You see, sometimes God allows us to see how far we can go if for a moment He chooses to remove His covering from us, for us to understand that the one who stands does not stand because of their strength or their ability or their power, but because of the grace of God that is made available, that grace that makes itself exceptionally strong in the time of weakness.

You see, oftentimes in this thing called ministry, people have a tendency to minister from a place of conceitedness, a place of arrogance, a place of self-sufficiency. You know, we tell ourselves, "Yes, I have a right to minister to these people because I've never fornicated before, I've never masturbated before, and I've never cheated anybody before. Yes, I have a right to minister and speak in strength because I've been in church all my life."

And when we stand and speak so boldly, for the average person, the boldness is because we believe that it's our right to stand here and really and truly, we are better than everybody else and that's why we can stand with boldness.

God wants to teach us how to minister from a place of brokenness, from a place of humility, remembering every second that the reason why we are standing is that God is carrying us; it's because we live by his strength, we live by his ability and by his might and actually, if he's not there, we are like the dregs of the earth; we are like the chaff in the wind.

And you see, for me as a person, that's why I draw my strength, my dear, because I'm one of those people who touched God and for this or that reason, I fell into all kinds of iniquity and lasciviousness and it was almost as though, "How can God look upon someone like me again?" But as a matter of fact, it was at such a time that I actually got to understand this thing called the love of God.

God does not love us because we are beautiful; he doesn't love us because we are perfect. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact, the Bible says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." His love saw them in brokenness, weakness, darkness, and humility, and that love had an intention of bringing about a great deliverance to bring them out of that captivity, a love that sets a person free and breaks chains.

Yes, God's love recognizes the chains that are upon our lives, and that love has an intention of breaking those chains off our necks, our wrists, and our ankles, and we have to learn to rest in the fact that when I stand, oh my God, it's not because I'm strong, it's because there's a strong one that is behind me, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. That's something to remind ourselves of every day.

Beyond that, we must know that whatever ministry we have on the outside must always be an extension and an overflow of our ministration to the Holy Spirit. So that's something more than anything you ought to work on, my dear: your own ministration to the Holy Spirit, your own communion with him, your own fellowship with him. It's from there that others might be blessed and also receive their own ministration of the Holy Spirit through you. Do you understand?

So when it comes to this thing called ministration, we must not minister from "Oh, I have been holy for the past five years," because a lot of people do that. The Bible says, "Let the one who stands take heed lest he fall." We must always stand from the place of humility, that God is the one that is helping me. I'm here; it's not because I'm so great; I'm actually a fool. Actually, if God leaves me, I'm foolish; I will make all the biggest mistakes. Actually, I'm a write-off if God goes away.

We have to stand with that mindset all the time, that any wisdom it looks like I have is because God has entered the picture and delivered me, and when we move like that knowing that God is indeed our strength and we stand by his mercy, my God, it produces a boldness, it produces a power, and it produces a conviction and a determination that is not easily lost. Are you understanding me, my dear? So stay broken, stay contrite, and stay at the mercy of God.

It is well with you.