You must be very clear about what God called you to do. When you know your assignment you won’t be tempted to do what someone else is doing. Stay in your lane.

Every 21 days revisit the mission, purpose and vision of your ministry. Be sure that those who work with you to fulfill your vision understand it. Get a journal and chart your course. Mark your starting point and ending point and keep track of where you are so that you do not get off course.

What is it that God placed in you that cannot be gotten anywhere else? How does it distinguish you from other ministers? No other minister should have what you have. Otherwise there would not have been a reason for God to call you into ministry. Once you identify what that is, enhance it.

Remember whatever God has given you. It will become your flagship product, your brand. Understand how it is tied to your vision. It is the thing that will propel your ministry to fulfill the vision.

In order for you to grow yourself – you have to know yourself. If you don’t know what you are capable of, no one else will either. Jesus was confident in who He was and we must be also. Don’t let anyone intimidate you into thinking that you can’t. The Greater One lives on the inside of you and has already given you the grace to do whatever God has called you to do.

You must stay hungry and thirsty to fulfill your purpose. Use your hands to work and use your hands to praise God. Both are needful.

Ministry means to serve. You must have a servant’s spirit in order to be successful in ministry. True servants are humble. True servants lift other people up. True servants add value to others. True servants spend time with God seeking His will for their lives and come away with a high sense of purpose.

Nugget #8: Desire to make a difference. Matthew 28:19. 20  How do I acquire a desire to make a difference?

Leave your comfort zone and look for a need. Than seek the Lord as to want part He would have you play in bringing a solution to that need. That’s all missions is: seeing a need and seeking God for the solution to meet that need. That solution has to involve you. In other words, you are not looking for someone else to pick up the cause, but you are willing to give it all you have to bring the solution to pass.

Mission will ignite in you the fire of creativity and imagination. See once you get the desire, mission will cause you to think creatively even if you were not previously creative. Why? Because you recognize the need and it is greater than you in your natural state can solve. God is going to show you something bigger than you and your resources. He wants you to use your imagination – think outside the box and seek His guidance as to what you can do to help.

Creativity and imagination supply the necessary ingredients for ideas and action. You will get ideas that you can act upon. Actually this is God working through you. All He needed was a willing vessel that He could plant a desire within.  If you aren’t willing, you will never get the desire.

Why do you do what you do? If your motivation for accepting the call to ministry was not your love for God, than you are in it for the wrong reason. When your motivation is not love, you will never be successful.

A person who has to announce that he has been promoted is not worthy of the promotion.  Remain humble and God will lift you up. If you let others lift you up, the fall is harder.

In quietness you are to possess your soul. Study to be quiet.

Jesus employed this principle when confronted with the woman caught in adultery. John 8:1-11 His silence caused the accusers to examine themselves. If He had taught or continued to talk with them, they would not have looked at themselves. Sometimes to say nothing is the best message of all. Now they could have construed his silence for agreement with what they were doing. Never assume because someone doesn’t say something that they are in agreement with what is being done or said.

For instance, my husband uses this principle with me a lot. Sometimes I just don’t feel like changing my clothes to go to bible study and I’ll say out loud, "I think I’m going to wear these sweat clothes to bible study tonight. I don’t really need to get dressed." I know in my heart that I need to present myself better than the way I look, but I want him to agree with me that I don't have to change my clothes. He never says anything. In about ten minutes, I appear at the door with neat slacks or a skirt on. His silence caused me to look at myself.

Father God also does that. Sometimes we go to Him in prayer and ask Him for direction or guidance and we wait and hear nothing. Did He not hear you? Is He thinking about your request? No, He has already told you through His Word or through your pastor and He is waiting for you to recognize that fact and line up with what has already been told to you. Never take that silence to mean that you are right in your decision.

Always remember when someone uses the silence principle towards you, it is an opportunity for you to do some learning. Sometimes the best lessons are unspoken. Those are the ones you must hear with your spiritual ear and not your natural ear.

Jesus’ decision to be silent during His arrest, trial and crucifixion enabled Him to carry out His Father’s will. John 19:7-10 When you employ the silence principle during your walk, it will always bring about the Father’s will. Jesus’ heart desire was to do His Father’s will. By being quiet, He was condemned. Was He worthy of death? No, but it was His Father’s will. If He had spoken, He might have convinced them not to kill Him and then where would we all be? When we are quiet, the Holy Spirit can minister to us and produce God’s will through us.

God shut Zacharias’ mouth until John was born: Luke 1:18-22,63-64 This was not a punishment, but an opportunity for Zacharias to learn something. If God had allowed him to talk, he would have aborted the prophecy. By keeping silent, Zacharias was able to hear spiritually what God was doing through John and come in agreement with God’s will for him. Notice that God allowed him to speak only after he came in agreement with the name for his son. Could Zacharias have spake prior to God loosing his tongue? No where does it say that Zacharias sought a way in which to speak. He didn’t run to a doctor to see why he couldn’t speak, but accepted the will of God.

God is not going to literally tie your tongue so you can’t speak. But He will tell you through your spirit when to keep quiet and when to speak. Ecc 3:7 We need to meditate on that scripture. There is a time to speak and a time to keep silent. But for most of us, we don’t understand the difference.

Let me explain what the silence principle is NOT; and than we will further discuss this principle and the application of it in our lives. It is not getting angry with your spouse and not talking to him or her for a week. That kind of silence is counterproductive and will not produce the Father’s will in your life. We sometimes think that if we don’t say anything when we are angry we are keeping the peace. There can only be peace when there is harmony. If you are angry, there is no harmony. There is no agreement. Now it is true that we should be silent long enough to allow the Holy Spirit to kick in, James 1:19. But if that anger goes on beyond the time when you are going to sleep for the night, you have gotten off into sin. Ephesians 4:26 That type of silence is wrath. Wrath is uncontrollable anger. You are no longer controlling your anger, it is controlling you. You might be thinking, well God didn’t tell me to say anything, so I thought it best to be quiet. God told you what to say, but you just didn’t want to say it or you were so busy in your mind thinking "wow is me" that you didn’t hear Him. God is never in the midst of prolonged anger.

Some may say, I wasn’t angry I just like to be quiet. That may be true, but what is your body language saying. Some people keep silent, but their body language is screaming "leave me alone". That is not the silence principle. The silence principle is always peaceful, not tense. Your quiet tension causes others to be ill at ease in your presence. That can’t be God.

The silence principle is not talking to some people, while being silent with others. God is not respecter of persons. Saying good morning to some and not to everyone is being a respecter of persons. Now if you don’t make eye contact with some or don’t know them, that is okay, but if you once spoke with that person and that person looks right at you and you don’t speak, that is wrong.

Ignoring people is not the silence principle. Ignoring people is rude, ill-mannered and not of God. If you don’t have anything to say at least smile at them. Acknowledge their presence in some way. If they talk to you, talk back. There is a time to be silent, and that is not one of them.

As I said earlier, the silence principle is used to help us to learn. When we are silent in our minds, in our body, and in our spirit much learning can occur. All three parts of us must be silent in order or this to happen. For instance, if we are silent in our body, meaning we are not saying anything, but our minds are active with what we want to say, than the Holy Spirit cannot get our attention. If we are silent in our minds and spirits, but our body is actively being tense and showing body language that is making everyone around us uncomfortable, than the Holy Spirit cannot operate through us. If our mind and body are silent, but our spirit is not at peace, the Holy Spirit cannot operate. But when all three are in harmonic silence, the Holy Spirit can than begin to teach us something.

Anytime you have to think up what to say next, you are treading on dangerous territory. When we are allowing the Holy Spirit to speak through us, we never need to think up something to say. Most of the time a simple yes or no will suffice. Did you ever notice when you want to say no to a person for whatever reason, we think that no is not enough. We feel that we must give some kind of an excuse. When that happens, Satan gets busy in our mind and comes up with all kinds of things that seem good. Actually they are either a lie or a means of deceiving someone. What was wrong with a simple no?

How many times have you said yes, and than added that God was leading you to do it, when you never even asked God? If many of us were truthful, we would have raised our hands. We all do it because it makes us sound so much more spiritual. A simple yes would have sufficed and been the truth. Now we don’t sound spiritual, and actually we’ve gotten off into sin. Just because you do something nice for someone doesn’t mean that God always told you to do it. If the truth be known more often than not, you did it because your emotions led you to do it and not God.

Start your day by submitting your heart (spirit), mouth (body) and mind (soul) to the Lord. James 4:7 Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your tongue.  Think before you speak. Allow the Holy Spirit time to kick in.  Be an active listener. Regardless of whom is speaking, make a conscious effort to actively listen to what is being said, without thinking of what you are going to say next. When they stop talking, than wait until the Holy Spirit gives you what to say.  Think about whether or not your silence is prompted by anger or discontent and if it is, confront the issue and start talking.  Be more conscious of your body language and the affect it is having on those around you. Begin to listen to yourself to determine if the words that you said were necessary or idle.  Thank the Holy Spirit every day for governing your tongue.

Don’t think in terms of getting one person saved. Disciple them so that they will have spiritual children and grandchildren. True leaders are always thinking about the next generation because they are laying the ground work for the next level of their ministry.