It’s hidden, but visible.

It runs throughout the world, but especially in corporate America.

This lurking danger is “a culture of low expectations,” leadership expert Josh Friedeman tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. In the Christian business world, he explains, “We kind of masquerade it or treat it and talk about it as grace. We want to have grace with people because we’re Christian people; we’re supposed to be nice, but too often, we allow things to pass that shouldn’t.

“And I think that while grace is obviously a very important thing, it’s also extremely important to have high expectations,” Friedeman adds. “Because we are on a mission as Christian people. Each one of us may have a different mission, but we’re all on mission to be doing things for the sake of the kingdom for Jesus. And if we have low expectations for ourselves or for other people, things just don’t get done that should get done.

“I think that Christians should be the most driven people out there,” he says. “And I think a lot of them are. You can think back through history, people were willing to go through all sorts of incredible difficulty because they had a focus, they were on mission. Sometimes though, it’s so easy to get lulled into this idea of we need to not push people, we need to have grace. And because of that, accidentally, we kind of form low expectations that keep us from hitting some of the potential that we really need to be hitting as the people of God, who were on mission for the kingdom of God.”

For much more from Josh Friedeman on how you can succeed as a kingdom leader and take on God’s expectations for your business rather than the world’s, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link and subscribe to Greenelines for more inspiring stories like this one. Check out Friedeman’s own podcast, Life as Leadership, also on the Charisma Podcast Network. {eoa}

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“In a dream, I saw Jesus, and I had a moment with Him. And it changed my life. I woke up from it, and I was just emotional—for several days, I felt like I was under the weight of this visitation that I had.

“It changed the way I wrote music, changed the way I preached—it changed everything,” Pastor Jonathan Stockstill tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. After his powerful experience, Stockstill believes most people are missing out on the real Jesus, and he’s working to bring Him to as many as he can through his preaching ministry at Bethany Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, his music career and his new book, The Real Jesus.

An encounter Stockstill had during the relief efforts for Hurricane Ida, which hit his area hard, reinforced the importance of a personal knowledge of the real Jesus, he says.

“I was walking down the street of one of the [church] campuses where we were passing out food, and there was a man sitting on one of the steps, eating a meal that we had just provided for him,” Stockstill says. “And I didn’t mean for this question to be super engaging. I just said, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ … And he looked up at me, and he just started to cry, just out of the question, ‘How you doing?’

“So I realized this was a real hurting person,” Stockstill says. “He obviously didn’t have power in his house. And so I sat down; I just started to converse with him, and his wife had left him with their two kids, and he was a chef—lost his job during COVID, and we were talking about how life was hard.

“And I opened the Scriptures to where it says, Matthew Chapter 11, ‘Come unto Me, all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I’ll give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, for it’s light.’

“I read that Scripture and when I did, this guy just broke and began to cry,” Stockstill says. “And I was able to lead him into relationship with Christ.'”

For more stories of how the real Jesus continues to change lives today, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. Find The Real Jesus wherever fine books are sold. {eoa}

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When Pastor Wilfredo “Choco” De Jesús says he ministers to the beaten, broken and rejected, he knows whereof he speaks. De Jesús grew up in Humboldt Park, one of the roughest areas of Chicago—and the now-eight-campus-church he served for 19 years still has its home there today.

“Because I was raised in the ‘hood … and because I knew people were broken and they were beaten by life in our community, I knew that this gospel … needed to go out of the four walls of the local church and into the streets,” De Jesús, now general treasurer of the Assemblies of God, tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. He pulls his key to ministry straight from Scripture: We must walk in love toward God and toward others (see Matt. 22:36-40, Mark 12:28-34).

“Too many times, we have valued our position on issues more than God’s command to walk in love,” De Jesús says. “So we need to understand that we’re citizens of heaven, and we’re here on earth to become a conduit of His love—not a cul-de-sac.”

“I told The New York Times that the church of Jesus Christ and culture have always been at odds, and that we need to understand that the church was never called to accommodate culture,” he says. “The church was called to prophetically speak into culture.

“And what’s happened in the last year or two, is that pastors have joined into the culture,” De Jesús adds. And when you do that, you lose your voice, your prophetic voice to be able to legislate his love here on planet Earth.

“We need to recognize who we are,” he says. “We need to know that we are kingdom citizens here on earth, and that we are to serve the King in whatever capacity He wants us to serve.”

But De Jesús is in no way soft on the gospel, as he shares in his latest book, Love Them Anyway. In his ministry to the downtrodden, ‘When I say that we should love them anyway, it doesn’t mean that we should capitulate our convictions,” he says. When I say, ‘love them,’ I’m saying we should affirm. affirm their humanity, not their lifestyle. And so we need to be able to walk with that identity. We’re going to love them—and everybody has a ‘them.'”

For much more from Pastor Choco De Jesús on how we can walk out our calling to “love them anyway,” listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. Find Love Them Anyway wherever fine books are sold. {eoa}

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It began with a dream—a dream that has now become a movement. And it all surrounds a now-familiar sight: a simple white flag adorned with only a pine tree and the words “Appeal to Heaven.”

“My wife and I learned early on to process our dreams and encounters because it just helps us to steward what the Lord is revealing,” revivalist Rick Curry tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. “In the dream, I felt like we really saw a strategy.”

When Curry’s wife, Jennifer, came into the room, he started telling her about the flag God had shown him in his dream. “I had sketched it out in my journal,” he says.

But then Curry says something even more amazing: “I had never seen the flag before in my life. As a matter of fact, even when we’ve traveled and told the story, I often ask if there’s any person who ever learned about the flag or studied the flag in school. And I have yet to have anyone who said that they did.”

Jennifer was the one who first told him, “I just believe the flag might be real,” Curry says.

“And I really kind of chuckled, because I thought, It cannot be real,” Curry says. “And so we Googled it. And sure enough, we discovered that it was real. It was an authentic American flag; it was actually the first flag of our nation. And many of the Founding Fathers wanted that flag to be the flag of our nation.

“It was created in 1775, and I had never seen it before,” he adds. “But it heightened the significance of the dream in my spirit at the time.”

Since that time, the flag and its “appeal to heaven” message have gone around the world, thanks in large part to Curry and to the prayer-focused ministry of Dutch Sheets, Curry says. “I can’t underestimate to you the sight of the flag, the revelation of the flag.”

For much more from Rick Curry on the “Appeal to Heaven” flag and the additional prophetic messages God brought him through his dream, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and subscribe to Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast Network for more inspiring stories like this one. Be sure to listen to Curry’s own podcast, An Awakening Mosaic, also on the Charisma Podcast Network, and preorder his upcoming book with Dutch Sheets, The Sound of Awakening, a call to recover the dramatic symbolism of the flag and release the sound of generations coming together in awakening and transforming revival. {eoa}

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He had a corporate position with Occidental Petroleum—and everything that came with it. But when God called him to walk away, he did.

“I left my career with no money of any kind, no stocks, no bonds, no savings, nothing … no hospitalization, no insurance,” Dr. Richard Booker tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. Just one thing compelled him to make a move that seemed so foolish in the world’s eyes, he says: the weight of the glory of God.

A friend had invited him to a Bible study, and he bought a Bible for the first time, beginning his reading “where everybody starts—in Leviticus,” he recalls. But he soon discovered the New Testament and, in a supernatural encounter that took place as he was reading Luke 24, the Lord revealed God’s sovereign plan for his life.

“The Holy Spirit transported me onto that Emmaus Road in just one heaven second, and I was like a third disciple,” Booker says. “And I heard everything that Jesus said to these two guys. And it was an immediate download of the whole Bible into me, and it exploded inside me like, bombs going off inside me. Just every book in the Bible—I was shown that it was a picture of Jesus, and how it was a picture of Him. And it was all about Him, and that just exploded inside.”

The weight of God’s glory was so intense that he hid under his desk, Booker says, adding that he was “hiding from God, begging Him not to show me anymore because … I thought I would die. It was just too much for me. The power of the revealed Word of God just exploded inside me, and instantly, everything changed.”

Booker says he got up at 4:45 the next morning to spend more time exploring the Bible—and not long after that, he left his career.

To find out how God proved faithful to the supernatural download Booker received, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and subscribe to Greenelines for more inspiring stories like this one. Check out Booker’s own podcast, Sounds of the Shofar, also on the Charisma Podcast Network, and find his latest book, The Miracle of the Scarlet Thread, wherever fine books are sold.

Read articles like this one and other Spirit-led content in our new platform, CHARISMA PLUS. {eoa}

Jordan Lewis was a quiet kid, his father says. But he changed when he entered Oral Roberts University and began accepting ministry opportunities.

“Here’s this shy, bashful kid who’s all of a sudden become bold and ferocious in his faith and yet loving and kind and never offended anyone,” Lewis tells Dr. Steve Greene, who taught Jordan at ORU, on a popular episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. “He was just always thoughtful. And he passed away from a battle with cancer in his sinus … it was completely a mystery, and no one could figure it out.”

But that mystery death, Lewis says, has now become a seed for the gospel in miraculous ways that continue to multiply today.

“One of the highlights of his life was when he and some other young men from the OSU campus went to Tanzania,” Lewis says. “They preached the gospel to what’s called technically called ‘unengaged, unreached people groups.’ They built a birthing clinic, and they did some other humanitarian efforts. And at a certain time in that journey, when they were there that summer, they asked who would volunteer to go and preach the gospel. … They were forewarned that no one had ever had success.

“And Jordan and a couple other guys said, ‘We’ll go,’ Lewis says. “So they went. And this time, they had massive success, and many people turned to Christ in that village. And to this day, they have four vibrant churches amongst that tribe. It was previously 60,000 people with only one Christian, no churches, no Bibles, no Scripture, nothing that represented Christ. And now it’s a region that’s being reached with multiple churches. There’s even outside of those four, there are 12 more right in surrounding villages.”

But the miracles didn’t stop there. At the time of Jordan’s funeral, the family requested, in lieu of flowers, donations to a missions fund that then went under the 501(c)3 covering of Lewis’ church. Jordan Lewis Missions, which Charisma News previously covered here, has launched what Lewis says are “thousands of churches in multiple nations …. in places where there has been no gospel presentation, no churches, and in most of these places, no Scriptures. So that’s been a joy for us to watch what God has done.”

Lewis says this multiplying ministry has brought him both comfort and motivation. “The life of my son is multiplying out into the world. The mystery will one day be solved; we will see Jesus, and we’ll realize that His plan was bigger than ours. We still miss him, but we have this living memory of what’s happening every day through the gospel around the world.”

For much more from Pastor Ron Lewis on how God is multiplying his son’s death and how Lewis himself is being used of God to reach people for the gospel, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and subscribe to Greenelines for more inspiring stories like this one. {eoa}

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LaTyna Jalieba (Tyna) was working in her chosen field of nursing, proceeding toward a terminal degree and a corporate position. That’s when God spoke to her audibly, saying, “That’s not it.”

That small word from the Lord, Jalieba tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network, served as the catalyst that moved her into full-time prophetic deliverance ministry—despite the flaws and failures she saw as holding her back.

At first, she questioned God, Jalieba says. “I thought this was it, which is why I worked so hard to be here,” she told Him. But the Lord soon let her know what He had for her as a kingdom entrepreneur. “And that’s where I began to receive all of the downloads for what has gotten me to where I am and where I’m going,” she says.

While still working full time and doing ministry part time, she experienced something shocking: a layoff. “I had never in my life been laid off, and most people had told me the lie that, because I was a nurse, I would always have a job,” Jalieba says. “And so I was devastated, actually traumatized… [but] what the devil tries to use for your harm still turns around for your good, because it catapulted me further into purpose.”

But God took her through a process on the way to full-time ministry, she says. Jalieba says she calls her ministry “Flawed and Free” because she felt so ill-equipped to serve others but knew she was called and chosen.

“I felt ill-equipped because there were so many things that I experienced in my past that made me feel as if I was not properly prepared, and not good enough for the ministry,” she says. “And so the Lord gave me literally out of my sleep one day, the name of “Flawed and Free,” because He gave me John 8:36, ‘For whom the Son has set free is truly free indeed.’

“And He began to explain my freedom in Christ, my freedom in Him, and that what I was in the past, was no longer who I was in the present,” Jalieba says. “And the way that He saw me was how I was created in the Spirit. And so He needed me to come out of agreement with the flaws and the failures of my past, and He wanted to meet me in the space of the present, so that I could then fulfill His plan and the promises that He had already released to me in the Spirit. And so Flawed and Free was birthed.

Today, Jalieba helps others find freedom in multiple ways, including through her Flawed and Free podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. To hear much more of her story of how God moved her from her own failures and flaws into helping others find true freedom and deliverance, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. Check out Jalieba’s Flawed and Free podcast here. {eoa}

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“Let’s go meet up in Manhattan and pray for the city and see what God’s doing.”

When Pastor Ron Lewis got that call from his friend Rice Broocks, author of God’s Not Dead, he knew just one thing: he didn’t want to go. But his decision to follow his friend’s voice—and the Holy Spirit’s prompting—led to multiple miracles in Manhattan.

“I really felt it was the right thing to do,” Lewis tells Dr. Steve Greene on a special 9/11 episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. “On Sept. 13, we were in Manhattan, and oh my goodness: the devastation, the trauma, the horrifying things—but something happened to me.

“On that day, when I was driving up with some other pastor friends in my car,” Lewis says. “I looked at the New Jersey Turnpike, I look south, and I could see the smoke billowing up. And in that moment, as lamenting as I was, I heard something in my inner man, in my inner being.

“I heard a voice say, ‘Out of these ashes, I will build a great church.'” Lewis recalls. “And I knew then that had to be God. I was certainly never looking for anything like that; it had to be God. When we were in Times Square, we began to get the sense that this was the place where we should launch the church. That wasn’t why we went there. But this is what happened. And it happened quickly.”

Lewis returned to his church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and Broocks to his in Nashville, Tennessee. “And when we were there, we both said, ‘We’re going to be starting this church, we don’t know how, but we’re trusting God,'” Lewis says. “Out of nowhere, someone in his congregation came forward and said, ‘I’m the manager of an off-Broadway theater right there in the middle of Times Square.’ And he said, ‘We have Sunday nights available.’

Both Lewis and Broocks began to fly up to New York City after their morning services each week, and Every Nation Church was born. For the past 20 years, Lewis has worked in both churches, serving as overseer in the North Carolina church and senior ministry of Every Nation, which now has six congregations in the greater New York City area.

“It’s been quite a wild ride full of amazing miracles,” he says. He has recorded 50 of them in his book, Miracles in Manhattan. He finds it even more incredible that God called him to start the church during a deep season of personal brokenness. He told God, “I’m not qualified; New Yorkers don’t want to listen to a man from the South, a man who has gone through all this stuff.”

But his brokenness proved just the right means to reach the “young dreamers and young professionals” Lewis says the Holy Spirit drew into the church. “Their pain was greater than my pain,” he adds.

“One of the young dreamers was a model and an actress. She had been booted out of her home—a beautiful young lady. And she was addicted to drugs and had been very badly abused—physically, sexually, in every way. Yet she was a multiple-time cover girl … very successful on the outside.”

The young woman was miserable, Lewis says, even contemplating suicide. But she came into one of the church’s prayer meetings. “I felt fire fall on my head and go through and course through my body,” Lewis says she told him.

That got her attention, and she turned to God and to Jesus Christ for help with her issues. “She went on to be a servant of the Lord, to be water baptized; she confessed Jesus as her Lord,” Lewis says. “She ended up marrying another Christian model in our church. And today, she continues to be an actress, but she’s also a fulltime pastor in Los Angeles.”

For many more miracles in Manhattan from Pastor Ron Lewis, listen to the entire 9/11 episode of Greenelines at this link, and subscribe to Greenelines for more inspiring stories like this one. Find Lewis’ book, Miracles in Manhattan, at miraclesinmanhattan.nyc. On the anniversary of 9/11, watch All Nation Church’s special livestream service here. {eoa}

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Bobby Albert saw tremendous success in business since taking over for his father in the Albert Companies, a moving and storage business, in the early 1970s. But he says the missing piece for his success didn’t come until 2005, when he got what he calls “the last big key ingredient.”

“I kept thinking, Something is missing, something is missing,” Albert tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast Network. “And the Lord finally helped me understand it was our core values.”

Values became the thrust of Albert’s current business, Values-Driven Leadership LLC, for which he says, “My main focus is helping Christian business leaders to develop a culture within their organization where people thrive and profits soar, because I saw in my own business, when you get a few of the ingredients in the right place … when you get focused on your people and ways that you can minister to them, the people will bring the profits to you. And we saw extraordinary profits.”

Albert knows whereof he speaks. After he began focusing on core values, he and his team grew revenue and profits by 500% during the challenging season of 2005-2011, when he sold the business. to a publicly traded company.

Albert shares what became the foundational passage for his company, Colossians 3:23-24: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

Albert adds that the final point, “It is the Lord Christ you are serving” led him to turn the traditional organization chart and “turn it upside down, put me at the bottom.”

“I took the servant leader’s attitude, just like Jesus mentioned to his disciples … my whole focus was developed to equip the leadership team,” Albert says. “They knew, on up into the organization, at the top of the organization were the frontline people. And then even above the frontline people was the customer.

“And even above the customer—that’s tied to the foundational two verses—it was Jesus Christ,” he says. ” … they knew that we came for a greater purpose other than me just getting a paycheck, and that I come here to serve the Lord Jesus Christ every day.”

For much more advice on values-driven leadership from longtime CEO Bobby Albert, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines at this link, and subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one. Check out Albert’s podcast, True North Business, also on the Charisma Podcast Network, and find his leadership books, True North Business and Principled Profits, along with his new release, The Freedom Paradox, wherever fine books are sold.{eoa}

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When you’ve made it to the top, it’s easy to tell others to follow your path. But leading entrepreneur John Hewitt has some very different advice, and it comes from His understanding of divine design.

“God gives everyone their own skills,” the co-founder of tax firm Jackson Hewitt and founder of Liberty Tax Service as well as the franchise collaborative Loyalty Brands tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast Network. But it goes farther than that, Hewitt says. God wants us to be extraordinary.

“I love the Michael Jordan story—Michael Jordan, greatest basketball player ever,” Hewitt says.

But Jordan grew up wanting to play baseball, Hewitt explains. “So he retired from basketball. He was being paid $5 million a year to play basketball, and he was overpaid at $18,000 a year to play baseball; it was horrible.”

Hewitt says he uses that story in firing people at times, telling them, “You need to find somewhere else to go be extraordinary. God gave us all a place where we can be extraordinary. Go find that place.”

But in that place of extraordinary, integrity matters, Hewitt says. “Integrity is doing what you say you’re going to do. And if you always do what you say you’re going to do, you’re going to be wildly successful.’

For more insightful business advice from leading entrepreneur John Hewitt, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines here, and subscribe to Greenelines on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring, informative stories like this one. Be sure to check out Hewitt’s own podcast, iCompete, and find his book, also titled iCompete, wherever fine books are sold. {eoa}

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