January 12, 2025 • 24 mins
This episode was released on December 30, 2024.
In this insightful interview, Pastor Greg Locke shares the prophetic word God has given him for the year 2025. He emphasizes the importance of a season of rest and recovery for the body of Christ, after a year of intense battles and challenges.
Locke provides practical advice on how to find true rest, balance ministry and family life, and stay vigilant in the fight for biblical values. He also unveils his bold vision to send 500 people from his church on short-term mission trips, to foster a deeper global perspective.
Tune in as Locke candidly discusses the shift in his political stance, urging the church to not become complacent, but to continue building God's kingdom with renewed purpose and vigor. This message offers timely wisdom and inspiration for the year ahead.
#2025
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This year in 25, you're gonna see not just numerical growth,
(00:03):
but spiritual growth.
We're gonna see leaders rise up that we never imagined
were going to be the anointed leaders that they really are.
Get off Facebook and put your face in the book.
It is time to spend massive amounts of time
in the presence of God and with your family.
The danger is millions of Christians
are gonna go back to sleep and they can't.
We cannot go back to sleep this time.
We have gotta stay awake.
(00:25):
We have gotta stay vigilant.
We've gotta stay in the fight.
I'm not interested in building up the White House.
I'm interested in building up God's house.
Pastor Greg Locke, it's great to have you here
back on Charisma.
It's been a while because we've had so many things going on,
but you've been traveling a lot
in and out of different countries.
You moved from the tent into a permanent building.
(00:46):
Praise the Lord for that.
So now you've got heating and air conditioning
for what God wants to do there.
And I guess somebody else could be blessed with that tent
or I don't know, maybe we can talk about that in a second.
But we do wanna talk about what God is saying to you
about the year 2025 and what we can be looking forward to.
Pastor, give us what it is that God is saying
(01:08):
for this next year and how we can prepare,
but what we need to do about this as well.
So welcome.
Yeah, absolutely.
And thank you, Brother John, for having me.
We love Charisma and we love the Charisma family
and the whole audience.
And so we appreciate everybody tuning in.
You know, it's interesting that we're in a real,
we're in a real rest space right now in our church.
And I feel like that's what the Lord's doing
(01:28):
in this season with a lot of people.
You know, we've been building and battling
and building and battling, and it's been a lot in the tent.
And I think the thing that our people are most excited about
are no portagons.
And we actually have bathrooms now.
And so people like come and use the bathroom
when they don't even have to use the bathroom.
But what it showed me the last month gearing up,
you know, coming out of 24 into 25,
(01:51):
is I think God gave us a month to kind of catch our breath
because going into 25, I believe it is going to be
a great building season,
but I think it's gonna be building more with rest,
if that makes sense, more than in the battles.
Man, we have been in the trenches.
I mean, not only did the, you know,
the church and the house get shot up,
I feel like our people have been shot up.
I feel like the body of Christ has been shot up.
(02:13):
Man, we've seen so much exposure this past year.
Churches have suffered, you know, financial instability,
you know, economically, things have been horrid.
You know, then we had that nail biting election night,
all of that.
And so I feel like people are wore out.
I feel like people are just utterly tired.
They don't wanna quit, they don't wanna give up.
And so I feel like for global vision
(02:34):
and for the body of Christ as a whole,
that we're moving into a season where our seed
is crying out of the ground, right?
I mean, what we've been putting in,
we've been sowing, we've been giving,
we've been crying and fasting and praying
and just really pressing in.
And I think God's saying, you know, now this year in 25,
you're gonna see not just numerical growth,
(02:55):
but spiritual growth, real deepening of a maturity
in the body of Christ.
And so I think there's gonna be a lot of building.
I think it's gonna be a building season, a prophetic season.
I think it's gonna be an apostolic season.
We're gonna see leaders rise up that we never imagined
we're going to be the anointed leaders that they really are.
I think God's gonna call fresh new eyes and vision
into the ministry.
(03:16):
And I think even ministries, not just churches,
but ministries like Charisma,
they're gonna see a bump in readership
and in people, you know, stepping to the forefront,
wanting to be authors,
wanting to step out into their calling and the equipping
and the anointing that the Lord has given us.
So I think 25 is gonna be a year of rest.
It's not that we're not gonna be fighting and battling
and, you know, fighting principalities and powers
(03:37):
and spiritual wickedness in high places,
but I feel like the building that we're going to be doing
is really gonna be the benefits and the blessing
of the battles and the war that we've just come through,
because it has been, it's been hard.
It's been very difficult.
I have seen more pastors step away from ministry,
have to take, you know, sabbaticals,
(03:58):
some just completely out of the ministry altogether.
You know, marriages are hurting.
You know, there's more prodigals out there
than we've probably ever seen before.
Church giving is down across the board.
It just seems like pastors are discouraged.
I get calls like every single day
of people that are just absolutely defeated.
And so I think the Lord's gonna raise us up
and put us in a season of rest
(04:20):
and just kind of rebuild some things.
And I don't think he's gonna build it
the way that he used to build it
or the way that he used to do it.
You know, I think the days of just pressing
for church growth and more people in the seats,
I think that's done.
I think we wanna get the right people in the seats.
And I think God's gonna rebuild
and structures are gonna change
and vision is gonna change.
(04:40):
And I know that's a long way around the barn,
but I just feel like people need to go in 25
into a season of knowing that God's not gonna stop.
He's gonna accelerate his work.
But I think he's gonna let us get a little more sleep
and a little more rest and a little more relaxation.
And I tell our folks,
sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do
is take a nap.
You know, sometimes as a preacher,
(05:01):
if you take a nap or if you sleep in
and you feel guilty about it,
then the problem is the church has become your idol.
The ministry has become your idol.
And I think sometimes we're gonna have to be still.
We're gonna have to step back and just let God
do what he wants to do.
So we fought the battles
and here we are now on the forefront.
And I think God's gonna start raising some things up
(05:23):
and saying, I'm gonna let the vision come to pass,
but I'm gonna let you have a little bit of peace
while it's transpired.
Does that make sense?
That makes perfect sense, brother.
And I wanna actually,
I had a mental picture as you were talking about that.
I wanna submit this to you to see if this kind of connects
with what you're feeling the Lord saying.
It's kind of like whenever you are building a house
and you are pouring the foundation,
(05:43):
that concrete needs to rest.
You've poured the foundation,
the concrete needs to rest before you can build on it.
Otherwise you're dealing with a soupy mess
and it's not gonna settle right.
And a foundation that is not properly cured or rested
is going to get cracks.
It's going to have issues.
And if you try to build on it,
you're gonna have to go back and restore that
(06:04):
or repair that foundation again.
Is that kind of a good description
of what you were talking about too?
I think so, I think we've spent a lot of time
building superstructures without foundations.
And like you said, I think sometimes
we didn't let the foundation cure real well.
Oh, we got a foundation and boom, just start building it.
And God said, no, I'm gonna slow things down.
I'm gonna tear a few things down
(06:25):
so that we can rebuild correctly, right?
It's not that we built in sinfulness or rebellion.
I think sometimes the body of Christ just builds too quick.
People all the time, don't get behind, don't get behind.
Don't make God have to pull you along.
And I'll be honest, that's never my temptation.
The devil knows that I'm not somebody
that's gonna drag my feet.
So the biggest temptation that the devil gives me
(06:47):
is not to drag behind, but to get ahead of God,
to get out front, to push me too fast.
And so I think sometimes, I know in my own life
and at Global Vision as a leader there,
I think sometimes I've pushed maybe a little too quick.
And I think in 25, God's gonna pull some things back,
deconstruct some things, let the foundation cure,
as you said, right?
(07:07):
And build the superstructure in a different way.
So Pastor Greg, how is it
that people can actually practically rest?
That is something, especially in American culture,
we have such a difficult time with that.
And especially, we're not saved from our good works,
we're saved to do good works.
And sometimes people look at that and say,
(07:29):
well, I'm not saved unless I do those good works.
And we exhaust ourselves
because we become very good Christian doers
as opposed to Christian beings.
And so human beings, human doers as opposed to human beings.
And so give us some practicality of that
(07:49):
and how have you found rest in your life?
And I think we have twisted it up.
And we've made Christianity about do this, do this, do this,
when really it's about, you need to be this.
Because if you'll be right, you'll do right.
It's just, you'll know them by their fruits.
It's natural.
You don't have to beg an apple tree to produce apples.
It just automatically does
because it's what's inside of it.
And the reason people have bad fruit
(08:09):
is because they have a bad root.
And so we gotta get to the root of the issue.
And I think the root of the issue with a lot of people
is we do spiritually exhaust ourselves for no reason.
And we don't do it because we're trying to please God,
we're doing it because we're trying to please people.
Because the fear of man brings a snare.
We don't wanna look lazy.
But I'm telling you, we've got to take vacation time.
We gotta take Sabbath time, if you will.
(08:31):
We've gotta rest.
There's gotta be times when we just pull back and say,
you know what, I'm gonna spend time with my family.
I'm gonna spend time with the Lord.
And I think the Christmas season, New Year's, all of that,
people do that and we accentuate it.
But I think it's something
that we ought to do on a regular basis.
Don't spend time with your kids once a year
just because Santa Claus is coming to town.
Don't spend time with your kids on a regular basis
(08:52):
because they're dying for that, right?
And we need to bring back family time.
We need to bring back family altar time,
family worship, family prayer time.
I saw this video somebody sent me the other day
and it was extraordinarily convicting.
They had all these parents, all these adults in these rooms
around these big tables, kinda like this.
And they were interviewing them and they asked them,
(09:12):
if you could have a meal with anybody on the planet,
living or dead, who would it be?
The moms and dads are like Tom Cruise
and Justin Timberlake or whatever.
They're talking about all these famous movie stars.
Every one of them, hands down without fail,
they were even arguing back and forth.
All of them said that these famous people,
either they'd like to resurrect and have a meal with
(09:35):
or somebody that's alive today that they'd like to talk to.
And so then they took all of them out of the room
and put them behind a big glass
and brought all of their kids in.
And they asked their kids the same question.
And all their kids were like,
I'd like to have a meal with my parents.
I'd like to have a meal with my siblings.
I just wanna sit down and have dinner with my family.
And I was like, holy smokes, that's a reality right there.
(09:57):
What a gut check, what a heart check.
And sometimes we just gotta slow down
and have a meal with our family.
As a pastor, I don't keep my phone on all night long anymore.
I just don't, I'm not going to,
because what's gonna happen is,
I used to think to myself,
if I don't answer the phone at two o'clock in the morning,
then so-and-so is gonna get mad and leave the church.
Well, guess what?
I ended up answering my phone at two o'clock in the morning,
(10:19):
didn't get any sleep.
And three years later,
they left the church over something else.
What difference does it make?
And so what we've done is we've made an idol
out of our calling.
And I think sometimes we can fall more in love
with what God's called us to do
than the God that actually called us to do it.
And sometimes we just have to slow down.
And this past year for me has been learning that,
(10:40):
especially in this Bible reading marathon that I've been in,
just going through the Word of God.
I've had to slow down and recognize
the world's not gonna fall apart
and global vision's not gonna implode or explode
just because Greg Locke's not there.
The world doesn't revolve around me.
The world revolves around the presence of the Holy Spirit.
And we've gotta rest.
We've gotta, men, you need to date your wife.
(11:02):
I'm telling you, take your wife on a date.
I don't care if you walk in a public park,
feed ducks and eat baloney.
I don't care if it's a five-star restaurant.
It doesn't matter.
You need to date your wife.
It's so valuable.
It's so important.
And so now I'm dating my wife every week.
I'm taking my kids out and going to the movies with them.
We're going roller skating, whatever.
(11:22):
And I'm not feeling guilty about it anymore.
People need to relax.
People need to rest.
And I'm gonna say to any pastor that's watching this,
quit running your family to death
and making the church the golden idol
and the golden calf of your house.
Your wife needs you.
Your kids need you.
In my case, and in some of your cases,
your grandkids need you.
It's time to slow down.
(11:43):
The church is not going to explode
if you're not there for one Wednesday or one Sunday.
And by the way, if it does, it probably needs to, right?
Because I told our folks a while back,
we have a one generational problem at our church.
Meaning by that, we've created a church
that has one generation in it.
If I get clipped by a train on my mountain bike,
God forbid, the church has like six weeks left in it.
(12:06):
And I'm like, why are we not raising up
next level leadership?
That church should be able to go on without Greg Locke.
If it's really a God's body, God's family,
if it's really a church of the Lord Jesus Christ,
then it shouldn't matter whether I'm there or not.
I get it, apostles and pastors and prophets and all of that.
And I know we have to be figureheads
and we're held to a higher level of accountability.
(12:28):
But I'm at a place now where I'm just like, you know what?
I'm gonna back off and I'm gonna let God do his work.
I'm not forcing myself or the Lord's work on anybody.
And so again, there's so much in me right now
coming out of 24 into 25.
I just want people to know this is a season of rest,
not a season of stopping, a season of being still.
You can be still without being stopped.
(12:50):
You can keep doing what you know
the Holy Spirit wants you to do,
but you don't have to run yourself to death.
You've got one body, you've got one life, you've got one mind.
It's time to get in the gym,
not just because it's a New Year's resolution.
I'm so tired of New Year's resolution.
We need some New Year's repentance is what we need.
We need to take care of our bodies.
We need to eat right, we need to sleep well.
We need to love our families.
We need to get our nose out of the newspaper,
(13:12):
stick it in the word of God.
I tell people, get off Facebook
and put your face in the book.
It is time to spend massive amounts of time
in the presence of God and with your family.
And when you do that,
God's gonna take care of his ministry
because it's his work, it's his church, it's his body.
And so all of that to say,
sometimes we just need to stand back
(13:33):
and let God do his work and quit pretending
like we gotta be the hero of the hour.
Amen, amen.
We don't need to be the hero of the hour.
We just gotta let God do his thing and trust in him.
I mean, what the word says,
trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding
in all your ways acknowledge him
and he will make your path straight.
(13:54):
But trusting in the Lord
and leaning not in your own understanding.
If you lean on your own understanding,
you're gonna fall on that.
It's like you're leaning on a cane
and that's not a very good foundation there.
Pastor Greg, what is it that you feel
the Lord is saying to your church?
What are you gonna be preaching at the turn of this year?
What is the word that God's given you?
(14:16):
Obviously rest is a big part of that,
but where in the Bible are you gonna be preaching from
about this message?
Yeah, it's interesting.
The other night in our Christmas Eve service,
I almost preached the message
that I'm going to actually be preaching this weekend.
The Holy Spirit said, no,
I want you to say a few other things
and talk about some things.
And then this weekend I'm gonna be preaching on
(14:36):
how to have the greatest year ever.
How to absolutely have the greatest year you've ever had.
And I have these 10 principles, they all begin with F.
But a lot of them have to do with,
at least for the context of our church.
I told our people,
there's some things that we've had to leave
in the gravel parking lot at old Leaven and Dirt Road.
There's some stuff when the tent came down,
it had to go with it.
(14:58):
There's some stuff that can't transition.
There's some people that didn't make the transition.
They didn't make the leap.
Doesn't make them bad people, that's fine.
Good people, lead good churches.
I tell them, if you're a good person
that leaves a good church, just stay good.
Just stay good.
And so, not everybody made the leap and that's fine.
I didn't need everybody to make the leap.
There was a time I thought,
oh, we gotta have this packed house
and you're gonna have deliverance services all the time
(15:20):
and you're gonna have thousands of people showing up.
And the Lord said, you know what?
I didn't need that with Gideon
and I don't need that with you.
I'm gonna pull some things back,
I'm gonna scale some things back
and I'm gonna sharpen your vision.
I'm gonna give you a laser focus
on what I've called you to do.
And so this weekend, I'm gonna preach on the 10 ways
you can have the best year that you've ever had.
And for example, very practical things.
(15:42):
Like point number one is,
forgive the people that will never ask you to.
We're good at forgiving people sometimes.
I say good, we should be good
at forgiving people that ask us.
But sometimes you're gonna have to forgive people
that will never ask you, right?
People that did blow your face off,
people that hurt you, people that harmed you,
people that caused great deals of trauma
and drama in your life.
And there's just some very practical things
that we're gonna have to do.
(16:02):
There's some stuff we gotta leave behind.
Paul said, forgetting those things which are behind.
The body of Christ is horrible
about carrying baggage with us everywhere that we go.
And we pull it out and we show it off.
It's like show and tell, oh, look what so and so did.
Look what so and so said.
And God says, would you get rid of that mess?
Would you bury that thing?
Would you not take that on the 12 mile journey
from Mount Juliet to Lebanon, Tennessee?
(16:24):
And so I told our folks, look,
there's some things we just cannot bring here.
Now, from a very practical standpoint,
this past weekend, and I don't know if you or others
have seen it, people watching our live stream now,
it looks so good in the building.
But this past weekend, I was letting our folks know
one of the major goals I have this year,
it's very audacious goal.
It's a huge supernatural feat of amazement
(16:46):
that happens and I believe it's going to.
We wanna take 500 people from our church this year.
And I wanna put 500 people on the mission field
this year in 25.
Now, I'm talking about short-terms mission.
Now, some of them will end up going maybe
for the rest of their life,
but I wanna get 500 people in third world countries
preaching and teaching and working with people.
(17:06):
Because if we're a church that's called global vision,
we have a local vision,
but we better really have a global vision.
And it's one thing for the pastor to jet set
all over the world and preach.
I wanna get our people on the mission field
and not just Israel.
And everybody knows my heart for Israel
and our political work there and our spiritual work there,
but I wanna get people on the mission field.
And so one of the goals we have this year
(17:27):
is to get 500 people out of their comfort zone
in our congregation and plant their feet
on a mission field somewhere around the world.
And I believe that will radically change them,
which in turn will radically change our church.
I love that vision.
I wholeheartedly stand with you for that
because I was a missionary for eight years myself.
(17:49):
A lot of short-term trips and training up people
to take them with me.
Those eight years in Youth of the Mission
were foundational for my life.
And so I know what a short-term mission trip
can do for somebody
where you're getting out of your comfort zone,
you're doing something that you might never thought
that you would do it,
and you're making an impact in somebody's life
(18:11):
around the world for the gospel.
And in turn, you get affected as well.
And I know that that's gonna cause great fruit
at Global Vision.
And I would encourage everybody that's watching,
if you have the opportunity to go on a mission trip,
either just do it or make an opportunity to go do that.
Your life will be changed for sure.
(18:32):
Pastor Greg, I wanna ask you this question.
This is, you became more prominent several years ago
because of your political stance.
And obviously you were very pro-Trump at that point.
And then God convicted you
of basically making politics an idol.
You got things lined up,
and then deliverance became something you were known for.
(18:56):
You're seeing great revival.
But politically, we've now seen that shift
that you were crying for years ago,
and we've seen this now.
Tell me about your impressions with the political scene
in our country now,
as opposed to when it was an idol for you.
And obviously you're happy with what has turned out.
(19:19):
Just give me an update on Greg Locke from 2020 to 2024.
It has been an interesting transition.
And I was very forceful politically, and I still am.
I'm very controversial when it comes to courage
and Trump and all of that.
But I am excited for the direction
I see us going.
I wasn't there for a long time.
Maybe that's why I was so strenuous
(19:40):
in the way that I dealt with things,
because I saw this demise coming,
and I thought we have got to wake people up, right?
And so I do believe that we're going
into what I call a space of grace.
I think economically things are going to be better.
I think Americans are going to have more money
in their pocket.
I think things are going to look better
on the religious scene, on the spiritual scene,
because obviously the Biden administration
and the Trump administration
have two very different ideas administratively
(20:03):
when it comes to the local church.
When it comes to 501C3s and things like that.
And so I'm excited for what can be.
I'm excited for our new partnership with Israel.
I think Mike Huckabee was the greatest pick
that could have possibly been imagined
for ambassador to Israel.
And so there's a lot of things
that I'm very excited about.
The one thing I'm not excited about,
(20:23):
the one thing that I think is a great danger
is now that we, if I can say it like this,
now that we got our way, the danger is millions
of Christians are going to go back to sleep
and they can't.
We cannot go back to sleep this time.
We have got to stay awake.
We have got to stay vigilant.
We've got to stay in the fight.
Just because we got the guy in the White House
that we're happy about, that we think is the right guy,
(20:46):
we got to keep building, right?
Just because we got our way,
it's not about the White House, it's about God's house.
Okay, we've got to build.
We got to build just like in Ezra's day.
The people were all excited politically,
but God said, yeah, but my house is lying in ruins.
My house is lying in waste.
And so it's not that we have to make politics
the main thing, okay?
Soul winning, reaching people,
(21:08):
loving souls with the gospel, the kingdom,
that's the main thing.
But politics is a big part of it.
I mean, let's be honest, it's a grave part of it.
And it's been a huge, huge condition as of late,
whereas now we see God has done a beautiful thing.
He's done a supernatural miracle.
And the worst thing we could do is go back to sleep
and just kind of just, well, you know,
let's let it happen, what's going to happen?
(21:29):
No, no, no, I think we need to jump into the forefront
like never before, because if we want four good years,
who's to say we can't have eight good years, 12 good years?
I mean, I really believe that God showed us His mercy
in a marvelous way.
So here's what I told our church.
Here's what I've been telling churches
all over the world since the election.
If we go back to sleep this time,
if we drop the ball this time,
(21:49):
if we don't unify as a body,
if we keep fussing about stupid stuff in the body of Christ
and we drop the ball again, we're done.
We don't get another round, this is it.
This is the back burner.
This is plan B.
This is the final occasion and the final opportunity
we have to show the world
what the kingdom of God really looks like.
And so I'm gonna be loud and forceful and moving forward,
(22:13):
but I think in a different way,
because I'm not interested in building up the White House.
I'm interested in building up God's house,
because if we do not clean up the corruption
in the house of God, it doesn't matter who we vote in,
Democrat, Republican, Independent,
it makes absolutely no difference.
And so there has been a shift in me
and I am much more spiritually, I guess, oriented,
(22:36):
understanding that it's really not about the guy
that's sitting at the oval desk.
It's really about the people that are behind God's desk,
the sacred desk, the pulpit.
And so pastors, men and women of God,
we've got to stand up, we've got to push back,
we've got to preach,
but we cannot let our people go back to sleep again.
We can't.
We cannot let our people think, well, we got our way.
And so let's just sit back and do nothing
for the next four years.
(22:57):
No, I think we've got to stand up and do more
in the next four years than we've ever done before.
Because now that I have grandkids,
I want to leave my grandson something to stand up for, right?
So it's not about the next four years.
For me, it's about the next 24 years.
It's about the next 40 years.
So body of Christ, do not get lazy on God.
Don't get lazy on the kingdom.
(23:18):
Just because you got Trump in the office,
Trump's not the savior.
Jesus is the savior.
And when God raised up Cyrus, okay,
the people of God had to get busy.
The people of God still had to do something.
So we're in full blown building mode.
And so let's just stay busy
and stay vigilant for the cause of Christ.
Amen. Amen.
So I guess you could say that you're,
(23:40):
if you can kind of summarize your word for this year
is rest, but don't sleep.
That's exactly right.
That's exactly right.
You need to rest, but don't you get too sleepy?
You know, rest well and then coffee up, right?
It's time to fight.
We still got to fight.
We still got to stay in the battle.
But we need to rest.
We need to fight about the right things.
I've learned through the years, especially politically,
(24:00):
I don't have to show up to every fight I'm invited to.
I'm gonna fight the right things in the right ways.
Because if you lose your focus in the fight,
you'll fight the wrong people
and you'll fight the wrong battles.
And I don't wanna fight the wrong people
or the wrong battles.
I wanna fight demons, right?
I'm gonna fight wickedness and ungodliness
and leftism and wokeism.
I wanna fight the right things.
And when you fight the right battles in the right way,
(24:22):
when you win the victory,
it means a whole lot more to you.
Amen and amen.
Pastor Greg Locke, thank you so much for sharing
what God has been doing and what he is speaking
about this next season as we're going into that.
Thank you so much for sharing that today.
Thank you, brother.
Appreciate you.
This year in 25, you're gonna see not just numerical growth,
(00:03):
but spiritual growth.
We're gonna see leaders rise up that we never imagined
were going to be the anointed leaders that they really are.
Get off Facebook and put your face in the book.
It is time to spend massive amounts of time
in the presence of God and with your family.
The danger is millions of Christians
are gonna go back to sleep and they can't.
We cannot go back to sleep this time.
We have gotta stay awake.
(00:25):
We have gotta stay vigilant.
We've gotta stay in the fight.
I'm not interested in building up the White House.
I'm interested in building up God's house.
Pastor Greg Locke, it's great to have you here
back on Charisma.
It's been a while because we've had so many things going on,
but you've been traveling a lot
in and out of different countries.
You moved from the tent into a permanent building.
(00:46):
Praise the Lord for that.
So now you've got heating and air conditioning
for what God wants to do there.
And I guess somebody else could be blessed with that tent
or I don't know, maybe we can talk about that in a second.
But we do wanna talk about what God is saying to you
about the year 2025 and what we can be looking forward to.
Pastor, give us what it is that God is saying
(01:08):
for this next year and how we can prepare,
but what we need to do about this as well.
So welcome.
Yeah, absolutely.
And thank you, Brother John, for having me.
We love Charisma and we love the Charisma family
and the whole audience.
And so we appreciate everybody tuning in.
You know, it's interesting that we're in a real,
we're in a real rest space right now in our church.
And I feel like that's what the Lord's doing
(01:28):
in this season with a lot of people.
You know, we've been building and battling
and building and battling, and it's been a lot in the tent.
And I think the thing that our people are most excited about
are no portagons.
And we actually have bathrooms now.
And so people like come and use the bathroom
when they don't even have to use the bathroom.
But what it showed me the last month gearing up,
you know, coming out of 24 into 25,
(01:51):
is I think God gave us a month to kind of catch our breath
because going into 25, I believe it is going to be
a great building season,
but I think it's gonna be building more with rest,
if that makes sense, more than in the battles.
Man, we have been in the trenches.
I mean, not only did the, you know,
the church and the house get shot up,
I feel like our people have been shot up.
I feel like the body of Christ has been shot up.
(02:13):
Man, we've seen so much exposure this past year.
Churches have suffered, you know, financial instability,
you know, economically, things have been horrid.
You know, then we had that nail biting election night,
all of that.
And so I feel like people are wore out.
I feel like people are just utterly tired.
They don't wanna quit, they don't wanna give up.
And so I feel like for global vision
(02:34):
and for the body of Christ as a whole,
that we're moving into a season where our seed
is crying out of the ground, right?
I mean, what we've been putting in,
we've been sowing, we've been giving,
we've been crying and fasting and praying
and just really pressing in.
And I think God's saying, you know, now this year in 25,
you're gonna see not just numerical growth,
(02:55):
but spiritual growth, real deepening of a maturity
in the body of Christ.
And so I think there's gonna be a lot of building.
I think it's gonna be a building season, a prophetic season.
I think it's gonna be an apostolic season.
We're gonna see leaders rise up that we never imagined
we're going to be the anointed leaders that they really are.
I think God's gonna call fresh new eyes and vision
into the ministry.
(03:16):
And I think even ministries, not just churches,
but ministries like Charisma,
they're gonna see a bump in readership
and in people, you know, stepping to the forefront,
wanting to be authors,
wanting to step out into their calling and the equipping
and the anointing that the Lord has given us.
So I think 25 is gonna be a year of rest.
It's not that we're not gonna be fighting and battling
and, you know, fighting principalities and powers
(03:37):
and spiritual wickedness in high places,
but I feel like the building that we're going to be doing
is really gonna be the benefits and the blessing
of the battles and the war that we've just come through,
because it has been, it's been hard.
It's been very difficult.
I have seen more pastors step away from ministry,
have to take, you know, sabbaticals,
(03:58):
some just completely out of the ministry altogether.
You know, marriages are hurting.
You know, there's more prodigals out there
than we've probably ever seen before.
Church giving is down across the board.
It just seems like pastors are discouraged.
I get calls like every single day
of people that are just absolutely defeated.
And so I think the Lord's gonna raise us up
and put us in a season of rest
(04:20):
and just kind of rebuild some things.
And I don't think he's gonna build it
the way that he used to build it
or the way that he used to do it.
You know, I think the days of just pressing
for church growth and more people in the seats,
I think that's done.
I think we wanna get the right people in the seats.
And I think God's gonna rebuild
and structures are gonna change
and vision is gonna change.
(04:40):
And I know that's a long way around the barn,
but I just feel like people need to go in 25
into a season of knowing that God's not gonna stop.
He's gonna accelerate his work.
But I think he's gonna let us get a little more sleep
and a little more rest and a little more relaxation.
And I tell our folks,
sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do
is take a nap.
You know, sometimes as a preacher,
(05:01):
if you take a nap or if you sleep in
and you feel guilty about it,
then the problem is the church has become your idol.
The ministry has become your idol.
And I think sometimes we're gonna have to be still.
We're gonna have to step back and just let God
do what he wants to do.
So we fought the battles
and here we are now on the forefront.
And I think God's gonna start raising some things up
(05:23):
and saying, I'm gonna let the vision come to pass,
but I'm gonna let you have a little bit of peace
while it's transpired.
Does that make sense?
That makes perfect sense, brother.
And I wanna actually,
I had a mental picture as you were talking about that.
I wanna submit this to you to see if this kind of connects
with what you're feeling the Lord saying.
It's kind of like whenever you are building a house
and you are pouring the foundation,
(05:43):
that concrete needs to rest.
You've poured the foundation,
the concrete needs to rest before you can build on it.
Otherwise you're dealing with a soupy mess
and it's not gonna settle right.
And a foundation that is not properly cured or rested
is going to get cracks.
It's going to have issues.
And if you try to build on it,
you're gonna have to go back and restore that
(06:04):
or repair that foundation again.
Is that kind of a good description
of what you were talking about too?
I think so, I think we've spent a lot of time
building superstructures without foundations.
And like you said, I think sometimes
we didn't let the foundation cure real well.
Oh, we got a foundation and boom, just start building it.
And God said, no, I'm gonna slow things down.
I'm gonna tear a few things down
(06:25):
so that we can rebuild correctly, right?
It's not that we built in sinfulness or rebellion.
I think sometimes the body of Christ just builds too quick.
People all the time, don't get behind, don't get behind.
Don't make God have to pull you along.
And I'll be honest, that's never my temptation.
The devil knows that I'm not somebody
that's gonna drag my feet.
So the biggest temptation that the devil gives me
(06:47):
is not to drag behind, but to get ahead of God,
to get out front, to push me too fast.
And so I think sometimes, I know in my own life
and at Global Vision as a leader there,
I think sometimes I've pushed maybe a little too quick.
And I think in 25, God's gonna pull some things back,
deconstruct some things, let the foundation cure,
as you said, right?
(07:07):
And build the superstructure in a different way.
So Pastor Greg, how is it
that people can actually practically rest?
That is something, especially in American culture,
we have such a difficult time with that.
And especially, we're not saved from our good works,
we're saved to do good works.
And sometimes people look at that and say,
(07:29):
well, I'm not saved unless I do those good works.
And we exhaust ourselves
because we become very good Christian doers
as opposed to Christian beings.
And so human beings, human doers as opposed to human beings.
And so give us some practicality of that
(07:49):
and how have you found rest in your life?
And I think we have twisted it up.
And we've made Christianity about do this, do this, do this,
when really it's about, you need to be this.
Because if you'll be right, you'll do right.
It's just, you'll know them by their fruits.
It's natural.
You don't have to beg an apple tree to produce apples.
It just automatically does
because it's what's inside of it.
And the reason people have bad fruit
(08:09):
is because they have a bad root.
And so we gotta get to the root of the issue.
And I think the root of the issue with a lot of people
is we do spiritually exhaust ourselves for no reason.
And we don't do it because we're trying to please God,
we're doing it because we're trying to please people.
Because the fear of man brings a snare.
We don't wanna look lazy.
But I'm telling you, we've got to take vacation time.
We gotta take Sabbath time, if you will.
(08:31):
We've gotta rest.
There's gotta be times when we just pull back and say,
you know what, I'm gonna spend time with my family.
I'm gonna spend time with the Lord.
And I think the Christmas season, New Year's, all of that,
people do that and we accentuate it.
But I think it's something
that we ought to do on a regular basis.
Don't spend time with your kids once a year
just because Santa Claus is coming to town.
Don't spend time with your kids on a regular basis
(08:52):
because they're dying for that, right?
And we need to bring back family time.
We need to bring back family altar time,
family worship, family prayer time.
I saw this video somebody sent me the other day
and it was extraordinarily convicting.
They had all these parents, all these adults in these rooms
around these big tables, kinda like this.
And they were interviewing them and they asked them,
(09:12):
if you could have a meal with anybody on the planet,
living or dead, who would it be?
The moms and dads are like Tom Cruise
and Justin Timberlake or whatever.
They're talking about all these famous movie stars.
Every one of them, hands down without fail,
they were even arguing back and forth.
All of them said that these famous people,
either they'd like to resurrect and have a meal with
(09:35):
or somebody that's alive today that they'd like to talk to.
And so then they took all of them out of the room
and put them behind a big glass
and brought all of their kids in.
And they asked their kids the same question.
And all their kids were like,
I'd like to have a meal with my parents.
I'd like to have a meal with my siblings.
I just wanna sit down and have dinner with my family.
And I was like, holy smokes, that's a reality right there.
(09:57):
What a gut check, what a heart check.
And sometimes we just gotta slow down
and have a meal with our family.
As a pastor, I don't keep my phone on all night long anymore.
I just don't, I'm not going to,
because what's gonna happen is,
I used to think to myself,
if I don't answer the phone at two o'clock in the morning,
then so-and-so is gonna get mad and leave the church.
Well, guess what?
I ended up answering my phone at two o'clock in the morning,
(10:19):
didn't get any sleep.
And three years later,
they left the church over something else.
What difference does it make?
And so what we've done is we've made an idol
out of our calling.
And I think sometimes we can fall more in love
with what God's called us to do
than the God that actually called us to do it.
And sometimes we just have to slow down.
And this past year for me has been learning that,
(10:40):
especially in this Bible reading marathon that I've been in,
just going through the Word of God.
I've had to slow down and recognize
the world's not gonna fall apart
and global vision's not gonna implode or explode
just because Greg Locke's not there.
The world doesn't revolve around me.
The world revolves around the presence of the Holy Spirit.
And we've gotta rest.
We've gotta, men, you need to date your wife.
(11:02):
I'm telling you, take your wife on a date.
I don't care if you walk in a public park,
feed ducks and eat baloney.
I don't care if it's a five-star restaurant.
It doesn't matter.
You need to date your wife.
It's so valuable.
It's so important.
And so now I'm dating my wife every week.
I'm taking my kids out and going to the movies with them.
We're going roller skating, whatever.
(11:22):
And I'm not feeling guilty about it anymore.
People need to relax.
People need to rest.
And I'm gonna say to any pastor that's watching this,
quit running your family to death
and making the church the golden idol
and the golden calf of your house.
Your wife needs you.
Your kids need you.
In my case, and in some of your cases,
your grandkids need you.
It's time to slow down.
(11:43):
The church is not going to explode
if you're not there for one Wednesday or one Sunday.
And by the way, if it does, it probably needs to, right?
Because I told our folks a while back,
we have a one generational problem at our church.
Meaning by that, we've created a church
that has one generation in it.
If I get clipped by a train on my mountain bike,
God forbid, the church has like six weeks left in it.
(12:06):
And I'm like, why are we not raising up
next level leadership?
That church should be able to go on without Greg Locke.
If it's really a God's body, God's family,
if it's really a church of the Lord Jesus Christ,
then it shouldn't matter whether I'm there or not.
I get it, apostles and pastors and prophets and all of that.
And I know we have to be figureheads
and we're held to a higher level of accountability.
(12:28):
But I'm at a place now where I'm just like, you know what?
I'm gonna back off and I'm gonna let God do his work.
I'm not forcing myself or the Lord's work on anybody.
And so again, there's so much in me right now
coming out of 24 into 25.
I just want people to know this is a season of rest,
not a season of stopping, a season of being still.
You can be still without being stopped.
(12:50):
You can keep doing what you know
the Holy Spirit wants you to do,
but you don't have to run yourself to death.
You've got one body, you've got one life, you've got one mind.
It's time to get in the gym,
not just because it's a New Year's resolution.
I'm so tired of New Year's resolution.
We need some New Year's repentance is what we need.
We need to take care of our bodies.
We need to eat right, we need to sleep well.
We need to love our families.
We need to get our nose out of the newspaper,
(13:12):
stick it in the word of God.
I tell people, get off Facebook
and put your face in the book.
It is time to spend massive amounts of time
in the presence of God and with your family.
And when you do that,
God's gonna take care of his ministry
because it's his work, it's his church, it's his body.
And so all of that to say,
sometimes we just need to stand back
(13:33):
and let God do his work and quit pretending
like we gotta be the hero of the hour.
Amen, amen.
We don't need to be the hero of the hour.
We just gotta let God do his thing and trust in him.
I mean, what the word says,
trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding
in all your ways acknowledge him
and he will make your path straight.
(13:54):
But trusting in the Lord
and leaning not in your own understanding.
If you lean on your own understanding,
you're gonna fall on that.
It's like you're leaning on a cane
and that's not a very good foundation there.
Pastor Greg, what is it that you feel
the Lord is saying to your church?
What are you gonna be preaching at the turn of this year?
What is the word that God's given you?
(14:16):
Obviously rest is a big part of that,
but where in the Bible are you gonna be preaching from
about this message?
Yeah, it's interesting.
The other night in our Christmas Eve service,
I almost preached the message
that I'm going to actually be preaching this weekend.
The Holy Spirit said, no,
I want you to say a few other things
and talk about some things.
And then this weekend I'm gonna be preaching on
(14:36):
how to have the greatest year ever.
How to absolutely have the greatest year you've ever had.
And I have these 10 principles, they all begin with F.
But a lot of them have to do with,
at least for the context of our church.
I told our people,
there's some things that we've had to leave
in the gravel parking lot at old Leaven and Dirt Road.
There's some stuff when the tent came down,
it had to go with it.
(14:58):
There's some stuff that can't transition.
There's some people that didn't make the transition.
They didn't make the leap.
Doesn't make them bad people, that's fine.
Good people, lead good churches.
I tell them, if you're a good person
that leaves a good church, just stay good.
Just stay good.
And so, not everybody made the leap and that's fine.
I didn't need everybody to make the leap.
There was a time I thought,
oh, we gotta have this packed house
and you're gonna have deliverance services all the time
(15:20):
and you're gonna have thousands of people showing up.
And the Lord said, you know what?
I didn't need that with Gideon
and I don't need that with you.
I'm gonna pull some things back,
I'm gonna scale some things back
and I'm gonna sharpen your vision.
I'm gonna give you a laser focus
on what I've called you to do.
And so this weekend, I'm gonna preach on the 10 ways
you can have the best year that you've ever had.
And for example, very practical things.
(15:42):
Like point number one is,
forgive the people that will never ask you to.
We're good at forgiving people sometimes.
I say good, we should be good
at forgiving people that ask us.
But sometimes you're gonna have to forgive people
that will never ask you, right?
People that did blow your face off,
people that hurt you, people that harmed you,
people that caused great deals of trauma
and drama in your life.
And there's just some very practical things
that we're gonna have to do.
(16:02):
There's some stuff we gotta leave behind.
Paul said, forgetting those things which are behind.
The body of Christ is horrible
about carrying baggage with us everywhere that we go.
And we pull it out and we show it off.
It's like show and tell, oh, look what so and so did.
Look what so and so said.
And God says, would you get rid of that mess?
Would you bury that thing?
Would you not take that on the 12 mile journey
from Mount Juliet to Lebanon, Tennessee?
(16:24):
And so I told our folks, look,
there's some things we just cannot bring here.
Now, from a very practical standpoint,
this past weekend, and I don't know if you or others
have seen it, people watching our live stream now,
it looks so good in the building.
But this past weekend, I was letting our folks know
one of the major goals I have this year,
it's very audacious goal.
It's a huge supernatural feat of amazement
(16:46):
that happens and I believe it's going to.
We wanna take 500 people from our church this year.
And I wanna put 500 people on the mission field
this year in 25.
Now, I'm talking about short-terms mission.
Now, some of them will end up going maybe
for the rest of their life,
but I wanna get 500 people in third world countries
preaching and teaching and working with people.
(17:06):
Because if we're a church that's called global vision,
we have a local vision,
but we better really have a global vision.
And it's one thing for the pastor to jet set
all over the world and preach.
I wanna get our people on the mission field
and not just Israel.
And everybody knows my heart for Israel
and our political work there and our spiritual work there,
but I wanna get people on the mission field.
And so one of the goals we have this year
(17:27):
is to get 500 people out of their comfort zone
in our congregation and plant their feet
on a mission field somewhere around the world.
And I believe that will radically change them,
which in turn will radically change our church.
I love that vision.
I wholeheartedly stand with you for that
because I was a missionary for eight years myself.
(17:49):
A lot of short-term trips and training up people
to take them with me.
Those eight years in Youth of the Mission
were foundational for my life.
And so I know what a short-term mission trip
can do for somebody
where you're getting out of your comfort zone,
you're doing something that you might never thought
that you would do it,
and you're making an impact in somebody's life
(18:11):
around the world for the gospel.
And in turn, you get affected as well.
And I know that that's gonna cause great fruit
at Global Vision.
And I would encourage everybody that's watching,
if you have the opportunity to go on a mission trip,
either just do it or make an opportunity to go do that.
Your life will be changed for sure.
(18:32):
Pastor Greg, I wanna ask you this question.
This is, you became more prominent several years ago
because of your political stance.
And obviously you were very pro-Trump at that point.
And then God convicted you
of basically making politics an idol.
You got things lined up,
and then deliverance became something you were known for.
(18:56):
You're seeing great revival.
But politically, we've now seen that shift
that you were crying for years ago,
and we've seen this now.
Tell me about your impressions with the political scene
in our country now,
as opposed to when it was an idol for you.
And obviously you're happy with what has turned out.
(19:19):
Just give me an update on Greg Locke from 2020 to 2024.
It has been an interesting transition.
And I was very forceful politically, and I still am.
I'm very controversial when it comes to courage
and Trump and all of that.
But I am excited for the direction
I see us going.
I wasn't there for a long time.
Maybe that's why I was so strenuous
(19:40):
in the way that I dealt with things,
because I saw this demise coming,
and I thought we have got to wake people up, right?
And so I do believe that we're going
into what I call a space of grace.
I think economically things are going to be better.
I think Americans are going to have more money
in their pocket.
I think things are going to look better
on the religious scene, on the spiritual scene,
because obviously the Biden administration
and the Trump administration
have two very different ideas administratively
(20:03):
when it comes to the local church.
When it comes to 501C3s and things like that.
And so I'm excited for what can be.
I'm excited for our new partnership with Israel.
I think Mike Huckabee was the greatest pick
that could have possibly been imagined
for ambassador to Israel.
And so there's a lot of things
that I'm very excited about.
The one thing I'm not excited about,
(20:23):
the one thing that I think is a great danger
is now that we, if I can say it like this,
now that we got our way, the danger is millions
of Christians are going to go back to sleep
and they can't.
We cannot go back to sleep this time.
We have got to stay awake.
We have got to stay vigilant.
We've got to stay in the fight.
Just because we got the guy in the White House
that we're happy about, that we think is the right guy,
(20:46):
we got to keep building, right?
Just because we got our way,
it's not about the White House, it's about God's house.
Okay, we've got to build.
We got to build just like in Ezra's day.
The people were all excited politically,
but God said, yeah, but my house is lying in ruins.
My house is lying in waste.
And so it's not that we have to make politics
the main thing, okay?
Soul winning, reaching people,
(21:08):
loving souls with the gospel, the kingdom,
that's the main thing.
But politics is a big part of it.
I mean, let's be honest, it's a grave part of it.
And it's been a huge, huge condition as of late,
whereas now we see God has done a beautiful thing.
He's done a supernatural miracle.
And the worst thing we could do is go back to sleep
and just kind of just, well, you know,
let's let it happen, what's going to happen?
(21:29):
No, no, no, I think we need to jump into the forefront
like never before, because if we want four good years,
who's to say we can't have eight good years, 12 good years?
I mean, I really believe that God showed us His mercy
in a marvelous way.
So here's what I told our church.
Here's what I've been telling churches
all over the world since the election.
If we go back to sleep this time,
if we drop the ball this time,
(21:49):
if we don't unify as a body,
if we keep fussing about stupid stuff in the body of Christ
and we drop the ball again, we're done.
We don't get another round, this is it.
This is the back burner.
This is plan B.
This is the final occasion and the final opportunity
we have to show the world
what the kingdom of God really looks like.
And so I'm gonna be loud and forceful and moving forward,
(22:13):
but I think in a different way,
because I'm not interested in building up the White House.
I'm interested in building up God's house,
because if we do not clean up the corruption
in the house of God, it doesn't matter who we vote in,
Democrat, Republican, Independent,
it makes absolutely no difference.
And so there has been a shift in me
and I am much more spiritually, I guess, oriented,
(22:36):
understanding that it's really not about the guy
that's sitting at the oval desk.
It's really about the people that are behind God's desk,
the sacred desk, the pulpit.
And so pastors, men and women of God,
we've got to stand up, we've got to push back,
we've got to preach,
but we cannot let our people go back to sleep again.
We can't.
We cannot let our people think, well, we got our way.
And so let's just sit back and do nothing
for the next four years.
(22:57):
No, I think we've got to stand up and do more
in the next four years than we've ever done before.
Because now that I have grandkids,
I want to leave my grandson something to stand up for, right?
So it's not about the next four years.
For me, it's about the next 24 years.
It's about the next 40 years.
So body of Christ, do not get lazy on God.
Don't get lazy on the kingdom.
(23:18):
Just because you got Trump in the office,
Trump's not the savior.
Jesus is the savior.
And when God raised up Cyrus, okay,
the people of God had to get busy.
The people of God still had to do something.
So we're in full blown building mode.
And so let's just stay busy
and stay vigilant for the cause of Christ.
Amen. Amen.
So I guess you could say that you're,
(23:40):
if you can kind of summarize your word for this year
is rest, but don't sleep.
That's exactly right.
That's exactly right.
You need to rest, but don't you get too sleepy?
You know, rest well and then coffee up, right?
It's time to fight.
We still got to fight.
We still got to stay in the battle.
But we need to rest.
We need to fight about the right things.
I've learned through the years, especially politically,
(24:00):
I don't have to show up to every fight I'm invited to.
I'm gonna fight the right things in the right ways.
Because if you lose your focus in the fight,
you'll fight the wrong people
and you'll fight the wrong battles.
And I don't wanna fight the wrong people
or the wrong battles.
I wanna fight demons, right?
I'm gonna fight wickedness and ungodliness
and leftism and wokeism.
I wanna fight the right things.
And when you fight the right battles in the right way,
(24:22):
when you win the victory,
it means a whole lot more to you.
Amen and amen.
Pastor Greg Locke, thank you so much for sharing
what God has been doing and what he is speaking
about this next season as we're going into that.
Thank you so much for sharing that today.
Thank you, brother.
Appreciate you.
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