The key to the kingdom of God is not male or female. It is not volume of voice, but it is perseverance with the Lord. It is walking daily with Him. It is walking in humility and obedience. It is being quiet and gentle and full of the Holy Spirit.

Promotion comes, not from the east of the west, but it comes from the Lord. You cannot buy these promotions. You cannot fake them. You cannot bully your way into them. You cannot connive your way into them by being very slick and very subtle and very manipulative. These are gifts of God bestowed upon people that have please the Lord. As long as you walk in the footsteps of Mary, you will be continually promoted by the hand of God, and you will go as high as you wish to go.

Kathryn herself said it many times, “Other people were supposed to fulfill this call, but they would not, they would not. And so the Lord picked me.” I do not raise people faster than they can handle, but it is my intention to raise them as far as they will go. If you do not sit down, if you do not quit, it you do not say to yourself, “I’ve had enough; this is it; I’m camping here…” If you will continually present yourself to the Lord, then I will continue to pour out my spirit, and I will continue to expand your understanding of how things work – how they really work – not how the world or the church says they work, but I’ll show you how they really work, because only when you have my understanding, do you get my results.

Many people have tried to fake the ministry. They’ve tried to copy what they see; they’ve tried to manipulate, they’ve tried to make it all happen, and it will not happen. This is genuine. This is real. When the gifts of the Spirit operate, they cannot be faked. You cannot fake healings. You cannot fake words of knowledge that are accurate. Even as happened this day, in this room – words of knowledge popped out. It cannot be faked. And I tell you, as sure as your feet sit upon the floor this day, the things that Kathryn Kulman did were accomplished by the ministry of the Holy Spirit through her. These things are available. These things are possible. These things can come upon my handmaidens, even if they were not selected originally for that calling.

Think it not a farfetched thing that you could stand before people and watch the miracles of God come out of your hand, out of your ministry. I tell you, it is possible, but the pathway to that position is not though shoving other people out of the way. It is not through becoming a bully or arrogant; it is not through grabbing crowns that do not belong to you. It is by doing the laundry for God. It is by walking in the quiet back hallways with God. It is by being obedient in the midnight hour to roll out of that bed and praying for somebody you don’t even want to pray for. It is the little things that mean a lot with God.

Many people have risen to a certain level in God and they are frozen. And if you want to know why they’re frozen, they are frozen because they won’t do things my way. It isn’t because they don’t have zeal. It’s not because they haven’t been called. It’s not because they don’t have talent. It’s not because they’re stupid, but they simply lack the ability to go back to the original place and do the laundry for God, and get on their hands and knees and do the things that need to be done.

The Apostles came and served people. The Apostle Paul did not sit in a condominium over the Aegean Sea issuing orders to the churches. He went to the churches. He got on his hands and knees and he worked. He said, “I even come among you and I have the right to receive support from you, but I come and I work with my hands that you may see that I don’t desire to covet you, to use you. I come as an example unto you.”

And you wonder why miracles flowed from his very hand, why the blind eyes were opened and the dead were raised? That man walked as an example of humility to churches. He did not come to empty their pockets. He did not come to live on top of them. But he came to be an example to them of love, and of mercy and of kindness and the anointing fell upon him.

I call you, I call you to imitate that which you see in the Scriptures. I call you to walk the walk that Jesus walked. I call you to hang upside down like Peter did. I call you to sacrifice yourself for the Kingdom of God if you would know the power of God. And I’m not saying that rewards don’t come, and I’m not saying that some of my disciples are not truly blessed by God and do live with much. But there are those that are called to separate themselves unto a special calling and they walk in a sacrificial life. If you’re called to that, then get on your cross and be sacrificed for God.

There is much infighting within the Body: an elbow in the eye, a fist in the mouth, a pulling down of one and another and saying you can’t go here, you can’t do that. You have an individual calling with God and you are allowed to fulfill it. No one has the right to tell you that you cannot fulfill your call in God. I tell you, earth does not have the power to tell you that you cannot fulfill your deepest calling in God. Your sins can be remitted. Your mistakes can be covered. Your calling is issued by your Father in heaven.

Do not let a temporal power stop you from fulfilling the divine call of God on your life. There’s always been fighting in the Church. There’s always been controversy over who’s called and who isn’t called, and who can sit at the right hand, and who can sit at the left, and what city this one will dominate and what city that one will dominate. Oh, my goodness, the nonsense that goes on in the name of God.

Many times you must duck your head out of all of this temporal fighting and bow down and say, “Lord, what would you have me do?” And then just stand and do the thing that God says for you to do. All the rest will blow away as chaff in the wind eventually. All the fighting will stop. The discipline from the Heavenly Father will come down: and one will be sent left; and one will be sent right; one will be put in the corner; and anther one will be sent to jail. The Father will settle all of the arguments in the body. That is not your position to worry about who’s fighting whom, and who’s going to rule this, and who’s going to do that.

You have a divine calling, each one of you. Settle in on that calling, and perform that calling in your life and in your heart. Do not let other people talk you or stop you from fulfilling the call that is on you. You have a right to fulfill that calling. And many times people will come to discourage you and say, “You can’t do the call of God because of this, and this, and this…” But if they would open the door and look in their own closet they would find so many sins that are buried in the past that no one would want them to see that, and why they’re in a calling right now.

There was a time in their life, when there were so many sins in their life, they would never be allowed to stand in a pulpit! But God was merciful and God was gracious and God covered their sins and God took them out of the problems that they were in and God cleaned them up and God set them in the ministry, and God anointed them, and God gave them the right to fulfill their calling.

So, don’t let anyone talk you out of your calling because you are in a state of development or you have problems in your life. God will work through your problems. God will correct you. God will discipline you. God will take out the things that are not correct, but God will not rescind his call upon your life. And if you’ll persevere in it and if you’ll repent for the things that you’ve done wrong, God will fulfill your calling.

And if you’re standing in the shoes of another that will not fulfill their call, then rejoice, saith the Lord, because that is their choice to sit down and quit. Now you’re being given the opportunity to press forward into the high calling. Thank God for it. Don’t feel inferior. Don’t feel as though, “Well, I don’t really deserve to be here.” If you will walk the walk, if you will talk the talk, if you will do the things that God asks you to do, you do deserve it.

It’s not the first time that I set a wedding feast and people wouldn’t come. So I went out to the highways and the byways and I called them, “Come in, and receive that which was not intended for you, but which you are going to have and I’m going to bless you and I’m going to turn you into a first rate citizen here. And those that I called that would not come are going to sit in the outer darkness and gnash their teeth at times, as they see you being promoted in the kingdom of God. And they’re going, “Well, that’s my place.” Well you wouldn’t pay the price for it. You wouldn’t go do the laundry. You wouldn’t get on your hands and knees and now I’m advancing people beyond you.

Repent! Go back and do your first work. Repent! Go back and go back to your first love. Repent and come through the gate on your knees as you should and then we’ll talk about fulfilling your call. But you will not lord over others. You will not stand and say, “I will, I will, I will.” You won’t, you won’t, you won’t, saith the Lord. You will come my way, or you won’t come at all. You will set yourself at the back of the feast. That is where promotion comes from. Promotion comes from the back of the feast. The Lord always comes to those who are sitting at the back of the feast saying, “Oh God, spare me. Oh God, have mercy on me. God, I am not worthy of many of these things.” The Lord will appear at the back of the feast and bring you to the front.

And He will be removing…. He has constantly and will continue to be removing people from the front tables. Over and over and over they are pulled out of position and set aside because of heart attitude, because of refusing to obey the things of God, not because they’ve sinned. All sin and fall short of the glory of God and can be forgiven.

But there is a pathway of the Lord that you must find. There is a humility that as you go higher in the things of God you must embrace and if you do not embrace it, then you are simply bumped off the path and another is allowed to go forward.
 

     Comments:  Some have written in with a question over the sentence that the Holy Spirit used in this word, "As long as you walk in the footsteps of Mary, you will be continually promoted by the hand of God, and you will go as high as you wish to go."   The Holy Spirit was speaking of is Mary, the sister of Martha in the Bible, who chose to sit at the Master's feet.