Episode 326: You Have a Calling! (feat. John Bevere)

Thanks for tuning in to Becoming Something, where we promise to keep the conversation honest and real for young adults in their 20s and 30s. Every moment we live is training for a future moment, and that's why we do this podcast—because we want you to be prepared for everything that life is going to throw at you. Our hope with this podcast is that it would help you become become all that God desires you to be. So with that in mind, let's jump right in to this week's episode of Becoming Something.

What's up, podcast world? It's your boy JP in the podcast studio with Nate. And, and what, are you cheering for the Aggies today?

Let's go, let's go!

No, it's like Be So gear. Awesome.

Come on.

I was wearing it yesterday. I'm wearing Be So too. And that's—

oh wow, that's a throwback. It's It's super cool to wear your own merch, guys. Super cool.

Here's the deal, Nate and I don't shop often, so if someone gives us free clothes, we wear it.

Listen, I get 15% of all merch sales, so I just gotta move some merch. I gotta move merch.

Yeah, well, today we are on with one of my heroes.

Man, I tell you what, I was there when you met him in person for the first time and it was magical. Wait, where did y'all meet? Magical. First Baptist Nashville. I thought they were like, The way you talk about them, it's like, oh, they're best friends. And all of a sudden they meet in person. It's like, this is amazing. I feel like I'm witnessing two heroes.

Yeah, definitely a mentor and someone I look up to very much. John Bevere is on the show. How are you doing, sir? Welcome.

Welcome.

I'm doing well. And I'm so honored to be on with you, JP, with Nate and with Kathy. What? Fun. I just traveled back. I got off the plane a few hours ago, and it's so nice to get off the plane and look forward to something. And being with you guys, I'm looking forward to it. Let me see, where were you coming from? It was an easy trip. Dallas.

Okay. Oh, you were so close.

You should have just done it.

I could have done it live.

Yeah, we actually could have, I guess. I didn't know you were doing a marathon today.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, I'm excited about the new book, You Are Called. Listen, it's available everywhere books are sold. Uh, we are going to talk about purpose today, calling today, with someone who has tremendous authority to do so. But it's fun to catch up. Just, I know Nate had asked you before we hit record and I just stopped the conversation. You feel like you're seeing something unique right now in terms of revival, awakening, outpouring. You know, what would you say about that?

Well, I mean, I'm looking at what's happening on the university campuses with you, and I— this is something I've been praying for for years. Whenever a move, a fresh move of God comes, you will always see the youth affected first. Yeah, always. And, and this is Acts chapter 2 where God said, I'll pour out my Spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your men servants and maidservants, I'll pour out my Spirit upon. So sons and daughters are mentioned first. Yeah. And in my 43 years of ministry, anytime I go into a church and I see the youth sitting on the front rows I am like, this church is experiencing a fresh awakening because the young people always wake up there. You know, it's really interesting. Young people don't have any facades. They don't pretend, you know, they're hungry. If you look at people when they get to be in their 40s, they've got now their 401(k)s. They have a stable job. They've got a family to take care of. You know, they're not as raw. As young people. So the young people are going to be very sensitive to a move of the Spirit of God, and that's what's happening right now on these university campuses. And I'm— I mean, I, I jokingly said, look, let me come pastor your church and you go to all these universities full-time, because I want to see these guys get saved.

Don't say that on the air, I'll be out of a job.

Yeah, but no, no, no, no, I'd much rather have you as my pastor than me as my pastor.

Okay, no, no, no, that's not you. That would be only you. Uh, what, what is— I, I'm following you, and I, um, I feel a kindred spirit around just he's coming back. It just seems like there's something pregnant right now in the day and age that we're doing ministry. And so what thoughts are you comfortable sharing with that? I think you're working on that. I know that book is not available yet, but there will be a book in the, the— if Jesus tarries, there will be a book that comes out, I'm confident of you speaking to this, that everyone should be looking for.

So what's so funny is here I've got this book that launched on May 6th, uh, You Are Called, and I am so passionate about this message. But at the same time, I'm writing the next book, which is coming out March 3rd, 2026, on the, you know, the coming of Jesus. And I, um, I'll be honest with you, I shied away from talking about this for 40 years of ministry, and the reason was I saw damage. I so much damage in our early years. Back in the '80s, there was a book called 88 Reasons Why Jesus Was Coming Back in '88. I watched Friends, Lisa and I watched Friends, that literally refused to have children, even took the medical procedure. We saw people stop paying their house payments, their credit cards, because they were so convinced he was coming back in 1988. And I'll be honest with you, I swung the pendulum. And what happened is in 2020, I think it was because of COVID It wasn't because COVID had me, you know, I just had a lot more time. You know, when mid-March hit 2020, I had 6 months of meetings canceled just like that, and it gave me a lot of time. It was the best 6 months, Lisa and I said, of our marriage up to that point. She said, I'm sure glad I like you because I'm spending a lot of time with you right now. And so I started really seeking God about the return of the Lord, and I started noticing fruit in my life. I started noticing I was kinder to Lisa. I was more patient with her. I was kinder to my children, my staff. I started noticing I was much more passionate about altar calls. And I started thinking, wow, there's, there's really good fruit here. Well, come to find out, the number one subject that the early church talked about the first three centuries was salvation. Yeah, the number two subject the early church fathers talked about the first three centuries of the church was the second coming of Jesus. If you look in the New Testament, there's 328 scriptures in just in the New Testament alone about a second coming, but there's 2,400 scriptures in the Bible about a second coming. There's only 300 scriptures in the Bible about his first coming, so there's 8 times more scriptures. So the way I started thinking was, wait a minute, I'm seeing good fruit, and if God has this much to say about it, the early church fathers talked about it that much, What's here that we're missing? And I started— my eyes started opening up to the wisdom of God on why it is so important that we make this an important upfront topic that we talk about in the church. And so I'm 3 chapters away from being finished. I'm so excited about it. It's going to be a 28-chapter book. But what it will do is it— when you have when you have the awareness, the eager expectation of the return of the Lord, it creates a purifying in your life. And the Bible says this, that he who has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure. And if you look at John, John writes and he says, little children, abide in him. Listen to the words abide, live in fellowship with him so that when he appears, we will not be ashamed at his coming. Now, I started thinking about this when I was at Purdue University and my dad paid my full tuition and I'm studying engineering. And I remember, sadly, it was one of the first semesters I got saved. I got saved in my college fraternity at Purdue. And but I was on the varsity tennis team and my studies just suffered because I'm reading my Bible so much. I'm so hungry. I don't want to study. And I remember that marking period, everything was done by mail back in those days, nothing online. We didn't even have online. We had Fortran, okay? I don't even want to go there. But I remember that marking period, boy, I did not have confidence knowing that report card, my dad was going to see it. And when he saw it, he just looked at me. My dad was very, very, very quiet man. He just said, "Son, you could have done better." And I felt this sense of shame. Yeah. Now, it doesn't mean I was kicked out of the family, right? But listen to what John says: live in fellowship with him, that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink back in shame. Yeah, I want to be confident. I experienced that with my dad and my report card. I definitely don't want that with Jesus. So what's the whole key? Knowing he can come today. Keeps me pure and living in fellowship with him. That's, that's the most important aspect of talking about the second coming. I believe it with all my heart, because the servant who says in his heart, my master delays his coming, what does he do? He becomes more worldly. He begins to eat, drink. He begins to gossip about his fellow servants, hurt his fellow servants. Because he's thinking, I'm all right, I can get my life right, it's okay. But when you're living in fellowship with Jesus, first and foremost, you don't want to hurt his heart because you get so close to him. You don't want to hurt him. You know, I don't, I don't refrain from hurting Lisa because I don't want this Sicilian woman throwing a plate at my head, okay? That's not the main reason, although she'd do it. Um, I'm joking. The reason I don't is because I love her so deeply. I don't want to hurt her. Yeah. And when you live in fellowship with Jesus, his presence is so near. You have this greater desire to not hurt him. Yeah. And so that's, that's why I'm excited about this message.

And so in timeline, like, what are you thinking and why?

You're going to back me to that corner. So I, I say in this book, first of all, I do tell when I believe the catching of the way of the church is, because there is a catching of the way and there is a, there is a glorious appearing. And Lisa and I don't even agree on it, and I laugh about it. I say, hey, it's something we joke about around our house. So I hate seeing people get divided over no rapture, pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib. So let's just say there is a catching away of the church and we'll just leave it right there. And I do talk about it, and I give scriptural reasons, not extra-biblical reasons.

Which is synonymous with the rapture. Is that— is that what it's—

yeah, the word rapture is not in the Bible, but neither is Trinity. If you look, it comes from the Greek— it comes from the Latin word rapture, which is the Latin word for harpazo, which is the word Paul uses in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 where he says the Lord will descend with a shout and we who are alive shall be caught up. The word caught up is harpazo. So, um, As far as timing goes, I look at, you know, mankind. You can look at the ancient Jewish fathers, you can look at Enoch, you can look at Job, but you get this sense that a day with the Lord's a thousand years, and you get the sense that man has got 7,000 years on the earth. The first 2,000 was the age of creation, the next 2,000 was the age of Torah, the next 2,000 was the age of grace, the final thousand is going to be the reign of Christ. That will be when Jesus literally reigns from Jerusalem, and we will get to reign and rule with him. There will be people in natural bodies, probably much like Adam and Eve. A young man will be 100 years old, the Bible says. The child will play next to the adder's hole. We will help the otter, or whatever it is, the snake's hole. Yeah, we'll reign with him. But it's interesting, experts, guys that are much, much smarter than me, they have traced through the genealogies of Genesis, Chronicles, Numbers, uh, Ezra. They've traced Adam's birth to be right around 3920 5 BC, which that's 75 years of 4,000 years before Christ was born. So you see this general timeline, and you look at when the last— the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, and then the second temple, which was in Egypt, was destroyed by Rome in 72 AD. The age of the law was over by 70, and that is almost exactly 4,000 years after Adam. Well, if you look at God says there's a 2-day period, and which is a 2,000-year period, that he says that I'm going to revive— after that, I'm going to revive Israel. And Paul said, when all the number of the Gentiles comes in, then he's got— all of Israel is going to be saved. So if you look at that time period, that tells us that, look, I, I'll be the first to say I'm wrong in 2070 AD, but I believe in— by 2070, we're going to see the kingdom established in Jesus ruling and reigning.

Wow, wow, wow.

So here first. Yeah.

Well, so here's what I would say, and that's why it's important that we understand that we are called. And so the book that we're talking about today is You Are Called, and, and that's this idea that, you know, God has a purpose for you, that there's something that he wants to do with your life, which I was just texting with my friend Tanya Pruitt, who is a You know, she's the one that prayed this UNITE Movement, what's happening on college campuses, into existence. And we were talking about college students, and she just said, "Hey, with all due respect, if Jesus is coming back, then we need to make sure that we, you know, unleash them for His kingdom purposes ASAP." And I'm like, "Man, amen to that." So tell us about this book, "You Are Called." Where is your passion lying there?

[Speaker:TIM] And let me say this. I don't know if you know this, but Tanya Pruitt is the aunt of my son's wife.

Oh, that's right. Yes, yes, I did know that.

I sure did. So if you look at Jesus, he said, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. And then he made this statement in John 20:21. He said, as the Father sent me, so, so I'm sending you. So if you look at this, our will— our food, excuse me— is to do the will of him who sent us. If we look at Ephesians 2:8, 9, and 10, Ephesians 2:8-9 says we're saved by grace. We could never earn it. It's not of our works. But then he says, for in verse 10, which is a connector, because we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared beforehand. Um, a quick story. This, this, this will be a story to help set everybody up on the podcast. Uh, 8 years ago— 9 years ago, excuse me— I was playing golf at Riviera with one of our partners who has helped us get the books out to the millions and millions of pastors all over the world.

How awesome was that course?

Oh, Riviera was amazing. Oh, man. I got to tell you, it was, it was, it was a banner round for me. I bogeyed the first 3 of the 4 holes. I was so nervous. And then I birdied 5 holes and no more bogeys. So I ended up with 5. You did not. I did. It was, it was a great— Yeah, but that was 9 years ago. So anyway, you just got so cool to me and you were already cool before. That's amazing. Just now. Just now.

You weren't cool before. Yeah.

All right. Go back to your story.

Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

No, I love that. Thanks so much, Nate. You just made my day. So, we're driving back to the hotel and this partner is a friend of mine. He knew I love— our partners know I love playing golf. So, they take me to all these, the best courses. But anyway, he goes, "I want to get a little personal, John." He says, "I want to be a little vulnerable with you." I said, "Sure." He said, "You know, I busted my rear end to build my businesses to where they're at." He said, "My net worth's over $9 million." He said, you know, I just turned 50. My wife's cared for life. My children are cared for life. He said, John, why should I work the next 10 years as hard as I've worked the past 3 decades? Yeah. I knew this was a moment and I knew I can't just give this guy any answer because the answer I'm giving this friend is going to shape his next 10 years and possibly the rest of his life. And I looked inside. I said, Holy Spirit, I need help right now. And oh, just like that, he gave me the way to answer him. I said, "All right, Stan, I'm going to answer your question with a different scenario." I said, "As you know, I've written now," at that time it was 17 books, it's now 25, but at that time I said, "I've written 17 books." I said, "They're on over 100 languages. I've gotten on airplanes, traveled over 12 million miles. I've stayed in little 400-square-foot hotel rooms as many as 200 nights a year." I said, you know, my wife's cared for life, my children cared for life. Why should I get on another plane? Hmm. You know what he did? He laughed at me. And you know what he said? I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when you face Jesus. And he's got this grin on his face. A friend of mine, right? And I said, you just said the exact same thing. Wow. And the grin leaves his face and he goes, what are you talking about? I mean, he turns his head from the 405 on L.A. and goes, What are you talking about? And I said, Stan, it's very simple. God has placed a calling on every single person's life. See, if somebody says today, oh, they have a call, or he has a call on his life, she has a calling, we think pastor, worship leader, missionary. No, no, no, no. Every child of God has a calling on our life, right? Yeah. I said, God's placed a call on every single child of God's life, including you. And I said, with that call comes supernatural gifts. These are abilities that aren't our abilities, they're his abilities. Yeah. And those gifts help us accomplish what we're called to do. And I said, we, we can do one of three things with these gifts. I said, we can, we can, we can use them just for ourselves, or us and our family. I said, or we could use them as intended to build the kingdom. Or I said, or we can just sit on them and do nothing. And I said, now The problem here is you haven't connected your dots. And I said, but you've connected my dots. And he said, what are you talking about? I said, listen, you connected my dots of how speaking, writing, leading is building the kingdom. You've not connected the dots of how your gift in business is building the kingdom. And I said, in fact, Stan, your gifts are more valuable than my gifts. And he says, where do you get that? I said, the Bible says the parts of the body that are not seen are more valuable than the parts of the body that are seen. I said, I got a seen gift, you got an unseen gift. Yours are more valuable. Yeah. So 6 months later, Stan calls me. I go, Stan, how you doing, buddy? He goes, you want the honest truth? I said, yeah. He said, I have been haunted. And he said, in a good way, every single day the last 6 months by the words you spoke to me in that car. Yeah. What are you doing about it? He said, I'm believing God and working hard to build my business to $35 million so I could do more to build the kingdom. Well, I got a text from him 4 months ago. It was the week of Thanksgiving, okay? He sends me this text. He said, John, do you remember? I wish I had the text up, I'd read it to you. He said, do you remember we had the long talk in my car 9, 8 years ago? He said, I took your word seriously. I started a business with 3 other men. He said, I'm so excited to tell you this morning we sold that business for $555 million. Wow. Wow. So, he didn't go to $35 million. He went to almost $150 million. Wow. And he, so, he connected his gifts with his calling. And when you do that, you get an explosion. So, The problem we have is that, okay, God has given us these gifts. Paul says in Romans 12:6, "Having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them." All right, the word grace is the Greek word charis. Most Christians know that charis, the grace of God, is our forgiveness, our salvation. It's a free unmerited gift But this is the tragedy we discovered. It was discovered in a survey that was done with over 5,000 Christians in America. Only 2% of Americans know that the grace of God is God's empowerment. So God says to Paul, my grace is all you need, for my power works best in your weakness. What's your weakness? Your human inability. So God's grace is not only forgiveness of sins, it's not only a free gift, It is his empowerment that gives me the ability to go beyond my natural ability. Well, the problem is you cannot receive grace unless you believe. Yeah, right. I mean, we have access to this grace, grace through faith. Romans 5, right? Jesus saved the whole world. The Bible says he's, he's the perpetuation not only for our sins, but the sins of the whole world. Right. But why is most of mankind going to hell right now? Because for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes, there's your faith element that brings the grace into my life. So if 98% of the Christians in America 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 I have news for everybody. The call that God's placed on your and my life is way beyond our natural ability. Because if God made our callings capable to be accomplished in our own ability, then he'd have to share his glory with us. And God said, I'm not sharing my glory with anybody. So God on purpose makes our, our calling beyond our natural ability so we would have to depend on grace to fulfill it. And this book opens our eyes to how he not only gives grace, but he gives specific gifts of grace. If you take charis and you put M and an A on it, you get charisma, which is the, the specific gift of grace that God has placed on our life that gives us the ability to fulfill what we're called to do. If you look at Akiane, at 8 years old, she painted the Prince of Peace. That original is worth over $1 million now. She's 8 years old and does it. Wow. That's charisma. Yeah. How does a surgeon remove a tumor from a person and the person still lives? I mean, if you ask me to remove the tumor from your body, you might as well schedule your funeral at the exact same time. Yeah, you're not making it because that's not the charisma on my life. Singing is not the charisma on my life. When I sing, my family pleads with me, please, please, please, please, please, Dad, Go find a place and sing by yourself. Yeah. Okay, so happy is the man and woman who knows their gifts and operates in them. Miserable is the man or woman who tries to operate in somebody else's gifts. Yeah. This book helps us identify as well as develop through faith our gifts that God's placed on our life.

I love that. Let's go. And so, uh, the book is Find Your Calling?

No, the, uh, You Are Called.

You Are Called. Sorry, I was trying to pull it up. Tough title.

We went round and round with that title.

It's good, I like it. You are—

I'm trying to pull it up.

So you really think every Christian is called?

Absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Do we all have the same calling or different ones?

We have hundreds, thousands, millions of different callings. If you look at my body, I mean Paul uses it. I can't think of anything better, right? All my, my body has how many different members? Thousands and multiple thousands. And each of those members has abilities that the other members don't, right? So in other words, my nose can do things my stomach can't do. My stomach can do things my spleen can't do. That's why I said happy is the man or woman who knows their gifts and operates in them.

It's Romans 12. Yeah, I mean, we talked about that this morning as a staff. So the book is You Are Called. It's available everywhere books are sold, and sub is— the subtitle is Discover Your God-Given Gifts to Fulfill Your Purpose. I know Nate's wondering over here, what if you have no charisma? What, what do you do in that situation?

Or like, I think a lot of people are listening and thinking, well, I can see how that person is gifted, or I can see that person's natural gifting. Like, I look at you guys and I'm like, oh, that's so clear, such gifted teachers, whatever. Uh, what about the person thinking like, I don't have anything?

You know, I have an answer for that, Katie. Okay, Kathy, I'm so sorry, Kathy. I do have an answer. 1 Peter 4:10 and 11. Peter said— I'm going to quote it— as each one has received a gift, yeah, minister it to one another as good stewards. We steward the gift of the manifold grace of God. Now, he doesn't say as each pastor has received a gift, doesn't say as each minister has received a gift. If you're born again, the Spirit of God rests on your life, you have a gift or gifts and he doesn't give— doesn't do the same with everybody. Like, like the parable of the talents. One person gets one gift, one person gets two, one person gets five. And by the way, a talent is not a talent like singing. A talent is a measure of money, and it was about 75 pounds of silver per talent. So the first servant gets 70— a 175-pound bag. The second one gets 275. Now, in parables, Jesus is never talking about what he's talking about. Yeah, right. I mean, wheat is good people, tares are bad people, reapers are angels. Well, he's not talking about bags of silver. He's not talking about money. Yeah, what we've been made stewards of is the charisma, and each one has received at least one gift from God.

So how do you discover your gifting?

Well, that is a good book. And but no, no, I'm not trying to skirt the question, Kathy, but what I am saying is I probably won't discuss it thoroughly. I have an entire chapter on how to discover and develop by faith those gifts in you. But you will find, as you, you know, God's— first of all, God says, if you seek me, yeah, you'll find me. And I think there are a lot of people don't realize this, first of all. So when you start seeking, God's gonna start highlighting things. I find that when you're in your gifting, you will do it whether you're paid or not. I would preach whether I was paid or not. I would preach whether I got an offering or not. I would preach if I had to look at Messenger and say, don't give me one penny, because that's what I'm called to do. That's what energizes me, okay? I would write if, and, and, and You know, my royalties do go to Messenger International. So I write and I'm so delighted that I get to do it without getting any personal benefit from it. And so why do I, why do I write? I'm called to do it. Now here's the thing. The gifts sometimes are there at birth and the gifts sometimes come later when God speaks to you. Let me give you an example. Saul, who became the first king of Israel, Samuel looks at him and says, you're gonna go down in these groups of prophets, and when you do, the Spirit of God's gonna come on you and you're gonna prophesy. He started prophesying. Now, even after he went totally corrupt, the Bible says he still was prophesying. I mean, here he is murdering the priests of Nob, he's chasing God's anointed David, And yet he's still prophesying. Go read it, it's mind-blowing, right? Because that gift came on him and the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. In other words, they're irrevocable. Saul didn't prophesy as a young man. It happened when the Spirit of God came on him when he got around those prophets. That's what Samuel said, all right? So that was a time period that it came on his life. If you look at John the Baptist, what was his calling? To recognize the Messiah. When he's in Elizabeth's womb, She comes to Mary's house and he leaps in the womb. Why? Because he's got a calling on him to recognize the Messiah. So that was in him from birth. I'll never forget, this guy was an exceptional— he was the worship leader for a world-renowned evangelist. He was exceptional worship leader. And I was hosting him. This was 40 years ago. And I said to him, I said, gosh, man, there's just a touch on your life when it comes to leading people. I mean, He just had this gift. And he said, you know, John, my mom was a very, very godly woman and prayed. And he said, when I was in her womb, a man she had never seen before, nor did she ever see after, comes and knocks on the door. You know, that's back in the days when people were very hospitable. My, my mom and dad invited him in, and the man looked at my mom while he was drinking tea with my mom and dad. And said, the child in your womb will be anointed to lead people into the presence of God right from his birth. And he got up and walked out. He said, John, my whole family's convinced it was an angel. They never saw the man again. He said, when I was 3 years old, I started playing complex music without any sheets. So he got that at birth. Now, if you look at me, my worst subject in high school was English and creative writing. No way. It used to take me 3 hours to write a 1-page paper. I scored 370 on the SAT in English. I scored 16 on the ACT in English. That's how bad I was. How is that possible? I know. And then God speaks to me in 1991 in prayer one morning so clearly. He said, son, I want you to write. I said, oh, you've got the wrong person. I said, you've got so many kids on earth now, you're getting us confused with each other. Just, just talk. I said, you don't want me writing. No, you just don't want me writing. And he said nothing. So I took his silence as an agreement to my rebuttal. Well, 10 months later, 2 women come to me from 2 different states within 2 weeks of each other, and they both said The exact same word. They said, John Bevere, if you don't write what God's given you to write, it's going to give the message to somebody else, and one day you'll stand in judgment for it. Wow. When the second woman from the state of Texas, two weeks after the first woman from Florida said it, the fear of God hit me. I got a notebook piece of paper, I got a Sharpie, and I wrote contract with the Sharpie. I wrote a contract with God. I said, God, I think you're making a huge mistake. I can't write, so I need grace. I didn't even know grace empowered us. And I signed the contract. Now the books are in the multiple millions. Wow. They're in 133 languages all over the world. And so nobody knows more than me why my name is on these books, because I was just the first guy to get to read them. It wasn't me, it was the gift of God on me that wrote them.

Wow, that's amazing.

Wow, wow, wow. The book is Find Your Calling. We're on with You Are Called. You Are Called. Why do I keep saying that?

He's not gonna read it. Don't listen.

Whatever you do, do not buy Find Your Calling, because we don't know who wrote that. But you do want to buy You Are Called: Discover Your God-Given Gifts to Fulfill Your Purpose. We're gonna take Kathy's question and then we're gonna wrap up.

Okay, no pressure, but make it count. I hear you say like God gives these gifts. Is there ever a world in which you can develop other gifts? Like gifts of— I'm thinking like prophecy or praying to— for— I don't know, for like— I'm praying that God would give me that gift. Is that even like a worthwhile prayer, or is there a way to like develop a gift of teaching. Maybe he gave me a certain amount, but I like really am pursuing that.

1 Corinthians 14:1.

No, I'm just— I'm setting him up, but it's also a question I have.

Yeah, Kathy, the very fact that you have that desire probably means there's something there. So if you delight yourself in the Lord, he gives you the desires of your heart. I don't believe he just says, okay, you want a house on the beach, you've got it. That's not what he's talking about. He's— what he does is he places desires in you when you delight yourself, and they're his desires. The very fact that you have the desire to ask for this means that there's something there, probably. And, um, you know, it's, it's like me, um, you know, I was always willing to pastor, and I asked God— I mean, I can't even tell you, I couldn't count— two dozen times, God, I'll pastor a church. I'm not trying to, to skirt this, avoid this. And yet there was always just flat. And I look back now at 66 years old, and I realize, okay, I wasn't called to pastor. I was called to do what I'm doing. I mean, we couldn't have given the 63 million books to all over the world, to pastors all over the world for, you know, we couldn't have done that. I couldn't have written the 25 books if I was doing what JP's doing. I mean, there's just no way. There's just too much involved. And And yet I never had the desire to ask to be a pastor, but I knew anybody that said I'm not gonna do something, they would end up doing it. Like, I'm not going to ever go to Africa, and what happens? God sets a trip up for you for Africa. So I knew not to do that, but I was always saying, God, I'll do it. It's not probably one of the things I wanna do, but I'll do it. And I would ask over and over, and it was always flat, flat, flat, flat. There wasn't a desire there, Kathy. But the fact that you've got a desire to teach, to minister the Word of God, that is a good thing. I mean, I want to ask you, is your desire to be popular, to have a lot of clicks, you know, to be— to have so many followers on, on Facebook— excuse me, on YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. I'm Gosh, anyway, that is, that is desires that are self-seeking, right? That is desires that we want to spend it for our pleasure. That's not a real desire. When you want to see people's lives forever changed, transformed, and you want to be an instrument that helps do that, that is a God-given desire. And I say pray it. And as far as develop it, yes, God will place a gift on us and yes, we can sharpen that sword. But I'll be honest with you, if I went out right now and I said, I'm gonna pastor a church, I wanna walk in that gift of being a pastor, right? I bet it would be a flop because the grace isn't on my life. Yeah, to do that. And so the gifting always comes when the Lord puts that in you. Okay. And so, very good question. Yeah. And I bet you're not praying to remove tumors out of people's body, are you, Kathy? No, but— okay, why not? You're not called to do it yet. I meet people that they love doing that. They love saving people's lives by removing harmful things from their body. God put that in there.

Yeah, that's good. That's helpful.

Yeah. John Bevere, you are a gift to the kingdom and a gift to me, and I'm so thankful. Thank you for, for writing this book, You Are Called. Uh, thank you for coming on and having the conversation with us. Thank you for telling all of us that Jesus is coming back, and I'm so pumped to read that other book as well. And yeah, just absorbing everything you put out, my friend. Grateful for you.

Keep going to the university campuses. And I love and respect you, and I love your team. Yeah. And hopefully I'm going to get to meet all your team in person one day. I know you tried, yeah, uh, just recently, and I had a conflict of schedule, but I'm, I'm looking forward to that day.

Well, there's a, there's an open invitation. Well, you, you, I, your spiritual father, there you— there's an open invitation and, and many more to come, specific invitations, but Thank you for today, guys. I hope it's helpful to you and we will talk to you next week. Bye.

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