When Nothing Is Working

0:00:00 – Do you ever feel like you’re not going anywhere in life? Maybe life is okay, but you’re just not moving forward. You’re not moving forward in business, you’re not moving forward in God. You’re just being. Well, there’s a reason for that, and I’m going to reveal it to you in the next More Faith, More Life podcast.

0:00:17 – You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray and this is the More Faith, More Life podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, non-profit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.

0:00:42 – When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more. More from God, and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the Word of God and searching for the biblical principles that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode, you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.

0:01:17 – So if you’re ready to do more, subscribe to More Faith, More Life and hear an unfiltered Biblical truth every week. And it’s time to be and experience more.

0:01:28 – Hello and welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast where you get the voice of revival. Been in revival many, many years and I’m fortunate to be associated with revivals because I’ve actually led them multiple, more than one, for multiple services. Not just talking, not just going to a church service on a Sunday morning and talking about revival that we need to have revival, but actually in multiple services.

0:01:56 – Five services a week for three and a half years. Well, actually it was more than that because I traveled and went to other places and did services in between those services. But and then in Kansas, the Kansas City revival of 2008-2011, I think was three years where thousands and thousands and thousands of people came from all over the world and lined up just to get in this building where we are, well, the other building, but on the property we’re on now.

0:02:26 – And I had to do it four services a week. The first one. Five services a week. I preached them all, all of them. And that’s quite a move of God to do it that many times a Week for that many years and have the place packed out every service with people eager to encounter the living God. And they did, and they did. And they still talk about it, write about it, and I get told about it, that people came and how changed they were and are.

0:02:55 – So I want to be your voice of revival. And one of the things I want to do today, though, is reveal what I would almost say is a secret to revival. Personal revival, church revival, the real thing, where God’s presence and God’s glory and God’s power becomes manifested. Because, you know, God’s everywhere. We know that, the omnipresent God, but he doesn’t express himself everywhere. Sometimes he holds back, sometimes we don’t. You know, you feel it. You don’t know where are you, God? You know, and then you come into these revival moments, restoring revival renewal moments, where God begins to present and manifest and show himself strong and powerful.

0:03:42 – And it’s mostly just a grace thing. And it ends up being maybe the easiest time in your life to be transformed and to experience the living God and the presence of God. That’s why if you hear of a real move of God, you want to get as close as you can, or maybe your pastor go, or you go or tune it in or something. Because it’s hard to just talk about revival. I see a lot of revival books of people writing on what is revival and how revival is and how it looks and how it smells.

0:04:15 – That never attended the ones I ran. They never came. They write books, but they didn’t come. They, you know. So you want to learn from people that actually have been in and experienced these multiple powerful historical services that people still talk about. Well, I want to tell you a secret to it. I guess it’s not really a secret, but most people miss it. And I want to go back and talk about a guy named Saul.

0:04:44 – There’s King Saul and then there’s Saul the Pharisee that we read about in the Book of Acts and other parts later in the Bible. And so Saul’s an interesting character. He’s kind of a bad guy to us. Before he believes in Jesus by faith. I was sharing in another place that a lot of times my Bible says that Paul was converted on the road to Damascus. And that’s not really a true statement. He did not convert.

0:05:13 – He stayed with the same God. He only changed his belief that Jesus was the Messiah, which he didn’t believe before, same religion. He still was a Jew who now believed in Jesus as the Messiah, as the Jewish Messiah of that day. And Then later he was the instigator that brought him into the non-Jewish world and made him the non-Jewish Messiah also with the starting of those churches and others helped him do it too.

0:05:41 – But we see him kind of as a bad guy because he was arresting Christians before that time when he was on the road to Damascus and God came with a bright light and flashed and he falls to the ground and he’s blind and he can’t see and he has to be led away by hand. And so before all that happened and he started believing in Jesus, the Messiah, we see him as a bad guy because he’s arresting Christians.

0:06:07 – He was there when Stephen, the first martyr, Stephen was stoned. He was there approving of it. In fact, he was sort of the overseer of the action because they came and laid their coats down at his feet, saying, we see you, you’re the authority, and you are the authority of Jerusalem that’s approving of this stoning. So it was an approved stoning, murder, but stoning. And so he was angry and angry at Christianity, angry at the believers because he thought it was blasphemy.

0:06:38 – And so now he. He’s oil. And. And he’s also considered, I better say this, he’s also considered a big success, doing well, lived in a great neighborhood, Pharisees lived. And he was maybe the highest Pharisee, maybe, maybe in Jerusalem of that day, at least he’s one of the highest. And they lived great. They lived in great. Their own neighborhood, they had their own suburb, so to speak. And they made money.

0:07:06 – They loved money. Remember, you read about them in the Bible, the Pharisees loved money. They loved to be seen. They loved the best seats. And we’ll just say in the restaurants and in synagogues and everywhere, they lived high up. They were celebrities, so to speak. They were influencers of their day. And he was successful and he was respected, well respected and heard and had the power to get Christians arrested, believers arrested.

0:07:34 – So he goes to the high priest and he gets a written permission to go to Damascus and arrest the people there that are following the way they called it then, you know the way. And so that’s where he’s going. And in Acts 9, it says, and he’s still blurting out murderous threats. Murderous threats. Think of that. Murder in your heart, murderous threats, thinking you’re doing the work of God. So he goes and on his way, powerful, successful, doing well, but suddenly that light flashes, knocks him to the ground, and he’s blind.

0:08:17 – Now think of this. A blind person could not go into the temple. They might be able to go and hang around the outer court and outside, you know, the beggars. There were beggars outside the temple asking for money and help and all that stuff. But to go in and participate where on the level that he would participate? He could not go in the inner court, even. Not the Holy of Holies. Cause he’s not a high priest, but the inner Court.

0:08:44 – Because blind people couldn’t. If you were blemished, blind, sick, leprosy, issue of blood, you know, you couldn’t go in. So now all of a sudden, the powerful Saul, who is powerful enough to get believers locked up in jail, maybe murdered, but he was going to. He was going to take them back to Jerusalem and put him in jail. At least that’s the least of their concerns. So they were afraid of him. They knew who he was. They’d heard of him.

0:09:14 – And all of a sudden, bang. And he’s got to be lit. He’s got to be. He can’t even see where he’s going. He can’t go back and go to just start over. And so they lead him by the hand and lead him around for three days. Three days is important. It’s a three days is important phrase, isn’t it? Jonah in the belly of the fish, three days. Jesus in the tomb, three days. Paul is blind three days, right? And.

0:09:43 – And then he gets his sight back. Ananias prays for him. Ananias doesn’t want to at first, because he said, isn’t this. The guy’s been killing and murdering and throwing us in prison, but he obeys anyway. And now all of a sudden, Saul can see, and he’s going to change his name later to Paul. So if I say Paul, say Saul, you’ll know I’m talking about the same person. But now he’s got to. You know what?

0:10:08 – God didn’t just. It wasn’t just a God encounter. It was a God encounter, obviously, but that was not the purpose. God was not trying to hit him with whatever this light was and knock him to the ground so that he could say, wow, did I have a God encounter. Right? It was more than that.

0:10:30 – It was.

0:10:30 – And God was interrupting his journey to Damascus. He interrupted his plan. He interrupted his ministry. He interrupted who he was as a person. He interrupted everything. And it was a God divine interruption. Now, sometimes we don’t know that God does that. And that’s what I wanted to tell you. Because if you don’t know God does that, you can be in a divine interruption. Not necessarily like Paul’s but you were moving forward, you felt successful, you’re doing well, bills paid, you’re liked on your job, you’re liked in your church or whatever.

0:11:09 – You know, they ask you to do stuff and you’re feeling good, you know, and doing good, and all of a sudden, you know, the money doesn’t come through. Maybe you lose your job or somebody else gets the promotion and you don’t. Now you’re not making the money that you thought you’d make. Or, you know, you’re fighting in your marriage just all the time, there’s tension, kids are rowdy, you know, it’s no fun to be at home.

0:11:32 – And now you’re losing your zeal. Now you just want to do nothing, sit, watch TV or watch a movie or something, play on your phone. And you know, and all of a sudden you go, like, what has happened? Does God not like me anymore? I mean, I thought I was going to be something and do something, and I was something. And now, like, I’m just spinning my wheels. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t feel good about myself.

0:11:54 – I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing anything. I’m just doing the same old, same old. Whether it be job, family, church, whatever. What’s going on. And what was happening with Paul then he got this divine, powerful interruption, interrupted his journey to Damascus, right? Big interruption, Paul. But God interrupted him. Not so he could encounter God and say, boy, did I have an encounter. But because now he interrupted him because he needs to have a change of plan, a change of direction, and he needs to be transformed.

0:12:29 – He needs to become something. And we get in such a hurry to do something. Even after, you know, people, they get, I did it too. I have to admit, you know, I got. I would say I was converted. Paul wasn’t. He just realizes, Jesus, the Messiah. Me, I was more converted, sort of. But I believed in God. So maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I just got the truth. But whatever happened to me, you know, like instantly you want to tell everybody, you know, I’m really born again and the power of God’s on me. I’ll admit it.

0:13:04 – I was singing in tongues. I was speaking in tongues. You can say you don’t believe in that stuff, but I. I’d never heard of it. So I had clean faith. I didn’t even try to do any. I wasn’t trying to do. It just happened. And it’s beautiful, wonderful, powerful. And I wanted to tell everybody. And I did tell a lot of people, but, you know, and so you immediately want to start doing. And I think there’s a possibility that Kathy and I got to the doing part a little too quick also.

0:13:35 – We should have spent more time doing just what I’m teaching you. Nobody taught it me, though, that we should have probably spent more time becoming, learning to be transformed, renewing our thinking, renewing our minds, renewing our attitudes, renewing how we see the world, changing our worldview from our culture to God’s culture to the kingdom of God culture. We got it. But I think we would have done better.

0:14:05 – Personally, I don’t know if we would have done better ministry wise, but we would have done better personal in our personal lives and in our relationship. And we lost a little ground with each other in some years because we had not become. And so I had to look, I had to have that happen to me. I’ve been in the ministry a number of years and I needed. What I had was a divine encounter similar to Paul’s.

0:14:31 – It was like lightning from heaven. Instead of falling down, though I told the people the other day, I jumped up because, like, it electrocuted me. But it wasn’t bad. It was wonderful. And just this flood of energy and life and changes and everything was going off. All the. Everything was going off inside of me and the old was going away. It was floating away, you know, And I had to have that because I needed. If I was going to do what God wanted me to do, I was going to have to be transformed. I was going to have to become something else, somebody else.

0:15:10 – Not 100%. I’m still me, you know. But I had to be transformed. I had to get a kingdom mindset. I had to learn how to preach God’s way and how to talk God’s way and sing God’s way, think God’s way. And I didn’t want to be a sinner. I wanted to do that. But I was kinda like Paul, doing what I thought was right and how to minister and how to do things. But I needed to have an interruption. I needed to have my ministry interrupted. Because every time I think I almost was interrupted, I would just get going again.

0:15:48 – I’d had plan B. If plan A didn’t work, I’d have a plan B and a plan C. Well, God brought me to the point where I didn’t have a plan. And kind of like Paul being led helplessly along, I was helpless. I lost all my energy. I wanted to preach, but I lost all my life. That went out of me and I lost it. And I didn’t preach well. The church was still kind to me. And I was still trying to preach, but it wasn’t going that well.

0:16:15 – I just didn’t have it. And I just drifted where I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t sleep much, I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to talk. And I just finally had to inter trying to get another plan. Cause all of a sudden I had no plan B. And plan A wasn’t working for me anymore. And that could be where you have been, you are or maybe will be into that place in your life where it’s a divine interruption that God wants to just shut you down and start your development as a person, rather than development as, whether it be business, ministry, school teacher, Sunday school teacher, whatever, whatever, good mom, good dad, whatever.

0:16:58 – And so when that happens and God tries to do that, and finally this is just my thought, that God probably tried to get a divine interruption on Paul Saul before this time. And he just wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t cooperate until God just knocked him to the ground because he wanted him bad. And some of us, I guess that’s what we need sometimes is to have that. And so we’ve got to change our minds and be renewed in the spirit of our minds by deciding and realizing what is God really up to?

0:17:42 – Is God up to trying to make me powerful? Cause that’d be great if you were. We need powerful Christianity. Right? But is that what God’s doing with you right now, personally? He’s trying to make you powerful or is he trying to make you a somebody in him, he’s trying to get something going. Right? So it’s not so much that he’s trying to get you powerful as much as he’s trying to get you to be something different as a person and trying to transform your thinking, your mind, your ways of reacting. How do you react?

0:18:17 – Right. A lot of people, they wouldn’t have a bit of problem in their marriage if they learned how to react better. And by the way, I love to teach on that too. Maybe I did one time, I don’t know. But there’s a strong thing when the spirit of the Lord moves on your life where you begin to act instead of reacting. Because see, react, this is off the subject, but react is after the fact. Act is before or during.

0:18:43 – And so most people wait till something happens and then they react, or they wait till somebody makes them mad, then they react. But if you’re action person, then you’re in control and you’re setting the pace. And whatever happens in the world doesn’t affect me because I already have it. You know, if a. If a war broke out, a big war broke out tomorrow in my relationship with God, nothing would change.

0:19:10 – Now with a lot of people, it would. They’d start going to. The church would be packed for a few weeks, right? Because everybody started praying for a while. Kind of like 9, 11, if you’re old enough to remember that happening or other things that happen, that makes people rush to church for a little while. And so. So now we’ve got to understand, if God’s not trying to make you powerful, what is he doing? Because Saul was already powerful.

0:19:37 – All right? So God wasn’t trying to make Paul powerful. God was trying to make Paul, Saul. Paul. Make Paul dependable on him. So it was dependence, not power. It was dependence. I’m going to make you a dependent. Okay? So you’re now going to be dependent. He can’t see. He’s blind. And even afterwards, he shook up. Something’s happened, and he wants to express. I mean, he’s heard from Jesus. He’s heard Jesus voice, and now he wants to do something about it.

0:20:14 – But he stayed with the disciples most of the time. He did go out and minister, okay, but he stayed connected to them. I think it was 14 years until they sent him out with Barnabas, and they sent him out then, and then he was now. Then he’s on his own to do what he’s supposed to do. But in that time, he got a divine interruption. Then he was willing to take the time to be transformed by the renewing of his mind and realize that he was so powerful. And now he has limits on him.

0:20:50 – He’s not popular with the Jews, for sure. Jewish believers, even some of them, didn’t like him. But because he, you know, he was pretty good preacher, you know, knew a lot. Obviously, he wrote most of the New Testament. And so all this is happening to him. And we get that where we all of a sudden feel like there’s now some kind of limitation on us. And I told some people the other day, if you feel like there’s a limitation, let it happen, because God’s preparing you for a presentation of himself.

0:21:24 – And so Paul had to become dependent on God, not powerful. There’s a big difference. And after he became dependent, what happened? He became powerful. We got it backwards. We’re trying to become powerful and not being transformed. And so people go places and start ministering, and they just. They don’t have the character. And they. They. They’re fighting at home while they’re preaching at church. You know, things like that.

0:21:50 – And. Or they’re preaching at church. And their kids don’t love even. Not only do they not love God, they don’t love their dad. They don’t love their dad’s a preacher. And they don’t love their dad. You know, they don’t have respect for him or whatever. So there’s a lot of things. So it’s an answer to you who might feel frustrated or feel like you’re not up to your potential. It’s possible like most people.

0:22:12 – Most people, you’ll find, especially if they do go to church, that they felt something from God their whole lives. Or they used to think, maybe someday I’ll be. Maybe someday there’s something going on inside of me of God. But I don’t know what it is. And because they don’t know how to develop that with the divine interruption, with becoming a dependent. Just continue to try to take that feeling, I need to do something, I need to be something and run with it.

0:22:40 – That it just spins and spins until most people give up on it. So we mostly have people in church who are called of God. They are called of God to something, but they’ve given up on their calling because they didn’t know how to get there. And they didn’t know what he was doing. They kept trying to do something when God was trying them to be something. To develop you in character, in integrity, in loyalty, in honesty, and even in joy and love and caring and, you know, and generosity. Get over the love of money and all that kind of stuff.

0:23:21 – And so that’s what God wants. So that when you get to go out and do things, you can be an example. Cause what we need is examples. We don’t need another preacher. We got plenty of preachers. We don’t have good examples till Paul, remember who was Saul was raging these spewing out murderous threats to believers who had done nothing wrong. Right. That’s who he was. And after time he gets so changed as a person not in the ministry. Cause he did begin to minister, but that’s not the exciting part.

0:23:57 – He was so transformed that finally Paul could write. And it’s in the Bible. He said, imitate me, imitate me. In other places, the Bible, it says imitate people’s faith, imitate their faith. So you want to get people that you’re willing to imitate and you want to be a person that people can imitate. That’s the goal when you do that. You can do anything. You can minister any way you want. Well, maybe not if you don’t have a good voice. Don’t Try to sing, okay?

0:24:26 – And if you can’t play the piano, don’t try to punch out a few notes, okay? But you, you can be anything in Christ. It doesn’t make any difference. Oh God, am I supposed to teach Sunday school in my church or am I supposed to fly around the world and minister to people? I just don’t know. It really doesn’t matter. If you haven’t become who you’re supposed to be, it’s not going to be what it’s supposed to be.

0:24:48 – Okay? So become that character. Become somebody that people can imitate. Then who knows, you can do anything, be anything and who knows, God will open doors for you. Or maybe you’ll kick a few in yourself. You know, as long as it’s serving the Lord with the right heart character and you’re binding yourself personally together with people. And like minded people don’t become unevenly yoked with unbelievers.

0:25:14 – Get them on the level of the kingdom of God thinking because God’s trying to make you someone they can imitate, not somebody that you imitate. Got it? So you may be in right now a divine interruption. You may feel limitations, you may feel God’s mad at you. God’s forgotten you. You’re not important. Everybody else is important. Why aren’t you blessing me all the things that go through your head? Relax, relax.

0:25:39 – God’s developing character. Cause that’s what he wants. That somebody dependent on him who could be trusted with the things of God. You getting that? Go to https://stevegrayministries.com. There’s many, many things there for you. And there’s more coming out. And get all the podcasts you can. Follow us. Subscribe. Tell your friends. I don’t know, maybe you’re hearing this kind of stuff everywhere you go, but most people tell me after listening to these, they say I’ve never heard any of this stuff before. I’ve heard sermons, but not this kind of teaching.

0:26:12 – That is going to move me ahead and move me forward in the things of God. So I’ve enjoyed visiting with you today. I hope this has been helpful. Till next time, bye-bye.