I am 37 years of age today. I was born in the Ukraine, to wonderful parents Victor and Zoya
and I'm the oldest of five. At the age of 13, I immigrated to the United States. Well my family
immigrated to the United States, and this is where I started to discover who I am in Jesus, my
ministry. My pastor had a huge input and effect on my life. As well as one of my oldest and dearest
friends, Ilya, who is now also the associate pastor of the church that I pastor. I had a chance
to meet my wife on Facebook. Yes, you can use a mouse to find a spouse, and we've been married
for the last 13 years. So she's been such a great help and also my best friend. Most importantly,
the Holy Spirit is the one that I would say, He has shaped and changed my life. I want to take
a moment in this video and actually share with you some of the principles that I have learned
in my life. I'll share just a quick 14 principles I have learned in my life. And I actually want to
hear from you, how old you are if feel comfortable sharing that and what is one thing that God has
taught you? What's one thing that you have learned in your life? You know, a lot of people live their
life but they don't learn through their life. They go through their life but they don't grow through
their life. I want to be a person that doesn't just go through life but grows through life. Come
on somebody, and so here are my 14 things that I have learned through, obviously experience,
walking through what I have walked through. The first one is that I live by principles but I am
led by the presence. I have principles, laws, and guard rails, and disciplines but I am not led by
them. Jesus, the Holy Spirit is the one that leads my life. The second thing is that quick
growth builds my ego but a slow process builds my character. I learned this the hard way because for
a long time I couldn't get the breakthrough that I wanted, both in my life and in my ministry,
and I was so frustrated. I didn't know the need and the process that it takes, and how important
process is to our progress. The third thing that was dear to me since a young life that
I was living as a Christian and a young minister, and that is walking under authority prepares me to
walk in authority. It started first with honoring my parents, and then also honoring my pastor,
who is my uncle. And I'll be honest with you, submission and honor didn't come easy for me.
But I learned from Jesus that when He was young, at the age of 12 He submitted to His parents. And
that to me was an example, that I should live my life walking under authority. It's like an
umbrella. It protects you from a lot of foolish mistakes, and also God sets you up then to walk
in the authority. The fourth thing that I started to learn later on in life, and that is the pace
of grace is where the revival is sustained. You know it's one thing to get on fire for God but
if you don't develop a rhythm for revival, if you don't develop habits for your holiness. If
it's just gonna be sporadic, and it doesn't have any rhythms and any pace in your life, and you're
just kind of running, running running and you burn out. You very soon will quit. I remember
this happened when I was in youth ministry and I felt so burnt out, I felt so tired. I actually
came to my pastor. I didn't want to quit, I was just tired and my pastor told me this. He says,
the difference between a young horse and an old horse, is that a young horse starts really fast
but he doesn't have a pace, and he quits. An old horse starts kind of slow, and he says,
but he keeps this rhythm and the pace, and then he always outruns the young horse. And so my pastor
looked at me and he said, you're the young horse. He's like, you run out of breath. He's like,
develop a pace. It's a rhythm. Christianity is a walk, he says. It's a journey. It's not trying to
outrun somebody, and so that gave me really just this being sustained in my walk with the Lord, and
develop habits instead of just living on hype. The fifth thing and this is, I would say, especially
when I got married. In the beginning I didn't know about this, I started to learn about this more
and more. And that is to lead out of my marriage, instead of leaving my marriage out dry or leaving
my marriage out of my ministry. You know in the beginning, I was kind of focused more on my
ministry and then whatever left over, I gave it to my marriage. But I started to change and pastor my
house and focused more on that. I'm not ignoring the ministry. Ministry is very important. I'm very
dedicated. I love to work hard. But at the same time, I want to lead out of the intimacy, out of
the overflow, out of the love that I have with my wife and for my ministry to receive the overflow
of my marriage. Instead of my marriage receive the scraps that are left because I gave everything to
the ministry. Plus, the last thing the world needs is another divorced pastor, another
pastor who cheated on his spouse and all of this stuff. And I don't want to leave that legacy and
bring shame to the name of Jesus. The sixth thing that I would say is one of my strong principles,
for anybody who works with me and knows me, that I am a hard worker. I love hard work. I love
people that are hard working and I cannot stand people who are lazy. That's just kind of one of
the things that I do not like. My mom is the one that instilled that in me. My grandma is the one
that instilled there in me and so my principle is this, is you have to do more than what's expected.
I've always been like that. That when it comes to doing something, I try to go the extra mile. In my
efforts for God and even for other people, trying to do more than what's expected. And I found out,
that on the other side of hard work and diligence is actually God's blessing. You know,
Joseph is a good example for me in that area is that Joseph was invited by Pharaoh to translate
his dream. Yet when Joseph wasn't just translating Pharaoh's dream, he actually gave Pharaoh a plan
of how to rescue the whole nation out of poverty. He went further than what was expected and he
ended up getting a job in the Pharaoh's court. If he would have just translated the dream,
did what was expected. He would have simply got probably a jail free card but he wouldn't get a
job at the palace. And I've noticed one thing about people who are successful and effective,
is they typically are hard workers. Now there's a difference between being a workaholic and being a
hard worker. But we need to be a people who are not slothful, lazy, complacent, do bare minimum
and expect maximum result. Those people, I have from my 20 years of being in a full-time Ministry,
I have seen they don't get very far in life. Not because God doesn't want to bless them.
It's because they're lazy. The seventh thing that I have learned, and this pretty much contradicts
the hard work, and that is that I'm a human being, not a human doing. And this is something lately
the Lord's been really dealing with my heart, to not treat myself as a machine. That's one of the
reasons why you see me saying things like, "God doesn't use people, He leads and loves people."
God's been really doing a deeper work in my heart, that just because I work hard, it doesn't
mean that my identity comes from work, from my efforts. But my identity comes only from Jesus,
not from these external things. And it's hard for me, I'll be honest with you because I love work,
I love to do something and being is kind of hard for me. But the Bible says, "Be fruitful and then
multiply." So God it focuses more on my being, than actually on my doing because my doing flows
out of my being. And so it's kind of one of those things that I'm walking through that right now.
Number eight is that when God removes people out of my life, it's because some greater fruit is
coming. When I used to go through transitions, and I don't have a lot of them but I still have
them. And people would live my life or sometimes I had to kind of leave some people's life. I felt so
painful. It was so difficult to go through those seasons. In fact, these transitions made it very
difficult for my soul, and I started to learn throughout my life, that God's future and plan
is not connected to people who leave my life. But it's connected to His promise and to His calling,
and that it's not a punishment when some people walk out. It's actually a pruning. It's that
Gods pulling me back to release me forward. It's you know Lot being removed from Abraham's life.
It's you know people leaving Jesus's ministry and saying, "Hey, we can't walk with you," and Jesus
didn't stop. He kept going for forward. Gideon's army shrinking and God doesn't say, oh I'm sorry
Gideon, we can't do anything about it. Go back to your little hut that you were hiding from
Midianites. No. God said, "Gideon, go forward." It's when you know Jesus had thousands of people
follow Him, and then at the day of Pentecost there was just 120. Yet the church marched forward. It's
when Moses died and Joshua had to go forward. And I really learned this through quite a few painful
experiences, that I took it very personally when some people exited my life. That oh my goodness,
that's it's over. And I realized, actually God was preparing me for a new season and He couldn't do
that with everyone on board. He had to offboard some people. Number nine. I've learned that men
of God are like gloves, and God is the hand. Now this is one of my principles. It gets me
in trouble with some circles and some people don't understand this part. But I don't criticize other
men of God just because I don't like them. Now if somebody's way off, and you know they
say something that is going completely off and it doesn't sit right, occasionally I will highlight
that. But I am very, very, careful. In fact, to the point where some people call me soft,
some people will call me compromising and some people will call me spineless in this regard.
I have been close enough to certain men of God to see their weakness and their humanity. And I know
people who've been close enough to some men of God, and one of the reasons I am very hesitant
and extremely careful to start throwing stones at men of God, especially when they fall. Is because
I've seen throughout the history in the Bible, that that is not a behavior that God endorses,
if he uses somebody who keeps failing. Like Noah gets drunk, his son you know makes fun
of him. That didn't go well for his son. Moses makes a mistake. His sister you know kind of
goes through this whole thing and that doesn't go well for her. Saul you know goes all crazy,
David still honored him, and so like in my mind, my pastor always taught me. He says,
just because you don't understand it, just because you don't like it, nobody's asking
for your opinion. And when people do ask for your opinion, don't give them. Just go to prayer. Pray
for these people. If somebody's misbehaving, reach out to them privately and give them correction and
rebuke. Men of God are like gloves and God is the hand. Sometimes gloves can rip but what you did
with your hands is still beautiful and powerful, and so that's kind of where my stance is on that.
Number 10 and that is faith is not a bridge over troubled waters. It's the path through them. I've
learned this the hard way. The most painful way is that faith is not always something that delivers
you from a problem. Sometimes it delivers you through the problem. Sometimes God gives you
power to walk over the water. Sometimes He gives you strength to swim, like Paul,
and sometimes He supernatural splits the waters and you walk through it. And honestly, I would
say I experienced three of those in my life. There were seasons where God healed me of things that
were supernatural but there are seasons where He gave me strength to walk through certain things,
and gave me supernatural strength. And there are seasons where God gave me just a supernatural
deliverance from certain things. But I've learned to kind of not limit faith to something that just
removes the problems. Sometimes it just gives me strength to get through them. 11, and this one is
something that I practice and live by, and that is blaming my circumstances for my character is like
blaming a mirror for my looks. When I was younger I believed that I couldn't change my character,
God couldn't work on my character because I never took responsibility for my reactions.
Somebody's action would provoke a reaction in me, and these reactions are really what
define my character. Because really life is mostly about not what happens to you,
it's what happens in you or how you respond, and so I did not care about my responses. So like if
I would get delayed, my flights get delayed, or I'm stuck in traffic. Or like my wife is taking
too long to get ready or somebody's not behaving the way I like. Of course I'm quick to anger,
very fast to speak and it's something God's been working. Since I developed intimacy with the Holy
Spirit, I'm not saying I'm perfect in this but I'm definitely, I would say, better today than I was
a few years ago. And that is to be more patient, and to realize that my character is formed by my
reactions to somebody's actions. And if I keep blaming the circumstances for why I'm acting,
reacting and my attitude. If I'm blaming the circumstances, it's like waking up and saying,
hey, the mirror, breaking the mirror because you have bad hair. So we don't do that. We take
responsibility for the bad hair and we don't break the mirror. Now certain actions of other people
need to be confronted, but we also need to conform our reaction and attitude to the character and
likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Number 12 and this lesson, you've heard this shared throughout
my sermons is that I try not to ask this question, "Is this wrong?" I ask the question, "Is this
wise?" Now assuming that we're talking about gray areas. When it comes to gray areas in my life,
like where the Bible is not clear that it's wrong. I always ask myself a question, not "Oh,
let me go do that because there is no Scripture and a verse against it." I ask myself a question,
"Is this wise?" Because the Bible has a whole book on wisdom and God is a wise God. And there are
things in life that are not wrong, they're just stupid, they're just not wise. And so I would have
made a lot of mistakes in my earlier teenage years if I would have just hid under this covering, "Oh,
it's not wrong. You know it's not wrong to kiss. It's not wrong to drink alcohol. It's not wrong."
And people kind of come up with these things, and for me it's always been, "Is this wise?"
Is this wise? In light of my past, in light of my future, in light of God's character,
in light of the testimony that I could have to the world. In light on where this can lead, is
this a wise thing to do for me? And so I draw my lines, not legalistically but out of liberty that
I have in Christ, way before the "wrong." I draw my lines on where the wisdom is. In my finances,
in my morality and also in my schedule. The third thing is that sacrifice unlocks new seasons. For
me that's been huge. For any of you who ever heard me preach before, you probably know one
thing is that I have a very strong teaching and a strong lifestyle of sacrifice. Both
in finances and in fasting because I have this revelation that is really, it's part of my DNA,
and that is sacrifice unlocks new seasons. I don't sacrifice so I can earn salvation, I don't
sacrifice so that I can earn God's favor. But I do sacrifice so that I can position myself for
the best preparation for the new season, and I've seen it. Every time God called me to a sacrifice,
I had new seasons open to me in a way that I would have never ever been able to open it. Like I've
always knocked on doors but I lacked the keys to unlock them. And there are many people that knock
on doors and they're like, knock, the Bible says knock and it'll be opened to you. But sometimes
when you begin to knock, God begins to speak and God begins to speak to you about your sacrifice.
It could be in the area of finances. It could be in the area of morality and it could be also
in the area of fasting. And I've seen that those two connect, is that your sacrifice has some kind
of an influence on the new season. And the last thing and that is if any of you know my ministry,
you know that this to be true. That I believe if I don't pray, I stray and if I don't fast,
I won't last. So that's kind of one of my sayings is that I pray, so I don't stray. Now I pray of
course not only for that reason. I pray to love God, to get to know Him more and to spend time in
His presence, and I fast for other reasons. But I really believe the fasting is the key to sustain
hunger for God, and then prayer is really the key to keep me dependent and humble before the Lord.
So these are just my 14 thoughts that I wanted to share with you. Some of the principles that I live
by and some of the things that kind of I would say define who I am. This video I know is a little bit
selfish because I'm kind of talking about myself. But my desire is to invite you into my world,
where you can experience and also hear some of the things that I live by and I hope that they
will bring encouragement to you, and I would love to hear from you. What are some of the
things that you've learned in your journey of life as a spiritual person? In the conclusion,
I want to say thank you for all these years supporting this ministry, praying for me and
thank you for your birthday wishes. And if you desire to bless me with something personally,
I'll have the links below just for this video and that's it. But I just want to say thank you once
again for staying close to our ministry, and being connected with me, and honestly for being that
person that God has given me the call to impact and reach. It's been my pleasure to do that and
if God gives me more years, I'm going to continue to do that for His glory and for your benefit.