Relentless

You know, tonight, I really felt during the worship that God has given me a prophetic word for tonight, and I want you to understand that when I say it's a prophetic word, I'm telling you, listen closely tonight, because the words you're gonna hear tonight are really gonna carry you over the next couple of years in some really, really interesting times, okay? And so I wanna open up tonight with a scripture that Paul wrote to the Philippian church. It's an interesting scripture. It's Philippians 129, and he says, "'For to you, it has been granted.'" On the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake. Now, wait a minute. Hold it. "'For to you, it is granted.'" I'm thinking, okay, what benefit, what blessing is he about to expound on? And he goes on to say, to suffer for his sake? Come on! That's like saying to somebody, "'For to you, it is granted on your birthday "'to go to the dentist and get a root canal.'" I mean, that's about what it sounds like to me, doesn't it, to you? I mean, come on, let me just do a little poll in here tonight. How many of you have gone through difficult times, adverse times in the past couple of years?

Okay, let me see a show of hands. Do I pray for the rest of you for lying now or later? Okay, let me ask you, whoever your hands raise up, did you like it? No, did you feel like it was granted unto you or more like it was inflicted upon you? Inflicted, right? I mean, hey, let me just go through some of it. Now, I know we'd never say this because we're really strong believers, but let me just go through some of the thoughts we fight when we go through extreme difficulty or adverse circumstances. I can't believe this is happening. Or why me? Or why do I have to go through this? Or I hate this, that's the blunt one. Or, here's the funny one, no one can relate to what I'm going through, and this has gotta be the best. Why can't I just have a normal life? God, please take this away. Why bother? Giving up would be so much easier. Now, if you've had some of these thoughts, can I tell you something? You're not alone. Here's a whole lot of other believers that have had these similar thoughts. In fact, the Apostle Paul has some of these thoughts.

But Paul had what I like to call a paradigm shift. What's a paradigm shift? I know it's an old word, but I still like it. A paradigm shift is a radical change from one way of thinking to another. And if you listen to the words that God's placed in my heart to speak to you tonight, I believe you too will have a paradigm shift when it comes to facing sudden adversity or extreme hardship. Would you like that paradigm shift? Come on, would you like it? Let me hear from you. Then listen carefully. Now, I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna go through a whole lot of Scriptures because I gotta back up what I gotta say, but then I'll give you a lot of examples, okay, and illustrations. All right, I wanna look at what Peter said in the same thing. First Peter four, verse one. Peter says, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves. Everybody say arm yourselves. Say it again. Let me hear it one more time. Arm yourselves also with the same mind for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. Wow, what a statement.

There's so much in here. First of all, as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves. Everybody say arm yourselves. Arm yourselves. I want you to really think about that. Arm yourself. See, most Western Christians are not armed to suffer because you know what happens when sudden adversity or hardship hits our lives? Because we're not prepared. We go into a state of shock, bewilderment, or amazement, and out of that state of shock, bewilderment, or amazement, we react instead of act. Let me give you an example of somebody who's armed and somebody who isn't armed. Commercial airline pilots. Every six months, a commercial airline pilot has to go through what's called recurrent training. What is recurrent training? A big part of it is to be put into a flight simulator. What is a flight simulator? It is basically this massive computer system that has a visualization system built into it. The inside of this thing, when you. Walk in, you can't tell the difference if you're in a real cockpit or in the simulator. It's that realistic because of the visualization system. And it's all built on motion platforms. And so what happens is they put these pilots into that simulator for a couple days and you know what they do?

They throw every adversity they know that can hit a pilot at those guys over the next two days. I mean I've literally talked to flight sim operators and I've looked at the sadistic smile on their face when they say, we beat those guys up. Because they will throw anything at them from wind shear to extreme turbulence to a loss of an engine to a loss of two engines to a loss of all power. And those guys are expected to get it down, that plane down. Now they'll crash a time or two, but what happens is they start getting used to it. And what happens is they start acting in such a way that they save the plane. I literally had a couple pilots look at me and they said to me, they said, John, we've never crashed in the sim before. We've lost both engines on a two engine plane climbing and haven't lost the plane. I said, man, that is amazing. So what happens is, because of this training, the FAA has said that there's many crashes that have been averted because of the pilots training in the simulators. There was actually a crash that occurred back in, it was back before 9-11-2001. You remember back in the days when the small planes didn't have doors between the pilots and the passengers? I'm talking pre-9-11. Do you remember this? There was actually a commuter plane that took off, and after it took off a little while, it crashed, it died, it killed everybody. When they recovered the black box, they noticed something quite interesting. When the trumble hit the plane, the pilots immediately went into action. The senior pilot was like, pull up the flaps, check. The parole height was like, check. He was like, feather the engines, check. He was like, let down the landing gear, check. And they were doing this all the way to the crash. The passengers, on the other hand, because they could hear them because there was no

door, when the trumble hit, they were screaming in hysteria. So what was going on here? The passengers were reacting, the pilots were acting. Why? Because the passengers were unarmed, the pilots were armed. So what I want to do tonight with you is I want to arm you with the word of God so that when you face adversity, you don't react, but you act. Would you like that? Amen? Would you like it? So number one, in order to be armed, you must know that adversity or hardship is going to happen. It's inevitable. Jesus made this statement in John 16, 33, He said in this world, you will have tribulation. He doesn't say you might. He doesn't say it's a good opportunity or a probability. He said you will have tribulation. What is the word tribulation? It is the Greek word thalipsis, which literally means this, great emotional and spiritual stress. If you want to just put one word on it, it's pressure. Paul affirms what Jesus says by saying in Acts 14, 22, he said we must through many, everybody say many, say it again, tribulations, Greek word thalipsis, enter the kingdom of God. So Paul says it's not a few, it's not some. You're going to face many. Why? Because we live in a world with a flow, and the current of this world is directly opposite of the flow of the kingdom. So you are going to face up with opposition.

Can you say amen? Second, you, to be armed, you must know you have the strength to overcome whatever it is you're facing. I love this. One of my favorite verses in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 13, he says, God keeps his promise. Can you say amen to that? What's the specific promise Paul is talking about here? He will not, now listen to these words, he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm. Now I want you to look at that. God keeps his promise. What's the promise? He will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm. Do you know what that means? Whatever it is you're facing right now, real time, you have the power to overcome it and overcome it successfully. That is God's promise. I promise. That is amazing. I said that is amazing. Now notice the word allow. Here's the first thing you gotta know. You know, James writes this letter and he says, hey, don't be deceived. You know, there's only one problem with deception. You know what it is? It's deceiving. The person who's deceived believes with all their heart they're right when in reality they're wrong. That's scary.

So James says, hey, don't be deceived. Here is the truth. God is impervious to evil and he puts evil in no one's way. So in other words, God is not the author of the evil hardship or adversity you are facing. If you know that for sure, you can't be deceived. That's what James is saying. So then who's behind it? It is either the consequences of a fallen world or is it a direct attack from Satan in his cohorts? Why would God allow it to give you the opportunity to use your will, the freedom of your will to beat up on the enemy in the same way that He caused you to succumb to Him in the first place, thus making His defeat a whole lot worse? Because let me tell you something, it's an unfair fight. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I need response on that statement. It is an unfair fight. Jesus made the statement, He said, listen! With an exclamation point. Now when Jesus says listen with an exclamation point, I particularly listen to the words in red, but when this one's got an exclamation point? I'm gonna listen even closer. He says, listen, I have given you authority, power, so that you can overcome all, not most, not 99%, all the power of the enemy and nothing, does nothing mean nothing here like it does in Colorado? Nothing will hurt you. Hello! I mean, if you would just believe those words, I've given you power over all the power, and nothing can hurt you. I mean, those words are in red, and He says listen with an exclamation point! I mean, this is why Paul says, you know what Paul prays? Paul prays that we might know what is the immeasurable.

I want you to look at this, the immeasurable. Think about this, you cannot measure it. Immeasurable and unlimited, it's got no limits, and surpassing greatness, there's none other greater of His power. Now if you stopped right there, we'd go yeah, Jesus' power is immeasurable, Jesus' power is unlimited, Jesus' power is greater than all other power in the universe. Can you read the rest of the verse? Of His power in, everybody point your finger and say in, say it again, in, and for me, who believes? There's the key, right there, who believes? I said, there's your key. I was in Hawaii a couple years ago, right? I'm doing a statewide conference, and it's a jam-packed auditorium, it's a Friday night. Auditorium's about this size, and I finished the Friday night service, I'm walking out with a pastor, and there's a lot of pastors in the building that night, because they'd come from all over the island of Oahu, and even other islands. And this one pastor and his wife are standing in the aisle like this, like you're not getting by us. And she's the real outspoken one, she goes, Pastor Bevere, Pastor Bevere. She said, my husband and I, we pastor a church on the other side of the island. She said, my husband doesn't pray the same, he doesn't preach the same, he doesn't lead us the same, he's a changed man. And she whips out an X-ray, and she goes, this is an X-ray of a normal eye. I said, okay. I'm like, where's she going? And she pulls out another X-ray, and she says, this is an X-ray of my son last month. Now her son is 12 years old, standing right beside her. And on this X-ray is all this black stuff behind his retina. I said, what's all that black stuff? And she gives me this 15-letter disease, right?

And she says, it is basically a rare degenerative nerve eye disease that is causing my son to go blind permanently and rapidly. She said, we were praying, our whole church was praying, our whole church was fasting, we were crying out to God. She said, my husband got ahold of your book called Relentless. This month, and he started going through it in his devotion. One morning, he came bursting out of his study, and he said, honey, we're doing this all wrong. We keep asking God to give us what he's already given us. See, listen to me. Jesus never asked God to heal one eye. He never asked God to heal an ear. He never asked God to heal a leg. He didn't ask God to calm the storm. He spoke to the eye. He spoke to the ear. He spoke to the leg. He spoke to the wind. The apostles, go read the book of Acts. They never asked God to heal one leg. They spoke to the legs in the name of Jesus. You gotta remember, God put man on the earth and said, it's yours. You rule it. That's why he took Jesus, the son of man, to speak to the big tree. So she looks at me, and she goes, we stopped asking God to heal our son. We started speaking to his eyes in the name of Jesus. Now listen, this is amazing.

It almost sounds made up, but it's actually a true story, and I have the x-rays. So she goes, we went to the doctor today. Normal routine checkup. So we go to the lab. They take the x-rays. We go all the way over to the professional park. We go to the doctor's office. The doctor comes in and says, they messed up in the lab. You gotta go back and get x-rays redone. I'm so sorry. They just messed up. So she went back to the lab. They took the x-rays a second time. Go all the way over to the doctor's offices. Doctor comes in and says, I don't know what they're doing over there. They made a mistake again. You gotta go back over and get x-rays again. She said, we went over a third time. Got the x-rays. Come back. The doctor walked in and said, I don't get it. Your son's eye is perfectly normal. What is the immeasurable, unlimited, and surpassing greatness of his power in, everybody say in. And for us. Who believe. Do you know what happened?

Two years go by, I go back. I do another conference. They're there. Now the boy's 14 years old. They come up. They said he's perfectly fine. And they hand me all the x-rays. He's totally healed. They're asking God, heal my son, heal my son. When in reality, Paul said, in and for us who believe. Are you still with me? Oh my gosh, I'm preaching myself happy already. Number three, in order to be armed, you must know you never have to lose. Okay, I'll just give you scripture on this one. Now thanks be to God. See, Paul is going through some of the greatest adversity he had ever faced in Asia. He said he didn't even think he'd live through it. It was so bad, the adversity. But you know what he writes after, that's 2 Corinthians chapter one. You know what he says in chapter two? Now thanks be to God who always, everybody shout always, leads us in triumph in Christ. And number four, in order to be armed, this is the last point. You must embrace a positive attitude towards adversity. The apostle James writes and says,

beloved, count it all joy. Now, when are we supposed to count it all joy, James? When are we supposed to count it all joy? He said when you go through extreme adversity and hardship. What? Now, let me make this clear. I really didn't understand what the words all joy meant. So I did a word study on it. You know what all joy means? It means 100 parts out of 100 parts in your heart needs to be joy. You can't have 99 part joy and one part sorrow. Because why? A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And it's not the sorrow of the Lord that's our strength, it's the joy of the Lord. Come on. That's why he says count it all joy. Now, the New Living Translation, oh my gosh, brings it to another level. Look at the New Living Translation. James says, this is James 1, 2, and 3, New Living Translation. I'm skipping a bunch of frames, guys. Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, look at this, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity. Is this guy living the real world? Okay, what? When troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity.

Opportunity, an opportunity for what? He goes on to say, for you know that when your faith is tested, you're in heaven. Endurance has a chance to grow. The opportunity that you have is that you get a chance to grow your endurance. Okay, I've said a lot. I want everybody to look up at me. Okay, let me just say this. Let me expound on endurance, because if your endurance gets to grow, I better talk about that. What is endurance? Okay, where do we hear endurance most frequently spoken of today? In athletics, endurance training. What is endurance training? What is it? It's the deliberate act of exercising. Listen to these words, the deliberate act of exercising to increase your stamina. Simply put, endurance training increases your capacity to handle future challenges. Okay, I've said a lot. Look up at me. Okay, the adversities or the hardships that we face, they have a purpose to them. And what is that purpose? To increase your capacity, your potential ability. God will use a hardship that we're facing today to prepare us for a greater battle in the future. That's why a trial, have you ever noticed, is greater than your present level of responsibility. Simply put, I want to give this to you right, God's using your present challenges to strengthen you for greater conquests in your future. Did you get that? God is using your present challenges to strengthen you for greater conquests in your future. It's kind of like weightlifting. Everybody say weightlifting. When I was 35 years old, I was traveling already for five years, and I was standing on a platform in Atlanta, Georgia, and I literally on a Sunday morning saw stars.

I almost fainted. And I remember I came home and I said to my wife, I almost fainted, I'm going to the gym. And she said, thank God I've been praying for you to go to the gym. Seriously, I'm not kidding. There was a WWF wrestler that lived three doors down the road from us. Okay, he was three houses down. I mean, seriously, when he and his wife moved in, and he was one of their big boys. He was like one of their seven digits a year guy. When they moved into that house, his wife said to him, stay away from those people three houses down. They are Jesus freaks. And one day she comes walking down the road. She collapses into my wife's arm. She was having severe panic attacks. She got saved, delivered, her children got saved. He's another story. But he and I became very, very close friends. And he was constantly saying to me, John, let me take you to the gym and train you. I was like, hey, I don't have time for the gym. I'm too busy writing books and traveling. So after this incident in Atlanta, I go knock on his door. I said, hey, Kip, I want you to train me. He goes, he looks at me, now he's standing at the door like this. Because you have to understand, he's six foot four. He weighs 240 pounds and he's 4% body fat. His arms are as big as my legs right there. He has a perfect V chest and a perfect eight pack. And he looks at me with a sadistic smile and he goes, I'll take you to the gym. So the next day we go to the sweat box of a gym. All of his training buddies are there.

They're huge. I feel like the midget in the land of the giants. The first thing I learned, the first day in the gym, is that you don't build muscle by doing light weight and a lot of repetitions. You put a lot of weight on the bar so you can only push it up three times. But after that third rep, that's when all the fun begins. Because that's when your body starts shaking violently. That's when there are blood vessels that suddenly appear all over your forehead and your neck. That is when your face goes different shades of red and all the giants around your bench are screaming, push, explode, and something on the inside of you pushes it up the fourth time. That's when you really, and I'm making this really simple, begin to develop muscle. So my first day in the gym, gosh, why do you have to be here? Okay. So the first day in the gym, my max weight of benching is 90 pounds. Okay, I said it. Don't laugh. So I did 90 pounds. After Kip and I are in the gym a couple months, we get it up to, okay, yeah, 90 pounds. That's right. No, it was 95, 95, it was the 45 and two 25s on each side. It was 95. So after a couple months, we get up to 105. And then we got up to 115. Then we got up to 125. Then after six months, we made it to 135. I can finally hold my head up a little because I got a plate on both sides, okay? So then I keep working really hard, you know? And I get to 155, 165, 175.

And then, you know, after a couple years, I finally make it, 185. But I got stuck at 185 for like four years. I couldn't get past, I couldn't get to 225 mark. I remember I got to 205 and I was able to get 205, but I just couldn't get 225 up. So this has now gone on for like five years, right? So I'm in Fresno, California. I'm doing this conference and I happen to be doing this conference with preachers who are bodybuilders. And we go to the gym and they said, what's the most you've benched? And I said, 205. They said, oh, we're gonna get you to get 225 today, no problem. I said, I've been trying this for four years. They said, hey, hey, hey, you can do it. We'll spot you, you're gonna do it. So sure enough, that day in the gym, I pushed up 225. I was so excited. So, a guy, right around that time, we hire this guy on our staff and he's a body, he's a former bodybuilder. So he and I start working out and I get up to 235. And one time, I pushed up 245. So then I go to this church in Detroit, Michigan, and I preach all day. It's a 5,000 member church, inner city of Detroit. And the pastor looks at me and he says,

hey, do you know in the second row today in service, there's a nationally renowned weight bodybuilder, coach, bodybuilding coach, he's produced champions. And I said, he trains me every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Do you wanna go to my training session with me tomorrow? I said, yeah. So I go into this guy's gym, he looks me up and down. He says, so, what's the most you've ever pushed up? I said, 245, but that was one time, one time, one time. He says, today you're gonna push up 265. I'm like, you're nuts. Seriously. But I thought, you know, this is the type of guy you don't say no to. So, sure enough, after warmups, after him giving me some techniques, I pushed up 265. I was so excited. I called my wife from the Detroit airport. I said, babe, I pushed up 265. She was like, wow. So the guy looks at me and he goes, now listen, I'm gonna train you from afar over the next year. You and your employee, I want you to do everything I tell you to do. I will send you an email every other week, and you do exactly what I tell you. When you come back here next year and preach at our church, we're gonna do this again. So I do everything he tells me to do, right, over the next year.

Now I'm 40, I'm 44 years old. I go back to the church, and I preach on Sunday morning on the Holy Spirit. Okay? Okay, so the next morning we walk into the gym, and this coach looks at me and he goes, hey, Bevere, last night I had a dream about you. I dreamt you pushed up 315 pounds. I said, you are crazy. I only weigh 175 pounds. You are crazy. Hey, Bevere. He looks at me, he goes, Bevere, didn't you preach on the Holy Spirit yesterday? I said, yeah. He said, I had a dream last night. Shut up and get down there. You're doing this. So he puts me through the warmups, and that day, I'm not kidding, God, the pastor, and he are my witness, I pushed up 315 pounds. Okay, like, I called my wife from Detroit Airport. I said, baby, I don't think I need a plane to fly home. I am so high right now. Okay, now, here's what I wanna say to you, okay? When I pushed up 315, this was 11 years ago, 225, I was pushing up 10 times. Now, I want you to listen to me. What took me five years to get to, what I couldn't do,

I was now pushing it up 10 times. Are you following with me? Now, what, 225 is just routine for me now. Now, what would have happened if Kip, the bodybuilder, when I was 35, first time in the gym, what would have happened if he would have put 225 on the bar? I will tell you what would have happened. It would have come down to the speed of gravity. It would have busted open my chest and killed me. What would have killed me was now routine. Okay. Lisa and I, you know, I come out of Purdue University. I'm a mechanical engineer. I go to work for Rockwell International. I'm making a lot of money as a head engineer over a multi-million dollar project in a Navy program, right? My pastor and his wife approached me. He said, we want you to work for us. We want you to be our executive assistant. We can only pay you $18,000 a year. Woo! My wife and I sat down. We figured. About $18,000 a year. Okay, exactly what we take in is what our bills are, we can survive, and that's if we eat a lot of potatoes and tuna fish. Because there is no money left over for clothes or anything.

But I didn't care, God called us. So Lisa and I both said, we're doing this. So we said yes. So, what was interesting is, as an engineer, I'm buying everything and not even thinking a thing twice. Now I get this job, and now I'm having to fight for everything. I'm having to fight to buy a pair of jeans. I'm having to believe God and fight in prayer to buy a pair of jeans. I'm having to fight to buy a pair of socks. I'm having to fight to buy Christmas gifts. How many of you know, unsafe family members don't understand when you don't get a Christmas gift. But everything is a battle. I remember one time I came home from work, we had one car, I'm driving the church van, I came home, and the back tire's flat. I'm like, oh my gosh. And I'm like, I don't wanna deal with it. So the next night I came home, I went to start the car. I don't know what I was gonna do, because she, I inherited the car from Lisa, and she didn't have a jack or a spare. So I went to start the car. I don't even know what I was gonna do. I just went to start it, and it didn't start. It turns out my alternator's dead. So now I got a dead alternator and a flat rear tire. I'm like, oh my gosh.

So I thought, I'll deal with this later. So I come home a few days later, and it's such a hot summer that the car window exploded. It's a two-door Thunderbird. This was not vandalism. It exploded. There were hundreds of little pieces of glass inside and out and I'm like cleaning up the glass. And then I go get a black, hefty trash can and some duct tape, and I make a makeshift window. And I'm sitting there thinking in bed that night, what happens if a thunderstorm comes? It's gonna blow in my makeshift window. My car's gonna flood. It's gonna start rotting out. I can't start it. I can't fix it. I don't have the money to fix it. I've tried checking. I don't have any money. Now I start getting angry. And I remember the next day I went out to a place where nobody could hear me. I said, all right, devil, it's a fight you want. It's a fight you're gonna have. I have got a sword and you have nothing because you've been disarmed. And I'm gonna take this sword and I'm gonna cut you up into pieces. And then I'm gonna cut your pieces into pieces

if you don't run from me. I said, my God shall supply my need according to his riches and glory. And I started speaking the word. The word. And all of a sudden I get this release. So the next day my wife's got a friend that comes over for lunch and she sees our car in the apartment complex parking lot. It's an eyesore. She goes, Lisa, isn't that your and John's car? She goes, yeah, it's our car. She goes, I got a friend that's a mechanic. The guy fixes it for nothing, hardly anything, pennies. God gets us out of it again. So now, Lisa's, we got a baby. We're living in adult apartment complex. They gave us a little grace and Lisa gets pregnant again. So we're like, Lisa's like, John, we have kids. We can't live in apartments. We have to have a house. We have to have a backyard for our kids to play in. I said, you're so right. So we went shopping all over and we found the cheapest cookie cutter house we could find, right? It was the cheapest thing. It was a little track home. And so we said, we're gonna buy it.

So we put, now listen, at this time, we only had $1,800 to our name. That was it, okay? And I'm actually have other stories I could have told you, but I'll just bypass them. And I remember, I remember we put $500 down, right? So we got $1,300. And we figured it out. If we eat a lot of tuna fish and a lot of potatoes, we might be able to save the rest of the down payment in about another year, okay? So we don't know what we're gonna do because we're supposed to have it in three months. But I just thought, you know what? I'm putting the money down. So we go to service that night. My pastor's taking a heart for the offering, heart for the house offering, right? Special offering. I turned to my wife, or this was Sunday morning. I said to my wife, I said, I think we're supposed to give $1,000. She said, let's talk when we get home. So we get back to the apartment. She goes, John, we have $1,300. If we put 1,000 down, we will have $300 left. We have to get the down payment. We're going backwards. I said, babe, I know it seems crazy,

but I really believe we're supposed to do this. She goes, okay, I'm with you, let's do it. So we sold the $1,000. Well, I'm not gonna go through the whole story, but God so supernaturally provided the $5,000 over the next three months. I mean, from sources that we totally never even dreamed of. And we moved into our house, okay? But now here's the problem. We move into the house and you walk in, there's a great room, right? There's two little love seats, a lamp. dining room table, no headboard for our bed, and nothing on the walls. That's all we got. So the house is totally empty, okay? So there's this couple in the church, and his tithe one Sunday was $750,000. I saw his check. His company made $7.5 million that week, right? So the wife decides she's gonna change all the furniture in her house. So she's gonna change all the furniture in her house. You know what that means? She gotta get rid of what she's got. You know where I'm going. No, you don't. She gives all the furniture to the couple's pastors. They already had a house filled with furniture. We were the youth pastors.

My wife was so upset. She was like, they missed God. They were supposed to give that furniture to us. They already had furniture. That's our furniture. They gave it to the wrong people. She's just so upset, right? And I said, and I did this as I was walking out the door. Because you have to understand, my wife is Sicilian and Apache Indian. They stole my land. I'm mafia. I was born ticked off. You understand? So I said this as I was walking out the door. I said, babe, it's your fault we don't have furniture in the house. And she went, what? And I said, the agreement you and I had was I believe God for the house, you believe God to fill it, and I left. Now that is stupidity 101. Don't you ever do that with your wife. But you know what? It turned out for the good, because she got angry, but she turned her anger in the right direction. She started running through the house and started speaking furniture all over the house. So I walked back in the house.

I said, something's different here. She said, hey, let me tell you, I'm gonna give you a tour and show you all the furniture we have. And she started saying, blue and white stripe couch, right there, custom made. And Shay's lounge right there. And I watched in the next four months God fill our house with what she said. It was amazing. Okay? So now, so now, my pastor walks into a pastor's meeting. Okay, now I'm the new pastor. He's got 11 pastors on staff. He said, gentlemen, God gave me a vision last night. He said, I saw one of you is going to leave our staff and you're gonna travel and you're gonna go out and come back and out and back, and you're gonna be a blessing in the body of Christ. He said, that man's you, John Bevere. And when he said it, the spirit of God fell on me and I started weeping. I said, pastor, God told me that six months ago. He said, well, you're going. So he said, this is what we're gonna do. This is August of 1989. He said, we'll pay your salary the rest of the year. You can travel as much as you want, build your ministry.

And then starting January one, you're on your own. We'll cut your paycheck on December 31st. I said, thank you so much. So I traveled to like seven places because I had like seven invitations come in within three weeks. And so I traveled, but nothing else came in. So now we're at the beginning of November and I got nothing. Oh, excuse me. I had one church booked. This little church that met in Sumter, South Carolina in a funeral home with 70 members. The first week of January. Yeah, my first meeting was in a funeral home, okay? And I remember my pastor started getting nervous. So my pastor's world renowned. If I said his name, everybody would know him. He comes up to me and says, here is 600 churches I have preached in. These are huge churches. Here's their addresses. Here's a letter of recommendation. Phenomenal letter. He says, do whatever you want. So of course, I write a letter. I got his letter. I started addressing the envelopes. I'm about the 40th envelope and the Holy Spirit said, what are you doing?

This is the beginning of November, right? I said, I'm letting churches know I'm available because I'm preaching. He said, you'll get out of my will. I said, God, nobody knows me. He said, I know you, trust me. So I'm sitting here looking at these 40 envelopes and I tore them up. I thought either you are crazy or you've heard from God and I threw them away. Now we come to the end of December. I now have two meetings booked. The funeral home, the first week of January and a little church of 100 people in the hills of Tennessee the end of February and that's it. I got two kids, a wife, a small house payment, a small car payment and $300 to my name and I'm going off salary in one week. Now my pastor is really nervous. He's like, what have I done to this couple because I prophesied, right? So he goes, he was starting a daily television program and my wife had TV producing in her background. So he says, listen, this is what I want to do. I want to pay your wife $46 an hour to produce my program. That way you can build your traveling ministry and you'll have money in your household. I was like, wow, this is amazing. He said, one more thing. He said, I'm going to get you, John,

up in front of national TV and I'm going to announce to pastors all over the country they need to have you and I'm going to give you monthly support. I was like, oh my gosh, God, you come through in the midnight hour, right? So I go out praying two nights later and the Holy Spirit speaks to me and he says, if your wife accepts that job and takes the $46 an hour, he said, whatever he pays her, I'll deduct it off your offerings on the road because I want her with you. I went, wow, there goes the $46 an hour job. And then he said, your pastor will not get you up in front of national TV and announce you to pastors and he will not give you monthly. support. I said, why not? He told me he would. And God said, he won't because I won't let him and he'll listen to me. I said, why won't you let him? And the Lord said, because when you get out there and you get in trouble you'll run to him and not to me. I want you running to me. We launched and it was absolutely amazing to watch how God met our needs over that first year. I didn't make phone calls. I didn't write letters. I literally watched God supernaturally open doors in the craziest ways. I mean, like calling my wife at a pool in Florida, a public pool, and a pastor of 2,000 people sitting there listening to her and saying, I don't know who your husband is, but he's got to come to my church. I mean, that kind of crazy stuff. And our income that entire first year for the whole ministry was $40,000. Okay, $40,000. But we literally saw God make our house payment the day it was due and nobody knew. From little hippie couples. So it was a hippie couple who did it. They were the ones listening. So let me fast forward now 25 years. Now today, because of our outreaches, the 6.5

million resources we've given away in the last five years, the 25 employees, the office in England, Australia, all the things we're doing with the sex trafficking, we have a budget of $125,000 a week. Okay, now listen. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Here's my point. I've never lost five seconds of sleep off of the concern of our budget. Never. My head hits the pillow, I go right to sleep. My head goes to sleep before my wife even gets into bed sometimes. She gets so upset how quickly I go to sleep. And we don't have a tithing congregation, remember that. I just watch God do it. Okay, now, it is so easy to believe that $125,000 a week. Now let me ask you something. What if we had to believe God for $125,000 a week in 1990 when we first launched in the ministry? Can I tell you what it would have been like? It would have been like putting 225 on that bar. It would have come down the speed of gravity and killed me. What we went through in 1990, 1989, all those years I just described to you prepared us to have the capacity to believe God for what we're believing for Him today. To be able to fight through what we fight through today. Because God will never let you allow you to face anything you don't have the capability to overcome. So what if I didn't go through all of that? So here is the problem. You ready for the problem? You're in a situation right now where you can bench press. I'm talking spiritually. You can bench press 145 pounds. But God needs to get you your endurance built up. So He doesn't author. He permits a 155 attack to come against you. Somebody talks about you at work. They gossip about you. How do you handle it? You don't bless those that curse you with the Word of God says. You know what you do? You put a nice little Christian smile on and you passively aggressively gossip back about them. You know what God says? Back to 145. So then He allows another trial to hit you. Another 155 attack. This one's financially. You go, huh, our credit rating isn't exhausted on our card. You don't pray. You just throw down your credit card and go further into debt. God goes back to 145. You have another situation that comes up. It's another 155. You use your arm of your flesh and the strength of your manipulation to get you out of that one.

God goes back to 145. Now the problem is the time has come where He wants to put you in a position that He has ordained you to walk in. Because how many of you know when Jesus examines us as Christians at the judgment seat, He's not going to examine us as far as our callings go. He's not going to examine what we did. He's going to examine us in the light of what we were called to do. Because every moment of... Our life was written in this book before a single day began. And how many of us is he going to look at us and say, look what I had for you, but I couldn't give it to you because you couldn't handle it because you kept getting yourself out of these situations. Because here's what happens. The time comes now, he wants you in that position he's ordained for you to have, that 185 position. But you've kept getting out of these 155 challenges and going back and going back and going back. So now you know what he has to do? He has to put somebody else in that position that he originally intended for you. Because he will never allow you to face anything, you don't have the power to overcome it. Just like Kip wouldn't allow me to face 225 on that bar the first time in the gym. So how many of us, you got to remember Jesus is going to be weeping. I think he's going to weep more than any of us. He's going to say, let me show you what I had for you, but because you kept resisting your endurance training, I couldn't get you there. Because I wouldn't allow you to face anything, you don't have the power to overcome it. See with David, it started out with a bear, then it was a lion, and then it was Goliath. What if David would have found a way out of the bear and a way out of the lion? I'm going to tell you, you wouldn't have had David face Goliath, it would have been Steve. You would have been talking about King Steve's Psalms. Do you know what's amazing? I've gone to the gym all these years, and I've never seen a guy walk into the gym and go, I can't believe I've got to bench 225 today. Why can't I just have a normal life?

Are you kidding? He's excited. Because he knows 225 is the road to 245, which is the road to 265. He sees it as an opportunity to build. And you see, you have to understand, as a believer, there is nothing you are facing today that isn't preparation for what you're called to walk in tomorrow. But if you don't face it correctly today, you won't have the strength to walk in it tomorrow. So God will have to get somebody else. This is why — let me just close it with this. Look at what James goes on to say, look at this. James goes on to say — go ahead, you're playing really nice, I like that. James goes on to say, so let it grow. What grow? Let your endurance grow. For when your endurance, your capacity is fully developed — look at this — you will be perfect. You will be complete. And you will need nothing. Do you understand there's a church in the book of Revelations, and you know what that church said? We're blessed. We need nothing. And Jesus said, can I tell you your true condition? You're miserable, you're wretched, you're poor, you're blind, you're naked. Man, that's really scary when you think you need nothing, and Jesus says, let me tell you your true condition. You're wretched, miserable, blind, and naked. This isn't that case. Put that Scripture back up.

This is where God says about you, if you go through my endurance training, you will be perfect. This is God talking. You will be perfect. You will be complete. And you will need nothing. What am I talking, what am I talking to you about? I'm talking to you about a relentless believer. What does relentless mean? Relentless means this, an attitude or a posture that is resolute, persistent, and unyielding. Simply put, it doesn't relent. What should be our paradigm shift? What should be our attitude when we face adversity now, when you really understand arming yourself? This should be our attitude when we face adversity. How exciting. This, no, no, go guys, yeah, this is no obstacle. It's an opportunity. I will get through this and be stronger on the other side. My capacity level is about to grow. I'm on the way to another level of power and authority. I will be much more effective. What a privilege. Did you get something out of this tonight?