Healthy Leadership Through Heart Formation with Pastor Alexander Venter

Leadership doesn’t usually collapse in a single moment; it leaks from the inside out. We’re sharing a raw, timely teaching from Pastor Alexander Venter, recorded in a room with a group of church leaders, and it lands right where many of us feel the ache: the public fallout of Christian leadership scandals, the quiet damage of spiritual abuse, and the temptation to confuse gifting with godliness.

Alexander Venter from South Africa makes a bold claim that reframes the moment we’re living in: the exposure of hypocrisy can be the very revival we’ve been praying for, because judgment begins in the house of God and leaders are accountable to Jesus, the head of the church. From John Wimber’s piercing line “Give Me My church” to the warning against “playing God,” we explore what it looks like to lead by being led, in humility, under the Holy Spirit, without leaving our fingerprints on what belongs to Christ.

The heart of the teaching is spiritual formation. Proverbs 4:23 serves as a leadership roadmap: guard your heart and cultivate it like a garden, because everything in life and in church leadership flows from your inner condition. We talk character over charisma, the slow formation that happens through what we watch and follow, and the practices that plow up hard ground so the kingdom can bear real fruit. The episode closes with a poem and a prayer that invites forgiveness, freedom from condemnation, and a return to first love.

If you care about building healthy church leadership, spiritual disciplines, integrity, and a Jesus-led community, listen through and even share it with a leader you love. 

You will want to follow this amazing brother in the Lord! Here are Pastor Alexander's links:

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Transcript

Why This Teaching Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey my friends, wanted to share with you an amazing teaching last night to a group of leaders in our church at Haven Lane. And it just it was so profound. I recorded it on my iPhone and converted it so the recording's a little bit wonky because it was sitting on the table in the midst of all of us. But Pastor Alexander Venter, who's been just a faithful man for so many years in South Africa and all he's had to deal with there. I talked about how leaders must let Jesus lead the church. And I thought about it even on our podcast here at The Father Difference. And the truth is, is that we've got to let Jesus lead our families too. And just so many amazing nuggets here that I wanted to share with you. I thought it would just be an incredible thing for you to ponder. I'm chewing at it this morning as part of my devotional. And I'm just so grateful for Alexander and the life he's led and the man he is. And he's an amazing writer, too. And we'll put a link uh in the bio for his books. So anyway, enjoy as we get as I we share this with you today.

Leadership Failure And Real Revival

Give Jesus His Church

Guard Your Heart Above All

Cultivating The Heart Like A Garden

Fifty Years Of Lessons On Health

A Poem And A Call To Return

SPEAKER_01 1:38

So I just caught up in all the stories and all the years, and this morning uh Dave basically drove me down to San Clemente, and we spent the time with Ed Borick. So it's amazing to see Eddie here, going back to all those years in '82. And I will never, ever forget one of my first services coming into Canyon High School Hall, and John would sit behind the fender roses playing, and Eddie was leading, and he just started, change my heart, oh God, make it ever new. And I the tears, I just started to cry and cry as the presence of God just filled the place. And the the passion for Jesus for me was raw and was real. And there was no sense of religiosity or performance. For me, it was just amazing, amazing news. So I I felt deeply odd at coming back and connecting. So I don't know many of you. I've I've heard some names and chatting a bit here and there, but I get to be with you again tomorrow morning for those of you who are able to come. And talking with Dave about tomorrow morning, I decided I'll I'll share some of my story in the book doing reconciliation of 12 years involved, crossing the divides in our apartheid society from white to black and working in Soweto. Soweto is a big, large city full of black people that was basically the labor pool for the white city of Johannesburg to empower our economy. And I'll share that story and really how deeply transformative it was in my own life in terms of understanding the kingdom of God through the eyes of people who were my opposite other, as opposed to the echo chamber that I was living in in the suburbs. So that's an important story. But tonight, just to share with you again, I'm aware this is a leadership group, and I'm honored to talk about leadership. And whenever I have the privilege to talk with leaders, I feel especially honored because for me, the crisis of the world, and the world is in crisis, a serious crisis, yeah, is because of a crisis of it's a leadership failure. And I wrote a a paper uh uh uh a while back called Leadership Lament, the crisis of charismatic character. It's actually characterless charismania, yeah, and uh we are living in a time of deep darkness where there is God is taking the rats of duplicity and hypocrisy in leadership, where leaders are now being found out to have lived the double life of sexual affairs, financial embezzlement, spiritual abuse, misuse of the prophetic in terms of manipulation and coercion. And I mean, I subscribed, I don't know, three years ago to Roy's report, Judy Roy's, the investigative journalist. And it's just I've been I've been beyond astounded, I've been overwhelmed with the constant, almost daily emails coming into my email box of the failure of pastors and leaders in different forms and different ways. And for me, it's actually quite simple. You know, we've all been praying for revival for many years. And I've been saying for the last, I don't know, five, eight years is that revival has begun because God, you know, the evangelical charismatic Pentecostal church pointed the finger at the Catholics under Pope Benedict initially, then Francis, of all the Catholic priests that were found out abusing children and women. And uh, I mean, there was that, you know, for 20 years there was all the unfolding stories of all the abuse in the Catholic priesthood. And a lot of my own colleagues in South Africa said, yeah, you see, the Catholics. You see, the doctrine of celibacy as a priesthood is heresy. They need to marry, then they won't engage in in illicit sex. But now God's doing exactly the same in the charismatic evangelical church, taking the wraps of leaders very, very widely and broadly. And for me, that's the revival we've been praying for. Judgment begins in the house of God, and in the house of God, the first neck that's on the block is the leader on God's chopping block. And we might come into the days of Ananias and Sapphira. We might come, you know, when the when the presence of God is so real and so manifest amongst his people, there is tremendous blessing, but also you reach an edge of danger because you we dare not presume on God. I remember I'm honored to be here with with JP, and this is the first time I've met him, but I had the privilege of knowing Dallas Willard pretty well and bringing him out to South Africa five times with a friend of mine, Trevor Hudson, who you may know and have heard of, and Dallas stayed in our home. But I always remember Dallas saying that electricity is God given, and it is enormously helpful if you have a right relationship with. But if you don't have a right relationship with electricity, you can die instantly. That's right. It can keep that's right. He said that's God. That's a good thing. That's God. Right relationship with God is liberating, wrong relationship with God is dangerous. We dare not presume on God or take Him for granted. So I want to talk about leadership in the light of the pain that we are living with, with tremendous failure in leadership. And for me, the call to leadership is a really a holy call. And Paul talks about leadership in Romans chapter 12 as a gift when he talks about seven different gifts, and he mentions those who lead, let them govern diligently. And the word that he uses there goes back to Timothy in terms of the eldership. The word actually in the Greek, proistaminos, the one who leads, let them govern diligently, means a person who stands out before and goes ahead as an example for others to follow. And it's he talks about it as a charisma of the spirit, a gift of the spirit. So if you are called to lead others in any capacity, in any sphere of ministry, and leaders are only leaders because they have people who follow them and their example, whether it's five or five hundred or fifty thousand. But leadership is functional, but it is a gifting from God, for which the head of the church, Jesus, will hold us all accountable. And I I'll never forget when John Wimber first came to South Africa. Uh, we arranged Dave Owen and my other colleague Costa Mitchell and I brought him out in 1981, his first visit, he did a conference. And I remember him standing up at the opening meeting. There were about, I don't know, 3,000 people. Wimba and Vineyard was like all, you know, um the latest thing. Everyone was talking about it. And he stood up and he said, You might think that I, as an American, have come to tell you guys in South Africa how you must sort out your problems, etc., etc. But I'm gonna do no such thing. I just have one word from the Lord for you, a very simple word. And he paused and oh, listen, what's the word from God? And he said, Jesus is saying to you, give me my church. I want my church. And he opened to Revelation chapter 3, verse 20. And he said, Behold, I stand at the door and I knock. And if anyone hears my voice, please open the door that I may come back into my church and have control of my church. And and he I remember him saying, Above all your meetings and all your all your discussions, you guys have organized me out of my church. And I'm standing on the outside of my church and you running the church as if it's your church, but it's my church bought with my precious blood, and it's the church that belongs to me. Let me back into the church and give it back to me. Let me have control. Let God be God. Don't play God. And I'll never forget that because that speaks to leadership. Leaders who lead in the spirit of Jesus are people who truly let Jesus lead and they follow the leader, and therefore they lead. Leaders lead by being led. Leaders who do not allow themselves to be led in team with colleagues and by the Holy Spirit are not worthy of following because their unmet ego needs take over and then they begin to play God, and it can then become very dangerous. So for me, when we talk about leadership, the goal of leadership is healthy leadership. It's not great leadership, it's not successful leadership, but it is healthy leadership. And I just want to share one or two verses with you and then maybe talk about this idea a bit more. But Jesus repeatedly said in the Gospels, and again, I must attribute this emphasis that I understood to Dallas Willard, where he he pointed out that repeatedly Jesus said that what comes out the mouth reveals the heart. What's in here in terms of your formation, for better or for worse, for good or for corruption, is seen by what comes out here. And of course, what comes out here in terms of what is routinely and predictably said by a person also reveals attitude and behavior. It's not just words, but it's your attitude and your behavior. So Jesus, of course, being a Jewish rabbi, steeped in the Hebrew scripture, probably in all likelihood, was referring to Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23. Solomon, supposedly the wisest man at that time in all the earth, and the writer of the Proverbs, he says, after a couple of verses about imploring people to heed instruction, bend their ear, listen to wisdom, etc. He says, Therefore, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. And of course, in Hebrew understanding, the heart is the center and the core of the human being. And we we go through our you know hermeneutical gymnastics to try and understand it and explain it as the spirit or the soul or whatever. But it is essentially your character formation, the center that is in here. Who you are in here is seen sooner or later by the way you talk, the way you behave, and the way you treat people. And fruit does not lie. The fruit of your behavior, the fruit of your life reveals who you and I really are. And so when it says above everything else, he's talking about the highest priority in life, is the formation of the heart. And the word guard your heart is in Hebrew has got two nuances. To guard your heart means to protect your heart from stuff that comes in and forms you. So, I mean, the the classic example is what Jesus said. You've heard it is said you mustn't commit adultery. But let me interpret that for you, says Jesus. I say to you, it's not about the act of committing adultery, it's about the cultivation of lust by looking, and you your heart becomes a lust for heart, and you've got to stop it and cut it at its root long before it becomes the outward act of adultery. And if it's worked on here, it'll never ever come close to being out there. But if you're doing it out there in actual behavior of adultery, it means you've cultivated it for a long time and your heart is deeply lustful. It's a matter of the heart. The heart of the matter is the human heart. Above everything else, protect your heart from stuff that comes in, what you see, images of violence, stuff that you what you feed on forms you. What you read, who you follow forms you. In our world today, we're a following world through social media. So even my bank back home, I our bank was first national bank. And when I get my bank status, it has at the top. Follow FNB. And it's got its this handle, Twitter handle, email handle, Facebook handle, this, and and all the different ways of communicating with the bank. And it says, follow us through these handles. And I mean, I I remember when Pope Francis was still around, I looked up how many followers does he have, and I compared him with Lady Gaga. And Lady Gaga had about 41 million followers on social media, and Pope Francis had about 31. And I thought, oh, I'll pray for you, Pope Francis. You need to have a few more likes. But our world, whether we are conscious of it or not, we are all being formed one way or another, all the time. All the time. And if you are conscious and assertive in your engagement as to what forms you, you are blessed. If you are passive and manyana, uh easy go, easy come, you're still being formed. Whether you like it or not, you've been formed. We all are following someone personally, and the persons or person or thing or ideology or philosophy you are following is forming you. Your belief system, your inner world of character, for better or for worse. So the the one nuance is to protect your heart, guard your heart from stuff that comes in and what forms your heart. The other nuance is to nurture your heart, not only protect your heart, but to cultivate your heart like a garden. Above everything else, cultivate your heart, protect your heart, nurture it, because all of life flows from your the conditioning of your inner being, which in modern English is your character formation. So when all of when he says all of life, leadership is first and foremost character and not charisma. We celebrate and champion gifting and charisma that dazzles us. As long as they're doing a good job and they are gifted and powerful. Hallelujah, Jesus. But they can be sleeping around behind the scenes, they can be using their spiritual authority to manipulate and coerce people, they can be doing all sorts of things, but we excuse it as long as they are gifted and powerful, and the spirit is moving. And I tell you, the head of the church, Jesus Christ, who booked this church with his precious blood, is gonna hold each and every one of us accountable for how we live, for how we did not leave. I mean, Paul himself says that in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. He says, Be careful how you build, either with wood, hay, and stubble, or with gold, silver, and precious stones, because the quality of your leading will be you'll be held accountable for it, will be tested on that day when you stand before the head of the church. You bought the church with his blood, and the church belongs to him, doesn't belong to Dave and Debbie. This church belongs to Jesus. They just happen by God's grace and mercy to be in the role of leading with other leaders, and it's just all gift, it's just all grace. None of us deserve it, none of us earn it. We cannot presume, we cannot have any sense of entitlement. This is grace, that's right, it's all grace, therefore, therefore, like Micah. What does the Lord require of you? Oh man, and I put in brackets a woman because there were women around you. What does God require of us? Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God and with God's people. Walk humbly before God and with God's feet. Don't presume, don't play God, let God be God. The church belongs to him. Don't put your fingerprints on it. There was a guy, Uzzah, of course, who when when David heard that the ark that was captured by the Philistines had caused major problems for Dagon, the Philistine God, and they put the ox on an ox pot and sent it across the border from the Philistines into Obed Edom's farm, and then he had Shalom. Every sheep produced 12 lambs every year, and the chickens had 45 eggs every day. Everything just blossomed because the presence of God was now on his farm. So they they he sent to get the ox back. You remember the story? And they put it on the ox cart, and as they went, it stumbled in South Africa. We call it a donga, a ditch. And this guy Uzzah presumed to stabilize what God was doing. And he reached out his hand and put his fingerprints on the presence. And he met Jesus instantly. And you know, that is that is again for me this concept of willard that of electricity that is enormously life-giving and powerful. It gives us life, but at the same time, it's dangerous. And leaders, we have to we have to say that God, we honor you. Jesus, we honor you as head of the church. I mean, this is what I learned from Wimber. Jesus, you are head of the church. The church belongs to you. We open the doors and we let you have the reign. By your Holy Spirit. Jesus is head, but the Holy Spirit, Jesus is Lord over the church. The Holy Spirit is Lord in the church. Jesus is head over the church. The Holy Spirit is the autonomic nervous system that comes from the head and comes to every single cell in the entire body and gives life, communication, and coordination. We are we are spirit people led by the spirit under the mind of Christ. The Holy Spirit communicates, and leaders are mere facilitators of that verse. We are not owners of it. We dare not put our fingerprints on it, we dare not put our name to it, or let alone franchise it and make money out of it. Because God's watching, Jesus is watching. He's jealous for his bride. It's his bride, not my bride. His church. So this is, I think, the the core to healthy leadership is this guarding of our hearts and cultivating of our hearts. Because all of life and leadership flows from the condition that you are in here, or better or for worse. So what's happening in here? And the rabbis is a wonderful Old Testament scholar, Richard Davidson, who's written a book called The Flame of Yahweh on a theology of human sexuality from the Old Testament, especially from the book of Genesis. And he goes into all the Hebrew stuff. And he makes the point that the rabbis used to teach that the garden of Eden, where God created Adam and Eve and placed them as gardeners in the garden to cultivate the garden and care for the garden where God came in. You know, Eden in Hebrew is delight, the garden of God's delight. Light. And God created his image and came walking in the garden and fellowship with him, face to face, absolute transparency. There is no shadow of doubt or separation between God and Adam and Eve. And the rabbis say the outward garden of the light that was designed, where we are the gardeners, so that God can come and delight in our companionship, is only but an outward symbol of the garden of the human heart. And God has given us each a garden. It's called your heart. And he's made you the gardener of your heart. And Jesus, when he talks about the parable of the kingdom, he says the kingdom of God is like a sower, it comes and sows seed. And some seed falls on the pavement and some falls among the weeds, some falls among the rocks, but other seed falls among well cultivated, plowed up soil. And that's the garden. He's talking about the garden, the Hebraic understanding of the garden of your heart, your inner condition. Is it full of rocks? Is it full of weeds? What is the is it hard, hard pavement, hardness of heart? You know, the the the Bible, um, I did a study years ago just on the heart, the human heart, and all the adjectives that the Bible uses, and I don't have them all down here, but the Bible speaks of the hard heart, the heart of stone, the Bible speaks of a bitter heart, the Bible speaks of a sad heart, a broken heart. There are so many adjectives that describe the human heart, but the Bible also speaks of blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God in all things. If your heart is plowed up, like it says in Hosea, it is time to seek the Lord. Plow up the fallow ground, plow up your heart, plow up the weeds, plow up the rocks, get the stuff out of you. So that your journey towards Christ-likeness, in terms of your character formation, is a very intentional, disciplined journey to daily and weekly rhythms of spiritual practices that slowly but surely progressively transform you inwardly that other people see out of it. And that your language, your attitudes, your behavior predictably becomes more and more safe and trustworthy. Not out of your effort, but out of God's transformation through your responding to his grace through spiritual practice that is the transformation of God. And again, again, referring to Dallas Walla, the book Renovation of the Heart, one of his books among the other books is really all about this. So, dear friends, my my my my burden, my my my heartache, my longing, my lament is that I am part of a species called Spiritual Leaders. And I was I had hands laid on me on the 20th of January. It was a Sunday morning, 20th of January 1975, in the Assemblies of God in South Africa, when I was ordained to the Assemblies of God ministry. So now that's 51 years of ordained ministry I've been in. So from 1975 to 1981, I was with the Assemblies of God. I met Lonnie Frisbee. I was pastoring the Constantia Assemblies of God in Cape Town when I got a phone call from my colleague Derek Morphe and said there's this guy from the Jesus Revival in California here. His name is Lonnie Frisbee. You want him to come and preach in your church? I had no clue who Lonnie was, and I said, yes, let him come. And I mean, he just I'll never forget. He he he stood up and he told stories, but he spoke as if he was like jet lag. He just ran along with all sorts of stories of what Jesus was doing, and then he stopped and he said, Let's let's invite the Holy Spirit. He first apologized, Holy Spirit, we repent from neglecting you. We ask you to please forgive us, but we honor you tonight. Come, Holy Spirit, and have your way. And all heaven broke this. And at the end, I mean, I was a Pentecostal pastor. There's stuff happening there that I've not seen in Pentecostals. I mean, I was praying in tongues under my breath for safety's sake with my fingers crossed. Rabashandaramandaraman. I was praying, Oh God, oh God. I hope there's a church left once Lonnie's finished. But I said, Lonnie, who's your pastor? Where are you from? And he said, Oh, John Wimber in the vineyard. And that's how I connected. But you know, 51 years now in ordained ministry, you learned a few things over time. And the thing that I've learned probably, if I just summarize it in terms of not only leadership, but it's life and leadership, is the the degree and extent of the formation of Christ-likeness in me will determine just naturally easily the overflow of Christ-like leadership without without you know one knuckled effort to perform and to make it happen. Because it's in here that then it comes out here. But if it's not in here, believe you me, other stuff starts coming out. And people around you are the recipients of it. For better, all for work or work. And God is a God of grace and mercy. We know that. God's extravagant. In fact, God is prodigal and scandalous in his mercy, but that's no excuse to continue living the way that you live. That's right. Not at all. Above everything else, your highest priority, God, your heart. Cultivate the garden of your heart as the place of God's light. Because God loves to come and companion, He craves your companionship. He longs to walk with you in the cool of the evening. He longs face for face-to-face transparency where there's no darkness, no shadow, no guilt, no unresolved shame that slimes you and disqualifies you inwardly. He longs for light to light, face to face, spirit to spirit. That's the garden of your heart. And the question is, how are you protecting and cultivating your heart? Because that's the source of all leadership. It's the source of all life. Then you don't have to perform and try to be someone or try to do something in order to impress. So let me just read to you in closing, and I don't know how long I've been speaking for, but maybe we can have a bit of QA and maybe a time of ministry. They have a I don't know how much time we have, but um, but um Antonio Macado or Machado, depending on how you pronounce it, a Catholic has written this amazing poem that summarizes what I've been talking about. And maybe just before I read the poem, just to emphasize again, I've learned over 50 years of ordained leadership, planting churches, raising up leaders, and handing over to the next generation and going to do it again. So over the 50 years, my wife and I planted four churches, on average, been with a church for 10 to 12 years, built community, raised up leaders, handed over to the younger generation, and went and started all over again. So in the 50 years, I have learned the goal of leadership is healthy leadership, is not great leadership. Is not, you know, from good to great, impactful, branding, performance. If I'm spiritually vibrant and healthy, then you your inner health of life and vitality in Christ just naturally flows out, and all performance begins to fall away, and your unmet ego needs lose their power over you. And you don't need to impress anyone, and you know, and you don't need to look for feedback, you know, or a pat on the back. Again, I I am maybe it's because I'm in this presence tonight, but I remember the very first time Dallas Woodard came to South Africa in 1985, and I had to introduce him in the meeting, and he just lent, he was sitting next to me, and I had his his bio, you know, to read out. And he just grabbed my hand because I had the paper here on the program to introduce Dallas Woodard. And he it was the pastor's conference, and he just put his hand on my hand and he said, Bushy, in those days I was still Bushy Fenter. That was my nickname during us, but he he he said, Bushy, please, please do me a favor. So, what's that? He said, just forget that whole thing and just stand up and say, our friend Dallas has come to share God's word with him. That's all. Just forget all of that because I mean he's lucky, dean of philosophy at UCLN, da da da da da da da da da all in his home. And then I also noticed another thing. I traveled with him in South Africa to Cape Town twice to do conferences, he was in our home. Never once, never once did I ever hear Dallas after he had spoken semi, semi-semi-fishing with people. How was it? And I he never once looked for for feedback, compliments, or whatever. If people gave him feedback, he engaged. But he was so free from what people thought of him or said about him because he was so deeply secure in God's love and knowledge of his identity in Christ that actually it was incredibly healing. And I observed that and I thought, whoa, I'm never ever gonna ask again. Semi fish more. And I then I'm asked my I then I'm asking my wife because she and the Holy Spirit, and sometimes I get confused between the two, but they're gang up on me. I mean, this is probably someone doesn't know that. But friends, the pursuit is healthy leadership by the spiritual formation of your heart, which is the cultivation of Christ-like character, ten thousand times before you look for charisma. God can entrust charismatic power of spiritual gifts to those whose characters formed who will use the power in service of the people from the bottom up as opposed to to dominate the people from the top down, and to build a name for themselves and a ministry and exam that fentan ministries international. And my Leo Jen. I mean, really, we live we live with a lot of sickness in senior leadership that God is now judging. God is calling to account and taking the wraps off, and it's coming every day, every day, you hear news of failure of senior celebrity leadership. God's dismantling the whole show, believe you me. Judgment begins at the house of God, and in the house of God, your neck and my neck is on the block. So the pursuit is for spiritual, vibrant passion for Jesus with a pure heart. Blessed are the pure of heart, because their eyes are purified to see God in all things. That's an Ignatian phrase. To see God in anything and everything that happens, you the sacrament of the present moment is each moment is a gift from God, where God is present and active if you have eyes to see him. No matter what happens in and around you, if you are present to the one who's always present to you, you will discern and see where God is busy and what he's doing, and then you can work with him in what he's doing. That is the goal of healthy leading. So let me come back to the poem and then I will stop. I have perhaps seen enough, but just maybe close your eyes and listen to these words. This is profound. The wind, one brilliant day, called to my soul with an odor of jasmine. And the wind said, In return for the odor of my jasmine, I'd like all the odor of your roses. But I said, I have no roses. All the flowers of my garden are dead. Then the wind said, Well, I'll take the withered petals and the yellow leaves. And the wind took them and left. And I wept, and I said to myself, What have you done with the garden of your heart that was entrusted to you? What have you done with the garden of your heart that was entrusted to you? He's made you the gardener in the garden of Eden, his place of delight. What have you done with that garden? So, Jesus, we honor you as head of this church. This, we can call it this whatever name, it's your church, Jesus, brought with your blood, and we honor you, Jesus. We give this church back to you. We honor you, Holy Spirit, as sent from the Father and the Son, to indwell us and indwell this church and to lead us and to form us towards Christ likeness, to bring us the mind of Christ and the heart of the Father. And Father, we worship you. Father, we worship you, touching the Father's heart. Father, thank you for your love in your Son by your outpoured spirit. We worship you, Lord. We honor you, Lord, and we receive you, we receive you. Help us to plow up the fallow ground of our hearts, help us to pull up the weeds, help us to dig out the rocks, help us to have well-prepared, fertile hearts, that your kingdom can produce maximum fruit, hundredfold, hundredfold fruit. Have your way with us, Lord. Have your way, we pray. I bless, I bless this church in the name of Jesus. I bless Dave and Debbie, I bless these leaders. Thank you, Lord, for this great honor given to me just to share tonight with them. I just bless each and everyone in your name. Holy Spirit, you know everyone here. You know every need, you know every heart, you know, every home circumstance, you know every marriage. Come, Holy Spirit. Come in the compassion of Jesus and minister grace. Some of you really need God's grace. Some of you really need God's forgiveness tonight. Just receive what the spirit wants to do. I just rebuke that spirit of condemnation on the inside, like those old tapes that go off in your brain that say you're not worthy enough, you're not good enough. And I'm trying to disqualify you. In the name of Jesus, I just rebuke that because God has not given us a spirit of condemnation. Don't allow the devil to condemn you or disqualify. Rebuke it in Jesus' name. Christ sets you free. Thank you, Holy Spirit. I just sense in my mind the Lord saying that for some of you, God wants to rekindle that passion for Jesus, which in the book of Revelation is called your first love. You've departed from your first love, where you truly just love Jesus with such passion. And it's become quite old and stale. You've been going through the motions, just the mechanics. The Holy Spirit wants to rekindle that flame of real passion for Jesus. Because at the end of the day, it's all about Jesus. It's not about us, it's not even about this church, it's about Jesus. So that's you. Just hold your heart before God. Lord, let the fire fall and rekindle that flame of first love. Where there's hardness of heart, soften the heart, pour out the rain of your spirit. Let the moisture just soften the soil. Come, Lord, come on.