Your Authority is Built in The Secret Place, Not on Assignment

When the Call Comes Before Formation

Years ago, I received a revelation of a YouTube channel that I felt God was calling me to have. I was going to talk about health, wealth, love, and faith. I was so excited!

At the time, I had zeal and fervor for Jesus, but no one to help me walk closely with the Lord or teach me about the prophetic. Just my own interpretation and revelation, and the sermons I heard every week.

Do you know what a prophetic filter is? A prophetic filter is when you filter what God is speaking to you through your current circumstance, pain, trauma, desires, or relationships and think it’s God.

When I received the call to the YouTube channel, I had prophetic filters. I filtered what God said through that moment and thought it meant I should start it immediately because of what I was going through. I said, okay, let’s go, I will share about my journey with God. I watched every “How to start your YouTube channel now” video. I was signing up for everything I could in the name of doing the will of God.

I started posting, but nothing, I mean NOTHING, was working. Only five people watched, all of them related to me. I wanted to give up, and for a time, I did. I had maybe six different channels before I surrendered, and my last one was actually achieving success. My follower count was rising daily. However, I constantly felt like a hypocrite behind the scenes.

Truthfully, I was trying to appear perfect, like a polished influencer, like I had it all figured out, and that was the furthest thing from the truth. My last straw was when I pushed my little sister down physically, and she’s 21 years younger than me. At that moment, I thought, what the heck is wrong with me? I need help.

Here’s the pause the Lord shared with me:

“My prophets and apostles are making their assignments their identity instead of the assignments being fulfilled from their identity. My prophets and apostles are skipping formation. Healing permits formation. Will they pause? Will they Selah? I need to hold them, shape them. Will they come to the potter’s house and allow me to form them from the inside out? Jeremiah 18:1 to 6. My prophets and apostles have a revelation of what I’m calling them to, but they must prioritize formation so the manifestation is pure. As they seek my face and heal from the things that have been forming them, they will pursue the calling on their lives with purity. For formation incubated in pain, trauma, or assumption is impure. I want my apostles and prophets to walk in pure formation. From that place will the scrolls and assignments I have given them come alive in purity.”

Over time, I learned my assignments don’t bring intimacy, intimacy brings assignments. Research and busy work don’t bring clarity, sitting still does. I kept trying to do for God and not be with God.

So I had to sit still long enough for God to shine a light on the dysfunction in my life. I prayed more, humbled myself, and stopped church hopping to receive the community God had given me. I pressed into the prophetic words God shared over my life, stopped volunteering, and learned to receive. I learned to face myself.

I didn’t move until I knew it was Him. I sat in discomfort, and it led me to get help from an apostle who could see my blind spots, guide me in the prophetic, and had walked ahead of me.

Identity Before Assignment

As I allowed the Lord to cleanse the inside of my cup, my assignments, the outside, became clear, and I saw the filters. YouTube is a stream of my call, not my call itself. I use YouTube for my assignment. I am not a YouTuber, and my life is not devoted to YouTube content, but I have influence here. I speak about all the things God said I would from a place of authority and only when He says I’m ready, not when I deem I’m ready.

So prophets and apostles, as you hear the voice of God for your assignment, sit with it. Pray over it. Intercede and wait. He will bring you your lamb. You will know when you are released, but for now, you are His assignment. You are the first fruit of Jesus in your life, not your ministry or others’ healing, and you are still in the trenches. No, it’s you, like Joseph in the prison, still fruitful, and at the proper time God will exalt you.

I charge you, prophet and apostle: focus on the root, and every branch of you will bear fruit.