Your Spiritual Gifts Are Dormant: Here's How to Activate Them

With these callings, God gives super natural gifts. Sometimes our giftings were born with them. Sometimes they come on us when God speaks to us. One of the gifts of God in my life is to write. - But it wasn't a natural gift. - No, it was my worst subject in high school. Now I remember when he said to me, I want you to write, I laughed, I laughed it off. I thought, you don't want me to write, just talk to my English teachers. I can't write. Do you know what I was really gifted at? I was really gifted at math and science. My dad encouraged me to become an engineer. However, the more I prayed, the more I felt so disconnected from being an engineer. I despised it. I actually got to the point where I just couldn't even stand it. I think it's a very easy thing just to look at it and be like, I am extremely good at this. So I must be called into this. Our calling is beyond our natural ability because of God made our calling so that we could accomplish it in our own ability. We'd have. - Hey everyone, welcome to the Jumbavir podcast. I am joined with Artin Bavir, my youngest son. - That's tight. - And strongest. - I don't know about that.

You have brothers that might challenge that, right? - I feel like we all have our different muscle groups. - Oh yeah. - That was strongest. - I mean, Alec has the biggest shoulders. - Biggest shoulders. - It's crazy. - Austin actually might have us beat on everything though. I will say that. - Austin's got pretty big arms. - I will say, he's been hitting it hard recently. - I just look at all you guys and I'm like, how did this happen? I'm a tennis player dad that is actually not very big. I mean, Lisa, when we first got married, she was like, yeah, I dated big guys. So you're my little tennis player husband. But anyway, God bless this. - God bless this. - Big boys. So anyway, guys, we're talking about this book. You are called. - It's brand new book. - It's brand new. - It's available, you can go to. - You are called.com. - You are called.com. And I want to talk about it because I'm very passionate about it. I mean, other than the awe of God,

this might be one of the things I'm the most passionate about talking. I know that anytime I'm in front of college students and business people, entrepreneurs, I feel so tugged when I'm in front of ministry leadership teams. I've been in front of other leadership teams in the marketplace, I talk about this because I find that a lot of people don't realize there's a call in their life because when you hear, is there a call in this person's life, you're thinking, is that person called a ministry? So it's so wrong, the paradigm has to shift every single child of God has a calling on their life. And the question is, are we going to walk in it because the Bible says that we should walk in it. It didn't say we would walk in it, which means we have a choice. Are we going to seek God diligently? Are we going to plant in a local church? Are we going to keep ourselves free from distractions that would pull us away from the divine call on our life? That's up to us because God didn't want robots. So now with these callings, okay? So let's say I'm called to the marketplace or let's say I'm called to education. God gives supernatural gifts to accomplish them. And that's what I wanna talk about on this podcast, okay? So I wanna open with a scripture, Romans 12 verse six. And this is so amazing.

Having then gifts, differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. Wow. There's two words I wanna highlight in this verse. The first word I wanna talk about is grace. Having gifts that differ according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. When most people hear the word grace, what do they think? - Forgiveness is sense. Salvation, the love of God, yep. In fact, art in almost every single born again, Christian America, that's the first thing that comes to their mind. And a survey was done years ago and over 5,000 born again believers were pulled. These are Bible believing believers that go to church. And it was asked, what is the grace of God? Give your definitions. Do you know that only 2% of those people, so they were able to list three or more definitions. They all listed, and rightfully so, salvation, forgiveness of sins. But do you know that only 2% of the people said that grace was God's empowerment? - Yeah. - Yet, listen to what God said to the Apostle Paul. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12 verse nine, "My grace," now this is God speaking 'cause we have quotes here.

So it's coming right from God. God spoke this to the Apostle Paul. He said, "My grace is all you need for my power." Works best in your weakness. Now your weakness would be your human inability. So God identifies his grace as his power. - Mm-hmm. Hmm Like you said, all right? Let's look at Peter. Peter writes in his epistles, second Peter, and we went through this a long time ago. He said, "Grace be multiplied to you as his divine power." What's his divine power? Grace has given to us all things that we need to live a godly life. So in years and years and years of studying the scripture, Arden, my definition of grace is this. It's God's free, unearned empowerment that gives us the ability to go beyond our natural ability. - Yeah. (laughs) - So God's empowerment on my life that gives me the ability to go beyond my natural ability. Let me, I said this on our last podcast, I'm gonna go into a little bit more in depth. Our calling is beyond our natural ability. How do I know that? Because if God made our calling, what he's called us to do on this earth, if he made it so that we could accomplish it

in our own ability, we'd have to share the glory with us. - Yeah. Or we just wouldn't rely on him at all. We wouldn't do any partnership, which is what God doesn't want. - And God says, I'm not sharing my glory with anybody. So God on purpose makes our calling beyond our natural ability, so why we would have to depend on grace, his empowerment that gives us the ability to go beyond our natural ability, we'd have to depend on grace to fulfill our calling. Now, what's interesting to me, Arden, is that Romans chapter five verse two tells me that we have access to the grace of God through faith. - Yeah. - So in other words, we have no access to God, except through faith. Let me give an example. The Bible says in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. - Okay. - Whoever believes there's faith. When they believe they get saving grace. Is every person in the world saved? According to the scripture, yes. He is the perpetuation for our sins,

not only for ours, but for the whole world. So according to scripture, the whole world saved. - Yeah. - But Jesus said the majority of mankind's going to hell. Why is that? - Because there's a very small segment that believed. They had faith, so they received saving grace. Hey everybody, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment. But first, I wanna thank the patrons, make this podcast possible. Your support behind the scenes is critical to sharing these messages. So thank you. To become a patron, just click the link in the show description, or go to johnbevere.com/patreon. Now, let's get back to the show. - So, and just clarifying that, 'cause I don't want people to be like, "Wait, John, you're saying the whole world is saved?" - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - No, it's the God Jesus died on the cross that the whole world would be saved, but it's only available for those who believe. - Believe. - Yes. - Who accessed saving grace through faith. By grace you were saved through faith. So we accessed that saving grace through faith. - Romans 5, verse two says,

"We have access to the grace of God through faith." All right? Now, in other words, it takes believing in order to receive grace. If 98% of the Christians in the United States don't know that grace is God's empowerment that gives me the ability to go beyond my natural ability, that means 98% of the Christians in America are trying to fulfill their calling in their own ability. And you're never gonna be able to do it. - Yeah, is that kind of what John 1010 is referring to in terms of Jesus saying, I've come so that you may have life and life to the fullest? - I believe so. - Okay. - I do. And so, the question becomes, are we gonna be people that serve God? It's like, all of a sudden, we're saved by this miraculous grace, but then we try to live for God in our own ability. And that's where the disconnect is. And that's where this book addresses. It's not just you becoming a child. And I don't wanna ever make light of it. It's not only becoming a child of God that grace is needed for. Grace is needed to give us the ability to fulfill what we were created to do. And if we don't depend on that grace,

we won't fulfill what we've created to do. And remember, when we stand before the judgment seat, God's gonna say, this is what I wrote about, in the book I wrote about your life, let's see how you stacked up. And the only way we're gonna be able to stack up is by depending on his grace. - And I think there's a lot of people but I've not seen it interacted in my life. So, how do I activate those giftings? 'Cause I think some people are like, you're really talented at certain things, or you just have a natural mind to be able to do things, and you haven't been able to connect the dots. - And there's a difference between natural talent and the gift of grace, and we're gonna get to that. - Interesting. - Because, let's go back to Romans 12, 6, and we'll address that. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. Now, the Greek word forgives. If you take the Greek word for grace, Carus, C-H-A-R-I-S, and you put an M and an A on it, you get charisma. Charisma is the Greek word for gifts. What is charisma? Here's the definition of it. It is a specific gift of grace that empowers an individual to fulfill what they've been created to do.

So it's a very, now, now, here's the thing. It is specific, and it is unique to our calling, okay? Let me give you an example of my own life, okay? One of the gifts of God in my life is to write. - Yeah. - But it wasn't a natural gift. - No, it was my worst subject in high school. English, creative writing, foreign language was my absolute worst subject in high school. It used to take me four hours to write a one-page paper. I mean, maybe I could get it done in two hours. But I remember there were times I just spent hours and hours and I was frustrated 'cause that was back in the days when we had a notepad and I write a paragraph or a sentence and I'd tear it out and throw it away. And I could throw half the notepad before I even got to my first two paragraphs I was gonna keep. I scored 370 on the SAT in English. I mean, that is out of 800, that is a 46%, that is like F minus minus. - Yeah. - So, in 1991, God came to me in prayer one morning. I heard his voice and he said, "Son, I want you to write." Now, with the word of God, it's called the word of his grace. So the word of his charisma comes the ability. Now, I remember when he said to me, "I want you to write." I laughed, I laughed it off. I thought, "You don't want me to write, "just talk to my English teachers. "I can't write, you got many good writers, I can't write."

So I did nothing with it because he was quiet. So I took his quiet as an agreement to my rebuttal. 10 months later, two women come to me from two different states in the United States within two weeks of each other and they both said the exact same thing. They said, "John Bevere, if you don't write "what God's giving you to write, "he'll give the message to somebody else, "and one day you'll stand in judgment for it." Now, when the second woman from the state of Texas said it two weeks after the first woman from the state of Florida, the fear of God hit me. And I thought, "I need to write." Yeah, I remember I got a notebook piece of paper. So this is 1991, so we didn't have iPads. I tore out the notebook piece of paper. I got a Sharpie and I put contract. I wrote a contract with Goddard. And I said, "God, I think you're making a big mistake. "I can't write, I need your grace, "and I'm asking that you would give me your grace to write." And I didn't even know back then that grace was God's empowerment. I mean, if you look at the apostle Paul, he said, "I have more labor and more fruit "than all the other apostles." But it wasn't me, it was the grace of God in me. Paul knew it was God's empowerment, the gave him the ability to bear more fruit

than all the other genuine apostles. Yeah. Okay? So I wrote that note, not knowing it, the grace of God empowers us to go be, and I signed it. I wish I could find that. It's hidden in one of my books somewhere, my research books, okay? I think it's like a big Bible concordance or something. So, now I look today. The books are in the tens of millions today. They're in 133 languages all around the world and they are international best sellers. Now, I'm gonna say this. My name's on that book, not because I was the first guy to write it. I was the first guy to get to read it. I believe the gift of God on my life, which is his ability. Remember, it's not our ability, gave us this message. And when I say us, I was just the first guy to get to read it. And so, I look at this and it's true for all of us. Another gift on my life is speaking. What a lot of people don't know is the very first time Lisa heard me, my wife heard me preach, after we were married. I will never forget it. She was sitting on the front row. Within five minutes of my message, she was sound asleep. And she was doing this the whole time.

The head nod. Her best friend beside her had drool coming out of the side of her mouth. I remember my Sunday school class, our first year of marriage. My best friend had two over 200 people in his class. It was standing room only, and God moved so powerfully in that class. I had an average 20 people in my class. And one Sunday morning, I had one girl show up for my Sunday. the day we crossed the Florida line, because that's when we lived in Texas when we first got married. And I was asked to be youth pastor. And my pastor said, John, I think this is God. I think you need to go. Yeah. And so Lisa and I crossed the Florida line the first Sunday morning. I'll never forget this. My senior pastor said, Oh, we got our new youth pastor. Now this is the fastest growing church in the United States, 7,000 members. They had only been a church for like four years. They're just like exploding, right? He said, Oh, we got our new youth pastor here this morning. I want him to come up and share. Yeah. So my wife was Lisa, your mom was trembling. She was like, Oh, no, because I was such a bad speaker. I would copy other speakers like TL Osman used to say, I remember he was in a meeting one time. Okay. And he went, wow. And he said, that word's so good. It's the same backwards. Wow. And everybody. I mean, like this was a 4,000 seat auditorium was laughing hysterically, right? Yeah. So I would get up and preach and I go, wow. Let's that word so good. Let's say backwards. Wow. And nobody would laugh. So my life was like, please don't let him say well backwards. Like she was like sweating bullets, right? Yeah. So I go up there and he hands me the mic. And I mean, I open my mouth and it's like heaven came into that auditorium with 2,800 people. And I start preaching like a man on fire. And within 60 seconds, all for all 2,800 people were on their feet screaming and cheering. And I preach for four more minutes. I remember handing that mic back to the pastor. I'm shaking like a leaf. I go sit down and mom told me, she said, I sat there and thought, who just came into my husband's body? And it's the spirit of God. It was the spirit of God. Now, well, I was going to say, and I'm having this realization as you've been talking is, I think as you're talking is, I said this before of like people looking at the natural giftings that they have. And I think that very much is, as I could see so many people

planning out their life where it'd be like, okay, I am very good at this. I'm good at this. I'm good at this. God used your calling by things that you did not know at all that you had the ability to do. And you didn't at the time until his grace came on to you. So I think this is just furthering the fact of how we have to be so intentional about our calling. Because I think it's a very easy thing just to look at it and be like, I am extremely good at this. So I must be called into this, which could be the case. God could even make your, your gifting that you do have right then be even go further. And when his grace comes upon you, but I love the fact that God did something tape pulling things that are completely not onto your radar. And I think about how many people are listening to this. And they're like, I don't know what I'm called to do. And they're weighing out their calling all based off of their natural ability of things that they can do. So I haven't leaned into the grace of God that he has for them. This is like the most profound question or statement you could make. And I'm so glad you because it's just opened something in my heart. So huge. Do you know what I was really gifted at? I was really gifted at math and science. Yeah. Engineer. Really, really gifted. Like I scored really high a math. My dad was an engineer. My dad encouraged me to become an engineer. That's why I studied engineering at Purdue. I was so gifted at math. However, in here, I just got, I'd gotten saved in college. And the more I prayed, the more I felt so disconnected from being an engineer, I despised it. I actually got to the point where I just couldn't even stand it. If I would have pursued the math and the science without seeking God, I probably would have been a pretty decent, successful, but I don't know that I would have fulfilled what I was called to do. Now, I'm going to say this. I've got a friend, his name is Aaron Badley. You and I both know him. Yeah. He's been on the PGA for how many years now? I think 20 years, yeah. Aaron was really floundering. I remember when he was, he would stay at our house when the tournament was in Denver. And that particular year, he, as an 18 year old, he won the Australia Masters, or no, the Australia Open, but he was floundering. And he missed the cut. And we flew to Las Vegas. And in that meeting in Las Vegas, the power of God hit him. And after the service, he came back to the green room. And I said, Aaron, God really touched you tonight. He said, boy, did he ever. I said, He said, "I've called you to play golf." Well, he explained to me later that he was going to use his talent of golf

to make enough money so that he could preach. So he was booking himself into churches 50% of the time and he looked at me and he said, "I wanted to do what you do." Like we were at a dinner talking one night he said, "I really wanted to do what you were doing." So I was just trying to make enough money to play golf and take care of my family, but I really wanted to preach. He said, "When the power of God hit me that night, "God spoke to me and said, 'I've called you to golf.'" The next year, so he barely made it that year. He was finished 124th and that conference was at the end of that golf season. Within the next two years, he won his first PGA tournament. He got as high as 16 in the world and he's won four PGA tournaments since and he's been on the PGA tour for over 20 years. And I was on the phone with him just two days ago. No, just four days ago. And he said, "John, he referenced back." We were talking about how things were going, his family's got six children, and he said, "John, when God spoke to me back in Las Vegas and said, "I've called you to play golf," he said, "I am going to keep playing golf "until God tells me to do something else." And he knows this is what he's called to do. Now, he was naturally gifted at golf. It looked like a natural gifting, but in reality, the more he put God first, his ability got better.

So, I look at, sometimes our giftings were born with them, sometimes they come on us when God speaks to us and I'll show you scripturally, okay? When John the Baptist, he had a gift on his life of the prophetic, and that gifting was specifically for him to recognize the Messiah. When he was in his mother's womb, he leaps. He leaps when his mother, Elizabeth, walks into Mary's house and Mary's pregnant with Jesus. He leapt in his mother's womb because he recognized the presence of the Messiah. Well, 33 years later, he again recognized the Messiah when he came to be baptized at the River Jordan. That gift was on his life right from his mother's womb. I remember there was a guy who, he came to our church, and this guy's gifting of leading people in worship was exceptional. I remember when he would go to our church, people would be on their feet. He'd start playing, everybody'd be seated, and within minutes, 2,500 people were standing on their feet, dancing and just enjoying praising the Lord, right? And I got the privilege of hosting him, like driving him to the restaurant in a hotel, and he told me, he said when my mom was a praying woman, she spent hours and hours and hours and hours in prayer. He said one day when she was pregnant with me, a man came to the house that she and my dad never saw before, and never saw him after. And the man looked at her while he was sitting

in the living room and said your son shall be exceptionally gifted in leading people in worship. When he was like three years old, he told me, he sat down on a piano one day and started playing perfectly, like somebody who would take hours and hours and hours of lessons. He was playing perfectly. That gift was given to him right from his birth. But look at King Saul. King Saul is looking for his donkeys. He meets up with, well he's not King Saul, he's Saul the son of Kish. He's looking for his donkeys. He meets up with Samuel the prophet, and Samuel the prophet looks at him and says, you're gonna meet a group of prophets tomorrow, and when you do the Spirit of the Lord's gonna come on you and you're gonna become a different man, and what did he do? He started prophesying. Even when he became corrupt and wicked, he's still prophesied, okay? So that gifting came on him, the moment he got in the group of prophets, because of the word of the Lord that came out of Samuel's mouth. So I look at that guy who led praise and worship, he had that gift from his mother's womb. I look at me, I didn't have the gift to write until the word of the Lord came to me and said write.

Because I tried writing in high school and I didn't have the natural. So this is where the seeking of God element comes in, aren't it? And this is what I can't stress enough. We got people out there who are like, well, I'm great at science and I guess I should become a marine biologist because I like animals in the Marines. That may be true. And I liked it, I liked math and science, but it didn't mean I was called to be an engineer. The thing we've gotta put on the table, the first thing that everybody's gotta do is what we said is seek God diligently It's a continual seeking God. And this thing people don't like. They want, I want to plan, give me the plan so I can just live my life the way I want to, and just forget about seeking God diligently. I'm sorry, that's not the way it works. God wants to create it so that we maintain intimacy with Him. Because Jesus, if you look at Him, He's called a minister, but where's He called a minister? I mean, if you remember one time, His friend, and Jesus was allowed to have friends, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha was His closest friends. Mary and Martha see Lazarus as sick, like really bad sick, and they send some messengers out looking for Jesus. They're searching, combing the countryside,

and after two days the messengers find Jesus. They say, "Oh my gosh, you've got to come back to Bethany. You've got to come right away." Lazarus is like, "He might even be dead by now. You've got to move right now." And Jesus stayed there two more days. Why? He's probably seeking His Father, and His Father says, "Keep preaching here." And can you imagine how frustrated the messengers were? We spent two days, we spent two days looking for Him. And he's staying two more days. He doesn't even care about His friend. He just cares about the crowds. And then Jesus two days later says, "Well, time to go back to Bethany and see our friend, Lazarus." And they're like, "He's probably dead by now." And so here he goes, it's been four days. And now Lazarus has been in the grave for four days. And Jesus raises him from the dead, which gives a great, even more glory to His heavenly Father. This is what we're called to do with our giftings. We're called to seek God. God's going to lead us in a direction that utilizes those gifts He's placed on His life. Well, and that helps us identify those gifts. But then we have to then take it to be good stewards over those gifts, because you could have these gifts. And like, even for you, it's like, you could have written one book and they're like, wow, this was a big challenge.

All right, I think I'm good. Like, I was able to write a book and I accomplished what those two women said. And yep, now what I do. But you did, a lot of people don't know, you wrote two books before you wrote. And they were, yeah, they just, they did hardly sold anything. And I think a lot of people can look back and be like, well, no, John wrote Beta Satan. And then it just like, no, there was two books that came. And what you showed is God, I remember this for the redefine, the first book I wrote is I remember writing that book. And I felt like-- Just a really good book, by the way. Thank you, John. But I felt so much of, like, when people ask me, like, well, how many books do you think it will sell all this? And I was like, honestly, God told me to write a book. And whether it's super successful or not, I just know what I'm supposed to do as my stewardship of it is to write a book. And God, do whatever it is that he's supposed to do then. And I think too many times do we based off our calling off of success, that then we start doing something and we don't quickly identify success in that thing. And then we're like, well, all right, obviously that wasn't God. And then we give up on it. And I don't think that's a good stewardship of our gifts. And that's part of this next step that we have to take

is one, identifying what you talked about so much, but then two, being a good steward over our gifts. I think you couldn't have said that any better. And I just look at the fact that, you know, I look at those first two books. You're talking about it. Not only did they not sell at all, I sent them to two publishers. One didn't even respond. The other one said a little too preachy. - Yeah. - And then the second book, and I told the Lord, I said, I'm not going to write a book unless you speak to me. So 25 times God's spoken to me to write a book. And that's why there's 25 books. I remember the second book, I sent it to my Bible school teacher. She was my favorite Bible school teacher. I loved her. And she, I was like a pet. I'll just be honest. And I remember she wrote me back. And this is the days before emails, because this is 1992 or '93. And she said, who do you think you are writing a message like this? Because it was a prophetic message about the church needing to return to the Lord. And she really criticized it. And I was devastated. I remember a friend of mine read one of those first two books.

And the friend said, I think you got too many scriptures and was kind of negative about it. Art and I was so depressed. I remember laying on my living room floor. I mean, you weren't even born yet. And I was looking up to ceilings thinking, you're a failure. You're a complete failure. Yet when I'd sit down at the little laptop computer, I would sense the Spirit of God. And I would sense these messages going to be read by people all over the world. Yet the publishers are rejecting it. My Bible school teacher says, who do you think you are? My friend says it's too preachy, too many scriptures. Everything looked like I was a failure. Everything until the bait of Satan came out. And what a lot of people don't understand. - Yeah. - Until six months into it, I was asked to go on an international talk show. I was only supposed to mention the book. I only had 20 minutes to speak. And they wanted to talk mostly about our family. They didn't want to talk about the book. But the publisher said, "Hey, it's an open door." I said, "Sure." I get on that program, the host of that program, who he's passed away now, the bait of Satan.

What is that? And I started opening my mouth and God anointed it. I remember they said, "Keep your eyes on the floor director." The floor director wasn't moving. I'm like, "We're past 20 minutes." It ended up going 40 minutes nonstop. The next day, every bookstore in the United States was sold out and within two days, the publisher was 20,000 back ordered. I never could have orchestrated that. Never could have done that on my own. That was something God did. And so our job is to be faithful with our gifts. But the Bible says the gift of God on our life, well, listen, it'll make a way for us. It'll open a door for us and it'll bring us before great men and women. I look at that as I was being faithful after rejection, after rejection, after rejection, but just doing what I was getting in prayer in the mornings, then all of a sudden God opens the door with these people that were really well known and all of a sudden now, the book is all enhanced. And now, beta Satan has passed six million copies. - Yeah. I always look at it and I think that's a great illustration of it is an NFL football. It's sometimes when you're playing from your own side of the field, you can have these big chunk plays

and it's easy to get a long run or a big pass. But then you get to the red zone, which is like the last 20 yards and they switch out and they bring in those 300 pound defensive linemen. That's like, if you're gonna run the ball, if you're gonna get an inch, it's gonna be, it's gonna be some work here. And I look at that and I always have seen this as, on the other side of oftentimes the difficulties and just the perseverance is breakthrough. And just because things are getting tougher and harder and it feels like, well, I'm not getting any traction, doesn't mean you're not just about to break through. And just in the same way that there's, there's the end zone right on the other side. It's like, in order to experience, I love this, it's in order to experience heaven's dream, you have to experience Hell's nightmare. And it's like, you have to go through the hardships and the trials, like, that's what we've talked about. It's not a rejection of you're going down the wrong path, but it's a trial that God is doing, the purification that God is doing with inside of you where Job said, you've tested me and I've come out as pure as, is refined as gold so that when you do get the calling, or not get the calling, but when you do have a breakthrough that happens, God knows you have the calling and the character

to be able to sustain it. It's what you've always prayed and I think you've always shared this with us boys and we've prayed the same thing is God, please make sure that our calling never outweighs our character. And that's always been something that's scary to me within a lot of these young communicators and young, young YouTubers and things like that that are using their platforms for amazing things is understand the weight that comes with that and make sure that the character or that you have people around you that is going to challenge you and keep you in line because if your calling takes you this high, but yet your character can only sustain you this much, you're going to flounder. We'll stop and think about this. Joseph had a gift, yeah. What was his gift? The ability to interpret dreams. Okay, so when he's a young man, he's a bragger, he's a tattle tale, he speaks down to his brothers. Also, I feel like his whole identity was involved around his dad too. Like he didn't have himself outside of his dad. So when God gives a dream, that's one step, interpreting that dreams another step. So I'm going to tell you what I believe. Joseph had a dream, do you remember the dreams?

Yeah, the first of all was the wheat and all the other 11 wheats bowed down. Yeah, and then the second one was the stars. I don't know that God spoke to him in that dream and said your brothers will serve you. I think the next day God spoke to him. And because he had the gift of interpreting dreams. Yeah. So then he has the dream of the sun, moon and stars. So not only his brothers, but his mom and dad. Now, what does his gift do? It gets him in big trouble. Yeah, because even his dad is like, you're saying, man. He's not about we are doing this too. So now he goes through the pit, he goes through slavery, he goes through the dungeons, refinement. But he's still got that gift. Yeah. So God had told him way back years earlier. I mean, we're talking more than a decade. You're going to be a leader and your brothers will be under your leadership. [BLANK_AUDIO] nobody understands what the dream is of Pharaohs. They said, "There's this guy in the dungeon." He's got this gift. He can interpret dreams. God put it on him.

Now the time has come. The character's been refined, as you just said. - Yeah. - He's walked the path. He's now got the character to handle it. He's not a bragger anymore, because he ends up blessing his brothers when they come, and he gets revealed to them. And by the way, that was 19 years later. And I look at God telling me to write 1991, and Beethoven really exploding in 1996. It was five years. Joseph was 19 years. So I think Joseph had a lot harder than I did, okay? - Yeah, it was in a dungeon, and other things during the time. - But that gift was there, right from the get-go, when he was a young, young man. And the question becomes, are you gonna self-promote with your gift? Are you gonna walk the path that God puts before you? And are you gonna pray the right prayers? You boys have prayed really smart prayers. You've said God never let this gift exceed the character you've developed in me. I didn't know the pain I was gonna sign up for, and there was a lot of pain. But God said, I wanna protect you. There are other people that say, I don't care. I want the fame, I want the notoriety,

and I'm gonna use the gifts that God's placed in my life to do it. Remember in the last podcast, the number one thing we need to know about calling was what it's not for you, it's for others. That is easy to say, but it's another thing to live. It takes a lot of pain to get to the point where you really care more about the people. When you and I come on this podcast, we don't really care about anything other than the fact. Are people's lives being transformed? That's what's most important to us. Are people being changed by the spirit of God? I was out praying this morning, and I cried out to God, and I said, God, please let the anointing be fresh. Please let the anointing change and transform your people as they watch this podcast. I am not interested in having so many numbers, but yet people just getting information. We wanna see people transformed. And I believe it takes the anointing on the gifting in order to bring the transformation. God's obviously gifted you and I to do this. There's a good flow between us. People tell me all the time, we love your youngest son, the comments he brings them, the questions, the input that he brings. There's obviously a gift on us to do this, but we need that anointing because that anointing,

I believe enhances the gift and makes it eternal. The anointing is that intangible element. God puts this gifting, we can see it. Hey, I can see this guy, I can operate on somebody and remove a tumor. Hey, if I try to operate on him, I'd kill him. He might as well schedule the funeral, right? Or Akiyana who paints at eight years old, the prince of peace, portrait, the original's worth a million dollars now. That's a gift on her life, right? But what comes with that gift? There's an anointing on her. She seeks God. You can tell when I follow her on Instagram because when that girl speaks, you can sense a touch of God on her life. That hangs in my office, it so inspires me. I will look at that picture of Jesus. And so, the question is, not are we gifted? The question is, are we gonna seek God so that anointing that causes our gifts to be enhanced and eternal? Can I say that I can name people that are gifted and probably gifted by God? I look at, I can name leaders. I can name athletes that are gifted and they probably are gifted by God. But the question is, are they glorifying God? I look at the people, like that businessman,

we talked about in the last podcast. He said, God, I want my business. I want it to glorify to you. And when we sat with him at that lunch for three hours and heard about how he had done some of the silliest things, but yet he's ministered to so many people. So it's not just about being gifted. It's about having your gifts anointed so they make a difference in people's lives. And that anointing comes by spending time with him. That anointing comes as we're in his presence. I have seen preachers that I've got, that's a great message and I've seen preachers where I'm like wanting to fall on my face. I'm telling you, I've seen few singers as gifted as Freddie Mercury. He could rouse an entire stadium as Whitney Houston. Oh my gosh, what a voice. But then I have singers that are far less gifted, but when they sing, I want to fall on my face because the presence of God is so thick. Now, can you imagine if Freddie Mercury or Whitney Houston would have, So the focus here is not just our gifting. The focus is we want the anointing to be on our gifting. I think we've said enough. I think we've got, I've got so much more about it in the book called, and you know what I used? I used to write this book, I used logos.

- Yes. - And you know, all the books I've written in the past 20 years, I've been able to use a logos. And logos has saved me hours and hours and hours and hours of research, because I literally have 75,000 books. Now that's the level of logos I have. I have 75,000 like commentaries. I have the concordances. I have Bible atlases all on my logos, and it helps me to quickly get the information I'm looking for as the Holy Spirit's leading me. But I believe this book is going to really impact people's lives, because we've talked about, first of all, that everyone has a calling with the calling comes the gifts. And with those gifts, it's very important that we walk in the anointing, okay? Because you can have a gift. Now listen, I'm gonna blow some people away. You can have a gift on your life, a God-given gift, and it's not working. Timothy was like that. Paul said to Timothy, "Timothy, your God-given gift "is an operative, engage it." So this book tells us how to engage our gifts, but most importantly, to have the anointing upon our gifts. So it's out there, and it doesn't matter if you're called to the, if you're called to the marketplace, education, healthcare, government, professional athletics, ministry, vocational ministry, this applies to that. I really wrote this book to people

who want to make a difference in this world for the kingdom of God and for the glory of God, amen. So how do they get it? - They can go to urcalled.com. - urcalled.com. - Okay, great. - And they'll actually get access to even more stuff over there. - That's excellent. - Okay guys, until the next time, this has been the John Bevere podcast with Artin Bevere and John Bevere. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]