This excerpt taken from:

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

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

"Most of the time, when you think of manipulators you think of people who have an evil motive, and there are people who have evil motives. There are people who will run up in your face and grin. They've never liked you, they never loved you, they never wanted any good thing to happen to you. They are always… while you were eating dinner they were hoping you would choke. I know you don't believe that. You have to live a little while to find out that people will give you what they think you need and all the while be trying to choke you with… manipulators. But you don't have to be evil to be a manipulator. You can be misguided and be a manipulator.

Sit down I'm just talking to you, I'm not trying to get you happy. Young man came up to me and said, Bishop, there was a time in our ministry I needed an armor bearer real bad. And he said, Bishop I feel like I should be your armor bearer, and I see you struggling to do all of these things that I'm able to do that. I'll do that for you and I can do this for you and I can the other and so forth and so on, and I said, oh thank the Lord, thank the Lord, thank the Lord. And he kept on talking and said, I don't mind driving you where you've got to go and doing some things he said, and he kept… see if you let people keep talking, after while they will say, you see these boys. And while he was talking he says it's not really that I enjoy being an armor bearer it's just that I respect your ministry and your anointing and I figure this is the only way I'm going to get to hang around you so if I could just get to hang around you so I can get some nuggets for my ministry.

Now he's not evil, he's misguided because nobody wants anybody to do anything for them with an ulterior motive. Don't hire anybody like that, don't appoint anybody like that, don't move anybody into positions just like that because you've got to keep feeding them or they won't keep working. You've got to have somebody who's doing what they do because they are called to do it. They enjoy doing it. They want to do it. They get fulfillment from doing it, and if you don't pat them on the back, and if you don't send them no roses they'll keep on doing what they are called to do because they are doing it from their heart and they are doing it from their spirit. Touch somebody and say, stop being a manipulator. Tell them stop being a manipulator. Stop manipulating so you can get out of jail. Stop manipulating until your husband comes back home. Stop praising God just so you can get out of your cell and start praising God because he's God. Because he's worthy, because he's wonderful, because he's mighty, because he's a healer, because he's a deliverer, because he's a way maker. Oh!!!

Jesus said can you stand to be baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized with? Hold it right now - we are not talking about water. He had been baptized in water. This is not water; it is what water is a picture of. Water is a metaphorical illustration of the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord; and he said, woman you are trying to get your sons to reign with me, but they haven't suffered with me.

Don't let anybody reign with you until they have suffered with you. Oh this is the kind of message that gets me in trouble because there are those who teach that if you walk with God you won't have to suffer. There are those who teach that if you really pray you won't have to go through anything, but the bible said they that live godly shall suffer persecution and I've come to tell you at Woman Thou Art Loosed, I don't care how you pray and how you fast and how you lay before God; you've got to go through something some time. If you didn't go through anything you wouldn't have any power. You wouldn't have any anointing. You wouldn't have any joy. You've just got to go through it. Slap somebody and say, go through it! Go through it. Go through it.