Faith-Fueling Friendships

An empty tomb means we have been anointed with purpose. We have been invited to join Jesus in His work of ushering Heaven into our communities. A work we could never do on our own. 

Every leader worth following has surrounded themselves with people who know where they’ve been and where they’re going. They allow themselves to be seen and known. Leaders who isolate themselves from honest relationships are only preventing themselves from seeing “on Earth as it is in Heaven.” 

In this video, watch Sarah Jakes Roberts from Catalyst West 2019 give leaders a charge to surround themselves with people who speak to their anointing. We are Easter-leaders, moving out of an empty tomb and toward an eternal Kingdom. May friendships serve as fuel for the road ahead.

Prefer to read rather than watch? Here’s the transcript to Sarah Jakes Roberts’ talk:

When God is positioning you into the next dimension of your call, the next dimension of your identity, as he unfolds in reveals who he has called you to be, you will always have a Samuel. You need someone who understands where you're coming from, but also someone who understands who you must become, which means that you're going to have to be willing to risk being seen. It's always so much easier when we have friendships that exist in silos. I've got one group of friends who understand where I came from, and I've got another group of friends who understand my potential, but I'm at my best when I'm in an environment with people who understand that where I've come from is not where I can stay, and where I am, I must keep pressing forward, because there's still something that God wants to do in me, and so if we are not careful, we will find ourselves comfortable in friendships that celebrate our mediocrity, but prevent us from growing into God's next dimension.

I don't know about you, but I need friendships that speak to my anointing. I don't know about you, but I need relationships that speak to my anointing. My husband, I love him so much. Not only do we get to cuddle, and watch movies, and do life together. What I love more than anything is that he challenges my anointing, that he challenges me to rise to the call that God has placed over my life, and until you have relationships that are a reflection of how God sees you, then you will never be able to really gauge how well you're doing, because people will applaud you for doing what God is just shrugging at. I didn't come to break up any friendships. I just want you to be conscious that no matter how much someone is applauding, that there's still something left that God wants to pull out of you. If I settle because the world is applauding, but I still die full, then something went wrong, because I'm here to ultimately die empty.

I'm here to pour out my life as an offering, and so I need people in my life who understand what God is speaking over me even when I don't understand it. Those people aren't always directly connected to you. Sometimes you can be in relationship and mentored by someone who's on YouTube, never met him a day in your life, but they speak something over me that awakens the call that God placed on the inside of me. If I had to put it biblically, I would say that you need someone that makes your baby leap. I never thought I could write a book until I heard that speaker, and now I think there's a book down on the inside of me. I never thought that I could be in ministry, but I heard a word, and that word made me think that there was ministry down on the inside of me. There's something happens when you connect to someone who understands the anointing on your life that makes your baby leap. For Samuel, he has been called to be a bridge to Saul.

Saul is going to have to be willing to be seen, because if you're not willing to be seen, then you can't grow. I think that that's what makes our relationship so delicate, is because our relationships demand that we be willing to be seen, and we have to trust that in the process of being seen, that we can still maintain the respect for the call in spite of the insecurity. If I could challenge you, those of you in relationships, to never let the revelation of someone's flaws, or their insecurities, or the areas where they've let you down blind you from seeing that they're still here because there is an anointing connected to their lives, that all of us are only standing by the grace of God alone, and sometimes we have to create boundaries that protect us from other people's insecurities, but we can never allow those boundaries to make us limit what God can still do in their life. I always tell people that sometimes the best way to love someone unconditionally, for me, is to love them from a distance. That's a word.

You all were clapping at the wrong stuff. Listen, I love you, and in order for me to continue to love you in the way that I'm called to love you, I've got to remove your ability to influence my emotions, and your ability to influence my character because there are some people who bring out a side of me that Jesus died for, honey. All right. All right now, okay.

Number one, you need people in your life who understand both aspects of who you are, where you came from. That means I'm learning on a curve. That means I didn't have everything to work with like everyone else did, but also who understands that I plan on crossing that bridge, and there's nothing like the determination that comes when you plan on crossing that bridge. I may not be where I am supposed to be right now. I may have some work to do, I may have some studying to do, I may have some therapy I need to go to, but at the end of the day, I'm going to cross that bridge. You know why? Because generational blessings are connected to me crossing that bridge, generational curses breaking are connected to me crossing that bridge. I got to get across that bridge because my mother never did. I got to get across that bridge because my father never did. I got to get across that bridge because people in my community never did, and so yes, this is who I am, but this is not who I will always be, because I'm working towards something.