PAUL TRAVIS

God increased my IQ from 98 to 146 in less than 10 minutes; simply by me surrendering to His perfect will. Please allow me to share my testimony about the miracle working power of God.  It all began in the year 2010 when my call to ministry was revealed to me and I humbly accepted this call from the Lord. The world loves to quantify the power of God with science and theory, which is sometimes needed. Even Jesus Christ taught in multi-layered parables so that the believers and the world alike could understand.  Here’s my humbling story about how our gifts from God will make room for us.

 

Our Gifts Make Room [Tenfold Ministry by Paul Travis: Copyrighted Material]

 

The gifts that God gives to us will always make room for us. This is why we started this writing with this critical element in fulfilling our call to ministry. The first step in fulfilling this call to ministry is to find out what our call is and then come into agreement with what the Lord has placed inside of us. There is a supernatural explosion that takes place in the spirit realm when we finally stumble across the plans that God has set aside for us. There’s nothing like that moment you find out what the Lord has called you to.

 

Let me share my testimony with you when the Lord baptized me personally. Yes, I know that it sounds a little strange if you haven’t experienced this yet. I will never forget the day the Lord came down to me and baptized me into the call that he has imparted into me. I was in the place where I just decided to take a ministry class because I simply wanted to learn the Holy Bible better. I never had a desire to stand up in front of folks preaching or doing anything related to ministry. I was just at a place where I  had to make a decision about whom I would serve. My marriage was falling apart because I was slowly deciding to get my home in order. I needed help in my marriage, and no person could help me. I asked for help from the leadership at my church, and they kind of ignored the questions that I had about what the word said regarding different marriage scriptures. I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t explain to me the scriptures that pertained to marriage when they were supposed to be the experts.

 

This was a very frustrating and discouraging time for me. I began to ask questions to the Lord day and night. Then all of a sudden, a ministry class was being offered at my local church. I had nothing else to do on Monday nights anyway, so why not learn a little bit about the Holy Bible? So I signed up, paid my tuition, and purchased my books. I remember being so discouraged the weekend before the first ministry class started.

 

I believed that all these anointed people at my church would come along and save my marriage and lead me into the right direction. I was looking for fathering or mentorship from those folks around me, and all I received was disappointment after disappointment. Now I was frustrated, and I wrestled with God that weekend. I was just tired of not getting answers to my questions. I was fed up with God. I was trying my best to do what he had asked of me, and I was still failing in my marriage and failing to find a ministry person to father me.

 

Saturday, I was tired of being “sick and tired.” I questioned the little bit that I knew about the Holy Bible. But on Sunday morning, the Lord showed me mercy and woke me up. So I got up early and went to the early church service. The church that I attended had an open altar during praise and worship. So I went up to the altar to worship with the other believers. Worship was super anointed, and halfway through, one of the staff pastors came up to me with another guy to catch. This pastor “laid hands” upon me and prophetically told me that “it’s time to step up and be counted.” He repeated this several times and prayed in tongues over me. While he repeated, I confessed, “Yes, Lord, I no longer want to do things my own way.”

 

I’ve had “hand laid” on me several times before, but this time was very different. I felt the power of God flow through this pastor. I was moved and stirred up like I’ve never been before. I then fell to the floor like a baby. It was as though I was lying on a feather-soft cloud. I’m a big man and an ex-football player (6’5”and 270 lbs.), and I felt like a feather. Playing football, I had fallen many times, and not one of those times felt like this. I began to pray in tongues, and my right hand began to shake like I was being electrocuted. I felt the presence of God flowing through my body, and it “blew my mind.”

 

Now Monday has come, the first day of my ministry class, and I was overflowing with excitement. So I attended my first ministry class, and it just happened to be about what we covered earlier on in this chapter. The class was titled Motivational Gifts. The first session of the six-week class was kind of an overview of what would be taught as well as an introduction to the motivational gifts.

 

At the conclusion of the class, I received the homework assignment that would change my life forever. The lead instructor who just happened to be the same pastor who laid hands on me that Sunday gave us the assignment to go to a website and take a quick motivational gifts assessment test. So I rushed home after the class to complete this assignment. It was getting late; it had to be about 11:00 p.m. or so, and I had to wake up for work at 4:00 a.m., but I just had a strong conviction to get this first assessment completed. I had all week to finish the assignment, but this matter just seemed very urgent. The Holy Spirit was definitely involved.

 

Just as I was about to find out what my motivational gifts are, I felt the urge to pray first. I prayed a prayer out loud that was led by the Holy Spirit of God. I remember holding my Bible up to heaven and saying the prayer for gifts impartation.

 

Gifts Impartation Prayer:

“Father God, I no longer want to do things my way. I want Your Holy Spirit to control my life with your word. I submit to this word 100 percent. I can’t live this life anymore without this word governing my every step and every word. Lord, I am who you say I am. Whatever you call me to, Lord. I accept the call with everything that I have in me. Lord, please guide my hands and my mind while taking this test because I want to be who you said I would be and not who I want to be. Lead me, Lord. Send your Holy Spirit to guide me. I give the little that I have to you, Lord, just like Jesus gave you two fish and five loaves. I ask you to break and then bless what I have to feed the five thousand. In Jesus’s name! Amen!”

 

I then finished the prayer, and my right hand was shaking and tingling again like it did when the pastor laid hands on me. I finished up the test online and hit Submit after I had completed. Then the scores came up, and I was surprised to see my top motivational gift. My top-scored gift was prophecy. I said to myself, “What is a prophecy?” Because I truly didn’t know its meaning, and I couldn’t even spell the word.

 

I kind of had an idea about my other two top gift scores. Second was teaching, and third was administration. I had experience in both of these, so I could see those operating in me. But what’s up with this prophecy gift? I went back and forth with the Lord on this one. I just couldn’t see what the test had revealed to me. I thought to myself that there had to be an error or something, so I took the test once again, and I received the same results with an even higher score in prophecy. I stopped fighting the Holy Spirit on this, and I just started praying in tongues. After about five minutes of praying in tongues, the Lord led me to pray out loud again.

 

I Accept Prayer:

“Father God, I thank you for being God alone. Father, please forgive me for rejecting what you have revealed to me. Father, I must be honest, I haven’t the slightest clue what prophecy is, but I will accept what you have given to me, Father God. If you gave this gift to me, then it must be meant for me. I accept your perfect gifts, Lord. I won’t stand in the way of what your plans are for my life. Use me as your vessel, Lord. Father, teach me how this gift works and what it is, and I will do this thing. It is so, in Jesus’s mighty name! Amen!”

 

By the time I got to the amen, the spirit of the Lord had entered the ten-foot-by-eight-foot room (den) that I was in. It was as though a cloud had come down from heaven that very second. My eyes were closed, and I saw a great light come upon me. As I closed my eyes, I saw what had looked like a TV show’s or news station’s teleprompter, with many different scriptures flashing like lighting before my eyes. It seemed as though every scripture that I had ever read was instantly downloaded into my brain.

 

I had read the whole Bible before, but I could never understand it. At that very second, I understood every verse that I had ever read. I began to pray out loud, and my speech was changed. My words sounded like those in the King James Bible. I started speaking with power and intellect. I understood all the truths in the Holy Bible. I then asked the Lord what had just happened. And the Lord spoke to me in the Spirit and said, “You have been baptized by Jesus Christ. I have imparted my gifts into you, servant. Come follow me. I have a high call on your life.”

 

Talk about being blown away with mind renewal. Many of you will have similar experiences. It took all of five minutes for the Lord to take a hardheaded, below-average high school and college student and turn him into a biblical theologian. Jesus did this thing instantly; he personally trained me and fathered me himself. The Lord showed me how powerful he is that night. I had a Paul of Tarsus moment; this was my “road to Damascus “experience, and it would change my life for good. This is how your gifts will make room for you.

 

[Tenfold Ministry by Paul Travis: Copyrighted Material]