Seven ways God will test you before he'll use you. I wanna talk to you about process. I wanna talk to you about those seasons in life where you're wondering what God is doing. You know you're called.  You know he's given you a purpose and you're trying to discover that purpose or maybe you're even to some degree already walking in that purpose. But there are seasons that will cause you to have doubts and questions. There are seasons that will weigh heavily upon you. I wanna talk to you about that because it's important that you understand what you're facing and I believe that as you listen to the word of God right now that seasons of life are going to begin to make sense.  But the enemy is gonna work to distract you. The enemy is going to do what he can to pull your attention away from the word of God. So I need you to make a commitment right now. To fight the flesh, say no to the flesh and yes to the spirit. You'll find that as you're hearing the word often that the enemy will do what he can to pull you away to something else, something that seems more enticing, more entertaining. The flesh craves entertainment and distraction but the spirit craves the scripture. The spirit craves the deeper things of God. So as you hear this message, just be aware of the fact that your flesh may fight what it's hearing because it's being corrected, because it's being weakened, because it's being subjected under the power of the spirit. As I said, I wanna talk to you about process. Process is simply the proper use of a series of moments or behaving correctly as God sends these moments to you. Job chapter 23 verse 10 says this, but he knows where I am going and when he tests me, I will come out as pure gold. When the Lord tests you, he purifies you. As you are facing trials, as you are facing those difficult circumstances that maybe cause you to question to doubt and even that cause you to desire to quit, remember this, that God does not waste the process. God does not waste the moment. God does not waste trials. As gold is purified in fire, so God's children are purified in trials.  Let me see your vengeance against them for I have committed my cause to you. Now watch this, this one, especially I wanna focus on. Psalm 10519, Psalm 10519. Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the Lord tested Joseph's character. I'm gonna read that again, listen to this. Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the Lord tested Joseph's character. We're gonna be looking at the life of Joseph and I'm gonna show you seven ways that God tested Joseph before he could step in to the promise, before he could step into the fulfillment of those dreams that God had given to him. Now remember, there is a difference between your dreams and divine dreams. Your dreams have to do with your will. Divine dreams have to do with God's will. So when I'm talking to you about the call of God, I'm not saying that you're going to eventually receive everything that you desire. No, in fact, when you follow Jesus, there is a lot of self-denial. And if you can't remember the last time that you had to say no to self, then you need to double check and make sure that you're actually following Jesus because to follow Jesus is to deny self. Now, one more clarification here. I am not saying that an individual has to go through all seven of these tests in order to be used by God nor am I saying that these tests have to be taken in a certain order. So don't look at these as a chronology. Look at these as just biblical principles that you can apply to your life. Now, God can use anybody that he wants. I mean, think about how Saul turned to Paul pretty much instantaneously. He didn't necessarily have to go through a process before God called him into ministry. So God can do what he wishes, but generally speaking, God processes the individual before he will begin to use them in certain degrees. And the more process they become, the more he will choose to use them. So everyone is being used by God to some degree.  There's no way that he's not using your life in some way. Now you may say, I don't see how God's using my life. I don't see where my purpose is.  Just by your existence and being who you are in Christ, there is an impact that's being made. But as you begin to pass certain tests, God begins to promote you for the sake of his will and promises. Comment this in the comment section now. I want to pass the tests. Tell the Lord in the comment section now that you want to pass your tests. Lord, test me and help me to pass these tests. Leave a comment whether you're watching live or on the replay. Now let's go to Genesis chapter 37, and let's begin to look now at the life of Joseph. Genesis chapter 37, I'm gonna begin reading verse number one. So Jacob settled again in the land of Canaan where his father had lived as a foreigner. This is the account of Jacob and his family. When Joseph was 17 years old, he often tended his father's flocks. He worked for his half-brothers and the sons of his father's wives. But Joseph reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing. Verse three, watch this. Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day, Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph, a beautiful robe. Watch this verse four. But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn't say a kind word to him. Now, for the sake of the analogy I have to clarify, I'm not saying that God loves some of his children more than he loves others. No, God loves his children equally. But he trusts us in proportion to our obedience. He favors us in proportion to our obedience. So favor is simply how God responds to a life of obedience and humility live righteously before him unto his glory. Verse five, one night Joseph had a dream. And when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever. Listen to this dream, he said. We were out in the field tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood up and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine. Now imagine this. He's already disliked by his brothers. He's hated, the scripture makes it clear. Why? Because he has favor. Because there was a special gift made for him. And that special gift represented the special favor that he carried. And now adding his dream to this equation, he's beginning to make things worse for himself by sharing this dream. Now I don't think it's necessarily wrong that he shared the dream, but that can be debated. That's not the point of my message here right now. Verse eight, his brothers responded. So you think you will be our king, do you? Isn't it interesting that when you begin to share what God has placed in your heart, when you begin to recognize who God has called you to be, that suddenly people begin to accuse you of arrogance and pride. And sometimes it is the case that people are filled with arrogance and pride. But it's not always the case. Sometimes sharing the dream is done so out of excitement or enthusiasm because of what God is doing. And you expect people to celebrate with you.  Do you actually think that you will reign over us and they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them? So he's probably gloating. At least that's what I suspect. Verse nine, soon Joseph had another dream. And again he told his brothers about it. Listen, I've had another dream he said. The sun, moon and 11 stars bowed low before me. This time he told the dream to his father as well as to his brothers. But his father scolded him. What kind of dream is that?  But while his brothers were jealous of Joseph, his father wondered what the dreams meant. Soon after this, Joseph's brothers went to pastor their father's flock at Shechem or flocks at Shechem, excuse me. Now this is the price of favor. When God begins to promote and favor you, keep in mind that he never does so for the sake of you. When God gifts you, it's not about your gifting. When God anoints you, it's not about your anointing. When God places you in ministry, it's not about your ministry. It's not about your story. It's not about you becoming important or using the gospel to make yourself important. No, when God elevates a man or a woman, he does so to elevate his purpose, his message and the expansion of his kingdom. And in so doing, when God raises an individual, often they attract jealousy. And people who you thought would celebrate with you begin to carry hatred against you in their hearts and they begin to perceive you in ways that cause them to feel better about themselves. You try explaining yourself to others, it's not going to work, do you know why?  Do you know why they want to dislike and hate you? Because it's the only way that they can justify what it is they feel about themselves. It's the only way that they can make up for the insecurity in their own lives, in their own hearts. Confidence looks like arrogance to the insecure. Let me say that again. Confidence looks like arrogance to the insecure. When someone is confident in who they are in Christ, someone who is insecure is going to perceive that as pride and arrogance. And often what we perceive as pride in others, please hear me now, what we perceive as pride in others is actually insecurity within ourselves. And so this is what Joseph is facing. God gives him a dream.  Now it wasn't about that obviously, these dreams were not ultimately if you study the story and you look at the overall purpose of the dreams and the fulfillment of those dreams, you'll find that ultimately, this was not about Joseph becoming somebody important, but rather it was about the redemption or the saving of an entire nation, God's people, because it was through Joseph that that nation was saved. But here's the thing, here's the thing. When you begin to walk in God's favor, it will automatically attract jealousy. There's no way around it. It's going to happen. And instead of attacking others, instead of becoming bitter and offended, you have to just recognize that that's just what comes with it. Now, Job 7, 18 says, for you examine us every morning and test us every moment. Now look at what happens in verse 12 through 14. Soon after this, Joseph's brothers went to pastor their father's flocks at Shechem. When they had been gone for some time, Jacob said to Joseph, your brothers are pastoring the sheep at Shechem. How's that for a tongue twister?  I'm ready to go, Joseph replied. Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are getting along, Jacob said. Then come back and bring me a report. So Jacob sent him on his way and Joseph traveled to Shechem from their home in the valleys of Hebron. Now, this is test number one. Test number one. Mind you, this is after Joseph's been favored. This is after Joseph has received the dream. This is after Joseph knows that his life has been set aside for a specific divine purpose. Number one is the test of service. God will not use anyone who does not have a servant's heart. Jesus said that if you wanna become great in the kingdom, you must seek to serve. The first shall be last, the last shall be first. You wanna find your life, you have to lose it in him. You want to receive of God, you have to give yourself over to him. So service is the first test. Notice here that he's being sent on an assignment after he knows his divine assignment. He's still willing to obey his father. He's still willing to serve his brothers. And this was a form of service to his brothers in this capacity. He was helping, he was acting on behalf of their father for the sake of their benefit. So he's serving, he's obeying, he's submitted. Even though he knows there's this great call in his life, even though he knows that one day there is gonna be great importance to who he is, he's still willing to serve. And many people skip this point. They want to have the pulpit. They want to have the platform without the process. Look, I thank God for social media. I thank God that many people can use social media to share what God is doing in their lives and even to share the word. But here's one of the drawbacks of social media. And it's also one of the positives. Anyone can have a platform on social media. The negative, anyone can have a platform on social media. And many believers today are bypassing the process because they have the platform in the palm of their hand. And now they don't allow the Lord to process them. They don't serve anywhere. They're not giving their lives over to a vision, to accountability, to spiritual headship, which is a biblical concept. Notice I didn't say a spiritual control. God gives a spiritual headship not to govern our lives but to help guide us. But the scripture makes it clear that one who is to serve in ministry must be well respected, known among the believers, must be someone who's proven themselves. They must be known there's a process before the platform. Now, when I began in ministry, I didn't start by preaching. When I began preaching as an evangelist is when I began preaching. But I look back at the first ministry that the Lord allowed me to serve in. And I was what you would call the song flipper. Now, Steve, we went to the same church. We've been friends. How old were we when we met? I was four, five years old. You, I think we're seven. I was like six or seven. He was like four or five years old. So picture that. And we went to the same church. Now, Steve, do you remember the overhead projector at the Madison building? I do. I do the, the, with the little bulb. I don't know if some of you might not know what that is. Well, if they don't know, they can Google that. Like you can go on online. You don't have to do that right now, but Google overhead projector. And that's what I operated. So for those of you don't know, it was basically a box with the bulb in it and it would shine a light upwards. And over that box would be this magnifier that would project the image overhead and onto a screen. So an overhead projector. And my job was the song flipper. So I had these transparent pieces of paper that I would flip onto that projector. And those would be the words for the worship lyrics that the people would sing. And I still remember to this day when I was asked to do that, I was, I was just standing around eating some breakfast at church with my friends. And my youth pastor walks up to me. He says, I need some help. And one of my friends went to the left. One of my friends went to the right. They scattered and I was left standing there. And pastor, he looked right at me and says, I need you to run the overhead projector. And I was so nervous. I thought I was going to mess everything up. I thought that I was going to mess up the service and everyone would be looking at me and laughing at me. And I said, I don't know if I can do this. But I stepped into that role because there was a need. There was something that needed to be done. And I knew it was for the sake of the kingdom. And I'll tell you this, I put everything I had into being that song flipper. I made sure that all of the songs were categorized in alphabetical order. I made sure that my carts that carried the overhead projector was perfectly clean. No dust was collected on that. I made sure that I went to the worship practices to make sure that I understood when the team would be switching over to what lyrics I memorized their hand signs so that I knew if they were going to go to the bridge or the chorus or sing the verse again. And I watched it very carefully. In fact, I even put tissue boxes down on that little cart that I would move around so that anybody who was crying near that space at the altar would have access to a tissue box. And I took that job seriously. All the wires perfectly wrapped. I would clean that up. I made sure everything was always put away. And I took great joy in operating the overhead projector. My friend, I was not called into the ministry the day I stepped into the pulpit. That was the day when I first began to flip songs. That was the day I stepped into my calling. That was the time that I went and found myself set on a path to fulfill what God would do in my life. And I served in sound ministry. I served in the song flipping ministry. I served in the audio visual, all of that. That's what I did for years. And it was actually in those moments that I would encounter God during worship. It was in those seasons that I learned what it was to have integrity, to do things with excellence, to embrace change that is good, to do everything that I could do with all my heart for the sake of the glory of God in everything that you do, do as unto the glory of God. You may wonder if you're wasting time. You may wonder, well, what about that person or that individual or look how many subscribers they have or look at how many viewers they get. I'm falling behind. I gotta hurry up and get in this. I gotta hurry up and get in there because someone my age is doing better than I am or someone in my season is doing better than I am.  God called you to be processed. In the serving, the character is developed. So that's test number one, the test of service. Test number two, go to verse 18 now. Genesis 37, go to verse 18. When Joseph's brothers saw him coming, they recognized him in the distance. As he approached, they made plans to kill him. Here comes the dreamer, they said. So they're mocking him now.  We can tell our father a wild animal has eaten him. Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams. These guys are vicious. Verse 21, but when Reuben heard of their scheme, he came to Joseph's rescue. Let's not kill him, he said. Why should we shed any blood? Let's just throw him into this empty cistern here in the wilderness. Then he'll die without our laying a hand on him. Reuben was secretly planning to rescue Joseph and return him to his father. So when Joseph arrived, his brothers ripped off the beautiful robe he was wearing. Now they strip him of something that symbolizes favor. Now they could strip him of this robe, but they could not strip him of the favor of God on his life. Let me just say this really clearly. You cannot cancel who God has called. If God has called you, there's nothing anyone can do about it. If God has called you, they can slander you. They can gossip. They can team up against you.  And this is what you have to remember when you're facing difficult seasons is that they may be able to strip that symbol of favor, which they took this robe, but they could not remove the actual favor. Now then they grabbed him, verse 24 says, and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty. There was no water in it. Now this is sad because they throw him into this, and this is obviously a storage point for water. It was a deep hole basically is what they threw him into. There's more to it than that, but for the sake of brevity, it was basically a pit that they threw him into. And Joseph is sitting in there now. He's lying in there maybe.  They throw him in there because they're jealous of what's happening for him.  Now, this is test number two. Please hear me now. This is test number two. This is the test of hiddenness. Often, God will hide you to protect you.  You see, you're in danger when you begin to look at someone else and you say, well, maybe you look at a general in the faith who inspired you or your pastor, your leader, your parents. And you say things like, well, when they were my age, they were doing this. When they were my age, they had already reached this point. When they were my age, they had already written this many books or had this many crusades or had a program or whatever. You compare.  Often that hiding is to protect you because if you develop too soon or if exposure comes before the intended moment or at an intensity that's not supposed to happen, well, now you're actually slowing yourself down.   You think you're making up for lost time. When all the while you're just adding to your heartache because that exposure that comes before its time will actually slow down the call. Now you may say, nothing can slow down the call of God in my life. Sure, in terms of God's ultimate destiny for you, but if you're talking about the human timeline and time from the human perspective, yes, our disobedience, our rushing, our fighting, our resistance, that can extend the timeline at least on our, I know God could make up for the time but you're still gonna have to go through what you have to go through. And I thank God sometimes, many times, all the time actually. I thank God all the time that I didn't have the exposure I have today back then. Now I wanted it back then. Lord, I wanna reach the masses for you. My motives were in the right place. I wanna preach to as many people. I wanna reach more. I wanna see more souls saved, but God kept me hidden. You know that I wrote a blog every week for quite a while. I don't remember now how long I wrote a blog for and I literally had zero readers. Like zero people would read it, but I would write the blog anyway. When I first started live streaming, live streaming wasn't even a thing. We had the rent special software in order to be able to live stream. We had this whole elaborate setup to be able to get the broadcast on and nobody would watch. I remember our peak viewership like where we would go, wow, look at how many people watch this was like 30 people. And that's when we knew, man, now we really have a crowd. There's 30 people watching. I thank God for those seasons. Here's why. It's in the season of hiddenness. Please hear this now. It's in the season of hiddenness that your motives are purified. Because in this season, in the season of hiddenness, you're either doing it because you love God or you're not doing it at all. You see, if you're in a season of hiddenness and you're doing it for praise and accolades, there'll be no longevity. You'll quit because you're not getting what you want out of it. If you're in it for the compliments of man, if you're in it for financial gain, if you're in it for status, then the season of hiddenness will weed out those who have impure motives. Why? Because in this season, either you're doing it because you love God and His people or you're not doing it at all. And many want to rush this. They want to get right to the place where they have a platform. They want to get right to the place of notoriety. They want to get all the way to the end result that they see in their minds that they know that God has showed them.  I know for a fact that if I had the criticism that I have now coming against me 10 years ago, it would have driven me insane.  Like lifting weights, you have to start with the smaller weights. Now I know we don't want to hear this because it seems sometimes even a little condescending, but this is the reality. You don't just go into the gym and go for the heavy weight. You have to work your way up to that. And if you go for the heavy weight upfront and you don't know form and you don't know how to position yourself and you don't know your limitations, you're gonna wind up hurting yourself in a way that delays the progress. And often we delay our progress because we're trying to rush out of the season of hiddenness. The only people that knew Joseph was there, oh, hear this, please. The only people that knew Joseph was there were the people who were trying to keep him hidden. The only people who knew that he was in that cistern were the ones that put him there. You may think that your enemies are winning. You may even think that the devil is winning because there's no what you would call breakthrough. But you don't know what God is doing in that season. It is in that hiddenness that your character is processed. It is in that hiddenness that your motives are purified and now you begin to do it because you love God or you don't do it at all. And this is why it's so important that we see the hiddenness, that we see these seasons. Think about David when he was tending sheep, he was hidden. Now what if Saul knew that there was a potential replacement for him somewhere out there before the time? He probably would have tried to prevent that. He would have tried to sabotage that.  And that's sometimes what slows us down too. Now I'm giving you deep things of the spirit here. These issues are not often talked about and so many people are left going on these journeys not knowing what's going on. They think God is working against them when he's actually working for them. Now Joseph didn't know that this was actually the first step to fulfilling his dream. The dream that God gave him was being fulfilled and the plan was already in motion. It didn't look like it because he was hidden. It didn't feel like it because he was hidden. But this first step, this hiding of Joseph that was the first step to set that plan in motion now. For your protection, God, please hear this. For your protection, God will only expose you in proportion to the purity of your motives. For your own protection, God will only expose you in proportion to the purity of your motives. Now here's how deceitful we can be. I wanna spend just a little more time on this one. Here's how deceitful we can be. I remember when I was praying to be used by God like in the early years of my walk with Christ. I say early years, but I'm still young but that doesn't mean I don't have earlier years. So I was in my earlier years of walking with the Lord and I remember knowing this. Like in my mind, I knew God won't promote me unless my motives are pure, unless I'm doing this for the right reasons. So here's what I would do. And here's how self-deceptive we could be. Here's how tricky the flesh can be. I would pray things like, Lord, I don't care if you ever promote me. I don't care if you ever use me in a great way. I just, whatever you wanna do. And I would say that knowing in the back of my mind, if I pray that, maybe he'll promote me. And that's how tricky this can be because when you crucify something, when you place something on the cross, you gotta leave it there. And many of us try to come off that cross. We're squirming, the flesh should be subjected but we're squirming, it's still alive. And it comes into this place where we're just fighting the process and we don't like that place.  There is no time wasted with God if in those seasons, you yield to his every instruction. There's no season. Think about what God told Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah chapter six.  See but don't perceive. In other words, I'm sending you to be ineffective. That's what basically God told Isaiah.  You're gonna speak but no one's gonna understand. And he was okay with that. What is it about anyway? Is it about exposure? Is it about popularity? Well, you'll find out because it's in this season that God purifies you. And by the way, by the way, you'll see often people seem to skyrocket out of the blue and please understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying that anyone who appears to have quick growth is not qualified. Sometimes that's what God does but we don't always see what's going on behind the scenes. Like people tell me all the time, man, I'm so blessed by your ministry. I just found you two years ago. And in their minds, we just kind of popped into existence two years ago when we've been here for over 20 years doing the Lord's work. I'm not upset about that because I know how that works. And so sometimes it appears that someone has overnight promotion when in fact they've been laying a foundation in hiddenness for years and years and years. But here's the reality. Sometimes God will just allow someone to be promoted because their heart's not even right in the first place anyway. He didn't call them. He didn't position them there. They're doing it for the fang, for the fortune. They're preaching from impure motives. He doesn't allow them to be processed because frankly, that's part of the punishment. So it's actually in the blessing that we find hiddenness. I'm gonna move on to test number two now. If this is blessing you, let me know in the comments section. Let me know how you're doing in this season or if this is making sense in terms of the hiddenness. So test number one is service. Test number two is hiddenness. Test number three, we'll see it right here, verse 25. Then just as they were sitting down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of camels from the distance coming toward them. It was a group of Ishmaelite traders taking a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin from Gilead down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, what will we gain by killing our brother? We'd have to cover up the crime. Instead of hurting him, let's sal him to those Ishmaelite traders. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood, and his brothers agreed. So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph's brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for 20 pieces of silver, and the traders took him to Egypt. I'll read verse 29 just so you can kind of see for good measure here. Sometime later, Reuben returned to get Joseph out of the cistern. When he discovered that Joseph was missing, he tore his clothes in grief. So Reuben again was all along planning to rescue him out of there. And you know, we always have people who will be there for us, but sometimes even they cannot prevent some of the struggles that are coming our way. This is test number three, discouragement, discouragement. You know, you've heard it said that the way oil is retrieved from the olive is when the olive is crushed. And there is a great crushing that comes. But consider also the fact that to get the olive in the first place, it must be shaken from the tree. First, there's the shaking. Everything that's familiar, shaken. Everything you thought you could trust, shaken.  And you're removed from these places of familiarity so that God can show you that he was the one you should rely upon all along. God will shake the things that you trust more than him. God will remove you from familiar situations if that familiarity becomes your source of peace because you need to learn to have your peace come from him, your trust based on him. So first you're shaken from familiar, I'm talking to someone right now, I know I am. First you're shaken from the familiar, confusion. I don't know who to trust. I don't know who is real. I don't know what is real. I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do now. I feel like everything in my life that was familiar, that was stable, that was consistent, it's all gone now. And I feel like my whole world has changed. That's the shaking. And then the crushing, the heaviness, the discouragement, the trials, the heartache, the betrayal, that's a part of it. Now keep in mind that the crushing doesn't produce the oil. The crushing only reveals it. In trials, whatever is truly in you comes out. When you're being pressed by the trials and tribulations of life, what is in you comes out. It's revealed. Trials don't create anointings. Trials reveal anointings. Trials don't give you character per se, though there could be an argument made there. And in some instances, yes, it could. We could talk about that later. But trials, more than anything, reveal that character. So when we are crushed, what is within us is revealed. Now this is the test of discouragement. This is test number three, test of discouragement. My friend, this is when people betray you.  Seasons where the people you thought would back you don't. Where the people you thought who were with you turn against you and sometimes you don't even know why. Like there are a handful of pastors I could name who last I checked, we were on great terms. There was no issues.  People I thought we were on great terms with, suddenly I find out they do not, they can't stand me. I'm going, well, what happened? I don't know. People you thought would remain with you don't. And that's really the pain point, isn't it? Because you could accept betrayal from people in general. But betrayal hurts the most when it was the one you least expected. Betrayal hurts the most when it comes from the one who you thought was the confidant, who you thought, okay, if others betray me, I'll always have this one. And that comes, I've had those seasons in life.  But people begin to slander you.  It's not even the people who slander you. Slander lies, gossip, that's one thing. What hurts the most is the people who believe the slander just because somebody said it. Like I can't tell you how many times I've watched as preachers and teachers and ministers are bashed. And all it takes is a simple claim, well, that person's false. And you look at the comment section, they are, oh my goodness, I never knew. Well, thank you, I'm gonna stop following them, thinking you just believed that? You heard it, they said it, and you just said, well, I'm gonna believe it, why? Or don't you realize that ego and pride and personality and perception all plays a role in these conflicts? And perhaps you've dealt with this. Family comes against you, friends come against you, fellow ministers come against you. You know who it was that was the harshest to me, the meanest to me when I was just beginning in ministry? It wasn't the atheist, it wasn't the unbeliever. The people who came the hardest against me were seasoned pastors who were jealous by what God was doing in my life. To this day, the people who come hardest against me are jealous ministers of the gospel. Now, you can't dwell on that too long, you can't let that become what your preaching is about, your teaching is about. You don't just leave it, leave it to the Lord, but you will face it.   Oh, I need to say that again. That's gonna set somebody free, I know it. You get saved, you're gonna lose some unbelievers as friends. But you start walking in the call of God, you're gonna lose lukewarm friends to who do you think you are? Why do you think you're special? And it's exposing the compromise in them because they're not willing to go after everything that God's given to them, they'll criticize you so that they feel better about themselves. Kind of like when somebody's eating healthy, they have proper diet and they sit down at a restaurant and they order chicken and veggies when everyone else is ordering burgers and pizza. And what does everybody at that table do? What do you do? Come on, order something. And they try to get the knee, here, here. Let's get him some nachos. Let's order some wings. Come on, stop it, stop it. You gotta eat some, why? Because they feel convicted about what they're doing and their healthy eating is a direct contrast to their unhealthy eating. So they try to get them to do that. It'll poke fun at them. And this is what people do spiritually. So not just betrayal, by the way, heartache, disappointment, things that you've built with the Lord get knocked over. Here's the reality. When people attack you, there will be people who believe those attacks. You're just gonna have to deal with that. When people slander you, there will be people who believe the slander and you're just gonna have to deal with that. That's a part of it. There's no controlling that. You can explain yourself 1,000 different times and for every time you explain yourself, there'll be 10 more reasons that you give them to attack you. They'll attack the explanation for the explanation. And I'm not just talking about fellow ministers. I'm talking about family. I'm talking about friends. I'm talking about betrayal and discomfort and disconnection and isolation. I'm talking about a financial struggle. I'm talking about not seeing fruit for a long period of time. And here's the thing, is persistence doesn't even begin until you feel like giving up. Oh yeah, we said, Lord, anything you want me to do. Anywhere you want me to go, whatever you want me to become, you tell me, Lord, I'll do it and then the discouragement comes in. We don't realize how hard it was actually gonna be. Difficulty. There's emotional weight. There's mental cloudiness like thoughts bombarding. Oh, and the enemy, the devil will speak. The devil, demons will talk. They love to talk. It's about all they can do to a Christian. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.  They speak things and the moment you begin to believe in the power of that curse, now that's a mental block now and you're just everything you see is perceived through what you think is a curse and you're just discouragement, heaviness, loss of motivation, it will come, but it's a test. It's a test and it's hear me now. It's only a season. It's only a season, my friend. I wanna say that again because it's for someone listening right now. It's only a season. He who begun a work in you is faithful to complete it. He will complete the work. He will accomplish his purpose. He will use your life.  You're gonna feel like quitting. There were seasons of life where I didn't even feel like walking on the platform. I didn't even wanna do it. I said, maybe how many times did I say it, Steve? Just where, you know, in those difficult seasons, you remember some of those and I would say, why can't I just go work like at a Walgreens and be a manager and just have a nine to five and just be a Christian who just witnesses to my friends and family. No, my friend, we have work to do. We have work to do. There's a call to fulfill. And the discouragement you sense now, my friend, hear me. It's doing something in you that can't be replaced. You can't replace it. I used to say to the Lord, Lord, I want every bit of the anointing that you have for my life. This was one of my prayers when I was like 12 years old. I said, I want every bit of the anointing that you have for my life. I want every last drop. Pour it out on me, Lord. Every last drop. And then I said this to him. I said, Lord, in the seasons when I feel like quitting, in the seasons when that mental and emotional anguish is more than I feel like I can bear. In those seasons, Lord, remind me of what I prayed. Remind me that I prayed for every last drop and then seasons come. And the Lord says to me, you wanted every last drop. You talk about crushing. People see the miracles. People sense the presence on your life. Oh, but there's crushing. There's a price to pay. You see, salvation is free, but the call of God to ministry will cost you everything. Salvation is free, but the call of God into ministry will cost you everything. Everything. The glory that rests on you. I'm gonna give you secrets of the kingdom right now. The glory that rests on you comes in proportion to your brokenness. The glory that rests on you comes in proportion to your brokenness. Then we look at test number four. So, and I'm gonna go through these a little bit more quickly than I went through the first few. Test number one is the test of service. Test number two is the test of hiddenness. Test number three is the test of discouragement. Test number four, let's go to Genesis chapter 39. We're gonna skip the chapter 38, which is Judah and Tamar. There's a whole explanation as to why that's inserted right there, but that's for another time. Genesis 39, one through three. When Joseph was taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased by Potiphar, an Egyptian officer. Potiphar was captain of the guard for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did. So now, Joseph becomes the servant of Potiphar. Suddenly now there's some momentum here. He begins to see blessings. There's the dream that seems to be fulfilled here. This is the test here of faithfulness. Even though he's a servant, even though he's under the rule of another man now, even though he's not where he necessarily wants to be, he's still faithful. He's serving. So even in the midst of all that there is to do, even in the midst of all of the tasks that need to be done, even in the midst of hiddenness, even in the midst of discouragement, there's faithfulness. He's consistent about his attitude and his spirit. He's consistent in what he's doing for the Lord, even though he wasn't where he wanted to be, he was consistent in his walk with Christ or his walk with the Lord. Prophetically, future tense was walk with Christ. He gave his best. Hear this, please. Faithfulness isn't just activity over time. It's excellence over time. Faithfulness is not about how long you do something. It's about how long you do something with the right attitude. You see, because many believers, they just spin their wheels. And this right here, this could be why, and I'm not trying to be presumptuous here, but I need you to at least consider this as a possibility. Maybe this is why you haven't seen fruit. Because even though you're going through the motions, your attitude's not right. Even though you're going through the motions, your motives aren't in the correct place. Even though you're going through the motions, you're not really putting the best work in. You're not really giving your all to where you are and you're doing it consistently. You may say things like, I've been doing this for five years. I've been doing this for 10 years. I've been doing this for 20 years. Why am I not seeing traction? Why am I not seeing growth? And you're frustrated with where you are, but you haven't gone from frustration to fruitfulness because you haven't learned the key of faithfulness. And again, faithfulness is not just doing something again and again and again. That's consistency and consistency is good, but faithfulness is more than just consistency. Faithfulness is consistency in the right spirit. Faithfulness is consistency in the right spirit. God requires this. Galatians 6, 9, so let us not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up. And that's a promise. That's a promise. And you may be wondering, how is this ever gonna happen? I don't see it actually working. I don't see it actually coming to be. I asked my dad one time, because I was so discouraged, specifically in the area of my finances. Now, it's not all about money, but money plays a big part, especially when you're trying to do things on a mass scale. And I remember I didn't have money to pay my cell phone bill. I didn't have money to pay my rent. I hardly had money to eat food. And I went to my dad and I said, Dad, I know God's called me. The ministry's at a place where it's demanding pretty much all of my time. Either I have to cut back on this or and get a part-time job somewhere as I used to do side work and different odd jobs. And by the way, actually, let me go off on this. This is gonna be a tangent, but I need to say this. And this is gonna be for somebody listening. Some of you might be wondering how to transition to full-time ministry. There may be someone watching. Transition to full-time as it's demanded. Don't do that thing where you say, well, God's called me not to work. That's not scriptural. The Bible's very clear. You don't work, you don't eat.  You work that job. And as the ministry begins to demand more, you gradually go from full-time to part-time to freelance and then over into full-time ministry. But there's a gradual process. Now, there may be a point at which you have to take a leap of faith and say, okay, I just gotta go all in. Otherwise, this thing isn't gonna grow. Of course, that's a different story and you have to obey the leading of the Holy Spirit.  No, that's not biblical. And in fact, you can use the resources that you get from that practical job to actually help the ministry grow faster. That's besides the point. So I was at this point, the ministry had already come to the place where it demanded my full-time. There was no way it would function without my full-time attention. And I'll be honest, this is what I asked my dad. I said, dad, at what point do I call it quits? Like at what point does it go from being, having faith to being delusional? Like at what point do I actually have to say, okay, you know what, I gotta get real and I gotta just, I gotta change things up here. And I've been there. I know that feeling, that feeling of frustration, like you're pushing up against a brick wall that just isn't budging. Like this wall won't move. I can't push past a certain point. I'll tell you what a wonderful man of God told me. Gradually, then suddenly. You just keep working.  You stay faithful and that means be consistent, but be consistent with the right attitude. Not grumpy, complaining, I've been doing this for 10 years. Where's God? No, you haven't learned your lesson if that's how you're looking at it. But consistency with the right attitude. You watch, God will do it. God will do it. So number one, test of service. Two, hiddenness. Three, discouragement. Four, faithfulness. Test number five, blessings. Now let me paraphrase Genesis 39 verses five through 20 and you can go look this up on your own time because I wanna make sure I'm addressing this in a timely fashion. Many of those who tune in set aside about an hour for the teaching. So I wanna make sure I'm being respectful of that time so that everyone can receive. The test of blessings. You know, everything was going well for Joseph in the house of Potiphar until Potiphar's wife gained a lustful eye for Joseph. She had her eye on him and she wanted him. She would make advances. She would try to convince Joseph to sleep with her and she would basically say, you know, we won't tell Potiphar, we won't tell my husband it'll be our secret and Joseph kept his integrity. He said, no, I'm not going to fall. I'm gonna stay faithful. I'm gonna be consistent. I'm gonna do the right thing. So eventually she gets upset and she tries to advance on Joseph. He flees from her and she strips his robe and she goes to Potiphar.  Now I think, here's what I think and this is speculation. I think Potiphar believed Joseph because otherwise he would have had him killed. Your slave tries to do that to your wife. You would have had him killed, I would. So I believe Potiphar believed Joseph and so he sends him to prison instead to appease his wife. I guess for perception, keep up appearances to make sure it looks like he actually did something about it. He sends Joseph to prison and this is test number five, the test of blessings. I'm gonna challenge you here right now. This is the test of blessings. You know in the house of Potiphar, if I were Joseph, I would have looked around and I would have said, this is it. This is the fulfillment of the dream. I have status, I have wealth, I have influence, I have an abundance. People answer to me, remember Potiphar had placed him in charge, people are answering to me, people are in some sense bowing to me. So this certainly must be the fulfillment of the dream and this really is the tricky part of blessings because God will bless you just to see how you act when he blesses you. This is what many people don't know about the Lord and so as he blesses you, it begins to reveal what your motives were because as he blesses you, if you begin to relax on your character, if you begin to relax on faithfulness, you begin to relax on all the other tests, it shows why you did it all along. Now many people in Joseph's scenario would have said, this is it, this is the fulfillment of the dream, I've made it and it's in the blessings, servant of the Lord, this is a very important warning. It's in the seasons of blessings and abundance that sin is knocking at the door because it's in the seasons of blessings and abundance that you gain idle hands, there's less to do in these seasons. The season of rest, the season of eating the fruit of your labor, it's the season of now there's some stability and so opportunities begin to present themselves. You give someone status and wealth and influence and so forth and opportunities will present themselves to them. It's in the season of blessings that we are tested again. And here Joseph doesn't give in. He chooses to keep his integrity even in that season of abundance. He chooses to not settle for blessings alone. God will give you something sometimes just to see how you react when he takes it away. I need to say that again for someone. Sometimes God will give you something just to see how you react when he takes it away. I remember when God first gave me a nice set of camera equipment that we used to actually do television broadcasts and then he told me to sew it and give it all away. I did not like that one bit. I was trying to rebuke that. The Lord said, sew your camera equipment. I said, I rebuked it. That can't be you Lord, that must be the enemy. And I was fighting that because I had become so reliant upon that. I didn't realize God had so much more for me than just two or three cameras that we could film with. I didn't realize that God had a team for me, a studio for me, worldwide ministry, millions of people hearing the gospel through the ministry. All of these wonderful things that come for the sake of his glory and his glory alone and not my glory. But I didn't realize that was on the other side of the obedience. All I knew is God told me, give up my camera equipment. That's like telling a pastor, give up your church building, at least for an evangelist who does media. And so I said, okay Lord, I trust you. And I sewed it. And then the Lord began to bring even more growth but God will test you with blessing because it's in blessing that you start to relax. It's in blessing now that your integrity maybe takes some compromise because now your guard is down. Number five, the test of blessings. Now, Joseph does what is right and gets sent to prison for it. Let me ask you a question. What do you do when doing the right thing seems to put you in the wrong place? You see, sometimes God will say, so you sew and you're like, well, I didn't get a miracle. And he's like, that's okay. I wasn't telling you to sew for a miracle. I was telling you to sew because I want you to sew. Or you'll go and you'll give your life to a certain ministry or you'll give your life to a certain task that the Lord has given to you. Maybe God calls you to pastor a church. You go past to the church and you think, Lord, it didn't grow. You say, that's okay. I'm just calling you to see what you do in that season. And so sometimes doing the right thing will seem to put you in the wrong place. Speak out against evil. Teach correctly. Do as the Lord leads you. And it doesn't put you in the right place. There have been seasons where the Lord told me to do something. I did it and I was like rubbing my hands in anticipation saying, okay, Lord, where's the blessing for it? And he says, I'm just telling you to do it just because I said, I go, oh, okay. There's a good check on my motives. But sometimes when you obey God, it messes up your plans. Sometimes when you obey God, it seems to make the situation worse, doesn't it? I'm talking to someone I know I am. Sometimes when you obey God, it seems to make the situation worse. Let me know in the comment section if that's ever been you. Where you do something, and you said the Lord told me to do it, you do it and everything seems to fall apart. That's the test of blessings. Were you willing to give up the comfort? Were you willing to give up the certainty? Were you willing to give up what you thought was the fulfillment of the promise in order to obey God? Now watch this, then you go into the next test. And again, these are not necessarily in chronological order, but it is important that we recognize that these sometimes happen. In Genesis chapter 40, the entire chapter we read, and then in 41 verse one, we read about how Joseph is now in prison, and he's approached by a cupbearer and a baker who both used to serve Pharaoh, of course, and both of them had dreams. He interprets their dreams for them. The baker was to be killed, and the cupbearer was to be restored after three days to his position. So the cupbearer and the baker, they fell out of favor with Pharaoh. Now they're both in the prison with Joseph, but here's the point I wanna make. When Joseph interpreted the dream of the cupbearer, let's actually read, let's go to 40. I'm gonna read one verse here. Genesis, I believe it's 40, 14. Genesis 40 verse 14. Yes, it is, watch this. Actually, we'll read verse 13 and 14 of Genesis 40. Within three days, Pharaoh will lift you up and restore you to your position as chief cupbearer. So now here, Joseph is interpreting the cupbearer's dream. Watch this now, watch this. And please remember me. Now, Joseph is like, hey, help me out here. When you get restored, remember me, and do me a favor when things go well for you. Mention me to Pharaoh, so he might let me out of this place. Now, in Genesis chapter 41 verse one, we later discover that two years went by before the cupbearer finally remembered, oh my goodness, I forgot about Joseph. Now watch this. Joseph was imprisoned before the cupbearer was imprisoned. So he was serving a much longer sentence than the cupbearer was. Yet God used Joseph to help the cupbearer and interpret that dream to know that he was gonna be restored to his position. I'm going somewhere with this, so make sure you're watching this. So the cupbearer comes in. If I were Joseph, I would have said to the Lord, Lord, I've been in prison longer. Why did you restore the cupbearer before you restored me? Lord, I've been waiting here, I've been obedient to you, I've been serving you, I've been faithful. How is it that the cupbearer gets here and then all of a sudden is promoted before me? I think some of you might know where I'm going with this. This is number six, and it's the test of jealousy. This is especially, and I know I know I'm gonna upset some people, but let me just say this, especially in the age of social media, I'll tell you this, there are many who are operating at a competition and jealousy. I've watched it happen. A few years ago, I watched one ministry just destroyed by others who were claiming to do it in the name of God, and the Holy Spirit told me, no, that's jealousy. Now, the person who they came against did say some foolish things and do some foolish things, but they repented of it, they clarified it and so forth, but I watched this happen. This was years ago, and don't try to guess who it is. This happens all the time in the church world, okay? So don't even bother, I'm not gonna give names. And it's been a long enough time since then, since I think anyone would even remember this. And I watched these people destroying this other ministry, and they're claiming, oh, you know, I'm grieved about it, but I have to do it. Oh, I don't want to, but I need to say this, I'm watching this, and the Holy Spirit told me two things. A, yeah, that person was in the wrong for what they said and did, but two things can be true at one time, but these others took the opportunity because of the jealousy that was in their hearts. I'm going deep here. And again, I know some might not like this, but this is the reality of the church sometimes. You've probably seen it at your local church, backbiting and competition and fighting for status. And the Holy Spirit told me, yeah, two things can be true. Yeah, that person was wrong, but the attacks also came from a place of jealousy. Why? Because that person was gaining what they all wanted. And I watched this and I prayed for everybody involved. Let me ask you a question. Well, let me say something and then I'll ask you a question. It's easy to celebrate others when they're blessed with something that has nothing to do with you. It's easy to celebrate others when they're blessed with something that doesn't really affect you, is not really a part of your world, really wouldn't interest you per se. Here's my question now. How do you respond when someone else is blessed with what you've been praying for? How do you respond when someone else is blessed with what you have been praying for? Do you get angry? Do you get upset? Do you secretly hope they'll fail? Do you secretly hope in your heart that it'll all fall apart for them? You know why? That's insecurity. If you think God can't bless you and someone else at the same time, you're mistaken. You need to acknowledge that jealousy, repent of that jealousy and realize that your security comes from your identity in Christ and nothing else. Because if you find your security in anything else but Christ, it leaves room for jealousy and you can't celebrate others. And so we recognize that God does not have to take away from someone else to bless me and that by blessing someone else, he doesn't have to take away from me. God can bless multiple people at one time, but how do you respond? When somebody else gets what you've been praying for and let's add to that, how do you respond when somebody else is blessed with what you've been praying for and they haven't been praying for it as long as you have? You've been praying years and years and years and years and years and then someone else just, they got it. I remember the story a pastor told me. He was believing for the gift of prophecy. He was praying, God please, I want to get the prophecy. I want to get the prophecy. I want to get the prophecy. And he's just asking the Holy Spirit for this gift. And he'd been asking, I think for like months, like six to nine months or something like that. And it became a point of frustration in his life. Like he was almost getting bitter with God for it. And then walks this individual who was a hippie who gets saved, he's at the altar. And that person who just got saved stands up at the altar and starts praying aloud in tongues. And just as this new convert is opening his mouth to prophesy, this pastor friend of mine goes, God, you better not. And instantly he realized, oh my gosh, what's wrong with me? And I thought it was a little comedic, but ultimately that's something we need to deal with. He's watching this going, Lord, what are you doing? Why? That's jealousy.  Because that jealousy will affect the way you minister. That jealousy will affect the way you operate. You'll operate out of anger and frustration and it will squander your growth. It's a bondage. It's a cage, that jealousy. There's no joy in your life.  And that really stifles. It's competition, it's ego. You gotta crucify that ego. Crucify it. I've been in green rooms with preachers and pastors and ministers and television personalities. And oftentimes there's a lot of ego there. And I have to watch my heart because ego and others will agitate the ego in you. And that happens. That stirs it up. So whenever I feel the stirrings of jealousy in my heart, often I'll pray for those individuals. I'll bless them. This doesn't mean everyone I bless them jealous of, but you gotta crucify the flesh. Finally, test number seven came when Joseph finally had his moment before Pharaoh. Now, Pharaoh has this dream and he's given now the opportunity to interpret that dream for Pharaoh. Now, if you misinterpret a dream or you give Pharaoh bad advice, he'll probably have you killed. I mean, think about the baker fell out of favor. I'm thinking like, what could the baker have done to be thrown into prison? Well, he doesn't have very much interaction with Pharaoh other than he probably baked something that Pharaoh didn't like. And that was enough for Pharaoh to go out of favor. I'm banishing you and I'm gonna have you executed. I'm like, okay, that's pretty harsh. And now Joseph standing before Pharaoh and Pharaoh wants him to interpret a dream. It takes faith. And that's the final test. It's the step of faith. One service, two hiddenness, three discouragement, four faithfulness, five blessings, six jealousy, seven faith. You ever get frustrated with where you're going or how there's no progress? One of the quickest ways to get unstuck is to just take a step of faith. Do what God said to do. And we'll leave it there for now. Father, I pray that you would help your people to pass their tests. Holy spirit, remind them of when they faced these trials and tests in their lives. Remind them that it's only a test. And mold their character. Shape them into the image of Christ, I pray that they might be more like Jesus moment by moment. Holy spirit, we thank you for the privilege of serving. We ask that you would give us strength and discernment. Help us to pass our tests. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. I want you to say it because you believe it, say amen. Well, if you enjoyed that and you think other people need to hear it, make sure you leave a like right now and don't forget to subscribe to my channel to receive more teachings on the Holy spirit prayer and spiritual warfare and also see live streams of our events that we do around the world where people are saved, healed, delivered and empowered. And do click that notification bell when you subscribe. Now let me ask you for your support of this ministry. I'm gonna make a very simple request and I want you to ask the Holy spirit what you should do to help this ministry continue to fulfill its mandate. We believe in preaching the gospel, empowering believers through the word, through ministry, help us on our mission to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ all around the world through events and media.  Look, we support all kinds of things monthly, streaming platforms and gaming platforms and gym memberships. 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There's no gift so large that we won't know what to do with it. Just ask the Holy Spirit what you should do. And I can actually see some of the gifts coming in right now. Thank you to the Patrick family for your gift. Thank you, Christine and Latonya and Neda and Raphael for becoming monthly ministry partners. Thank you, Lisa for your gift. Thank you also to Wesley and Yolanda for being partners and Jennifer. Thank you for being a partner. Thank you, Lili for your gift. Thank you, Mark for your gift. Thank you all of you giving through the website. Now, if you enjoyed this teaching, then you will love the teaching where to begin if you're unsure of your calling. Make sure to check that out.


Now, stay patient, guys. Again, I say this every single day. You don't need to trade every day.  Everybody trades there. Welcome to Access a Trader, the number one community for those who are committed to taking control of their trading in order to achieve success, profitability, and longevity. Thank you for joining us. Here's Dan Shapiro to help you find your edge, master your process, and own your future. Hey, guys. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to another edition of The Access a Trader.com. We get up, they show up. Everybody is doing well. Hope everybody's alive and kicking and healthy, enjoying beautiful spring weather. Just, again, I want to put it into perspective. I think a lot of traders, because of social media and their exposure to social media, a lot of you guys pretty much started in the last four years. I think that's a very good assumption. And the only thing you've really seen was the end of bull market Obama, the whole four years of Trump, and for the first part of so a rocky road type of Biden administration, but you've pretty much seen a really aggressive bull market. And for the last month or so, and again, if you've been watching this broadcast, I've been predominantly sell bias. And again, the market's been playing out that way pretty well. I mean, especially this week, we saw a big gap up on Monday, stuff that the 50-day moving average, stuff that again, next day in the 50-day moving average. And for the next three days, some really good sell bias actions. And again, if you've been watching this broadcast, some pretty good value on the downside. Same thing happened on Thursday and same thing happened towards the beginning and most of the part on Friday's session before this really aggressive rebound in the last hour, I logged off around 2.30, I didn't even see this. So we were literally at the lows of the day, 2 o'clock, 2.30 on the NASDAQ.  And we'll get to that in a second. But I think a lot of people, because the market has been so good and so linear and so aggressive and especially a lot of the names, speculation of names that have been going crazy and like GameStop has been kind of the poster boy of what's been going on for a very, very long time. But I think a lot of people because the market was so good, they were spoiled. And you hear a lot of times, especially in the last month or so, and say, ah, what's wrong with this market? Guys, there's nothing wrong with this market.  It's a linear bull market with two, three day dips and then they buy the dips and they go back. If you were trading from the end of the dot-com bubble, mid 2000, all the way to 2003, you saw a big, big area of, well, you can't buy stocks. And let me tell you why. The end of the dot-com bubble was the pop, right? That was the top. The bull market was over just because the internet bubble bursted and we went lower. Few months later came 9-11, unfortunately, right? And because of 9-11, because of the new terroristic world we kind of lived in, it was impossible to trade the markets between 2001 and 2003, especially that first year after 9-11, just because we were always on alert for another terrorist attack.  So there was, at some point between that two and a half year window, two year window, there was nothing you can do to trade with conviction and make money. So the idea of that three weeks won't buy, four weeks won't buy and you're not getting a bull market and you're not getting this rabid bull market that you can buy every single dip, there's nothing different about this tape. There's nothing absolutely different between an area of 2021 than there was in 2001. The market goes up and the market goes down and there are periods in your career and if you trade long enough, you're gonna see that. So that two-year window between 2001 and 2003, I couldn't make a penny, right? Not a single dime. Between 2007 and towards the end of 2009 was the mortgage crisis, right? Not exactly the most friendliest of buy the dip scenarios. You couldn't buy the dip because again, banks were going out of business, brokers were going out of business, insurance companies were going out of business, foreclosures, people were losing their homes, not exactly the greatest scenario on the long side. So there's years and years and years in your career that you will be faced with tremendous amount of adversity. This is not one of them, okay? This is just really, realistically is not one of them. The problem is most of you guys again have not seen any type of long duration of a pullback and what we saw in the last several weeks was good gravity, right? Were the buyers tired? Yeah, obviously the buyers were tired. Was there any technical damage on this move to the downside? It never was, but the value was on the downside.  And a lot of times, you know, you're talking about a stock and again, I trade channels, okay? I'm not a bull, I'm not a bear. I trade Tesla long, I'll trade it short, okay? When I'm going long, I'm not thinking about gigafactories. I'm not thinking about delivery numbers. I'm not thinking about any of that stuff. When I'm going short, I'm not thinking of, well, you know, hopefully the company will be a fraud and the stock will get a hold then go to, none of this comes across, it's all channels. So the idea that investor versus trader, we've talked about this so many times, it's a completely different world. It's like a zebra having a conversation with a thoroughbred, the zebras are zebra, right? A thoroughbred's a thoroughbred. So this is a completely different conversation. So the idea that the market pulls in, you're not bearish, you're just taking advantage of the price action and that's exactly where the market has been for the last several weeks. But there is, you know, there is pockets of strength in any type of market that has been weaker, okay? Or sell bias, you've always seen very aggressive spikes. So for example, even going back to the mortgage mess in 2007 through 2009, no matter how bad the news was, the marketing goes straight down, it felt like it did, but there was always pockets of aggressive rallies. And again, I'm not gonna compare the mortgage mess to what we saw on Friday, right? You know, and Q's literally went from 311 to 316 in an hour, you know, $5 moving the Q's is tremendous. But that's what's going to happen. The difference between a bull market scenario and a bear market scenario when there's a bull market, there's tremendous opportunity, right? Everywhere, okay? Much better liquidity, spreads are tighter, more active participants, because it's feel good, right? Everybody's buying stocks. When you're trading to the downside, and by the way, before we even get back to the downside, when you're trading also in a bull market scenario or buy side bias, okay? Even if you get in on the wrong entry, okay? Because the market is so strong, because the market is so aggressive and there's such a big wave of euphoria, the market will make you right. The difference between a bull scenario and a bear scenario and kind of what we've been seeing now for the last month or so, in a bear scenario, you can't trade everything, okay?  So when you see that day that goes to the upside, the majority of time why people don't make money on the upside when you're getting a bounce, because most stocks, and we've talked about this and pretty much nausea for this whole week, everything was on the supply, right? For weeks, for about two weeks now, everything's on the supply. So when a market rallies and when your stock rallies and all of a sudden, the stock rallies for like two minutes and all of a sudden goes down $6, 30 minutes later, yeah, there's a chance it's gonna hit some sort of micro supply zone and then turn around. That's what supply is. So in a sell scenario, you have to wait for macro levels, right? You can't be very, very aggressive in a macro sell cycle because you need these stocks to start confirming ranges. And when they do start confirming ranges, this is when you take your very aggressive move. So you're not trading five, 10 times to the downside on a sell signal or a day that the market's moving up. You're waiting for that one or two plays that when they're setting up macro and you do your nightly research, you're probably gonna get some pretty good value. And that's exactly what we saw pretty much the whole week. We saw a really good pull from Wednesday and to Thursday from Thursday and to Friday and Friday. It felt like the market was gonna really collapse. They really did for like 85, 90% of the day. And then when I logged off around 230, then they had that really, really big rally, but there was tremendous, tremendous value this week on the sell side. And I can note the fact that we had this really big run in the last hour and a lot of the indexes, especially in the Qs, when I was doing my chart work this weekend, and again, when you look at a lot of the charts, they're still broken, right? Tesla's still broken, Netflix is still broken, NVIDIA is still broken. A lot of these names are still broken, right? That's not where the value is. I think if the market is gonna go higher this week, there's a lot of groups that look very, very good. Look at the home builders. And I'll show you the pivots from Friday. You know, like, look at Lenar, right? And we had this really big breakout on Friday. It was a pivot here and I'll show you in a second. From 100, you confirmed 101, went to 104. The home builders look great, right? They're starting to turn around. Look at Toll Brothers for this week. It looks really, really good. The home builders look good. You're talking about metals, right? Look at CMC, big breakout, right? Look at US Steel, right? It was ready to break out again. Look at some of the software names. Look at some of the storage names, right? Like a VMW, right? Look at VMW. Look how strong this is. Look at an end tap, right? Breaking out. Look at the semi-conductors. And this is what's amazing how when the queues were a week for so many days in a row, a lot of these semis held up incredibly well. Look at AMAT exploded on Friday. You know, look at the Texas Instruments for this week. Look at a Xilinx into this week. Oops, wrong one, not the Xilinx. Maxim, Maxim. Look at a Maxim. Look at a clack, right? So there's a lot of pockets of strength that really took off with the rest of the indexes, especially on Friday. Do I think beta catches up at some point? Hard to say. It really is hard to say, but if we do continue a rally into this week and if you look at like the IWM, you know, really recovered and IWM had a really aggressive sell-off for about two weeks. You know, recovered, tried to reclaim the 50-day moving average. Again, not out of the woods, but you could see the recovery. You could see the spiders as well. Had this really pretty big aggressive sell-off. And in one day, literally in the last hour, and if you look at the 60-minute view on the spies, the spies literally went through not only the five, but they reclaimed the 10-day moving average on one candle, so that's very, very bullish. So the key question going into Monday's session was this kind of like this freakish thing that happened and we're gonna start rolling over again back Monday, or is this something real, right? And as much as I'm very, very comfortable selling ranges and that's all great, everybody loves a bull market, right? Everybody loves to buy stocks. Again, there's much more opportunities throughout the day. And of course, you could take much more size and then they're much more liquid.  Probably not, right? And I think we all know why. But at some point, right? At some point when the directional bias changes and the setups are reflecting what we're seeing in the indexes, when then there's a sentiment shift. So I'm going to give the bulls a benefit of that on Monday, right? Maybe not the testers of the world. And again, maybe not the beyonds of the world or the apples or maybe squares of the world, but I think the semiconductors, the metals, the home builders, some financials, some insurance companies, if you do your homework this weekend, you could really find some really good value, especially the stocks I just mentioned for some potential confirmation reversals back to the upside. So I will give the bulls the benefit of the doubt. But what I really liked what we did as a group, especially in the live webinar for the last three weeks, again, we didn't full victim to, oh my God, the market is rallying. Let's just buy stocks. We saw what happened with those rallies. Those rallies lasted for three minutes. As soon as a downtick in the futures, these stocks collapsed, right? At one point, what was it? Wednesday of Thursday, I think I was watching the video, right?  And I was like, I know it doesn't look horrible, right?  Is that really a great side to buy stock? And two seconds later, when the futures went down like two handles, the stock sold off $5. So there was a lot of, lot of value and a lot of fear bids for 95% of the week to the downside. And, you know, listen, the bulls did a great job. They recaptured some pretty good levels on the diamonds, on the spies, the Qs are not out of the woods just yet, but little by little, maybe because some of these other subgroups will pull these things up. Maybe they'll have a bigger, you know, follow through going into this week. But again, I liked what we did this week. The shorts were really aggressive. Friday, again, Friday, there was a rally attempt in the market in the morning. There was nothing to buy and there was a reason why nothing was ready to buy because there was nothing coming, came reclaimed supply. And it took Friday's session, maybe about two hours, if you guys remember, two hours for the day to kicking. It felt like there was no, it felt like it was, the market wasn't even moving for the first two hours. And then slowly but surely you saw some really aggressive bottom ranges in Roku, in Tesla, destroyed, right? Absolutely destroyed mid-morning towards the afternoon. And then obviously we had that rally back. So let's talk about some pivots from Friday's session.  Look at this HIG, I don't believe it triggered on Friday. If I, yeah, it didn't trigger. Guys, keep an eye on this Hig also for going into this week. If this thing can start building and obviously never confirmed, but if this thing starts building, you know, the 69, 70, 70 area, this is a gorgeous bull flag. Keep an eye on this thing for this week. This one never triggered Lenard. Again, one of the very few long pivots we had, Lenard 100 needs to build. Here was Lenard, right? Here was Lenard. So it took out the 100, it got above 101.50s and traded right to 104. If this thing starts reclaiming Friday's action, you can get more upside there, beautiful move there. And then I started putting in a bunch of downside pivots. Most of them did not trigger, but the ones that did, and you'll see in a second, they went down like a house of fire. Zoom never triggered, DDOG never triggered, CRM never triggered, Beyond never triggered, but Tesla did, right guys? Tesla did and there was a lot of aggressive pulls here on Tesla. 631 is a very aggressive area for experienced traders only. Again, not every single pivot is for everybody. There was a low of the week pivot that played out also. If you guys remember the low of the week on Tesla was 609.50. But there was a very sneaky pivot. Again, for all you guys who watched the PS60 workshop, we talked about sneaky pivots. They're not lows, they're not highs. There's a channel in between that if you could identify, you can really do well with that channel. So 631, very aggressive channel for experienced traders only if it builds below can flush. Obviously new traders stay away, not every single channel is for everybody. So here was 631 on Tesla, right? If you could sell here, here is the three channels, look at the low in these three channels, right? 632, 632, 631, right? So once Tesla took out the 631 level, this thing just got destroyed, just absolutely destroyed. And not only did it take out this level here at 631, it took out the lows from the week of 609 and went all the way down to 599. So a huge move on Tesla, congratulations for you guys who caught that Boeing obviously never got to the 251, cost never got to 26, Adaptek never got down. I still like Adaptek, if it starts collapsing, never got down to $37. Facebook, again, not a big move at all, right? Not a big move at all just because it's all supply and that's my whole point, these stocks cannot rally off supply. So here was the 282, 80 level, only went to like a dollar in change and then it got sold off again. That's my point about supply. These stocks cannot rally if they can't comply with supply and most of these stocks, especially the beta names are still on the need supply. That's where you have to kind of look at other places at the start of the week until these stocks really start reclaiming technical levels. Again, everything's getting weaker right now. Let's watch for the short periods. And again, this is where Tesla got destroyed, shop. Congratulations for you guys who caught shop, 10, 20 for builds below can flush here with shop. And look at this candle here, right? Look at this candle here. Here's the 10, 20. It took it out and went all the way down to 10,09 very, very quickly. And you can see just really aggressive dumps here on the short side. So far, super slow session. And then an hour later, right? You have Roku 307 in support if it builds below can flush. And here was Roku, right? Here was the 307, this whole area, 307 on Roku and it got murdered, right? Went down all the way down. It went down $15 on this channel and really aggressive move on Roku. Really big moves. So you can tell the ones that really confirmed on Friday got crushed. Tesla went down 30, Roku went down 15, really big moves to the downside there as well. Shop as well, take on the way down. You have a nice job on shop. Take on the way down of Roku. Man, I've been waiting for this zoom for like two weeks. It hasn't cracked. It's gone down there a couple of times. It has not cracked. I'm still waiting for zoom. Huge move on Roku, big move on Tesla, yada, yada, yada and everything else, 618 next stop. And then next thing you know, next thing you know, and again, went down all the way down to $599. So I think in this market, it is a very challenging market if you've started your career only in this really aggressive bull market. It's just the reality. There's nothing abnormal about this tape. It's just you haven't experienced the pullback yet. Is this, you know, was Friday the bottom of the market? Who knows, you know, who knows? Cues, again, you know, they still need to have a little work. Obviously they still need to reclaim 621 for me to get really bullish. Can they reclaim Friday's highs and push the 621? Of course, absolutely. So we're watching the cues. The Russell after a really aggressive, you know, two and a half weeks, sell-off woke up. Is it out of the woods yet? Absolutely not. The IWL needs to reclaim 224 in a close to kind of wake up there. But the SPYs did reclaim the 10-day moving average. It looks like once you go back to highs and the diamonds did as well, right? After, you know, two weeks of selling, it reclaimed. It actually looks just like the spies. So it looks good as well. So hopefully you guys are staying safe. Stay patient guys. Again, I say this every single day. You don't need to trade every day.  Everybody trades different. Some people trade small caps. Some people trade futures. Some people trade options. Some people trade forex and Bitcoin. I trade beta. It's a different game. It's a very patient game. There's only six candles throughout the day. You don't have any formal because you're watching these channels. You know, the top of the channel, you know, the bottom of the channel. And if you identify the sweet spot in the middle, you can catch all that love in between. So guys, I wish you everybody the best. God bless. God loves you. Love yourself. Love your neighbor. And what hopefully I'll see you guys all on Monday. Take care guys.


Arestovic. Ukrainian army had not been able to advance. We need to start peace talks with Russia The former advisor to the head of the office of the president of Ukraine Alexei Arestovic called for the start of peace talks with Russia He said this in his video appeal He recalled that the Federal Republic of Germany had even written in its constitution that it would never use military means to Recapture the German Democratic Republic yet it waited 35 years and now Germany is united He noted that he does not think that Ukraine will wait for 35 years But the lives of 350,000 people need to be saved Arestovic said that a deadlock had arisen on the front The Ukrainian army had not been able to advance to liberate the territories and Russia had not been able to occupy more territories He said that the military is already saying that it is impossible to restore the borders of 1991 with military operations That is to say the formula Russia should not win and we should not be defeated Should be taken as a basis he reminded and suggested peace talks and waiting as the best way According to him the weakening of Russia and the change of political conditions are inevitable after Putin


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