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The Wake-Up Call
Jesus Gave Words of Knowledge; We Can Too
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In this episode, Dan Wilt explores the concept of receiving words of knowledge, drawing inspiration from the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. He shares a personal experience from an airplane journey where he unexpectedly engaged in a spiritual conversation with a fellow passenger. Despite initial reluctance, Dan felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to ask a specific question that deeply resonated with the man, leading to a transformative moment. This encounter highlights the power of being open to divine guidance and the impact it can have on others. Dan emphasizes the importance of love and humility in ministry, encouraging listeners to be attentive to the Holy Spirit's voice in everyday interactions. He invites the audience to practice hearing God's voice and to be willing to step out of their comfort zones to share insights with others. The episode concludes with a call to worship and a reminder that each person plays a vital role in God's larger story, acting as ...
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Sower Nation Today is Thursday, June 11th, in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm Dan Wilt and this is your wake up call. Wake up sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Let's pray our prayer of consecration as we begin today's meeting with Jesus. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you and we're praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Today's entry is titled Jesus Gave Words of Knowledge and We Can Too and Our text is John 4, verses 16 to 18. Hear the word of the Lord, he told her, go call your husband and come back. I have no husband, she replied. And Jesus said to her, you are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true. The Word of the Lord. Consider this. This is one of my favorite stories in the New Testament, probably yours too. Jesus. Jesus knows something about this woman that he could only have known by direct revelation from the Father. The woman becomes an evangelist as she is so overcome not only by the revelation, but by the kindness of Jesus that she simply must tell others about him. While this could be called prophecy, many who study gifts of the Spirit might put this in the category of a word of knowledge, knowing something about someone one could not have known otherwise. I shared a story earlier in this series about an experience I had on an airplane that I also share in my book, Receive the Holy Spirit. I'm going to share the longer version here, but this time I'm going to add commentary every few lines for teaching purposes so we can get behind the scenes of my actual experience. Receiving a Word of Knowledge and here's the story. Many years ago I was sitting on an airplane getting ready to take off across the country. I was a happy introvert. It was a five hour trip and the seat beside me, possibly the last open seat on the plane and was empty. Then, just as the doors were about to close and my restful journey was about to begin, a loud, angry and large businessman came bustling through the aircraft door. He strode toward the back of the plane, right where I had settled in, and he climbed over me, literally, to take the seat beside me, banging my head with with his briefcase on his way through. And he certainly didn't apologize for it. So I'm Going to insert these moments of commentary as I break up the story because I want you to understand what was happening inside of me so you could begin to discern. Well, Lord, if I want to participate in all the things ministry with you and you want to speak through me, what are the kinds of impressions that would, would just normalize me knowing when you're speaking. So here's my commentary. I was self absorbed. I was in no mood to evangelize anyone. I just wanted to enjoy my trip. The man beside me was not my type. I was no kingdom saint waiting to happen. The situation was all very normal and quite honestly very me centered. I was irritated, I had my magazine, I was ready for my five hour trip ahead of me. I had no Bible out, no anything. But I was, I was just in my zone ready to enjoy the trip. And here's the story continuing. Within moments he was asking me if I believed in God. I had no Bible in my hand or pastor labels stamped on my forehead. I'm going to put a parenthesis here. Sometimes when we are walking closely with Jesus, people will start to confess things to us. They'll start to open up. Not because that we, we said something or they think we're a special, you know, spiritual person. Just because something in them is dealing with a royal priest, right? And they don't realize that someone is, is interacting with them who is a person of heaven and earth, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, that we're a mediator between God and people, helping people come into the fullness of God's presence. And we don't ultimately do that mediation. It's Jesus who is the one who brings them to himself. But we take our place. Kind of being a thin place as the Celts would have called it, a place where heaven and earth are meeting so people open up. So within moments he was asking me if I believed in God. I had no Bible in my hand or pastor label stamped on my forehead. Then he launched right into his story. He told me how he had taken lives in the military, how he tried to cleanse his guilt by doing humanitarian work, how he was an atheist, how he hated God because his young daughter was dying in a hospital bed. Note his little girl regularly went and prayed for other patients on the floor. He at that point had no idea why or how she got that idea. A sweet little messenger had been given to him to help guide him home. So here's my commentary on that. I didn't want to be in this conversation and honestly I was embarrassed by how loud he was on the plane, I knew God had arranged it because it's hard to deny it, but I was stuck. I truly didn't know what to do other than to pray in my mind. And that prayer literally was jesus, help. Everyone's listening. It was about me again. Story continues in the middle of his confession, which had drawn the interest of everyone in the last five rows of the plane, the they couldn't help it. I asked the Holy Spirit, speak to me. Speak to me. And an unusual idea popped into my mind. Ask him who Rebecca is and what her place is in his life, and names have been changed to protect the innocent. Ask him who Rebecca is and what her place is in his life. I was terrified I would sound like a crazy person, but I just swallowed and I went for it because I just felt like I had nothing to lose at this point. I told him that I believed God speaks to people, and I whispered the question to him, who was Rebecca and what place does she have in your life? Commentary I knew this was a risk. The thought felt normal, like any other thought. I didn't feel like God's man of power for the hour. Right. It was odd, though, that I had that thought, it was so clear, and that it had a name attached to it, and that some instinct deep within me, the Holy Spirit, JD and I talk about this sense of impetus, like a wave almost rising, like something's a little more than me here, that some instinct deep within me, the Holy Spirit said I needed to whisper it to him. So I awkwardly interrupted his rant and I went for it. I asked him, who is Rebecca and what place does she have in your life? And he was loud. At that moment, people were stirring in their seats, and he immediately stopped. His jaw immediately dropped, his eyes welled up with tears, his countenance softened, his voice fell to a whisper. How do you know Rebecca? He asked me with unbelief. I don't know, I said. But God does, and he knows you too well. It turns out Rebecca was his girlfriend and she was trying to get them to go back to church, if you remember the story. And as we got off the flight, he promised me he was going to give God another chance. So here's the commentary on that. Once I took the risk, I became eager for Jesus to use me this way again. It's. It's a bit of a buzz. Like it's like, father, I saw you doing something. In my terror, somehow I perceived you were doing something, but my heart and mind were not listening. And you very graciously enabled Me to just calm myself and say, this isn't about you, Dan. This is about Jesus. And this is about Jesus wanting to do something through you. This is not your ministry. It's about Jesus wanting to minister to someone through you. And this is the moment. And so it was like, hands off Jesus, take the wheel. And that phrase came. And it turns out that was his girlfriend. I couldn't have known it any other way than Jesus doing that. Honestly, you just need to know. I walked away incredibly humbled. When we get ourselves out of the way and stop putting spiritual powerhouse on our business cards or whatever else we put underneath to make ourselves feel better and getting our identity out of our spiritual gifts or the gifts that God gives us in the moment, for that moment, which is not about us, it's about him wanting to do something again. Our obedience meets his moment of moving what the Father's doing. And the convergence means that something happens and a life has changed.
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I've never talked to him since. His life will never be the same. It can't be, because he knew that Jesus saw him on that plane. Okay, I get emotional when we talk about this. So I wanted Jesus to use me in that way again and again. It was. It was one of my first experiences with this, a life, a family line. And those overhearing were touched. Why would I want their lives to all remain the same? Just because I felt embarrassed and was afraid to step out in faith when I clearly saw the Father was doing something, Jesus said, my sheep know my voice. John 10:27. As it was for the woman at the well, so it was for my new friend on the airplane. When we have this kind of experience, the person feels seen, known, even halted by God from their normal way of being. This is a power encounter, as John Wimber put it. And there's a wonderful book I've been referencing on power evangelism and power ministry. But in the context, I will keep saying until. Till I go on to see Jesus face to face. This is about love. Without love, it's all noise. It's all stages and microphones and drama and all these other things. It doesn't mean God can't use all those things, but love is what leads the way and the gentleness and humility and kindness of Jesus because we are, in those moments, his representative. They're reading a letter from God and it's us. Some have said, you know, the only letter that many will ever read is our lives. And in that moment, I could have gotten dramatic and done in some prayer cultures and ministry cultures and spiritual gift cultures in the church. They say it needs to be big. And. And I'm just like. That just makes it more and more about us. With calmness, with spiritual authority, with humility, naturally supernatural. Even John Wimber suggests we dial it down, pour water on it instead of hyping it up. Just so we all know in the end it was Jesus who did something, not us. And I'm just telling you, it sets us free to enjoy all the things. Ministry with Jesus. Okay, I digress. But. But within a progression. So this is a power encounter, as John Wimber put it. It has an undeniable and unavoidable ripple effect in the person's life. They can never forget the moment that God told someone something important about them that they could not have known by any other means, by reason. We can learn. You can learn. I can learn to hear God's voice. And we're going to be exploring that in some of the entries ahead. But for now, begin to ask Jesus to take you beyond yourself, beyond what is predictable, safe, easily done or understood. Even sometimes what feels natural, but you still sense the Father's doing something. Ask Jesus to take you on a Kingdom adventure. You'll never be the same. I promise. Okay, so here's our prayer. Lord Jesus, there are so many people in my life who need to know that you love them, that you see them, that you care enough to speak to someone else about them. I want to be like an antenna, picking up the signals of your love for them and then sharing with them anything you would give me to see them set free. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. All right, ready for today's journal prompt and activation. Kingdom Ministry. Remember our Kingdom series? This is all the things is about the kingdom of God that Jesus embodied and preached. He came with a message and a ministry that backed it up. He came with the word and the works, and that's all from my. My vineyard heritage. Some of those phrases. He. He just came bringing that coupling together, and that is us. We come bringing a message in the spirit and the way of Jesus, and we come bringing a ministry that is his ministry moving through us. So Kingdom Ministry, here's our journal Prompt. Kingdom Ministry is about living on the edge of our belief, not only trusting God in the known, in the predictable places, but also being willing to go with him to places to where we are on the edge of our seat. Sometimes literally, like I was journal about your willingness to go beyond your comfort zone to hear God speak to you for others. So take Your all the things book and journal and just begin to write or your regular journal, if that's what you're using. Begin to just write out a prayer. Jesus, I am willing to get beyond what's normal and natural for me. I want to participate in these moments. And please hear me as you pray that prayer. Know that God may give you specific words like he gave me on that airplane in the midst of my not only humanness, but my sin, my brokenness, my self absorption. He was very gracious to me. He was gracious to that man. And now we're both changed by it. And both were humbled and feel loved by God. Felt loved by God. And I feel loved by God every time I share that story. But I want to say to you, sometimes he'll give you a specific word. We're different personalities with different gifts. He may just give you a word of encouragement. JD often talks about how he'll just, he'll have. I can't remember, is it the Ben Franklin Club? I can't remember where the Lord just. He, he was some friends, they give him something to give to someone. He gives it to someone in a restaurant, a waiter, a waitress. And he always has this word of encouragement that can be as crystal clear. God working as this as any word with the specificity that I received it. But in those moments, something happens and we want to partner in that convergence of obedience with what the Father's doing, with what the Spirit's doing in that moment. Okay, so today you're going to be interacting with people as you always do. This is the activation. But this time you're going to lean in to listen to the Holy Spirit as you do, instead of having your sail down, which I'll give you that metaphor later, not catching the wind of the spirit, you're going to put it up and as you talk to them, you're going to lean in to listen to the Holy Spirit. As you're talking with people, I believe that God will give you a picture, a scripture, a word or, or a phrase, maybe even a name, maybe a person they're in relationship with, a family member or something that means something to someone that might be a surprise to both you and them. Today, practice hearing God's voice. Just practice this. You don't even have to do something with it. Again, Jesus isn't in a rush. I think we can just practice. But if you, if you feel like you're ready to go for it, practice hearing God's voice. Even if you feel like you're not ready to let's just be honest today. Practice hearing God's voice. Ask him if there's a way that you could, with humility, kindness, and leading in the way of love, you could humbly share your impression with the other person. All right, well, let's worship together. The song that I've. I've picked for today is not in Our Redeemer, our Great Redeemer's praise, but it is one that probably many of you'll know. It goes back a few years as well. I like to use songs that are right now current, but also ones that I feel like they have some weight, some heft to them. And it's. It's Agnes day. So let's turn our hearts to Jesus and worship together.
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Hallelujah, Hallelujah for the Lord God Almighty reigns. Hallelujah, Hallelujah for the Lord God Almighty Mighty race. Hallelujah. Holy, Holy are you Lord God Almighty? Worthy is the Lamb. Worthy is the lamb. You are holy Holy are you Lord God Almighty. Worthy is the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb. Amen.
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Hallelujah. Hallelujah for the Lord God Almighty. Hallelujah, hallelujah for the lord God almighty reign. Hall holy, holy are you lord God almighty? Worthy is the lamb. Worthy is the lamb. You are holy holy are you lord God almighty. Worthy is the lamb. Worthy is the lamb worthy, worthy is the lamb. Am worthy is the lamb.
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Amen. Well, today you and I are in God's story. We're living out our stories as we join in the plot line of the story that Jesus has been weaving in our lives and that the Father's been weaving through all of history. So know that you are part of a story that's bigger than you. And yet at the same time, you and I have an incredibly important role to play as ambassadors of Jesus moving in all the things ministry by the love and the the power of the spirit. All right, let's grab our seeds, get them in hand. And with our activation and our kingdom question in our mind, our kingdom prayer. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Come Holy Spirit in our hearts. I'll see you on the field for the awakening. I'm Dan.
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