, with Job, there was a reason behind it. Anything you need that will help with that at the moment? Oh boy, I mean, I can't. I mean, I guess initially I would ask, you know, is there anything in my life that has allowed the enemy to come in? You know, Jesus said, Satan, come if he has nothing in me. So I would eliminate the fact that, you know, I've brought this upon myself because of my disobedience or whatever. And then if I feel that, you know, there's no conviction in any area that, you know, then I have to say, well, Lord, you've allowed this for some reason. And then just either wait till it passes or pray it off or praise it off or whatever, you know, God want to praise for the spirit of heaviness. Which one? Oh, Satan come if he has nothing. Um, good question. One of the gospels, but how's that? Ephesians, of course, four says, you know, don't give place to the devil. Where is that? I can give you that reference because I know it's Ephesians four. But, oops, Ephesians four, 27. So we can give place to the devil, I think by our own disobedience, by, you know, willfulness and sinfulness and whatever. So I think I would eliminate those things. You know, have I been disobedient? You know, have I given legal ground for the enemy to harass me because of what I've been doing? And if I've eliminated that, then I guess I've got to stand and fight. You know, if it's condemnation, I mean, yeah, I guess, you know, we need to discern. I guess God just helps us at the time. I can't, you know, sort of pinpoint it any more than that. Hopefully gives clarity to us, you know, that this is just an attack of the enemy. But, you know, it's going to result in greater blessing to you, you know, if you go through it, like, like Job. Well, there's a, I mean, that's something over a period of time, I think, that needs to be taught people. But, you know, blessed is a man that standeth not in the, you know, counsel of the level of law, you know, he should be like a tree planted. And I think if there is that daily partaking of the word of God and prayer and so on, it eliminates much of the need of counseling, you know. And I, I am a little bit getting away from altercals in the sense of altercals with counseling, because the old fashioned altercal used to be when you came to meet with God, now you come to meet with a counselor. And there's no substitute for the great counselor. And I think sometimes we're depriving them of really meeting with God. And Hosea says, take with your words. And the average believer, if it's a young believer, in fact, Jim will say for a long time at Gig Harbor, what I used to do, I said, if you are standing, someone will come and pray for you. But if you're kneeling or sitting or whatever, you'll be left alone. Because I believe there's a place where if God has touched your heart and you're mature enough, you just want to be alone with God. You want to get, you know, get along with God. You don't want a bunch of people gathering around, messing with you, so to speak, you know, trying their latest tech, you know, techniques on you. On the other hand, if you're a young Christian, maybe you're confused about something, you know, you need prayer. And so I would always do that. And I still do that many times when I'm traveling. But I'm also telling people, listen, don't come forward expecting somebody, you know, to sort of solve your problem up here. Come to meet God. You know, we're not coming to meet God anymore. We're coming to meet a counselor. And, and so it's a balance. And I don't, I don't really have all the answers on it. But I know that, you know, the old timers just talk about praying through. And they would come and weep and wail and whatever and spend an hour at the altar because they were there to truly meet with God, you know. Now it's my wisdom and my wits or something trying to solve this person's problem. The music is so loud. Most of the time you can barely hear them speak. You've only got a little bit of time and they're reluctant to really open up because they know it's only, you know, five, ten minutes at the most. And, and so you really don't even get to first base a lot of times, you know. So, you know, I think we need to rethink. I think there are some, you know, times when we just need to say, listen, you know, God's here tonight. Calmness or Hosea said, take with your words, come be articulate. Don't just come hoping the atmosphere sort of some, some sort of process of osmosis will change you, but calm and confess. And the Bible says, confess your sin. I tell people, you know, when I do go to them, I said, you know, can I pray for you? And they say, yeah. I said, well, what's, what's the need? And he said, well, I've got a problem, you know, sexual problem or whatever. And I say, well, God, the blood of Jesus Christ doesn't cleanse from problems. You know, I'll tell them right up front. I said, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from sin. So unless you're willing to name it a sin, in other words, we don't really come confessing our sin anymore. You know, we have all fancy sort of terms like we do in the, you know, secular realm. You know, I'm not a sodomite or a homosexual. Now I'm gay. You know, I'm not really a sinner. I've just got a problem. I've just got to hang up. And so, you know, I want them to be honest because in the parable of the sower, you know, the seed that brought forth 30, 60, a hundredfold fell into an honest heart. And I tell people it didn't fall into a pure heart. It didn't fall into a righteous heart. It fell into an honest heart. And if we're honest, then the seed can grow and they've got to be honest. Listen, I've got a problem and name it specifically. Okay. Now that you've named it, you've acknowledged you're a sinner, you know, but a lot of people just want to acknowledge, you know, I'm not really a sinner. I'm sort of halfway to a sinner. I've got a problem. Now that may sound, you know, very, you know, sort of nitpicking a little bit, but I think we're getting away from really being honest at the altar call a lot of times, you know, pray for me. I've got to hang up. I've got a problem. I've got a need, you know, and so on. Now, if we confess our faults one to another, you know, pray for another, they'll be healed. We've got to be specific. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know them that well. I'm sure some have got, you know, reasons for doing what they're doing. You know, I heard of one of the faith guys that flies a plane and somebody told me this the other week that he's given away more planes than he's owned. So that's a good sign. Although I don't know if they will sort of hand me down, you know, I've got to, you know, I'm buying a Cadillac so you can have my Ford, you know, so I don't know the motivation. It sounds good. So, you know, only God or eternity will reveal that, you know, you can have my Piper Club. I've got my Lear coming next week, you know. So, you know, what the motivation is, I don't know, you know. Yeah, it's tough, you know. I know one of the guys that, you know, is on television. A friend of mine was with him in London and he had a congregation stand and say, you know, say after me, money cometh, money cometh. And he said, I flew my jet over here. I was flown over here in my jet. He said it was $25,000 of fuel. And I thought, you know, imagine what $25,000 would do. He may have brought a little crew with him. I don't know. But boy, you could get an awful lot of first class tickets to London for that price, you know. So I guess, you know, there's an accountability somewhere along the line that I believe, you know, God's going to hold them accountable for. But it is, it's there's an awful lot of them that do it. Yeah. Well, you know, I heard a man in New Zealand many, many years ago, talking about Joseph in prison. And when his brothers after 13 years started coming down looking for grain, and, of course, not wanting to disclose who he was, he was sort of prying, you know, tell me about your father. And what about, you know, do you have any other brothers? And, you know, trying to make sure everybody was alive and well sort of thing. And then he wanted to meet Benjamin. And they basically said, no, you know, my father's lost one child. And if he lost Benjamin, that would be the end, you know, type thing. And Joseph makes a statement, you will not see my face again until all your brothers are with you. And I think there's a greater Joseph, that is saying, you will not see my face until the whole family's together. And, you know, God, God longs, I think, for true unity, not just organized, you know, a march down the middle of Gig Harbor type thing, you know, but I mean, true unity, where we really do begin to see and recognize the body of Christ, the ministers can get together. You know, and while some of that seems impossible in the natural, I think God still sees the heart, you know, and it's a difficult thing. I've been in, you know, different situations, and it's hard, you know, not everybody, people think of different motives. I know, Pastor Kurt was talking yesterday and talked about, you know, in the New Testament, there's only one church, that's the city church. And when the Bible says, call for the elders of church, you didn't call for the elders of the Lutheran church and the Methodist church and Presbyterian church and so on, there was only one church. And so it was the recognized elders in that church in the city. And I think, you know, when there's true unity, I think there's going to be the recognition, if you like, of certain elders. And let's face it, we can't build one mammoth building to accommodate everybody, but that we can still have that unity. Now, when I was in Kansas City, Mike Bickle had that sort of revelation of wanting to, you know, he taught very strongly. He said, I want to put in the genetic code of this church, this concept, he said, of one church in the city. And he said, I don't know how it's going to happen, but in the last days, God's going to bring his body together and it's going to be through persecution or whatever, and, you know, break down the barriers. And he said, I want my people to understand that that is sort of got one of part of God's ultimate purpose. Well, John Wimber came along and he modified it a little bit when we came under the vineyard. He said, Mike, he said, you need to realize that this city church concept is causing disunity because you've got a church of 2000 people in Kansas City. And when you teach this way, the implication is we're going to swallow up all your little congregations and you're all going to become part of us. And he said, that is causing people to sort of distance themselves from you because they're suspecting that your motivation is, you know, you just want to have some big conglomerate type thing. So he said, instead of using the word city church, use the word city unity. And so it was just a, it was a, you know, it was, it was just a word of wisdom, if you like, of tweaking that, because as you know, there is a group of churches that sprang out of Watchmanese group, Witness Lease organization now, that believe there's only one church in the city and they call themselves a city church. If they were here in Gig Harbor, they would call themselves the Church of Gig Harbor. And, you know, they've been written up in the Charisma magazine and different things, and they're beginning to mellow a little bit, but I mean, that's one of the major doctrines is that God only recognizes one church and we're the church. And so you don't want that sort of spreading, but what you do want is city unity. And I guess part of it is to begin with prayer, you know, Lord, just break down the barriers, give us love for the rest of the congregations in the, in the, in the community, you know, as we pray, let's pray in a corporate sort of a way, you know, God's blessing today, not only on our meeting here, but in the meeting around the, you know, the body of Christ in this community, I guess, you know, some of those things. But John 17, obviously is a prayer that is going to be fulfilled one day. How? I don't have all the answers, but it's the prayer of Jesus that they may be one, even as we are one.