Strengthen Your Strength // Start Sharp (Part 2) // Michael Todd

Welcome to Transformation Church Podcast, where we represent God to the lost and found

for transformation in Christ. We're so glad you're here and wherever you're listening from,

we believe God will transform your life. To today's message, I have

a word that I think is about to shake the foundations of our church the

world, and it has already shaken the foundations of my life. And I'm

gonna deliver it in fifty minutes. I'm gonna hit you so hard in the

next fifty minutes that you will be able to walk out in the snow and

not even feel cold. Yeah, this one's about to Somebody shout at me,

start sharp. How many of you have started something this past week,

this first week of the year that you know you've been needing to do,

but you actually started something. Come on, let's go. Okay, there

are some people in here with they hands like you was about to lie.

And I thank you for being honest in this church because we're a hot church.

We're open and transparent. What I'm saying is, yes, at the

beginning of the year would have been the best time to start, but the

next best time is today. Somebody say, start. I feel like there's

a mandate on me to help people move from complacency, because it's very difficult

to push a car that is not moving. But if you can just get

a little momentum on the vehicle. Okay, some of y'all acting like you

ain't never ran out of gas before. I just I don't know where y'all

just came from, But y'all better know what type of church this is?

How many people that ran out of gas before, and how many people had

to push the vehicle to an either safer spot or a place where you could

get some gas. Okay. I know some of y'all been privileged all your

life. Your daddy was like gas triple A. Okay, But what I'm

telling you is some of us didn't have triple A. Some of us we

had to get in there. And if you're from the Midwest, one thing

I love about the Midwest is that if you are struggling outside, there are

people here that will actually stop what they doing and actually get out and help.

Y'all. Know, it's not like that on the East Coast, because

y'all need to be saved in New York, in Boston and Chicago and all

that. But if you come to Oklahoma, and you're on the side of

the road. All you gotta do is, like I mean, do it

for three minutes, somebody's gonna stop, okay. And what happens is if

you get anybody with wisdom, what they say is you get in the driver's

seat, open the door, and put it in neutral, and I'm gonna

get behind. And it's so beautiful because when one man gets behind, then

other people stop because they're like, I just didn't want to do it by

myself, and so then they'll be like two or three other dudes that get

behind. And the whole goal is to take you from a stopped position to

a starting position. And when you get somebody behind you to push a little

bit. It's much easier to steer a moving vehicle than one who is staying

in the same place. I come to submit to you this year. The

engine doesn't even have to be owned for you to be moving in the right

direction. This does not have to be like, oh I feel you.

Nah, we're just trying to get this thing out of a stagnant position.

And I believe by faith I've been called to push you today. Somebody shot

at me one more time. Start start all right? You've given me permission,

God told me as I started this twenty one days of praying fasting,

I'm doing a fast I've never done before. I'm not telling you what it

is, but it is a struggle. Bus I just feel for what I'm

believing God for in this season. I wanted to I wanted to do something

that that that was an indicator for me of what I'm believing God for.

And as I started on this this fast, when I when I when I

be fast and i'll be, I be expecting God to speak to me like

I know some of y'all just like the worst of music and stuff and y'all

just like ring y'all bye. God, say something like like I don't care

how you doing. You can do it through the goof Troop movie my daughters

is watching. You can do it through something that's on a napkin. But

speak to me in the Holy Spirit. When I was up early just praying,

he said something to me that he's never said to me before. And

I was like, God, can I release this to the church. He

said, I only gave it to you to live it out and then give

it away. He said, So today I want you to tell the church.

The message I gave you for twenty twenty four. This ain't the word

of the year, but this is a prophetic word for you. He said.

The goal is not to just start sharp, it's to stay sharp.

And he said, and if you're going to stay sharp, Michael, there's

some things I need you to revisit. And I was like, okay,

go what I need to revisit, What I need to read, what I

didn't to do new what do you want me to do? Anything you want

me to do, Lord, I'll do. And he said, very simply,

Michael, I want you all of twenty twenty four. This is the

title of my message, and I want you to write it down. He

said, I want you to strengthen your strengths. I said what He said,

the things I've already made you strong in get stronger. I said,

hold on, wait, God, I thought I'm supposed to be strengthening my

weakness. He said, no, I do that. Y'all missed it.

He said, I will be strength in your weakness. But you have a

responsibility to strengthen your strengths. And I said, what you mean? He

said, everything that you think you do good, you can do better.

I said, what you mean, He said, every time you speak,

you do it for a living. People know you for that. Can you

get better at it? I said, hold on, Holy Spirit, what

you saying? I thought you gave me the messages? He said, I

did. But I don't want you to preach for an hour and a half.

No more, I want you under an hour. I said, for

some of my examples, Lord, some of the things that help the people

of God. He said, you can do everything if you strengthen your strength.

Okay, he said, if you know it backwards and forwards, if

you get in it earlier, if you take out the stuff that is fluff,

if you get in that thing and rehearse it before you do it,

don't just go off your wrong talent. If you were just strengthen your strength.

And I'm being this transparent because you're gonna watch me do it in front

of you all year. Okay. See, I'm not scared of nobody because

for me to actually live this out, I gotta live it out. And

some of you are scared to strengthen what God has given you because you're scared

of failing. Failing is a part of it. The only way you can

strengthen something that you've already had a confidence in is you have to become a

student again, and some of you are too proud to fail again. Ooh,

I'm already in my bag. Oh you thought because your business was successful,

you can't strengthen it. Oh you thought because you already got a good

marriage, y'all couldn't get better communication? And the way that you do that

is by looking at other people who don't have what you have and wish what

they had, and makes you lacks a daisical on what God gave you.

Okay, how we gonna start sharp and stay sharp. We're gonna strengthen the

things that God has already given us to do. Okay, Uh, what

would happen if everything you're at a six or a seven at you became three

levels better at e bely what would happen? It's the organizational skills that are

already up here, notched up two more notches. How more efficient could you

be? How many more people could you help if you just organized? No,

I know I got some shoes to give you somewhere. I know I

got some shoes to give you somewhere. I know they somewhere, hold on.

Maybe they have the stories. Maybe yet, what if you didn't do

spring cleaning, but you did right now cleaning, and the stuff that you

ain't never gone with it ain't ever fit you and won't ever fit you.

Let's be honest. If what I go in my life. The first thing

that I did to start this up is I went to my closet and I

have witnesses. I gave away so much clothes, so many shoes I'm talking

about with tags on them, name brand everything you think that gave them all

the way. And somebody said, why are you doing this? I said,

I need less to manage. You want a blessing, I need less

because I need more room to do what God's called me to do. Organizing

all of this stuff is not making me better. Okay, what happens when

the blessing becomes a somebody say, I'm gonna strengthen my strength. Now I

want you to start thinking, what are your strengths? What are the things

that you have just discounted as natural for you? Oh? Yeah, I

just go that. God said, that's the thing I want you to become

better in this year. We're always gonna have a weakness. That's why we

need grace. That's why we need God, that's why we need to actually

be But what if you became a better graphic designer this year? What if

you actually thought about what you were gonna say before you said it. Uh,

oh, I'm in too many people's business right now. What just just

what if you actually made a budget this year and you strengths. Somebody got

so convicted they started coughing of they almost threw up over there. Yes,

you got out of debt, but you haven't been able to invest, so

you cheap throwing up out of that since twenty fourteen, ten years ago.

And I'm saying, great, but what else where does the next level come

from? And the Holy Spirit convicted me so hard, Michael, he said,

He said to me, He said, Michael, I'm expecting more from

what I gave you. That one song in nineteen ninety six was not why

I gave you that gift. That that one piece of clothing you put out

is not why I gave you that creative eye. And many times when we

don't create, we critique. The reason why everybody is commenting and teaking and

talking about everything everybody else is doing is because they ain't doing what they're supposed

to be doing. I don't have time to comment on your excel or your

fail because I'm in here strengthening my strength. Okay, okay, all right,

some of you, like Mike Gouds, I might strengthen my strength.

Okay, let me give you some synonyms for strength. You need to build

up, enhance in large, establish your gift, Extend your gift, Heighten

your gift, Heighten and increase, intensify, invigorate, reinforce, set up,

step up, support, sustain, and toughen the thing that God's already

placed on the inside of you. Okay, who would you be if you

strengthen your strength. Many of you would be the leader and not the follower.

Many of you would be the lender and not the bollower. The Bible

says that He has given us the ability to produce wealth, but many of

us have not strengthened the thing that we can just do. You've been working

on seventeen hobbies that will never produce for your family. You've been doing things,

But God has given us some inherent gifts that I believe that this year

we're supposed to strengthen. What if you leveled up in love? I was

reading this book the other day nonviolent communication. Why was I reading this book

because I have a way of talking. The people who really know me know

me that doesn't have much. They're that much cushion around. I just want

you to know what I actually mean. That don't work well in marriage.

I talk for a living, but direct communication to you gets me sleeping on

the couch with Natalie. So what am I going to do? I'm not

going to say, well, I'm a man. I'm a grown man.

Know. I ordered a book off of Amazon and God Scott One. I'm

about telling them the truth of Scott got One too. Why Because I have

to strengthen what others call my strength, but I know they're still an area

for me to improve in. What if you maximize the marriage. What if

you didn't need the marriage counseling because y'all really worked on it and you could

help young married people. Some of you have never even seen yourself in the

position of giving it a way because you're so broken and messed up right now.

But what if y'all made a decision the next five years, we're gonna

figure this thing out. I'm gonna figure out how to be romantic, and

I don't like being romantic. No, okay, this is going to take

you being honest with what you have already resolved. Ain't you this just me?

It don't have to be this just me? It does not. I

was so convinced I was gonna be fat and big my whole life that I

started to tell myself, it is just me. Give me a three X,

give me a four X. I'm gonna eat the whole buffet. Do

they got a buffet? Is it all inclusive? This was my life.

It's just if we're gonna live, we all gonna die. These are things

that might as well in your But at some point I had to make a

decision to divorce the thing that I already had made a contract with. And

some of you cannot move forward into what God has because you're gonna have to

break the contract with the lie you've believed. You're gonna have to strengthen your

strength, saying, with a strengthen my strength, Can I give you another

word for strength? Gift? Your strength is your gift. It's a gift

from God. Name for me a couple of things that you know was a

gift from God. You didn't even have to work hard from it. Come

on, some of y'all. Just what is it talking? Humor? What

is it leading? Come on, somebody talk to me. What do you

say? Charisma? Just when you walk in the room, you don't never

meet a stranger. Everybody love you, taking you out. I want to

introduce you today. Mom. It's just a could I submit to you that

gift that maybe has been diminished as just a part of your personality is actually

a strength that God wants more out of to be used for his glory.

Two Timothy, Chapter one, verses six and seven. I want to introduce

you to a young man named Timothy who has been given some gifts but comes

up against opposition. And he writes to the O G. Paul, And

if anybody doesn't know what OG means, it's original gangster. It's just a

term of endearment for somebody who's been in a game a while and understands the

pathways of what somebody else may be going through. And Timothy is a young

man who has been judged because he's so young doing big things. And he

was a young man and he was like, I don't know what to do

with all these people, and da da da da da. And he writes

to Paul and Paul writes back to him, and this is what he says

to him in verse six. He said, therefore, I remind you stir

up the gifts of God on the inside of you. Yell out, stir

up the gifts, he says. I'm reminding you to do something with what's

already there. I didn't say go find a gift. I did not say

go copy a gift. I did not say go and get a mentor that

can possibly lay on you a new gift. He said. Stir up the

gift of God which is in you. Somebody say it's in me, he

said, Stir up the gift of God which is in you. Through the

laying on of my hands, he said, I already proved that these were

gifts on the inside of you. I already confirmed this. Why are you

doubting what you know God gave you? So you need to be reminded to

stir it up. For God has not given us y'all didn't know that scripture

was there our whole Christian life. We've been quoting that. Separate from the

first part. You're scared on. No. No, God has not giving

you a spirit of fear, put a power of love, and a sound

mind. Put it in context, stir up the gift of God inside of

you. It's already in you, and I confirmed it by laying on my

hands. I don't know if I should do that. God has not given

you a spirit of fear to walk in your gift. Fear would keep you

from doing that. Well, what would they say? And nobody in my

family's ever done that? And what if they don't accept me. God has

not given you a spirit of fear. Well, I don't know how to

actually and I've never had gone to school for this. And God has not

given you a spirit of fear, but a power love and what he said

for you to actually maximize your gifts, you need to not be stirred no

more. I didn't say scared. I said scared Some of y'all so scary

of the thing that God's already confirmed in you. Natalie. God has created

you to be creative. Don't be scaredless stepping out and doing what He told

you to do. There is nobody that can stop you when God put the

gift on the inside. This year, I'm about to release so much music,

y'all. God should not have gave me this word. I'm Pidgeontod talking

like this. He should have not given me this word, because one thing

I know, if I don't know anything else, that I'm strengthen to be

creative through music. It don't matter if you don't like it, because the

goal is not for people's appreciation, it's for obedience. You missed it.

And so many of us have capped our gifts because we want it to work

in man's eyes. But what if the gift was just to bring him glory?

What if it put it in you to get it out of you so

that it could be there's somebody that'll do it for twenty likes and they're content

and they're faithful. I'll bless them another way. This don't gotta make money,

Oh God. This don't gotta be the thing that pays for day,

or we'll pay for the house a different way. Will you be obedience to

release what I put on the inside of you? Somebody says, stir up

the gift? Oh I feel I feel it. Okay, let me bring

some context to you in because when Paul to Og was talking to Timothy,

he was working in his gift as a pastor. And this is how we

extract truths from the Bible where everybody don't got to be a pastor to be

working in your gift, but we can get the principles that God is trying

to sell us. He said, he said, this young pastor's doing it.

But he was a young man. He came up against opposition. But

lets me know a couple of things. Number One, God does not have

an age limit to a calling. I just need to talk to everybody under

the age of twenty five. Stop waiting. Stop listening to these means that

say in your thirties, that's when you build it in your forties. Des

is when what if God called you to do it at eighteen? Okay,

I am at a different place in my life because I heard the call when

I was still a teenager, and I started doing things that other people wasn't

doing, that didn't make no sense and didn't give me any money. Can

I just say that some of y'all want to get paid so bad, you're

missing the place of your purpose. You're calling everything manipulation and somebody's using you

and all that other stuff. No, dummy, you're not good yet.

Okay, maybe you're good at the skill, but you're not good at people.

Every training place is not for you to be in charge. I can't

tell you how many places I've been where my title did not even matter.

It was what I was getting more than what I was giving. It was

a blessing to get anything. At that moment, when I started running sound

at this church, I was getting paid thirty five dollars a week. That

wasn't enough gas money for the fifteen passenger van I had borrowed to get there.

It's a story for another time, but it's true. But what God

was teaching me at that sound booth, getting thirty five dollars an hour being

there from six am to two pm faithfulness. You can't put finances on faithfulness.

The way that I've learned to show up when nobody shows up came from

me having to be the first one there. Me and Brother Glenn. I

don't know if Brother Glenn is still in here, but he serves on our

usher committee right now. Me and Brother Glenn would be the first people,

and he would turn on the lights and I'd be down there praying and rolling

up mike chords. And I learned faithfulness because God said, yeah, you're

good at music, and you're good at talking, but you're not good at

faithfulness, So I need to strengthen that because for what I see ten years

from now, you're gonna have to be faithful when people. You're gonna have

to be faithful when they run off with a narrative that ain't true. You're

gonna have to be faithful to me like like like, no matter what happens.

So I gotta teach you something that you can't learn on the platform.

Okay, today, I just came very simply to tell you stand straw in

your gift and stir that thing up. That's it all year. If you

not getting back some of y'all need to go back to lessons. You used

to be able to play the piano, and now every time you play the

one same song and everybody's like you could play the piano. Oh, I

used to used to and you killing that one song? Used to really,

you know, really tell there're songs that God gave you. There's songs that

he wants you to write for you to be able to get it out in

the spare time that you have between the three kids that you have, You're

gonna have to get more efficient. So you need to go take lessons.

I ain't paying for no lessons cool stay on the level that keeps God from

doing what he planned to do. It's not God at this point. There

are certain things that I know I have to do. I have to be

diligent and dedicated and faithful to to get to the place where God can release

what is already in me. Strengthen your strength, passor right. What are

some strengths, administration, discernment, exhortation, encouragement. Faith Giving is a

strength. I'm not just talking about money some of y'all. God gives you

stuff to give it away. Decide in your heart this year, I'm gonna

give more than I've ever given. I told my wife what we're given in

crazy faith offering next year this year. For that to happen, God's gonna

have to give seed to the sower. Let me be. But I already

decided, he said, strengthen your strength. I'm gonna give the most outrageous

thing that anybody. I don't know, nobody in my family that's given this

much to anything. I want to be the first. God, Would you

bless me to a place? Could you? Could you open my ears enough?

Could you give me ideas and with the inventions? Could you Could you

put me in the right investment. Could you show me who to connect with

what, because it's already made up in my heart. This year, I'm

gonna strengthen my strength of giving the gift of healing. Y'all know what Another

gift is that some of y'all's discount the gifting of helps. It's literally in

the Bible. People are gifted to help. And you be like, I'm

just the only one I heard doing this. Ain't nobody else helping? The

reason it's a burden for you, it's because God gifted you and he said,

instead of being mad at him, come up with a training course to

help people that help. Y'all not hearing me yet. Gift of leadership?

How you out of gift of leadership? And you always on the bench,

No, no, no, I just need I just need to talk to

you, because you know you're a leader and anything you step into people gather.

Anything you do and you put half an effort into it seemed like ten

times better than everybody else. But all you do these days is sit on

a bench and judge I'll go to score. That's you don't play. No,

you're tired. And we say that for people who are athletes and sports.

But there's so many retired Christians. You don't serve no more, you

don't help no more. We don't even know what you used to do.

You used to do this stuff. You used to run stuff, you used

to prophesy, I used to create, and all you do now is bring

coffee and say hello. You think that it's a privilege that you showed up,

and to us it is. But to God he's disappointed. He put

all of that in you, and you'll give it to fantasy football effort energy.

And I'm not saying anything's wrong with fantasy football if you have the margin

to do that. But that's on that ain't gonna get you nowhere with what

God told you to do. I am a thing. You should see the

faces that are looking at me right now. I don't care either, because

I've been sent on a mission to push you into the place that you gotta

get to. You need to strengthen your strength. Paul tells Timothy, start

that thing up. It's in you. Stop complaining about what they don't God

and who's leaving and what stir what I put in you up? Write this

down. Teaching is a gift, wisdom, is a gift. We all

have gifts and they all come from God. That's so I don't think God

gave me no gift. Stop it. It might have been crushed, your

gift may have been devalued by from somebody who was threatened by it. Your

gift may have been mislabeled. But somebody say, I have a gift.

Woo, you got a gift. Your gift is not just mothering that that

may be a part of your maternal instinct gift. But there's some of the

stuff He's given you that you've been discounting that God is counting on. I'm

gonna prove it to you. James one seventeen, Every good and perfect.

What does it say? Gifts from above, coming down from the Father of

the heavenly lights, who does not change. He has not changed his mind

about your gift. He doesn't change like other people. And I hear some

of you saying right now, I'm like, how do I know what my

strength is? Three things? Very simply? Okay, how can you identify

your strength? Because some of you are like really thinking right now, and

I want you to do that. I want you to start going back.

And some of my seasoned saints, the older people. The gift does not

expire. Some of y'all think, because you got grandkids, now it's time

for you to sit down. The gift that God do. Y'all know Abraham

how old he was when he started to do Do you know how old Sarah

was giving birth? My mama said she was old. How do I know

what my strength is? It's something that's natural. These are the gifts that

come easy to you but are harder for others. What comes easy? What's

natural? Yeah, my sister Abby, she naturally has the gift of hospitality.

Like literally, I could tell Abby text her, hey, Hey,

I'm at the door. I'm coming to drop something off for Charles. She'll

open the door with a plate of brownies. I was like, when did

you have to tell oh? I was just cooking brownie? Is these spirds

on your cookings? Bridie? And I'm like, I mean, she has

showed up at my house for a meeting with brownie, mixed eggs and soft

butter in her purse to make brownies with my daughters. How did you even

know we have the stuff? And She's like, well, if you didn't,

I brought it and pulled out eggs I can't make this stuff up,

but it's the thing that comes naturally. My wife Natalie, she is naturally

caring, like she'd be caring so much that get on my nerves, like

Mike, don't make them, make them. We paid to be here.

She feel be quiet the other people's experience. This is why Sea I can

say what if I want to write it? She just thinks about everybody else.

I was like, think about us, think about me, care for

me. But caring for her comes naturally. My brother Aaron, he has

a gift of paying attention to details. One room, any room, this

room. If we walk into a room together, he in three seconds knows

where all the exits are. No, no, no, I'm not even

like he knows where all the exits are. He knows when people move,

he knows who came in at what time. I'd be like, hey,

ro what time is it. He was like, well, when you got

in here, it was seven twenty six, and then when you sat down,

I'm like what in the world. But he naturally pays attention to details.

That's why he does my edge up. And that is a somebody say

gift or a strength. So how do you know what your gift is it

might be natural. Let me give you one more another way that you know

what your gift is named. These are gifts that loved ones and strangers can

identify in you. People start naming things like, Okay, I told y'all

a second ago, I'm naturally I was naturally good at music. Like I

didn't take lessons, I didn't do it, but I could hear, I

could put stuff together, I could all that other stuff. It took Prophetess

Pam Venette, when I was living backwards to call me up to a stage

in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, on one hundred and forty fifth, and she

said, you are going to be a pastor. And I laughed at that

woman in her face. She said, I know it sounds crazy. I

have the prophetic Word on tape. She said, I know it sounds crazy,

but you're going to use the humor and the irony and people's real life

situations, and you're gonna explain the Word of God to people all over the

world. And she said, in your ministry won't just be to young people.

You're gonna minister to people all over the world. And I'm literally sitting

there like she drunk and over and over there have been men and women of

God who've come to them and they named it. I don't know. I

know you do the music, but you're gonna be a pastor. There canna

be tons of people that And for years I've denied it. You don't know

me. Y'all know what gift things God gave me. And that's why you

need people around you, because sometimes they can see things you can't. Some

of y'all have been so isolated that the things you need to be named in

your life, you haven't let nobody in to be able to speak to that

thing. So they can be natural, they can be named. Or watch

this. They have to be nurtured. How are your shrimps gonna get stronger?

They gotta be nurtured. These are gifts that have been watered by your

environment, encouragement and effort. I said, your environment, encouragement and what

some people have stopped considering what God gave you a gift because it was never

nurtured. It came to you natural and it was never nurtured. And so

there are people who are better than you and further along in it, and

so you don't think it's a gift anymore. And God says, all you

got to do is put a little water on that. For everybody else,

they got to go through all this other stuff. But if you would just

put a little water, a little faithfulness, a little consistency, a little

intentionality on that, it would grow exponentially. In other words, I'm saying

to you what Paul said to Timothy. Stir it up. Stir it up.

Your career may not be your purpose. That's a tough one to swallow

because you've given seventeen years of schooling to it. You're gonna be paying Fanny

May for the next thirty because of what somebody planted in your mind that you

should be. But you seem to can't find no satisfaction in it. You're

a lawyer by day and a DJ by night. Y'all know it's the truth.

You had Guitar Center buying all this stuff. Ain't reading no law books

because there's no burden for it. But now you have responsibilities. And so

how do I get from the place of responsibility to the place of purpose and

doing the thing that I feel like God gets glory out of my life.

That means you're going to have to put in effort. That means you're gonna

have to optimize the things that you've been doing that don't yield fruit, and

you're gonna have to do the things that God tells you to do. And

this is when I talk about nurturing your gift. Parents. I need to

talk to you for a second, because the things that annoy you about your

kids are usually gifts in disguise, the very thing you can't stand about them,

the very thing that gets on your last nerd and be tap dancing on

your last nerve. Why you're always asking so many questions because God gave them

a gift of discernment and every time they talk, they finding you out.

Oh, and you can't stand it because they know you've been lying about it.

Never mind, But what I'm telling you is our primary responsibility as a

parent is to nurture the gifts of God that is on the inside. And

can I give you all a revelation that I got today Proverbs twenty two six.

It's a familiar scripture, but I want to read it with the backdrop

of knowing that we have to nurture the gifts of our children. It says,

train your children, or start your children off in the way that they

should go, and even when they are old, they will not depart or

turn from it. I've only heard Proverbs twenty two six in talking about disciplining

your children. Train a child in the way they should go. I will

beat them, I beat them, My mama beat me, my girt grandmama

beat her, and we're gonna just be a beating family. We beat,

we on the beat. But what if for just a second, we took

it from the context of punishment and we put it in the context the purpose.

And God says, I put some gifts on side of this little child

that are unrefined, and I'm giving them to you. I need you to

train this child, nurture this child, strengthen their strengths, encourage them in

the way that they should go, so that when they get old and are

presented with opportunities and career choices and people to distract them, that they won't

depart from the purpose, the gift, the strift that I gave them.

That's revelation right there, y'all. I'm telling you what if it's about stirring

up our gift, somebody say, stir it up. Greatness is always nurtured.

Tiger Woods Serena Williams, David Beckham, Venus Williams, Peyton Manning,

Eli Manning, Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Whitney Houston. What do all

these people have in common? At something? They were great and they all

were told what to do since children. Now, I'm not saying these stories

into good. What I am saying is that they reached the level of greatness

because they were nurtured. I'm not gonna ask you to look at your kids

right now, but what I am saying is maybe just telling them what they're

not. Are you just like your daddy? Well, hold on, he's

not here, he's unfaithful, he's not intentional, And now you're gonna spe

Is that how you're nurturing? Right now, I'm in a nurturing situation with

Isabella Monaytie, my daughter from from as far back as I can remember.

She has been a leader and a boss. She'll tell me what she wants,

tell me where she wants it, tell me where to go. I've

been calling her a boss baby before the movie came out, before anything,

because that little girl has just this gift of God to lead and know what

she wants. So when my daughter came to me, when she was ive

or six years old, and told me I could no longer go on date

night with her mother. I said, Bella, why can't I go on

date night with your mother? She said, because every time you go on

date night, I feel lonely. And I said, I'm married to your

mother. You're my daughter. And I explained to her the importance of having

our priorities writing relationship. It goes from having a relationship with God and having

a relationship with me and mommy, and then me and Mommy can pour into

you. And she said, I get it now, Daddy, and the

Holy Spirit hit me. One day, he said, Michael, you see

that your daughter already wants to use her gift. He said, I want

you to use your influence and nurture her gift. I said, what you

mean? He said, I want you to take that situation that happened with

you explaining the relationship goals to her, and I want you to turn it

into her and your first book. And then I want you to put the

money away from that book to give to her future. He said, I

want you to nurture what I put on the inside of her. So I

told Bella we writing the book. She said, when I said it.

Now, she's seven years old, she said when, And so we started

working on the book. I told her what was going to happen. Then

I showed her a book. And the book actually comes out February six.

It's called a Cup of Love and it's called Relationship Goals for Kids. And

I made a huge mistake, y'all. See, I'm learning how to nurture.

If you pay attention to this, it says. I thought I conveyed

it to the publisher, but I should have overemphasized it. It says,

written by number one New York Times bestseller Michael Todd and illustrated by Joel Santana.

When Bella saw this book, she saw her likeness on the book,

but she didn't see her name, And that baby said this book wouldn't be

a book put out me. Look see, y'all, I'm not even playing,

She said, this is my book. She said, why my name

not on the front of the book? Y'all? I called the publics.

I said, is that anyway? But I didn't say you disrespectful. You

should be grateful that I got a book with your name on no matter of

fact, I'm I said, yes, ma'am, I apologize. Our next

book will have your name before that is you know, okay, but what

am I doing? I'm trying to nurture and stir up the gifts that are

on the inside of her howsaboke, what are you trying to say? Strengthen

your strengths. We in the second Sunday of twenty twenty four. Stir it

up. God's gonna start to reveal to you, through prayer and fasting the

things that you have let be dormant in your life that you have. Let

just sit there, and God's gonna say, try to draw again, try

to paint. Go ahead, no no, no, pick up the guitar,

Start writing the book. No no, no no no. Make the

curriculum, no, fill out the application. You're going back to school,

No no, no no. It's time to stir up the gifts. That's

something I got. I feel discouraged. I have too much weighing on me.

I don't know where to start. I don't feel like my gifts are

a strength anymore. The only reason that you don't feel like your strength is

a strength is because of these four things. Write them down, because these

are strength killers. Comparison, coveting, complacency and conforming. If you can

to what the job wants you to be, you'll give up your gift.

If you become complacency what God has given you, you'll give up the gift.

If you are coveting what somebody else has and not being grateful for what

you have, you'll give up the gift. And if you are stuck in

comparison, you'll give up strengthening the gift that God has given you. It's

why Roman twelve's two say, don't conform to the patterns of this world.

That's what they do all the time. But be transformed by the renewing of

your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will

is his good, pleasing and perfect will. Today I came to fire up

your gift, and for a few people in this room, I came to

tell you it's time to flip the gift. Everybody, say flip the gift.

I just need to talk for two minutes to the people whose gifts have

been mislabeled. You were told that what you have because it was going the

wrong direction, wasn't from God. When I was a sinner, I was

still a leader. I was just leading people the wrong way, and all

I had to do was flip the gift. And now there's people coming from

South Africa to sit in the service. Why, I'm pretty I could have

been doing it in the wrong direction for my whole life, but I flipped

the gift. That's why it's important to get context to Bible stories. The

reason why the og Paul could talk this confidant to Timothy is because Paul used

to be named Saul, and Saul was the chief sinner. He went from

the number one bounty hunter of Christians to the number one contributor to the Bible

and getting the word of God and the Gospel spread throughout all of the land

at the time. How do you do that when you have an encounter with

God and he flips your gift. If I could do a backflip, I

would. I almost brought a trampoline up here. I was this close,

because if you could just take everything you've been doing in the wrong direction and

just rip it, God said, I can turn what people have labeled wrong,

and what people have told you is a dysfunction. People, even right

now you've heard I'm introverted. No no, no, no, no,

no, no, that that means you charge by yourself, but that also

that means you know how to reach people who charge like that. What if

the thing that people have been labeling is actually your strength. That means your

small group ain't gonna have a million people in it, It's gonna have three

faithful people, and y'all gonna love each other and be there for each other

and then take breaks and be like today, let's not talk, will meet

next week. Like, what if the thing you're trying to get rid of

is a thing that God is trying to stir up? Every gang leader,

you're a gatherer. You're just taking people to the wrong place. Every gossip.

You're an evangelist. You just got the wrong message in your mouth.

Somebody shot at me, flip the gift. Everybody that has an anxiety,

everybody that is riddled with anxiety. Mine can't stop racing. You're a prayer

warrior because you've proven to us that focus is not your problem. You just

focus on everything you can't control. If you would flip the gift, if

I was going through something, I would want you praying for me because you're

gonna focus on every detail of my situation and you're gonna take it to the

one who is in control. It's time for us to flip the gift.

Everybody's standing. To my last point, strength submitted to God is success,

and strength unsubmitted to God becomes stressed. I'm gonna say one more time,

your strengths, your gifts submitted to God, It's gonna bring you to success.

I can't tell you where I would be right now if I wouldn't have

brought all of this that I had to God and say, do whatever you

want. He has blown my mind, but by what He's done with my

submitted gift. But a strength that gift unsubmitted to God becomes stressed to you.

It's time to stir up the gift and strengthen your strength. I want

to pray for people that today would be the last day that you consider what

God gave you an option. I'm gonna say it one more time today.

I'm praying that it will be the last time that you consider the gift that

God gave you an option in your life. I'm praying that it becomes a

burden, a priority, something that you make practical steps this year to strengthen

You're an actor, get into play, do the thing well. Ain't nobody

gonna see it. This ain't for them to see. So you can start

remembering lines again. You old now and your brain don't work how it used

to be. You need to get your memory back because four years from now

the call's gonna come, the one that's gonna change the family history. But

if you don't strengthen your strength now, you won't be able to seize the

opportunity in the time of the opportunity. What if you strengthen the number of

scriptures you know by memory? You know them six scriptures that your grand now

Noah told you, and they've kept you for years. But what if you

learn six more this year? Because every time you need them, they don't.

The wi fi seem to be not working. I know there's one in

their own purity somewhere. Lord, what if you write Psalms one nineteen on

your heart? How does a young man or a young woman keep his way

pure by hiding themselves in the word of God? I remember when my mama

told me that scripture I needed to recite because I was out here he when,

oh, can we be real? And we were in the laundry room

at our house on thirty fifth and Yale. She said, Michael, you

need to remember Psalms one nineteen nine. And I can't tell you how many

times I've been ready to do something that was gonna take me back into a

sind cycle that I left, and that song's one nineteen jumped out. That's

what the Bible means when it says I will hide your word on my heart.

What if you just strengthened the thing that you already have strengthened today.

I wanted us to pray together. I wanted to make a strengthen your strength

prayer, and I wanted us to say it all together. I don't know

if they have it for the screen, but if they do. If they

don't, I'll teach there it is. I want us to say this all

together, and I honestly want everybody to be able to screenshot it, write

it down. We're gonna put it on all the social media's and I'm just

I'm just asking all of us every day this week to say this when I

wake up, when I get ready to go to school, put it on

your mirror, say it with your kids, teach it to your kids.

But we gonna say it like this. Let's say it together. Say Dear

God, today I acknowledge that I am gifted. Say lad, that phrase

by itself does something to your confidence. Let's start it again. Dear God,

today I acknowledge that I am gifted. I pray that you would help

me stir up the gift you have placed on the inside of me. Let

your strength be my strength every day, every day, every day this year?

What would happen? And this is why I thank God for the motto

He's given me progression not perfection. Nobody's about to be perfect at this Honestly,

to get better, you're going to fail. But I want you to

come back to this and just like the O. G. Paul said to

him, he says, stir up the gift on the inside of you so

that you can see everything that God has called you to. Hands lifted all

over this place. Father, I pray for my brother and sister as you

gave me a mandate to strengthen my strengths, the things, the gifts you

put on inside of me. Today I'm praying for every person under the sound

of my voice and that will watch this on rebroadcast and we'll share it with

the friend I'm thinking you right now that they will stir up the gifts that

you have placed on the inside of them. Father, every lie they have

believed to leave the things alone that you put there. In the name of

Jesus, I thank you that there is an activation today that their faith would

believe again for the impossible, that Father, they wouldn't just clap for those

that are experiencing in their life, but that they would believe that you could

do a fresh and a new thing on the inside of them. To every

person over the age of forty five, I declare that there would be a

new fire kindled on the inside of you, that you would not be a

one to retire but refire. That in your old age you would be able

to do things that you were never able to do in a previous season,

and that your latter will be greater than your former. Thank you that you're

shuirring up the gift. And for every person under forty five, I thank

you that confusion goes away from their mind right now in the name of Jesus,

that they will not be wanderers for decades trying to figure out what you

have called them to do. That they will not conform to what culture is

saying, but they will get a clear word from you. Father, let

us all have an encounter with you that allows us to flip our gift.

Father, no matter if it's making money or if it's helping people, we

don't just want to do what seems successful. We want to do what is

successful in your eyes. So Father, today we're making a commitment not to

just start sharp, but stay sharped by strengthening our strengths. If you're in

this room right now and you've never accepted the source of strength, his name

is Jesus. Today I want to introduce you to my best friend, the

one who saved me from being a liar or manipulator, somebody who was addicted

to pornography out and told you all my stuff. I was going the wrong

way and leading people there. And God had an encounter with me and he

flipped my gift. But it came when I gave my heart to Jesus.

See, this is the only religion. Everybody prays to a god, but

this is the only one where God comes to you and he says, give

me your heart and I'll help you change your habits. And today, on

the second week of twenty twenty four, there's some people that have been doing

your own thing. You're watching online right now. You don't even know why

this is on. Or you came into this building and God has been drawing

you, or the Holy Spirit has been drawing you this entire time. Today

is your day of salvation. The first thing that God wants to flip is

your heart towards him. He wants to bring you from darkness into light.

And I'm telling you you are in the right place at the right time to

actually receive God. Today is the day of salvation, and we've been praying

for you. So if that's you, you want to stop doing it your

own way and you want to give your life to Christ. On the counter,

three, I just want you to lift your hands. One, you're

making the greatest decision of your entire life. Two, your name is gonna

be written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and your eternity is secure.

Three just shoot your hands up all over the room. I see you,

my brother, I see you, my sister, I see you, whole

family. Oh y'all, come on, I see you online. Just put

your hand up. I see you. Come on. Glory to God.

This is what it's all about. Here. You talking about strengthen and your

strength. You about to level up at Transformation Church. We are family.

Nobody prays alone. So can we all just lift our hands and lift our

voice and say God, thank you for sending Jesus just for me. Today

I receive history in my life. I believe you lived, you died,

and you rose again with all power just for me. And today I surrender

my life. I'll serve you with all of it. Change me, renew

me, transform me in Jesus' name. Amen. Can we give God praise

for every person? Oh? Come on, Transfer makes in church. They

just got strengthened. Hallelujah. If you just made that decision and you're watching

this, we want you to just scan the QR code that's on the screen

and we're gonna help you. We're gonna walk with you next week. I'm

on fire, y'all. I promise you the message. Next week, we're

strengthening our strength to another strength, level of strength. You don't want to

miss it, and you want to invite people, and there are people in

here that need to meet us for prayer tomorrow night, y'all. There have

been over three four hundred people here every night for prayer, y'all. Yeah,

you can clap it up for that. And what I'm asking is,

if you can't come every night, I'm asking you make it on Monday.

Let's start our week off right. It's gonna be this much snow out there.

Okay, y'all, defrost your car, put a little come on.

If you go to work tomorrow, come to prayer tomorrow. I just want

us to get fired up in this next season. Tomorrow's day eight to fasting.

If you haven't joined us, you got fourteen days left. Get on

this train and ride it. Okay, some of y'all still getting saved.

And if y'all need prayer for anything, I'm gonna have the worship team sing

another song. But I just feel there's a lingering, annoying thing in here

today and on God's keeping this promise some of y'all, He's getting you vision

you're gonna leave this place. Before you leave this place, he's gonna give

you instructions of what to do with strengthen your strength. This church is a

place where God meets with people, so you can go out and really do

your things. So if you need prayer, I'm gonna ask the altar workers

to come right now for your marriage for your family, for your finances,

whatever's going on in your life. These are regular people who got problems to

They just know how to pray. They know how to talk to God.

And we're a real church in this place. So if you need prayer,

I want you to come from all over the place. If you don't,

as we sing this last version of song, you are dismissed. Get home.

Save Father. I declare this will be our best week of fasting.

I thank you Father that this is gonna be the sharpest week we've ever had.

And I thank you that this week you're gonna strengthen us in Jesus' name.

Go out and live a transform life. We love you, we'll see

you next week. Thank you for joining us today. If you said that

prayer and accept it Jesus into your heart, it's the best decision you could

ever make. We want to celebrate with you, and we have some tools

to help you on your journey. Tech saved to A two eight two A

two and to find out more about TC text connect to A two A two

A two. Be sure to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends.

Thanks for listening. Now, go out and live a transform life.