This excerpt is taken from:

The Danger of Doing the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason - PART I

Bishop T.D. Jakes - Woman, Thou Art Loosed Conference 2001

"I've often had the privilege aside from being called on to preach the gospel, which is my calling and which is my passion and which is my life, I've often had the privilege also to be called upon as a motivational speaker to motivate people to achieve their dreams; and I believe it is very, very important that we go after and in fact achieve our dreams. To just exist is a waste of days. Every day God gives you is an opportunity to manifest what he placed inside of you. No matter how diverse that placing is you need to bring out every creative gift that God has inside of you. To maximize what he has placed inside of you, to minimize your liabilities and to focus on your objectives and move progressively forward. I want to be motivational because it has taken motivation to move me from the struggles and the chaos and the many woundings of life and the many odious remarks that have been said against me from childhood on. I had to rise up above those circumstances and build what God placed in my spirit.

I want to challenge you and motivate you, inspire you to be all that you can be. My idea of a good message is when you leave the room so high that you don't need a car. I like to see people floating across the parking lot suspended, animated in the middle of air walking as if their feet could not touch the ground. I like to see people with a gleam in their eye so strong that they need no light in their hotel room. I think it's a good sermon when you go home and you're so excited you can't sleep that night. Come on somebody.

I like to preach until you start making plans and jotting notes and getting ready to go back and start using what you've learned against the enemy. Want to be motivational, want to be inspirational, want to be even more important revelational. For revelations in your spirit will in themselves motivate you to maximize your potential. To be motivational comes from a word to motivate. To motivate to motivate you to inspire to ignite you to go beyond limitations to be the impulse that causes you to surge to another era of life and another position and posture of life.

But deeper than the word motivate is motives and I find that you cannot ignore people's motives. You cannot motivate people beyond their motives and motives has a whole lot to do with who you are, what you do and how you function. Look at somebody and say motives. I must warn you as I begin to talk about motives tonight motives require that you do something that people seldom do. Motives require that you have the audacity to confront yourself to look yourself in the mirror and to examine yourself. Why do I do what I do? Am I correct in the things that motivate me? Are my motives in the right place? I find that most people spend so much time trying to discern the motives of other people that they never examine themselves. God help me with me. Say that with me, God help me with me. I'm through blaming other people. God help me with me. I'm through spending the rest of my life talking about what happened to me 20 years ago. I refuse to allow the enemy to steal my future with my past.

Somebody left you 10 years ago and they're still living their life and you're miserable. Wondering what they're doing. Stop wondering what they're doing and move on with your life. Touch somebody and tell them I've been thinking. Maybe he's not coming back. I've been thinking maybe I don't want him to come back. I've been thinking maybe it doesn't make any difference what I've been worried about. I've been thinking that it's time for me to focus on my vision, my purpose and my goals. I've been thinking that it's time for me to lay before God and say, God help me with me. Open my heart. David said, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit. I want to be right in a place that maybe nobody will even know that there's been a change; but I prophesy to you in the name of Jesus there are going to be changes on the inside of you that maybe you can't even testify to anybody about but you're going to go to sleep hugging yourself thanking God for what he did inside of you.

Give God a praise somebody. Wake up in the morning not needing to look for love because you're already filled with the love and the joy and the peace of knowing I've found him whom my soul loveth. Why should I look for another. This woman came to Jesus with her two sons. Her sons were the sons of Zebedee. You remember Zebedee he was the chief executive officer of a fishing corporation. I do not say that lightly nor slightly. He had a business, he was an entrepreneur, he was successful. The Bible in another verse said that he had servants, which means that he was affluent. She was the wife of an elite, charismatic, distinguished, diplomat of the community. Still she had to come to Jesus. I don't care how much money you make you've still got to come to Jesus. I don't care what color you are you've still got to come to Jesus. I don't care if you matriculated from the upper echelon of the greatest university in your country still there are some things that will drive you to Jesus. My problem is not that she came to Jesus, because I understand that you can go to him when you can't go to anyone else. In case you're watching by television you've never even heard who Jesus is you can go to him when you can't go to anybody else.

She came to him. She must have understood something about his needs. It's dangerous sometimes to let people know what you need because sometimes when people know what you need they'll use it against you. That's why David said; if I was hungry I wouldn't tell you because sometimes if people know you're hungry they'll wave bread in front of your face. (laughing) and so she came to Jesus… you see in case you don't understand God… if it were possible for God to have a weakness it would be for worship. He loves a worshiper. The omniscient, omniscient all seeing all knowing God, said I seek a worshiper. I look for a worshiper.

God loves worshipers so much so that when Hezekiah's time had come to die and Isaiah the prophet had come to execute a judgment on him and to pronounce rather a judgment on his life, Hezekiah began to talk about all the works he had done, but the sentence was still decreed. Hezekiah began to talk about how he kept the law, but the death sentence was still in force. Finally Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and said, lord the grave cannot praise you; and God said if you're going to praise me I'll add 15 years to your life. He told Isaiah go back and tell Hezekiah if he's going to praise me I'll restore him.

I don't know who I'm talking to today, but if you really start worshiping God correctly he'll restore you. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, how this woman, this first lady of this corporation knew about his need for worship but when she came to him she worshiped him; she worshiped him. Maybe she worshiped him because she'd seen the Canaanite woman worship. Maybe it was because she had seen the woman whose daughter was grievously vexed with the devil worship her way into a healing. Maybe she had stopped by the tomb of gad René and seen a man possessed with demons come and fall at his feet and worship him. I don't know how she knew to worship him, but she came and she worshiped him.

She just worshiped him. It's a dangerous thing for people to know your weakness because if they know your weakness they'll give you what you need, but they won't mean it. If people know how bad you need it they will do the right thing, but it will be for the wrong reason; and when people do it just because they know you need it they'll get tired real easy. Have you ever had somebody who was just doing things to placate you? They really weren't concerned about you, they really didn't care about you, but they knew that you liked that and they just did it to kinda get by.

She worshiped but while she was worshiping him she couldn't do it long before she said, okay I'm going to give you a little worship but uh you see them two boys back there? All right I'm going to bow before you but… all right… I'm going to go ahead and get in the church but you know my trial is coming up. All right I'm going to go back to church if you bring my husband back. Okay I'll go ahead and… you know I don't even go to church but I've got a lump in my breast, so okay, I'm going to give you a little hallelujah and then I'm going to feel and if he doesn't hurry up and do whatever it is that you want him to do…

See that's what's killing us as preachers because we have to keep pumping and pumping and pumping and pumping trying to motivate people but you can't motivate people who have bad motives. They, they… you'll work yourself to death, you'll preach yourself into the grave, you'll have a nervous breakdown, you can't understand how can I get them delivered on Wednesday night, and they're tied up by Sunday morning. It's because they never did it for the right reason. But if I don't get my job… I heard there's a promotion coming up so I'm going to give a special offering, but if I don't get that position… you see ladies and gentlemen there is a spirit of manipulation that has crept into many of our lives where once we understand how any system works we start working the system. And we become dangerous because we'll give you a little worship if you give me something.

Manipulators will send you a few roses if you give them something. Manipulators come to church but they have a hidden agenda; and they'll get in the choir but you've got to give them something. They'll get up under your ministry but if you don't give them a position they soon will walk up and leave. Y ou've got to… oh God. And so you joined the church because a lot of business people go to the church and you're in the lobby passing out business cards because you don't even understand why we're here, and so you praise him hallelujah, but we've got to give you something. I knew you were going to get quiet because some of you are manipulators, you just go… and it's hard to praise God right now because the word is digging down into your trashcan. Because many of you, everything you ever touched, everything you ever said, every person you ever held, every kiss you ever gave, every card you ever sent, every compliment you ever bestowed, was only to get something. It's a spirit of manipulation.

You would be surprised at the people that use sex for manipulation. All right baby, come on husband, if you give me something. Yeah I said it around the world, all over the world. Manipulation. You can't hardly find an honest person anywhere. You can't even tell whether the compliment is genuine or not. You can't hardly tell a friend from an enemy because once people learn what you need they know how to go through the motions. There are some women in this room and watching on television right now, and yea, I would dare to venture that some men are watching right now, that you have been a manipulator for years and years and years and the only people you like are the people that you can successfully manipulate. And if people don't do what you want when you want the way you want, you fall out with them and leave them. But we don't need any more of that, we need some people who are doing something because they want to do it.

You see, let me tell you: half of the things that pass for worship are not really worship in the church because if real worship hits the church the musicians can't play, the ushers can't usher, the deacons can't be deacons. I mean if real Holy Ghost worship hits the place… I'm not talking about that stuff you do cause the camera's on you, but I'm talking about something that you do out of your belly, out of your heart, out of your spirit because he brought you from a mighty long way and you love him with all of your heart. You see manipulators do the right thing, but they do it for the wrong reason and they start… pretty soon they have an agenda and the agenda is coming out. How many of you know that your agenda will always slip out?

You know I have those two boys back there, and you're going to need somebody on your right side and somebody on your left, and it might as well be my two sons. I won't even bother the fact that these boys were grown. I won't even bother the fact that she has mamma'd them to death. I won't even go there. I won't even go into all of the women who manipulate their grown children. Mouth all in their marriage, mouth all in their business never allowing him to grow up, never allowing him to be a man because mamma's still running everything. I'm not going to bother that because that would mess up your joy, that will get in your business. Telling his wife how to cook. You know he doesn't like his potatoes like… I'm not going to bother none of that. It's a spirit of manipulation.

Here is the problem with manipulators. Manipulators always try to bypass the process for progress. Manipulators always try to find an easy way to get where they are trying to go. I want you to get this in your heart if you don't get anything else I say tonight. There are no shortcuts in God. I know I'm going to mess with some of you now because you've been running up in all kinds of prayer lines wanting a double portion of somebody's spirit. You think somebody's going to blow on you and get you a new house. You think somebody's going to lay hands on you and give you an anointing that it took them 50 years to get. You're going to get it in 5 minutes. You manipulator, you think that if you carry a briefcase 2 weeks you can get the anointing of the man of God who has been laying before God for 30 years. You must be out of your mind. If Jesus had spoken to her in modern terms he would have said, 'stop tripping'. Would you touch somebody and say, stop tripping.

There are not shortcuts to success. There are no shortcuts; you've got to go through what you've got to go through. You've got to move like you've got to move. If you don't study it won't happen. If you don't pray it will not happen. If you don't lay before God, it will not happen. There are no shortcuts to what God has for you."