This is the accidentally intentional podcast. I'm your host Joe. I hate small talk and I'm ready to have meaningful conversations that build us. Let's go Welcome back everyone to the accidentally intentional podcast and I am excited because I am joined by my friend. Kells Johnson don't say hi yet I'm about to give you an intro kills, okay, he's like, he's laughing in silence. Okay, so here's the deal with Kelsey. He happens to be my friend, but he's also a very dynamic communicator. He's an amazing singer, and he's a preacher. And cows, what don't you do? Honestly, you're like the Yankee, you know? With all your talents, it's not fair. But I'm thrilled to have you here. Oh, it is so good to be with you. So I am excited. You are one of the multitalented individuals that I know. So I love the fact that US multitalented are about to have a conversation. That's right, it is game all the way on my friend. Let's go I have given kills no forewarning for what we're about to talk about today. He doesn't even know the topic that we're going to discuss. And I'm excited about it because we'll say what the heck happens? Oh my god. So Kells, you are in the faith sphere? That is your life. And you are now a newly? And how do I What do I say I was about to say newly minted pastor, amplify Philadelphia campus, let's just go with that weird. Let's go with that. And but the thing is, you have not lived in Pennsylvania for a lot of your life. And I think a topic that we could get a lot of insight out of you from is the topic of how to know that you're hearing from God and not your own mind. And I think a good intro would be you sharing the story about how you moved from Texas, to Pennsylvania. So let's start there. Let's hear about this story. And then we'll get into some nuance of that topic. Okay, well, that's actually a great topic of conversation. My story is, what was it? Four years now, but four years ago, my wife and I were living in Houston. I am a Houston native, the great country of Houston. I mean, great country, Texas in the great state of Houston. Beyonce is from right, yeah, okay. We know it's good that nobody knows that though. But, so we were living there. And I just felt this this well, I'll put it like this. So we would come up to Pittsburgh, every Christmas, to spend time with my wife's family. And this one particular Christmas, we were flying back into Houston, the plane touched the grounds of the of the city. And I immediately felt the grace of the city lift off of me. When I say that I immediately felt like, I'm about to move. Like this is about to happen, like my time here is done. And a lot of the times, for me, I'm a loyalist. So when I when I connect to something, I'm loyal to it, so much so that I will ignore the voice of God telling me to do something, because I'm such a loyalist. And so like all cases, I felt the grace lift, but I was attached to another ministry. And I was like, what, God I can't leave because I'm doing xy and z in this ministry. So I can't leave right now I got it. What are they gonna do without me? It's kind of like a pseudo pride. Like, you're the only reason that things afloat when God is like, no, no, no, no, it's, it's me. And if I need to move you that I need to move you and, and the way that I know that it's the voice of God for me is when I don't listen, he starts to shut things down. He starts to starts to close different doors, he starts to make different things, kind of shake up the pot, if you will, to get my attention. And so that's what he did. He shut some things down. And then I was at a church service and the pastor there gave me a prophetic word. He was like, kills God's about to get you out of here quickly. And I was like, Okay, that's cool. And so he starts to preach again and services going on. And then he comes back to me, he says kills I don't know why I keep coming back to you. God just keeps showing me. You he said, but I see you with a big winter coat on. It's like, I see you going somewhere cold. God is going to take you up north, somewhere. And in my mind, this is very this is very important. In my mind, nothing came out of my mouth. In my mind. I said, New York City here I come. I love New York, New York is my spirit animal of a city. And so in my mind, I said New York, you back home. And no sooner that I said that the pastor turns around. He says, No, it won't be New York. I said, Okay. You're not hearing from God. And I was like, Well, I know absolutely nothing else about the North. I know absolutely nothing else. So I went home, make a long story short, I went home, told my wife, I said, this is what the pastor told me tonight. This was his words to me. What do you think about it? He said, it's not gonna be New York. I don't know what else to tell you. I don't know anything up there. And then I started thinking and looking at some things. I was like, Well, what about Boston? I proposed to my wife in Boston. So I was like, oh, maybe Boston is the place to go. And she was like, No, I don't think Boston. And it was actually my wife that said, What about Philly? I was like, Philly. I don't know anything about Philly. Except Will Smith and neo soul. That's it. I don't know anything else in Allen Iverson. That's it. And I was like, Okay, well, if it's Philly, then we'll see what the Lord says. And subsequently, after that moment, everything around us just said Philadelphia, people we talked to were from Philadelphia, in Houston. movies that we kept watching all were based out of Philadelphia, not on purpose. It was just like, gosh, it just happened meeting people in coffee shops, and at the car dealership, it just like Philly was everywhere. And the final straw was when we walked into amplify City campus. And we meet John Vescio. And the first thing he says, is, we're looking for the Philadelphia campus pastor, and I knew then oh my gosh, I was like, That's it. This is this is a God thing. So yeah, that's that was, that's kind of what led led us to Pittsburgh, and then subsequently to Philly. Crazy. Okay, so there's a lot of things that I took down notes on as your tongue. Because from the very beginning, you said you felt something lift off of me. If if someone is like newer in their faith? Can you explain what that feels like and what you're what you're talking about? Oh, I'm so so I said, I felt the grace, lift off of me. And when I say the grace, everybody has a grace, to do something, you have a an ability to just naturally do something naturally feel something. And then when your grace lifts off of you, it, it's kind of like the relationship changes. And so my relationship with the city changed. It was no longer a place of home, which it still is home, but it was no longer a place of home, but a place of frustration, because I was going against what I had been told to do. And a lot of times, God will give us instructions. And we don't listen to them. And then everything around us gets chaotic, because we did not follow the instruction. And I like to tell people all the time, God is not obligated to cover you when it's your wheel. He's only obligated to cover you when is His will. And you always know when you're when you're not in his will because things won't be aligned. stuff is just is just going off the course. And so when it lifted, it was like a literal feeling like, God, this is the grace lifted, but a burden sat on me. Wow. Wow. So I was like, dang, I don't I can't shake this. I got to do what God is telling me to do. So yeah. So you said it started to shut things down. But I think this is a tricky piece for other people to define the difference between chaos ensuing and bad things happening? Or can they sometimes be the same? How do you articulate that? You know, it's nuance. But a lot of times, they are the same a lot of times because our obedience is our situation is dependent upon our obedience. For instance, if I go buy a carton of milk, it has an expiration date already on it. My obedience to that expiration date ensures that I get the fresh, possible tasting milk, but the second I operate outside of what the expiration date told me, then I'm left with something sour. If I had to just listen to the expiration date in the first place, I'd be okay. And a lot of times, that's what that's what God will do. He will give you a word. And then he'll start to stir that thing up in your spirit and we know when he starts to start up in our spirit. But because we don't know the factors on the other side of it many times we just don't move and so we're like I'm waiting on God, Goddess, like, I already gave you the word. You're, you're waiting on me to give you the plan. And I don't want to give you the plans, I just need to give you the word. And when you move on the word, I'll reveal the plans to you. And so because we don't move on that word, he has to shake us up a little bit to get our attention. And sometimes it looks like chaos. When really is he's just trying to get in touch with you. Yeah. Well, that's, that's a really powerful story. And I think I want to talk about where it's not as obvious for people, right? And they're like, I think God told me something. But nobody is literally coming to their face, affirming it for them. Yeah. And I know that that circumstance aside, this happens to you all the time. We're like, yep, God told me this, because you haven't had the gift of prophecy as well. So how would you? What are some first steps you think someone can do to be able to know whether it is God? telling them something? Number one, does it align with his will, anything God tells you to do will always be to advance the kingdom. If it has no kingdom attachment, it's probably not God telling you to do it. It's your own desires, it's your own motivations. So it's, it's to know that it's God, you have to have a in depth relationship with God, right? You could call me from the balcony of our church. And the second I hear your voice, I know that it's you why, because we have relationship, I don't even have to turn around. Because I know you call me. That's how you have to be with God, you have to get so in tune with his voice, through prayer, through reading, through listening, just sitting quietly, and listening to what God tells you and how he tells you. And I'll even say, even understanding his method of communication with you. Because oftentimes, we're looking for God to speak in one way, when he's actually dealing with us in another way, right? You can look at, you can look at Elijah, when he when he killed the 400 prophets of Baal. And then God had to get his attention. And he thought it was in the earthquake, he thought it was in the wind, he thought it was in the fire. He thought it was in this. And it wasn't in any of that, because God wanted to whisper to him. Right. So when you understand how God communicates with you, you can then decipher whose voice it is because I know how I taught to me. I know what my own thoughts are. I know when they're just selfish. I know when they're just about me. And then I know when Oh, no, no, this is bigger than me. This is kingdom, this has this has all to do with God's playing in the earth. And I need to follow that. You think that because you just said, I know when it's me? I think a lot of people struggle with that. So how, how are you able to learn when it is your voice? Do you think that's a component of self awareness? Or that there's something more to it? It is a component of self awareness. It's a component of who does it benefit? What's the root? Who gets glory out of this decision? Oftentimes, you will, when it's just you, you'll only see the benefits of it. When it's God, you'll consider what is going to come on the other side of this. Let's let's play that scenario out. Let's say that someone has to decide between two good things. Okay. In that scenario, how do you know what God is telling you to do? Let's let's say you've been in the word and obviously the word is in like XO, you need to move to LA. Because it doesn't say that in Scripture, verses XO, you need to stay here in Pittsburgh, like kind of things like that. Yeah. What would you say if someone was in that scenario? Well, let's look at the I'm a word god. I love words. Yeah. So let's look at the two words what's good versus what's God. If you actually look at the word, the only difference between good and God is good decided to add an extra bow to what God already was. And so oftentimes, when we're trying to decide the good thing is always something extra. God thing is always something simple. If God has given you an instruction, it's real simple, just do this. But the good thing is like, Oh, well, you could do this. You could do this. Oh, that'd be good. Or that'd be good too. I could do this. It's always something extra behind what is good when the simplicity is found and what God said to do. So you have you have to investigate. What's What's the the surrounding Adding elements and the surrounding detail. So let's just say let's just say you are struggling between go to LA versus state and Pittsburgh, well, I would do some investigatory work. What do you feel your purpose in life is? What what do you feel like? What do you feel like God intrinsically created you to do? And then once we discover what that purpose is, then we ask, well, where would this purpose be best lived out. And oftentimes, you can see the the limitations of a thing, more than you can see the possibilities of another thing. And so, if it's hard for you to see the possibilities for another thing, you might be leaning into what God told you. Because if God told you to do it, it's bigger than you, there is no way that you can coerce it to happen. So case in point, amplify church was not the first church that was going to get me to Philadelphia, there was a church already here in Philadelphia that I had, I had already visited, I'm still friends with the pastor. And he brought me in Halle down, we went to his charge, it was amazing. They're dope, they're still doing great work. But in order to make that move happened, there was so much that had to try to configure it together. Oh, we can. We don't have a position for you right now. But we can put you at the school, and then you can work right here. And then you can do this. And you can do that. And then something in me was just like that you tried to make it happen. Mm hmm. That's you trying to try to do it just because you felt like you heard God. Be patient. Don't finesse it. And then when I didn't finesse it, here comes amplify, I think I think that's an amazing word like, look for the simplicity. Because that is that is true. I mean, very rarely does God make people jump through a American Ninja Warrior obstacle course, when it comes to doing what he's asked you to do. 100%. So I want to move on to boldness, because you are someone who's extremely bold, I'm assuming that you had to learn that, and that it's just an overflow of you now, but someone who, let's say they're walking down the street, and something hits him like, dude, that homeless person, why do I keep Why do I keep staring at them? Like this is not like, is this God? Is this me? Am I like, in that moment? How have you trained yourself to be bold, knowing that, you know what, maybe it's not God, it's a daily journey. Honestly, it's, it's, there's no science to it, it's, you get moments to listen to the voice of God. And you can either act on them, or you can miss them. And you'll generally see the repercussions of missing a moment to do what the voice of God tells you to do. And so because of that, again, goes back to learning how God speaks to me, when I know it's God, I have to move on it. It's It's not me moving in my own strength. It's the work of God moving in me, the Spirit of God moving in me, compelling me to take the first step. And then it's kind of like Martin Luther King says, Faith is taking the first step where you don't see the whole staircase. And so we walk by faith, not by sight. Faith, faith is insight, with what you know, from internal versus external sight, being able to see with their eyes. So we walk by insight, the faith that we know and believe God has called us to do with thing versus seeing the manifestation or the possibilities thereof. That's so great to give an example of that, how, how I became more bold in my faith. I had a conversation. She's like, five, six years ago with a with a Hollywood producer. We were sitting down for coffee, and he was telling me this story of how he heard God in a way that he would never forget, aftermath. And he was picking up this guy who was in a band, he's like, Hey, man, I'm so sorry. My car broke down. Are you able to like, take me to this party? I gotta go to afterwards. He's like, Yeah, sure, no problem. But he barely knew the guy. So he's like, just doing this guy favor, and he pulls up up. And it's Marilyn Manson's house. And this is one of his band members that he just drove there. And the guys like, come on in. And he's like, that's okay. Like, thank you, but no. And it ended up being that the guy's car needed to be in the shop for a whole week. So he kept asking this guy, he's like, I'm so sorry. Like, dude, I'll pay you back, whatever. Can you drive me again. So like, the next day, he's driving him and this guy. The driver is a believer. So he has like Christian music playing in his car. But he was like, kind of turned down lower because he's like, I know the audience is. But the passenger had said, wait. Yeah, this is a dope song. And he was like, I'm sorry, what he was like, Well, I mean, yeah, like, we listen to good music, too, no matter what genre it is. So the band member of Marilyn Manson had said this to him. And he said, in that moment, I felt like God was like, This is your opportunity. Tell him about me. Yep. And he stayed silent. And the next day, the guy died of a drug overdose. And he was like, wow, never again in my life. Will I not say something when God tells me to say and like, obviously, I'm, like, moved to tears just thinking about now because hearing that story, made me be like, never like, there is literally life and death on the line when God tells you to do something. So yeah, I mean, I love your boldness, because you live that out. So not even so frequently isn't enough. You're doing it in every moment of every day. Yeah, it's all it's I know, everything you do is by asking for God's guidance and wisdom. And I think that's so cool and so powerful, but also an amazing challenge to us. Because are we actually inviting God into every part of our day, knowing full well, he could change the plans for us. And I think that that's definitely a big challenge for me. And I feel like it's a lot. It's a big challenge for others listening, and that's okay. But are you fighting to hear and find his voice amidst all the other noise and amidst all your other desires? Yeah. Is what is what the the basis of it is. So you listen to God's voice, you think you hear it, you act on it? And what have you are completely wrong. So this is a funny way that I live my life. When it comes to the voice of God, I say eff it. All right. I just triggered the whole what the pastor says no, explicit sign next to this. Thanks a lot kills, right? No, I'm eff it, meaning I live my life fast, fluid and flexible. So I'm moving at the cadence of the voice of God, but I'm flexible and fluid enough to say, I don't have all the answers. And so I may make a misstep, because I'm human. But I believe even in my misstep, God has a great GPS system that can always get us back on track from where we are. And so I don't, I tend not to, to not to worry too much about making the wrong moves. If I've got the right motives, if I've got the right motives to say, God, my heart is just to please you my hardest to reach people my hardest to share the gospel with people. That's, that's at the end of the day. That's all that matters. There were there were oftentimes let's go to David. Right, David, the dawn tells the prophet to go anoint, go to Jesse's house and anoint the next king. And the Prophet brings, tells Jesse to bring out all your sons, Jesse brings out all seven of his sons, and he leaves David in the field. The Prophet gets excited, because he's looking at these boys, and they're strapping and they're good looking, and they're handsome. And they're like, surely this is the one that you've anointed. And he tries to pour the oil, and God literally defies gravity. Because that's not what he said. And God literally tells him Do not try to anoint somebody that I didn't annoyed that I didn't call. So in that moment, the Prophet got it wrong. But he still had an assignment that he had to do. And so he tries to do this with all seven sons, but knowing that God had told him what he told him, it's like, is there somebody else and subsequently Jesse had to go get David David shows up the oil flows, right? And so So being a prophet does not mean you'll always be 100% accurate. It does mean you'll always be 100% sensitive. That's a that's a great point because This. I think this is a very tricky thing for a lot of people, because it's one thing to hear God for your own life. But to hear God tell you something for somebody else's life is a little bizarre. Yep. Quite frankly. And I want to hear it from you because you do this often times, how can someone know or or what's one, identifying mark of like red flag, hey, by the way, that wasn't God. If someone's like, God gave me a word for somebody, like a year, like, this is what I need to say to this person. What's something that can make you pause, like, oh, actually, if that were true, then this would happen. And this isn't happening kind of thing. So what I what I think is when God gives a word, to a prophet, that interaction between his word coming through the prophet, and the Prophet saying it to the person for confirmation should look a lot like Mary and Elizabeth. When Mary walks in the room pregnant with Jesus, Liz, Elizabeth that's pregnant with John immediately felt something leap in her felt John leap and her because they he had came in contact with Jesus. And so every prophetic word should have something leap in you that says, That's right. That's correct. The spirit should always bear witness to the Spirit. You shouldn't get a prophetic word and it sounds like some outlier, that you've never heard before. In your life, there should be some correlating confirming factors around that word that says, This is it. This is the word of the Lord some. So all the time when I'm prophesying, I'm saying Does that makes sense? Do you understand that? And, you know, people, you know, sometimes they're too, you know, weepy to give me an answer, but they'll like, Yeah, whatever, whatever. So there should be some sort of confirming nudge that God is saying, This is me. Love that. Now, someone could be listening and thinking like, the heck, now this guy can tell me what's wrong with my life. Like, I ain't about that. And, and this is kind of where I want to move with this kills. Okay, this is a lot. There's a lot of power perceivably that someone can hold? If they feel like God is telling them to do something, not do something, say something to somebody else, specifically, and it's very nuanced situation. How does one let's say you were using using example, how does pride not get in the way? Whenever people are looking at you? And they're like, man, you know what? Kells is gonna give me a word because he hears directly from God. How does that work in your mind? And is there something different about you than other people? Or what is it, I deflect Glory? Glory is a dangerous thing. Glory is what got Lucifer, Satan kicked out of heaven. And when you start to drink glory, it quickly intoxicates you. And so I deflect it. Every chance, I get a deflected glory, it's not me. For me, I am always amazed. And never treated, casual, common. Usual. I'm always amazed when God speaks to me every single time. And I know that he's going to speak accurately. But I stand in a place of amazement to say, God, you are awesome. And when that is your heart posture, it keeps you from exalting yourself. It keeps you from getting puffed up, it keeps you from getting prideful, I understand I've already come to grips into terms with, I'm not that good. It's of no grace of my own. I'm not smart enough. I'm not witty enough. I'm not consistent enough. I'm not disciplined enough to even have this level of gifting be attributed to something that I could do. So all I'm going to do is just thank God that he even allows for it to happen. Well, that's, that's so good. Okay. So that's pretty profound. And you keep referring to obedience kills and I want to ask, why should we obey God? Why is obedience important in our lives, like if we're just like, yeah, Jesus is cool, he saved me. There's this difference of like, Jesus being Savior, and Jesus also being Lord, and I feel like obedience ties in with the Jesus is, Lord because that changes how you act, but I'll kind of want to hear from your perspective. Why is obedience such an fundamental element? to faith, obedience is the greatest form of trust. When I obey you, I'm trusting you to protect me. I'm trusting you to know what's coming. I'm trusting you to, I'm trusting you to have the answers. And so I oftentimes say this when I'm doing what God has called me to do, it's on him to make your work, not me. And I don't have to sustain it. I don't have to, I don't have to stay up stressing about it. Because it's not mine. It's got. I'm just God, if I'm doing what you call me to do, you've got to provide, you've got to make the way you've got to open the door. It's not on me. It's on you, because you called me to do it. Now, that does not mean I'm not doing what he's telling me to do. Because he's going to navigate, he's going to direct my footsteps, all the things, but it's on him to make it happen and not on me. When I'm disobedient. I'm saying it's on me to figure it out. And I don't want to carry that. I don't want to have to figure that out. That's, I've got enough going on in my head already. I'd much rather not have to figure out how to how to conjure up doing what I'm called to do at the poster just listening to the voice of God, and letting that be the determining factor of doing what I'm called to do. That's great. Do you think that obedience sometimes looks like just seeing one next step to take one small next step? Or obedience is always one small next step. It's always it's always that it's not. Obedience isn't always some big thing, right? There's a scripture that says obedience is better than sacrifice. And oftentimes, we're just trying to do, we're sacrificing so much, we don't have to. Let's take it back Bible. Cain killed his brother, Abel, because Cain himself made this big, elaborate sacrifice to God that God never asked for. Abel was simply obedient. And God says this was the better sacrifice. And so Cain got upset because he had done all of these things. But he wasn't obedient. He has sacrificed all of his time. But he wasn't obedient. He had made this big grandiose presentation, but he wasn't obedient. And his brother did exactly what God told him to do. And his eyes was probably like, well, that sucks, that's wack. Like, they don't look better than mine. But he was obedient. So we got to honor obedience versus your opinion. That's a whole sermon right there on how good it looks doesn't mean, how much God is in it for sin. So we've talked a lot about hearing from God. And let's, let's address the person who's like, you don't let I wish I could hear anything. My brain isn't telling me anything. I don't think I'm hearing from God. What should someone do if they're that situation where they're like, it's just static on the radio over here? Well, I would, I would start to dig deep into their lives. Normally, we don't hear good analogy. You said they're static on the radio, if they're static on the radio is because you're on the wrong frequency. It's not until you get into the right frequency. And you can properly here. And so I would start to question, what what's your what is your prayer life? Like? How much time do you spend the Word of God? How much time do you spend meditating on the Word of God? How much time do you spend listening versus asking? And deep? Are you comfortable with just sitting in silence? Yeah, because I, that's a problem for me. So thanks for calling me up my brother. You said, you said meditate on the word. What? What makes meditating on the Word different than just reading the Bible? Oh, that's meditation. Gets it in your spirit. Reading it just gives you information. meditation helps you with application. How does this apply? How How does this fit into my everyday life and when you meditate on the word, it gives you a it gives you something to fall back to. Right so scripture says, I hide my word, hide the Word in your heart, that I might not sinned against you. The only way you can hide it in there as if you meditate is if you dwell on it every day, every night and it becomes so engrained into your, your being that you cannot pull away from it. That's what meditation does, it centers you it, it, it clears out everything else. And it just keeps this one thing at the forefront of your mind. And so because this one thing is at the forefront of your mind, it dictates how you move. It dictates how you think dictates how you talk. And so when you're meditating on scripture, Scripture dictates how you move. It dictates how you think it dictates how you talk. So that's why meditating is better than just reading it, it gets it into your spirit when you meditate, which I guess can be said, correct me if I'm wrong, but application is where that part plays in? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah. Where would you suggest someone start reading in the Bible? If they're just like, Okay, well, let me get to the right frequency. Where's that? So I actually somebody just asked me this question yesterday. There's five books of the Bible that you have to start with five of them sounds like a lot, but it's not. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John x. So the five gospels, and then x is the birthplace of the church, read those five, because they reveal Jesus in a way that will allow you to identify him in the other 61 books, from Genesis to Revelation is the revealing of Jesus. And if you don't know his characteristics, if you don't know his lingo, if you don't know his mannerisms, if you don't know anything about him, you'll read something in Genesis and not understand that it was talking about Jesus, you will read something in Exodus and not understand that it was referring to Jesus. And so started the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and then x will help you understand church, what what his, what his big thing was, was to establish the kingdom and build his church. And so that's, that's where my starting point would be. I love that. And to add on to that, I know that people are just like, Well, like I pray, but you know, like, I'm not hearing anything. Well, I mean, John, one one says, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, which means that you are literally hearing from God when you're reading the Bible. So if nothing else, just spend some time with him by doing that. 100% Well, I think this has been an utterly riveting conversation. mazing amazing. I love these kinds of talks, you have anything that we didn't discuss that you would love to impart upon the audience, I just say, Stay sensitive. Stay open to hearing the voice of God. And figure out how he speaks to us specifically, and individually and get into his word. That's where you'll find out the most about them. That's where you'll unlock the mysteries of what you're going through. Because I can guarantee you that somebody has went through what you're going through in the Word of God. And it's already been prescribed or described, about how to get through that moment. So that's what I would say. I think that's an amazing way to end it kills. I love you, my friend. Thank you so much, Sue for being on the accidentally intentional podcast. Man, I love cows, but I think I love his heart for God so much more. And if you'd like to connect with him, there's a couple different ways in which you can do so. Which I'll have all the links in the description below. But the first is through Instagram at the Kells Johnson he actually has a podcast with his wife called the going gray podcast and he has his own YouTube channel as well called unapologetic TV. And if you live near Philadelphia, and you're like, Hey, I heard he's a pastor there. I want us to check out his church see how the church plans going then you want to follow along at we are amplify Philly on Instagram. But now let's hit some takeaways. Number one, this was a heavy hitter. When Cal said God is not obligated to cover you when it's your will. He's only obligated to cover you if it's his will. Number two asking yourself does this align with God's will or does this just serve me? Anything God tells you to do will always advance the kingdom. Number three, if it's just what you want, you'll often see only the benefits of it but when it's God you'll consider what is to come on the other side of it. Number four, distinguishing between a good thing versus a God thing and I love where Kells went with this a good thing usually always has something extra added on to it but a God thing is just simple instructions to follow. To know whether he told you to do it or not. Look for the simple Felicity number five on this one took me out when he said obedience is the greatest form of trust, and that obedience is better than sacrifice. And number six, we concluded by talking about if you couldn't hear anything at all from God and a couple of things that you can do to change the channel on the radio, in the example that we used, you have to think through one, how much time are you spending, praying, and spending in God's word, reading the Bible, applying the scriptures to your life, and listening in silence, to hear God's voice. And then also Kells recommended reading the first five books of the New Testament, which is Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, which are the four Gospels, and then x, which follows right after it to be able to understand God's voice and what Jesus actually said, so that we're able to recognize Hey, that's definitely from him. Was there someone that came to mind as you were listening to this episode? Because if so, please share it with them. We're so passionate about this message, and we want to give value to the people that would benefit from it. We drop a new episode every other Thursday, so be sure to subscribe to get the latest conversations. Oh, and one more thing, if you enjoy this episode, and this podcast, I would be so honored. If you would leave a review. It helps us to better connect with the intended audience of this podcast by doing so. And I truly am so grateful for any amount of time that you choose to spend with me because trust me, I know how many options are out there and I do not take it for granted. Seriously, I just wow, I just really appreciate you and take I may not know your name yet, but let's change that connect with me on Instagram at XO Asher, or on Twitter at combos with xo. But hey, even if I don't know your name yet, what I do know for certain is that you're amazing. I love you. You have something that the world needs and you are always more than enough. So hey, we'll see you next time on The accidentally intentional podcast.