The Upper Room: Meeting God Before Serving Him

Introduction

There are things God does not teach you: he makes you live them. During Session 2 of the ADN 2025 Revival Camp at ICC Montreal, Apostle Yvan Castanou stresses this very clear line. You can teach the heart of God, and that satisfies curiosity. But to experience it, you have to go up, like Joshua with Moses, onto the mountain. "Come and follow me," Jesus says. This message turns around a place that most servants bypass: the upper room. That room is neither a living room, nor a gym, nor an auditorium. It is a place of intimacy, a space of encounter, the place where God comes to deposit his presence in a heart that has truly desired him. If you want to serve God without wearing yourself out, if you want to inherit a destiny of royalty rather than a mere Christian career, you cannot skip this room.

Outline of the message

1. The upper room: the place most servants bypass

Yvan Castanou tells how, in July 2025, God pushed him to organize three days of "upper room" at the Cité Royale. Fifteen hundred people came, tents and sleeping bags in hand. What happened there marked a turning point. His observation is direct: most people who go into ministry are called, then head to the front lines without ever having gone through an upper room. The room, in biblical language, is not a public place. It is where you sleep, where you are seen as you truly are, where you meet. A ministry that has not begun in an upper room becomes a ministry of human effort, exhausting, without anointing, unable to raise up spiritual sons. What you have not received in intimacy, you will not be able to hand down from the platform.

2. Desire: God's landing strip

God's starting point is not power, nor wealth, nor the privileges he holds. His starting point is love for his bride. He looks for a heart where he is truly at the center, a desire that is focused and burning. "Desire," says Castanou, "is the landing strip." It is what gives God permission to come and deposit his seed, to unite with your spirit. In the natural realm, man and woman unite and the two become one flesh. In the realm of the spirit, when God and your spirit unite, the two become one and the same spirit. This fusion is created by thirst. Where there is no desire, there is no encounter. Where there is a burning and exclusive desire, God lands.

3. Desire that goes unchecked: the rot that decomposes the servant

In his second epistle, Peter speaks of "the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire" (2 Peter 1:4). The word "corruption," Yvan Castanou recalls, literally means putrefaction, rot, the decay that strikes a corpse or spoiled food. When sinful desire is not removed, it rots your feelings, your emotions, your character. You pray, you serve, you preach, but inside something is decomposing. This is how greedy pastors, adulterous servants, and shallow, worldly pastoral assistants come about. It is not first a problem of gifting or doctrine, it is a problem of inner infection. As long as God is not your absolute first desire, you are not reliable. Sinful desire makes you unpredictable. John states it plainly: "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15).

4. A heart after God: the only resume that counts

Saul was disqualified, not because he lacked talent, but because his heart was not oriented toward God. The prophet tells him plainly: "Your kingdom will not continue; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14). David had neither prestige nor pedigree, but he had a heart. God is still looking today for hearts, not resumes. Yvan Castanou tells how, thirty years later, he found himself at a reunion of the alumni from his business school class. He was the only one in the room who had not pursued a corporate career. If you first pursue a path of being a "Christian corporate professional," you can succeed. But if you pursue the heart of God, he opens up a different destiny for you: that of royalty. This is not an opposition between work and faith; it is an order of priorities. Seek first the Kingdom, and you will inherit a path that human strategy could never have invented.

5. Seeking, more than praying

Praying engages the mouth, seeking engages the heart. The Lord said it: "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13). The more you seek, the more you desire; the more you desire, the more you find. It is a cycle of overflow, the opposite of spiritual burnout. When you make your heart God's headquarters, he sends you escorts: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you" (Psalm 32:8); "My hand shall establish him; my arm also shall strengthen him" (Psalm 89:21-22). The gaze, the counsel, the hand that upholds, the arm that strengthens: this is what God deploys around one who seeks. Joseph did not pray to avoid every trap; God avoided the traps for him, because Joseph sought his heart. Wisdom herself promises: "I will endow those who love me with wealth, and I will fill their treasuries" (Proverbs 8:21).

Key takeaways

• The upper room is not an option for mystics: it is the required passage for any ministry that wants to bear fruit without exhausting the one who carries it.
• Desire for God is the permission your spirit gives him to unite with you. Where desire is weak, the encounter is weak.
• Sinful desire that is tolerated never stays still: it rots. It slowly decomposes the character of a servant, even a very active one.
• God chooses hearts oriented toward him, not prestigious profiles. A heart after God opens a destiny that talent alone cannot open.
• Seeking God with all your heart is not extra pressure: it is the door to rest and overflow.

Personal application

1. Where are you with your own upper room? Do you take extended times of intimacy with God, or only short moments between two services?
2. What is today the first absolute desire of your heart? Give your honest answer, not the one you would like to give.
3. Is there a form of sinful desire (money, recognition, image, relationships) that you tolerate and that is starting to rot your attitudes?
4. Are you chasing a comfortable Christian career or the destiny of royalty that God has prepared for you?
5. This week, how are you going to move from "praying to God" to "seeking God with all your heart"?

Verses cited

• Psalm 32:8 · "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you."
• Psalm 89:21-22 · "My hand shall establish him; my arm also shall strengthen him."
• Proverbs 8:21 · Wisdom gives an inheritance to those who love her.
• 1 Samuel 13:14 · "The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart."
• 2 Peter 1:4 · Fleeing the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
• 1 John 2:15 · "Do not love the world or the things in the world."
• Jeremiah 29:13 · "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."

FAQ

What is the "upper room" that Apostle Yvan Castanou talks about?

It is not a geographic place, but a spiritual place of prolonged intimacy with God, modeled on the room where the disciples withdrew in the book of Acts. It is a space of encounter, set apart from the crowds and activities, where God comes to deposit his presence in a heart that has truly desired him.

Can you serve God without going through this upper room?

You can serve, yes, but out of human effort. Apostle Castanou warns that a ministry without an upper room exhausts the one carrying it, produces little lasting fruit, and leaves those who should have been raised up as spiritual sons feeling orphaned. What you have not received in intimacy, you will not be able to hand down.

How do I know if sinful desire has begun to rot my heart?

Here's a good test: is God today your first absolute desire, or is he competing with money, image, recognition, a relationship? Sinful desire that is tolerated makes you unpredictable and disloyal. It shows up in small inconsistencies of character before it shows up in major falls.