The road to Breakthrough

Keys To Breakthrough

Let me speak to you as if we were sitting across a table together and the Holy Spirit was leaning in on the conversation.

Because I sense this strongly:

You have not been denied.

You have been prepared.

You’ve asked God, “Why hasn’t it happened yet? Why is this taking so long?”

But heaven has been asking a different question:

“Will you let Me make you ready for what you’re asking Me to do?”

We usually think of breakthrough as something that suddenly happens to us.

But in the kingdom, breakthrough begins as something God quietly does in us.

Today, I want to share some keys to breakthrough—not as a legalistic formula, but as a prophetic invitation from the heart of Jesus to your heart.

These are not rules to obey; they’re doorways the Holy Spirit loves to walk us through.

When It Feels Like Heaven Is Silent

Maybe that’s where you are right now.

You’re praying. You’re trying to stay faithful. You’re serving. You’re repenting. You’re doing the “right things”… and yet:

• Opportunities fall through.

  
  
  
  

• People misunderstand you.

  
  
  
  

• Doors don’t open.

  
  
  
  

• Your heart gets tired of hoping.

  
  
  
  

And somewhere deep inside you whisper, “Lord… did You forget me?”

Here’s what I sense the Lord saying over hearts like that:

“I have not forgotten you. I have hidden you.”

There’s a difference.

Scripture says of Jesus Himself:

“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” (Luke 2:52)

Thirty years of hiddenness. Three years of public ministry. That’s heaven’s ratio.

We want platform; God starts with preparation.

We want speed; God cares about depth.

We want answers; God is forming character.

Hidden seasons are not wasted seasons. Hidden seasons are where God turns calling into capacity.

A Quiet Key: Letting God Work In You Before He Works For You

Here’s one of the most important keys to breakthrough:

Before God changes what is around you, He changes what is within you.

We see it in David—anointed as king, sent back to the sheep. Giant-killing destiny, but still smelling like a field.

We see it in Moses—called to deliver a nation, walking in the desert with no crowd, no microphone, no platform—just a staff and a wilderness.

We see it in Paul—mighty apostle, but first blinded, broken, and processed.

Heaven doesn’t rush what hell can’t destroy.

So if your life feels “on hold,” don’t assume God is far away. Many times the delay is not a punishment. It’s a process.

“For at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9)

The proper time isn’t just about dates on a calendar. It’s about what has been developed in your heart.

And this is where another key shows up, one God has driven deep into my own story:

the key of capacity.

Capacity: When God Loves You Too Much To Give It Too Soon

There’s a tender but very real key to breakthrough:

Sometimes God is not saying no to what you ask.

He’s saying, “If I gave it now, it would crush you.”

Jesus said:

“For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required.” (Luke 12:48)

We often hear that as a warning. I’ve come to see it as a blueprint.

God does not hand you “much” without first enlarging your inner world to carry it.

You don’t give a six-year-old a sports car, not because you don’t love them, but because you do.

Let me share something very personal.

Years before I was in full-time Christian ministry, I was being seriously considered for a diplomatic position with the Canadian government in a foreign nation—one of our closest allies. There were about 20,000 people interested in that posting. They narrowed it down, and I ended up as one of the final three.

It wasn’t just a job. It was prestige, influence, diplomatic status, and a highly intriguing role on secondment with another major foreign governmental organization. On paper, it looked like a dream assignment.

And I really wanted it.

I prayed. I believed. I quoted Scripture. I reminded the Lord (as if He needed reminding) that He gives us the desires of our heart, that I walked in His favor, that this would open doors, that I could represent Him well in that environment. Everything in me said, “This is it.”

And then I wasn’t chosen.

Out of the three, I was the one they didn’t pick.

I went to the Lord with a sincere and honestly confused heart:

“Lord, I really wanted this. I know You give the desires of our heart. I know I walk in Your favor. I don’t understand why I didn’t get this position.”

And the Lord answered me very clearly—and very lovingly:

“Peter, if I had given you this position, it would have destroyed your destiny in Me.”

That sentence marked me.

In one moment, He reframed what I called disappointment as protection.

What I experienced as a closed door was actually God guarding my calling.

If I had stepped into that diplomatic world at that time—with what it would have demanded, shaped, and rewarded in me—it would have pulled me away from the path He had already written over my life. The capacity He wanted to build in me—spiritually, emotionally, and in ministry—needed a different environment.

I didn’t lack talent. I lacked capacity for that kind of influence without losing my destiny.

Some of what you’re calling “delay” or “rejection” may actually be the same mercy.

God enlarging your emotional capacity so you don’t burn out.

God healing your inner wounds so your past doesn’t sabotage your future.

God strengthening your spiritual backbone so your yes stays yes under pressure.

We pray, “Lord, open doors!”

He often answers, “Let Me first open your heart, your thinking, your capacity.”

Breakthrough is not just what comes in.

It’s who you become so that you can stand when it does.

And one of the deepest ways He grows that capacity is through something we don’t enjoy, but desperately need: surrender.

The Painful Key: Surrendering The Script You Wrote For Your Life

There is a point in every journey where your best strategies, your best timing, and your best plans are simply not enough.

You hit a wall where you cannot push it any further.

You’ve tried to fix it, heal it, force it, understand it—and the more you try, the more exhausted your soul becomes.

This is where another key appears:

Surrender.

Not the passive, “I give up” kind of surrender,

but the holy, “Not my will, but Yours be done” surrender. (Luke 22:42)

There are breakthroughs you can cooperate with through wisdom, growth, discipline, and decisions.

But then there are breakthroughs that are only birthed out of surrender.

And for me, surrender is not just an idea. It’s something I ask people to embody every time I pray for them.

Whenever I’m praying for people—whether in a prayer line, at the altar, in a meeting, or in any gathering where we seek God together—I ask everyone to lift their hands and hold them as high as they can.

Why?

Because if you’ve ever been in a war—and spiritually, we all are—lifting your hands is the universal sign of perfect surrender. It’s what a soldier does when they lay down their weapons and yield.

But in the kingdom, we are not surrendering to an enemy.

We’re not surrendering to an oppressive nation or an abusive power.

We are saying:

“God, I surrender to You.”

That simple act—raising your hands—is a physical picture of a spiritual reality.

And it’s not always easy.

I remember the very first time I raised my hands to the Lord. It didn’t feel natural. It came with tension and anxiety inside me. Everything in my flesh wanted to stay “in control,” stay composed, stay safe.

But now, on every occasion and at every opportunity, I raise my hands as high as I can—not for show, not out of habit, but as a declaration:

“Lord, I surrender who I am.

I surrender what I do.

I surrender what I think is right.

I lay it all at the foot of the cross.”

That place of total surrender is the place where God can work most deeply.

It’s the place where He begins to reveal the hidden things in our hearts—

the fears, the pride, the self-protection, the unbelief—

the very things that have been holding back our relationship with Him

and causing us to miss the breakthrough He has already set in front of us.

So when I ask people to lift their hands, I’m not just giving a charismatic instruction.

I’m inviting them into a posture where heaven can finally say:

“Now I can touch what you’ve been guarding.

Now I can heal what you’ve been hiding.

Now I can move in the very place where you’ve been stuck.”

That’s surrender.

That moment you finally pray:

“Jesus, I lay this down. Not because I don’t care, but because I trust You more than I trust myself. If You open the door, I’ll walk through it. If You don’t, I’ll still worship You.”

Breakthrough is never just about getting what you want.

It’s about aligning your will with the will of the One who loves you perfectly.

Sometimes the door opens right after surrender.

Sometimes nothing changes outside at first.

But I promise you this: something always changes inside.

Fear loosens. Control loosens.

And where those things let go, the Holy Spirit fills.

Refinement: The Fire That Doesn’t Destroy You, But Defines You

Another key to breakthrough is hidden inside one of the verses we rarely enjoy, but deeply need:

“I will refine them as silver is refined,

And test them as gold is tested.” (Zechariah 13:9)

Fire doesn’t feel like favor.

Pressure doesn’t feel like promotion.

But in the kingdom, refinement is favor and promotion in disguise.

Think of the hardest season you’ve walked through. You may not want to repeat it, but:

• Did it produce a deeper dependence on God?

  
  
  
  

• Did it expose lies you believed about yourself or Him?

  
  
  
  

• Did it make you more tender toward others, more merciful, more real?

  
  
  
  

Sometimes we ask for breakthrough and God answers with refinement first.

For me, one of the ways God refined my faith was through the very real pressure of ministry assignments that were far bigger than my comfort zone.

In Canada, in my role as a pastor and minister, we would host some of the largest prophetic conferences in the nation, with major and significant ministers of the gospel. We would rent out a seven-story hotel and a 50,000-square-foot exhibition hall.

For 10 days straight, we would advance the Kingdom of God through sessions—sometimes three a day, sometimes two. People would come from all over Canada—multitudes of believers gathering from various places, hungry for God. And at the end, those who stayed the full 10 days would head back home, in my humble opinion very much encouraged and ready to advance the Kingdom of God wherever they came from.

But there was something most people in those meetings never saw.

We were not a big church. We were a called church. And to host something of that magnitude came at a cost—sometimes close to, if not more than, $150,000 for those 10 days.

We never had the funds in advance.

There was no huge reserve account, no guaranteed backing. The entire event, year after year, was funded by donations—by God moving on hearts to give. We never knew in advance what would come in. I never knew, in the natural, how God would meet us.

We were completely and utterly dependent on the Lord to release the resources, simply by putting it on people’s hearts to sow into what He was doing.

And in the many years that I pastored and hosted those conferences, I saw something: time after time, in the very moments where the numbers didn’t make sense, God would bring in exactly what we needed in the time of need. There was one year in particular where, on paper, it looked like we wouldn’t come close—but He still made a way.

Those seasons were not just about paying bills. They were about the refinement of faith.

Every invoice, every deadline, every day of that 10-day conference became an altar where my trust in God was tested and strengthened.

Refinement looked like:

• Carrying the weight of responsibility and still choosing worship over worry.

  
  
  
  

• Feeling the pressure of the numbers and still standing on God’s word.

  
  
  
  

• Being stretched beyond what felt “safe” financially, yet seeing Him provide over and over.

  
  
  
  

Faith doesn’t grow in theory. It grows in pressure.

“The testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” (James 1:3–4)

Refinement isn’t God trying to break you.

It’s God making sure that when the blessing comes, you won’t.

He is not cruel. He is careful.

He is not playing games with your life. He is shaping your life into something that reflects His Son—and He will use real-life pressure to do it.

Alignment: When Your Inner World Points In One Direction – Christ

Another key to breakthrough is very simple to say and very costly to live:

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)

Alignment means your life is increasingly centered around Jesus and His kingdom, not around your comfort, your image, or your preferences.

It’s when you start asking different questions:

• Not, “Does this make me happy?”

  
  
  
  

  But, “Does this honor Jesus?”

  
  
  
  

• Not, “Will this make people like me?”

  
  
  
  

  But, “Does this make me more like Him?”

  
  
  
  

• Not, “Can I get away with this?”

  
  
  
  

  But, “Does this align with who I am in Christ?”

  
  
  
  

Breakthrough flows naturally where there is alignment.

You begin to think differently, choose differently, respond differently, and suddenly:

• You notice opportunities you didn’t notice before.

  
  
  
  

• You recognize relationships that carry God’s fingerprints on them.

  
  
  
  

• You sense faster when something is not from Him, even if it looks attractive.

  
  
  
  

The more your inner world aligns with the heart of Jesus, the more your outer world starts to reflect His leadership.

Release: You Can’t Carry The Cross And Clutch The Past

Here’s a hard, holy key:

You cannot step into a new season while dragging everything from the old one.

Scripture says:

“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run…” (Hebrews 12:1)

Some things are sin—we know they have to go.

But some things are just weights—habits, relationships, mindsets, memories—

not evil in themselves, but heavy enough to slow you down.

We often want God to add before we’re willing for Him to subtract.

Yet many times, breakthrough arrives after we finally release:

• The bitterness we’ve been nursing.

  
  
  
  

• The old narrative of “who we are” that no longer fits a son or daughter.

  
  
  
  

• The unhealthy attachment to someone who keeps pulling us away from Jesus.

  
  
  
  

Breakthrough doesn’t always begin with addition.

Often it begins with holy subtraction.

“Lord, I forgive. I release. I put this person, this pain, this season into Your hands. I will not let what hurt me yesterday define who I am tomorrow.”

Heaven rushes into the space you finally make.

Movement: God Doesn’t Steer A Parked Life

There is also this very practical key:

God loves to meet moving feet.

Breakthrough rarely starts with full clarity. It usually starts with a simple step of obedience:

• Start the thing He’s been nudging you to start.

  
  
  
  

• End the thing He’s been asking you to end.

  
  
  
  

• Make the phone call, send the message, apply for the thing, show up where He told you to show up.

  
  
  
  

Moses didn’t see the Red Sea part until he stepped toward it.

Abraham didn’t receive the promise while staying in his hometown. He moved.

The prodigal son wasn’t restored until he got up and went back to the Father.

Sometimes we’re waiting for a detailed blueprint.

God is waiting for a simple yes.

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him…” (Hebrews 11:6)

Faith is not a feeling you wait for; it’s a step you take.

Often, once you move, the momentum of heaven starts to carry you further than you could have pushed yourself.

Embodiment: Becoming The Version Of You God Already Sees

There’s one more key I want to speak over you:

Breakthrough is not just about what you receive.

It’s about who you become.

Paul says:

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20)

God is not trying to polish the old you.

He’s forming the Christ-in-you version of you.

A lot of frustration comes when we want a new life while clinging to an old identity:

• We pray for peace but still identify as “the anxious one.”

  
  
  
  

• We pray for freedom but keep calling ourselves “broken, messed up, too far gone.”

  
  
  
  

• We pray for healthy relationships but carry the expectation that everyone will eventually abandon us.

  
  
  
  

At some point, as the Holy Spirit works in you, you begin to embody what God says instead.

Let me share a little picture of this from my own life.

I have a very close friend who is a practicing medical doctor and also an incredibly anointed minister of the gospel. Over the years we’ve become incredibly close. Sometimes we’ll go for breakfast; other times I’ll stop by his medical clinic just to visit and talk.

Every now and then I’ll look at him and say, half-serious and half-smiling:

“Doctor, I just want to lose my mind.”

He always looks at me a bit nervously at first. And honestly, when I say that to other people, they sometimes get nervous too. Because in Canada—and in many places around the world—if you “lose your mind,” they may put you in an institution and lock the door.

So I quickly clarify what I mean.

I tell him:

“I want to lose my mind so I can walk in the mind of Christ.”

That’s embodiment.

It’s not that we literally don’t think anymore. It’s that we stop letting our old thought patterns, our old labels, our old fears rule the conversation inside our head.

We begin to say:

“Lord, I don’t want to live trapped in my own limited, wounded, survival-based thinking.

I want Your thoughts. Your perspective. Your mindset.”

We trade:

• Our narrative for His truth.

  
  
  
  

• Our self-protection for His Lordship.

  
  
  
  

• Our identity shaped by pain for His identity spoken over us at the cross.

  
  
  
  

Embodiment is when you stop just talking about who you are in Christ and you start living from it.

You start to say by faith:

“I am a son. I am a daughter. I am forgiven. I am chosen. I am free. I am not who I was. Christ lives in me.”

You start making decisions from that place.

You start speaking to yourself from that place.

You start responding to life from that place.

And suddenly, your life is no longer being built around your wounds, but around His victory.

You’re Closer Than You Think

Let me say this prophetically over you:

You are closer to breakthrough than you feel.

Not because everything looks close.

Maybe it doesn’t.

Maybe it looks worse.

But you’re closer because:

• Your dependence on God is deeper than it used to be.

  
  
  
  

• Your awareness of what needs to change is clearer.

  
  
  
  

• Your yes to Jesus has cost you something—and you’re still standing.

  
  
  
  

God has not been wasting your pain, your waiting, your stretching, your tears.

He has been forming Christ in you, so that when doors open, you walk through them as a different person than the one who started praying.

Your breakthrough is not just ahead of you.

In many ways, it has already begun—inside you.

A Prayer For You

Let me pray this over you:

Father, in the name of Jesus, I bless the one reading this right now.

I speak peace over every storm in their mind and heart.

Where they have believed they were forgotten, show them they have been hidden in Your hand.

Where they feel delayed, reveal the preparation.

Where they feel crushed, reveal the gold You are refining.

Give them grace to surrender what they cannot control,

courage to release what cannot go with them,

and faith to take the next step You’re asking them to take.

Form Christ in them—deeply, beautifully, permanently.

And when the doors open, let them walk through not just with answered prayer,

but with a transformed heart.

In Jesus’ name. Amen. Much love.