Welcome to Keep It 100 podcast with Sean and Christa Smith.
Join us in this space where we take on real issues with real insight and real inspiration.
This podcast is for those not looking for temporary relief to change circumstance, but
revelation to forever change lives.
Hey Keep It 100 tribe, welcome to another episode of Keep It 100 with Sean and Christa
Smith.
We're excited you guys joined us and we have some stuff to talk about on this episode.
Yes we do.
I tell you what, we've been busy since we were with you last in the Keep It 100 tribe.
We've had some really cool gatherings.
We had our last momentum night in August and it was just awesome.
We had Heath King come out and you guys heard him on the previous episode.
He's just awesome and he led us in worship.
He did such a great job.
We had to really push at the beginning, but we saw God move, right?
We did.
And then after we just had extended worship, people just went in and there were several
times where you just felt breakthroughs.
I just gave a gospel presentation.
We had some people respond and commit their life to Christ and then jumped up and we began
to prophesy, get words of knowledge that was healing.
And then you called everyone forward.
You gave an invitation for people to come forward.
People came forward, you begin to lay hands and we begin to minister.
Man, the power of God started falling on people.
It was powerful.
You know, it's just that impartation.
I feel like there's such an increase of impartation right now, what God's doing.
And people are really receiving a fresh portion, a fresh touch.
I think the weariness, the shackles, the hindrances of the past season, God is just sovereignly
breaking off and people are really having a fresh ability to step into the new in this
hour.
That's so true.
And then of course you recently had a phenomenal ministry night at Bethel Redding.
Yeah.
You know what?
I was so honored that Bethel had me come back out.
I was with them for the women's wonder conference in March and then they invited me to come.
And Sunday night, Sean is so kind himself and then the amazing LTV and Chris who work
with us and they run with us, their family.
And we all drove up to Redding.
She's about three hours north of where we live and God really moved.
It was a really beautiful service.
I felt like I saw the power and the presence of God in a really tangible way, just being
ministered to people.
And again, just that impartation was so strong again, just people receiving a fresh touch
of this really, I believe this new hour that we're in.
And I just shared a prophetic word about the wild ones.
Some of you have heard that message and it's funny.
I only released it where I feel like God's like, this is a company of wild ones.
And of course, Bethel is very much that.
And when I released it, I mean, it just hit the people and I felt the impartation over
the word.
So that was just so cool.
I'm always so honored to partner with Bethel.
I just love that house.
I love the anointing on the house.
And it, man, it was just cool to see God be God.
It really was.
And there was such a hunger.
I was packed out.
People hit the altar.
It was just incredible.
They finished in a fire tunnel as well.
And so it was amazing.
I'm excited to jump into the subject of this episode.
And last episode, we are last podcast, we talked about this whole thought of that vertical
lifestyle part one.
We're going to pick that conversation back up vertical lifestyle part two.
And Kristen, I, we're just going to address it.
And so I think this whole aspect of the vertical lifestyle really could be summed up in so
many places, but one of them is the Lord's prayer.
Jesus is in his prayer, setting the parameters as well as this as the schematics of what
our Christianity should be about.
And he begins by saying, our father, who are in heaven.
So he didn't say, he didn't begin by saying, you know, our friends who are on earth.
He didn't say, you know, our favorite worship leader who is on iTunes, right?
He said, our father, who are in heaven.
And so he's setting the fact that it's got to be vertical before it's anything.
And then he goes on to say, obviously I'll be thy name, thy kingdom come that will be
done on earth as it is in heaven.
So that earth is to model heaven.
Well, how can earth model heaven if our eyes are horizontal?
And isn't it funny?
One of the hardest things to do, it's harder to look up than it is to look down.
True.
People walking down the street, people looking down, right?
The heads are down.
How many people are have their heads up looking up?
And Jesus told the disciples, he told a lot of people, he says, when you see all of these
things that will bring perplexity, he says, essentially, and I'm paraphrasing, he says,
don't get shook up, just look up for your redemption draws not.
Obviously, it was a passage.
It says, I will look to the hills from whence my help comes.
So over and over and over in scripture, we are exhorted to focus on the vertical, the
vertical again, being God himself, his presence, his glory and making Jesus our holy obsession,
because we get this thing wrong when we allow the horizontal to take place of the vertical.
You know, it's really true.
And I think there is such a lesson to be learned in what we're really talking about, because
we live in a world that is constantly battling for your affection and your attention.
And we live in this very horizontal focused world.
And yet we're called to live with a vertical posture.
And so, you know, I have a question for you, Sean, because I would love for the audience
to really hear for you, what are some ways that you've really learned how to cultivate
a vertical posture and horizontal world?
You know, I think one of the things is always just keep, keep bringing it back to Jesus.
I think have an ongoing conversation, but I think it really comes in prioritizing the
vertical.
Yeah.
And obviously that begins in the secret place that begins with your worship.
Your worship needs to be vertical.
We talked about that last episode, but I think we have to understand this.
And I love these two scriptures.
You know, 1st John 519 says, we know we're of God, but the whole world lies in the sway
of the evil one.
A sway is a horizontal lean.
Like if a wind blows the tree leans in the direction of that wind.
So that's where the whole world lies in the sway.
So if we get caught up in the sway, that is the horizontal.
But John 12 32, Jesus says, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.
That's up.
So we have this vertical pull any given moment.
We have this horizontal pull at any given moment.
And I think what happens is, is that we were made for transcendence.
And I just want to throw out one more scripture.
And that scripture is Ecclesiastes and it talks about any Ecclesiastes.
I love this Solomon wrote the book, probably the second wisest man to hit the planet.
Obviously Jesus Ecclesiastes 311 says God put eternity in our hearts.
And the word literally is everlasting.
God put everlasting.
So the important thing is, is that God put the vertical gaze in our hearts.
It's in it.
You know, different missionaries have gone to different unreached people groups throughout
the centuries and they all worship something.
So there was this thing to want to look up.
But of course, until Jesus was brought to them, they didn't know who the one true God
is, you know, even in an axe, Paul goes to Athens and they have a shrine there to an
unknown God and God and Paul came in and says, Hey, that would you worship ignorance?
I now direct you in truth.
So I think one of the things is that because here's what happens.
God puts transcendence in our hearts.
But what we have done, I think in modern Christianity is we put relevance before transcendence.
We've tried to be relevant with the crowd, relevant with the audience.
And again, I'm not against relevance.
I'm against putting relevance over transcendence.
We first have to make sure that our focus is on the Lord.
We first have to make sure before I minister to people, I need to minister to the Lord.
And that is establishing many churches.
What they do is they'll do worship before they'll begin to minister the needs of the
people.
And I think that's important because you're putting transcendence.
God is transcendence before relevance.
I love that.
You know, because it's true.
And I love that point you really made.
We were created to worship.
We were created to look up.
We were created for vertical gaze.
And I think you're right.
The reality is all of us are going to worship something, right?
And whatever happens to our heart and the adoration and the affection of our heart, but we recognize
that's often the horizontal pole.
That's the sway.
And that's the biggest misconception is we often look at places of worship horizontally
and we think those are suffice and we've replaced a vertical expression with a horizontal expression.
And then we find ourselves dissatisfied.
We find ourselves, oh my gosh, that was actually just religion.
Oh my gosh, that was actually just the bright lights and the shiny new this, that or the
other or, you know, whatever it is.
It's like, but it's a, it's a false expression of actually the genuine encounter that we're
called to walk in.
And so, you know, as you're talking to your scriptures, I really love this one.
Matthew 16, 25 talking about verticality.
It says, for whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life
for me will find it.
And I think that's really the epitome of a vertical posture that that's the person that
has not allowed a horizontal sway, the sway of culture, the culture of this age to seduce
them in any way.
And they've refused to have a price that they could be bought or sold out in any way or
sell out in any way other than to Jesus.
The only person they're going to be sold out for is the Lord.
But I, you know, I just remember years ago, someone saying to me, you know, if you have
a price, you will be bought.
I'm sure many, many of our listeners have heard that statement.
It was very common for a while.
If you have a price, you will be bought.
And I just remember praying that prayer, you know, as a young girl, God, make me a priceless
lover, make me a disciple that can't be bought, can't be seduced.
And there's an authentic cry and desire in that.
And in fact, I still pray that I still pray, you know, Lord, you know, don't, don't allow
me to be seduced or, or swayed or, you know, kind of the, the glitz or the glamour.
That's what catches my eye so much so that I feel like an actual conviction, even when
I'm ministering, if I even feel the gaze of the room as you and I are like ministering
prophetically or maybe moving in gifts and God is moving in a really beautiful way.
If you feel the gaze in the room, even shift you as a minister, the fear of God hits me
where I just feel, and I know you're the same baby, that fear God hits you where you're
like, Whoa, it's not me.
Hold on.
I never want to be seduced by the awe of man and or awe of a room for a moment.
God is doing because I genuinely have such an awareness.
I'm so, I literally, and this is not false humility.
This is the reality that I know I've got nothing.
If Jesus does not show up to minister to someone, I can give an encouraging word.
I can just be kind and show love through, through Jesus, but I can't change a life.
I can't cast out a demon.
I definitely can't do any healing.
I don't have any authority other than through Christ.
And so there's a, there's a dependence and a reliance that causes a posture of verticality
that is necessary as a follower, as those that are listening and saying, I want to be
a minister of the gospel.
You must have a fierce dependence on your verticality posture, because if you think
in any way, shape or form, you can do it or that you're going to be able to do this.
It's like, I have this very keen awareness that God has to show up or the, or the services
are going to be a bust.
And then let me make it really personal because I just made a corporate there.
I made a bigger picture, but let me just make it really personal.
I recognize that everything that comes out of my life is a byproduct of my daily vertical
connection with Jesus.
That the only way that I can stay, I feel it grounded at times, a soundness of my mind,
a peace in my heart.
I can keep the door shut on anxiety.
All of that comes through a vertical reliance.
And because there are times where, you know, stuff's knocking at the door of life.
And man, if you can open that door, it wants, if you open that door, that thing comes running
in and it wants to take over your life, whether it be depression or anxiety or worry or stress
or whatever.
And you have to like really keep that door shut.
And the only way I'm able to keep that shut is that vertical reliance of Jesus.
You are my source.
Lord, one of your names is refuge.
Your name is my safe tower, right?
Strong tower.
Excuse me.
My safe refuge.
My safe tower that one of your names, God is my source.
You're my door.
You're my provider.
You're my provision.
You're my healer.
You're my restore.
You're redeemer.
You're my kinsman, right?
I can go through the names of God and I can literally stand in this place of God, you
have me, even when it feels out of control.
My posture of the verticality could not be more important in a time and an hour that
we find ourselves in where the sways never been greater.
It's so true.
I think of an example of this and I want to come back to you in a little bit and talk
to you because I feel that verse Ecclesiastes 3 11, God put eternity in our hearts.
There's a hunger and we were talking earlier.
I want to hit this and so mark that about choosing to aim as the target of the hungry.
But for that first Samuel chapter two, I love it.
In the early part of Samuel, we have a contrast.
It says that the prophet Samuel ministered unto the Lord.
And so at the same time there was Eli and Eli was there.
And it's funny because Eli says that his ears basically had grown dim.
He wasn't hearing the voice of God.
And so a prophet came to Eli in first Samuel chapter two and began to rebuke him.
And the narrative of scripture says Eli's sons who were priests were scoundrels, as
it says in one translation, with no regard for the Lord.
And so we realized that the seduction of the horizontal is hitting Eli's sons.
I think it's Hapni and Phineas.
And these dudes was eating the food that was supposed to be sacrificed.
And these jokers were being immoral with the women there in the temple.
And so here was the rebuke.
It contrasted Samuel ministering before the Lord wearing a linen ephod.
And then it says that this prophet came to Eli.
And I just want you guys to hear this.
It's interesting.
He rebuked Eli for not rebuking his sons.
And here's what it says in first Samuel chapter two, verse 29.
It says, why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribe for my dwelling?
Why do you honor your sons more than me?
And so I think that's the thing.
I think so much of Christianity, if we honor men, as you were saying, like, hey, we want
to make sure we're giving the God the glory.
If we honor men, if we honor the taste buds of humanity, we focus more in.
And again, God wants to meet needs.
But I think sometimes what we do is that we've honoring the people in front of us more than
we've honored the God above us.
And so we've done more to appease this person.
Okay, we want this person to be upset and leave our church.
Hey, if we say this, we may rock the boat.
And now what you have is you have churches that won't even preach truth that they'll
slide the scale of truth.
You know, the Bible talks about that God's word is a plumb line.
That's verticality.
Yeah.
Plumb line is God's truth, which you got people that will mix in inclusion.
They'll mix in all kind of, you know, other different things to the point where now you
have heretical stuff going on.
And it goes back to this verse of horizontal church, horizontal Christianity honors the
sons more than the father.
And I don't mean the son Christ Jesus, obviously God the father, God the single, the Holy Spirit.
But I mean honors men more than honors God.
Well, let me throw this back at you.
You know, that verse says God put eternity in our hearts.
That means that there's a hunger for God.
There's a hunger to go vertical.
There's a hunger to go upstairs in your walk and not stay downstairs.
Yeah.
And I'll give an example of that when you began in minutes.
Why don't you share that with our listeners?
Yeah.
You know, I was sharing with Sean as we were kind of talking through this episode and getting
ready to record.
And I was sharing that when I got hired in my first position after many years of being
in ministry, but I was running schools in ministry and I had different positions at
the church.
But this is when I got hired to be my associate pastor at a church.
And I remember taking a month off right before I started and I went to a house of prayer at
Kansas City, I hop and the Lord said, give me the month of September because I was starting
October 1st.
And I, I for one month just was on my face before the Lord preparing.
And I remember asking the Lord because I knew I was also assigned to start a young adults
ministry and I was also associate pastor for the entire church.
And I said, Lord, I need your strategy.
I can't just build something to build something.
I have to build something with intentionality.
Jesus, what's your strategy?
I heard it so clear.
And the Lord told me, Christa, cater toward the hungry, build everything to feed the hungry.
We live in a world that has a lot of structures based on feeding the lukewarm.
And I'm not saying ignore the lukewarm, but I am saying if you feed lukewarm continued
lukewarm meals, all they're going to do is stay lukewarm.
But if you put lukewarm around a bunch of hungry people and you cater toward the hungry,
the hungry are going to eat and the lukewarm are going to have a choice whether they're
going to eat or not.
I tell you what, when the Lord gave me that model, I did not apologize on letting a full
gospel on full display that include the gifts of the spirit, speaking in tongues, whatnot.
And we released that and the ministry blew up.
It really grew.
And I think it's because, not even I think, it is absolutely because I really believe
God's strategy is to cater to the hungry.
And I've taken that beyond that position.
I'm obviously no longer in that position, but that's really been my posture in my life
is I'm going to do everything to cater to the hungry.
And let me address this because I think we live in a world and it sounds like maybe I'm
against seeker sensitive.
No, I believe that I want the seeker to seek and I do want to be sensitive to people.
I want people to feel cared for, but I'm also a perfect example being raised Catholic and
never being exposed to the gifts of the spirit and never in a spirit filled world at all
until, you know, I was a young girl and then I got exposed to it and I was only exposed
to it, you know, one week a year, my whole life until I was 19.
And I would have been on paper the perfect example of what a seeker sensitive model would
have said, Oh, she'd be uncomfortable.
That'd be too much for her.
Like the gifts, the prophetic, all the things that's too much for her.
But all I needed was an encounter with heaven and I was, it was done game over.
I was like, this is all I want.
I was so ravenous for the things of God.
It pulled the heart, you know, eternity in my heart.
It pulled it out of me and I just got marked for Jesus and it's all because I was exposed
to hungry people and hungry people are really to me a standard for the church that if we
catered toward the people that have eternity in their hearts, which is all of us, but people
that have an insatiable appetite for the things of God and that's who we're feeding.
I really believe the other people will follow suit.
I mean, I've seen it so many times.
I mean, does everyone unfortunately know?
But I think there's a much higher ratio of people that actually get on fire for God and
get a hunger.
So I'm really passionate and I have a strong conviction for us to really present an entire
the gospel in its entirety to people.
You know, in football, they talk about this, but they talk about they're going to the vertical
game.
So that means a quarterback is going to throw the long ball down, Phil, you score, you get
the touchdown, you reach the goal by going vertical, meaning you're throwing that ball
in the air.
I think a great example of going vertical and I just want to say, hey, it's time for
the church to go vertical.
I think we've gone horizontal for so long.
And I think personally, I think a lot of the fact that the enrollment and the people that
are attending churches in many instances has wane people that acknowledge, you know,
a belief, the Bible, Jesus to be exclusively Lord on and on and on, identify with Christianity.
And I think part of it is that we've lost them because we've gone horizontal when we
need to be going vertical.
And I think going vertical, what does that mean?
It means tracking the manifest presence of God.
One of the things that we do in our services, we're traveling when we do our momentum nights
is we're always tracking Holy Spirit.
And I think that's part of living with verticality.
And an example of this, because I just love this passage in Scripture in Exodus 32, we
know that Moses went up on the mountain to get the 10 commandments.
So as he's up there getting the 10 commandments, it says in Exodus 32.
It says, when the people saw that Moses was so long and coming down from the mountain,
they gathered around Aaron, they said, come make us small G gods who will go before us.
As for this Moses who brought us about to Egypt, we don't know what happened to him.
And then so Aaron took their gold earrings from everybody and he began to melt them down
and made it made an idol.
And I think Moses represented for that group.
He represented the manifest presence of God.
He was reflecting the glory to the point one time the man had to put curtains on his face
for heaven's sake, because the glory was so strong.
And I think if we can use Moses as a type, when we don't have that glory in our services,
what happens is Moses obviously represented the transcendent of God or the manifest presence
of God to Israel.
But when he was missing, they gravitated towards a vertical replacement.
And so I wonder sometimes if we're adding stuff to our modern Christianity, but really
it's a default.
And I like to look at it that there was two scenes in that in that chapter in Exodus 32.
There was an upstairs scene.
Moses was meeting with God.
There was a downstairs scene.
The people were giving themselves over to idolatry and God's word of them.
He says the people have corrupted themselves that the more they went horizontal, the more
corruption fell on them.
And so I think right now it's time to go vertical.
People aren't coming to our church because of the Starbucks imitation coffee we got in
the lobby.
They're not coming here because of the crisp cream donuts that aren't as hot as if they
would have went through the drive-thru.
And I just love Moses Boo.
He said at one point, he says, God, if your presence doesn't go with me, I'm not going.
I wonder if us as ministers and modern believers, if we're that way, like God, if your presence
doesn't show up at church, we can't have church today.
If your presence doesn't go with me to work, I'm not going to have the day that I need
or school or wherever.
And Moses went on to say, how else will we be distinguished from anyone else on that
place of the earth?
Right?
If you're the presence of God, it might as well be an NFL or NRA meeting.
You know what I'm saying?
I mean, it could be anything.
It could be the Rotary Club without songs because the presence of God and it's got to
be that thing that we're tracking the manifest presence of God.
So I love what you said.
The hungry, God promises that he would visit those who are hungry, that he would pour spirit
out, or pour water on them that are thirsty, that if we hunger and thirst, we'll make the
connection because the commodity of the kingdom ought to be the manifest presence of God because
we're going vertical.
I love that.
That's so good.
You know, and I think for our listeners today that are listening, you're like, okay, Christa,
you know, and Sean, I'm not maybe a preacher or I'm not on the platform.
I'm not a minister.
I'm not leading a church.
I'm just someone that loves God.
Hey, you know, this applies to you too.
This applies to every one of us and our walk with Jesus.
And you know, I shared something at Bethel when I was ministering on Sunday night and
it's something the Lord spoke to me in my twenties.
I really love Catherine Coleman.
I love her life.
I love her ministry and I was studying it because she had such a vertical posture.
I mean, she had one of the most beautiful relationships with the Holy Spirit.
I mean, she moved in such a tangible way with the Lord that it's almost like when I would
watch the VHS and the services, you know, obviously I wasn't there alive.
You know, she's passed away when I was born.
But you know, I remember just being in awe because I'm like, I feel like she walks with
Jesus.
Like there's such a verticality in her ministry.
I mean, she was so focused on honoring and worshiping the Lord and the atmosphere for
the everything about to give glory.
And I remember just crying out to God, going, Lord, I want to know you like that.
It wasn't like I was saying, oh, let me have a large stadium ministry.
I mean, if God wants to do that, so be it whatever he wants to do in our life.
But that wasn't my heart.
I'm not crying.
My heart cry wasn't like, Lord, I want this ministry that fills stadiums.
I was, I want her the miracles.
I want to see God move like that.
But for the, for the purpose of people encountering Jesus.
But my heart cry was like, God, how does she move like that?
Like how does she minister like that?
Like how did she walk in a, in a ministry that's so deep?
And I remember the Lord saying, Christa, she has access to everything you have access to.
She just chose her depth and she chose deep.
And I remember being in my twenties.
She chose deep.
She chose deep that you and I have all the same access.
There's no one that has more access to the Lord, to the Holy Spirit, to God, the Father,
to Jesus, the Son.
Like there's, we all have the same access to this amazing trinity, right?
This holy deity.
We all have the same access, but the difference is we choose our depth and some of us choose
really deep.
And when we choose really deep, it simply means we've gone vertical.
We've gone totally vertical.
And we recognize that we don't want to be so heavily minded that we're no earthly good.
There is this beautiful posture where you are so vertically connected that you're impacting
the horizontal.
Um, and I think that's what God calls us to be because we're called to be carriers of
the good news.
We have the great commission.
We're called to release it, but we do that with the posture of verticality.
But I think there's such an invitation in this hour because, you know, friends, we're
going into some crazy times.
I mean, we can just call it out for what it is, but God is in control.
We're going into an election year and I'm praying America has learned and we're not
going to repeat, you know, some things we did as a nation before, but it is so important
that now in this time, we are really positioning ourselves that we are not allowing ourselves
to be swayed by the culture because there will be a sway.
There's always a sway in the years that are coming up, right?
And yet when we posture ourselves and we choose deep, it keeps everything in perspective
and it removes the clutter.
I love what you're saying.
Choose deep because, you know, we can fake a lot of stuff, but you can't fake glory.
Right.
Like glory is you can't fake intimacy.
No, you can't manipulate it.
You can't manufacture it.
Yeah.
You can only manifest it when it's there.
And I think we've had so many types of church, you know, we've had ritual church, we've had
relevant church, we've had traditional church, we've had felt need church, we have emotional
high church, rules church, but the, all these, all these iterations can easily, easily in
many different cases, a row down to horror, horizontal substitutes for simply God coming
down.
And the answer to the idolatry down at the foot of the mountain in Exodus 32 is God said
to Moses, get down there.
It's almost like Moses, you've been up on the mountain.
You have my glory.
The only way I'm going to rescue that experimentation with spirituality down there is Moses.
You have to go down there.
And again, Moses, the type of glory, the only way we're going to get, you know, you got
people with the substitutes.
Yeah.
And the church, but you got people, man that are, are, are literally thinking, okay, if
I do the chakra, okay, if I burn the sage, okay, if I do this or other people are just
doing Christian ritualistic things and they become substitutes in some instances.
And I think this, my point is this.
What do people really want when they come to church?
Right.
And I think more than anything, they want this transcendent encounter with God that will
leave them dumbfounded.
They want that, which they can't wrap the rationalistic minds around.
My thing is that if you can get it from the world, what you're getting from church, then
why would you come to church?
Right.
You could get what you're getting from church online, sitting back on your couch.
Why would you come in proxy?
And so I think we got to get back to saying we want the glory of the Lord, we want the
presence of God.
And you know what?
We got to have the miracles of God.
I think the verticality going back to your point on Catherine Coleman is that we need,
you know, the Bible says that the disciples preached the word and it talks about the end
of one of the Gospels and the Lord worked with them confirming their word with signs
that follow.
And so I think what happens is that we've seen the works of man, but we need to see
the works of God.
And when you begin to see the works of God, that becomes a whole different Christianity.
That becomes a whole different service.
Everything changes.
And that's that whole aspect of saying we prioritize the vertical over the horizontal.
You know, as you're sharing that, I'm reminded of Abraham Maslow and, you know, taking some
psychology courses.
I was a communication major in my university and he designed the hierarchy of needs.
The top need on the hierarchy of needs is self actualization.
You know, and that's really what is popular today.
We've got to understand that that term is really referencing kind of how, what does
it do for me?
How does it benefit me?
How does it serve me?
What does it tell me about myself?
And it's very self focused and it's a very self help gospel.
And here we are taking, I think a lot of church models are looking to a philosopher that didn't
even believe in God.
And we're taking our cues from this model on what people are really looking for that's
very self focused, but we're actually called to be God focused.
And we're actually following the wrong hierarchy.
The hierarchy is the Holy Trinity, the Holy deity.
And that's the hierarchy that we're actually called to be in vertical connection to.
And I think we live in a world that so wants you to focus on you, but we are actually created
to focus on Jesus.
That's true.
The early church fathers said that the ultimate, they would use the term the chief aim of man
is to glorify God.
So the early church fathers who literally they're there within the generations of Jesus, they
got it right.
They set the standard that they're saying our chief aim is to remain vertical, to remain
vertical in our walk, to remain with a vertical focus.
Because if I maintain that verticality, what happens is that I walk in the awe of God.
Now, if I walk in the awe of God, I walk in his presence.
When I walk into a place, Jesus walks in with his awe, his presence upon me.
And so listeners, even as you're listening to this particular podcast, we just want to
put this out to you that you make a determined decision to be intentional, to have a vertical
Christianity and to not give into the seduction of what's popular or what's trending or what
other people may think.
You know, the cool thing about the early disciples in the book of Acts is after they
were rebuked and they were told not to preach in Jesus name.
In other words, have something more palatable.
They went back to their companions, the other disciples, they had a prayer meeting and they
said, Lord, stretch forth your hand to heal while your servants speak your word with all
boldness.
So what they were saying is, Lord, we're going to go vertical.
First of all, second of all, God, we want to be more bold about truth, about the plumb
line of what it is.
And then in addition to that, we want the verticality of the manifestation, the confirming
signs and wonders.
And folks, we need the Holy Spirit in our lives.
We need them in our meetings.
We need them in our workplaces, our schools.
We need them in our neighborhoods.
We need a move of God.
And I believe that the tipping point for a new level of manifestation and encounter with
you will be you deciding I'm going to stay vertical.
Thanks so much for tuning in to the Keep It 100 podcast.
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Hey, Keep It 100 tribe.
You do not want to miss our next episode as we're going to be talking about some things
that we believe will help build you up in your walk with God and make you armed in dangers
against the enemy.
And remember, relief may change your circumstance, but a revelation will change you.