John Wasserman Podcast: Recent Episodes
John Wasserman
Our mandate is to be a church in revival, reaching the world and resourcing them to maturity. #GraceTalk
This sermon explores the condition and posture of the human heart in relation to God, building on previous weeks of teaching about the heart as the foundation of the Christian life. The pastor draws from Proverbs 4 to show that when God's word enters through our hearing and sight and takes root in our hearts, it transforms our speech, our vision, and our walk. A central theme is that a surrendered heart sees with spiritual clarity — perceiving God's word, God's will, God's purpose, and ultimately God Himself with increasing sharpness. The sermon also addresses giving from the heart, referencing Abel and Cain's offerings and the principle from Romans 14 that whatever is not of faith is sin, emphasizing that God judges both the giver and the gift. The pastor closes by drawing a parallel between Israel's journey to the promised land and the believer's progressive growth into their inheritance in Christ, arguing that redemption is not the destination but the starting point of the Christian life.
Pastor J.D. delivered a message centered on the truth that we do not simply see life as it is, but rather through the condition of our hearts. Drawing from the stories of David and the teachings of Jesus, the sermon explored how hardship, offense, and trials either harden our hearts or draw us closer to God. When we surrender our hearts to God, He begins to transform them, and out of that transformation grows a new, godly perspective. Rather than comparing ourselves to our problems, we are called to compare our problems to God, recognizing His greatness and faithfulness. The sermon challenged believers to move intentionally toward praise, even in the darkest seasons, as praise dismantles the power that hardship holds over us and realigns our focus on the character and promises of God.
versus allowing sorrow to work genuine repentance and transformation. The ultimate goal is heart surrender, enabling God's kingdom to be established in and through believers. The sermon warns against the danger of Capernaum—having abundant revelation without repentance—and calls believers to move beyond familiarity with God to genuine transformation.
This sermon explores the theological significance of sadness and sorrow as divine signals calling us back into right relationship with God. Pastor Andre examines the Hebrew concepts of sorrow (tzivon), comfort (nacham), and appreciation/acknowledgment (hoda'a) to demonstrate how God uses emotional pain not as punishment, but as a beacon calling us to restoration. The message traces humanity's relational journey with God from Creation through the Fall and the Flood, showing how God grieves over broken relationship rather than responding in mere anger. The sermon emphasizes that God desires bilateral relationship but is willing to maintain covenant even when humanity fails, ultimately pointing to our need for a Messiah to restore what we cannot fix ourselves.
Our words carry more power than we often realize. In this encouraging message, Rose Zanninelli unpacks what the Bible teaches about the life-giving or destructive power of our speech. Through Scriptures such as Proverbs 18:21, Matthew 12, and Proverbs 15, we're reminded that our words reveal our hearts, shape our relationships, and have the ability to bring healing, hope, and encouragement.Be challenged to guard your heart, speak life over those around you, and use your words to glorify God. Whether in your home, workplace, or daily conversations, may this message inspire you to become someone who builds others up through the power of God's Word.
This sermon explores God's desire for a transformed heart rather than mere outward obedience. Drawing from Israel's repeated failures throughout the Old Testament, the message reveals how God promised a new heart through the prophets, ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus embodied what Israel was meant to be—the faithful son with a perfect heart devoted to God. Through Christ's ministry, death, and resurrection, believers receive the new heart promised in Ezekiel 36, where God removes hearts of stone and gives hearts of flesh. The sermon emphasizes that guarding this new heart begins with walking in our new identity as sons and daughters of God, refusing to live as our old selves, and allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us from the inside out. True revival and transformation start in the heart, not through external religious rituals.
The sermon explored Proverbs 4:23, which calls us to guard our hearts with all vigilance because from it flow the springs of life. We examined how the heart—the very core of who we are—is the center of our thoughts, decisions, will, moral character, and spiritual life. God is stirring something in the atmosphere, calling us higher by creating a deeper hunger for His presence. We discovered that true revival doesn't start with external programs or activities, but with the internal transformation of our hearts. When God captures a heart, He can change a life, and when He changes enough lives, revival becomes a reality. The implications for our spiritual life are profound: we cannot experience lasting change through behavior modification alone—we need heart transformation that only God can provide.
In this heartfelt and honest conversation, Mom Bev Wasserman reflects on what the Holy Spirit has taught her in this season of her life. With vulnerability, wisdom, and faith, she shares how God's presence, comfort, and guidance have sustained her through one of life's most challenging journeys.This is not a sermon, but a sincere testimony of God's faithfulness and the lessons learned while walking closely with the Holy Spirit.
), and how the same strategy is used against believers today. The good news is that through salvation, we have received a completely new identity—we are new creations, children of God, chosen and loved. This identity is not defined by our current circumstances, failures, or feelings, but by what God declares over us in His Word. As we renew our minds through Scripture and surrender to the Holy Spirit's work, Christ is progressively formed within us, transforming us from the inside out to reflect His nature and character.
This deeply personal and vulnerable sermon explores the theme of being held by God through life's difficulties and uncertainties. The pastor emphasizes that God is not distant but intimately close, seeing us in our struggles and holding us through every season. Drawing from Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the message focuses on God as the Father of all compassion and comfort who holds us in our pain, not necessarily removing every storm but sustaining us through it. The sermon challenges believers to move from striving to abiding, from self-reliance to God-dependence, and from isolation to community. It emphasizes that prayer is not performance but honest dependence on God, even when words are hard to find. The central message is that the same God who was faithful yesterday will be faithful in tomorrow's unknown, and that comfort becomes our calling as we learn to comfort others with the comfort we receive from God.
Prophet Bobby Legere delivers a powerful message about running the race God has set before us, particularly in the context of transitioning after the passing of Pastor John. The sermon emphasizes the importance of keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith, rather than being distracted by circumstances, storms, or the enemy's attacks. Drawing from Hebrews 12, the message challenges believers to actively participate in the body of Christ, using the faith of Christ rather than relying solely on their own faith. The sermon underscores that God provides supernatural strength to those who remain focused on Him, transforming trials into opportunities for spiritual growth and advancement. Prophet Bobby emphasizes that believers are designed not to fly through storms in their own strength, but to soar like eagles by allowing God's power to lift them above their circumstances.
This powerful exploration of Palm Sunday takes us far beyond the familiar image of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. We discover that this triumphant entry was actually the moment the Lamb of God presented Himself for inspection, mirroring the Passover lamb chosen on the 10th day of Nisan and examined for four days before sacrifice. The crowds shouted 'Hosanna'—a Hebrew cry meaning 'Save now, O Lord' and 'Send now prosperity'—quoting Psalm 118 without fully understanding the depth of what they were declaring. Within days, these same voices would cry 'Crucify Him.' This reveals a sobering truth: we can have confession without revelation. We can quote Scripture, attend church, and go through religious motions while never truly receiving Christ for who He fully is. The message challenges us to move beyond treating Jesus like a restaurant menu where we pick what's convenient and reject what's uncomfortable. True salvation comes when we say with full understanding, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord'—receiving His holiness, His authority, His mission, and His lordship completely. When we genuinely receive Him this way, there will be no desolation in our lives, and we become the house from which blessing flows.
We have to be intentional about things, first knowing, and then doing, even as Moses intentionally prepared and anointed Joshua for succeeding him as the leader of Israel. Sadly, Joshua did not do the same, leaving Israel in chaos when he died, during which time everyone did what was right in their own eyes. – the very way in which our modern society is operating. During this chaotic time of Israel’s existence God raised several judges to help his people repent of their wicked ways, return to him, and overcome the enemies who had invaded them. The fourth of these judges was Deborah. Deborah fulfilled five roles, that of a prophet, a judge who settled disputes, a leader, a mother and a wife. She did not usurp God’s structure of spiritual authority but gave His word and instructions to Barak, the commander of Israel’s army, to attack Israel’s oppressor Jaben. But, because of Barak’s weakness and fear, the glory of the eventual victory over Jaben went to a woman named Jael, who killed the commander of Jaben, Sisera, by driving a tent pen through his temple. This morning’s group discussion was about why the people trusted Deborah’s leadership, what practices help us hear God clearly and what it might look like for us as women to develop that kind of spiritual influence. The question was asked, what the cessation of village life mentioned in Judges 5:7 meant, and where that could be applied to the lives of the people attending this meeting. The encouragement came to arise in Biblical ways like Deborah did. Further topics to discuss were - why did Barak need Deborah’s presence to fulfil God’s instructions, and the importance of encouragement and partnership in leadership.
represents one's entire nature, character, authority, and purpose—not just a title. Therefore, when believers pray in Jesus' name, they are praying with His authority, in alignment with His will, and out of their position as children of the Father. The sermon challenges the congregation to prioritize kingdom prayers—interceding for others, global missions, and spiritual transformation—while maintaining faith that God will also meet personal needs. True fruitfulness in prayer comes from understanding our identity in Christ and operating from that place of union with Him and the Father.
This sermon explores the vital connection between abiding in Christ and bearing spiritual fruit. Pastor John emphasizes that Christians are called not just to believe, but to produce fruit that glorifies God. Drawing primarily from John 15, he explains that fruitfulness is not mechanical or automatic, but relational and intentional. The message traces the flow of divine life from the Father dwelling in the Son, to the Son dwelling in believers, to believers abiding in Christ, resulting in fruit-bearing that impacts the world. The pastor stresses that answered prayer, joy, love, and transformed lives all flow from this abiding relationship. He challenges the congregation to move beyond complicated Christianity to the simplicity of remaining connected to the Vine, noting that pruning often comes not because we're doing something wrong, but because God wants us to be even more fruitful. The ultimate purpose of our existence is to bear fruit that demonstrates we are Christ's disciples, bringing glory to the Father.
The Fig Tree and the Fruit of the Kingdom: Producing Spiritual Fruitfulness by John Wasserman
This sermon addresses the critical importance of renewing our minds as the foundation for spiritual growth and transformation. The message emphasizes that the greatest barrier to spiritual maturity is not external circumstances, the devil, or culture, but an unrenewed mind. Through examining the progression from thought to belief to habit to stronghold, the sermon illustrates how our thought patterns shape our entire lives. The core teaching centers on the truth that transformation begins internally through deliberate mental renewal, not through trying harder or changing circumstances. The sermon challenges believers to take captive every thought, replace lies with God's truth, and trust Him completely rather than conforming to negative thinking patterns that hinder kingdom growth.
and the real harm caused by false prophecies. While affirming the genuine power and place of prophetic gifts in the church, Pastor John emphasizes that character must match calling, that prophets need pastoral oversight, and that congregations must exercise biblical discernment. He calls both prophetic ministers and church members to accountability—ministers to operate with humility and transparency, and members to test all prophecies against Scripture. The sermon balances correction with encouragement, concluding with a commitment to pursue authentic prophetic ministry marked by love, integrity, and submission to God's Word.
This powerful message centers on the transformative truth that salvation is not just a destination—it's a journey of continuous growth and maturity. Drawing from the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13, we're reminded that while the seed of salvation is perfect and unchanging, the condition of our hearts—the soil—determines whether we bear fruit or remain spiritually stagnant. The sermon challenges us to examine what's choking our growth: Is it bitterness? Offense? Disappointment? These weeds can strangle the life God planted within us. But here's the hope: we have the power, through God's grace, to cultivate good soil. The call to 'seek first His kingdom and His righteousness' (Matthew 6:33) isn't about legalistic striving—it's about aligning our hearts with how Jesus thinks, acts, and loves. The practical encouragement to pick just one area of growth this year is liberating. Whether it's learning to love more deeply, controlling our speech, or rekindling dormant spiritual gifts, small progress creates momentum. We don't have to be overwhelmed by everything at once. God meets us where we are and walks with us step by step. This year is about breakthrough, favor, and seeing the fruit of righteousness bloom in our lives as we keep our hearts tender before Him.
This powerful message confronts us with a profound truth: our spiritual maturity isn't measured by what we know, but by what we experience through trials. Drawing from James chapter 1, we discover that every good gift from God follows a path toward perfection—but that path runs directly through temptation, testing, and trials. The question isn't whether difficulties will come, but whether we'll allow them to transform us. We're presented with a sobering reality: we can go through multiple trials and remain spiritually stagnant, or we can embrace each challenge as an opportunity to experience God more deeply. The concept of 'makarios'—being blessed—takes on revolutionary meaning here: it's not just receiving God's favor, but becoming so transformed that earthly troubles no longer control us. We learn that the 'crown of life' promised to those who persevere isn't merely eternal life, but something more intimate—the privilege of experiencing God personally through every circumstance. The Israelites' journey through the wilderness becomes our mirror: they repeatedly complained to Moses instead of asking God directly, essentially declaring 'God isn't here with us.' Their murmuring wasn't just negativity—it was a refusal to acknowledge God's presence and provision. When we complain, we're doing the same thing: standing still in darkness, stirring up mud rather than moving toward the light. This message challenges us to see our current struggles not as obstacles but as divine invitations to know God experientially, to move from head knowledge to heart relationship, and to bear fruit that remains.
This powerful message centres on the biblical principle of spiritual progress and stewardship found in 1 Timothy 4:15, where we're challenged to be diligent in our growth so that our profiting may be evident to all. The core revelation here is that God doesn't give us gifts merely to possess them—every gift, calling, and talent we receive comes with a divine expectation to mature it, maximise it, and steward it faithfully. Drawing from James 1:17, we discover that every good and perfect gift originates from God, but the journey from 'good' to 'perfect' requires our active participation. The message beautifully illustrates how God makes us different by design, not by accident, and how our unity isn't found in sameness but in celebrating those differences while progressing together. What's particularly compelling is the reminder that God's gifts and callings nm are irrevocable—they don't disappear when we stumble or grow cold. When we return to Him, everything is still there, waiting to be activated and matured. The challenge for us in this season is to recognise that fruitfulness isn't optional; it's woven into our spiritual DNA from Genesis 1:28 onward. Whether it's the gift of life itself, our relationships, careers, natural talents, or spiritual gifts, God expects progression in every area. The pathway to this growth? The same Word that gave us birth, humbly received and actively applied, combined with wisdom sought through prayer and godly counsel.
This powerful message confronts us with an uncomfortable truth: spiritual progress is not automatic. Drawing from James chapter 1 and Paul's words to Timothy, we're challenged to examine whether we're truly advancing in our faith or remaining spiritually stagnant. The central question pierces through religious complacency: 'In what area have you made no progress?' James reveals that trials aren't meant to crush us but to mature us—every difficulty we face is designed to test and strengthen our faith, producing perseverance that leads to spiritual completeness. The message dismantles two dangerous deceptions: first, that we're merely 'in a season' of testing (when actually, trials are part of life's fabric), and second, that God tempts us with evil (when really, we're tempted by our own undealt-with desires). The transformative insight comes in understanding that God gave us birth through His Word, and that same implanted Word has the power to save our souls—not just our spirits, but our wounded emotions, stunted maturity, and broken thought patterns. We're reminded that weeds and wheat both mature; bad character and good character both grow up. The question isn't whether we'll mature, but what we'll mature into. This is a call to intentional spiritual growth, to let perseverance finish its work, and to receive God's Word with meekness so it can heal the deep places that keep us from progressing into the fullness of who we are in Christ.
This Christmas message invites us to reflect on what Paul calls God's 'indescribable gift' in 2 Corinthians 9:15—the person of Jesus Christ. We're reminded that while the world knows its own pain and brokenness, it often remains oblivious to the cure that has already been given. The gift of Christ isn't simply advice, sympathy, or a philosophical system; it's a living person who meets our deepest needs. He brings forgiveness for our sin, reconciliation for our separation from God, light for our darkness, and life for our death. Yet like any gift, it must be received and opened to have value in our lives. The tragedy echoed in John 1:11—'He came to His own, and His own received Him not'—reminds us that even the most precious gift can be rejected or ignored. But for those who do receive Him, the transformation is profound. We see this beautifully illustrated in the story of revival happening in Iran, where even in the midst of opposition, 50,000 mosques have closed due to lack of attendance as people turn to Christ. This Christmas, we're challenged to not only receive the gift of salvation but to maximize it—to allow Christ to be fully formed in us, moving from spiritual infancy to maturity, becoming the answer to others' questions as His wisdom transforms us from the inside out.
This powerful message centers on the biblical principle of spiritual progress and stewardship found in 1 Timothy 4:15, where we're challenged to be diligent in our growth so that our profiting may be evident to all. The core revelation here is that God doesn't give us gifts merely to possess them—every gift, calling, and talent we receive comes with a divine expectation to mature it, maximize it, and steward it faithfully. Drawing from James 1:17, we discover that every good and perfect gift originates from God, but the journey from 'good' to 'perfect' requires our active participation. The message beautifully illustrates how God makes us different by design, not by accident, and how our unity isn't found in sameness but in celebrating those differences while progressing together. What's particularly compelling is the reminder that the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable—they don't disappear when we stumble or grow cold. When we return to Him, everything is still there, waiting to be activated and matured. The challenge for us in this season is to recognize that fruitfulness isn't optional; it's woven into our spiritual DNA from Genesis 1:28 onward. Whether it's the gift of life itself, our relationships, careers, natural talents, or spiritual gifts, God expects progression in every area. The pathway to this growth? The same Word that gave us birth, humbly received and actively applied, combined with wisdom sought through prayer and godly counsel.
This powerful teaching challenges us to reconsider our relationship with God's law through the lens of freedom rather than bondage. We're invited into a fascinating exploration of what it truly means to be 'set free' in Christ—not freedom from all boundaries, but freedom to walk in righteousness. The central message revolves around James's concept of 'the perfect law that gives freedom' and Paul's declaration in Galatians 5:1 about standing firm in our liberty. What emerges is a stunning paradox: the law we sometimes view as restrictive is actually our companion, walking beside us like a lamp lighting a treacherous path filled with spiritual landmines. The sermon draws from Psalm 19, which declares the law of the Lord as perfect, refreshing the soul, and making the wise simple. We're reminded that the problem was never with God's law—which is holy, spiritual, and righteous—but with our flesh's inability to keep it. This is where Christ enters: He didn't abolish the law but fulfilled it, dealing with our sinful nature so we could finally walk in the law's true intention. The teaching beautifully unpacks how Jesus, when asked about eternal life in Luke 18, pointed to the commandments, revealing that keeping the law isn't about legalistic adherence but understanding its heart. The freedom Christ offers is the freedom to die to ourselves so we can truly live—forgiving without demanding apology, loving without keeping score, and walking deliberately as our Father walks. This is the law of liberty: love God completely and love our neighbor as ourselves.
This message invites us into the beautiful tradition of Advent, specifically focusing on the second candle—the candle of peace, also known as the Bethlehem candle. Drawing from Isaiah 9:6-7, we're reminded that Jesus came not just as a baby in a manger, but as the Prince of Peace whose government and peace would have no end. The word 'shalom' encompasses far more than absence of conflict—it means wholeness, completeness, nothing lost, nothing stolen, nothing broken. We discover that peace isn't something we achieve through our own efforts or control; it's a gift that comes from receiving Christ himself. John 14:27 becomes our anchor: 'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.' The world offers temporary relief, escapism, or numbness, but Jesus offers himself—the Prince of Peace living within us. Our role is to guard that peace, choosing not to let our hearts be troubled or afraid. The lighting of the Advent candle becomes a prophetic statement: this world won't end in chaos but in glory, when Christ's eternal reign brings complete restoration. Perhaps your heart has lost its sparkle this year, perhaps storms have raged around or within you. This Advent season offers us the opportunity to return to the pool of His presence and let peace be restored, remembering that we cannot operate in the miraculous outside of peace.
This powerful message invites us into a profound exploration of what it truly means to live as citizens of God's kingdom. We're challenged to move beyond external religious performance into genuine internal transformation—the kind that changes not just what we do, but who we are at our core. Drawing on Paul's declaration in 1 Corinthians 4:20 that 'the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power,' we're reminded that authentic Christianity is demonstrated through transformed lives, not merely eloquent words. The message unpacks four critical areas of transformation: our temperaments (our habitual emotional responses), our tongues (the words we speak), our talents (our God-given abilities now empowered by the Spirit), and our touch (our capacity to minister healing and blessing to others). Through Paul's testimony in 2 Corinthians 6, we see how he endured tremendous hardship—tribulations, imprisonments, beatings—yet responded with patience, kindness, and sincere love. This reveals the essence of kingdom power: the ability to respond in Christ-like ways even under extreme pressure. We're confronted with the sobering truth that our emotional reactions reveal how deep our transformation actually goes. When we're insulted, disappointed, afraid, or wronged, do we react from our flesh or respond from the Spirit? The challenge is clear: we cannot expect our words to carry divine authority if our character remains unchanged. His word in our mouth becomes as powerful as His word in His mouth only when there's been a substantial inner transformation. This isn't about performance—it's about progressive surrender, allowing the kingdom to reshape us from the inside out until Christ-likeness becomes our natural response.
This powerful message invites us into a profound exploration of what it truly means to live as citizens of God's kingdom right here, right now. At its heart is a compelling question: if Jesus stood before us today and asked, 'What does my kingdom look like in your life?', what would we say? Drawing from Matthew 6:33's call to seek first the kingdom and Luke 17:20-21's revelation that the kingdom is within us, we're challenged to move beyond merely consuming church services and instead become active participants in demonstrating heaven's reality on earth. The message emphasizes three transformative elements of kingdom living: purity as alignment with God's heart rather than perfection, life as overflowing abundance rather than mere survival, and love as the operating system of heaven that must characterize all our relationships. We're reminded that purity clears the window of our hearts so God's light can shine through, that the Holy Spirit's indwelling means we carry resurrection power wherever we go, and that love—costly, sacrificial love—is the non-negotiable command that marks us as Jesus' disciples. This isn't about religious performance but about genuine transformation that starts within and flows outward, affecting our families, workplaces, and communities. The call is clear: let's live as walking contradictions to every lie the enemy speaks, proving through our lives that God's kingdom is not distant or theoretical but present and powerful.
This powerful message confronts us with a profound truth from 1 Corinthians 4:20: the kingdom of God is not merely about eloquent words or impressive rhetoric—it's fundamentally about transformative power. We're challenged to move beyond empty religious talk and step into the tangible reality of God's authority working through our lives. The sermon explores how genuine kingdom power begins with personal transformation, where Christ is formed within us, leading to dominion over sin, the ability to live righteously, and empowered obedience. We're reminded that our authority isn't self-generated but delegated by the King Himself, activated through submission and obedience. The message includes stirring testimonies of healing—from cancer to developmental challenges—demonstrating that nothing is beyond God's reach when we operate as kingdom representatives. We're encouraged to lay hands on our children and grandchildren, speaking blessing, intelligence, and transformation over them. The central lesson is clear: our transformed lives become demonstrations, examples, and influences that carry kingdom power into every situation we face, whether sickness, family struggles, or seemingly impossible circumstances.
This powerful message takes us deep into the heart of what it means to truly follow Christ, using the profound act of water baptism as a launching point for understanding obedience. We're reminded that the kingdom of God isn't just something we believe in—it's something we must actively enter through obedience. Drawing from John 3 and James 2:5, we discover that being 'poor in spirit' positions us to inherit the kingdom, but only when our love for Jesus translates into genuine obedience to His commands. The message challenges us with a striking visual: two roads—one labeled 'I believe in God' and another 'I obey God.' Which road are we truly walking? The truth presented here is incontrovertible: we don't accidentally grow spiritually. Our spiritual maturity is our responsibility, born from relationship and response. Perhaps most compelling is the revelation about circles of intimacy with Jesus—the crowds, the 72, the 12, the 3, and the one disciple who leaned on His breast. We stand with Jesus exactly where we've chosen to stand. Water baptism isn't the finish line; it's the starting line of a life of continuous obedience. Just as Jesus fulfilled all righteousness through His baptism, we're called to let this act be the doorkeeper of obedience for the rest of our lives. When tested, like Jesus in the wilderness, we must return to 'It is written'—anchoring our obedience in God's unchanging Word.
When life gives us lemons, we make lemon curd! However, if we experience lemons in life, we need to correctly discern whether it is not as a harvest of something that we, ourselves, have sown. It could also be caused by the immaturity of another person, or the devil. Jesus said that we would experience trouble in this world, but the power of that trouble has potentially been broken, because He has given us the power to overcome. Jesus did not deny the reality of a situation but broke the finality thereof. When life dishes up lemons, our response should not be to think that God does not love us and has forgotten or forsaken us. We must be objective, focused, and be aware that adversity is evidence of the fact that God is committed to our personal growth. This will enable us to rejoice in our trials. It also means that more often than not, adversity is our friend, and not our enemy. Our response should be to entrust ourselves completely to God, foregoing our own plans and justification. In these times we must be careful not to treat everyone around us with a bad attitude, whipping the innocent with the guilty, and to not minister the battle, but the Spirit. Growth begins when we stop blaming others and start learning for ourselves. We are all in the process of God refining us towards our purpose and He is using life’s lemons. God’s principles and purposes are more effective and powerful than evil ones and that is why they will never fail. Adversity is turned into advantage by maintaining perspective on God’s heart and purposes for you. Turning adversity into advantage always starts with forgiveness (this is not equal to trust), which is a redemptive faith-decision that changes your heart and brings God into your situation. Let him be the judge. Correct response will bring a changed perspective, resulting in inner healing. The broken trust can be rebuilt with time, truth, and healthy boundaries without resentment. Character tested by fire brings forth freedom and fruitfulness. God allows adversities to mature our faith, refine our motives, reveal our dependence upon him, re-direct our paths and then He starts to manifest his glory in us.
What does it truly mean to enter the kingdom of God? This powerful exploration of 2 Peter 1 reveals that while salvation qualifies us for the kingdom, our entrance into its fullness is progressive and conditional upon our response. We discover that God has lavishly supplied everything we need—His divine power, the knowledge of Him, His glory and goodness, and exceeding great promises—all designed to make us partakers of His divine nature. Yet here's the transformative truth: God requires our partnership. We're called to 'add to our faith' with all diligence, building upon our initial belief with virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. This isn't about earning salvation but about actively participating in kingdom life. The Greek word 'epikhorēgeō' beautifully illustrates this—like a wealthy benefactor who underwrites an entire production, God backs our spiritual growth with unlimited resources. When we supply the effort to grow in these graces, God abundantly supplies our entrance into kingdom realities. This isn't just about heaven someday; it's about experiencing kingdom authority, power, and favor right now. The challenge confronts us: are we merely going through religious motions, or are we intentionally cultivating the character of Christ that grants us access to the very power and presence of God in this critical hour?
This powerful message confronts us with an uncomfortable but liberating truth: entering the kingdom of God requires more than theological knowledge—it demands genuine transformation of character. Drawing from Ephesians 5, we're reminded that sexual immorality, impurity, greed, obscenity, and foolish talk disqualify us from inheriting the kingdom. But the passage doesn't stop with a list of prohibitions; it challenges us to 'find out what pleases the Lord.' This implies an intimate, ongoing relationship where we discover God's heart beyond any checklist. The sermon vulnerably explores personal struggles—perfectionism leading to intolerance of others' weaknesses, impatience with indecisiveness, dismissiveness toward failure, and the desperate need to be right. These aren't just personality quirks; they're kingdom barriers. When we truly know the King, He transforms us into His likeness—patient, forgiving, understanding that everyone is on a sanctification journey. The conviction here cuts deep: we cannot change ourselves through willpower or self-improvement. Only through confession, repentance, and surrendering to the Holy Spirit's work can we experience genuine transformation. The kingdom isn't about outward compliance but inward renewal, where even our 'small' sins—gossip, exaggeration, self-justification—are confronted because they rob us of spiritual authority and power.
In this powerful message, we're reminded that the kingdom of God is not a future event, but a present reality we're called to manifest. Drawing from Jesus' ministry and the apostles' experiences, we see that the kingdom is characterized by righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. As believers, we're challenged to recognize the opportunities God continually provides for us to demonstrate His kingdom through healing, deliverance, and speaking life. The message emphasizes that our identity in Christ empowers us to walk in authority, just as Jesus did. We're encouraged to step out in faith, trusting that the Holy Spirit will work through us to bring heaven to earth in tangible ways. This perspective shift from waiting for the kingdom to actively participating in it can revolutionize our approach to daily life and ministry.
In our exploration of the Kingdom of God, we're reminded that knowing the King is paramount to living a kingdom life. The parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18 illustrates the profound mercy of our King, challenging us to reflect this same mercy in our lives. As we delve deeper into understanding God's character, we're encouraged to see Him not just as a distant ruler, but as a merciful Father, a protective Brother, and a King who continually comes to us. This multifaceted nature of God invites us into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Him. When we truly know Him, His principles become less burdensome and more natural to us. Let's take time this week to focus on getting to know our King better, setting aside our usual routines to simply be in His presence and hear His voice.
One of the greatest attributes we could have is humility. We must continue being the clay that God can form, trusting him throughout whatever is happening in our lives. In our walk with God our losses often precede the gain of that which He has for us and thus we should celebrate such losses. We often only see our limitations, but God sees our unending elevations. If you want the power of the Holy Spirit in your life, you have to give God your will to get God’s demands on your life. At creation God kept putting demands upon himself to create more and more and since we are created in his image, we should never get satisfied or complacent with where we are in God, but keep demanding more, for there is so much more. This is the attitude that solicits constant angelic co-operation and help. Keep the promises you have made to God with commitment, dedication and fearless willingness to adjust your life according to his will and He will take you to the next level of the fire. When we do not use what God gave us by answering to his demand on our lives, we will start to worship that gift, instead of worshipping him. God demands a return on the investment which He made by sending Jesus to the earth and that return is a harvest of sons and daughters. We judge our relationship with God, not by how much money He gives us, but by what we can do for him, because we love him. Love is not just words but requires actions. Our roots are in whatever we love, and our trust and provision is rooted in God, not in possessing money. We are totally dependent upon one another to keep us from being self-reliant and our money is only a tool God has blessed us with for the sake of the Kingdom. God has demanded our lives for us to be sons of power and givers of God’s love, grace, mercy, and blessing. God’s demand on our lives is to do greater works than what Jesus did.
Women are naturally wired to be good friends because they are more inclined towards relational depth and emotional connection. In our relationships we need to learn how to hold confidentiality, not be involved in character assassination, but rather be dignified, temperate and trustworthy. Women are naturally more sensitive and aware, and men need to learn how to tap into it. Women are naturally empathetic, compassionate, nurturing, have a capacity to carry emotional things, loyal, emotionally honest, intuitive, encouraging, have relational endurance, and naturally hospitable. To become a good confidant, it starts by being able to keep things received from the Lord a secret until He releases it to be shared. Then one should be able to keep your word to not share a confidentiality placed in your care. How one treats a confidentiality reveals your character, spiritual maturity, as well as your reverence for God. Confidentiality builds trust, strengthens love and promotes peace. Confidentiality protects peoples’ dignity, stops gossip in its tracts, covers in prayer and always speaks life with words that heal, restore and encourage. We should be like protective bank vaults where people can confidently leave their secrets. Being a woman of confidentiality means that you will not pass on what has been shared in confidence (except in cases where silence means being an accessory to something that needs to be dealt with), praying before speaking, honouring other peoples’ reputation as if it was your own, listening more than speaking, not participating in gossip even by silent agreement and before speaking questioning yourself with – what I am about to say, is it true? Necessary to say it? Is it kind, encouraging, or hurtful? Let us reflect the character of Christ in every conversation.
In our exploration of the Kingdom of God, we've uncovered profound truths that challenge our understanding of faith. The central message revolves around the idea that the Kingdom isn't a distant future event or a physical place, but a present reality we're called to participate in. Drawing from Matthew 3:2, we're reminded that 'the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' This isn't about waiting for a future paradise, but about actively engaging in God's rule right now. The concept of 'preparing the way of the Lord' from Isaiah 40:3 takes on new meaning - it's about turning our faces towards God, changing our hearts and minds. This metanoia, or repentance, isn't just about feeling sorry, but about a complete reorientation of our lives towards God's will. As we reflect on this, we're challenged to consider: Are we truly submitting to God's rule in our daily lives? Are we walking on the path He's set before us, or have we strayed? This message calls us to recover our spiritual vision, to cry out like the blind men in Matthew 20:30, 'Lord, have mercy on us!' It's an invitation to renew our commitment to the Kingdom, to live as citizens under God's loving rule, here and now.
This message explores what it truly means to live in God’s Kingdom here and now. Salvation is only the beginning—kingdom living calls for submission, transformation, and maturity. The teaching challenges us to move beyond waiting for a distant hope and instead embrace the reality of Christ’s reign in our lives today. Discover how walking in obedience and surrender brings true life, purpose, and alignment with God’s greater plan for His people.
In our journey of faith, we're called to embrace spiritual maturity and growth. This message challenges us to move beyond being mere spectators to becoming active participants in God's kingdom. The central theme revolves around the apostolic nature of the church, drawing parallels to the early Christian communities described in the book of Acts. We're reminded that true maturity is evidenced not just in our knowledge, but in our actions - particularly in how we love and serve others. The scripture 'By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another' (John 13:35) takes on new meaning as we consider our role in the body of Christ. This call to maturity invites us to reflect on our own spiritual growth. Are we content with simply receiving, or are we ready to give? Are we willing to step out of our comfort zones to serve, even in areas that aren't 'our ministry'? As we contemplate these questions, we're encouraged to align ourselves with the vision and spirit of our spiritual leaders, embodying a culture of honour, faith, excellence, and service. This message serves as a powerful reminder that our growth impacts not just our individual lives but the effectiveness of the entire body of Christ in fulfilling its mission.
In this powerful message, we're challenged to embrace the process of spiritual growth through life's trials. The central theme revolves around the concept of 'Gethsemane' - our personal moments of pressure and pain that God uses to refine us. Drawing from Jesus' experience in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26), we're reminded that even Christ faced moments of anguish and struggle. The key insight is that these difficult times aren't just obstacles, but opportunities for transformation. Like olives pressed for oil, we too are 'pressed' to produce the pure, holy oil of character and spiritual power. This message encourages us to 'lay there like an olive and take it,' trusting God's process even when it's painful. It's a call to follow closely in the 'dust of our Rabbi,' Jesus, embracing both the joys and challenges of discipleship. As we face our own Gethsemanes, we're urged to guard against bitterness and impurity, allowing God to produce something beautiful through our struggles.
When we are facing a problem, the key to being strong in the Kingdom lies in the fact that one is already pregnant with the answer to the problem. Sometimes the size of the problem we face serves as an indication of the scope of the sacrifice He wants from us to bring forth his answer. When we are called of God, we should expect resistance and having to fight, since these things serve to build and strengthen our faith. In this process of growing our faith the resistance is that which comes from the enemy and the protein of strength which we need is the Word of God. We are now at the time where we are to stop looking back to revivals in the past. It is time for a new revival, a fresh anointing, a fresh word, fresh wisdom. God is covering people, and moving through them, who are in his service, not for themselves, but for his Kingdom. We need to be set apart, denying the flesh and living in and through revelation from the Spirit, constantly being high on the Most High. It is important to stay vigilant that we do not misuse God’s gift and start to operate in it without God’s anointing like Samson did, lest it becomes our greatest enemy, ending up destroying us. We need to live with honesty, without fakery, strong in the Spirit, serving, and walking in- and manifesting the real supernatural light of God. Do not allow that which makes you strong to destroy your life but stay with your first love for God.
We kneel before the Lord Jesus Christ as our supreme Head and this posture settles something against not only principalities and powers, but also towards the flesh. We have been baptised into oneness by the Holy Spirit. We are all different parts of the same Body, the Body of Christ, and every part is essential. Truth, light and revelation are progressive. Truth is a person and will never contradict, but only add to itself. The same is true about revelation, because it is the light which grows ever brighter. From the beginning, God had only one purpose with man and that is that we would be shaped in the inner man into his image and likeness, and towards this end He has gifted the Church with ministries so that the whole Church can grow up into the full accuracy, to the full measure of the stature of the Son of God. We see that every denomination has had a glimpse of God, a pigeonhole through which God is viewed, and it became walls, familiar, comfort zones of our faith, a prison. However, the Spirit will always progress, and we must move away from these pigeonholes and stay in step with him with faith, courage and conviction because there is so much more. The way to step up in the spirit, is to die to self. There is a shift happening wherein God wants to deconstruct our ideas about his Church. We are totally dependent upon the Holy Spirit, and must be permeated with him, even as Jesus was. We need to grow up unto that full image of Christ through being free in the Spirit and anchored in the Word. We are invited to step into, not only the gifts, but the Spirit of God, the Spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of the reverential fear and worship of the Lord – the Spirit without measure. It is also time for the Church to shine in the community around us. As we are grounded on the basic foundations of The Faith, God is pulling us into maturity, into truly being kings and priests unto him.
God says that there is a shift coming, wherein He is repairing and restoring everything that was broken. New things are coming. When God is removing from our lives that which is sub-par to replace it with what He has for us, it often seems like it could be the worst days of our lives. We are invited to get away with Jesus and rest, recovering from the burnout that religion brings, learning from, walking, and working with him instead. Learn from him the unforced rhythms of grace. Learn to live freely, lively and adventurously. The Church is finding herself in a time of change, entering a brand-new era in God. We are moving from the era of learning to build a good local church to that of taking the Kingdom into society through many innovative ways. There is a shift from where the Church needed Alpha heroes to break new ground, to that of the Body of Christ rising up. There is an explosion of innovation taking place in the Body of Christ, shifting Her from the era of learning and copying to an era of new things finding expression through that which God has built into each individual. We need to take our position in society and flood the earth with God’s glory. Each individual member is a missionary in their sphere of influence. The most powerful in this new era will be those who know their God, those who are free from having to perform in certain ways under the demands of religion, but, as the beloved of the Lord, only go and do as He directs.
In this powerful message, we explore the transformative nature of truly knowing God. The central theme revolves around the idea that our relationship with God is reciprocal - as we draw near to Him, He draws near to us. This isn't just about intellectual knowledge, but about an intimate, experiential relationship that changes us from within. We're reminded of Jesus' words in Matthew 7, where He warns that not everyone who calls Him 'Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven. This shocking statement emphasizes that true faith is more than just words or even religious acts - it's about doing God's will and cultivating a genuine relationship with Him. As we pursue this deeper knowledge of God, we become stronger spiritually, filled with His power and love. This message challenges us to move beyond superficial faith and seek a transformative connection with our Creator.
In this powerful message, we explore the transformative nature of truly knowing God. The central theme revolves around the idea that our relationship with God is reciprocal - as we draw near to Him, He draws near to us. This isn't just about intellectual knowledge, but about an intimate, experiential relationship that changes us from within. We're reminded of Jesus' words in Matthew 7, where He warns that not everyone who calls Him 'Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven. This shocking statement emphasizes that true faith is more than just words or even religious acts - it's about doing God's will and cultivating a genuine relationship with Him. As we pursue this deeper knowledge of God, we become stronger spiritually, filled with His power and love. This message challenges us to move beyond superficial faith and seek a transformative connection with our Creator.
Are we truly living in the Kingdom of God? This powerful message challenges us to examine the difference between being born again and fully entering God's Kingdom. Using Jesus' teachings from Matthew, we're reminded that salvation is just the beginning - God desires us to live under His rule and reign. The narrow gate isn't about salvation, but about surrendering every area of our lives to Christ's Lordship. Like yeast permeating dough, the Kingdom should transform us completely. We're called to childlike humility, trust, and obedience - letting go of pride and self-governance. This isn't just about individual growth, but about manifesting God's power and revival in the world. Are we willing to abdicate the throne of self and fully submit to God's authority? The message urges us to seek first the Kingdom, allowing God's righteousness to exceed our own attempts, and to live as true Kingdom citizens and representatives.
Are we truly living in the Kingdom of God? This powerful message challenges us to move beyond simply seeing the Kingdom to actually entering and experiencing it. The key, we learn, is obedience - not just in word, but in action. Drawing from John 3:3-5, we're reminded that being born again allows us to see the Kingdom, but entering it requires being 'born of water and the Spirit.' This isn't just about baptism, but about a life fully surrendered to God's will. The message urges us to seek first the Kingdom (Matthew 6:33), making it our top priority in all aspects of life. It's a call to immediate, unquestioning obedience that can lead to extraordinary spiritual experiences and divine protection. As we reflect on this, let's ask ourselves: Are we crowding the doorway of the Kingdom, or have we truly entered in? The promise is clear - as we yield to God's sovereignty, we'll see His power manifest in and through our lives in ways we've never experienced before.
In this powerful message, we're challenged to examine the true nature of our love for Jesus. The central theme revolves around John 14:15, where Jesus says, 'If you love me, keep my commands.' This isn't just about singing or emotional expressions of love, but about obedience in action. We're reminded that our love for Christ is proven through our willingness to follow His teachings, even when it's difficult. The message draws parallels between our relationship with Jesus and human relationships, emphasizing that love is more than words - it's demonstrated through actions. As we reflect on this, we're encouraged to start with simple acts of obedience in our daily lives, such as forgiving others, resisting temptation, and serving others. This teaching invites us to deepen our faith by aligning our actions with our professed love for Christ.
A heartfelt journey of love, faith, and perseverance. John and Bev share their story of marriage, ministry, and the lessons learned through trials, from the “denim days” of struggle to the pearls of wisdom and the fragrance of roses. Honest, humorous, and deeply encouraging — a message about persistence, faith, and God’s grace in every season.
In this powerful message, we're challenged to examine the true nature of our love for Jesus. The central theme revolves around John 14:15, where Jesus says, 'If you love me, keep my commands.' This isn't just about singing or emotional expressions of love, but about obedience in action. We're reminded that our love for Christ is proven through our willingness to follow His teachings, even when it's difficult. The message draws parallels between our relationship with Jesus and human relationships, emphasizing that love is more than words - it's demonstrated through actions. As we reflect on this, we're encouraged to start with simple acts of obedience in our daily lives, such as forgiving others, resisting temptation, and serving others. This teaching invites us to deepen our faith by aligning our actions with our professed love for Christ.
In this inspiring and deeply personal message, we explore what it truly means to live from our identity in Christ. Through powerful testimonies, prophetic encouragement, and practical teaching, we're reminded that when we are born again, we become new creations—our past no longer defines us.This message dives into the significance of the fear of the Lord and the holiness of God, not as distant, heavy concepts, but as invitations into intimacy and transformation. When we understand who we are in Christ—chosen, set apart, and loved—we begin to walk in the Spirit, bear spiritual fruit, and live in the fullness of our calling.You'll hear stories of supernatural provision, healing from past trauma, and God's redeeming grace that restores broken identities. We’re challenged to live with reverence, purity, and purpose—not out of obligation, but out of relationship.Whether you’re wrestling with your worth, feeling spiritually stuck, or hungry to go deeper in God—this message is for you.
Today, we're reminded of the powerful truth of Emmanuel - God with us. This concept, rooted in Isaiah 7:14, isn't just a Christmas message, but a daily reality for believers. We explored how God's presence was visibly manifested throughout the Old Testament - in divine prosperity, miraculous protection, and supernatural guidance. From Joseph's success even in prison to the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, these stories showcase God's faithfulness. But here's the exciting part: if the Old Testament was glorious, how much more blessed are we in the New Testament era? We have Emmanuel, God's Son, with us always. This realisation should transform every aspect of our lives, including our finances. When we truly grasp that the Creator of the universe is with us, victory in all areas becomes possible. Let's challenge ourselves: Are we living as if God is truly with us? Our prosperity - spiritual, physical, and mental - can be evidence of walking in God's will and presence. Let's embrace this truth and watch how it changes our perspective and our lives.
In our journey of faith, we often encounter moments of weakness that challenge our spiritual resolve. This message delves deep into the transformative power of God's grace, drawing inspiration from the Apostle Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 12. We're reminded that our weaknesses are not obstacles, but opportunities for God's strength to shine through us. The story of Gideon in Judges 6 beautifully illustrates how God chooses the unlikely and empowers the weak to accomplish great things. This teaching encourages us to embrace our vulnerabilities, viewing them as invitations for divine intervention rather than limitations. As we navigate life's challenges, we're called to shift our focus from self-sufficiency to God-dependency, allowing His grace to become our source of strength. This perspective not only transforms our personal struggles but also equips us to be powerful witnesses of God's love and mercy in a world desperately in need of hope.
In this powerful message, we're challenged to examine our understanding of grace and its role in our spiritual lives. The central theme revolves around the apostle Paul's experiences, particularly in 2 Corinthians 12, where he speaks of his 'thorn in the flesh.' This scripture highlights a crucial spiritual lesson: God's grace is sufficient in our weaknesses. We're reminded that our struggles and inadequacies can be the very conduits through which God's power is perfected. The message draws interesting parallels between Paul's experiences and our own, encouraging us to embrace our vulnerabilities rather than always seeking their removal. This perspective shift invites us to see our challenges as opportunities for God's grace to shine, fostering a deeper reliance on His strength rather than our own. As we journey in faith, we're called to recognize that our weaknesses, when surrendered to God, can become our greatest strengths. This insight is profoundly relevant to our daily lives, urging us to approach our struggles with a new mindset - one that sees them as potential gateways to experiencing God's power more fully.
In this powerful message, we're reminded of the transformative power of God's grace in our lives. The central theme revolves around 2 Corinthians 6:1, urging us not to receive God's grace in vain. We're challenged to go beyond the initial grace of salvation and seek the 'more grace' that empowers us to live transformed lives. This message draws parallels between the Apostle Paul's experiences and our own, showing how accessing God's grace can help us overcome severe trials and even find joy in difficult circumstances. The story of the Macedonian church's generosity despite their poverty serves as a powerful example of what this 'more grace' can accomplish in our lives. As we reflect on this, we're encouraged to examine our own lives and ask: Are we truly allowing God's grace to transform us, or are we merely content with salvation without change?
In our spiritual journey, we often encounter the paradox of God's unconditional love and the conditional nature of discipleship. This message delves into the profound truth that while salvation is free, following Christ comes with terms and conditions. We're reminded of Jesus' words in John 8:31-36, where He emphasizes the importance of abiding in His word to truly be His disciples. This passage beautifully illustrates how freedom in Christ is intertwined with obedience and surrender. As we reflect on this, we're challenged to examine our own lives: Are we merely believers, or are we committed disciples? The message urges us to move beyond initial belief to a life of deep surrender and obedience. It's a call to lay down the tracks of God's principles in our lives, allowing His blessings to flow freely. This perspective shift invites us to see our challenges through a new lens, recognizing that our spiritual growth often hinges on our willingness to submit to God's wisdom and timing.
In our exploration of spiritual growth, we've uncovered a powerful truth: humility is the key to unlocking God's favor. Drawing from 1 Peter 5:5-6, we're reminded that 'God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.' This isn't just about appearing meek; it's about recognizing our complete dependence on God and submitting to His will. We've seen how biblical figures like David, Joseph, and Daniel exemplified this humility, serving faithfully even under difficult authorities. Their stories challenge us to examine our own attitudes towards leadership and authority in our lives. Are we resisting God's structure, or are we allowing Him to work through the authorities He's placed over us? This message invites us to cultivate true humility - not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less. As we do so, we open ourselves to greater spiritual blessings and favor from both God and man.
Today, we delved into the profound concept of God's favor and how it relates to our spiritual growth. We learned that while grace is unmerited, favor can be earned through faithfulness and righteousness. The story of Jesus growing in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man (Luke 2:52) serves as our ultimate example. This teaches us that favor is not static but can increase as we align ourselves with God's will. We're challenged to examine our own lives and ask: Are we growing in favor as Jesus did? Are we living in a way that pleases God and attracts His favor? This message reminds us that our daily choices and attitudes matter greatly in our spiritual journey. By cultivating humility, obedience, and faithfulness, we position ourselves to receive more of God's favor, which can open doors and bring divine promotion in our lives.
In this powerful and deeply vulnerable message, Elma Jacobs shares her journey through physical, emotional, and spiritual trials during years of ministry, obedience, and suffering. From facing life-threatening moments, panic attacks, and neurological trauma, to being supernaturally restored and recommissioned, Elma testifies that God's grace truly is sufficient.This is more than a testimony; it’s an encouragement to every believer, especially those in ministry, to hold fast, stand firm, and know that in our weakness, His strength is made perfect.“If we could fix it ourselves, we wouldn’t need a Saviour.”
Cherish, a business owner and coach, shares her journey of starting businesses and finding her calling. She emphasises the importance of reflecting Christ in business and how it can be a strategic advantage. Cherish highlights the value of business principles in both entrepreneurship and employment, encouraging attendees to apply these principles to stand out in their respective fields.A Christian business coach emphasises the importance of aligning business goals with faith and God’s vision. SMART goals are reimagined as SMART prayers, incorporating specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives. The coach highlights the significance of prayer as a powerful business strategy, encouraging intentionality and alignment with God’s will.To stand out in a noisy business world, businesses need to be clear about their values and purpose. This involves identifying core values that align with biblical principles and using them as a compass for decision-making, marketing, and team culture. By defining a unique selling proposition that reflects these values and resonates with a specific target audience, businesses can attract the right clients and build a loyal following.A marketing plan should be used to guide activities and goals, whether in business or personal life. The plan should consider the target market, offering, problem-solving, delivery method, investment, and desired outcome. To stand out, the message should address pain points, offer solutions, and align with the medium and method used.A business coaching programme was discussed, focusing on aligning business growth with personal growth and values. The programme’s effectiveness was highlighted through a client success story, showcasing significant business growth and personal fulfilment. The importance of understanding one’s purpose and audience was emphasised, along with the need to integrate faith into business practices.
In our exploration of grace, righteousness, and holiness, we're challenged to deepen our understanding of these fundamental aspects of our faith. The key message is that while these gifts are freely given to us through Christ, they require our active participation to fully manifest in our lives. We're reminded of the delicate balance between God's unmerited favor and our responsibility to steward it well. The scripture from 2 Corinthians 5:21 emphasizes our position as the righteousness of God in Christ, but we're also called to pursue righteous living. This parallel between our spiritual position and practice invites us to reflect on how we're living out our faith daily. Are we merely resting in our declared righteousness, or are we actively pursuing a life that reflects Christ's character? This message encourages us to embrace the transformative power of God's grace while also taking seriously our call to grow in holiness.
In this powerful message, we're challenged to live a life that pleases God. The central theme revolves around 1 John 3:22, reminding us that our prayers are answered when we keep God's commandments and do what pleases Him. This isn't about performance, but about relationship. We're called to live worthy of our calling, growing in wisdom and favor just as Jesus did. The message emphasizes that God's grace doesn't make obedience optional, but rather makes it desirable. We're encouraged to shift our focus from pleasing people to pleasing God, which brings clarity of purpose, peace of heart, boldness in witness, and freedom from fear. This perspective change can transform how we approach our daily lives, our work, and our ministry.
In this profound exploration of reverence for God, we delve into the three pillars of a Christ-centered life: piety, godliness, and devotion. These concepts, rooted in Isaiah 11:2-3, reveal how the fear of the Lord manifests in our daily walk. Piety speaks to our heart's inner posture, while godliness reflects our outward actions. Devotion, or 'devoutness,' represents our consistent commitment to living out our faith. The message challenges us to examine our own lives: Are we merely going through the motions, or are we truly living with a deep, reverential awe of God? We're reminded that this reverence isn't born from fear, but from a profound love for our Creator. As we reflect on figures like Anna and Simeon from Luke's gospel, we're inspired by their unwavering devotion and encouraged to cultivate a similar steadfastness in our own spiritual journeys.
Today, we delved into the profound significance of Christ's resurrection, exploring how it transforms our lives as believers. The central message revolves around 2 Corinthians 5:17, reminding us that in Christ, we are new creations - the old has gone, the new has come. This powerful truth challenges us to embrace our renewed identity, leaving behind past hurts, wounds, and sinful patterns. The resurrection isn't just a historical event; it's a present reality that empowers us to walk in newness of life. We're called to forgive, to let go of excuses, and to live victoriously. The resurrection provides us with endurance through trials, freedom from fear - especially the fear of death - and a hope-filled life even in a broken world. As we reflect on this, let's ask ourselves: How are we allowing the resurrection power of Jesus to transform our daily lives? Are we truly living as new creations?
On this solemn Good Friday, we're invited to reflect deeply on the profound significance of Christ's sacrifice. The crucifixion narrative, pieced together from all four Gospels, paints a vivid picture of Jesus' final hours - from the Last Supper to His death on the cross. This ultimate act of love fulfills ancient prophecies and reveals God's eternal purpose. We're reminded that the cross is not just a historical event, but a personal invitation to experience reconciliation, redemption, and transformation. As we partake in communion, we're challenged to approach with reverence, discerning Christ's body and receiving the full benefits of His broken body and shed blood. This isn't just about remembering, but about actively participating in the new covenant and allowing it to rewrite our personal histories. The cross demands a response from each of us - will we live in the light of its truth, trusting in Christ's finished work, and worshipping Him for who He is and what He's done?
In our journey of faith, we're called to cultivate wisdom that's rooted in a deep reverence for God. This wisdom isn't just head knowledge, but a transformative force that shapes our character and actions. The book of Proverbs reminds us that 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.' This fear isn't about being afraid, but about having a profound respect and awe for God's authority and love. As we grow in this wisdom, we become more teachable, open to correction, and quick to obey. It's a process that requires humility and a willingness to submit to God's rightful rule in our lives. When we live out this wisdom, it becomes visible to others, bearing fruit in righteous living and discernment. Our journey isn't always smooth - trials and challenges refine our wisdom, teaching us perseverance and deepening our faith. As we face life's ups and downs, let's remember that true wisdom is lived out, not just learned. It's in these moments that we have the opportunity to move from theory to reality, allowing God to shape us into mature, complete believers who lack nothing.
In our journey of faith, we're called to develop strong convictions rooted in God's Word. The story of Daniel and his friends in Babylon teaches us the power of standing firm in our beliefs, even in a hostile culture. Just as they refused to compromise their dietary laws, we too must establish non-negotiable principles based on Scripture. This isn't about being rigid or judgmental, but about honoring God in every aspect of our lives. The fear of the Lord - not a trembling fear, but a deep reverence and awe - is the foundation of true wisdom. It shapes our decisions, guides our actions, and helps us resist the pressure to conform to worldly standards. By developing convictions before we face challenges, we equip ourselves to remain faithful in difficult times. This message challenges us to examine our lives: Are we living to please God or people? Are we guarding our hearts and minds? Are we giving Jesus first place in every area? As we cultivate these convictions, we become powerful witnesses in a confused world, shining as beacons of God's truth and love.
In this powerful message, we're challenged to examine our understanding of the fear of the Lord and how it impacts our daily walk with God. The central theme revolves around perfecting holiness out of reverence for God, as mentioned in 2 Corinthians 7:1. We're reminded that while we are declared righteous in Christ, we're still called to actively pursue holiness in our lives. The message emphasizes the danger of presuming upon God's grace and living carelessly in sin, highlighting the importance of obedience and submission to God's word. We're encouraged to view our relationship with God not as a negotiation, but as a loving response to His lordship. This teaching invites us to reflect on areas where we might be testing God through our actions or attitudes, and calls us to cultivate a deeper reverence for Him that transforms how we live.
Today, we delved into the profound concept of the fear of the Lord and its connection to wisdom and holiness. Drawing from Proverbs, we explored how the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One leads to understanding. This isn't about being terrified of God, but rather having a deep reverence and awe for Him that shapes our actions and decisions. We reflected on how Jesus Himself walked in the fear of the Lord, demonstrating its importance in our spiritual lives. The message challenged us to examine our own hearts - are we truly living in reverence of God, or are we taking His grace for granted? It's a call to move beyond casual Christianity and embrace a life of genuine holiness, not out of obligation, but out of love and respect for our Creator. This teaching invites us to reconsider our approach to faith, urging us to seek wisdom through a deeper, more reverential relationship with God.
Johnathan Phyfer reminds us that no matter the challenges we face, God is always good. We are called to worship Him, keep a positive mindset, and stand firm in faith. Hebrews 12:1-2 encourages us to run the race with perseverance, fixing our eyes on Jesus. Church is more than just a gathering—it's a vital part of our spiritual growth, where we support one another and learn to walk in patience and love. Giving is also a spiritual discipline, teaching us to trust in God’s provision rather than material wealth. Are we truly excelling in the grace of giving as Paul urges in 2 Corinthians 8:7? This message challenges us to step out in faith, pray without ceasing, and embrace the transformation God has for us. It’s time to move forward, break free from distractions, and fully commit to God’s calling. Watch now and be encouraged to run your race with endurance!
In this life-transforming message, we are reminded that we are created in God's image and called to reflect His nature, power, and dominion in every aspect of our lives. This sermon reveals how God is peeling away limitations, false identities, and anything holding us back from fully stepping into His purpose. Learn how to walk in divine authority, align with God’s will, and embrace His supernatural provision and blessings. The kingdom of God is always advancing, and He is calling His people to a higher level of faith, obedience, and holiness. Don't miss this prophetic word that will ignite your spirit and shift your destiny!
Worship is more than just music—it’s a response to God’s holiness, a gateway to intimacy, and a way to experience His power. Chireen challenges us to move beyond routine and embrace true worship from the heart. Worship isn’t about performance or technology; it’s about reverence, gratitude, and prioritising God above all else. In this message, Chireen emphasizes: 🔹 A lifestyle of worship beyond Sundays 🔹 The importance of a heart-to-heart connection with God 🔹 Choosing songs rooted in Scripture, not just trends 🔹 Letting go of past mistakes and embracing God’s love Join us as we seek a deeper revelation of God’s holiness and cultivate a spirit of worship in every area of life!
In our exploration of divine encounters, we're reminded of the profound impact they have on our spiritual lives. Moses' experience with the burning bush teaches us about God's holiness and the transformative power of His presence. This encounter shaped Moses' entire ministry and led to the revelation of God's law. As we reflect on this, we're challenged to consider: How do our encounters with God shape our own lives and callings? The fear of the Lord is emphasized as a crucial element in our spiritual growth. It's not about being scared, but rather having a deep reverence and awe for God's majesty. This reverence acts as a fountain of wisdom, protecting us from the snares of sin and guiding us towards righteous living. In our modern world, where casual approaches to faith are common, we're called to rediscover this holy fear and allow it to deepen our relationship with God.
In this powerful message, we're challenged to examine the depth of our relationship with God. The central theme revolves around the concept of 'revelation becoming manifestation' - it's not enough to simply hear God's word, we must live it out. This echoes James' exhortation to be 'doers of the word, not hearers only.' We're reminded of Jesus' Beatitudes in Matthew 5, where blessings are promised not just for belief, but for action - for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are peacemakers, who are meek. This message urges us to move beyond casual Christianity and into a life of active, intentional discipleship. It's a call to rediscover the reverence and awe of God, to prioritize our relationship with Him in practical ways - through our time, treasures, talents, and testimony. As we reflect on this, let's ask ourselves: Are we truly living out the revelations God has given us? Are we allowing Christ to be Lord of all aspects of our lives?
In this powerful message, we're challenged to seek a deeper, more authentic encounter with God. The central theme revolves around the profound experiences of biblical figures like Moses, Isaiah, and Paul when they truly encountered God's holiness. These encounters weren't just feel-good moments, but life-altering revelations that left them trembling in awe, acutely aware of their own sinfulness, and completely transformed. We're reminded that true revelation isn't just cerebral knowledge, but a transformative experience that changes how we live. The message urges us to move beyond superficial spirituality and pursue a genuine revelation of God's holiness, which should lead to putting Him first in every aspect of our lives. This challenges us to examine our own faith journey: Are we truly encountering God, or merely going through religious motions? Are we allowing His holiness to transform us, or are we content with a comfortable, convenient faith?
This was the day of celebrating Pastors John and Bev’s 40 years of ministry (the time span of a generation) in Airport Christian Fellowship. He is talking about many of the lessons learned during their years of service. If there is any one sentence that could be applied to this ministry, it will be the one from Lamentations 2 – “Great is Thy Faithfulness”. One of the things that define God’s faithfulness, is that it comes out of his goodness and absolute, steadfast and consistent love. Pastor John’s prayer is that this goodness, steadfast love and faithfulness of God will continue to be experienced by the generation presently part of the ministry, as well as the ones following, both corporately as well as individually. There are certain things concerning the nature and character of God, which cannot be comprehended or entered into by a person who is isolated and separated from the Church. The faithfulness of God is often clothed in skin. It is the continued faithfulness, involvement, sacrifice, serving, and support of the members which enables a church to be built and grow. Like with Israel in the wilderness, God constantly proves his faithfulness, in that even when we fail a test, He will reset the same circumstances until our hearts are changed, humbled, offences dealt with, and we have grown in that area to pass the test successfully. We need to embrace the pruning that comes through the tests. We need to hear from God, be led to Him, doing things his way, because then we will be provisioned and enabled to fulfil the plan for our lives. Vision is important and powerful, and it is essential to have vision for all areas of life, seeing and speaking it. That is when God starts to supply the provision towards fulfilment. Walking with God and trusting him bring challenges, but every challenge that is responded to correctly, results in growth, especially in the areas of love and forgiveness. Our walk with God is a journey of sanctification, to change us into the very image of Jesus. On this journey we learn to put God first, love and forgive our enemies, believe in and adhere to God’s principles. We have to also learn that there is a timing in the vision God gave us and not try and rush the fulfilment by doing it in our own strength and time, but to wait for God, without pre-conceived expectations. Upon reflecting on the faithfulness of God, the automatic response is to renew commitment, to each other and to God.
New year’s resolutions are something we usually fail to adhere to, but with the right attitude, this could perhaps change. Sadly, the general trend in our culture is to put spiritual wellbeing at the very bottom of their list of priorities for the new year. We, as Christians, should be careful to not fall into the trap of this mindset when we get to face difficulties, but be determined to keep our eyes on Jesus, our righteousness. New year’s resolutions are good, but it is important to have God at the top of that list, and for him to consistently remain there. To accomplish this, we need to develop new, godly routines in our lives. Although at first the creation thereof may be difficult, but perseverance will bring good results. This first thing to do in putting God first in our lives, is to develop a trust a Him regardless of circumstances and while knowing that He is your foundation, realize that He will make a way, look after you, protect you, give you’re the desires of your heart, give your peace, and spiritual growth. We need to still keep depending on God, even when circumstances become positive. Seeking His kingdom is putting God first and in doing this, we will freely receive those things that we need in life, without having to constantly focus on them like the gentiles to. Seeking His Kingdom is living under God’s rulership and principles. The values we take on then are love, humility, faith, righteousness, forgiveness, peace, joy, generosity, justice, compassion, faithfulness, servanthood, obedience, and holiness. Seeking His Kingdom is letting go of anxiety and radically trusting God, it is modelling the ministry of Jesus because the Kingdom is inside of us. We also need to seek for God’s righteousness, his perfect moral standards and values, pursue a life that reflects His holiness and justice, and model that through our way of life. Practically speaking, putting God first by the creation of new routines could be things like starting the day with Bible study, making prayer a priority, regular church attendance, obeying God’s commands, serving others, faithful giving, surrounding yourself with Godly influence, fasting, sharing your faith, committing to grow spiritually and daily surrendering your anxieties and struggles to God. We need to be committed to speak God’s will and plan for us this year. His purposes for us are to know the fulness of his love and find peace in his presence, to seek out the lost and weary and offer them salvation and rest for their souls. He purpose is to work all things together for the good of those who love him, creating beauty from ashes and purpose from pain. He purposes to display his glory through creation, calling every heart to marvel and worship. He is unchangeable, yet his mercies are new every morning. His faithfulness endures and this will be the year of restoration and glory.
A history of God’s faithfulness and supernatural provision before and during Pastor John Wasserman’s forty years of ministry in Airport Christian Fellowship. This church in Bonaero Park was known as the black hole and the pastor’s graveyard, since about 15 pastors who took on this church crashed and burned during the first 20 years of its existence. God’s faithfulness has been the foundation or bedrock carrying Pastor John for the forty years of his ministry in this church, and that is also true for us in every area of our lives, whether it be in our jobs, businesses or personal spiritual walk with God. God’s faithfulness stops us from being consumed by difficulties, his mercies never fail but are new every day. Faithfulness is a core attribute of God, part of his nature, and it is established in heaven. It is unchanging, regardless of circumstances. His promises are certain because his character is steadfast. God’s faithfulness is of covenant nature wherein He is completely committed to his promises and is unable to break his word. His promises are kept throughout a thousand generations. It behoves us to be faithful in our generation to model to the ones following us this covenant relationship. His faithfulness is demonstrated in the way He preserved Israel throughout the generations. He is also doing the same for the Church of Jesus Christ. We can also testify that God has been faithful to the church, ACF, as well as towards individual members. That faithfulness of God is not only a foundation, but it also sets the course for great assurance and faith in Him for the next forty years. God’s faithfulness has shaped our personal walk with Him. Faithfulness is a landmark of maturity for believers because it reflects the character of God. The faithfulness of God should inspire in us a greater commitment to- and deep gratitude in our hearts towards him.
Most of the prophecies for 2025 that one can see on social media are actually for the congregation, to which that person bringing it, is a minister. However, one must keep in mind that the fulfilment of all the wonderful promises and prophecies for the year 2025 is conditional on our response to and walk with God. The focus for our local church in this year is that we need to be focusing on the supremacy of Christ, getting a fresh revelation of his kingship. This supremacy consists out of three aspects, his majesty, magnificence and might. His majesty is about his greatness, glory, and sovereign authority – Christ as king – He is King of kings and Lord of lords. His kingdom is everlasting. Jesus has received his kingship from the Father because of the price paid on the cross. If we have a deep revelation of the majesty of Christ and live in it, we will be able to overcome the things of this world, as we surrender to his supreme authority in every area of our lives, since He is above all earthly powers and circumstances. The magnificence of Christ talks about his beauty and splendour and the grace revealed through his person and works. His supreme splendour is overwhelming. His magnificence is not only in what He has done, but also in who He is, his humility, wisdom, and love. He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born son over all creation, which is his inheritance. Through and for him all things have been created and are held together, He sustains the universe by his power. He is magnificent in his person, position, purpose, passion, perfection, patience, perseverance, and power. Everything we claim for 2025 is included in the majesty and magnificence of Christ, as we make time to meditate on, reflect and consider Him, his life, death, resurrection and current ministry. This will inspire us to a deeper gratitude for his presence and provision for us in the past year. Witnessing to others will also deepen our experience of his magnificence. Christ is also immeasurably powerful, (his might) because all authority in heaven and on earth has been bestowed upon him by his Father when He was raised from the dead. The power of his resurrection is the assurance of his ability to sustain- and give us victory over all of our challenges, including sin and death. To see this power at work in us, we need to trust, and rest in the promise of his power, understanding that his power is made perfect in our weakness. This not automatic, but when we go to him with our weakness with honesty and confess and give it over to him, that is when his power is made perfect. In this year we need to worship more fully, study the Word deeply, live gratefully, and walk through this year with boldness and fearlessness.
Right at the foundation of Christmas is the amazing love of God. This message and Jesus, the gift that God gave, is making inroads in many levels of society, for instance in the lives of hardened criminals in jail and many, many, people in the entertainment industry who have become powerfully converted and saved. There are three main foundational aspect of Christmas, and those are righteousness, peace and joy. Righteousness is that through the birth of Christ God initiated his plan to make us right with him. By us simply believing in the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, it opened up the only way for us to get in right standing with God. That rightness with God produces something that everybody desperately seeks for, but hardly ever find, and that is peace. True peace can only come from knowing God and understanding that we are right with him. This peace is both internal and external, it is not only peace with God, but also the peace of God which fills our hearts. It is a peace which is not temperamental or conditional and a peace that surpasses understanding. It is not based on circumstances. The fruit of righteousness and peace is joy. The tidings brought to the shepherds by the angels said that it was an occurrence of great joy. This is a joy that comes from knowing that we are loved, redeemed and secure in Christ. It is the spiritual and emotional fulfilment that comes from living in alignment with God’s will, experiencing peace with God, others and oneself and reaping the blessings of righteousness. This sequence, righteousness, peace and joy is consistently found throughout the Bible. These three things, righteousness, peace and joy, are also part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit within us. It is the true foundation of Christmas.
It is part of the culture in traditional churches to have a prelude or build-up of weeks before feasts like Easter, Pentecost, Ascension Day, and Christmas, to prepare people’s hearts for the celebrating of that particular event. When Jesus was born, kings (magi, or mighty men) from the East came, to bring gifts and bow before- and worship The King, totally ignoring the Israeli king of the time. Because of their diligent seeking (or preparation), they received divine revelation of the King that had been born. We need to, in preparation to celebrate the birth of our Saviour, humble ourselves in diligently seeking to get to know him better, and get a greater revelation of the power outflowing from out of his whole life. This diligent search for him, done in faith and truth, is pleasing (like a gift) unto him, and the result is his blessing upon us. May we discover, as we prepare for Christmas, a fresh understanding of the eternal rule and reign of Jesus and submit to his kingship and worship him as such. May we, as we prepare our hearts, come to a place where we receive him afresh, believing in him, understanding the power and authority that He has given us to be Sons of God. Let us not get lost in the trappings of Christmas, but find a way to seek Jesus, thereby honouring him. Let us share his true identity with others. Let us surrender our fears, frustration and failures and trust in the King who offers eternal peace and hope. The fact that God first announced through angels the glorious message of the birth of Christ to lowly shepherds, reveals his character, that being to reveal himself to the humble and lowly of spirit. The meek will inherit the earth and the hungry are filled. The poor in spirit receive things that those who are self-sufficient do not. In our preparation we need to re-visit humility in simplicity and surrender, because that is a prelude to worship. The description which Isaiah gave about who Jesus is, explains that He is sufficient to cover every situation which we could face, since He is wonderful, councillor, mighty God, everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. We need to remember at the time of the festivities around Christmas, that the Kingdom is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Peace and joy are an automatic outflow of being right with God. Let us prepare ourselves spiritually, relationally, missionally, and commit ourselves to serve others practically.
The golden vines adorning Herod’s temple were a symbol of the fact the Israel was meant to be God’s vineyard. These adornments had been donated by individuals, signifying their devotion to the temple, the place where they connected with God. It also served as a reminder of the responsibility which had been placed by God on this nation to bear fruit, which Israel failed to do, despite God’s continuous calls on them to return to him. It was in the sight of these adornments on the temple that Jesus was proclaiming that He was the true vine. He was saying that it was in being connected to him, that fruit would be born, since He had fulfilled every requirement from God to do so, in the face of Israel’s failure. We as Christians are required to bear fruit, which is only made possible by a heart change coming from abiding in the true vine, Jesus. Abiding in Him makes the bearing of fruit something that is effortless. When the branches of the vine grow downwards in a vineyard and become dusty and contaminated, the farmer will lift them up and dust them off to enable the forming of fruit. God is today desiring to do the same for us, dusting off everything that prevents us from bearing fruit. For us as Christians, being in Christ shapes our identity, purpose, our relationship with God and the world around us. It is important for us to fully realize and have a biblical worldview that we are abiding in Him. This assures that we are living in his power, life and strength, free from condemnation, guilt and shame. There we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. To keep the fact alive that we are abiding in the vine, we need to spend time in the Word of God, worship, and prayer, obey his commands, love one another, depend on the Holy Spirit, be an instant confessor, repenting and forgiving yourself, neglect not the fellowship with one another, witness and share the love of Jesus with others, have a thankful heart, rejoice in hope, and endure trials and tribulations with fortitude. Let us work together with God to see that required fruit come forth.
The Kingdom of Christ is eternal, and shall never ever be overshadowed by any other, regardless of how mighty they may seem to be. Its values are in stark contrast. contradictory to- and upside-down from those of worldly kingdoms and cultures. There are many ways in which this is manifested, for instance there is a reversal of the power dynamic found in the Kingdom, since the meekness and poverty of spirit which God interprets as greatness is interpreted by the world as weakness. In the Kingdom blessings come to the meek and lowly. Jesus’ teaching to love your enemies is also seen by the world as being upside-down. In the Kingdom there are riches in being poor in spirit and the principle to prosperity here is that to give results in gain, and not get to gain. Dying to self leads to life and the first shall be last, the last first. The focus in the Kingdom is internal transformation in contrast to external conformity to the laws of a country. In the Kingdom sacrifice is elevated above self-preservation. Self-preservation is typified by self-justification. The Kingdom way of life is a challenge to the believer, because it is so radically different to that of the world. It demands that we prioritize spiritual- over material values, humility over pride, selflessness over selfishness, and living a life that reflects God’s grace and love, even when it goes against the grain of what is normal to society. Jesus, although King, was a servant, obedient, respectful, loving, and willing to lay down his life for us. The call on- and strength of our Christian Walk is serving others like He did, using the grace we have received thereunto. A lifestyle of serving the Body of Christ is nothing else but adopting His mindset and, in this way, we are also serving Him. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of divine power, in speech and action, based on the authority given to us. In Christ we have authority over sickness and to forgive sins, based on repentance. Christ had authority and power over creation, evil, sin and temptation, laying down his life and taking it up again. We therefore have the authority to speak life to people in His name. We have the power and authority to live and proclaim the Kingdom in all the world and change it to be the right side up.
Instead of just thanking God for his purposes in our lives, we are to also be doing whatever He lays upon our hearts to fulfil those purposes. An example of this is reaching out to someone when they come up in your mind, thus combatting the dangers of members of the Body of Christ becoming isolated. This is being naturally supernatural, being responsible with, honouring, and applying God’s Word and instructions to us. It is essential that we do not relate with each other with masks on but be real, open and vulnerable. We present our bodies to God as a reasonable act of service, have our minds transformed and thereby proving our faith. Every aspect of our lives is to be lived from God and prayer should be our default in every difficult situation. We need to realize that God is the immovable mover and by being open to him, stopping our resistance and surrendering to Him, we will see him moving in our lives. We also need to be open to others. By loving God fully, we can also love others. I Corinthians 13 is not suggestions, but instructions which are to be applied. We need to ask God how we can practically change people’s lives. We must live generous lives, sharing our time, skills and presence with people, while being helped and led in this by the Holy Spirit. We need to readily recognize what God wants from us and quickly respond, for us to experience maximum effectivity, development, and well-formed maturity. Let our lives have a Godly ripple-effect to those around us, instead of the opposite. The acronym for open is O is offer, P is our posture of readiness, E is for execute, and the N stands for now. May the strength, life, power and love of God flow through our open arms to the communities and families around us.
The Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, is not a physical place but a divine reality and it is made up out of every individual who has made the decision to repent and submit their lives to Jesus Christ. Since they have been born again or born from above, the Kingdom is present here on earth in their hearts. At the same time it is yet to come when the King will have returned to be here physically – an endless Kingdom here on earth, not in heaven. Earth is the domain where God needs mature sons, princes and kings, to reign under the Lordship of Jesus, bringing heaven to earth. Earthly kingdoms are often defined by power, wealth, military force, corruption, manipulation, domination, and intimidation but in contrast Jesus’ Kingdom is spiritual, not depending on political structures or physical borders. It exists where his will is being carried out. It is marked by His presence, values and activities which have been instilled in the hearts of his people. To enter the Kingdom means more than just believing for salvation but to grow in faith. Although this treasure is mysterious and hidden, the Kingdom is accessible to those who are hungry and looking for it and by paying the price, as Jesus showed in the parables about the Kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven is a realm defined by values. These are selflessness, humility, alignment with Godo’s will, righteousness, justice, mercy, grace, love, peace and joy. These values reflect God’s character, and it is his intention for us to not only live like this with him but also in the same harmonious manner with one another. We need to grasp the reality of the kingship of Christ and live it, having our hearts transformed by a relationship with the King. The sermon on the mount was Jesus’ kingdom manifesto and foundation. It spells out being poor in spirit or humble, being broken about sin and turning to God for salvation, meekness, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, purity of heart, making peace, suffering and enduring persecution because of righteousness, and resisting everything that is not the Kingdom while pursuing everything that it is. The Kingdom is a theocracy, and all are invited to enter, but the qualification to have a rich entrance ministered unto us, is to be converted to become like a little child. That means to be humble, the opposite of proud, arrogant, and self-sufficient. To sum up, the conditions for entry into the Kingdom are: repentance and humility, continued faith and obedience to Jesus, growth in holiness, peace with God, being in a totally committed relationship with him and prioritising him, becoming a child of God with a mission to glorify him and to be about the same mission that He is. This mission is to preach the gospel of the Kingdom in all the world, telling people that the cost to them will be to lay everything down to obtain this precious pearl.
The magi from the east saw a heavenly sign of a king being born, and following that star, came looking for Jesus. Although Jesus was born as the king of the Jews, in effect He has always been king, and will be king forever, from eternity to eternity. The star which the magi followed was not only a sign in the heavens of the birth of a great leader, but it also was a symbol of how the Holy Spirit would lead people to Jesus. Because the magi were not Israelites, the star was a symbol of how God was opening the door unto his Kingdom to people from every nationality and race as well. The star was a symbol of hope, of the light and redemption of the world who had come, piercing the darkness. Although there were those who reacted against the birth of The King manifesting the spirit of the Ant-Christ, his Kingdom has come on this earth, and it will last for ever. Everything against it will pass away, as the dream about statue in the Book of Daniel showed. An example of the eternal Lordship of Jesus was when king Nebuchadnezzar rebelled against The King and as a result lost his mind. When he came to himself, he had to acknowledge and bow down to the eternal kingship of God. There are many more examples of this eternal kingship being written about in Scripture, for instance, in Paul’s doxology in his letter to Timothy, and the description of the everlasting kingdom in the Book of Revelation. God is working with intentionality and purpose towards establishing his Kingdom of loving leadership and followship where every knee in heaven, on earth and under the earth shall bow and confess Jesus as King. We have the privilege to voluntarily submit our lives to Jesus and confess him as King. The practical application of this submission is that we recognize Jesus as the ultimate authority in our lives, above every other authority, including our own desires. In doing so, we are believing, trusting, and are confident and assured that his plan and purposes for us will prevail. His plan for redemption and justice will ultimately be fulfilled. The meek shall inherit the earth, and the wicked will not be part of his land. Every enemy shall be defeated, even death. This is the future for us, as well as for the entire universe – a total rebirth at the appearance of the King of kings and Lord of lords. Recognising Jesus as King motivates believers to live missionally and according to the Kingdom mandate. It inspires our worship and adoration of him. Worship, not only through singing, but of a life lived in obedience and gratitude him. The kingship of Jesus is a call to believers to align their lives with the holiness, righteousness and love of Jesus, striving to reflect their king’s character. It does involve repentance; it demands spiritual growth and absolute reliance on the Holy Spirit. Knowing the kingship of Jesus results in his peace and rest being the believer’s portion because his sovereignty, providence and the fact that He is responsible for the citizens of his kingdom has become a reality. Being our king, He is involved and interested in every detail of our lives. He loves us and cares for us.
Getting baptised is obedience to Christ’s command, a public declaration of faith, and an identification with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Approaching baptism with faith removes it out of the realm of typology or symbolism and makes this identification with Jesus a living reality to the believer. Water baptism is essential, vital and part of the salvation package. It is not an option, but a necessity. Water baptism is of vital importance, because God expects it from the believer. By being obedient to his instruction in this expected and appropriate response, the believer is giving proof of having the same faith by which they have been saved. Actions need to demonstrate our faith in every area of our lives, not only in water baptism. The first principal of baptism is that it must be approached with faith. The second principal is obedience, fulfilling righteousness as Jesus did when He was baptised by John. After the believer has been obedient to this instruction from God, it must be followed up by receiving teaching in how to obey every other command to walk with God. Being baptised is being baptised into the character of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit, resulting in change. One is then in a place of being enabled to receive greater revelation and understanding. Therefore, refusing to follow God’s principles, is a self-imposed hindrance to further progress in him and in reaching his purposes for your life. Water baptism is the doorkeeper of obedience to the rest of a person’s Christian walk.
We can choose whether we want to be part of the first, second, or third generation. However, there also is a fourth generation. The purpose of those who volunteer to be part of this fourth generation, is to rule over light and darkness and divide it. Looking at the number four in the Bible and the first four books in the Bible, the literal meaning of their titles are as follows – Genesis – in the beginning, Exodus – names, Leviticus – and he called (God called Moses into the tabernacle) and Numbers – in the wilderness, as well as counting (to count or to remember, appoint). Abraham, having been called by God to leave his life (die to it). crossed over a boundary into a new life and was thus the first person to be called a Hebrew. The next person who was called by this name was Joseph, the fourth generation from Abraham. Abraham was dwelling in tents, but God’s promise to him indicated that the fourth generation from him would have that land as a permanent inheritance. Moses was also part of a fourth generation and because the enemy was aware of the prophetic word over the fourth generation, he started killing the babies born at the same time as Moses, trying to avoid this word’s fulfillment. When Moses returned to Egypt to fulfil his mandate from God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, and Pharaoh responded by making their lot even harder, they questioned Moses and developed a victim mentality by complaining and murmuring. The Hebrew word for murmur also means ‘to lodge for the night’. In essence it means, “we know that God wants to take us to the light, but we are comfortable here in the darkness, so let us remain here”. This murmuring attitude was as a result of having no ‘heart’ relationship with God, but rather a self-centred one which cannot accept temporary imperfect circumstances, and does not understand God’s heart, purposes, and counsel. The nation of Israel could not attain their inheritance before all those who had murmured against God because they failed to understand His purpose with them, had died. Let us not focus on our problems and trials, but rather on Jeus and God’s plans and purposes for this earth, prophesying that into being. We should seek God’s counsel to know what these purposes are and resist the temptation to murmur when our circumstances are not ideal. No matter what challenges we face, let us be the fourth generation, not giving way to a victim mentality and, dividing between light and dark, rule in every circumstance.
One person walking with God is passing down blessings upon a thousand (a great number) generations of his descendants. Every parent has a desire to see their children be blessed of God. Regardless of what our predecessors were like, we are already blessed because of the fact that we are Christians. God, who is our father, promised Abraham that all the families of the earth will be blessed through his seed (singular) and that seed being Christ, we are heirs, partakers and perpetuators of that blessing because we are in and of that seed. We have the authority to speak and prophesy blessing over our children as well as ourselves. For a positive generational impact, it is important for us to make the right decisions, keep imparting and teaching the Word of God to your children, and regularly attend church services with them, where they can experience the presence and works of God. They need to be fathered and mentored unto spiritual maturity. There is an influence upon us coming from the cloud of witnesses who had served faithfully throughout their generations. To open up the wells of generational blessing, it is essential for us to not only realize that we are already blessed in Christ, but to accompany it by fervent and continual prayers, especially for the next generation. The prayer of a righteous person has great power, and it is possible that a vision and prophetic word will only be completely fulfilled in the next generations, as was the case with Abraham. The next generation needs teaching, encouragement, guidance, sound warnings and admonitions. Mentors, or spiritual parents can help recognize, unlock and give leadership into generational blessing. There is a call upon all of us to be willing instruments in God’s hands to spend time with and impart wisdom to the next generation. Let us be intentional about finding out how to bridge the gap and communicate with them. Our children, and generations unborn, are already blessed because we love and obey God and He is faithfully maintaining this covenant to a thousand generations.
The first generation experiencing a move of God has a deep, loving relationship with Jesus, resulting in a moral and righteous lifestyle. The generation after them has the same lifestyle without the relationship, and the third generation sees a form of godliness in their parents but without the power, which results in them casting off all restraints. We see examples of this phenomenon throughout the Bible. Whereas the previous week’s word on this topic was directed towards people from the first generation, this week’s is geared towards those who are part of the second generation. There is a responsibility on the first generation to make sure, by not only walking and modelling a lifestyle, but also to pray and make sure that the next generation has a vital, living relationship with Jesus. It is important for the second generation to tap into the same passion and vision of the first generation and avoid the trap of just maintaining a certain lifestyle, as well as the Hezekiah syndrome. In the Old Testament we read about Nehemiah refusing the third-generation phenomenon. He stood up and was counted in challenging and resisting the apathetic, unprincipled, lawless, and godless lifestyle of the third generation of that time. He saw it as essential that the Israelites recover their identity as God’s people. In the same way, there must be a difference between the Church and the world, we have a responsibility to impart, build up and preserve in every generation a strong sense of identity and what it means to be a Christian. Every generation needs to know who they are in Christ. Our children need to be taught how to be strong in their convictions and be enabled to have answers to challenges and to withstand persecution. Like Nehemiah did, we need to tell the next generation of our history with God, so that they would understand our mandate as well as their individual purposes in the Body of Christ, enabling them to live intentionally. They must be encouraged to have a personal faith-walk with, and obedience to God. It is essential to teach the next generation ‘the Faith’, i.e. what we believe and why we believe it. The next thing that needs to be passed on the following generation, is a burning passion for Jesus by perfectly modelling it. The next generation needs to remember the previous one and be able to consider the outcome of their way of life, imitating their faith. We read in the letters that Paul wrote to Timothy how he encouraged Timothy to fan into flame the faith that he had seen in his grandmother Louis and his mother Eunice, proof that it is indeed possible for three consecutive generations to walk and live in the same passion of faith. It is the third generation’s responsibility is to keep feeding the flame of faith and passion that has been passed on to them.
There is a phenomenon in the world, called the three-generation curse. This is where a first generation will have the vision, drive and purpose to generate tremendous wealth. The second generation, although having seen the way in which the wealth was generated by the previous generation, grow up in comfort, and lacking the vision, passion and drive, only manage those inherited riches. The third generation following, only manages to spend the wealth until it is gone. Something similar is unfortunately true of the Kingdom of God. Looking at the Church, it is recorded that there have been many revivals which would end up fading away, causing gaps or breaches. Our task is to be the healers of these breaches because God’s purpose is for revival to be continuous, flowing from one generation to the next. This generational phenomenon is seen right throughout the Old Testament as well as in the Church where we see that the first generation following a meeting with God in the Old Testament, or a revival in New Testament times, has a living, vital, dedicated and faith-filled relationship with God. They are involved, and passionate. The second generation is characterised by the word ‘compromise’ because the vital living faith of their parents has somehow not been communicated to them. The third generation is then characterised by the words ‘conflict’ or ‘indifference’ because all they have seen in their parents is a form of Godliness, lacking the power. In the Bible we also see what is called the Hezekiah syndrome, where people are only concerned about what happens during their lifetime, which is wrong. God is working intentionally, with a purpose and a plan spanning over all of the generations. We, as a church, must take responsibility to walk with God in such a way that we can impart to those younger than us that living vital faith by which we are living, to the point where they will have their own relationship with Jesus, living with the same faith in him. There does not have to be this three-generation phenomenon in the Church. The question is, how do we impact the generations following us? We need to constantly and actively be speaking about the vision as well as live it, live our faith and relationship with Jesus, communicating it to our children. Model authentic faith inside, as well as outside of church. We need to speak, prophesy and declare to our children their destiny and purpose to counter the confusion of this age, instead of criticizing them. Teach them the faith and engage in discipleship and mentorship. Adopt a member of the youth and commit to pray for them. Cultivate a culture of prayer in yourself as well as in the next generations. Challenge worldly morals and cultural conformity. Involve the youth in service and missions, as well as having them praying for- and prophesying over each other. Lastly, let us focus on a relationship with Jesus, and not religion.
Before being born again, our lives are formless. dark and chaotic but at our rebirth supernatural light and illumination is shed within, the Spirit of God and Christ comes to dwell inside of us. But, despite that, our flesh life is still very real and alive and that is the issue the Apostle Paul and the other writers of the New Testament are concerned and passionate about – that we should experience spiritual growth and be transformed, in other words, Christ to be fully formed in us. The nation of Israel had been raised up to bring forth the seed, Christ, and once that happened, they were supposed to put their faith in Him and abandon the Mosaic Law. That is why Paul was concerned and astonished that the Galatian Church deserted Christ who had called them to live in his grace and instead started to adhere to portions of the Law. He called this a different, and actually no gospel at all. He saw them as being weak, miserable slaves, having lost something of the Christ within. The Apostle Peter called them people who went back to the Law adulterers. It is the destiny of every believer to have Christ formed within, and although the outward ‘do’s’ and don’ts’ form part of it, it is the inner heart transformation which is the most important in the process of Christ being formed in us. We should be noticeably different from the rest of the world, manifesting the character and nurturing attitude of Christ. The provision has been put into place for us to be like this, for as far as God is concerned, we are already predestined, called, justified and glorified, and as far as we ourselves are concerned, we are in a process of becoming. The Holy Spirit is strengthening us in the inner man, causing Christ to dwell in our hearts by faith. Added to the faith we need the increasing knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The Holy Spirit never stops working in us towards this goal and purpose, and we need to keep on co-operating with Him in this regard, because the process is not automatic. We live in the faith of the Son of God, which is not only the inner faith, but also living according to the body of faith (teaching) which He has delivered, and hearing and applying that Word which becomes a gift of faith. Our transformation is of grace, because of what He has done, and by grace when we co-operate with Him. Spiritual transformation to maturity requires a growing faith in Christ, a living, vital relationship with him, and realizing that it is an ongoing process. When we go through difficult times of testing, and can respond right by God’s grace, then these are the times when we exponentially grow in Christ the most, because that requires exercising faith.
During the incredible NOW conference every individual received something from the Lord. God is not a man, who would lie, and watches over his word so that it will perform what He has spoken it for. However, if we want to step into our ‘now’ we also have a part to play in the fulfilment of God’s word and promises to us. Our part is that we keep doing the good works which we have been involved with and stay flexible for change where God wants to stretch us and enlarge our capacity. It is possible to miss the ‘now’ moment if you do not realize, recognize or perceive that it has arrived. The ‘now’ moment could look like repentance and forgetting the past, a greater willingness to sacrificially serve in the various departments and activities of the local Church, attending all the services, personal prayer and Bible study, and to start studying in the direction your prophecy was about. This all is instrumental in forming and protecting a theonomous (God) culture where the truth, values and moral laws originate from God, and we follow his guidance and commands. The theonomous culture is in contrast to the Heteronomous culture where groups of people control the morals and ethics of others, like we see in Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures, and the Pharisees and Sadducees in Bible times. This culture is oppressive, consists of empty traditions of men and is worldly. The other culture which we find in the secular world is the Autonomous culture where individuals define their own truth and moral values, independent of divine and external authority, it is all about the self. This is a futile, sick, deceitful and foolish culture. These three cultures are also comparable to a three-generation principle, where the first one loves and follows God, the second starts compromising and the third is totally away from God. To step into our ‘now’ and grow spiritually, we need to stick to and protect the theonomous culture, also in our personal lives, not only in church. Again, this culture is developed by studying and obeying God’s Word, following good examples, worshipping and honouring God, integrating biblical values in everyday life, creating a community of grace and truth, making decisions based on biblical principles, serving the Body of Christ with the gift that He has placed inside, and, very importantly, teaching the next generation to know, love, and serve God. Serving reflects the heart of Christ, and it is important to not allow the ‘ow’ which is sure to come, to result in offense which causes you to run away. This will only rob you in causing you to miss out on your ‘now’.
God saw our works of committing to draw near to him, and his response to that was a shift that took place in the Spirit over the conference weekend. The Holy Spirit brought change in each one, to the measure in which we responded to him. It is only when change had taken place in our spirits, that it starts to manifest in the natural. That is what happened in this conference and our expectancy is to see the spiritual shift also manifested in the natural as we see new doors opening, and new opportunities coming. After being informed by God of the new thing that He is doing, everyone who heard has the responsibility to respond. A lack of response will result in a loss of that which was heard. The way to respond to God at times of a Kyros moment, is, firstly, to avoid sin and disobedience. The next response is to keep doing your part and take responsibility for whatever assignment God allocated to you, however impossible it may seem to be. We are to proceed in this with greater faith and that faith with all of its components. We also need to stay flexible, allowing God to fulfil his word in the way that He wants to do it, and stay flexible to do exactly what He tells you to do. It is also important to keep doing the basic things of a normal Christian Walk, and even better than before. Keep holding on to all of the promises that God has given to you. It is also required of us to walk in complete, immediate and spontaneous obedience and with a good attitude. There will be battles, win them. We also need to help each other to step into our destiny. The final response is to not be afraid, despite the battles, but to be strong and proceed in the incredible peace of God.
God said that we have held out trough the night, but now was the time, like the Angel of the Lord told Jacob, to let go, and let God… Jacob refused to let go and asked for a blessing, and his name was changed to Israel, the God struggler. It is alright to be a God struggler, it is what He calls his people, because we have struggled with God and man and have overcome. Jacob saw God face to face (presence to presence) there and his life was changed. Positioning yourself is putting your life where God’s face would burn you. After staying and struggling through the night, God says “it is time” at daybreak, meets with us, and changes us. We go through stages, first coming to church, the house of God, then we meet up with his presence, the face of God, and then come the realization that we serve the God of the House, bringing it all together. Looking at the history of Ruth and Naomi, we see that Ruth’s name means friend or companion and by going back to Israel with Naomi and completely identifying with her new nation, she was exactly that. Being in difficulties, these two widows positioned themselves there where everything could be solved, first by gleaning on the edges of the fields and eventually Ruth laid down at the feet of her redeemer, Boas, in the evening. When he awoke in the middle of the night, she requested that he, being her redeemer, spread the corner of his garment over her and make right that which was wrong. In the same way we put our presence and lives in God’s presence and have him, as our redeemer, spread his garment over us, and make everything right which is wrong.
The first time the word ‘now’ appears in the Bible, is in Genesis and it was when Eve was created from Adam’s rib. The meaning of the word used there is rhythm, so that men and women can walk together in rhythm, manifesting complete authority in the marriage and family. It is also important that the Church be in rhythm. When we walk in unity, the Holy Spirit will enable us to take the city for Christ. The Holy Spirit is a spirit of rhythm and wherever He finds people in one mind, accord and vision, He is right there to move alongside. Wherever there is unity, the result is prosperity and an unstoppable church. It is important to constantly echo the vision of the house where God has placed us, to avoid division. The word ‘now’ is also a shifting word, an extremely powerful word. It is the word which shifts or transitions a person from one season to the next. Whenever one has a ‘now’ moment with God, it changes everything permanently when you respond with a “let it be according to your word, Father”. God revealed himself for the first time to Moses as Jehovah, and He can reveal himself to us at any time in a way never seen before, to meet the present need. However, for Him to reveal himself in this new way, we need to trust Him so much, that we have the attitude that we are willing to go bankrupt to see this manifestation. We certainly do not know everything about God, He is constantly releasing new things into the earth, and we need to get hungry for these new things. God is the only answer to the problems of the whole world and there is a move of God coming which is going to fill the whole earth. Let us not be a generation that gets satisfied with something, who has stopped pressing in by faith to the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. The word of God cannot return to him void, and we must be like Joshua, who being a humble servant of Moses, got the mantle to take possession of Canaan when Moses failed to do so, thus fulfilling God’s word. The now faith for today is that Jesus is our substance, source, and power, making us the evidence to the world of a powerful God. We must expect to receive blessing to be a blessing to those around us, since money is currency, something that flows.
When a ‘now’ moment arrives, it has been preceded by a build-up. Many have been in the process of dealings from God, not realizing that they are pregnant with God’s promises while going through difficulties and pain, but He is bringing them to a place of completion and birth. The first thing God has to deal with in us, is our ‘no’ to him, because you never get a ‘now’ from a ‘no’. There is often a move of God waiting in our spirits, and while we assume that it may not be God’s time for fulfillment yet, it could be our lack of progress in God instead, which is causing the delay. The most prevalent reason for Christians saying ‘no’ to God is fear because God often requires from us to do something that goes against the grain, but obedience to what He asks us to do, will kill the fear and build the Christ within. We do not need a character transplant, but to trust God, and in hearing and humbly obeying, we will find that we are only half a degree from a kingdom outbreak. Our ‘now’ is wrapped up in getting rid of our ‘no’. Our ‘now’ will also arrive when our ‘ow’ has sorted out our ego, when the pity party had stopped and all that is left is love, care, and compassion toward those in pain, presenting to them Jesus, the one who brought beauty into the pain. To be like Jesus, we will have scars, even as He does. Leaving when in pain is easy but staying and constantly saying ‘yes’ is lining yourself up for the ‘now’s’ of heaven. Regardless of the scars, we are still winners and there will be a time when every tear is wiped away. Every pain eventually achieves and is rewarded with more glory and power. The ‘ow’ leads to the ‘now’. The very threshold of your ‘now’ often has pain attached to it because the enemy wants to distract you from the fact that this is the moment of blessing. When you find purpose and pain intertwined, do not be distracted out of your ‘now’ by the ‘ow’. When God comes to you in the midst of pain and rescues and vindicates you and proves your calling, remember that we have not nearly gone through what He did, in rescuing us. Take your eyes from your pain and thank God for his kindness and care through it all. It is time for joy, time for the harvest.
The gathering of this conference is apostolic and prophetic, divinely aligning, launching, positioning and activating everyone with anointing and mantles. The call went out to be awake, to recognize, be alert and to respond as the Holy Spirit was giving individuals unique opportunities to move into what God has for their lives. We are seated with Christ in heavenly places. We are in him, seated at the right hand of majesty, but He is also in us, which are two different places or realms. By being in him, we step out of time into an eternal realm, where there is life independent of time. Scripture instructs us to worship God in spirit and truth, which does not mean in tongues. Spirit is location in heavenly atmospheres. The eternal is always a glorious and present ‘now’. Through faith we lay hold of what is eternal, and it will manifest itself in a power superior to all the fluctuations of our minds and emotions. This will convict us of that which is impossible, and project us therein. The first invitation, therefore, is to step, with faith, into Christ (who is the sole expression of God), outside of time (the confinement of our minds and reasoning), so that He can step into our present within time, bringing change in every area. Going into this realm we will do, speak, obtain, open, close and return freely, finding pasture. Through Jesus, the door, we have access to the eternal realm and the Father. We should not spend our time worrying about small things, because we have access to eternity, the Kingdom, which is already within us. The fullness of Christ is being formed within us by this divine, eternal, and self-sustaining power, regardless of whether we are aware of it or not. Our lives are filled with Kairos-moments, where our choices have eternal effect. The second invitation is to yield and respond to the Spirit during this conference weekend, being steadfast, patient and enduring to fulfil the will of the Father and see the beginning of divine-inspired events in our lives.
The sons of Issachar understood the time and therefore knew how to act. There was a call to invest in this conference by prayer, attending, and preparing an offering. The theme of the conference has been confirmed repeatedly and it is about something being in the heart of God for this moment, this time that we are in. The question is, what is it that this moment in time so special? Looking at time, one must realize that God lives outside of time. Time had to be created by him and time began when God started creating the cosmos. Time had a beginning, will have an end (it is finite), it is linear, quantifiable, measurable, and will cease when its purpose is completed. In the Old Testament the prophets were all looking forward to the fulfilment of certain times and events which have been ordained by God, or prophetic eschatology. In the New Testament the sense of time becomes apocalyptic eschatology, or the time of fulfilment. God has set the time for certain things in history, for instance the birth of Jesus, the coming resurrection and judgment, and the Kingdom of Heaven. There are two words for time in the Greek, the first being Chronos, meaning all of time (quantitative). The second word is Kairos (qualitative) or an opportune moment in time or Chronos. Because of qualitative moments of responding to God it has now become a Kairos moment for ACF, when heaven will intersect our space-time continuum or God will step into our experience. God has gathered the moments and set the time to visit his people as a witness. Multiple Kairos moments will become a season of God encounters. We are to set our hearts to accept it, as well as believe that this is to be the appointed time of God’s favour regarding anything that we have been reaching out to God for. Jesus was walking according to Chronos time to be crucified, buried and resurrected so that our time of visitation can be at any time. Jesus, as well others throughout history, have laboured for us to reap a harvest at this appointed time of blessing. It will be the end of the postponement and delay of visions, breakthroughs and every other thing what we have been waiting on God for, they key thereto being expectation igniting now-faith. We need to awaken to the fact that things are nearer now than when we first believed, and that change is eminent. We must be wise, and not miss this Kairos moment when heaven is intercepting earth.
The Holy Spirit is at work within us, freeing us progressively from sinful traits, developing in us a Christ-like character. The Holy Spirit is a minister to us. He bears witness with our spirits, assuring us that we are sons and heirs, co-heirs with Jesus Christ of God, after he had initially convicted us of sin, righteousness and judgment. The Holy Spirit witnesses to our spirits by giving us a taste of the fulness to come. The Holy Spirit was instrumental in the birth and ministry of Jesus and strengthened him to bear the cross. Even so, He will do the same things in us too. Not only did Jesus function under the power, anointing and by the ability of the Holy Spirit but after His resurrection God gave him the Spirit, making him both Lord and Christ, so that He could now pour the Spirit out on us. We receive life from the Spirit. God has anointed us with the Holy Spirit, sealed us and gave the Spirit as a down payment, a guarantee of our full redemption and the time is coming when even our bodies will be saved. This seal is the guarantee that we are genuine Christians, and it means that we are protected from destruction by the enemy. We can bring the powers of the age to come closer the more we walk in and with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit witnesses by making the Word of God in general a reality in our lives, thus proving that all the promises of our adoption are true. The Word and the Spirit are co-dependant unto the application of the Word in our lives to give us life. The Holy Spirit not only assures us of the fact that we are Sons of God, but also teaches us what that means. The Holy Spirit witnesses to us that Christ came by water and by blood. The water is the baptism of Jesus which did not take place because He had sin, but it was a foreshadow of our baptism, depicting our death, burial and being raised as sons. The blood of Jeus is that which He had shed to give us forgiveness of sins. The Holy Spirit is co-witnessing with the witness we already have in our hearts that we have life because we have the Son of God, making that sure and solid in our lives. The end result is then that we have a revelation and certainty of our intimate relationship with God and can say “abba, father” from deep within our spirits.
We, as the people of God, have an end-goal, which is total holiness. We have promises from God and because of that, as well as our reverence for Him, we need on to move on to that hight calling of holiness by cleansing ourselves of all unrighteousness. There is no better way to increase the holiness of the Church as a whole, than for the increase in each individual’s holiness. It is the responsibility of each individual believer to turn away from wickedness in response to the washing of the water of the Word of God. This washing provides the grace unto destroying all uncleanness. No sin, however small it seems to be, must remain undealt with. However, our lives do not only consist out of getting rid of sin, but also continually growing and getting better. There are two forms of holiness: the positional holiness which we obtain when we get saved, and the holiness that we pursue. We firstly pursue holiness because we love God, but because we love our neighbour as well, we also need to encourage each other unto holiness. Our hearts must be good soil to receive the Word to see it grow in our lives. To experience this growth, we must work on the state of our hearts, tilling the ground, watering it by stirring up the fountain within. For the seed of the word to be fruitful and perfected in us, it needs teaching, guidance, correction support. That is what the parable about a harvest of 30, 40, and one hundred percentage is actually referring to. Cultivate holiness by reading and loving the Word. Although it is God’s will for us to be holy it requires action and choices from us to fulfil this good purpose in us. By choosing to abide in Christ, we are not only lifted up out of the dust (like the vine), but also pruned unto greater fruitfulness or holiness. We need to ask for the gift of grace to keep killing everything unholy in our lives, and our fruitfulness will fill us with God’s joy. Bearing fruit has everything to do with loving one another. Holiness is not the way to Christ, but He is the way to holiness.
The Apostle Paul said in the book of Romans that we become more mature sons of God when we are led by- and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit leads us to understand God in the same way Jesus does, enabling us to say, “my Father”. The Spirit is the guarantee of our future glory and victory in every area. It is impossible for us to fail, since there is intercession going on for our manifestation as sons by Jesus, the Holy Spirit within, praying through and for us, as well as by all of creation. The most effective intercession and prayer happens when we realize that we are weak and cannot do it without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then helps us in our weakness by giving us the wisdom which we lack in what to pray for according to the will of God, and not how to pray. The Holy Spirit quietens our consciences with mercy so that we can pray effectively, without condemnation. The Holy Spirit helps us to pray with a connection to God which we do not possess in ourselves. The Holy Spirit helps us to know the love of God which we cannot contain. He overrides the weakness of our minds when we lose focus when we are praying and comes with inarticulate groanings and vehement cries whereby He intercedes through and for us. When we are weak, we can become strong with his power when we turn to the Holy Spirit and begin to pray. God answers our prayers beyond our comprehension when we allow the Holy Spirit to intercede for us with cries and groanings. This is the most powerful prayer, perfectly understood by God.
The primary role of the Holy Spirit is not to make life easy, but to form Christ in us, to attain to everything that is available to us in Christ. The Holy Spirit gives us an inward assurance of salvation, indwells us to bring change inside and out, illuminates the mysteries of God, empowers us to bear witness, guides us, intercedes for us, distributes gifts in the Body unto its edification, is grieved by and alerts us to sin in our lives, and applies redemption to us. He brings regeneration, life, sanctification, holiness, empowerment, and we are His temple. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is not optional but evidence of a transformed life. This message focuses on the illuminating or enlightening work of the Holy Spirit, based on the Word of God. The illumination of the Spirit happens in the heart, or the centre of a human being. This is wherefrom we understand the hope to which we have been called, the riches of our glorious inheritance and the incomparable great power of the believer. The Church is the fulness of Christ, and being in Him, we have everything underneath our feet. The emphasis on Jesus’ miraculous healings of the blind and deaf, is to us a type of the way the Holy Spirit heals us from spiritual blindness and deafness. The Apostle Paul’s healing from being blind by Ananias was also an example of how the scales, the blinding work of the law, were removed from his spiritual eyes. The Holy Spirit broadens our understanding of the Word and will of God, enables us to correct errors and He is continually elevating us into that place of the divine love of God. The Word of God is the instrument, and the Spirit the agent, in this great work of continuous illumination unto wisdom and understanding so that we may know God better, to know the things that He has done for us, the hope to which He has called us, our full formation in Christ, and his great power for us. Our glorious Biblical inheritance is us being fully satisfied, being like Christ. We desperately need the illumination from the Holy Spirit to dispel all darkness within us so that we can fully see and understand Christ and his glory, and to be increasingly transformed into his likeness.
All the fulness of the Godhead is inside of us in the person of the Holy Spirit and we have not even scratched the surface of the depths of this mystery within us. The Holy Spirit fills, teaches, reminds, guides and leads us. The Holy Spirit is also searching the deep things of God. These deep things have been destined for our glory (those who love God) from before time began and are now revealed in these last days. These things are only searched out and revealed by the Spirit, because they cannot be fathomed by mental capacity or any other means. Knowing God can only be through revelation of God made by himself. This revelation of God is by the Word and the Holy Spirit giving understanding thereof. God’s wisdom is a mystery, and that mystery is Christ in us, the hope of glory. Christ has become for us (both Jew and Gentile) wisdom from God, and that is our righteousness, holiness and full redemption. What are the deep things of God? There is no shallow end to the depths of God, He is unfathomable. What the Holy Spirit is revealing to us are not God’s omni-attributes, because we cannot comprehend the depths thereof. The things which He wishes to share with and reveal to us, are God’s thoughts about us, about who we are in Christ, and the depths thereof. He reveals the depth of God’s love for us through the cross of Christ. He reveals the manifold wisdom of God through the Church to the principalities and powers because we have been positioned in a place of exceptional authority to rule and reign on this earth. God is sovereign, Christ is underneath him and we are positioned just under Christ. We can conquer in every area of life because all things have been placed underneath our feet. What the Holy Spirit reveals of God are his mercy, righteousness, hatred for sin, pardon, reconciliation, blessings, and the future and every-increasing glory until the resurrection and final redemption of all of creation. The angels are astounded at the wisdom of God when they study that which God is working in and through us.
Paul encouraged the Churches to imitate him and walk in the way he did, which would result in obtaining the rest of God. That statement seemed to be arrogant, but how did Paul get to the place where he could say this? We should be able to make the same statement, that when people look at us, they should desire to imitate us, as we walk out our salvation in a practical manner. It all starts with what we are thinking. We are supposed to think about whatever is true, honourable, just, pure, lovely, gentle, commendable, excellent and praiseworthy. The saying is that we are what we think, but random thoughts going through our minds is not an automatic classification of who we are. We are able to control these thoughts and should prevent ourselves from dwelling upon what is undesirable. We should especially avoid having a worldly thinking and rather have our minds renewed and transformed. When one’s state of mind is chaotic, find a quiet place and worship God, meditating on his goodness and who is, and regain your peace. Be determined that you mind will not be the enemy’s playground but rather be the means by which to communicate with God. The scientists call the process of creating new pathways in the mind neuroplasticity. Ordinary pathways can be created by learning new skills, regular physical exercise, mindfulness and meditation, a healthy diet, mental challenges, and social interaction. We can also create new spiritual pathways in our minds, and the way to do it is to study the Bible, meditate on the Scriptures and memorise it, by praying, being open to the Holy Spirit’s guidance, being accountable, being vigilant and discerning about our thought life, rejecting lies and embracing the truth, cultivating gratitude and positivity, setting our minds on things above, and engaging in worship and fellowship. These spiritual pathways will create a default state of mind which is able to handle the hard times in life. When we start thinking right, we will be living right, being an inspiration for others to imitate our way of life.
It is important that we pursue the understanding of, as well as having a relationship with the extra-ordinary Holy Spirit who was given to us as an incredible gift, since He is essential to us in the process of being transformed into the image of Christ. We need constant re-filling of the Spirit to win the race for this world and see the Kingdom of God extended. The Holy Spirit guides or leads us and very often this occurs by his teaching us. Jesus prayed to the Father to send us another helper or advocate. Throughout the Old Testament, the expected Messiah was called the comforter. In the Book of Isaiah we see beautiful prophetic picture language of the future of Jerusalem and the peace, comfort and prosperity which will be her portion. That is all prophetic about the New Jerusalem (the church of Jesus Christ) and her perfect salvation. The Holy Spirit helps us by teaching us, by standing as our counsel, and interceding for us. In the Holy Spirit’s role as our advocate, unlike earthly advocates who contend for a ‘not guilty’ verdict for their clients, He, who is the Spirit of Truth, fully admits our guilt before the Father. But, as our advocate, He gives the guarantee that He is able to redeem the damage which our sins have caused. This redemption is by the suffering of, and blood shed by Jesus on the cross. That suffering honoured the law of God and thus maintained truth and justice. Our advocate, after having defended us, then gives the assurance to the Father that we will be led into the truth of the Word to not repeat the transgression. The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth about Jesus, and about who we are in him because of his sacrifice, as well as what we are yet to experience concerning Christ. He gives us revelation of the Word. He is leading us out of a flesh life into a spirit life in Christ, into sonship. We have been infused with life by the Spirit and the day is coming when our bodies and all of creation, which is now still subject to death, because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, will experience that resurrection power and life. The entire cosmos, including our planet, will be redeemed by Christ and we will be co-workers with him in this process. The end is not gloom, but glory.
How and why we choose to say ‘yes’ to God continuously is the result of who we believe in and are connected to, and who our source of life is. It is God’s presence and unfailing faithfulness that sustains us. God wants us to be whole-heartedly and consistently connected to him, fully functional and healed. Faithfulness means to remain being loyal and steadfast. It is important to know why we love and are being loyal to God and be willing to pay the price attached thereto. We also are to remain loyal to him in the midst of our trials, thereby seeing our stories become testimonies filled with the glory and faithfulness of God, and us gaining the crown of life. Prayer is that which enables God’s people to stay loyal and connected to him as well as enlarging his Kingdom. One of the principles of God to which we should adhere, is the way in which we treat people. We must be careful to really look at people, being willing to help them, instead of just looking in their direction. Another principle of God to which we should adhere, is ethical integrity in ever sphere of life. For instance, ethical integrity at the workplace is an example of God’s goodness, grace and mercy, proving that He really exists. Becoming as skilled as possible in our work, and being stewards to serve others, should be part of our work ethics. We are to be diligent in faithfully following God’s principles and commands every day, worship Him wholeheartedly, and be steadfastly devoted to studying the Word, which is our manual for life. Bible study gives us a foundational authority, allowing us to apply the Word. It is important to consistently walk in repentance and forgiveness to obtain mercy and become mature in Christ. Faithfulness also means the true facts of the original – being an example of how to follow Christ. A faith-filled life is a result of who we believe in and why we believe these things. It is authenticity in faith, transformation over information (a place of understanding by faith). It is our choice to, because of our faithfulness and faith-filledness, consistently be moving towards God, over and over again, loving and obeying him.
Christians are extraordinary, because of the extraordinary Holy Spirit indwelling us. The Word says that as Christ is in heaven, so are we now in this world. This is what we are growing into, by the power of the Holy Spirit within. Transformation is all about a relationship, more about training that trying. Continuing to look at the verbs describing the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the next one is that He teaches us. He instructs, delivers a discourse and explains truth. He primarily teaches us through the Word, because He inspired the writers of the Bible. Because we have received a heart of flesh when we got born again, we are enabled to understand through the Spirit the truth of this Word which He had inspired. He also illuminates and highlights the Bible to us. It is amazing how He can illuminate a truth with so many pictures and stories to so many different believers, and yet we all get the same point. The Holy Spirit also teaches through the inspired teaching and preaching of the Word, as well as our personal studying of the Word. The Holy Spirit not only teaches truth but enables a person to base their very lives on- and live out that truth. He will teach until the student becomes a teacher. He will teach until truth becomes truth. The Holy Spirit not only teaches but also reminds us of the Word which had been taught or privately read, and that at the appropriate time when you need it, or when you have made a mistake. He teaches us without condemnation, positively, and towards our restoration. He reminds us by re-setting the test we had previously failed. The Holy Spirit also uses the pastor to remind the congregation of the Word, or to bring in discipline where necessary. He also teaches us by the mistakes and examples of others around us. We should take that which the Holy Spirit is speaking to us about seriously, and not resist it and thereby delaying the victory of truth becoming truth in our lives, as well as being transformed into the image of Christ.
Because of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we are extraordinary and supernatural beings, born from above. There are verbs in the Bible which describe the actions of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. The first one is that the Holy Spirit fills us. This infilling is continuous, so that we can contain more of his life-giving presence. Filled people are under the control, authority and influence of the Holy Spirit. They are extremely powerful, able to bless and impart to others from the upwelling of the Spirit from within. There are various ways to get filled anew with the Spirit. They are - simply ask and receive by faith. At times of outpouring, when He starts to move on people around you, surrender to him and ask for the same to happen to you. At times of persecution, hardship and opposition He will fill you with wisdom, courage and boldness. Going to church, praying and worshipping with an open heart will result in a fresh infilling. Get filled by the laying on of hands. Another way is to step out in boldness of faith and share the gospel, minister, or give your testimony to people. When you endeavour to walk in godliness and righteousness in your everyday life, He backs up your decision and fills you with his abilities to live right, as well as with righteousness, peace, faith and joy. We cannot live our lives without the Holy Spirit. We should keep on asking for his help in everything we cannot do, and when He enables you in what you asked for, that is a fresh infilling. We need to not only visit but abide in the supernatural realm of the Holy Spirit. Let us walk in the Spirit, constantly relying on him, and become more than conquerors through the amazing Holy Spirit.
God needs men who are manifesting what He had designed them to be. That means being decisive, strong, bold, courageous, reflecting the image of God, and able to make solid decisions and live by them. They are to be able to move mountains in society as well as their families, while serving God wholeheartedly, and being completely focused on God’s kingdom. In the Bible mountains were always symbolic of issues, trouble, problems or, on the other hand, a spiritual force. Jesus said that we will have tribulation, but to be of good cheer because He has overcome the world. That means that He has already overcome all of the mountains of trouble that the enemy could bring into our lives, and there are various scriptures in the New Testament encouraging us to believe that we are victorious overcomers in Christ. Each man has been graced by God to deal with his particular issues. Men need to be biblically optimistic and actively walk out and keep speaking the Word of God. We have been created in the image of God, which means that we are (or should be) righteous and holy, creative, beings. We see in many ways how mankind is operating with the creative part of their beings, but the righteousness and holiness of God is absent. This is what God is at present restoring in his Sons. We are in a symbiotic relationship with the Holy Spirit, where there is a divine-human co-operation in the practicalities of walking out the Word, dealing with double-mindedness, indecisiveness, emotional ineptness, procrastination, disobedience, lack of confidence, abdication, and unwillingness to make or take unpopular decisions or actions in every area of life. For example, men who do not deal with these issues and fail to step up to their responsibilities, force their wives into taking the leading role in the household. A woman has not been designed for this, resulting in her losing respect for her husband, and the man becoming resentful, depressed and sullen. A correct marriage relationship is where the husband’s role is one of consultative leadership, his wife being the sensitive one, her husband’s helpmeet regarding intuitive matters during the process of decision making. The reasons for a person becoming passive and/or abdicating responsibility, are fear of failure, being a perfectionist or a people-pleaser, having lost sight of the bigger picture, a lack of confidence and maturity, and maybe a lack of information. It is good to acknowledge that you are weak and have someone who can be a sounding board and help you to get through your issues. Methods to help in decision making are – make your own decisions and own it, develop your confidence, let go of previous bad decisions, talk it out with a sounding board, look at, and narrow down all the options, outline the pros and cons, flip a coin for small decisions, and avoid questioning your decision but stand by them.
The Holy Spirit plays a pivotal part in us coming to salvation and thereafter in the assurance of our salvation. Part of the process of Christ being formed in us is that the Holy Spirit helps us to put to death the misdeeds of the flesh. He also provides the grace and power to resist temptation, ungodliness and unrighteousness. His help to successfully resist temptation, results in us having authority in that particular area. It is essential that we have a deeper relationship with this awesome third person of the godhead, the Holy Spirit, and not ignore him. We should rather become more aware, sensitive and obedient to his voice, unction, feelings and instructions. While we co-operate with him by doing our part which is to work out our salvation, he is busy working in our lives to become godly. In ourselves we are ordinary, but an extraordinary Holy Spirit has been poured out upon us, which means that at some point we will become extraordinary as well. The Holy Spirit empowers us to be witnesses (or martyrs) for Christ through the death to self. Our relationship with, and how the Holy Spirit operates, is something mystical. It cannot really be explained but has to be walked and lived out. Because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, He is absolutely essential in the process of our transformation into Christlikeness, since He makes everything pertaining to Christ a reality in our lives. Our relationship with the Holy Spirit is symbiotic, and as we obey, He brings life and forms Christ in us, preserving us blameless. He enables us to know what this Christlikeness looks like and how to become that which we already are. We have been gifted with the Holy Spirit and are his permanent dwelling place, making us vessels of glory. He is the one who establishes us in Christ, is our anointing from God, and has been given to us as a seal, a guarantee that we are genuine children of God. We must always keep in mind that we are not own but have been bought with the price of Jesus’s blood and thus belong to God. It therefore behoves us to co-operate with him. That is always to our benefit as well as bringing glory to God.
The Holy Spirit plays a pivotal part in us coming to salvation and thereafter in the assurance of our salvation. Part of the process of Christ being formed in us is that the Holy Spirit helps us to put to death the misdeeds of the flesh. He also provides the grace and power to resist temptation, ungodliness and unrighteousness. His help to successfully resist temptation, results in us having authority in that particular area. It is essential that we have a deeper relationship with this awesome third person of the godhead, the Holy Spirit, and not ignore him. We should rather become more aware, sensitive and obedient to his voice, unction, feelings and instructions. While we co-operate with him by doing our part which is to work out our salvation, he is busy working in our lives to become godly. In ourselves we are ordinary, but an extraordinary Holy Spirit has been poured out upon us, which means that at some point we will become extraordinary as well. The Holy Spirit empowers us to be witnesses (or martyrs) for Christ through the death to self. Our relationship with, and how the Holy Spirit operates, is something mystical. It cannot really be explained but has to be walked and lived out. Because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, He is absolutely essential in the process of our transformation into Christlikeness, since He makes everything pertaining to Christ a reality in our lives. Our relationship with the Holy Spirit is symbiotic, and as we obey, He brings life and forms Christ in us, preserving us blameless. He enables us to know what this Christlikeness looks like and how to become that which we already are. We have been gifted with the Holy Spirit and are his permanent dwelling place, making us vessels of glory. He is the one who establishes us in Christ, is our anointing from God, and has been given to us as a seal, a guarantee that we are genuine children of God. We must always keep in mind that we are not own but have been bought with the price of Jesus’s blood and thus belong to God. It therefore behoves us to co-operate with him. That is always to our benefit as well as bringing glory to God.
The Church needs revival to remove from her everything worldly and carnal, and return her to purity and holiness. We live in a sin-infested world where we see that people are lovers of themselves. This love is contrary to the Biblical instruction to firstly love God and then your neighbour as well as yourself, and this self-love results in attitudes of being opiniated, self-centred, immoral, unethical, vicious, corrupt, easily offended, and selfish. Many people today are totally confused, yet they insist that they have the right to air what they think. The present generation of young people grew up undisciplined and selfish, not having been taught that there are consequences to doing wrong. Unfortunately, this has been the result of laws prohibiting parents from applying the Biblical forms of discipline. People worldwide are also in a major identity crisis. It is our task, as the Church, to help this generation to address their identity crisis by teaching them who we have been created to be in Christ. Although it will not be easy, we will have to stop ignoring what is going on and courageously stand up and fight that which is wrong. The next revival in the Church will be one of love, because love is the only way to conquer that which is going on in the world. We need to keep building our relationship with God, getting more hungry, thirsty, and desperate for him, to get filled with his pure, unadulterated love. Loving even the most unlovable people will be a natural, unforced, result. Love will heal and fulfil the deep need of every person in the world. We, as the Church of Jesus Christ, have been born, equipped and anointed for this time, to see God’s Kingdom established. Love is the ecosystem in which our lives as believers operate and thrive, it is to be our unselfish, prevailing and compelling attitude towards everyone. We need to go out and not only tell about, but also demonstrate to others the unconditional, eternal, and transformative love that we have received from the God, a God to whom nothing is impossible. We need to remember that love is also corrective, and we should, by faith, confront that which needs to change and we will experience the backing of God in every situation. God is calling us to start, wherever we find ourselves, to reach out to people with love – for instance share our testimonies – and it well may be, that we will see revival break out in this nation. Let us step out of our comfort zone and love with the eyes, ears, hands, feet, reputation of Christ.
We as the human race, is the reason why God created the earth. We are to rule and reign and have dominion over it, that is our God-given mandate. The heavens are the Lord’s, and the earth He gave to man on which to establish his Kingdom, in partnership with him. It is time that the state of the world changes, brought about by Christians who understand their mandate and that they have power and authority. Power is the strength of force needed to rule and authority is the right (or legitimacy) to do so. Although the devil told Jesus that all authority had been given to him (by Adam), it was illegitimate authority, because authority only comes from God. God has authored faith and authority and is therefore the only one who can delegate it and legitimize it. Because we are in Christ, the legitimate authority bestowed upon Jesus by God, is also ours. We also have the power that comes from being filled by the Holy Spirit. We need to realize this and stop feeling insignificant and intimidated. It is an injustice to allow the enemy to walk all over us. Many instances of sickness and problems would be avoided if we could understand the power and authority which we have. This authority is over every part of our lives, over our personal environment, family, friends, as well as the greater world around us. All of this operates under the umbrella of God’s supreme authority. The key to operating in this authority, is through faith and persistent prayer. When we pray in line with God’s word, He will always back us up with his power. We must also submit to Christ’s authority (for instance, to the leadership that He has put in place in the Church), before He will delegate it to us. It is important to realize that God has got our lives and well-being in his hands. He has enabled us to write the story of our lives by praying his will and He will answer. If we are not convinced of Christ’s absolute authority, we will have trouble to walk in faith. Through prayer with authority we make sure that the Kingdom of God comes on earth, as it is in heaven.
In the Book of Revelation the Bride or City is portrayed as being holy, but what does it mean to be holy? God’s holiness is infinite, how can we, being finite, contain the infinite? Holiness is purity, separation, otherness; being different, extra-ordinary or uncommon. It is a great mystery and when we are in the presence of God, experiencing his unlimited, unfathomable, strange holiness, plus his divine power, it has an effect of creating overwhelming awe and fear in our hearts, both attracting and repelling us. As Christians we are invited into God’s presence, and it is attractive to us, but the sinner is repelled and fears this holiness. Throughout the Bible we see people being affected by God’s holiness resulting in trembling lips and belly, rottenness in the bones, sin-consciousness, self-hatred and repentance, a feeling of being cursed and undone, immediate and unlimited dedication, falling down as dead, and fear. We must learn to respect and honour the holiness of God so that creation can come out of a state of slavery into the Kingdom of God as it responds with co-operation to us when we speak to it. We should stop saying nobody is perfect, because that is comparing ourselves to ourselves, which is not wise, the wrong measurement of holiness. We should ask the Father to help us to revere and understand his holiness and power when we pray. That should be our first petition. Without this no prayer would be answered. Although we could never attain the infinite holiness of God, we have to grasp some measurement of the finite holiness, to see Christ formed in us.
Our concern for our spiritual growth should be greater than that for our retirement benefits, or our desire for learning and studying. The responsibility for growth is ours, God has provided all that we need for this in that He sent Jesus to die for us, giving us everything pertaining to life and godliness. The Bible is our rule for what we believe and how we live. The Bible is more than ink on paper, but words of spirit and life, the breath of God. Jesus is the Word, the means of our transformation. The Word is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. The Word equips us towards good works. Studying the Word shows us approved of God because in the Word is where we discover the content, resource, and power towards transformation. We need to have a strong desire for the Word. We read the Word for information, knowledge, and understanding. We read to memorise, meditate, and pray the Word, asking for wisdom, and approaching it with attitude of humility and teachability. This is then followed by revelation, enlightenment, or realization, where we hunger to meet with God, and see ourselves (actions, words, thoughts, and motives), by the input and help of the Holy Spirit, in the light of every passage read. The end product of assimilating the Word, is experiencing the powerful transformation that comes by it. Once a person is transformed by the Word, their words will be filled with them same transformational power to transform others.
Society is geared towards the idea that a person is valued and loved according to what they can do, and that is seen as what a person is worth. However, there is a big difference between the worth of a person and being worthy, in the spiritual sense of the word. When we look at the life of Moses, when God commissioned him to go and deliver Israel, the real reason (despite his many excuses) for not wanting to obey, was that he was scared that, in returning to Egypt where he had killed a person, he would be executed. When God assured him that everyone who wanted to do so had died, he was finally willing to go. God regarded Israel as his son, his family. Moses had been in exile and to become God’s avenger of blood on Israel’s behalf, he had to become part of the covenant or family of God again. Circumcision was required to become part of the covenant and Moses had failed to circumcise his son, making Moses unworthy. God then tried to kill him. God’s hand was averted when Moses’ son was circumcised, thus fulfilling the terms and conditions of the Law, making Moses worthy of his calling. It is clear according to various scriptures, that mankind is only worthy of death. In the book of Revelation we see that Jesus was the only one who was found worthy. There are times when we, as Christians, are commissioned to do something, like Moses was, but we fail to walk according to God’s principles, we fail to obey his instructions, and we have all kinds of excuses because we are careful to protect our ego. Jesus paid the price to redeem us from our sins on the cross, not to make us worthy. The only thing that makes us worthy is being led by the Spirit and obeying, picking up our cross and dying to ourselves. We should stop being disobedient and thereby keeping the self alive (self-preservation), so that the purposes of God for all of creation can come to fruition through us. Christ is formed in us through the killing of the unworthy Moses. Let us embrace the dying to self in the fire that never stops burning.
The sunflower is known for its ability to follow the sun and we are the same, but we are sons-flowers who keep our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus. Serving Jesus is not just to reach perfection in heaven but should affect the quality of our daily lives. The quality of our lives depends on staying vulnerable to the Holy Spirit. Vulnerability, or being open and honest, is not a weakness, but rather a strength because pretending to be something you are not, is a trap which not only limits our freedom in Christ, but also gives the enemy control over us. We can also place ourselves in a place of slavery to a false image which we maintain to make up for our failures and feelings of insecurity. To obtain freedom from this bondage, and to have change wrought inside of us, we need several things. By the grace of God through the Holy Spirit, we need to have a contrite spirit and a surrendered, submissive, and mouldable heart. It is good to also share that which burdens you with a trustworthy person. The grace we receive from the Holy Spirit is what enables us to change and that restores excitement in our walk with God. The Spirit is always in us, but it is our responsibility to give him our attention and thereby activate the grace and faith that we need. It takes making a single-minded decision to believe God, to be vulnerable to him, and accept his help in whatever area of our lives we need change. It is important to maintain the right attitude while we are on this journey of growing and maturing with the Holy Spirit. The right attitude will determine the length of a trial, as well as the measure of victory at the end of it.
If we were to look back at the way we were before we got saved and compare it to who we are at present, we realize that God has been at work with a transformation within, in other words, Christ is being formed within us. We have been changed to being more loving, patient, generous, caring, and being able to live in faith – all of that because we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and this change is a lifelong process. Many of the prophetic words spoken over our lives are an indication of where God is taking us in this journey. We should not take these prophecies lightly but do our utmost to assist in what the Spirit is doing through following certain spiritual disciplines. We follow these disciplines by the help of God and his grace, not as if they are a law. However, when we look at the Law given to Israel, it already contained a lot of grace. The law was given to establish Israel as a people portraying a righteous God and to protect them from the negative consequences of sin. The law gives rules to live by but merely doing that mechanically cannot change the heart. There were those Israelites like Moses, Joshua, Caleb, and King David, who did not only want to abide by the rules, but reached out to get into a loving relationship with the one who gave the Law. This relationship with God caused his Law to be written on their hearts, shaping and transforming them, guiding them, and enabling them to do exploits. Even so, they realized that there was something more. Through what Jesus did on the cross, we are completely free to reach our full potential and destiny through Christ being formed inside of us by the Holy Spirit. The righteous law, which is to love God and your neighbour, is now written on our hearts. After our salvation our good works are alive, they are actions of grace, love and faith. Our works flow forth from an ever-growing relationship with God. It is important to constantly keep our hearts soft and make sure that the motive for our works is only God’s love.
Prayer is one of the highest forms of humbling yourself before God, because it is an admission of your total submission to, dependence and reliance upon, and trust in him. This attitude is a necessity in the process of Christ being formed in us. In the history of Israel, we saw that king Asa called out to the Lord for help when an overwhelming enemy came against them, acknowledging that they were helpless, and that God was their only recourse. God gave them the victory. It is the same in our lives, when we face that which is overwhelming, faith-filled prayer is our way of accessing answers and help from God. He will never fail to answer prayer, because we are his children, the apple of his eye. To see his promises unto us be fulfilled, is to him a manifestation of his honour. However, Asa relied on a heathen king when he came under attack again, reaping only trouble. That is a lesson to us, to not start relying on the arm of flesh after having started in the spirit, which shows disrespect and is dishonouring God. The prayer life of Jesus is the perfect example to us. Solitary prayer, avoiding attention and the honour of man, was habitual to him. He prayed with faith and humility, totally relying on his Father. His faith was in the Word of God. He prayed for wisdom in the choosing of his disciples. His prayers were heartfelt, passionate, and powerful, displaying his love for God. His prayers were based on his knowledge of God and God’s deliverance-bearing, transforming truth. He taught us to first seek the Kingdom of God and be persistent and tenacious in prayer. Prayer is not an option, but a necessity. We, as Christians, must take responsibility for what is happening on the earth, getting the heavens involved in what is transpiring here, all through the avenue of prayer.
This is the time wherein the Holy Spirit is lovingly ministering to us to bring us to a place of truth about ourselves, resulting in transformation as well as the formation of Christ within us. When a person is born again, his standing before God is one of righteousness, but there needs to be a change in behavioural patterns of brokenness left over from the old life until we portray Christ in every way. This is a life-long process of putting off the old and putting on the new, and it is mostly our responsibility. Jesus embraces, loves. and accepts us despite our dark side, but He will assist us in going through the process of sanctification because He loves us too much to leave us in a condition of brokenness. The first pitfall which can be used by people to avoid this process is wealth and the bargaining power that it provides. A second pitfall is externalism, adopting external change (religion) but the relationship with Christ bringing a change on the inside, is not there. However, the most vitally important and perhaps the most threatening and painful part of the process of change and formation in Christ, is to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us more clearly what we are on the inside. This is so that we can deal with hindrances present, for instance fear and offensive ways, and be healed. For this we need to have a healthy relationship with God because without Him these revelations only bring shame and condemnation. From Him we receive the grace, love, and faith we need to change, for He the one who is at work within us to will and do according to his good pleasure. Spiritual self-examination is not spiritual navel gazing nor fruitless self-absorption to consider your feelings and compare yourself with others but going on a journey with God and working according to his priority list. Working with the Holy Spirit is a process of getting rid of the deep defilement, and the collateral damage, inside of us which had been caused by sin. It is essential to stay open to the Spirit’s ministry in areas where it hurts because He will not force anything, He is gentle. The process of sanctification is practically implemented by adopting the Scriptures as the final authority on everything, issuing an open invitation to the Spirit to search your heart, establishing a partnership with God, refusing to make excuses, having a policy of instant confession, maintaining an attitude of gratitude, and inviting loving, but honest outside perspective. Enjoy this process with God, because when we have been broken by it, the fragrance of Christ can be released from our lives to bring healing to the broken-hearted of the world. The end purpose of all this is Christ filling all things, in every way, with himself, through his perfected saints.
Our salvation came at a cost. God determined this cost by looking at our potential, or future value. This value is based on Christ being formed in us, since we were still his enemies when He bought us. We must be willing to pay the price for this formation, living up to our full potential to provide the full reward to Christ for what He had suffered. Humans judge by truth and our actions are driven by justice. Looking at the example of what happened with Jonah, we see that God wanted him to go and prophesy judgment to Nineveh if they did not repent. Nineveh was a city of one of the most brutal nations of that time, and Jonah did not want to do it. Jonah knew that God was gracious, merciful, longsuffering, and abundantly kind. and he could not tolerate the thought that justice could possibly not be served on this brutal nation for their misdeeds. He tried to avoid God’s commission, even unto death by drowning in the sea, but all in vain because God had counted the cost and prepared a fish to swallow Jonah. In the belly or womb (or Sheol) of this fish Jonah spent three days and nights until he decided to fulfil the commission. He praised God and cried out to him for salvation. When Nineveh sincerely repented and judgment was withheld, Jonah made a charge against God that, because He had repented of his judgment, there was no justice, saying that it proved that God had no truth in him. However, compassion and justice cannot be balanced against each other, although that is the way we all see it. When Nineveh repented, justice was served. We could find ourselves in a circumstance brought about by our bad decisions which is like something had swallowed us, like Jonah was by the fish. We can learn from what happened to Jonah, that even in that place, hope is not lost. This is the place where we can decide to praise God, determine the price, and pay it to see Christ formed in us, thereby deciding to be birthed from a womb into God’s purposes, and supernatural restoration. On the other hand, we can do nothing and the place where we will be birthed from will be Sheol, and that birth will be unto death and destruction
The resurrection of Jesus would not have been possible without Him being crucified. Although we love to read about his sacrifice on the cross, we should not forget about the power of his resurrection, that is what created the Church, it is the Church’s foundation, and it is vital to our walk with God. Jesus has been raised, He is alive, which means that Christianity is not just another dead religion. He is seated at the right hand of the Father, where He is interceding for us. Throughout the Old Testament there were symbols of his resurrection which was to come. When Israel was delivered from Egypt, God wanted them to be his people, be in a relationship with him, and to reflect his sinless, just, righteous, gracious, and merciful nature. He instructed them to build the ark of the covenant. This ark was a symbol of their relationship as well as of the Messiah who was to come. The blood of the sacrifices used to be sprinkled on the mercy seat of the ark, and the tomb of Jesus, instead of the Jewish temple of that time, was a portrayal of the perfect, final sacrifice which was placed on the mercy seat. The Old Testament priests also partook of some of the flesh of the sacrifices, which was a symbol of the Communion to be instituted by Jesus. The resurrection was proof that Jesus was indeed the Son of God and the Messiah, it purchased our justification, and put the seal upon the work of redemption. His dwelling place is now within us through the same Spirit who raised him from the dead. He has been risen and so are we, into newness of life. We are seated with him in heavenly places, far above all rulers and authorities.
We live in an age of shareability and self-promotion, an era where so many seem to want to be noticed and get attention. However, Jesus flew in the face of the way in which we are living today because He often operated in secrecy. He made a practise of going to lonely places to pray to his Father in secret. He would avoid the wrong kind of adulation from people and was a friend to the lowly. The first way of implementing the discipline of secrecy is to abstain from doing good deeds or works for God – like the Pharisees did – where the motive for doing so is to be noticed and/or loved. The only reward in doing this, will be that which is received from man, but nothing from our Father in heaven. On the other hand, when the motivation of our good deeds is to love others and glorify God and his goodness, it is acceptable to him. Because God loves us, He wants that hunger for fame and recognition as well as the need for justification to be destroyed in our hearts. He ignores all of our efforts to gain these things by acting up. All of this neediness is a sign of a wounded soul. God’s aim is to graciously heal- and develop our souls and character in the darkness, a quiet, secret place where there is no recognition or pampering of our neediness. This is the place where we learn to love unconditionally and become trustworthy. There are certain things and certain areas which God requires from us to keep secret for the purpose of personal soul training, to help us grow in humility and dependence upon him alone, to become whole. In the Kingdom the route up is the root down, way down. As Christians we need to live our lives for an audience of one, and the attention of no one else. The discipline of secrecy is to train your heart and soul to subdue that thing in yourself that wants to fix everything and take control instead of trusting God for your spiritual life. He is the one who lifts up and brings down according to his will. This discipline is the one where we learn to serve with the right motive, of abstinence, self-denial, and becoming a trustworthy keeper of secrets. In the place of secrecy we grow in receiving from God, in a healthy way, that which every human being needs – acceptance, worth or value, and significance. We can trust God to lovingly help us, give us grace, and enable us in the implementation of these wonderful spiritual disciplines. He is the keeper of our souls
We are in a process of building an ever-increasing relationship with God, one of trust and friendship. Church fathers in the past experienced what they called a ‘second blessing’ or ‘entire sanctification’, meetings with God. which endowed them with tremendous power to minister. There is at this time a strong, specific call from the Spirit upon our hearts to reach for the high calling for which we have been apprehended, the prize of which is Christ Jesus himself. This calling is heavenly in origin and operation and has this expected outcome. We are being wooed by the Spirit into the depths of Christ, to lay hold of that which we have been laid hold of by God. Creation is travailing, we ourselves are inwardly groaning, and the Spirit in us helps us in the intercession to be revealed as Sons, in the full likeness of Christ, that for which we have been pre-destined. The call of God is unto the depth of our spirits, a call to full salvation. This is walking on the path of righteousness, where the light of his transforming presence is growing ever brighter. In choosing this high path of excellency, light seed is sown for us, illuminating our path, bringing transforming revelation of the person of God, and bringing gladness. Seed has the potential to fullness, and we should not despise even the smallest illumination given by God, even something that falls under the category of mundane and practical wisdom as it will transform our lives as our understanding grows while we receive more revelation and illumination of Christ from the Holy Spirit. We accumulate the light-seed, spend time with it and allow it to germinate, because every encounter with God is part of a process. The majority of our spiritual transformation takes place in those challenging times of darkness in our lives because that is when the light seed is at its brightest. These are the times when we do not abandon our faith but persist in walking the Christian way, to see these light seeds starting to grow, and produce a harvest of righteousness inside of us. The goal, outcome and calling of all of this is the comprehension- and apprehension of the dimension of the glory available to us and the surpassing love of God for us. He is able to do in us that which is exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we could ask, think, or imagine. Let us heed the call of the Spirit and choose to walk this higher path – the whole of Christ for the whole person.
we are in union with Christ and need to practise the spiritual disciplines to help us stay in communion with him. The next discipline we are looking at, is simplicity. Life can sometimes be exceptionally complicated. Biblically simplicity is getting back to a pure devotion to Jesus. We must in no way be distracted from the simplicity of our relationship with him by getting so involved in the mechanics of our walk that we lose the dynamics of it. Social media, for instance, has become a distraction and complication in our lives. The stuff of life can be overwhelming, and then priorities become the issue. The first thing which lies at the heart of a lack of simplicity often is our own flesh, not other people, situations in life or even the devil. That is the reason why so many of the disciplines are geared toward dealing with the flesh-life in a fiercely practical way by teaching self-control. The flesh has voracious appetites, especially in finding satisfaction out of the acquisition of all kinds of stuff. However value and self-worth are not attached to the things we own. We can have everything we need when we seek the Kingdom and its righteousness first. Seeking the Kingdom first means to give it priority in everything you do through implicitly obeying the instructions of the Holy Spirit, and righteousness speaks of every righteous act which the Kingdom requires. The second thing that complicates our lives, is the insecurities of our hearts. These insecurities often demand that we have distractions, because it takes the attention off from our pain and lack of self-worth. The discipline of simplicity is getting rid of, or re-adjusting the things in our lives that hinder our walk with God. We need to throw off the things that are not necessarily sinful, but also not beneficial to our relationship with God. Sin in itself, is a major complication in our lives and destroys the simplicity of pure devotion to Jesus. The discipline of simplicity is not only all about organizing your outward lifestyle by decluttering or re-organizing, although that is also necessary, but the most important thing is to maintain your first love for Jesus because then even the mundane things you have to do are done as if unto the Lord and filled with joy. A conscience which is clear before God because of instant and constant repentance is also conducive of a life which is simple and uncomplicated. We need to learn how to rejoice in everything, develop an attitude of gratitude, stop comparing yourself with others as well as learn how to not take yourself too seriously, all of which will result in a heart at rest, running your race with success.
The Church of today is not in danger, as it was in the day of Paul, of returning to the strictures of the Law. Today the danger is that Christians, instead of serving the Lord in full accordance with all of God’s requirements, are picking and choosing what to adhere to, and thus following an impure gospel. The spiritual disciplines described up to now have been all about the spiritual things which we can do to enter into the communion side of our union with Christ. In this union we, as Christians, are linked and participating by the Spirit in his crucifixion. We are also in a mystical, unfathomable way linked to his life, where He is seated at the right hand of the Father right now. This union is likened unto marriage, something which is lived, but hard to describe. We need the discipline of stillness, solitude, and silence because the busy-ness of this life can cause us to become human doings instead of human beings. The purpose of this discipline is not to go to sleep, but to awaken our spiritual senses unto the Lord. What we acquire in the times of stillness, solitude, and silence is the ability to step back or withdraw, even at the busiest of times, and take control of our actions or reactions. It also teaches us to be at ease with ourselves. There are times when we need this discipline for the Lord to heal us of all the stuff going on around us. Practical ways to practise this discipline are: schedule a time, find a place, deal with- and remove as many external distractions as possible, set a timer, relax, and become comfortable, become still silent and present, quieting your mind by managing inner distractions and dealing with a condemning conscience. Learn to return to a peaceful experience in your mind as a starting point. One of the main reasons for this discipline is to recover the gentle voice of God. This is the way to experience the communion and vision which comes out of our union with God, seek the will of God with clarity and align yourself therewith. It is to quieten your mind to hear God’s voice and have your strength revived, and to receive power. It is to gain interpretation of dreams and find the context and perspective for circumstances and situations. Stillness, silence, and solitude enables one to meditate on who you are in such a way that you can produce more of the fruit of the Spirit.
People in the Old Testament got anointed with oil to fulfil a specific task, purpose, or office, for instance, that of a King, Priest, or Prophet. Because we are children of God we are also anointed. We have to remind ourselves of the fact that we have been anointed, enabling us unto what God has called us for, whether it be in our jobs, studying, whatever the case may be. The realization of our deep need at times when we fall short of our full potential is the driving force to tap into this anointing. Because we have received the Holy Spirit, we are anointed, and He is the one who enables us in every area of our lives. The Holy Spirit’s anointing is God with us, giving us his power. The anointing has a purpose, which is to fulfil a calling. Whatever causes a stirring and interest in a person’s heart is the way to define what their godly calling is. To fulfil our calling we also have a part play, and that is to co-operate with the Holy Spirit and actually physically equipping ourselves by taking courses, going on outreaches, etc. depending on what the calling may be. Walking in unselfish love will result in an increase of the anointing. There is also a price to pay for the anointing, and it consists out of living according to the principles in the Word of God, sacrificing time by spending it in the Word and going to church services and prayer meetings, serving wherever there is a need, and be ready to be persecuted. We need to return to the initial heartfelt stirring and hunger for more and enquire of the Lord what we can do to walk into our destiny and also keep going when things become tough, for the sake of the anointing.
There are times when God will take us on adventures beyond what we could think or imagine. He really wants to make an impact in the real circumstances of our lives. Although it may at times seem as if God is absent when we experience adverse circumstances, when we can log into the fact that He is always with us we can become aware of his blessing in every circumstance. We need to be in a relationship with God and each other, to stir up the flame inside of us, that of power, love, and a sound mind, replacing fear. We love to move in power, but it should be balanced by love – even loving those from whom you differ – and a sound mind, and a sound mind means discipline and character. Walking and operating in this balance, makes us effective in bringing the true gospel of Christ. We need to, through faith, have our lives established, rooted, and grounded in the love and things of God to avoid withering and dying when difficulties come. Becoming rooted is a process of laying down our lives and having Christ revealed in us. In this process we are strengthened and empowered by the Holy Spirit, through love. We need to not listen to the humanness inside which says it cannot be done, and in humility let our spirit-man come forward to accept that God wants to fill us with all of his limitless fulness. That is what Christ died for. The measure of God’s fullness within us is conditional, which is that it is in accordance with the power at work within us. This means that we need to work with God to enlarge his power within, to remove the limits to his fullness being manifested through us. This is done by exercising faith, having a trusting relationship with God, and faithfully walking in your calling, while desiring and asking for the gifts of the Spirit from God, and exercising them in and through love. Love is powerful. It opens the door to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit. Love keeps us rooted and steadfast to grow in Christ. Love changes our perspective on people, helping us to forgive a wrong done to us.
One can set up a goal for oneself and that goal would then become a judge to measure up yourself against. Our goal is to have Christ formed in us. The Apostle Paul had achieved the highest level of authority possible for him in the nation in Israel, yet he reckoned all of that to be of no value compared to knowing Jesus Christ. According to the Apostle John, we can know Jesus, if we know grace and truth. When we examine grace, it consists out of two sections – a past, as well as a future portion. The past portion is God’s unmerited favour bestowed upon us towards our salvation, and the future part of grace comes as a promise giving us faith, enabling us to labour towards our goal, i.e. Christ formed in us. This labour is by faith and enabled by the Spirit. Having received a promise, we believe it, obediently do the works, and thereby activate the faith towards miracles, revealing the glory of Christ. Truth leads us to the Father and sets us free. We are set free by truth by it destroying everything in us that is not worthy of us. This is usually a painful process because pride, ignorance, wilful blindness, and laziness cause us to hold on to these unworthy things. Living out a lie, is equal to being possessed, because satan is the father of lies. Living a life of lies prevents a person from reaching their goal in life. Speaking the truth to one another is respecting the sanctity of the Body of Christ. We need to do our part in following the spiritual disciplines by the grace available to us, to put to death that which is unworthy in us so that God can form Christ within us.
In the discipline of stillness, silence and solitude, there is an abstinence from the stimulus by which we are surrounded. The issue in our modern world is one of busy-ness, wherein our minds are always busy and experiencing high-voltage stress. We live in a world full of noise, people, and circumstances. We have, unfortunately, gotten to the place where being busy is attached to our sense of worth. As a result we have become dull and unaware of the presence of God all around us. Stillness and silence are a prelude to hearing God’s voice more clearly. Stillness is learning to quieten yourself, still your heart and mind and become awakened and attentive to Him. We can learn, even in the busy-ness of life, to step back into ourselves and be quiet and at peace, whereupon we are helped by him to focus and meet challenges with passion, because of your living a life of being attuned to God. Silence is obviously to abstain from speaking enabling you to hear. Solitude is to be alone, cut off from outside stimuli. Stillness is not a time for praying, problem-solving or planning, but a time of preparation to hear from God and get his opinion and wisdom. More is accomplished in these times, than in the times of busy-ness when you are operating on your own strength and wisdom. Solitude and quiet is deeply spiritual, creative, liberating, it is where we find God. Peaceful stillness involves waiting for the Lord, which is followed by blessing. The results of silence and stillness are wisdom, a renewed revelation of Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross, peace, deep sleep at night, a new awareness of the greatness and sovereignty of God, as well as rest and healing.
There are disciplines which we can engage in deliberately, intentionally, assigning time to it, to make our oneness with Christ a reality. In this lesson we look at the discipline of Biblical meditation, not eastern meditation practices which are basically emptying the mind, etc. Meditation is the faculty whereby we ponder upon and envision things, and every human being is well able to do this. It can be compared to the process that a ruminative animal uses to process its food. The Hebrew meaning of the word meditation basically means to mutter or to speak quietly. It was a well-known practice in the Old Testament for the Israelites to meditate on the word of God, or the Torah, and thus memorising it. We, as Christians, meditate by focusing on God through contemplation of and pondering on his word, quieting our hearts with scripture, and entering a deeper intimacy with Jesus. In this process of becoming acquainted through meditation with who Jesus really is, how He sees us and his requirements of us, we are enabled to change negative thoughts, coming up in any situation, to His thoughts. Meditating and pondering on, loving, and digesting a word, results in a deeper spiritual life and experiencing the prosperity and fruit of that truth. When you enjoy Jesus, meditation is not a chore, but a delight. Meditating on how powerful God is, makes the destruction of every obstacle easy, meditating on his trustworthiness brings trust, and his ability to heal brings healing. The same is true of his ability to provide and encourage. We meditate on the word for the word to possess us, to observe it and do it. Then we will be prosperous and successful. Biblical meditation has three stages: firstly, meditation internally, secondly the uttering, muttering, talking, discussing, professing, proclaiming, and prophesying. Thirdly, it becomes part of our spiritual DNA and we begin to act and live the heavenly lifestyle. Meditation brings understanding of the word which results in wisdom. Meditating on the promises of God can bring quicker fulfilment thereof. There is a way to complain to God in meditation like David did – moving from complaint, to prayer, to praise. Meditation brings peace and pre-meditation not only causes us to be prepared when trouble comes, but we can pre-meditate any fulfilment of God’s will in our lives. Meditation is very powerful.
We live in an age and world which is very shallow, sensual, superficial, selfish, and entitled, constantly demanding instantaneous gratification, a world that serves all kinds of appetites. The world needs deep, solid, balanced, knowledgeable, and spiritual Christians to bring healing to it. To become this kind of Christian, we need to adhere to certain disciplines in our spiritual walk with God. When we look at the discipline of fasting, it is a discipline which must be accompanied by prayer, otherwise it becomes a hunger strike or a diet. We fast to seek the Lord with greater urgency through deepened prayer. It helps to tear down walls, to usher us into the spiritual realm, into breakthroughs, destroys chains, and brings clarity of mind to hear the answers we need from God. God is spirit, and we need to relate to him by spiritual means. Fasting is a spiritual discipline, although it requires a practical action. We need to exercise, train, and discipline our outer and inner senses to be in co-ordination and be governed by the truth of God’s word, so that not one of them allies against us. The discipline of fasting is an affront to one of the strongest, most primary drives in our human lives, and that is self-preservation. One of the primary reasons for fasting is to reverse the inclination of the flesh towards that which is natural. When we absorb the Lord’s Word and are consumed by his presence during a fast, our craving and desire for him expands. Another reason for practising the discipline is to be liberated from the slavery to self and self-centredness, as well as every appetite which is controlling us. It is good to fast until every appetite is mastered by your will and spirit. The Bible the describes the flesh as appetite. This fleshly appetite is for everything that is in the world, and it is geared towards the lust of the flesh, eyes, and the pride of life. Everything in the world is designed towards engendering lust, but everything in the Word and the Spirit is designed to create spiritual desire and hunger in us. A time of fasting is also when the deep inner problems that hinder and entangle us surface, so that God can deal with them. Spiritual exercise of fasting adjusts a person’s priorities, sharpens spiritual awareness, brings connection with Jesus and breakthroughs, has as a result supernatural spiritual power to break sin and habit patterns, and is a faith-builder towards miracles, signs, and wonders. Fasting is essential, and possible, despite the various excuses people use to avoid it. The primary reason for fasting should be our hunger and longing for God. Our hunger will have God endowing us with his grace to fast, making it easy.
When we get saved, Christ is in us, the hope (not a wish, but much stronger – a guarantee) of glory. However, He needs to be continuously formed in us until we reach the full measure, stature, and image of Christ, in other words, maturity or perfection. The fullness of the Godhead lives in us in bodily form, a great mystery. This not only requires from us a biblical understanding, but also to do something practically, in other words, spiritual disciplines. To attain maturity, we need to know how to develop our relationship with Christ. Spiritual disciples can start ‘in the flesh’ or mechanical, but consistent application thereof results in it becoming spiritual exercises when God responds to our disciplines by giving us his enabling grace. It also needs quality time to develop our spiritual lives. We need to understand that the practical things which we do, are a means to an end, channels of the Holy Spirit. When we interact with the community of saints, the revelation that all of us together forms the Body of Christ becomes evident, and that without interaction with this, his Body, reaching maturity in Christ is not possible. God wants us to experience him and that comes through practices which we perform individually, or corporately. The first category of disciplines which we follow is known as the inner disciples, which have to do with the transformation of the individual’s heart. They consist out of scripture reading and studying, prayer or prayer and fasting, private worship, meditation, silence or waiting on God, and journaling. The second set of disciples are outer disciplines, which, although personal, are mainly corporate. It consists out of abstinence, corporate fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, sacrifice and submission, and physical exercise and diet. The third set is outward corporate disciplines. They consist of church attendance, corporate worship, corporate study of the Word, involvement via service, fellowship, tithing and giving, public confession of sins, and acts of mercy. We need these disciplines to counteract superficiality. They liberate us from slavery to self-interest and fear. The spiritual disciplines enable us to engage in and become a permanent part of that which is real, the spirit world. The primary requirement to implement the disciplines, is a longing for God.
In order for us to walk in fulfilment, we need to walk in Christ. God has called us to live in the grace of Christ which firstly means that we need to live in the grace which Christ lived in, living in the way which He lived, saying what He said, and doing what He did. Secondly, we need to live with the grace which He supplies. Living for him, living with his resurrection life and power, requires from us the price of dying to the self and living responsibly. Our will must die and be replaced by his will. Becoming a disciple of Jesus means being willing to go through a painful, inconvenient process of death. There is no short-cut, you cannot circumvent the process of walking with God, going to church, praying, studying the Word, co-operating with the Holy Spirit regarding your personal sanctification, and being a witness for Christ. To have Christ formed in us, we need to be ‘Christ inside’ minded and there must be a divine-human co-operation where we start working out that which He has put in us, by the empowering, enabling grace of God through the Holy Spirit. In 2024 we need to develop a closer and ever deepening walk with the Holy Spirit so that everything might be fulfilled. He is the one who was sent to be with, and in us, our helper and guide to truth, as well as future things. To take us into the things of Christ, is the whole design and eternal purpose of the Holy Spirit. He persuades us of our standing in Christ by faith through grace. We have been fore-known and predestined to be conformed to the glory of the image of God’s Son, who is the first-born amongst many brethren. We have already been qualified by God unto this destiny. When He looks at us, He sees the finished product. Becoming mature in Christ is not only God’s eternal purpose, but also his present on-going work and ministry in us, shaping and changing us. In conclusion, we need to understand that it is union with Christ, we need to be putting on Christ, we need to be identified with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, following after him in obedient love and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. Our co-operation with the Holy Spirit means that we are sowing to the Spirit and thus will reap greater power from the spiritual realm.
The overall plan and purpose of God, which is for us to be conformed to the image of Christ, does not change from year to year but always stays the same. However, the Lord has specific purposes for each congregation. The theme for ACF for 2024 is “that it may be fulfilled in us and demonstrated”. In 2024 the members of ACF will see the word of God spoken over their lives fulfilled. This will be a sign and a wonder to unbelievers, demonstrating the incarnation of Christ. God has already raised up and will continue to raise up others who will be instrumental in bringing members of ACF to the place where the word of the Lord is fulfilled for them, even as John the Baptist prepared the way of Jesus. 2024 Will be a year full of opportunities – positive and negative – to stand in faith on the word in the face of circumstances and situations. Thus the fulfilment of the word will project people unto a higher level of the power and authority of the Holy Spirit, established and manifested in and through us. We need to live more intentionally for Jesus in 2024, reaching for greater manifestations of signs, miracles and wonders, manifestations of the authority of the Kingdom of God. God will be putting his Spirit in a greater measure upon those whom He delight in. Many people will step into things which God had been exactly preparing for them. In 2024 God is going to reveal individuals’ extreme significance in his Kingdom. In 2024 those who have been overlooked and felt as if they were kept in a holding pattern, will be seeing the word of the Lord for their lives being fulfilled. There are going to be three areas of fulfilment in this year, firstly fulfilment in our walk with God according to his word, secondly according to prophetic words we have over our lives, and thirdly, the fulfilment of our dreams and desires based on God’s will and word, in his timing. As we continue to walk in obedience and work out our salvation, fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives, He will continue to bless, giving us impact on those around us.
A king has a kingdom, and every kingdom has a unique philosophy or flavour originating from its king. The kingdom of God has as its foundation righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the one enabling the righteousness, peace, and joy and it does not come from our own efforts. Even as the Magi came to bring gifts to Jesus, He has come to give us gifts, the first being the gift of God’s own righteousness through his grace, giving us direct access to him. Even the faith to believe in this righteousness is a gift from God. The most appropriate thing that we can do with this righteousness is to live righteously and to that end, He also gifted us with a companion gift, the indwelling Holy Spirit with his awesome inherent gifts and fruit. Jesus also removed the enmity we had towards God and gifted us with not only reconciliation and peace with him, but also the peace of God, which results in an indescribable joy. The geography of the kingdom of God is without borders and consists out of the hearts of people all over the earth.
We are anointed unto the calling of doing the work of the ministry. Unto this end, Christ (his nature and character) is being gradually formed in us by the Spirit of God. Although we have received this nature and character when we got born again, it is not always manifest. There is no instant formula to follow which will enable us to manifest Christ’s nature and character, it is only worked by the Holy Spirit, in having a relationship with him, and explicitly obeying him. This relationship is very important, as well as being in a church around people who love Jesus. There we can see, hear, and experience what God does in order to form Christ’s nature and character inside. Trials and tribulations also build this nature and character in us when we have the correct response thereto. When you have fallen into stress, fear, and anxiety due to trials, get back to Jesus for the peace, hope and faith which he had promised. Learn to maintain control over your thought life, giving the enemy no foothold there. Above all, do not become weary, because Christ is being formed in you. Stay in his peace.
When Israel was in the wilderness, stubborn, and murmuring against Moses and God, God regarded their rebellion as the sin of witchcraft and their stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry. The result was death through a plague of serpents sent by God. Their salvation after they repented, was not the removal of the serpents, but rather the image of a serpent being put up on a pole and they had to look at this serpent intently to be healed from the snake bites. When we rebel against the freedom of grace and turn back to the Law, it has the same result of death. Paul was, in his letter to the Galatian Church, addressing this issue of them being bewitched and the solution thereto was that Christ be formed in them anew. Jesus compared himself to this serpent being lifted up and whoever believed in him would not perish but have eternal life. God does not remove the snakes out of our lives, because we have to learn how to contend with them, but the biggest snake is the one inside. When we look intently at Christ on the cross, the snake inside is devoured and we are healed, like when Moses was contending with Pharaoh and his staff turned into a snake and devoured the staffs of the magicians which had also turned into snakes. Our end destination is portraying Christ to those around us, and our life and holiness come from washing of the water of the word by the Spirit of God. To have Christ formed in us, is having our calling coming to fulness in us. Our overcoming the snake has a genetic benefit to our offspring, the generations coming after us.
Jesus died so that He may be formed in every believer and any doctrine proclaiming less than that, is not the true gospel. To reach this fulness of Christ, we need to make a consistent investment of quality time, outside of church services, to develop our spiritual lives and spiritual gifts. A deeper relationship with Jesus requires from us to be intentional in having times of communion with him. We need to stop being lazy and invested in worldly materialism, our spiritual development is much more important. The day when we accepted Jesus, we got married to him, but that was only the start of the journey, it takes a lifetime of investment in a relationship with him to become like him. To counter the natural fleshly tendencies we have, we need to consistently apply certain disciplines in our lives, for instance devoting ourselves to the hearing and practising of the word we hear in Church, fellowship, experiencing communion, corporate worship, and prayer. Attending church is a corporate discipline as it is in the context of relationships in a Body. It is vital, because here spiritual growth comes from being accountable, taking responsibility, submitting, practising public confession, tithing, and acts of mercy. Outer disciplines are abstaining and thereby disciplining the flesh, solitude, silence, and secrecy. These things should be practised from the heart and not just done by route less it becomes an empty ritual without relationship, a practise with no meaning. The disciplines are setting a framework for time and application to achieve spiritual formation, ordering our lives around values, practises, and relationships as they keep us open to God to transform us, as we co-operate and partner with him. Spiritual disciplines in and of themselves do not produce salvation or make us superior but create the conditions whereby grace can flow freely from God into us towards change. We are, together with the Spirit in travail to see Christ formed in us.
The goal of Christ and the Holy Spirit is to present every believer perfect, holy, fully mature in Christ. There are different kinds of maturity, i.e. physical maturity, intellectual maturity, psychological maturity, and spiritual maturity. These are all tied together. Being in Christ means having an intimate, connected relationship with him. With salvation we come into union with Christ, but to grow and mature we need to be in communion with him. In our union with his death we are destined to come unto the likeness of who He was after his resurrection. Maturity in Christ means effortlessly and naturally thinking his thoughts, acting like him, responding like him; that being your normal way of life. In the process of becoming mature, the role and involvement of the Holy Spirit is critical and vital. The Holy Spirit is God’s light, empowerment, enabler, and purifier. We need to stay sensitive and obedient to his voice. God’s top priority is not our comfort, but rather our character. He loves us too much to leave us in a state of immaturity, and adverse circumstances are often there for us to practically apply the Word while the character of Christ is formed within us, our sanctification and holiness being a lifelong process. Jesus is our model for love, obedience, humility, virtue and moral blamelessness, steadfastness, and the way in which he was totally dependent on- and co-operated with the Holy Spirit. The worldview of the Holy Spirit is to form a community of holy, transformed people living in a kingdom whereof the first citizen is God, who is energising everything. From eternity past God’s goal has always been for us to be like Christ, it is his present activity, and He will continue until the end, to bring that to a conclusion.
For many Christians their lives are devoid of the fulness of what Christ had desired and designed it to be, and for them it is only about going to heaven after death. There is nothing in their lives about finding their designed purpose, entering the things of the Kingdom, and maturity in Christ. Coming to maturity is a process, where we need to have the revelation of Christ, to understand the residence of Christ to enter into the reformation of Christ. Spiritual maturity is for everyone. It is a process that includes significant, incremental, and ongoing change, while we are continuing to seek to know God and faithfully obey his commands, which are given for our formation. We need to, at times, have a measure of self-awareness of who we are not yet in Christ, so that we can have a starting point from which to work towards full transformation. We also need to seek constantly and diligently to have encounters with, and a relationship with the Holy Spirit, because He is the one who is inside of us and who changes us from within. We need to not neglect our spiritual disciplines, and live from a heart which has been washed, developed by the word, renewed, and pure. From such a heart we will make godly choices and live an effortlessly fruitful life for Christ, a life structured from a transformation which had taken place deeply within. To move from glory to glory, we need the Word and the Spirit. The Bible shows that we can intimately know a God who is affected by us, and who affects us because He loves and cares for us. It is this meaningful relationship between God and us which brings transformation, in contrast to religion which brings no change to the human heart. Transformation takes place through God’s abundant grace, the Holy Spirit, faith, and the Word plus an intentional partnership with God wherein we co-operate with him, keeping our focus on God’s goal, which is transformation, Christlikeness, and holiness.
In Paul’s letter to the Galatian believers we see that he had a burden for them, was anew in labour to see Christ formed in them. Certain Jewish Christians had come in and tried to teach the Galatians, who initially were gentiles, to adhere to a mix of Old and New Testament doctrines, trying to divert their affection to themselves. There is also today, in the Body of Christ, an unhealthy obsession with Mosaic Jewishness. We, as Christians, are from a new generation, the generation of Jesus Christ, and should not be looking to be part of the genealogy of some Jewish tribe. There is a distinct difference between the grace gospel of Christ and the Law of Moses, the first being powerful unto change and the second without. They cannot be mixed into a blend, which, according to Paul, is a perversion. Jesus redeemed us from the whole law, establishing our righteousness in him, but once we have been converted, we must continue our lives with Christ, being rooted and built up in him and formed in him unto infinite glory, the fulness of God. However, the question is, how do we grow up into the image of Christ? It firstly is about what God does in and for us, and secondly what we do in response. What God did unto our salvation is of his grace. Our response, then, is by grace. Christ is revealed in us by God. Once He is revealed in us, we need to understand and co-operate with the fact that Christ lives in us as the hope of glory, that we are inseparably joined together. We need to be persuaded of the fact that He is in us and believe that it is a reality that we can be conformed to his image as the Bible teaches, something which we can experience in this life. We also need to really believe that the Holy Spirit is progressively changing us unto the character of Christ until all our life is flowing from him. This is a personal invitation to discipleship. God’s main purpose to our lives is to make us like Christ. Beholding Christ, having him fully revealed to us, will change us into the same image.
The baptism of John was not a Christian baptism, but its purpose was to return the Jews of his day back to the original faith of their fathers from which they have strayed, and thus prepare them for the coming of the Messiah, which the scribes and pharisees rejected. The Christian baptism is being baptised into the nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – part of the salvation process.It is easy to trust God when everything is going well. Although we all want a bed of roses and cloudless, sunny skies, that is not what we always get. It is in the bad times that we have to discover God’s character and him as our anchor, firm foundation, shield, and buckler. Every individual has days of evil which are tailor-made for them, and we must learn to handle the uncertainty that comes with these times without fear. Keys to handle these times are – always revert to the Word of God (his thoughts, which are higher than our thoughts, anxieties, fears, and plans) and keep standing on his promises, pressing into the fulfilment of these with even more determination. God’s Word does not change, his character does not change, and this fact gives us endurance to keep believing. Once you have stood on his promises and waged war with his word, clinging to it tenaciously in confessing the truth of the word instead of the problem, you will obtain the promise and it shall cause you to prosper. Call upon the Lord in the times when He is near. Deal with- and quieten your conscience, setting your heart at rest, because Jesus is our redeemer. Choose faith instead of fear, learn to be at peace. Get back to the testimonies of your faith, the testimonies of God’s faithfulness in your life. Look at the examples of others. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Learn to accept that at times you are not in control and wait and trust God for his deliverance. Having done all, let go and let God… Lastly, keep your focus while you are actively waiting with eager expectation on God, stay on track with your purpose, do not get distracted by the storm.
According to the Apostle Peter we, as Christians, have been called by God to be submissive unto every level of authority, be it in the world or in the Church. The Bible is very clear about the fact that we will face persecution and suffering because our righteous walk is in direct opposition to the spirit of this world. Handling this momentary suffering right, will result in an unfading glory – and glory is God’s end purpose for our lives. In the context of the Church, younger must submit to- and respect older people. There must be submission to the elders in the Church, who are not lording it over- but are watchers over the well-being of the members. We are to submit to each other and serve one another. The opposite of submission is pride and God opposes the proud but gives grace or favour to those of child-like humility, exalting and lifting them up. Being able to successfully cast your cares upon God and have him caring for you, is dependent on your submission unto his mighty hand (his authority or power) upon your life. Being submitted to God means that you are under his authority and is able to resist the enemy with God’s authority and see the enemy flee from you. Submitting unto God means serving him his way, and not yours, submitting to his authority over your life and entrusting yourself to his power and ability, knowing that in his goodness and wisdom He has a great plan for your life. Independence from God is arrogance and pride. Humbling ourselves is living a godly and righteous life, accepting God’s plan and purpose for our lives, trusting in his power instead of our own strength, and accepting and submitting to his sovereign dealings in our lives. The result is grace and more grace and being lifted up in due season; spiritual growth and godly character, God being enabled to trust us with other things as well, a heart that is soft and penitent before God, and becoming imitators of Jesus.
There are many things in the world which we feel are out of our control, but we cannot change the world, we can only change our world. And for that we are deeply dependent upon God, who is for us. When we change, it brings change to communities around us. God wants us, as the Body of Christ, to be even more functional in the specific task which each member has. We need to encourage, support, and pray for one another, everyone at some time or another need to hear that God still loves them. We should all be looking to help someone because helping somebody makes you a leader. People want to know that you care for them, that you are willing to help them, and that they can trust you. Just be there for people to lean on as a friend. It is important to be a person with a humble and contrite heart, not judgmental, resentful and sceptic, delivered from your ‘self’ issues by the help of God. This all starts in our own households. We need to be willing to acknowledge where we have missed the mark, let go of the “I am fine” syndrome and ask for help when we need it. We also need to care enough to be willing to hear the answer, when we enquire about how other people are. We need to meet and contend with God for transformation, because He is the truth which sets us free. We are totally dependent upon him to become what our mandate requires from us and that is to believe and go and be Christ to the world around us.
We are not approaching an end of the world spelling disaster, the anti-Christ, doom, and gloom – which is the fear based, and non-apostolic theology being preached today. On the contrary, we are moving towards where the Church is fully transformed into the image of Christ, in other words, towards glory. When the disciples questioned Jesus about the signs of the times, the end of the world and when it would be, Jesus answered and, in his answer, He was referring to their generation and world, not ours. The blood of all the prophets Israel killed, including that of the final one, Jesus, would come upon that generation of Israel, and the Kingdom of God removed from them, given to a new people, the Body of Christ. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they failed to recognise the time of their visitation and refused to accept God’s peace, their Messiah. In the year AD70 that, which OT prophets and Jesus prophesied over Israel because of their stubborn disobedience, was literally fulfilled in the total destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army, leaving the city desolate. The last days began at the coming of Jesus. There are various references in the New Testament that those were the last days – the last days of the world (or age) of the Law and its system of rulership over the nation. Jesus gave signs to his disciples by which to recognise the beginning of sorrows: False Christs – up until 70AD, Israel was overrun with people falsely proclaiming themselves to be the Christ, deceiving with lying signs and wonders. Wars and rumours of wars: In this same time period there were massive wars and invasions happening because of the fragmentation of the Roman empire. Famines and earthquakes: These have all been historically recorded as having taken place during this time period. The sorrows culminated in the revelation of the anti-Christ and tribulation which was that which took place in Jerusalem during its destruction. Jesus also told his disciples (not us) of how they would be persecuted and killed, but that the gospel would be preached to all the then known civilised world before the end (the end of Jerusalem) would come and it all happened exactly like Jesus said it would. All these things were signs – of the coming judgment; spiritual language indicating the end of Israel being ruled through the Law by the scribes and pharisees (sun and moon darkened, stars falling, and heavenly bodies shaken), and the coming of Jesus with a new order and principles, since the existence of two methods of salvation simultaneously, could not be allowed. The people of Israel saw Christ coming first, but the elect of God would be from all nations, not just one nation. We are living in the third world since creation, which is, through the glorious Christ, the home of the righteous, world without end. Jesus broke the curse of sin off from us, so that we can break the curse which is keeping creation in bondage. Our mandate is to do the greater works. God’s kingdom will fill this earth.
God expects from us more than just going to church, His call to all believers is to go up to a higher place where He can use us in an ever-greater measure. As much as He calls us to a higher place, He also calls us to growth, growth through the Word. We need direction through a fresh word from God every day. Our growth in God is determined by us, by the measure with which we love God, walk in the Word instead of just memorising it, and drawing close to God. When we draw close to him, He touches us, changes us, and fills us to be overflowing and going from glory to shining glory. The world is waiting for the light shining from us, the revelation of the power and presence of God. The measure in which we are attached to God, is the measure in which we reveal the glory of our creator. The decreasing of ourselves and the increasing of God in our lives is a process which happens when we move up higher. God is calling us to fruitfulness by abiding in him. We must not allow anything to distract us from our relationship with God and keep loving and serving him no matter what hiccoughs we experience in life. To move to the next level we must see to be, we must be not only involved but also committed to carry the anointing to the world outside, be able to hear the voice of God, move from a place of commandments to a place of having communion with God, have a restoration of the fear of God, and turn ourselves loose from the familiar and the comfortable. Let us ask the Lord to take us to a higher place, to where we have never been before.
Everything has to stay afire in the Kingdom. Fire was used throughout the Bible both in judgement and blessing. People are attracted to a person who is on fire for God, and who is filled with the peace and joy that comes from continuous worship. God also uses fire to draw a man of God into doing his will, as He did with Moses and the burning bush. The fire of God is also a protection for the children of God against their enemies, provided we disregard what the enemy is doing and keep our eyes on God and his will for your lives. It takes the fire of making the right decisions for the fleshly life to die, enabling more of God to flow through our lives. The oil of the Word in our hearts need to be combined with the fire of the Holy Spirit for us to be a blessing and a light to those around us. The incense of worship needs to be set on fire to reach the heavens. On the cross, Jesus absorbed the fire of the wrath of God as the sacrificial lamb for the sins of mankind. After having absorbed that fire from God, Jesus baptised us in the Holy Spirit and fire, enabling us to manifest the supernatural in the earth. God sometimes burns up the expensive sacrifices which we obediently and faithfully bring to turn it into an answer to prayer. In this time need the fire and power of the Holy Ghost like never before in our lives, to be a part of what is doing.
We are alive now and on the threshold of a time period where there is a shift taking place in the Church. We are in the time of a ‘stealth pregnancy’ where we do not even realize that something is being birthed inside of us. It is a time when the Church will turn a little bit wild and weird, and the glory of God will come to rest upon us. The end result will be that the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God and his Christ, and his glory will be visible worldwide, known by everyone. But our real everyday struggles and failures often make us feel that this prophesied glory is a million miles away. All of what we have been going through, however, is part of God developing us to rise, and be unveiled. Although this struggle does not engender good feelings but is on the contrary, painful, it is as much a move of God as the greatest miracle ever seen. We are at the turbulent place where two eras meet, and that is why it appears to be messy. God has to, through this turbulence, metamorphize the souls of the Church to Christlikeness, because that is the only way we would be able to handle the coming glory. The envy, empire building, and ego has to be cleansed out of us by God. To rise to Christ-like maturity we will firstly be going through faith-building trials creating wisdom, perseverance, dealing with the ego, envy, and pride. Only the meek and tender will be able to handle God’s glory. The only doorway to glory is a door called suffering, and that going through suffering with the right attitude. The second way to rise is to wait for God. All God’s promises are “yes and amen”, unless it is “not yet”, and the reason for the delay is often a mystery to us. By continuing to believe despite delay, we are building up our faith. Some things can only be done to our souls in the darkness of waiting. As we go through loss, war and barrenness, the areas of the most pain and misery will become the areas of the biggest promotion and blessing through the miracle power of God, and He will get the glory. The fulfilment of our destiny is beyond our ability, but not for God.
To enable us to see the new things that God is doing and to deliver us from being a facsimile of the past, God has to deal with our fear, envy and borrowed culture and we have to be willing to let go of- and unlearn the old and embrace the new, becoming completely flexible. What could the new look like? Imagine sweeping news of the Spirit, empty hospitals, governments invaded by the power and kingdom of God, the Body of Christ bravely rising up like never before. This new era is coming with a new sound. Church services will be transformed. We have to get away from performance, being concerned about image and style in our music and get to the place where we break the alabaster jar of our hearts and fill the place with the perfume of heaven, loving Jesus. A new sound is coming and it’s coming from the Holy Spirit’s control and leading instead of our skill and learned activity. This is the era of new styles, methods and innovations, and patterns of behaviour – the end of fruitlessness and barrenness. A time of release and support instead of control from leadership, the members being the Church instead of going to church. There is a new viral movement of the Spirit coming all over in every area of society which man will not be able to control. The new move will be highly relational and loving, sweet, childlike, safe, relaxed, festive, and fun, not religious. It will seem to be completely leaderless but completely unified – the day of God’s kingdom. We will be moving into land, finances, and the seats of authority which God has for us to occupy in the earth. Hot spots of God’s glory are going to be erupting all over the earth as the people of God will stop playing at church and start building God’s kingdom. Kingdom authority has everything to do with sacrificial service, stewardship, care, and love. The thing that we need most for the coming era is to be burning up with love, joy, heaven’s confidence, and a sense of that closeness to God. Heaven’s embrace and the fiery outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit will accomplish and bring to pass his purposes in us.
We should never get satisfied with the level on which we are but rather encourage ourselves to rise while constantly aligning ourselves with God, his promises, and his word. We are in heavenly places from where, by faith and through the Holy Spirit, we pull the supernatural into the natural, being a reflection of God in the earth. When we are in alignment with God, creation will work for- and not against us to help towards the fulfillment of God’s promises. The crown of thorns on Jesus’ head was symbolic of him loosing the earth from the curse and that is why when we are in alignment with God, we are enabled to set loose and bind things on the earth, and they are loosed and bound in heaven. To go to another level in God, we need to get our will out of the way and concede to his will, especially when it is difficult, because resistance causes the muscles of our faith to grow. Let us forget what the enemy is doing, and just look at, and obey God’s will and plans for this world. Following Jesus will give us a life of scars from wounds sustained from other Christians, but not getting offended and extending forgiveness gives God’s power free reign in our lives, pushes us to a new level, and brings a glorious harvest of blessings. It is time for the Church to get rid of offence and rise up, because the world needs us, needs the supernatural power of God.
To rise means to stand up, moving to a higher position. The first place where we have to rise up, is on the inside – from a place of negativity where a yoke from the enemy is pressing down on us, deciding that enough is enough and casting it off. We can, at any time, rise up into the glory which is over us by again refreshing the revelation and understanding of who we are, that we are inseparably joined with Jesus. He was God’s light rising in this world, He rose from the dead. We are risen with him, ruling, and reigning with him, children of the Most High, fully indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We recapture the sense of God’s presence within by glorifying him, because where the ark is in place, there is blessing, God arises, and his enemies are scattered. Being persuaded of God’s love for us, we can ask for his help at any time – this will cause him to arise on our behalf. God longs to rise up and show us compassion and grace, taking just revenge on our enemies, when we wait for him or put our hope and faith in him. He will show us mercy and give us wings to go over-, instead of walking through a situation. God often shines his light on areas of death in our lives, and He requires from us to arise, accept his help to overcome this, and come alive again to where Christ will shine on us. To arise requires a deeper and more intimate relationship with Christ. We need to rise above circumstances, to shake off the dust, and get up. We are the righteous who get up every time, even when we have been struck down seven times. We are to rise up to our calling and destiny. We have God’s Word authorising us to rise up and build his kingdom. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit support us, let us take courage and do it.
Being fruitful has everything to do with our relationships with God and others around us. To be ever more fruitful, God requires from us circumcision of the heart and to stop being stiff-necked. The closer we move towards God, our options regarding allowable acts are reduced or sacrificed. In every relationship there are sacrifices or a cutting away of that which is unnecessary for the sake of the improvement of the relationship. In the time of Israel God instructed that when a man passed away without having had children, his generation had to be continued by one of his brothers by marrying and having a child with the widow and that child then inherited a double portion through the sacrifice of this brother. This was called yibum. Jesus rescued and delivered us, sacrificing his body and blood for us so that our names would not be blotted out, doing yibum for us. Being married to him we need to blot out from our lives any and every “Amalek”, Amalek being a picture from the Old Testament of a people who hated Israel (or God) and attacked them when they were tired and could resist no longer. Amalek was a people who refused yibum and thus were cursed. We remove hatred and resentment from our hearts and renew our wedding vows to Jesus when partaking of Communion.
It is essential to accept the high position which Jesus had attained for us on the cross, because a Christian walking around with a sense of condemnation, guilt and inferiority cannot have spiritually sensitised senses. When natural hunger is replaced by an intense hunger and thirst after God, praying and searching for him will result in life-changing meetings with him, more of him. We can be led into prayer by deep emotion – prayer of loud inarticulate cries, travailing, agonizing, and sighs to God in partnership with the Spirit which formulates miracles, brings godly wisdom, and breakthroughs. Different levels of prayer results in different levels of miracles. We need our senses sanctified and we need to be obedient and submissive to God so that we can know what the Spirit longs for, desires and feels about a situation or people, even as Jesus did when He was on earth. The Holy Spirit can also lead the sons and daughters of God by the emotion of joy – laughing in the face of the enemy or a negative situation, thus walking into a breakthrough. We can be led by peace, by deep sorrow, feelings of anointing, the strong hand of God on us, angels, and even holy anger. We need to understand and not mis-interpret or rationalise away, ignore, or fail to co-operate with God’s moving on our emotions, but be available, because in not reacting to a feeling appropriately, we can miss appointments with God, miss miracles and breakthroughs. We have senses educated and sanctified by the Spirit of God to lead us and we need to learn not to be dictated to by fallen, or uneducated senses.
We need to know more about how the Holy Spirit leads us as far as the specifics of our lives are concerned. The primary way of being led is through a Word from the Bible being personalised by the Holy Spirit to the individual, and all other ways can be regarded as secondary. One of these secondary ways is to be led by the conscience – one of our primary senses or faculties. The conscience is a person’s inner voice which has been given by God to everybody. The conscience will operate in alignment with the inner value system of an individual and it will only be a good guide as long as it has been spiritually trained, exercised and educated by the Word. It then becomes another aspect of the voice of the Holy Spirit. The conscience is that which initially convicts us unto salvation. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from an accusing conscience that convicts us of being evil. When our conscience has been changed and re-educated to the place where we understand that we have been made the righteousness of God in Christ and live in accordance with his will, our conscience will powerfully persuade and convince us that we are now righteous children of God, instead of us living a life burdened with a continual feeling of guilt and fear. It is sad that, because of the preaching of the Law in the Church, this guilt and fear is the state in which most Christians find themselves. When our conscience has been educated, we have confidence in God. We no longer pray and read the Word because of a fear of displeasing God, but because we love doing it. When our consciences have been educated by the Word to the sure knowledge that we are forgiven after our repentance, at peace with- loved, and accepted by God, pleasing unto him, the conscience is like an alarm clock which usually is silent, but when it does give an alarm – for instance by a feeling of guilt, we need to listen to it and obey. Godly sorrow, followed by repentance, changes a person unto the likeness of Christ, and leaves no regret. Worldly sorry brings death because it causes no change. Following your conscience, the voice of the Holy Spirit, will result in fruitfulness.
The correct, and in context, interpretation of Romans 8:14 which says that they who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God, is that it is referring to those who are being led out of being under the Law, a natural life, into living a righteous holy life, to being sons of God. However, sons of God are led by the Spirit. We have received, even as we have physical senses and emotions to lead us, also corresponding spiritual senses to lead us – the first often to destruction, but the second as an enablement to operate in the Spirit. Our senses are eyesight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. We also have base emotions, which have been given to us by God for a specific purpose. The emotion itself is not sin, but how it is used can be sin. For example anger should, instead of culminating in rage, be a motivation towards positive change. Jealousy is there not to become possessive, but to protect a relationship. Fear is for defence or to extricate yourself out of a dangerous position. Any word or truth from the Bible which has become alive and dwells richly in a person will result in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs flowing out, being sung with grace unto the Lord. The same is true of a person who is filled with the Spirit. Reading the Word by the Spirit brings familiarity with God’s voice and his instruction and leading. We can also be led by visions – inner visions, open visions, trans-like visions, and being caught up in the spirit visions. Other ways that sons are led are impressions or just a sense of knowing imparted by the Holy Spirit, God-given dreams, and a flow of thoughts which sound like the voice of your own thoughts. With exercise the difference between our thoughts and the tenure of the voice of the Spirit becomes clear. The sons of God are also led by a sensation of spiritual hunger. We can experience a voracious appetite which needs to be satisfied with things of the Spirit instead of things of the world, or even physical food. When we experience a lack of hunger for spiritual things, it needs to be created, encouraged, nurtured, and even forced when necessary. Hunger is one of the most powerful and motivational things that the Holy Spirit uses to lead and direct us.
There were five notable miracles performed throughout the gospels by Jesus. Healing leprosy, the blind, the deaf, the mute, and the cripples. These were symbols of his gospel – the cancer of sin eating away at our lives was healed, (leprosy). He opened our eyes enabling us to see (blindness). He opened our ears, enabling us to hear his voice and be saved (deafness). He healed our inability to walk in the right way before God (cripples). He gave us a voice enabling us to speak his word (muteness). In our oneness with Christ through faith, we became partakers of his death and resurrection. Previously, as sinners, we were married to the Law. Having died with Christ we have been freed from the Law, and through his resurrection we are now married to Christ. As a natural result, we bring forth fruit unto God. The Law is now no longer external (bearing death and condemnation) but internal, written by the life-giving Spirit onto our hearts. Whereas the Law gave a fading glory to the face of Moses, the glory of the ministration of righteousness gives an exceeding, unfading glory to the believer. The Law was good but could not effect change because it was weakened by our flesh and only brought an awareness of sin. This Law was a veil blinding us to the glory of God because there was no change of heart. When Jesus came and died on the cross, He removed the veil, sentenced sin to death, breaking it as the ruling principle in our lives. He condemned the penalty of sin, broke the power of sin. and is in the process of even removing its presence. Having our minds set on the things of righteousness and holiness, which is walking in the Spirit, pleases God and brings life and peace. Paul contrasted the Spirit (the gospel message) to the letter of the Law (the Law of Moses), the first being spiritual or supernatural and the second flesh or natural. We need to get the revelation of the fact that since the Spirit of Jesus is in us, we have complete, absolute, freedom to be changed as we look at him as in a mirror. We have the freedom to love, to see the glory of God and be at liberty from sin because its power has been broken, see truth and the freedom it brings, experience a lack of sickness, understand our value to Christ, our identity, understand that we are blessed with every blessing in the heavenly realms. The mirror of the Word gives perfect liberty – behold it and do not forget what you see and be transformed by it.
We have been freed from the curse of the Law which was a yoke of slavery unto sin and death, by the grace which came through faith in the sacrifice of Christ. Faith working through love comes from hearing the word of Christ, it is a gift from God. The measure by which we are living a life of love for God and one another is the expression or indication of our faith in Jesus. The grace which we have received brings liberty but is not licence for the works of the flesh, but liberty to love. The antidote to the works of the flesh is to walk by the Spirit. Flesh has works (acts, deeds), but the Spirit has fruit which comes naturally or spontaneously. The fruit of the Spirit is love, and love has nine different expressions or results. When we got born again, having believed the Word like little children, something supernatural transpired inside of our spirits, a new spirit was given birth to by the Holy Spirit. This new creation has desires just like the flesh and whichever one is the strongest of these two sets of desires will determine how we speak, act, and behave in our lives. To walk in the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, and live by the Spirit are all as a result of the change which has taken place within, and it produces the fruit of the Spirit. How do we walk by the Spirit and not resort to the flesh? Number one – we need to acknowledge that we cannot live this Christian life in our strength but are one hundred percent, and humbly, dependent upon the Holy Spirit, our helper, that lives within us. Number two is prayer – especially praying the scriptures which promise our personal change and sanctification. Number three – believe the Word, be confident that we are really dead to sin and the flesh, and alive to God. Number four – act and live. By the same faith with which we have received our salvation, walk in the Spirit as well. Number five – thankfulness. Be grateful for every change which has already been worked within us. Meditating on the new life within and having our minds focused on the abilities of the Spirit within helps us to walk in the Spirit in every situation which we face.
Human beings are often prophetically depicted in the Bible as trees. God, as the one who is the gardener and who created the garden, desires fruitfulness from us, as is his right. God is constantly attending to our lives, pruning us, to attain this fruitfulness, because He loves us. The Church is constantly being ministered to through the various Holy Spirit giftings and love, to come to an end-product, which is maturity. Walking in love is maturity, is walking in the Spirit. Our blessing of righteousness is, as it was for Abraham who believed God, a gift (inheritance) because we believe in what Jesus did on the cross for us. This faith puts us in a place where we can receive the Holy Spirit, a circumcision of the heart. In the Book of Galatians, Paul calls the gospel brought into the Church by infiltrators, which gospel advocates that faith only in Christ to be combined with a little bit of the Law, a different gospel, one that is powerless. When we come to salvation, Christ is formed in us, bringing order into the chaos of our lives. This is freedom from the unfruitful, exhausting bondage and slavery of the Law, which was a life of self-effort, rules, and regulations, and powerless to change anyone because it is weakened by our sinful nature. By staying in Christ, we stay in grace and are enabled to change through the Holy Spirit. The righteousness we have received by believing is not an end in itself but leads us to the crown of our faith, where we are like Christ Jesus, led out from the flesh by the Spirit, Sons of God, inheritors of the Kingdom. This life in and through the Spirit is a fruitful life. The fruit of the Spirit is the final outcome of that which the Law desired but could never produce. The ultimate fruit of the Spirit is love, maturity, perfection. Every one of the nine individual fruits of the Spirit are accomplished by the last one, which is self-control by the Spirit. Let us remind ourselves to keep in step with the Spirit and produce fruit, more fruit, and much fruit unto the glory of God.
In I Corinthians 12 Paul spends the entire chapter describing the make-up of the giftings to the Church and their function in the Body of Christ, instructing that each one must be satisfied with their place in the Body of Christ and their spiritual make-up, the way God had created them. He then says to earnestly covet the best gift and the question is, why did he say that? Paul is saying that it is not wrong to desire something greater but that the Corinthian Church should covet the best gift, or the more excellent way. While it is great for us to know our giftings and which part we are playing in the operating of the Body of Christ, that should not be our major focus or be treated as a badge of honour. Every one of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit, every office serving in the Body, should only be motivated by love to make it all truly meaningful. Love, Paul says, is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, does not dishonour others, is not self-seeking or easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth, always protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres, and never fails. This is also a description of holiness, a description of God himself, because He is love, the most complete, mature and wholesome being which exisists, as are Jesus and the Holy Spirit. When we have moved into the operation of perfect love through us, the present operation of the gfts willl pale in comparison to the operation of the perfect. This perfection is when the Church moves into the maturity of love, being grown up to the fullness of God, the full stature of Christ. This happens as we behold the glory of His face and his glory shines back like a mirror, transforming us into His image as we comprehend His full maturity. We come to know who we are, just as He knows who we are. It is the purpose of the five-fold governmental ministry given to the Church, to teach Her how to build each other up towards the work of ministry, the end-goal being the fruitfulness of this perfection. Love is the more excellent way, the way of the third world, the world without end.
When Jesus rose from the dead, He divested himself of his abilities and invested them as gifts in His Body, the Church. There are firstly the Governmental gifts also known as the five-fold ministry, and then the Body gifts which are prophecy, serving, teaching, encouragement, giving, administration (leadership), and mercy. All of us can and should do these things, but some people flow in certain gifts in a stronger measure. There is another category or gifts to the Body, the nine gifts of the Spirit, of which God does the mixing and distribution to give us strengths in our lives. We are all uniquely created and each one has a theme to their life. Each one has been given a certain manifestation or revealing of the Spirit for the common good. These gifts are a word of wisdom, knowledge, and prophecy (the gift of prophecy being made up out of these three companion gifts). A gift of faith (faith is needed to operate in every one of the gifts, but this gift is bold, supernatural, uncommon faith), and gifts of healing. Working of miracles (for example, where something in the body of a person, which would never have healed naturally, is restored supernaturally by God). The discerning of spirits (seeing in the spiritual realm), diverse kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues, and prophecy. The information gifts, that is a word of knowledge, word of wisdom and discerning can be in operation together. The power gifts, which are a gift of faith, gifts of healings and working of miracles can be used together. The utterance gifts, tongues, interpretation of tongues and prophecy can be put together. The fruit of the Holy Spirit and the Word are very important, because that brings balance to the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
At the time when Moses had the encounter with God at the burning bush, he was just an ordinary person about to encounter an extra-ordinary God. The fire which did not consume the bush, was the sign of the holiness of God. It is God’s heart’s desire to reveal himself in and through us. As we encounter God and in the fire of God’s holiness, our old identities, lifestyles, rhythms, and routines die. Our time gets surrendered fully to God and we are called upon to be holy and set apart for Him. We let go of any and every limitation we have placed upon ourselves and God’s working in our lives. God wants to totally remove from us all unbelief and deferred hope and set our hearts ablaze with His holy fire, because the fulfilment of God’s promises and his holiness go hand in hand. Let us therefore yield ourselves unto the holy fire of the Lord.
When we get born again, we move from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. When God created all of creation, He saw that it was good. However, He had an end goal in mind, the Shabbat, or rest, through having a progressive relationship with Him. Israel entered Canaan, but not the rest of God, although they were being carefully taught by God through the Ten Commandments to have a relationship with Him. They were constantly refusing this relationship, severing themselves from God. We could also settle for having been saved and just making it to heaven, but we will be missing the purpose of having been saved and that is to enter into the rest of God. We have to labour or study the Word to show ourselves approved in trusting and believing God (in other words, having a relationship with God) and thus entering His rest. This is very important, even critical, to us.
Salvation is the entrance to the fruit of the Holy Spirit which is wrought in the individual through a process called sanctification. When Jesus ascended, He gave us the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, who is exactly like Him. The Holy Spirit is to be forever with us (alongside us) as our helper, in us as our transformer, and upon us, empowering us for witnessing and ministering. God speaks to us and leads us through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There are three areas where the Godhead is involved in the gifting to the Church. The Holy Spirit is in charge of or responsible for the gifts, the Lord Jesus is responsible for the administrations, while the operation or energizing of it all is worked by God into all of us. The gifts from the Spirit manifested through us are all towards the benefit or blessing of those around us. We have all been baptised by the Holy Spirit into Christ, to become members of his Body. It is God’s decision which part each believer is to function as, in Christ’s Body. Apart from the governmental five-fold ministry offices which are there to equip the Body for works of service, there are also seven other offices, body offices. Every believer stands in an office, and we need to recognise exactly what God has designed us to be and operate therein. Each one standing in an office has been gifted by God with the gifts of the Spirit, together with the portion of grace and faith which is needed to fulfil their designated office fruitfully and effectively. This is the way in which we build each other up in love to reach the full measure, the full stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus.
When the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Day of Pentecost, the disciples were enabled by Him to speak in various tongues or languages, a language which was and still is today, unique to every person. Speaking in tongues is an essential part of our Christian walk. The Spirit comes into our spirit causing rebirth or quickening into a new dimension and gives the unique language, but we are the ones who have to speak – divine and human co-operation. Because there is a soul or intellect dominance in every human being which was caused by the fall of Adam and Eve, speaking in tongues is a restoration of the spirit-communication from man to God, in other words, a restoration of spirit-dominance in man. Tongues have a dual purpose, devotional (speaking deep mysteries to God, edifying themselves) and congregational where the interpretation of a tongue edifies the Church, because it could be a revelation, instruction, thanksgiving and praise, or a word of knowledge. A word in tongues meant for the congregation needs to be intentional, methodical, and articulate. God can also speak back to an individual during their times of devotion by means of tongues and interpretation of tongues. We need to consistently practice this precious gift.
The Old Testament is full of symbolism pointing to the day of Pentecost. The main purpose for the Day of Pentecost was not only that we would speak in tongues, but mainly to empower every single believer to be a witness (or martyr) for Jesus. This implies that there is a certain death to self when it comes to witnessing. We are to witness through both our lives and our words. The gift of tongues is a sign of us having received the power to be witnesses. A person’s witness is in the first case powerful to the degree to which the witness’ life has been transformed (godliness) by the gospel and the Holy Spirit. Secondly a message or witness is very powerful and credible when a person has had first-hand experience of God acting in his/her life. We can witness of the reality of Jesus from the Word. The personal experiences of what God had done in our lives also give a weightiness, effectiveness, and power to our words. There is a conviction and persuasion to our words and testimony, especially when God confirms them with demonstrations of power, signs, and wonders through the Holy Spirit. God wants us to be stewards of our time and talents. We are also to steward the treasures He has entrusted to us, as well as our testimony, and take every opportunity to lead people to Jesus.
Why is it that so many Christians do not live a victorious resurrected life, living a life which is without power? Four reasons: number one, we live fleshly lives because we get what we want, when and how we want it despite of what God says. Number two, we are not convinced of the goodness of God, since God is more concerned about our character than our comfort. Number three, we do not believe that the God-life is more fulfilling and satisfying than the self-life because we have not really experienced the resurrected life of Christ. Number four, because we do not discern, defeat, and destroy the fleshly lusts. Fleshly lusts cause quarrels because we covet what we cannot have, having asked from God with wrong motives. The world and the system therein have three gateways of appeal to the human being and that is it appeals to the flesh, the eyes and the soul or ego. The voice of the enemy is also joined to these gateways, tempting the flesh, energising the gateways. It is easier to go the way of the temptation and avoid the way of sacrifice, but the enemy’s ways always have strings attached. The natural normal appetites of the flesh can very easily become voracious and turn to lust and sin instead of it having died and been replaced with pursuing God and Christ’s resurrected life with an avid passion so that we could live at a different level. We need to feed the spirit rather than the flesh. Material things are fleeting, we need to invest ourselves in the Kingdom of God, which is permanent. When we deny our flesh, die to self, walk with God by the Word and the Spirit, and attain Christ’s resurrection life, is when we will experience a powerful, devil-overcoming, victorious Christian life, and experience greater miracles in our lives.
In order to enjoy the resurrection life of Christ we need to first experience the death and burial of Jesus. This is a life to, for and out of Him, a life in the Spirit. When we look at the Garden of Eden, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is a picture of the self-life kingdom (the domain of satan), while the Tree of Life is a picture of the Christ-life kingdom. Jesus died so that we could inherit this kingdom. Satan tempted Adam and Eve with three things in the self-life kingdom – the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. While Adam and Eve fell, Jesus patterned for us the overcoming life when He was tempted by satan in the same manner in the wilderness and did not succumb to temptation. The self-life is a life of self-worship and idolatry, instead of a life of value. We have been designed by God for this life of value, to worship and glorify Him from our hearts. What we place in a place of value or treasure, sets the agenda for our thoughts, desires, choices, words, and actions. There is a war between the two kingdoms, not only of behaviour, but for the heart. So much of the Church is man-made religion, empowered by fleshly ability rather than the power of God. The worship of self is pandemic in many western churches while the way to a vigorous, powerful, victorious Christ-life is to deny self and die to self. Our inheritance does not consist out of things, but Christ himself. We entertain the flesh because we get what we want when we want it, very often we are not convinced of the goodness of God, and we do not believe that the God-life is more fulfilling and satisfying than the self-life. The kingdom of self must not be appeased, but discerned, defeated and destroyed. We need to invest into the Kingdom of God to be beneficiaries thereof. If we want more of Him, He certainly needs more of us.
To experience a glorious and victorious Christian life (the Christ-life), there needs to be death first. In other words, first death and then resurrection. The life of Christ is a crucified life, which means in our union with Christ we have surrendered our own life and will and are dead to self, alive to Him. This life is lived by the faith of the Son of God, the most holy faith. The daily denying of self and choosing the way and will of Jesus is not the easiest, but the best way to live. The abundance of the life of Jesus inside of us is proportional to our death unto self. Surrendering our idolatrous and prideful will to His, always being willing to witness about Jesus, humbling ourselves, and being convinced that serving the flesh is unprofitable and unfruitful while the opposite is true of walking in the Spirit, are all aspects of dying to self. The goal of this death and daily cross-bearing is to have fellowship with Christ. The essence of dying is typified by five things: One - humiliation through reproaches, abuse, poverty, loneliness, persecutions, distress, seeming failure, and disappointments which cause us to lose our will and let God take charge. Two – rejecting the praise and approval of men. Three – embracing simplicity and childlikeness. Four – living by pure faith. Five – seeking our nothingness and his all-ness. We could choose to live a normal happy Christian life and be with the Lord when we physically die or choose to die to self and gain the Christ-life now.
We are part of Christ, the vine, and the very same nutrients and illuminating life which flows from the Father to Jesus, also flows through to us. When we are born again, we receive a new life, the life of Christ himself. This means that it is still our bodies, but animated and governed by His life. We are children of light and life, illuminating the darkness of this world when we release the Christ life inside of us. This light is God’s essence, his radiant glory, which is inseparably part of Jesus and his Body, the Church. This light which came into us destroyed death, bringing life and immortality. We are begotten of God, hidden with Christ in Him, and now seated with Christ in the heavenlies. We have the same position, life, and destiny as He has. When we fully comprehend this truth, whenever we lay hands on someone, it is really the hands of Christ, resulting in the miraculous being manifested. To get to this place of comprehension and manifestation of this life, we need to set our hearts on things above, where we are in Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father. We need to set our minds, meditation, and prayers on who we are in Christ instead of dwelling on the low earthly life to which we have died. This is done by faith. There are three aspects to the life of Christ – firstly, it is a crucified, self-denying life, secondly an irrepressibly resurrected life and lastly a humble life that is hidden in God, built up through a relationship with Him in the secret place, protected, preserved and eternal. Christ is our life, and we ought to stay in relationship with Him, to know him as our life, so that we may live out Him.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ brought us into freedom, into liberty, and the purpose of this was for us to be sanctified, free from the Law, our flesh, sin, and the enemy, enabled to love God and people. This happens when we are baptised, being identified, and in union with Christ’s death and resurrection, resulting in being quickened into a new higher life with him. In baptism the body of sin (natural body) dies and becomes a mortal body which is subject to immortality at the appearance of Jesus. In this new transformed light-life we begin to think, feel, and act as we have never done before. We have new love and grace-based principles, we have new unselfish motives and efforts, new elevated desires. We live and work conscious of and as if unto the Lord. We have new objectives – the chief of which is Jesus – our aim being the glory of God. The will of God becomes our law and everything we do is to honour Him and expand his Kingdom. We have new emotions – the emotions of Christ towards people, and a healthy respect, awe, and fear for God. We have new hope, new sorrows, new joys, and new possessions (spiritual possessions). Thus we walk in a powerful new eternal and quality life, born again by incorruptible seed and ever growing in the image of Christ.
In the case of criminal law, when there is more than one eyewitness to a crime, or strong circumstantial evidence of a crime, it is easy to get a conviction of the perpetrator. Jesus, in his resurrected body, was seen by more than five hundred people, thus making the fact of his resurrection irrefutable. The resurrection of Jesus was of vital importance to every Christian because He was victorious over death and hell which was the consequence of our sins, and he destroyed satan who held us in the fear of death. The resurrection was proof that the penalty for sin had been paid in full by his blood having been accepted, God’s amen to Jesus’ cry on the cross “it is finished”. He died for our justification as well as our sanctification. We have been planted into Jesus’ death through baptism and planted in the likeness of his resurrection, and as far as God is concerned our old man had been destroyed. We thus reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin, and sin dead unto us, and that we are alive unto God alone. Baptism, even as communion, is a supernatural action which is very real and substantial when approached with faith. We are baptised into the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – their life, their nature and teachings as well as the design and purpose of the death of Jesus. Thus we are dedicated, consecrated, and separated and bound unto God. The purpose of Jesus’ death was to expiate sin, remove sin, remove people from its power and to make us pure. This is our new resurrected life, lived through the same immense power that raised Christ from the dead.
Looking at it in an historical, spiritual context, all of history revolves around the cross of Jesus. It was the day on which the high priest himself became the once-for-all time sacrifice. The cross became the mercy seat. The cross was the judgement seat of Christ, as well as the throne. This voluntary sacrifice revealed God’s and Jesus’ love for sinners. On the cross Jesus carried the sin of the whole world – past present and future. Through the cross Jesus absorbed and appeased the wrath and punitive judgment of a righteous and holy God, justifying God’s love and forgiveness towards the sinner. The cross releases us from the curse of the Law because Jesus took that curse and punishment upon himself. Jesus removed our condemnation of servanthood and slavery to sin as well as our guilt conscience at the cross, giving us the peace of a righteous standing in Christ instead. Because of the cross, we became reconciled to God, living in peace because the fear of judgement has been removed. The cross gave us eternal life, saving us from hell. The cross brought oneness between people, the oneness of us all being part of a beautiful family, the Body of Christ. The cross of Jesus also elevated marriage because Jesus equated it to his relationship with his Body. Although we have not yet attained to the fulness of what Jesus did for us on the cross, we are reaching for it so that we may know God fully and have an abundant life in his glory.
There is power and anointing behind reading the Scriptures out loud. It was common practice in the Old Testament – for hours to all the assembly of Israel – as well as at the time of Jesus in the Synagogues, for the Law to be read out loud. This public reading of scripture also continued into the time of the New Testament churches. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh – Jesus. Revelation 1:3 explains the blessing to anyone who reads out loud the word of the prophecy, the testimony of Jesus. Faith comes by hearing and that by hearing the Word of God. This morning was an anointed time of the washing by- and soaking in the Word, accompanied by worship and prophetic ministry.
We live in a world where the phrase “the end justifies the means” is used by people to justify their unethical actions while on the way to attain ‘good’ results. Unfortunately, this attitude has also infiltrated the Church, while we should be different. We need to pray for each other to once more be the image of God’s consistent and complete morality, uprightness, perfection, and integrity represented to the world, since we are his ambassadors here. Our behaviour, practice, attitude, and values should correspond with the gospel which we proclaim Integrity guides us into the blessings and favour of God. When we find ourselves in a situation of loneliness and despondency, what keeps our integrity intact, is the Word of God and our relationship with him. Succumbing and bowing down to any of the idols of our day, for instance money, social networks, peer pressure, etc. is not an option to a person of integrity. We, as a church, are to portray Christ through our lifestyles, despite being mocked. We, as Christians, have been called to live a righteous and faithful life. We do make mistakes and fall down, but repentance and getting up again should be our response when this happens.
The Old Testament is full of types and shadows, all pointing towards Jesus and the salvation which He brought through the offering of himself, a perfect and once-for-all-time sacrifice. There were five offerings which the Israelites brought, and these were all instruments of grace to contemporarily restore or maintain the relationship between God and themselves. They were the burnt offering, the grain offering (a voluntary offering expressing to God recognition of his goodness and providence), the peace offering (a response to the fact that God has redeemed you, resulting in peace between you and him), the sin offering (when you have committed an unintentional sin), the guilt offering (making reparation for your sins). The burnt offering was for atonement or covering of sin and an expression of devotion to God. The burn offering had to be without blemish, given freely, and the person offering the animal had to associate with it as the animal died in the person’s place, their sin having been transferred to it. It had to be burnt up completely on a fire which had to be kept burning continuously. This fire was initially ignited by God, symbolizing his acceptance of the sacrifice. The burnt offering had to be continuously taking place, morning, and evening. The burnt offering was, of course, a type of Jesus, whose blood mercifully cleanses us continuously. We have continuous access to God with no condemnation. Our response to the offering Jesus made is to live a life of total devotion to and love for God, keeping a continued zeal and fire going for God by joyfully and gratefully remembering Jesus’ sacrifice. We are to continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise and worship, which is the fruit of our lips, as well as offering our bodies as a living sacrifice. In view of the cross and our understanding of what it means, we will always be fruitful. When we pray, the fruit will be that God will answer.
We have reached a place on the timeline of God where He is shifting, aligning, correcting, and adjusting through the blood of Jesus, plus a second touch, that which has been out of order for just too long in our lives. This second touch from Jesus is bringing an awakening in the body of Christ, clarity of vision, a complete restoration and perfection. This will enable Christ’s body to function according to design instead of default. God is revealing his heartbeat in a new way to his people and as we give heed to what He is doing it is elevating us to another level. Being courageous and holding on to God’s hand with both hands will prove our trust in him, because He is leading us out of our current condition, our place of complacency and familiarity, to where we are left with no other option but lean on him and depend on his power totally. He is about to completely reveal himself in and through us. It is a time of being challenged and stretched and the removal of limitations. We have come to a pre-destined time whereat we are to drench our flesh in God’s presence while spending time in the secret place, bringing it into submission so that God’s glory can be revealed in our lives. God is with us, feeding us and encouraging us unto the fulfilment of our destiny.
When we are born again, we come in total union with Christ, dying with him and being resurrected with him. In the action of re-birth we have died to, and are freed from the Law, even as a woman is freed from being married when her husband dies. While we were married to the Law, we produced fleshly, illegitimate fruit unto death (dead works), but now being married to Christ we have been freed to bear legitimate, lasting fruit acceptable to God, which means living by the Spirit, manifesting Christ. In this mystical union, we are inseparably and joyfully bonded to Christ. We need to understand what this means – to be in Christ Jesus – so that we can begin to grasp the glories of our identity in Him and enjoy all the spiritual blessings which are in Him. These spiritual blessings are as follows: in God’s foreknowledge and will, we have lovingly and happily been chosen or predestined for adoption to sonship, we are holy and blameless in his sight, and we are the receivers of boundless grace and faith. In Christ we have been redeemed or purchased unto a place of eligibility to have all of God’s blessings lavishly poured out upon us. We have been given the Holy Spirit as a seal or down payment of our inheritance in Christ, even unto the redemption of our bodies, to the praise of His glory. This is the inheritance of everyone who BELIEVES in Jesus – it does not happen automatically. Let us pursue the spiritual blessings in Christ instead of fixating on physical stuff. The physical blessings will be an automatic outflow when we have been secured in a loving relationship with Jesus, being rooted and founded in Him. Christ Jesus has become for us wisdom from God, which is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.
Water is essential to life and the Holy Spirit is often depicted in the Bible as water since He is essential to our lives. In the Old Testament natural rain was a result of Israel obeying the Law and in the New Testament water or rain is a picture of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit – both resulting in a new quality of life. Floods are also a picture of trials, and when the enemy comes in like a flood, we begin to question God’s love for us, or our own culpability, but God promises to be with us in the flood and the fire. Water can also be a picture of bitterness, like that Israel encountered at Mara, but the solution to the bitterness of life is the sweetness, restoration, and deliverance that comes in every area of our lives through the cross of Jesus Christ. When the enemy comes in the Spirit of the Lord raises up a standard like a flood against him. This flood is that which spells destruction for the evil, but is deliverance to the righteous, even as God removed evil from the earth during the flood in the time of Noah, or at the time of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt when the Egyptians were wiped out by the flood of the Red Sea closing upon them. Going through floods or trials transforms our characters, makes us strong, establishes our position in Christ, and brings maturity. We need to sow a seed at the time of the flooding and an abundance of harvest will be the result.
The next revival which we are anticipating is going to begin in the prayer meetings. We have all been assigned to pray but especially to be involved in corporate prayer, since corporate prayer elicits an immediate response in the spirit realm. Every individual believer is being battled by the enemy to make them feel insignificant. He is trying to thwart the full purpose and plan God has for each believer. God, however, only sees our full potential and disregards what we deem to be impediments towards us reaching the full completion of our immutable assignments. The faith-prayers which we pray for each other are tremendously powerful. It is the will of God to always take us higher. His restoration in our lives is always above and beyond where we have been and what we have had before. Through worship and prayer we come into high place and being there we will experience a shift in the spirit which means that at moment we are standing under an open heaven. That is the place from where we can powerfully put into operation the keys of the kingdom, which keys are binding and loosing. This is not a place of begging and pleading, but of operating in God’s kingdom power. We need to recognize these shifts because in these moments whatever we pray will immediately be released. We need to realize the significance of our prayers in that we are upholding the presence of God where the enemy wants to destroy. There is an urgency in the spirit to seize the moment and see the heart of the Father for the world and pray that into existence, for His ministers to become a tool in the hand of the Holy Spirit instead of the other way around.
As born-again believers we are in Christ, in an intimate relationship with him, our works are no longer because of law and thus fruitful. A key to fruitfulness and blessings is obedience to Jesus. Obedience is the attitude of submission to instruction and authority and most of God’s blessings are contingent upon following his instructions. Loving and obeying God are inseparably linked because his requirements are in no way destructive or harmful to us. Obedience guarantees the Father’s indwelling presence, growth, fruitfulness, and blessings upon our lives. Obedience, character, and fruit is the greatest indicator of spiritual maturity. Obeying God is proof of discipleship. Being blessed because of obeying God’s will and word, has the result of being able to also bless others. Obedience is always our choice to make, it is initially hard but becomes easier as personal issues, sin, weights, and entanglements are dealt with. Disobedience is easy but brings hardship. Obedience is an attitude – we saw this attitude in Jesus who only did what the Father instructed. Obedience is learned. The fruit of obedience is that it attracts God’s abundant blessing, loyalty, and favour; we will inherit the space we are living in, we will experience health, deliverance, elevation, direct contact with and from God, long life and honour. We cannot rely on God’s promises without obeying his commands.
To be fruitful was the first command in the Bible, the creation mandate. Throughout the Bible God is depicted as the gardener and as such, He expects fruit from our lives. “Be fruitful” is in one sense a command from God, but also a grace-filled power statement. At first the command for multiplication had to do with filling the planet, but at the time of Abraham it changed to God wanting the multiplication of a redeemed people. In the Prophetic books we read of the fruitful multiplication which was to come which had nothing to do with the old covenant, but which was inclusive of both Jew and gentile. This is the Kingdom of God and the entrance there into is, just as it was into the physical world by birth, also by birth but a supernatural, spiritual birth. This birth comes through accepting by faith the seed – that which Christ did on the cross. This new birth also carries a mandate of being fruitful and multiplying. As a Christian, fruitfulness means life in and from the vine. Answered prayers is fruitfulness, life, being the result of the Word and faith melting together in the heart of the believer. As we speak and proclaim to others the gospel, that which is the life-giving seed-word of God inside of us, we are producing fruit and bringing forth multiplication of the Word. However, this fruitfulness and multiplication is conditional upon our spending time in the Word and in prayer. Fruitfulness is a natural outcome of our union with Christ.
Jesus came to preach and establish the kingdom – a kingdom of dominion and rulership. This is what we are here to do, not sitting and waiting to escape in a rapture. A king is not voted in, his word is law, and he owns everything. Jesus’ kingship was manifested through him ruling over sickness and death and we need to pray for that manifestation in every area of our lives as well as in the world around us, where that is lacking. We can use the prayer which Jesus taught to his disciples as a guideline in praying for the coming of the fulness of his kingdom and righteousness. The kingdom is, through the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of the character of God. This is a culture and way of life of justice, integrity, virtue, generosity, love, peace, joy, gentleness, meekness, temperance, and longsuffering and that is the atmosphere and culture we need to create wherever we go. Let us, 2023, seek his kingdom and his righteousness, his way of life and character and all our needs will be freely and generously be provided for. Seeking his Kingdom and righteousness is praying for someone else’s needs before praying for yours, meeting someone’s financial needs before your own, freely giving your time, skills and abilities where it is needed in the church, attending the church services, spending more time in the word, fasting and praying, loving people, being positive in every situation, making Spirit-led decisions, and forgiving quickly. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive the spirit of a king, therefore we are kings and no-one can vote us out or take it away and it is time that we act as royalty, ruling and taking dominion over what is not God’s will, manifesting his kingdom. We have been anointed unto this.
Throughout the Bible we see different aspects of God as our father, for instance, him being a shepherd, and in Christ as a husband. God is also described as a husbandman ploughing and sowing seed in our lives unto bringing forth a harvest. He also is the architect, building up our lives so He can dwell in us by his Spirit. He is also depicted as the gardener, which means that we are the planting of the Lord. Because He has conferred his kingdom upon us, He is expecting us to bear fruit. God loves us so much, that in order to enable us to be fruitful, we are in an inseparable union and relationship with Christ, giving us access into the very being of God. We have also been given his righteousness. The Christian life is not a set of rules or behaviour regulation, but a relationship. We need to not only have union with God, but also be in communion with him. This gives us the power unto fruitfulness. Union with God without the communion (fellowship) results in a joyless, formal, and fruitless type of Christianity. We must earnestly desire this intimate relationship with God. He did the union part, and we need to do the communion part. Love is a verb, so to love God is to live for him. To live a faith-filled, powerful, and fruitful life, which is pleasing to God, we need to continuously abide in fellowship with Christ. In this relationship He will lovingly prune out of us that which hinders our fruitfulness so that we bear more fruit and are enabled to do all things through him. The keys to abiding are walking by faith, practising God’s presence, and living intentionally – all of this in reliance upon God’s power which is resident within us.
There are always endeavours at the beginning of a new year to determine God’s will for that year. We must keep in mind that there are certain constants in God’s will and plan and then there are other things which God maybe wants to emphasize. As we can see throughout the Bible, it is God’s will that His kingdom shall be manifested on earth – that is a constant. Jesus (and that also means his Body, his Church) is to reign until all enemies have been put under his feet, the last enemy being death. In South Africa God wants to show off through his Church his manifold wisdom and power to a nation that is in deep decline. God is always working extremely intentionally towards fulfilling his will, purpose, and plan for each individual’s life, and this plan always remains the same. This specific plan and purpose for each one of us is to be perfected, through the ministry gifts unto the Church, unto a perfect man, the full stature of Christ. In 2023 God is working with greater intentionality and focus on this purpose and plan for our lives. If we constantly add to the Word of God within us, we will be living in the experience of his love. Living in the experience of his love, is the reason why we then obey his word. Obeying His word and keeping his commandments is what it means to abide Him. When we abide in him, is when we experience a life union with Him. The automatic result of the flow of his life through us, is us bearing fruit, more fruit, and much fruit. That said, we need to get into the Word, obey what is instructed in the Word, obey your conscience which had been educated by that Word, and listen to hear, and follow the voice of the Holy Spirit. The natural outcome of these actions will be us bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit, prayers that are answered, and successful ministry unto others, demonstrating the power of God. Thus this year will be a year of abundant fruitfulness.
A king has a kingdom, and every kingdom has a unique flavour taken from the king. The universal Kingdom of God consists out of people and is one of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Jesus came to give us gifts to make us kings. The first gift is righteousness, a well of ever-flowing living water welling up to eternal life. This righteousness is the righteousness of God which came to us through faith and grace, and the faith and grace were also gifts from Him. The second gift, given to maintain, and fully live a life of righteousness, was the gift of the Holy Spirit, accompanied with all of His gifts and fruit. The third gift is peace – the peace with God of knowing that we are reconciled to Him through our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as the peace of God. The fourth gift is a supernatural joy, a joy which is beyond understanding, independent of circumstances.
The very first preacher of the Gospel in the New Testament was the Angel of the Lord who appeared to the shepherds at the time of Jesus’ birth, saying fear not, for I bring you good tidings of great joy. Whereas it was the custom in Israel to fear the appearances of the Angel of the Lord because God told Moses that he would die when he looked in His face, the first thing the angel said was “do not fear”. Thus the first thing to become clear about the Gospel was that man will be able to behold the Divine face to face and not die but live. This was to be the new face-to-face relationship with God wherein we will be ever-increasingly changed from one degree of glory to another. The understanding of the all-encompassing love of God had come to cast out of the human heart the fear of judgement, The second fear which would be eradicated, was the fear of death, because the law of sin and death was about to be replaced with the law of life in Christ Jesus – the reign of grace. The pre-eminent emotion of this gospel was to be great JOY. When we understand that we have been declared righteous through Jesus’ sacrifice, our first reaction is peace because we are reconciled to God, followed by a deep, Holy Ghost inspired joy. This pure, holy joy is also tied to the understanding of God’s glory. Joy came as well because God was proven to be faithful, since His favour is now resting on us. We are being totally redeemed and have a saviour who is prophet, priest, king, and lord. The angel sent the shepherds to a stable to see the new-born king and the ordinariness of His birth was proof that our salvation, miracles, etc are all ordinary, natural, simple, accessible by faith, without having to go through pomp or ceremony. The supernatural has entered the ordinariness of our lives and then the ordinary became extra-ordinary, demonstrating God’s power.
In contrast to a materialistic and rationalistic worldview, which was the result of the second world war, everything about our Christian life is supernatural. That means that our lives are natural with a huge degree of a supernatural element. Although certain parts of Christianity are trying to de-mythologize the Bible, in fact the whole Bible is about God’s miraculous and supernatural involvement in human affairs. One of the Christian doctrines which is attacked the most viciously, is the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus. It is hard for the human mind to believe that the unfathomably huge, powerful, unlimited, and all-wise God, who holds all of creation in His hand, could be contained in human flesh. The birth of Jesus was completely supernatural because the Son of God, who had lived for eternity in the past, was born into humankind through a woman who had been overshadowed by God. Jesus was fully God and fully man. This miracle is inspirational to our faith because it confirms that to God nothing is impossible. The three-and-a half years of Jesus’ ministry had a supernatural effect upon the world. Jesus was born because of man’s sin, for mankind to have a saviour, a mediator. Because of His birth, we can experience a powerful, supernatural re-birth into His kingdom, character, and nature. Because of this supernatural re-birth, the Holy Spirit given to us, the Word, worship, and the Church, we can live supernatural lives. When the world around us is in turmoil and perplexity, we can experience supernatural peace and joy. Being supernaturally connected to Jesus, one spirit with Him, our lives will, as a natural result, be fruitful and we will bring forth greater works, all to the glory of God.
It is said that man can survive for about 40 days without food, 3 days without water, about 8 minutes without air, but only for 1 second without hope. The Bible says that hope does not disappoint because it is linked to the love of God. The Greek word used in the New Testament for hope is translated as anticipating, usually with pleasure. When we are downcast, praising God is a very powerful weapon to get back into hope, because often God is the only one who can bring solutions to problems, and He is always faithful to his promises. A Hebrew word for hope in the Old Testament is translated as wait patiently on God. God will definitely reward our hope and faith in Him. Whatever we have seen him in doing in the past, is a point of reference for us, a place of rest, to have hope for the future. Hope attaches us to God. Hope is the confident expectation; and the essence thereof is that God WILL do what He had promised, despite the fact that He seems to be tarrying. Hope is the surety that we will win our battles. Hope is not wishful thinking – which is based on emotions – but hope is based on the promises of God. Our personal relationship with God is the foundation of our hope. Let us not have the cord of being convinced that God is faithful, be broken, and determinedly keep on praying until we see God move.
We as Christians are needed here on earth and for us to have the impact we have been called to; we need to fearlessly, daily, jump into the river of God and experience our own personal revival. The narrative of the Bible starts in Genesis with a river and ends in the Book of Revelation with a river. Jesus is the foundation stone, the source from which the living water, which is flowing from the temple, comes. Spending time drinking from Him is refreshing to us, and upon drinking this living water, it springs up in us unto eternal life. When we in turn refresh those around us, we get refreshed once more. Abiding by the river produces the fruit of the Spirit. The river of God brings peace, joy, and restoration to us, which we all need. The laughter of joy removes that which has plugged up the well of water inside of us. We need to stay planted by the water, connected to the river, and put our confidence and trust in God alone – not the flesh, to experience his blessing and prosperity
Moses could not look at the glory of God, but we look at His glory in the unveiled face of Christ and are being transformed from glory to glory. The glory of the Law was a fading glory but the glory which came through the cross is ever increasing. Jesus will appear or come to us when we are fully in glory - victorious, matured, and manifested sons of God. He is not coming to a battered, bruised, and run-down church which is just about to give up to the devil. He will come to be glorified in us and to be marvelled at by, and in us. He is coming to be recognised for who He is and to be praised, glorified, and magnified. When He appears in glory, we will also appear with Hm in this same glory. The glory of God, and that He be glorified, is paramount and key in Scripture. It is the apex of, and the theme in all of the universe. It is also our chief purpose and end. The heavens, the angels, the beasts of the field, all declare His glory. Glorifying Him brings joy. To become part of God’s glory is a process. This process starts with the key which is the Word, whereby we grow in grace, and the knowledge of Jesus. Our growth brings glory to God. Our calling and destiny are to be glorified and become part of God’s Kingdom. The power thereto is in us and has been purchased by Christ on the cross. God is shaping us with His glory. He has called us, made us worthy of that calling, empowers our every desire towards good works and to live a life glorifying Him. He gives us the faith in his power inside of us to become like Jesus. He graciously empowers us towards the good works of faith after we have been saved by grace. He places his glory within us unto the deliverance of creation and His appearance in our midst – it all by grace.
The purpose of the age of the Law (2nd world) was to testify, introduce and prepare for Jesus. The second world came to an end and the 3rd world started to be introduced when Jesus died on the cross. From the time Jesus died until 70 AD was a generation and is called the period of the “patience of Christ” because God was patient with the Israelites, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. This whole period of 70 years culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem by fire, is known as the coming of the Son of man in which Jesus had to end the Law’s system of sacrifice, He himself being the ultimate sacrifice, and introduce the Kingdom. Clarifying the confusion about the so-called end times: When the disciples enquired about the ‘end of the world’ they were talking about their ‘world’, in other words, the Jewish system. The ‘day of the Lord’ which would come with a great noise, burning up and melting the elements, burning up the land and its works, was referring to ‘works’ as the works of the Law, ‘elements’ as the elemental things and systems of the Law, ‘the land’ as the land of Israel. Jesus would come to Israel in clouds of judgment, each eye, (the tribes of Israel) even of those who pierced Him, would see him, and mourn because of him. The sun, moon and stars which were to fall were the religious leaders of the nation of Israel with the system of the Law. The scroll of the Law was to be rolled up and pass away. This was the time of the Great Tribulation – it happened in 70 AD. This was to come to pass when the gospel of the Kingdom had been preached unto the ends of the then known world. That generation would not pass away before the end of this, the ‘Law’ or ‘Jewish’ world or system would come. No Christians died in this tribulation, because they understood the warning prophecies of Jesus and had fled Jerusalem before it happened. Jesus came at that time as the Son of man. When He comes or appears again, He will appear as the Lord of Glory, ruling over an unending, unshakable, eternal Kingdom wherein everything is new, a kingdom of love. In this Kingdom Jesus is the sun, the Church is the moon, and the individual Christians are the stars. We are living in the time of the unfolding of the Kingdom, wherein we will rule and reign with Christ as fully manifested Sons of God. We can commit this, our future, to the God who is fully in control of history – the history of the world as well as that of each individual.
Christ is the end of the Law unto righteousness for everyone. The word ‘end’ could be interpreted as termination but also purpose. The Law was the schoolteacher explaining God’s standards but was powerless to make us righteous. The Law was given for mankind to realize that we could not meet God’s standards by our own efforts, and that we needed a saviour. The Apostle Peter talked about worlds (a world consists out of a heaven and an earth). From the time of Adam until the time of Noah constituted the first world – which had been destroyed by the Flood. The second world followed from the Flood until the time of Christ, culminating in the 70 years after Christ (these 70 years after the crucifixion was the period of God’s grace towards the Jewish nation to repent and accept their Messiah). This second world was to be ended by fire which happened in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem. The Law (elemental things) and grace (righteousness) were two separate systems which could not exist at the same time, so God had to terminate the first (the Law). That means that the third world started with the institution of righteousness by the sacrifice of Jesus. This third world is the home of the righteous with Christ Jesus as the foundation – which had been prophesied, foretold, and confirmed throughout Scripture. The same word ‘world’ has been used by translators of the Bible for the Greek words ‘cosmos’ (the whole globe), ‘oikoumene’ (the known civilised world), and ‘aion’ (time period or generation). An example of a misleading translation is found in the conversation Jesus had with his disciples about the ‘end’ where the word ‘aion’ was being used, and not ‘cosmos’. The disciples were actually enquiring about the end of their age or world. God’s intent for the third world is that it shall be a world without end, filled with, in contrast to the Law which had a fading glory, His ever-increasing glory, not one of darkness, doom, gloom and the antichrist taking over. Christ is in us; He is the hope of glory. Time is no more; we can have revival whenever we, by faith, move in God’s glory. When glory has filled the earth because of the manifested sons, Jesus shall appear with us in that glory.
Most of the people living in the time of the Old Testament only had a revelation of who God was in the context of the Law - being that He was distant, harsh and to be feared. Because they did not know God well, they misunderstood Him. The same can be true of us. If we do not know Him really well, we are inclined to misinterpret and misjudge God, drawing wrong conclusions and accusing Him when things go wrong. However, we are living in a sinful and broken world where bad things can happen to good people. Jesus came to represent who God really was. We have been born to represent Jesus and be imparters of who He really is. It is our honour and privilege to be the carriers and imparters to others of all the abundant attributes of who Jesus inside of us is. By this interaction, we can powerfully impact and transform people. People who are full of Jesus have a passionate and personal relationship with Him and are peacefully, purposefully, abiding in Him. They have an anointing that changes the atmosphere. When a person is immersed in the abundance of the anointing, it can be given away, or imparted, everywhere. This has supernatural and eternal results. Jesus, and friendship with Him, is our pursuit and prize. It is costly, but those around us need the overflow of Jesus from us. We need to also learn to identify, value and humbly receive the impartation coming from everyone in the Body of Christ who lays hands on us. By faith impart, and by faith receive from others.
We have been blessed by God, made holy, blameless, and fruitful, even before we were clothed in flesh. We were enabled to move in supernatural power and thereby giving glory unto God. God spoke His word of sonship over us, which word will not return to Him void. Learning through whatever we are experiencing in life, we are called to thereby bear spiritual fruit. We are to multiply this fruit, imparting that to others, instead of being thorns and imparting chaos. We are to constantly refill and replenish ourselves through for example worship, and to know that we have the authority through the Holy Spirit to subdue and bring under control whatever is trying to control us. God has given us dominion to rule and remove whatever is not supposed to be in our lives and the world. The anointing is that which breaks the yoke every time
God exists in eternity. When we repent of our sins, God forgives and is able to go back in eternity to the place you were before you sinned and that is why to Him it is it as if you have never sinned. When Adam fell into sin, God had to create time so that Adam would not be eternally sinful, and that the fullness of time Christ could come and bring eternal righteousness. Even as God reached out in the beginning and drew the earth to Him to reform it, He also reaches out to us to bring us to a place of re-birth. When God drew earth towards Him, it was empty and void and in the same way many people have come to God, and are serving Him, but they are empty and void – without power. It is essential to get filled with the Holy Ghost, and the proof of being full, and that God is with you, is when the streams of living water flowing out of you supernaturally affect the people around you. The earth was also dark, and even so many people are without vision, but light always overcomes darkness. God moved the earth into a place of peace and rest, and we should rest in what Jesus did for us on the cross as well as that which He calls us to do. This is the place of increase, overflow, quick fulfilment of promises and permanent, increasing fruit. We need to be flooded by the supernatural river that is flowing from a high place to be able to flow out to those around us.
In the time of the Old Testament and the Law drought was the punishment for sin but when Jesus died on the cross, He opened up the floods to continuously flow towards the people of God and we are now living in the time of rains and floods. This is the time of the entrance of the new wherein we are operating in greater power, anointing, and flow of the Holy Spirit. Those who meditate upon His word are like trees planted by the living water flowing from the throne of God. God is restoring us, his garden, the trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, for the display of His splendour. He is also restoring the authority, which was lost in the garden of Eden, to His sons and daughters. God is working with intentionality towards a purpose, and we need to stir up and revive the flame within us, to drink from Him, to keep in step with what He is doing. We need to take a hold of the new, to prophesy as sons and daughters of the King. God is opening healing wells in and through His Church and God’s glory shall be revealed through us.
To possess the promises of God, there are principles of access. Number one is holding on to your dreams and to keep believing that God can quicken and resurrect them when you have become tired of waiting and that He will become involved in the fulfilment thereof. Number two is that God wants us to activate our imagination, keeping our hearts soft and focused on Him and envisioning what He wants to do. Number three is owning and believing the confirmed promises that God gave you. The confirmation of God’s dream for us will come through the Word and a trusting relationship with Him. Number four is to obey God and do the hard thing that He is laying on your heart and get into the river of His abilities and provision instead of looking at yourself and your inability, hiding behind your fear, past, and/or insecurities. God cares for every area of our lives, and He wants us to step out in faith, and trust in his faithfulness. He wants us to dream, dare to imagine the impossible, stand on his word, and trustingly obey Him.
Throughout history, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit as well as God’s movement in- among- through- and out of his people are pictured in Scripture as a flowing river. This flowing of God through them should be normal in the life of every Christian. The river brings life and vitality to us since we are the planting of the Lord. When we are filled with Him, He will also flow out of us as rivers of living water. The water flowing to and through us, causes us to bear fruit (food) and gives us leaves (hands of healing) for others and thus we are the suppliers of new fruits and fresh supplies of Christ, or his life, to those around us. What happened to Israel when they left Egypt is symbolic of what Jesus did for us. The river of life started to flow towards all of humanity on the cross. When Jesus’ heart was pierced, water and blood flowed out. The blood was toward our salvation and re-generation, and the flow of water (symbolic of the Spirit) indicated that the Spirit will flow wherever the blood first has cleansed. Jesus first revealed this living water to the woman at the well in Samaria because of her thirst. Jesus is the river, and drinking from him, his life, is not something intangible or abstract but it is a relationship with him, believing in him and becoming part of his heart and character. For the world to be touched by God, we, by believing, being thirsty and drinking of Christ, will be God’s conduits. We need to humbly recognize our own poverty of spirit without him and deeply drink of him to flow forth with his power. Pursuing Jesus is what is important because He is the source of everything in God.
Really amazing things happen when a person’s spirit is revived. In revival we see enemies like sickness and poverty fleeing, never to return. It is a place where nothing can come against us to destroy, and where we will not be taken down, since the Church of Jesus Christ is indestructible and will prevail even in the gates of hell. God is graciously good to us, revealing his glory and as our father He shares His glory with us, resulting in us being one with Him as well as with one another. Seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ, we are being transformed from glory to glory. This glory is being manifested, not only in us, but also through us when we lay hands upon people and miracles happen. We are in a place of ever-increasing, abundant, broad rivers and streams, a place of pure blessing, righteousness, and peace, where no enemy can enter. We are the planting or garden of God, the oaks of righteousness, planted by the rivers of living water. Here we are cared and provided for by God through the outpouring of his Spirit, receiving prosperity, authority, the oil of gladness, and having the water of healing and enthusiastic praise poured upon us. There is no reason for us to be thirsty, we can drink at any time until we overflow. This overflow even goes onto our descendants. It makes each one of us a refuge for others. We will take revenge on the enemy by taking back that which had been stolen from us by him through the authority in the anointing. Let us pray that our hunger and thirst for the Holy Spirit be increased – there is a world out there which needs the overflow of God coming from us.
The passing of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain at the outset of the ministry tour was of great significance, since the Lord said that the old was gone and that He will be doing a new thing in restoring His garden in the United Kingdom. There had previously been a prophetic promise of revival in Britain, which prophecy was confirmed by a world-renown, powerful sign. This trip was connected to that sign. The prophetic words and words of knowledge which the Lord gave during this tour as well as the preaching came with great power and revelation. At a pastors and leaders conference in Ireland people were greatly blessed and impacted. The impact of the word was continued in the various churches where those pastors were ministers, making the impact national in nature. Numerous powerful healings took place in different churches, for example, a lady was healed of a lump in her breast, a girl was restored after having been born with cerebral palsy, a lady’s atrophied lungs were restored and a lady who was bent forward and needed the use of a walker was restored to walking normally. We stand in awe of our amazing God and what He is doing.
We see the spirit of Gnosticism in the church today when we look at the lack of moral values and integrity amongst Christians. We should be different since we are in the world but not of the world. To successfully counteract this moral decay – which is regarded by the world as normal – we need to be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit. He is our guide, strength, and the one who enables us to fulfil our destiny and be witnesses of Jesus wherever we go. In the Bible we see how men and women made a difference in the world because they were filled with the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit is moving in a meeting it is wise to refrain from judging the way He is going about it, and to stay open to Him so that He might move unhindered. We need both the Spirit and the Word in our meetings to have balance in our walk with God. We get filled repeatedly by the Spirit using childlike faith, being hungry, positioning ourselves (maybe by doing something different), responding when the Spirit moves, and letting go of condemnation, guilt, and shame. Because He is our helper, in times of tribulation, ask for another infilling of the Holy Spirit. He brings boldness, joy, revelation, wisdom, fruitfulness, purity, holiness. love, peace, plus the presence- and unadulterated power of God in our lives. We need to protect the fire of the Holy Spirit within us.
When Israel was suffering in Egypt, God saw, heard, knew (experienced), and was concerned about what they were going through. He saw everything that had been done to them. The people believed that He had visited them, had compassion on them, was concerned about their past and committed to their future, to redeem them. Their response was to worship God. The signs which God gave to Moses to perform were significant – water from the Nile turning into blood, symbolizing the economy being used to hide crimes against God’s people, the leprous hand symbolizing the Pharaoh’s propaganda against Israel and his instructions to kill their sons at birth, and the staff apparently turning into a serpent symbolizing Egypt regarding the Israelites as being dehumanised serpents. God would redeem them from all of this and visit it back upon Egypt and its gods through the plagues which came upon them. God also sees, hears, and experiences everything we go through and is being done to us. He is committed to redeem us even as He was to Israel. To prove that we are sons of God and not slaves, we need to speak out His redemption in every area of our lives. Although God has given signs, rather listen to the voice behind the signs and believing what it says, with faith keep speaking that.
We have received a salvation package from God. After having believed and receiving the gift of salvation, the Holy Spirit and God’s grace in our lives are also gifts to us from the Lord. Although everything described thus far has been free, and are the doorway towards sanctification, sanctification itself is not free. Sanctification is of no benefit to God or the new man in Christ, because that person is already perfect. Sanctification involves the old man, in other words, the flesh of a person. Because God has gifted us with a free will, the flesh will fight tooth and nail to prevent us from releasing control over our lives unto the Holy Spirit. The flesh is rude, pushy, loud, extremely demanding, and selfish – the complete opposite of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is quietly waiting for you, willing you to give him your attention and we have to make a conscious effort to listen to him. Sanctification can be likened unto a fruit of the Spirit. Sanctification is dealing with things, hard, practical, possibly painful, a process and challenging. It demands determination, grit, and constantly making the right choices, but the results are beautiful. Sanctification changes our perspective, attitudes, emotions, and behaviour. It helps to make our lives better, to get over our pathetic issues, makes our journey on earth fulfilling and enables God to use us in reaching our destiny. We are helped on this journey of sanctification by the Holy Spirit and enabled by the supernatural power of grace. We get sanctified by having our minds renewed through the Word of God, having an attitude of gratitude and forgiveness, connecting with the Holy Spirit, actively changing from being negative to being positive, and consistently and patiently practicing godly habits.
God created man in His image and likeness to have authority and dominion as kings and priests in His domain, or kingdom, on this earth. From what we read in Psalm 82, God (Elohim) expects us, the elohim to act like gods. Jesus referred to himself as the ‘son of man’ when speaking to the people, thereby identifying with us, and incorporating us into his ministry. Since He is also the Son of God, so are we since we are in him. He demonstrated that God had given power to man to heal, forgive sin, as well as authority over demons. Jesus is referred to as God’s only begotten son, but later on in Scripture, He is called the ‘first’ born amongst many brethren, implying that there are other sons, which is the Church of the first born, Jesus’ family or generation. The son of God became a son of man so that the sons of man could become sons of God. At our re-birth the seed-word of God had sunk down in our spirits, and mixed with faith, gave birth to us, enabling us to see the kingdom of God. We were also raised from death when Jesus was resurrected and we became begotten of God, joint heirs with Jesus with God-given rights, authority, and power. This is being born from above, sons by nature, heavenly and divine. We are the ‘above’ people, seated in heavenly realms, operating in a below realm through our actions and words, springing forth from the supernatural, heavenly realm. We have been crowned with glory and honour, everything has been put under our feet and we have been given executive power to establish on earth that which is in heaven. Although we do not experience this total authority yet, we are keeping our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and finisher of our faith. As the council of the elohim, the sons, we declare and decree to circumstances and things the word of God with authority. When we speak God’s word, the angels hear his voice and go to do his bidding. He is constantly watching to hear his word in our mouths, to perform it.
The country is in trouble, and our only salvation lies with the Lord. He is encouraging us to stand firm and not be discouraged but to have faith in his enduring love. God is aware of the situation. There is light at the end of the tunnel because He is with us. We have to fulfil our part by completely yielding and submitting to God and He will do his part in this battle. Our responsibility starts with prayer and a change of heart, enabling us to understand God’s purposes. The result is praise and worship towards Him, especially in those dark times when deliverance seems impossible. As Christians we praise God for the deliverance before we experience it. Power is released when we praise the Lord. Praise weakens the demonic alliance which is in existence against the people of God. Praise is the recipe for revival. God loves and cares for us and when we pray, praise and worship together, He will heal our land. ‘His Love Endures Forever’ – that is our battle cry.
By nature human beings have hardened hearts, slow to believe. It is only by being born again that we receive a new heart and spirit. God gives us new hearts for his glory, to our good and for the benefit of people around us. To have the right things deposited in our hearts, it is necessary to drink from Jesus by faith and have Him flowing out of our pure hearts like a crystal-clear river – the water of life. It is vital for us to guard against having a hardened, insensitive, and unfeeling heart. This degenerate state of heart results in God removing his hand from such a person’s life, an easy slide into spiritual unfitness, and a degradation into sin. Hard hearts do not enter into the rest and things of God. Pride causes impurity of heart and the loss of our authority and the glory of God in our lives. Bitterness, rebellion, offense, wilfully sinning, and lack of submitting to God all bring about a hardened heart and a slowness to connect the dots and understand God’s promises and power. God has placed his love in our hearts so that we can be strengthened when going through trials, becoming better instead of bitter. If we want to see godly things happening in and through our lives, we need to have pure hearts which will enable us to understand what God is doing and be quick to believe in him and obey him. The pure and single-hearted will see God move and have a deeper relationship with him.
We are living in an era of social injustices, racial hatred, violent crimes, confused identities, conformity, loss of a conscience, immorality, fraud, and corruption – a godless, aimless, lost society. All of this is being exacerbated by distortions coming via mass media, peer pressure and poor family involvement. But when God shows up, all this will change. Bitterness, anger, hatred, anger, and rage will disappear in the presence of God. In these trying times we must keep perspective and have faith in who God is and what He can and will do. God is omnipresent, immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, full of infinite, perfect, unchanging wisdom, and faithful. There is, however, a difference between God’s omnipresence and his manifested presence. His manifested presence has as a result that everyone’s awareness of him is awakened. God chooses when to manifest his presence. His presence changes, and transforms us, taking us from glory to glory. God’s presence restores our fire to witness for Him and removing the scales from our eyes enables us to see in the spirit, ears to hear the wind of the Spirit. If we can only see a glimpse of the glory of God, the things of this world will no longer catch our attention. When God shows up, a lost generation is found, our hearts are mended, unified, and set ablaze. Bondages are broken resulting in freedom in the house, burdens are lifted, healings and miracles happen, and fullness of joy comes in His presence.
Faith is talked about in Hebrews as being a substance, material, or constituent. It is a belief not based on supportive evidence. Trust, however, is based on past experience – experience which is a point of reference for the next level of faith and trust. Whereas the believer starts out with faith in the Word of God, faith is grown together with trust, as we experience more and more of the goodness of God in our lives. He has given to us the ability to be still, peaceful, and fearlessly trusting God in the midst of chaos - this is an attribute of faith. Another attribute of faith is us being loyal to God, to resist transferring our trust to anything but Him because of His unfailing integrity. Valuing, eating, and speaking the eternal Word of God and being resolute in believing it despite experiencing opposition are essential attributes of faith. In the midst of trouble we need to be sensitive to, and wholeheartedly trust, and obey the word of God because although his instructions may not make sense to our finite minds, this obedience will always work to our benefit. Jesus will never fail us.
At our conversion we give our hearts to Jesus. He then continues to work in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, enacting the work of sanctification on that, our inner being. God wants a deep, personal, and meaningful relationship with us and although He loves us unconditionally, to experience this love, we are to be careful to stay within the boundaries thereof. We can be separated from an experiential knowledge of the love of God by sin, deep hurts, and wrong attitudes. These need to be dealt with because it constitutes a wrong concept of who God is. A deep, intimate relationship with God is every human being’s greatest need. This need cannot be satisfied by anything else, and the result of this relationship is deep peace, joy, and blessing. The Bible says that the pure in heart shall see God. We have the hope in us that when we see Jesus as He is, we are transformed into His likeness. The prerequisite, however, is that we also purify our hearts by faith – this is of immense importance. The pure in heart are those who have been purified in mind, principles, and deepest motives. True renewal of human behaviour, morals, etc. originates from the heart, it is not imposed on or modified from the outside. We are changed through the help of the Holy Spirit, and by aligning ourselves with the pure Word of God, and consistently, with an undivided heart, seeking God’s face. Seeing God means that we have open access and admission into His presence where we see, touch, and encounter Him. It means that we are friends with God, enjoying his favour, and participating in his divine nature, because we are beholding him in the face of Jesus, being changed from glory unto glory. In times when we need God’s help, we can easily access his grace when we are in a position of continuously seeking his face. Will to have a pure heart, and you will see God!
What we put into our hearts is of vital importance. Our conversations and actions reveal what is in our hearts because whatever we allow a foothold in our hearts will be followed by thoughts, giving birth to words and actions. For us to change our hearts, we need to be actively in control of what enter into it. We need to have undivided hearts, fully occupied by God, loving Him, and giving Him priority. The only thing which competes with the love for God is the love of money. God is our treasure, not that which money can buy. A hard heart cannot accommodate faith, but a soft heart is a believing heart. We struggle with faith because our hearts are occupied with other things, making us double minded. A heart compromised and divided by unforgiveness, and resentment is a powerless heart. Everything pertaining to our relationship with God must not just be mechanical or intellectual, but must originate from the inside, from the heart, the emotions. We were all born with a fallen and finite mind but after receiving a new heart at our conversion, a constant re-education and renewal of our minds through faith and the Word of God, results in an impact on our heart and spirit. This renewed mind means that we are changing from the inside, enabling us to know every level of God’s will and to obey Him spontaneously. The Holy Spirit is also intimately involved in the renewal of our minds, firstly from the outside in when we get born again, showing us the glory of God is the face of Jesus, giving us the mind of Christ. Secondly, He works from the inside out (and here we co-operate with Him) by helping us to meditate on the Word and speak the right things with powerful faith. When our hearts are pure, steadfast and fully occupied by God, through the help of the Holy Spirit, we will see God, whatever we speak will have great power, and we will reach our full destiny.
God instructs us to guard our hearts unceasingly and diligently as a matter of priority, because your heart is the well-spring of- and determines the course of your life. The heart is more than a blood-pumping organ. According to the Bible it is the origin of our thought life. It is a composition of our souls, minds, emotions and will, the centre of our emotional//intellectual/moral character, as well as the seat of the conscience. Because the heart is such a key in everything we do, it can be either your greatest asset or liability. A heart programmed for God is anyone’s greatest asset, be it for leaders to parents. God’s purpose for our hearts is that, by giving us a new heart when we are born again, He in essence changes our being or our inner core by giving to us the mind of Christ. This heart is a tender heart, loving God and being responsive to and understanding His decrees and willing to walk in His word and ways with all of hearts, being empowered from the inside. This gives us our identity and engenders blessing to us and a thousand of our generations following. A person living a life of being right with God will find themselves living a perfectly natural, intensely practical, and deeply spiritual life, all at the same time. The way to defensively guard your heart is to set a guard on your mouth, be careful of what you give attention to and keep your eyes on Jesus and stay away from evil.
Whenever something fresh happens in a Church, it is because it had started in the hearts of the people. A person’s heart is synonymous with their spirit. The heart is connected to the brain. The brain is where information is gathered, while decisions are made with the heart. The heart is also that with what we believe. You are who you are because of what is in your heart, and who you are in that secret place is of vital importance to God. What comes out of the mouth is a sure indication of what is in the heart. It is our responsibility to guard, keep, nurture, and protect our vulnerable and susceptible hearts, keeping them soft, undivided, tender towards, and reliant upon God. The heart is the well-spring of our lives. A soft heart is malleable, teachable, and empathetic, not hard, and resistant towards Jesus. Being open to Jesus will result in a dying to the self-life and pride. He came to the world so that our broken and dirty hearts can be healed and purified. A soft heart can receive correction and is not easily offended. A soft heart is a heart of love and truth enabled to speak the truth in love. A soft heart is humble, not judgmental, yielded in all relationships and a first (good) response heart. We keep our hearts soft by having an intense prayer life and thereby staying connected to God, spending time in the cleansing Word which is an incredibly transforming mirror and looking to Jesus, who is the portrayal of what our end-destination is.
All of creation is groaning in expectation, awaiting the revealing of the Sons of God. Although the final day when His Sons are revealed is surely coming, glimpses of this revelation are already visible when we, in our everyday lives, reveal the heart of the Father to those around us. Signs, wonders, kindness to others, taking control of adverse weather phenomena, taking authority, and lovingly speaking God’s will in correction against what is wrong in government – these are all examples of how we reveal the Father and are the light of the world. As God’s sons, we are living epistles being read by everyone. We need to be different from what is the norm in the world. The world desperately needs to see truth and love manifested in and through us. Being fathered by God results in us loving those around us because God is love. Love is the key towards operating in the gifts of the Spirit, which are a manifestation of God. To become manifested sons, it is essential for each believer to have in their lives a father/mother or mentor figure of which Paul is an example, a disciple like Timothy, an encourager like Barnabas, a servant like Stephen, a friend who speaks the truth in love like the prophet Nathan did to David, a loyal friend who sticks with you like Ruth did with Naomi and a person who brings people to Jesus, like Andrew did. We not only need these people in our lives but need to be this unto others as well.
The early church was very powerful, and the reason was that they prayed in the Spirit, built themselves up in their most holy faith and stayed within the boundaries of God’s love. For us to experience this same power, we need to emulate them. There is an inherent power in righteousness and godliness. We have been set free by the Lord but to protect and safeguard our freedom and place of blessing and power, we need to choose to live with proper spiritual boundaries – abstaining from the world’s lifestyle and influences. The world does not offer anything better than that which we find within God’s boundaries. To stay within God’s boundaries, we need to fully understand His boundless love for us because this understanding perfects us. God will always love us, but when we remove ourselves from the love of God by moving out of his boundaries, we are in a place where we cannot experience His blessing. When we stay within the boundaries of God’s love and obey his commandments, we will never fall, we will experience the things of the Kingdom revealed to us on a continuous basis, as well as the manifestation of God’s presence and blessing in our lives. All this which we receive from God, is to be passed on to those around us and thus we will be witnesses to the world of the love and character of God.
Sin is an extremely heavy burden, as we see in the Old Testament from what Cain said when he said that the burden was more than what he could bear and again when Pharaoh asked for the heavy burden (nāśā') to be lifted up and removed. For Israel to have their sins removed, a goat was chosen (the scapegoat), their sins put upon it. and it was taken far away into the wilderness, where the sin was no longer visible, in other words, the awareness of their sin was removed. Jesus performed this atonement for us by carrying our sins on the cross. Although we have been justified and forgiven, going through life we have many burdens (not sins) which bother us – thoughts which we meditate on when we are alone. We have trusted God to carry and remove the burden of sin from us and therefore we can also trust Him to carry and remove the burdens of everyday living. It takes laying down your pride, humbling yourself, acknowledging that you cannot do it alone any longer. Go to God – who is for us – and let your concerns be known to him through prayer, petitions and thanksgiving and when you do not know what to pray, pray in tongues. Meditate on Scripture. Go into a time of praise and worship – this is the strong tower wherein the righteous is safe. God is waiting to exchange with us our burdens and cares for His abilities. Make it an everyday habit to cast your burdens upon Jesus instead of elevating them in your own mind. These are some of the ways to overcome the burdens of worries and cares.
The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, and we need Him to understand the Scriptures which He inspired. The Holy Spirit will be with us forever, He is our comforter, the Spirit of adoption unto sonship. Although Jesus’ disciples often did not understand Him because of their ingrained ‘Law’ thought patterns, on the day of Pentecost, they received a download of understanding and revelation from the Spirit of truth about everything Jesus had been teaching. The realization of the extent of their deliverance from bondage as well as seeing the love that the Father had for them was of such intensity that they were drunk with joy. This revelation had the result of them operating in great power and fearless boldness from thereon. They realized that God was enough for them. When we realize that God is enough for us, He is the most glorified in us. The disciples moved out of religion into relationship on the day of Pentecost, they became conscious of Christ within them. Christ is also in us, being our sanctification and the power towards our transformation. Our works should testify that we are in Christ and that He is in us. The disciples also realized on this day that they were no longer servants or slaves but sons and daughters of the Most High God, and the same is true for us. The Holy Spirit made them – and also makes us – fruitful friends and prophets, since He shares with us the will of the Father, and enables us with impartation whatever is needed to be successful when we go about the business of the Kingdom of God as well as in our everyday lives.
Pentecost was a day of the disciples being drunk with extreme joy brought on by the realization that what Jesus had preached was true and that the shackles of religion had been lifted – bringing to them an awesome, full, strong salvation. Salvation used to be preached in the recent past as consisting out of a time-consuming process of accepting Jesus as your saviour, then when you have proven the change brought about by your conversion baptism, followed by a time of being tested by the devil, and thereafter the baptism in the Holy Spirit. However, on the day of Pentecost people were immediately converted, baptised in water, and baptised in the Holy Spirit. It was not God’s intention for salvation to be separated into a time-consuming process but one unit. When we accept Jesus and are baptised, we are baptised into Christ, into His Body (access) and then He places himself into us through the Baptism with the Holy Spirit followed by regular infillings of the Spirit (manifestation), The evidence of the Holy Spirit’s infilling of a person is the speaking in tongues, but the signs of Pentecost are a kingdom-focused prayer life, an understanding of the Word and living it out, living in love (with God and each other), selfless service, witnessing, declaring and speaking the Word of God with authority, boldness and power, singing with joy and grace – thus blessing others, moving in signs, wonders and miracles, and being frequently filled with the Holy Spirit. We are to exceed our normal limits of being filled with the Spirit, setting Him free, to the extend where we are changed, manifesting all the signs of Pentecost.
The arena of God’s activity is in the inner man or the spirit of a person – where we get filled with all the fulness of God – and this fulness is God’s heart’s desire. What happened in Babel was an anti-type of what happened on the day of Pentecost. In Babel, a fleshly human city devoid of Spirit, God brought a dispersion of the Babilonians through different languages and on the day of Pentecost he established his spirit-filled city, the new Jerusalem, by diverse languages. The Church is this city, also described as a bride, or mount Zion. We are – since we are in Jesus, who is the light of the world – also the light of the world, set on a hill, the chief of all mountains. In this city is a temple and we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, built out of living stones. Our innermost being, where the Holy Spirit dwells, is the new Holy of Holies. Out of there, where the throne of God is, flows a glorious river of life. Tongues is an indication of this river. Tongues is a supernatural power, a sign to unbelievers that Christ is in us, a sign that our tongues are disciplined and submitted unto the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Praying in tongues is speaking faith instead of murmuring. This way of praying is our rest and refreshing, it is praying the perfect prayer unto God, it is a way to edify and build up ourselves. It is a way to utter incredible praise unto God when human language fails. Praying in tongues builds you up in your most holy faith and the water of the Spirit puts out the fiery darts from the enemy. Through praying in tongues, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us when we do not know how or what to pray
Jesus existed before He did on earth and his ascension shows that He still exists afterwards. There were three glories – the glory as the Son of God before the incarnation, the glory as God manifested in the flesh and the glory of Son of God in a glorified body after the resurrection. The ascension of Jesus is confrontational to many because its meaning is that Jesus is Lord over everything. The ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit indicated that the redemption of mankind had been completed. Jesus now lives forever as our interceding High Priest, having conquered over death, sin, and sickness. He is continually gifting us with the Holy Spirit and his unlimited presence. He has given us the hope and expectation that He will return, resulting in our glorified bodies. Even as Jesus fulfilled every purpose of God in the exact timing as prophesied, the ascension gives us the hope that we also will fulfil our purposes in our generation, as we walk with God, make Him our priority, obey him, seek his Kingdom, live and do right, walk sensibly and live in love and according to the Holy Spirit’s directives. God is certain, sure, reliable, trustworthy, faithful, and powerful to bring us to the full stature of Christ, full maturity in Him. God is concerned about everything which concerns us, is always with us, and our future is secure in Him.
In the forty days preceding Pentecost, Jesus was transitioning His disciples from a having a spiritual instead of a physical relationship with him. On the day of Pentecost, the responsibility for the extension of God’s Kingdom was transferred onto the disciples. He promised that He will be in them, that they would be empowered by Him He would be alongside them, and work with them. The same is also true for us today. When Jesus died, law changed to grace, flesh to spirit and works to faith. Everything became new – obtaining an inheritance through a testament instead of keeping a covenant, a new royal priesthood, a new temple, a new mount Zion, a new Jerusalem set on a hill, a new spiritual Jewish nation, a new sun, moon, and stars as well as the start of a new heaven and a new world or age. This world without end is now the home of the righteous. The supreme sacrifice of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit brought the change from being enslaved through having to keep the the law, to the freedom of living a life of love and peace with God by the Spirit. It was the inauguration of the era of a limitless and powerful salvation through the lowest common denominator, which is “the faith” – simple and available to everyone. Faith has come and is without boundaries, powerful to overcome everything – let us “faith it” until we “make it”. Let us remove every limitation by living by the Spirit, walking by the Spirit, being led, and used by the Spirit, and being empowered by the Spirit. We have a renewed mind and can understand the things of the Spirit, and we are not to be evaluated by anyone who is natural and fleshly. Because of the Holy Spirit we are new creatures, we have the mind of Christ and can continue to do the works which Jesus started.
The number 40 speaks of testing, probation, a generation, a time of provision for prosperity, as well as preparation for a new era. Jesus started his ministry with 40 days of personal preparation in the wilderness and the 40 days before the day of Pentecost was preparation for the Church who came forth out of the travail of Jesus’ sufferings. This makes us the offspring or generation of Jesus. Jesus appeared or was manifested, with the redemptive marks of the crucifixion on his body, at least 10 times (including to his disciples) after his resurrection, giving many convincing and infallible proofs that He was alive. He also spoke about the Kingdom of God and gave his disciples instructions to wait for the infilling of the Holy Spirit and power, which would enable them to establish the Kingdom. We are now in the time where He is once again proving He is alive by manifesting himself to those who realize how much they have been forgiven; and who have a love and a burning desire for more of him. The Lord will reveal himself to us in many ways, one of which is through His Word, as we search the Scriptures. We have to prepare ourselves in this time before Pentecost, because He wants to encounter us, touch us and re-affirm, and restore many things to us. This is a time of dedication and expectation.
God is speaking and acting at all times and we have been designed to hear God’s voice. If we do not, the wrong voices are drowning out His voice. We have the Holy Spirit residing in us and whatever He does, thinks, or speaks; it is precisely what the Father is doing, thinking, or speaking. Because of the Holy Spirit, we can see hidden things and know the mind of Christ. Whereas Abel’s blood spoke of vengeance from the earth after he was murdered by his brother Cain, Jesus’ blood speaks of forgiveness, justification, identity, our relationship with God, and the restoration of the voice of God to us. To hear His voice and advice in a given situation, we need to move away from rebellion, stop making our own plans and trust Him, sitting and resting quietly, being still in His presence. Once God’s word has been given, it is time to act upon it. We enter into God’s rest when we listen to His voice and obey Him.
In the Old Testament, the priests and leaders of Israel inquired from the Lord by using the Urim and the Thummim which were on the High Priest’s breastplate, the Ephod. However, it became problematic in that instead of having a relationship with God and hearing His voice, they only relied only on the Thummim which eventually became an idol to the Children of Israel. They would also experience at times that there was no answer from God to their inquiry. In the New Testament, it is written that God does not listen to sinners. The times that they did not receive an answer from God, were probably because their way of enquiring was no longer in accordance with God’s prescribed specifications, which was that the person performing the ritual of inquiry had to be holy before the Lord. How do we hear God without having a Urim and Thummim? When we go before God, He is looking at us, measuring us. In the Book of Revelation, it says that we are shining like a precious stone. This is because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Urim and Thummim stand for Alpha and Omega – the first and last (Christ) who is in our hearts. We do not need a physical device that can become an idol because God is inside of us, in relationship with us and we can turn directly to Him for every answer that we need.
Through Christ, God’s hand has turned from being against sinners to being opened towards us in blessing. Under the Law the transference of people’s sins and punishment upon the animal being offered took place by the laying on of hands. Jesus became our sin offering, our scapegoat, having our sins laid upon him, and He took our punishment on the cross. The heavens and earth were originally realms which were in unity but became separated because of sin. It now is God’s intention for us to live, through Christ’s offer, a heavenly life while on earth. God has given us physical things like the Communion, which is undergirded by spiritual, supernatural truth, to make contact with the heavenly realm, the place of all authority. The dedication of children, water baptism and the laying on of hands also fall into this category. God’s hand is powerful, and to release His great power to heal and do signs and wonders on earth, we need to speak His Word boldly and stretch forth our hands (which are also God’s hands) to people, as a connection between heaven and earth. Jesus was constantly laying His hands upon people and demonstrating God’s authority, love and power thereby, and we are to do the same. The power of blessing people like this is amazing, and through simple faith and obedience, available to every believer. We can freely receive and impart the gift of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. Supernatural gifts like for instance wisdom, encouragement or healing can be imparted in this way, bringing transformation. We connect all the blessings of heaven to each other by the laying on of hands. The laying on of hands is part of the elemental doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ. We need to reclaim the understanding of this incredible physical thing, which is an expression of a spiritual and heavenly reality, given to us by God.
Throughout his ministry, Jesus’ awareness of his eventual death and resurrection became ever greater. He realised that it had all been orchestrated by the Father in His wisdom and Jesus had to make the decision to willingly yield to God’s will. This would make Jesus the wisdom of God, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Jesus’ resurrection was proving the fact that God’s power was immensely greater than the Sadducees’ disbelief in life after death, the power of Rome who sealed the tomb, or any other situation on this earth. This should be our mindset – that there is absolutely nothing impossible for God. If Jesus had not been raised, the apostles would have been lying and our faith in the gospel useless, futile, absurd, and foolish and Christians would still be unforgiven. Those who died trusting in Him would have been lost because there is no life after death, and as a result, we should in all rationality abandon God and our faith in Him. However, the fact that Jesus was resurrected validated His whole ministry and was a faith injection to the disciples, making them fearless witnesses. It proved Jesus’ identity and the veracity of His teaching. The resurrection of Jesus also has a direct influence on our lives. It proves that the penalty for our sins had been paid in full; our past and all condemnation have been removed from us and it guarantees that we will be raised from death into immortality. The resurrection is our power towards a life transformed into one of holiness. The resurrection is our anchor which constantly reminds us that no matter what happens, there is always hope for us and an opportunity for a new, better beginning. With the crucifixion, Jesus was not a victim caught in a trap devised by humans, but following the plan of God, and in the same way, we are not victims of anything because God has the final say in our lives. The resurrection proves that God’s goodness, justice, and power will always triumph on this earth; therefore we can endure with joy, expecting to come out of every challenge which we face victoriously, just like Jesus did, enabled by God’s unfailing love.
God’s gift to us is eternal life in Christ Jesus, a quality of life, a life more abundantly, which begins at our re-birth and continues into eternity. This abundant life should be manifested in every conceivable area of our lives, but so many of us live below par Christian lives. Human beings are complicated and hard to understand. People who are close to- and loved by us can have a powerfully positive influence on us. On the other hand, we all are (and were) powerfully affected in a negative way by people close to and loved by us, and as a result, we may have serious issues (for instance rejection, abandonment, and insecurity) in our lives. This can imprison us; put us into bondage, crush us, blind us, deafen us, and cripple us. Jesus also went through all these negative influences in His life, but He never ended up with a wounded soul or heart because He had the Father in His life who was more significant to Him than anything He went through. We need to submit to and have Jesus as the most significant person in our lives. This will make that which He says about us and what He did for us on the cross effective in our lives, shortening our path to spiritual maturity and wholeness. We need to get to know Jesus better. When He, and what He did on the cross becomes significant to us, it will transform our lives as His words and influence will have power because of His proximity to us.
It is really important that in our walk with God we do so with a certainty or an assurance, which results in boldness and steadfastness. This certainty and assurance is knowing that your sins are forgiven and that you are righteous. You need to educate your conscience to really understand that when you do sin and repent, you are forgiven, your sin is removed, and God has no remembrance of it. This removes condemnation and puts you at rest in His presence. Walking in the Spirit means that you are walking right with God and living a righteous and holy life, walking in His principles. In Revelation 22 Where the Bible talks about a street of gold in the New Jerusalem, it is a picture of us as the New Jerusalem and the street of gold is our pure and holy walk with God. The pure river of water of life flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb is depicting the Holy Spirit. This is also a road, a highway, the way of holiness where there is no lion – a picture of those who walk in the Spirit. The punishment of not keeping the Law (also a type of trying to walk in your own strength) was drought and barrenness, but walking in grace and relying on the water of the Spirit brings forth fruitfulness and productivity. Our authority comes from walking in the Spirit. The realm of the Spirit is where all authority resides and this authority automatically becomes a part of those who walk there. Walking with God gives us hind’s feet and when we are dealing with things we know how to ascend into and immerse ourselves in the presence of God where we can hide from the enemy. Walking with God is awesome and exciting – He always makes a way for us and brings us through that which we are facing, always set before us an open door.
The Holy Spirit constantly leads us into applied truth resulting in holiness and righteousness. Walking with God means obediently walking the high road – His way, not in the way of the world where people are influenced and ruled over by the spirit of the age, a spirit of disobedience. We need to walk with sensitivity towards God, lest we become dull of spirit and prone to the influence of the world’s spirit. We are in a committed, married relationship with God and should not open up ourselves to the principles of the world. Living according to the world’s principles is seen by God as adultery. We are in the world, but not of the world. We are stars in the heavenlies, the light of the world. The devil, on the other hand, is crawling around in the dust; his effectiveness is in the realm of naturalness or fleshliness. Wherever we walk and live in his realm, he has absolute authority over us in that area. For God to receive us and for us to experience his lavish abundance in our lives, He expects to possess more of us, which means we walk in a higher degree of sanctification. God’s grace is that which heals us of sin and enables us to walk in powerful holiness, righteousness, peacefulness, humility, and selflessness. The devil fears the person who walks in this kind of godliness because this person is powerful and has no vulnerability or foothold to be preyed upon and he or she cannot be led astray. Holiness, righteousness, and love are synonymous. Jesus was a manifestation of God on earth and we are to be imitators of Him. Our every action should be driven by love and we should live with each other with friendliness, acceptance, forbearance, forgiveness, and longsuffering. This will assure us of having a clean conscience and being able to minister with the boldness of a lion.
God has got a destiny, plan, and purpose for each of His children, individually as well as corporately. This walk towards our destiny is accomplished by walking in the Spirit, being piloted and captained by Him. The Holy Spirit speaks and He has emotions. He often influences and leads us through feelings and it is essential that we learn to discern between our own fleshly feelings and those of the Holy Spirit. As our destiny is that of being the Sons of God, the Holy Spirit is leading us out of sin and fleshliness into righteousness, inward truthfulness, and the full nature of Jesus Christ. A large part of the Church has become anesthetized to this aspect of the leading of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is with us and in us and we need to keep in step with Him to reach full maturity. He will graciously go at our pace and help us through whatever it is we are facing. We also need the guidance and help of the Spirit in walking out our everyday lives. Each Christian is unique, with unique gifts and abilities which are essential to the Body of Christ, and together we are able to fulfill our purpose in our generation. We need to be rooted, connected, involved, following the steps, living intentionally, walking purposely, and doing things deliberately and with intent because we are the most powerful group of people on the face of the planet, indwelt by God himself. We are the people with tremendous potential and ingenuity who have the solution to the problems of the world, if we would just only walk by the Spirit
A walk with God is made up out of steps – daily steps which add up to a journey, a walk with and before God – a walk under his leadership and authority, being obedient and accountable to Him. Although our individual paths and way of walking may differ, we all have the same destination and goal which is perfection and maturity, the full stature and measure of Christ. God is walking with us and at times literally carrying us. To walk in His name is to walk in His character and nature, becoming like Him. God has only got our welfare in mind, He watches over us and cares for us, and therefore we need to align ourselves with the plans and purposes which God has for us, walking with intent and purpose. The armour of God – which is Christ – gives us sure a footing in an evil time. This sure footing is peace with God. We walk with him on a road that is brightly lit and well-marked through His Word which leads to life and irrepressible joy. Sometimes while walking with God the path is tough and scary, but we need to keep walking following the voice of the Holy Spirit inside of us. God has promised us that light seeds are sown on this path of the righteous. With the leading of the Holy Spirit God is going to bring us through, making us successful and prosperous.
Before Israel could possess the land of Canaan, God’s requirement of them was that they would be willing to enter with faith, face warfare, and be courageous. In the same way, for us to enter into the future God has purposed for us, it is essential to walk in His paths which involve timing and trust. God’s promises include His provision and presence. Let us embrace and own the new season, standing and fighting for that which the Lord has planned for us in this time. We must walk in God’s power with confidence, compliance, and commitment. Let us commit ourselves to trusting Him, honouring His Word, and walking in obedience. Let us walk into our future with committed, confident hearts. Let us be willing to walk with the Lord so that we can walk in His victory. God has good plans for us and our future. The future is before us and our hope will not be cut off. Because He has promised them to us, the things which we are hoping for are already assured and guaranteed. We are representatives of God, walking in humble obedience, and His anointing, love, presence, help, and power. Through and in Him we survive and thrive. He will never fail, leave or forsake us
Our journey with God has two components – a responsibility and a calling. We need to answer to both. Many are called but few are chosen – why is that? It all comes down to our response to the call. We need to take full responsibility for that which we have agreed to. Even when we do not understand many of the things happening to us because of the choice which we have made to follow God, we must never blame Him, but follow on in faith because we can trust Him that He is for us, cares for us, and helps us. We also need each other and we need to faithfully stand with each other and be connected to people who have already journeyed with God to learn from them. If we can cheer each other on, we will all walk a little bit further, longer, and better. Jesus is the true vine. When we are grafted into Him, we repeatedly get pruned to bear much fruit to God’s glory. Abiding in Him is to see, which means seeing and being aware of those around us, as well as God seeing us. Abiding in Him also means to follow Him and saying “yes” to His calling and willingly obeying His will. It is important to accept what God has called us for, hold on to that and acknowledge Him – reflecting His glory in everything that we do. When we abide in Him, we speak and walk differently. At all times our speech should be like incense rising unto God. When we abide, we praise differently, we love differently and pray differently. We are invited to totally belong to God, experiencing full intimacy and abiding and conquering by His love because in Him we live, move and have our being.
There is nothing like being still, becoming aware of and getting lost in God’s presence, and getting to know His heartbeat. In the times when we experience adverse circumstances, this is the place where we find strength, refreshing, and answers. God also loves our presence and is jealous of the times that we spend with Him. He is pleased with us and knows our names. It is the powerful presence of God that makes a difference and changes everything around us. God’s dwelling place is with us, we are the carriers of His presence and that is what everyone around us needs. In the presence of God there is peace, fulness of joy, protection, guidance, and power. In His presence burdens are lifted, we are transformed into His image, we experience healing, miracles, abundance, and prosperity, as well as an endowment of boldness. When it is a struggle to experience God’s presence, remember your identity as a son and that the sacrifice of Jesus paved the way for us to boldly enter into the Father’s presence. Spend time with God, get a hunger for more of His presence, get rid of worry, condemnation guilt and shame, come before Him with faith, use your imagination, respond to His presence and allow Him to sometimes interrupt your day. He wants us to experience His presence.
God’s desire is for us to know Him intimately, relationally and experientially, which will transform our lives. However, there is something greater than knowing God, and that is the fact that God knows, loves, and cares for us. He knows every human being. However, there are three levels of God knowing us – firstly the general omniscience of God, secondly the foreknowledge whereby He called and chose us and thirdly God knows those who respond to His choosing with faithfulness, who loves and trusts in Him, and who can be trusted. He foreknew and predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son. This conformation is a process, but when God looks at us, He sees us as a finished work, a mirror of himself. However, we need to co-operate with this process of getting to the place where we are fully known and acknowledged by God. We need to walk in the right way with Him. We need to have the right moral character and motives, instant obedience and have an ever-increasing enthusiasm to press in to know and love Him more. As we respond with instant obedience and utmost trustworthiness to whatever God asks us to do, we will experience Him saying “well done my Son” and enter into the joy of the Lord because of the accreditation and affirmation from our Father. When we have reached full maturity or perfection – which means being mature in love – we will be fully known by God.
For many Christians the fact of their salvation is real, yet they do not really have a close relationship with God. Knowing God is eternal life. God has made it possible and easy to know Him, but we have to put in a little bit of effort towards this. For our relationship with Him to keep developing, we need to firstly have the correct theology regarding Him – that He is good, kind, gracious, and our Heavenly Father who is totally for us and not against us, that we have moved from being sinners to saints, servants to friends, nobodies to sons. We are sons in identity, a bride in intimacy, functioning as servants yet friends with God. God wants a relationship with us more than what we do with Him. However, the basis for all relationships is trust. Without trust the intimacy in a relationship becomes threatening. While embracing the correct theology about God we are in a process of having our hearts healed from flawed relationships many have had with their earthly fathers, enabling us to trust our heavenly Father. Practical steps to take in growing a relationship with God are: prioritize Him or make time for Him, know Him by studying and personalizing His Word, have frequent conversations with Him in various kinds of prayer, practice the awareness of His presence until His presence abides, spend time with others who walk with God and be patient and persistent in pursuing friendship and a relationship with God. We need to know God closely and intimately to powerfully impact, influence, and change the world around us.
Although Jesus is the pattern by which we know God, He also had to get to know and grow in this knowledge of his Heavenly Father. Living out God’s principles through the fruit of the Holy Spirit makes us become like Him – his image on the earth, reflected back to Him. The Holy Spirit has nine gifts, but the last one mentioned, that is self-control, is the one that enables the first eight. God wants us to operate in rulership, authority, and dominion but we can overcome nothing else if we cannot control ourselves. A person who is not in control of his spirit is a person who is easily offended by being challenged, questioned, or called into account and is thus left without any defense whatsoever against temptation. This person has no discipline or energy to apologize when wrong, has no patience and kindness for difficult people, always sees himself as right and others as wrong, is a gossip, unteachable, self-justified, anxious, insecure, insanely jealous and controlling, and always seeking for recognition and affirmation. A person who is wise because of his intimate knowledge of God is in control of his spirit and he will embrace instruction. This person will accept correction and chastening from God and appreciate His discipline. He is not easily offended or provoked, can receive criticism with love without feeling inferior or furiously defending himself, guards his tongue, and does good deeds without boasting about it. This person can resist the urge to meddle in someone else’s business or give unsolicited advice; he has the strength and discipline to do hard things like to apologize and forgive unreservedly, and read his bible and pray when in trouble. In order to rule, be strong, and do great exploits in this out-of-control world, it is of vital importance for us to firstly rule, by the Spirit and God’s grace, over that which is inside of us.
Today is the time for harvest, the time for every unfulfilled prophecy and dream to come to pass, negating the effect that the pandemic has had on the Church of Jesus Christ as well as the world. This is the time for a quickening (life) to take place. The essence of life is increase and growth. Increase is a principle of God and that is His will for each one of us. The river running through the Garden of Eden was depicting God and the life coming from Him to give growth. The river is divided into four, the meaning of the names of the four branches being increase, bursting forth, rapid, and fruitfulness. The prophet Isaiah said there would be no end to the increase of the Kingdom of God. Where Isaiah talked about desolate cities being inhabited, it was speaking prophetically about places that we have not yet occupied, or promises and visions not yet fulfilled. To see this fulfillment, we need to live according to and align ourselves to the principles in God’s word – this is wisdom. It was prophesied that the powerful Word of God was going to increase and prevail; that it would make progress, advance, infiltrate, overcome, conquer and penetrate this world. The first way in which the Word increased was that it was planted in the disciples and as they moved from knowledge to wisdom to favour, the result was that they became more powerful. The second way in which the word increased was the fact that others came to Jesus through the word and the word was also increasing in them. Thus the Word infiltrated and overcame the whole world. The Word of God is so powerful because it is an active word of grace, faith, life, and hearing. When the Word dwells in you richly, it has become flesh and you are a living epistle from God. 2022 Will be a time of increase and multiplication in every way.
The people that know their God shall be strong and do great exploits. They shall be able to stand strong and resist all evil. Through our faith, we can conquer the kingdom of darkness and every evil circumstance in our lives. God is wonderful and totally worthy of us loving Him and wanting to know Him better. We are made powerful and confident by His present presence – in us and with us. We are great only because of Him who is inseparably part of us. Because of this union with Christ, we have the mind of Christ and the name, nature, and character of God. When we understand that we are filled with all the fullness of God, we are strengthened with might in the inner man which then radiates out to those with whom we come into contact. The more we get to know God, the more we understand His thinking and actions and we follow suit. There is power and strength in His fruit, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, within us – His love, joy, principles, being godly, and His leading. To be powerful, we need to love God with a pure, unselfish, unadulterated, and unconditional love.
There is a difference between knowing about God and knowing Him. The first is merely information and the second is an intimate relationship. This relationship gives power, but God also wants us to have character. Getting to know God will have as a result that we get to know ourselves. Knowing who we are in Christ enables us to handle the adversarial things in life. When God’s light highlights something in us which is not according to His word, we can know that He is dealing with it in His unique way and strengthening us in that area. We also need godly people in our lives to alert us to what needs to change in us because we are in the process of God building a godly character in us. God sees our potential and destiny and by giving us prophetic words, He is encouraging you to know Him and thereby yourself, and see that potential become a reality. Just knowing about God contains no glory but getting to know Him results in our glorifying him as God, having enlightened minds and hearts. The futile thinking of a dark and unregenerate mind is fruitless, but being enlightened brings an understanding of who you are in Christ and positive results in your life. When we experience His love for us, we are also enabled to love ourselves, embracing our new nature. We can love our enemies when we love ourselves. Realizing who we are will give us victory in battle.
God wants us to know Him and it is of prime importance for us to continually broaden our intimate knowledge of who He is. The whole reason why He sent Jesus was to reveal, unveil, and disclose the mystery of who He was. He wants us to know him as God in all of his omniscience, power, wisdom knowledge, etc., but more specifically He wants us to know Him as our Father. Knowing God is essentially a gift of grace. God understood that we could not know Him since our natural minds were chaotic, dark, finite, broken, and unable to understand God. We needed to be given the light, life, and wisdom of God through His Spirit and to see His Glory in Christ, to understand who He is, know Him better, and love Him wholeheartedly. Knowing God is personal since He is a person in every conceivable way, not an abstract entity or theology. The deeper our relationship with Him is, the stronger we are and the more exploits we will do. From God’s perspective, we are married to Him and an involvement of the same measure is required from us. This relationship with Him is reciprocal and intimate. To know God is to love Him and that makes obeying His commandments easy. Eternal life springs forth from knowing God. Knowing God is not just a theory, but it involves our minds and will, and is deeply emotional. To know Him better, we need to live the whole spectrum of our lives with God, receiving His grace, getting to know Him through the Word, seeking Him in prayer and worship, and by complete dependence upon the Spirit.
The river is going to flow in 2022. Change is coming – are you prepared? These are words that came from two well-known prophets for the year 2022. Change is constant in life, but some changes are life-changing, like what we have experienced in the last two years. The chaos in the world was caused by people, but the Bible calls those who are acting as if there is no God to whom they will be held accountable, fools. God WILL react to their iniquity, holding them accountable. There is nothing hidden from God. God is still in control and will use everything that people endeavour towards reaching their own iniquitous goals, to further and benefit His Kingdom. However, He is looking for those who understand that He is God and who are seeking Him. God is in their generation, the generation of the righteous. A righteous person’s righteousness will deliver himself as well as many around him as was the case in the lives of Noah, Job, and Daniel. This deliverance will also take place in our time through God’s righteous ones. There are parallels between the times of Daniel and today. As the Church is experiencing in this time, Daniel was also tempted and flattered to compromise in order to fit in with an ungodly culture. He also was part of an empire that had a goal of world domination, which is a spirit that came through every empire right up to today. But, because Daniel believed the prophecies over Israel and prayed it into fulfillment, he was a saviour to his nation. Like Daniel, we can also petition God to restore righteousness in this nation and on the earth. Daniel had certain characteristics which should also be ours in this time. There are: Firstly because we know God, we will be a people of spiritual power able to do great exploits. Secondly, we should also be a people of purpose. Thirdly a people of principle and fourthly a people of prayer. When these characteristics are fully in place in the Church, the river will flow and we will be prepared for change. We are living in unique and momentous times, let us stay fully reliant on and submerged in God.
God had to send Jesus because it was the only way for us to be saved. God is the god of all of mankind, but the Father of those who have been born of Him by accepting Jesus Christ as their saviour. Jesus came for our salvation because God loved us so greatly. Jesus, being God incarnate, appeared to destroy the works of the devil, which is sin, by His birth, death, and resurrection. He could take away sin because in Him there was no sin. God made us his children, alive in Him through our new birth. Our faith in God is indicative that this new birth has taken place. Thus faith is of the utmost importance since we need faith to enter the Kingdom and also to continue therein. Our faith is not just a meaningless entity all by itself, but it has an object, which is Jesus. He came for us to be united with Him. He is the divine life within us. This life within results in the destruction of the devil’s works within us, his works being the presence and power of sin. We are no longer subject to the principles of sin and death but we are subject to the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, living without condemnation.
There is a subtle difference between waiting on the Lord and waiting for the Lord. In waiting for the Lord we need to be strong, confident, and very courageous. We need to prepare ourselves for 2022 with this attitude. There are godly promises, actions, interventions, and experiences of the power of God which are laid up for us in 2022. We often fear the future because of past experiences. God is continually working in sustaining His creation, but He particularly works and has grace for those who have the right disposition of expectantly waiting on and for Him. Waiting for God is always active. It includes prayer, consulting God, and waiting on Him to get His wisdom for your situation; not focusing on the problem, but having an expectancy that God is going to do something. While waiting we must constantly confess the word and promises of God; actively trusting God, and resting in Him. When God’s instruction and strategy for the next step comes, we must act in an appropriate manner while relying completely upon Him. It is good to do something (like studying) as a preparation while waiting for God’s fulfillment of a promise or a prophetic word. Let us wait for God, for He has given us great and precious promises.
When we experience a triggered response linked to our past lives we need to remind ourselves of our righteousness in Christ and that we have been cleansed. This assists us to grow in our faith. The sacraments of Baptism and Communion serve as a visible reminder of- and a connection to God’s grace towards us through the cross of Christ. Communion is to be partaken of as an act of faith while meditating on its meaning towards us. This will make us full partakers of the sanctification, healing, and victory brought about by Christ’s offering. All the power which is in Christ is in the communion. While we consider God during the Communion, He is also considering and remembering us since our thoughts and words are recorded in heaven. We are not just a number to God but each one of us is known by- and on God’s mind continually. When He remembers us, it is not with judgment but rather extreme joy. He also remembers us because our prayers and godly works have built memorials about us before Him. Because we are a part of Christ, we are represented before God as a perpetual, everlasting memorial as well. When we partake of Communion, God not only rolls away any remembrance or residue of our past captivity to sin but He also enables us to inherit every promise which is yet to be fulfilled. God is just, to remember everything which we have done in faithfully serving Him. Communion is a time of joyous celebration.
If we want more from God in revival, we need to calculate the cost thereof, enlarge our hearts and decide whether we want to live in the way God requires of us. Receiving God’s grace towards further spiritual growth in vain is when you refuse to listen to Him and compromise on His principles, principles like not being separate in actions, conduct, and lifestyle from the world, being unequally yoked, being in wrong partnerships with unbelievers, or having idols. We must partake of life and not death. Participating in or associating with any sin is being contaminated with death. Living a wrong lifestyle means that a person had removed themselves from experiencing God’s blessing, as God also turns away and cannot fulfill His will and purpose. This purpose is to pour out grace unto the attainment of full manifested sonship. Such a person, although having experienced salvation and being a Christian, will experience a sub-par life. Because God has given us everything we should reciprocate by giving Him our everything. We must offer our bodies as an offer unto God, this being our reasonable act of worship, our minds being transformed and renewed. This will result in God accepting us as His people and we will receive more grace, mercy, power, support provision, and blessing from Him. Let us enlarge ourselves to the heart of God, purify ourselves from death through living by the principles of his Word, and not receive His grace in vain.
Every revival throughout history started with prayer. We need to soak ourselves in the new move of the Spirit, by repenting, praying, worshiping, and hungering for God. All these activities create in us a readiness to usher in the glory of God. We are all here for one reason, which is to reveal the Kingdom of God. When revival starts, it is like a flooding river which, when it starts moving, often dredges up what is at the bottom before the flood cleanses the impurities away. That is what is happening in the lives of people now. It is important to stay open and non-judgmental towards what the Spirit is doing. God’s desire is for His people to be sensitive to- and stay in his presence which will prevent us from having the wrong reactions to negative things happening around us. God fills hungry hearts – when we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us and fill us with a renewed passion for Christ and life.
Let us look at the meaning of the word “revival”. Reviving something means that it has lived before. The world outside of Christianity cannot be revived, because it has not been alive before. Revival is only for the Body of Christ. The people of the world however, are the beneficiaries of the benefits which Christians gain from revival. We should actually not need revival, but it is a sad fact that many of us do. A constant cry for revival is an indication of much sin, because a lifestyle of carnality does not feed the spirit, but brings death. We need to outgrow this condition of constantly needing to be revived. We need to pray for those of us who need revival, starting with ourselves. Revival originates from hearing a living Holy Spirit infused truth, not with outward manifestations. Revival comes from our helper, the Holy Spirit, and us getting shattered from the realization of our fallen state, heartfelt repentance, and appropriating anew that which Jesus did on the cross for us. We stay revived by feeding daily on the spiritual food of reading the Bible and prayer.
Society has been changed by the pandemic but God is still the same. It is still God’s purpose to pour out His revival fire upon us. We, as the Body of Christ, should align ourselves with this purpose and run with fire, becoming a great army to meet the needs of those who do not know God. The Body of Christ can only be revived in the measure by which each individual member grabs a hold of- and experiences revival. In other words, personal revival produces corporate revival. It is important to choose to personally seek God to not miss out on what He is doing. We have already received the Holy Spirit who will enable us to see what God is doing and reach the levels He has for us. True revival is getting back to the foundation of our faith. Revival starts with a humbling of hearts in repentance and prayer. This results in clean conduits for the revival fire of God to flow through. The church is powered by prayer – the power of God will only come to a church and an individual that prays.
There is a spirit or state of heart which facilitates a revival move of God. This spirit firstly consists of a deep need and willingness to be used by God and secondly a godly generosity. God is richly, lavishly, extravagantly, and abundantly generous as is evident from the gift of His only Son towards the full salvation of the whole world. God generously gave the Holy Spirit. He blesses the just and the unjust with abundant rain. Through the Cross of Jesus mercy triumphed over judgment, a revelation of God’s generosity. The process of learning generosity is started by obedience. God imparts to us His generous heart when we become obedient to Him by focusing on the various needs of others and releasing a flow of God in ministering to them. Although obedience is the start of generosity, it moves up to a higher level, the level of honour and royalty. This way of royalty is at the heart of revival. As a starting point, the principle of honour is developed by generously giving our finances. It is the way of royalty to give bountifully. It is the way of royalty where generous people count it a privilege, joy, and an honour, and not a sacrifice, to serve God in whatever function they are operating. It is the way of royalty to go above and beyond and be extravagant in worship and prayer, witnessing to others, reading the Word, forgiveness, giving, loving, and being non-judgmental, kind, and merciful. This is being like God. When we freely give that which we have freely received, we will be rewarded by receiving all these mercies back in abundance. These characteristics epitomize the Kingdom of God – the characteristics of perfect love. Love is the way of royalty.
Something is stirring in the atmosphere. God is bringing to many a re-visioning, reviving, and a re-stirring of dreams and visions which have been lost. God is our father who loves us and is completely willing to come to our aid. To not miss out on what God is doing we should stay focused on- and yielded to God and not be distracted by giving in to reactions originating from the flesh. It is important to be a part of the intense and persistent prayer actions being inspired by the Holy Spirit in this time. God is raising us up to pray prophetically. This is where we train our senses to hear what God is saying about every situation and then we pray and prophesy His solution instead of complaining about problems. Prophecy is a powerful tool to create God’s will on the earth. Prophetic prayer fosters our intimate relationship with God and helps us to pray with authority and faith. When praying prophetically, we are praying in agreement with God’s purpose, it facilitates miracles and helps to sharpen our prophetic gift. It stirs our spirits, helping us grow in God. God is about to do something new, let us forget the things of the past, and reach out to the godly things which are ahead of us
Over the centuries, the theme of revival was fire – in the Bible God is referred to as a consuming fire. Fire reveals God in action, for example when He consumed the sacrifice in the times of the Old Testament. Fire is a manifestation of God’s glory, nature, and presence. The fire of God ignites but does not consume. Because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, we are acceptable sacrifices as we offer up ourselves unto God. To see fresh fire in our lives, we have to be the wood, the substance which attracts the fire. We need to be glowingly enthusiastic for the Lord by being more filled with the Holy Spirit. We need to reclaim our first love – love is perfected in the fire of God. We need to spend more time in God’s presence and His Word to re-kindle our fire. The safety of our souls lies in the degree of the fire it contains. In past revivals, there would be literal flames visible on the roofs of the churches where the revival was taking place. We need such an external manifestation of the fire and glory of God in our midst. The fire of God will metamorphose us into something supernatural and heavenly. There is an atmosphere shift, a change of season happening in the world and to be a part thereof, we need to co-operate with God and throw ourselves into hungry, fiery, desperate prayer speaking and prophesying this purpose of God into manifestation. People around us need to catch the fire from us because fire begets fire.
At the time of the book of Habakkuk, Israel was going into exile. This was judgment executed upon them for their disobedience and sins. Habakkuk was enquiring from God how that He could use a nation more evil to judge the evil in Israel. God’s reply was that any nation which He uses to execute His judgment and who then oversteps his boundaries, will be judged as well. The same is true today. All conspiracies geared toward enforcing a worldwide government will be judged and completely destroyed by God because their manipulations had a negative impact on the Church, the Body of Christ, which is part of God’s Kingdom. God’s ultimate purpose is for His Kingdom to fill the whole earth and anything coming against his purpose and plan is subject to judgment. However, it is the heart of God to rather extend mercy from the judicial consequences of sin, because mercy triumphs over judgment. Revival is God’s mercy. Revival is where God takes charge of the very atmosphere. Revival originates with God but comes through the corporate Body of Christ. The only thing we, as the Church, need to do to experience this revival is for each individual to humbly realize their desperate need for revival and start crying out to God through earnest, relentless, desperate, and wholehearted prayer. It is in this position of prayer that we will see the glory of God. This is where we will see His plan to come with revival power and then react by speaking and prophesying it into fulfillment. When we are revived, we can minister revival mercy to a dying world. One person can open the door through which the risen Lord can enter into a nation. The Holy Spirit is calling us forth unto prayer to see revival in the earth once again.
During the last two years, the Church of Jesus Christ has been under direct assault from the enemy. Even though there had been a lot of restrictions placed upon the Church through the various levels of lockdown, God will take revenge for the negative effects (for instance upon the economy of His people) which the lockdowns have had on the Church. Though the enemy had a negative outcome in mind, the forced isolation had the result that the Church worldwide has been compelled to faithfully stand and overcome in prayer and fasting. God will use these prayers to bring forth the fulfillment of His will and purposes on the earth. He is beginning to reveal this agenda through more and more manifestations of His presence. The Kingdom is expanding and those with a vision who know the presence and heartbeat of God understand that there is something powerful happening. There is a worldwide revival coming, a society-changing revival accompanied with fire and lightning, repentance, and the literal shaking of buildings. We need the fire of God to fall in the Church once again as has happened in past revivals. The fire of God is associated with His presence and His power. This fire will bring purification, new passion and zeal, and a sorely needed restoration of the Church’s bold manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. People are at present being called up and inspired by the Spirit for more intercessory prayer towards seeing this revival spring forth. Revival will come to humble, non-institutional churches where there are no restrictions placed upon the presence of God and all the accompanying manifestations.
God’s presence upon and around us should be our highest priority, passion, and pursuit. His presence positions us to hear God’s voice more clearly, and there we experience a fulness of joy. During corporate worship, we are lifting God up and we become aware of His majestic presence in our midst, His train filling His temple. When we are in God’s presence, we see how big He is. This realization brings everything else into perspective as well as highlighting our own smallness and inadequacies and we realize our dependence upon Him. In God’s presence, we become aware that everything belonging and pertaining to God is utterly holy and righteous. This incredible, amazing, and holy God is drawn by- and enthroned upon our praises. His presence brings revelation of our sin and we must be open and repentant because our justification has been obtained on the cross, and not go the route of denial or self-justification. This right attitude gives God the opportunity to bring change in our hearts while standing in His presence. Being in the presence of God refreshes us and strengthens our heart, purpose, mandate, vision, and resolve while giving us the energy to carry on. We need to be continuously practicing the presence of God and be known as the people of God’s abiding atmosphere and presence.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was God coming and revealing His presence in the new temple, the Church. We are enabled by the Holy Spirit to continue in the acts and teachings which Jesus had begun. God’s intention is for every believer to be a Spirit-led priest, in other words, a Kingdom of Priests. Even as God manifested His presence in the Old Testament through clouds, wind, and fire, His Church is now to be a manifestation of His glory. Because God is dwelling with us, his people, we can expect manifestations such as buildings shaking, miracles, signs, and wonders in our midst. To see this happen, it is important that we keep being sensitive and responsive to the Holy Spirit. We need to have a revelation of the fact that we are the heirs of God and operate therein, to experience the angels (manifested as wind and fire) serve us. The more we press into the spirit realm, the more we will experience the activity and ministry of angels. When we speak God’s word, His voice is contained in that word and angels hearken and act thereupon. The voice of God goes with the presence of God. We need to listen carefully to the voice of God, because his voice will re-focus us on our purpose and mission, guide us with a proceeding word while we are on this mission, and reveal to us when He is doing something new in our journey with Him. We need to have our spiritual senses fine-tuned and presented to God to hear His voice and have an awareness of his presence instead of only having an awareness of every negative thing happening in the world around us.
In order to redeem the time, we acquire knowledge, understanding, and wisdom which please God and bring the favour of God and man. Living like this is living a wise and effective life. This lifestyle manifests the righteousness of God and serves as a conviction to the world around us. We should absolutely not compromise, because our compromise waters down the message we convey and gives justification to people for maintaining the unrighteous lifestyle which is so prevalent in the world. We must, like God, love righteousness and hate iniquity because the result is that God will favour and anoint us. The favour of God brings higher responsibility, and to fulfill this responsibility we are enabled, sanctified, and set apart by an ever-increasing, powerful anointing. Anointing comes as a direct result of holiness and righteousness because the Holy Spirit is holy, sacred. We have been anointed to be prophets, priests, and kings. As prophets, we need to be proclaiming God’s righteousness. As priests, we need to be interceding and ministering to people. As kings we rule with authority, setting people free and delivering them from the results of their unrighteousness. As a people of righteousness, we experience the fruit of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. This joy consists out of the personal joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction of reaching our destiny, as well as the joy of those around us whose lives have been impacted and changed because of our obedience to God. Every struggle and battle we are enduring is going to be worthwhile because God will give us total victory and anoint us with the oil of joy.
As we look around at what is happening in the world, it appears as if we are in a state of war. However, we should not allow this to have us withdraw from people and especially from church attendance, thus robbing ourselves from the uplifting fellowship aspect of being part of the Body of Christ. We need to live by- think, operate and talk faith and love instead of the meaningless things being discussed in the world. We are Sons of God, Kings, clothed with the Word of God. Let our speech reflect that which we are clothed with, focusing on Jesus as well as God’s promises. We fight the battle of faith by recalling, voicing and believing the prophecies which we have had spoken over our lives. It is important to give heed to what the Holy Spirit is teaching us about a good conscience in order to keep building up our faith instead of shipwrecking it. Let us not grow tired and give up, but keep going, keep believing God, because in doing so, He will lift us up.
There are too many Christians living only in and by the grace of God and not progressing to where they also experience His favour. God’s favour is conditional. In order to gain God’s favour, we go through a process of growing in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, knowledge giving understanding, understanding evolving in wisdom for life followed by pleasing God. In other words, the more we please God, the more we are favoured by Him. God is pleased by a lifestyle of being faithfully and consistently being obedient to Him. Because of God’s favour we are promoted and with the promotion come additional responsibility plus greater anointing to handle the responsibility. Favour is not favouritism. Favouritism does not get a person to his destiny or maintain that destiny. We are all on a journey of preparation to see our destiny fulfilled, and in the process, God is busy working on our characters and changing favouritism into favour, as we see happening in the life of Joseph. We need to keep submitting to God’s process in our lives – exceptional favour is about to come upon the Body of Christ.
God has got a purpose, destiny, and mandate for every Christian to live effective and productive lives – thus redeeming time – and for this, we need the grace and favour of both God and man. Grace is a gift, and we all have unique grace gifts or ministries to function as part of the Body of Christ. Grace can also mean extra general blessing or mercy which enables us to do God’s will at times when we do not have the ability to do it. Grace represents the entirety of our salvation. Grace also means favour. Every believer has an equal amount of unmerited grace, but this is not the case with favour. It is possible for a person to increase in favour with God and man like Samuel and Jesus did. Jesus was the embodiment of the favour of God because He was absolutely committed to doing the will of God. The foundation of finding favour with God is to persistently pursue God, accessing His grace and presence, and thereby be a partaker of more grace as well as his nature By doing this we are empowered and changed to become like Jesus. The more we respond to God, the bigger his response of favour will be towards us. We all are already positioned to receive favour from God, and depending on our stewardship, respect, humility, and wise handling of the grace we have already received. this favour will increase Favour with God and man brings promotion and responsibility, added duties, and more difficult challenges plus the empowering blessing to handle it. The enemy hates and fears people on whom the favour of God rests because they are productive, efficient and powerful people.
Our lives have been redeemed by Jesus. By living a life pleasing unto God, worthy of this redemption, we are enabled to redeem the time. This is a life lived in accordance to the Word and the Spirit’s wisdom, knowledge, and understanding as well as in the fear of the Lord. Living like this will result in a fruitful and efficient life, continually growing in the knowledge of God. In this growth, we gain the Mind of Christ, the wisdom of living according to God’s will. The wisdom of God needs to be maintained in order not to lose it. We maintain wisdom by not rebelling against God and pursuing our own way, not failing to develop an awareness of God’s presence n our lives, and not failing to do good to those around us. The methods to increase wisdom are: make it your goal to know- and have a relationship with God, study the Bible and apply the Word to your life, make prayer a regular feature of your life asking God for wisdom when needed, ask the Lord to reveal any area in your life which is not yet submitted to his wisdom and deal with it and walk with wise people, accepting their counsel. Those who keep to God’s ways and wisdom are blessed, find life, and have favour with both God and man.
Time is not only money but also a lot of other things, for instance, spiritual enrichment. At the present time, there is a spiritual enrichment taking place in the Church worldwide, because due to lockdowns everywhere Christians have more time to spend with the Lord. Where Paul talks about redeeming the time in Ephesians 5:16, he uses the same word as that which is used to describe our redemption by Jesus. So, how do we redeem time? How do we get back the time which has been wasted and continue to live productively in order not to waste more time? Firstly, we need to live our lives with wisdom. Paul says we are to walk wisely in times of evil. The wisdom to live and manifest the Christ-life comes from a mature knowledge of God and understanding His will. This is accomplished by absorbing His Word. Instead of fretting and getting into fear or using all kinds of escape mechanisms to handle the evil days in which we are living, rather get filled with the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit and being led by Him results in love, power, and a sound or sober mind. This also has the benefit of you being extremely effective in everything you have to accomplish, thereby redeeming the time. Maintain yourself in the Spirit, and keep being filled by the Spirit through continually proclaiming the Word. Be vigilant in prayer and thanksgiving and walk correctly as a Christian in the presence of those who are not part of the Church. Those who walk and live wisely, gain the favour of God and man, as did Daniel and Joseph. Living in sin is a waste of time, but repentance and turning to God supernaturally redeems that time. God, through His love and grace, is redeeming time for us by restoring that which had been stolen by the enemy.
There are essential Word-based attributes which we need as a foundation or bedrock of our belief system before we can have a quick-responding and expanding faith. The first thing which we need in our foundation is a correct revelation of who God is, who we are, and a world-view based on God’s perspective. When we understand who God is, that He is totally reliable, unchangeable, truthful and that He deeply loves us, we, in turn, fall hopelessly in love with Him, giving us hope. The more you love God, the easier it is to have faith in him. Thus we have faith, hope and love. What we need to have – especially during a trial – is correct and positive thought processes (a sound and sober mindset) which will have the automatic response of confidence in Him who loves you. The second thing needed in our belief system is the sure knowledge that God is sovereign and in control, working out His purposes – in the world, and with each individual Christian. He is intimately involved with us while simultaneously being sovereign. These two things are held in dynamic tension. This correct belief system brings forth faith. Faith produces optimism, gregariousness, persistent perseverance, balance and psychological wholeness and toughness, creativity, and productivity. It also results in a good, healthy understanding of who you are in Christ Jesus, which then gives you total confidence in every circumstance. Each one of us is significant, has a purpose and destiny, and is part of God’s plan in this, his Kingdom
Since everything in our Christian walk is based upon our faith, it is necessary that God refines and purifies this faith so that we can obtain the redemption and salvation of our souls unto the full image of Jesus Christ. Jesus, as our High Priest, is praying for us that our faith will not fail in a time of the enemy’s attacks, because our faith determines an opposite result from that which the enemy intends. Our faith is of the same substance as that thing which we believe for and there are various levels of faith – little faith, great faith, the most holy faith, etc. There are ways to grow and mature your faith in God – do not wait for a crisis to start the process, but constantly feed your faith through reading and absorbing God’s Word whereby the truth concerning His will and character is made known. It is then easy for the Holy Spirit to bring out of the abundance of the Word inside of you a scripture fit for a specific situation. Exercise your faith – it is like a muscle – it has to be constantly exercised by your actions, words, and attitude. Keep confessing your faith, speaking of the things which are not as if they are, and if you cannot speak faith, rather keep silent. Unencumber, unfetter, and free your faith from the negative faith of fear and doubt. Rather make the decision to use that energy to believe the word of a faithful God, being convinced that to Him the impossible is possible. Learn to imitate the faith of others and pray for your faith to be increased, praying and confessing the positive outcome from whatever problem you are facing. Faith never fails to obtain its object – our fearless faith will determine how we overcome it in a time of trial.
Trials that we go through is not a sign of God’s anger, disappointment, or judgment but rather a sign of His confidence in us as his sons, to overcome and end up refined by the process, while our faith grows and remains steadfast in God’s sovereignty and goodness towards us. In order to keep the right perspective during these times, it is imperative to have a vigorous, focused prayer life instead of spending energy on stress and worry. Daniel’s model of praying can be taken as a pattern on how to pray in these times. His prayer included confession of sin, repentance, petition, and proclamation of prophecies, promises, and scripture. His prayers were totally God-centered and in accordance with God’s character, reminding God of his goodness, grace, compassion, and love whilst asking for mercy towards Israel. Daniel also prayed for bigger than that which he wanted God to accomplish. Focusing on- and praying for the fulfillment of the prophecies over our lives regarding our future brings our present adverse circumstances into a depth of field or perspective, even as we see God did for the prophet Daniel when He showed Daniel what was going to happen in the future. We need to have a default response of prayer at all times. If we would be willing to pray, we will get insight and understanding; and see angels act, and act swiftly. A place of prayer is a place of presence and a place of power. An everlasting kingdom has been conferred upon us which needs to be established on earth and we have incredible power and authority over all the affairs on the earth through our fervent prayers. Remaining faithful in all things and especially in prayer, results in us eventually being exalted by God.
Trials should have a response of pure joy in us because we envision the eventual outcome, which is that we will experience the glory of having our faith and characters tested, purified, and complete. God is allowing us to face hard times as a way to prepare, train, teach and disciple us to live, increase, enter and possess. This means that He loves us and is treating us as sons. He is bringing us to a good place within ourselves where, in the end, we will be stronger, more mature, and complete, lacking nothing. It is essential that we do not grow weary and lose heart or become resentful, but rather stay in God’s word and presence, and re-visit our prophetic promises. Persevering in pushing through the enemy’s resistance produces the godly character of faith, hope, and love in us. Everything which God places inside of us gets tested until it becomes an established part of us. To go through a trial and have a successful outcome, the keys to use are: forgiveness, staying positive, praying for wisdom, learn the lessons which God is teaching you from these difficult times, make the necessary changes, count your blessings, be grateful, focus on what you can control and don’t waste energy on what you cannot, reflect on your personal growth, get out of self-centeredness while you keep reaching out to empathise with- and bless others and take care of yourself, by alleviating your physical stress levels in some or other way. Let us turn our negative energy into praying in the Spirit, for He prays God’s will for us.
Our faith is that which is central in our Christian walk as well as in all that is happening around us with this pandemic. This trial has come to prove the genuineness of our faith. How we respond in this time proves to God and to ourselves, how much we have grown in the precious faith which has initially been gifted to us by God. Throughout every trial, we need to persistently hold on to the word of God, both in reading and confessing it. We need to keep in mind throughout our various trials that they only last for a limited period, they test our knowledge of who God is and they produce precious, genuine, tested faith. The result of this is victory and glory unto God and blessing for us. Unsurprisingly, God tests every believer and He will take us through the same test until we are victorious. Three things are targeted by God in these times: the changing of our characters, conduct, and motives. However, God is always with us throughout our trials and tests, He is sovereign and always in control, His grace sufficient for us. God is faithful, that you will not be tempted beyond what you can bear and there is always a way of escape. When we come to the end of ourselves, we find the beginning of God. God has got full confidence in you and really expects you to pass the test or training, coming out stronger and having gained things that were previously lacking in you. Throughout all this testing and training, God has our ultimate good in mind and that is that we shall possess all which He has for us. Facing difficulties is inevitable, but learning from them is optional. This is God’s way – the best way.
The present Covid-19 pandemic is a trial, the testing of our faith because this also affects believers. According to the Apostle James, we need to adopt a mental approach of pure joy and faith towards our trials, afflictions and persecutions, instead of despondency. Jesus said to be exceedingly glad in these circumstances. The correct responses to trials produce that which brings forth joy – a refinement of character, perseverance, patience, maturity, blessings and a reward in heaven. God uses the trials we go through in a negative world, hostile to godliness and Christianity, to produce and refine our positive God-given attributes of faith and love. We should strengthen and encourage each other’s faith in these times, thereby dispersing any unsettledness and countering the temptations from the evil one to complain. In these times, it is vital to stay in the place of refuge, our strong tower – the sanctuary of God’s Word and presence. This is where we obtain strength, wisdom, grace, and mercy. Faith that has been tried and tested comes out as pure gold, complete and mature. Trials are always temporary, tailor-made, and unique to every individual, produces tested or proven faith, which faith is then to the glory and honour of God. During hard times, do not respond irrationally but rather biblically, exaggeratedly, and resentfully. Stand firm in your spiritual identity, stay in love, hold fast to every spiritual discipline, help those around you and be that example of steadfastness to the world around us, which is experiencing turmoil and fear.
Every human is born with folly in their hearts with the attitude of a child, but often this seed has come to maturity in adults, resulting in people lacking in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. The grace of God is free and undeserved, but favour is earned. God’s favour is attracted by our growth in the wisdom of God. Jesus grew in wisdom through His obedience. Wisdom is seeking God and gaining knowledge about Him. Knowledge consists of facts and information but we need to have understanding added thereto enabling us to implement the knowledge, and that is wisdom. We cannot live as reckless fools without thinking about the consequences of our actions. Let us get rid of the folly of independence in our hearts, the unrighteous, rebellious, lustful, proud, and sinful flesh-nature and grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The knowledge of Christ and a relationship with Him comes through the Spirit and knowing God’s will as portrayed throughout the whole Bible. We gain wisdom through the fear of the Lord, doing His commandments, living a life worthy of the Lord, and pleasing Him in every way while submitting to the process which we go through to get delivered of the folly in our hearts. To be a spiritual person is to live a righteous life. According to the Bible, God is present in the presence of the righteous and so we need to press into this gaining of wisdom because we want a visitation from God. We want revival, but it requires wise, righteous living.
Each one of us has been enabled through the Holy Spirit to bring revival to a whole city, but we need to have the person of the Holy Spirit as a high priority in our lives. We need to be conscious of-, develop a relationship with-, speak about-, move in- and do what the Holy Spirit instructs us to do. God wants to visit us, but we need to move away from being susceptible to consumerism or an attitude of escapism and once again become prepared to live a life of sacrifice and progressively grow in living according to God’s specifications. He wants to increase us where we are, in order for everything and everyone around us to also be prosperous. To be positioned for visitation it is important to obey God and His Word, ignore every message that is contrary to the will and purpose of God, live the way which God wants you to, be encouragers where God has placed us in society, be people of prayer - saturating ourselves and the area around us in prayer, and we need to get ready to ride the big wave. We need to live intentionally and take the appropriate action to see God move in our midst – there has to be more!
We are living in exciting times, for we are living in the day of the Spirit. Because we have received the gift of the third person in the trinity dwelling inside of us, we are exceptionally, supernaturally, unlimitedly powerful beings. The Holy Spirit was shed forth and still is today, which means that He greedily gushes forth to satisfy the fierce hunger of believers reaching for more of Him. We need the manifestations of the Holy Spirit to be seen and heard in our midst. One Spirit-filled believer is all it takes to undo all the work of a city full of satanist. When we go through hard times, we can choose to experience a Holy Spirit visitation and be rejoicing instead of complaining. To prepare for this visitation, we need to line our lives up with what God expects of us and be willing to pay the price, which is being more intensely invested in prayer, the Word, and fasting, and being righteous and devout with an intense hunger and desire for God. We need to be spiritually disciplined and not give in to the domination of the soul-flesh. It is important to heed to the Spirit’s conviction and respond with repentance. There is great power in godliness, and there will be no visitation where there is compromise and the delusion of soul-dominance. God wants to move, but He needs us to co-operate with Him and to not compromise on our adherence to the word. A visitation of the Spirit preserves one’s entire being and enables us to be effective in our ministry to the world.
God stated very emphatically in the Book of Revelation that He is with us and we need to believe this and live accordingly. The encounters we have with God first change us, but this change enables us to minister effectively to those around us. When we experience visitations from God He restores identity, brings healing and restoration, gives clear direction, brings refreshing and more revelation of who He is. An encounter with Jesus can mature and heighten your spiritual senses, deepen your hunger for Him and change your perspective and attitude at a time when you are going through a desert experience in your life. When going through a desert time, do not dwell there, but maintain your joy by drinking from the fountain inside of you and have the right attitude, by not pulling away but rather stay connected to the Body of Christ – this will bring forth spiritual growth through God’s awesome grace. Where necessary, get godly counsel and keep trusting God for deliverance, knowing that He wants to encounter you and will break through, bringing you out of a place of shame, showing forth His glory. Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Bridged of Ireland are examples of people who had desert experiences and encounters with God and were enabled to do supernatural things afterward. To attain this level of the supernatural, God is bringing us to a place of maturity. We come to maturity by continuously maintaining our walk with God, being faithful and committed to what God has called us to do, and not fall into the trap of our ‘instant’ society, but realise that what God is doing inside of us, might become difficult, or that it may take time. We need to get hungry from more of God, for a visitation, for glory.
Western Christianity teaches that our life on earth (our decision to accept Jesus) determines whether we go to heaven or hell after death, although this was not taught by Jesus or by his disciples. Wherever the Bible talks about ‘heaven’ it does not always refer to the heaven we go to after death. The book of Revelation speaks about Heaven retaining Jesus. He was retained for 40 years until 70 AD, at which time the old temple was removed. During these 40 years, He was building His new temple, the New Jerusalem (his Church). This was heaven coming down to earth. The Kingdom of God is within us, we are citizens of heaven. Our destination is not to go to heaven, but to manifest the full stature of Christ, or heaven, on earth. That is the whole point of our being, that is why we are here, that is our destination. God’s tabernacle is in us and with us through His Spirit forever, ready to be manifested through us everywhere we go. In the original text of the Bible, there are four different words that have been translated as ‘hell’ in English. These do not all refer to a place of punishment and burning after death, although hell does exist. Sheol or Hades, for instance, simply refers to the grave or the place of the dead. Gehenna was a valley outside of Jerusalem, a constantly burning garbage dump where worms were feeding on carcasses. Gehenna was the word used when Jesus talked about the worm not dying and the fire being unquenchable in Mark 9. In Matthew 23 He also used this word to predict the end destination of the Pharisees, which literally happened in 70AD when their bodies were cast onto this garbage heap. Jesus came to redeem Israel from being children under the authority of the Law of sin and death and to be adopted as Sons. The gentiles were not under the Law but Jesus came to reveal to them that they also were sons. That was the creation of the new man, everyone being one in Christ.
God works in patterns. In the Old Testament, Moses met with God on the mountain on the fiftieth day after Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. In this meeting, God came down in fire and thick smoke from where He spoke audibly – a foreshadowing of the day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. On this day when the Law of sin and death was given, three thousand people were slain because of their sin. On the day of Pentecost, the promised Holy Spirit of life in Christ Jesus descended with fire and a mighty rushing wind and in absolute contrast to the day the Law was given, three thousand people were saved. When people established the city of Babel and built a tower to reach God, it was symbolic of human fleshly religion but God thwarted this by confusing their language. On the day of Pentecost, God established the heavenly city, the one which Abraham was looking for, the Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem, giving them a new heavenly language. As there are three Lords (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), there are also three baptisms. When a person gets born again, he/she gets baptized into the Body of Christ (first baptism). After salvation follows the second baptism in water, symbolizing what the Spirit did by placing the person in the Body of Christ. The third baptism is when Jesus baptizes the person with the Holy Spirit. The person of the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Holy Trinity, is our awesome gift from Jesus, making us limitless supernatural beings, fully identified with Him, enabled to do His works. This gift means that we always have someone with us, we will always have a place where we belong, we will always have some Godly works so do as well as the power therefor. We need to practice the gifts of the Spirit in our services, for instance speaking in other tongues or languages, messages in tongues and interpretation, revelation, prophecy, and singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to edify one another.
The world around us is in turmoil, broken, hurting, and under gross deception in many areas because God has mostly been removed from every area of society. However, the Word of God is still our guideline. This generation needs to return to this guideline regarding discipline, respect, selfishness, offendedness, and self-centeredness. The Church needs to wake up. We need to stop accepting the skewed values propagated in the world and return to purity and the reality of our identity in Christ and walk in that. For this we need revival, and God knows this. His touch lifts us out of the realm of the natural into the realm of the Spirit where we supernaturally receive truth from Him. He breathes into us hope, peace, love, and joy. So, what brings a visitation and touch from God? First and foremost, there needs to be prayer, a hunger for God, expectation, and surrender in obedience to God. We need to realize that we are deeply loved and highly favoured by our Father. He wants to move in the Church and have fun with his children. The world desperately needs to experience God and His love through us.
The ascension of Jesus features very strongly in the New Testament teachings because it has direct application to every believer. Jesus’ ascension is the proof of his victory. As far as Jesus’ ministry is concerned, He is seated in a heavenly place of honour, power, happiness, rest, and permanence, his work of salvation having been accomplished, although the work of sanctification is still ongoing through Him being our High Priest. He has been highly exalted unto the throne (heavenly realm) because of His obedience unto the Father and the same is true of us because we are in a mystical union with Jesus, having been raised up together with Him. The Throne is the power behind us. We have all authority and the mind of Christ about our position because of this union. As far as God is concerned, this has already happened, but to us, it is a process of growing into it through our obedience, humility, and submission unto Christ. We are citizens of heaven, ambassadors from there to earth. Our meditation, realization, and revelation need to be that we are seated in the heavenlies and we need to teach our brains to understand that we literally and spiritually occupy a place on the right hand of the Father where Jesus is. This is a place of privilege, power, and authority, and we operate from there – looking at our problems from above and not below. When we speak and decree according to God's Word and promises, we see it go forth swiftly.
Very often when God brings revival in the Church, there is also a revival of evil in the world because the enemy is trying to counter what God is doing. Because the media only reports on the evil, we can become jaded in our Christian walk listening to all the negativity, but we need to rather become more determined in our reaching out for a visitation and revival. With acknowledgement to a teaching by Bill Johnson, we know that there are four values that create the atmosphere for the miraculous in the lives of believers and these four values are each equal in strength and importance. These values re-settle people's load or value system, creating a kingdom mindset that readies the atmosphere for a visitation from God. The values are: Firstly, the most important thought to have established in our minds, is that God is good, He is your Father who holds nothing against you. The second value is that there is nothing that is impossible to God and the person operating in child-like faith, as can be seen throughout the whole Bible. The third value is that every single issue of human misery and suffering had been settled on the cross. The fourth value is that every believer is significant and that everything (circumstances, etc.) is under us, as we have been elevated by Jesus. God wants to visit us, but if we are too grown-up and jaded and not prepared by having these values in place, the visitation will pass us by. However, having a miracle mindset enables a believer to automatically and continuously be filled and overflow with the Holy Spirit. When we are totally yielded to the Holy Spirit, He will visit us and endow us with tremendous power. Where the Spirit is Lord, there is liberty.
A worldwide revival is coming, which will bring a great harvest into the Kingdom of God. When we were unsaved, we were unspiritual and under the wrath of God but when we were born again it came about by the Holy Spirit overshadowing us and Christ being birthed within us. We need to be revived unto this truth through visitations from God. We need to be prepared and positioned for a visitation. In times of visitations from God, supernatural things happen, breakthroughs, and everything else becomes easier, our spirits are preserved and revived. At these times we also experience the shalom of God – miracles, joy, deliverance; divine help and provision, rich abundant overflow, restoration, healing, and fulfillment of seemingly impossible prophetic words. We also experience sanctification, seasons are shifted, new things are brought to birth and Jesus gets the glory. Without God and the things of the Spirit, our souls will incline towards earthiness, naturalness. God knows this because He is mindful of us and He sends Jesus (our breaker) to visit us and to revive the fire of the Spirit in us. We can have a visitation from God at any time we desire it. To experience such a visitation, we must use the keys of having strong expectancy; spend time in the Word, and exercising faith activities like getting personal with God. It is important to have a hunger and thirst for God – to seek Him before you get to a place of total desperation, and get into His presence with prayer and fasting, glorifying and praising Him and obeying the promptings of the Spirit unto prayer. Getting into- and devouring the Word is another key to experiencing a visitation from God, as well as prophesying the word of the Lord. These are all the ways of the Spirit. Until Christ finally appears, we will keep on needing and having times of refreshing.
God is in a process with every believer wherein He is moving towards a goal. This goal is for the Church to end up as a people of excellence, the most different, glorious powerful, holy group of people on the planet – manifesting the character of Jesus, which means perfection. We have the Holy Spirit residing inside of us by whom God will gain his goal. However, God does not deal with us en masse, but as individuals and is lovingly (not punitively) committed towards training and developing each one of us unto maturity – this end result will be to His glory. A picture of this is the parable told by Jesus about the branches of the vine being lifted up, washed and pruned towards greater fruitfulness. The more connected we are with Christ in a personal relationship, the more fruitful our lives will become. The washing and pruning in our lives and characters is done by hearing the Word and our response thereto. The Bible is a book concerning the thoughts which God has towards us and they can only be revealed to us when our minds have been renewed through the Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps and trains our conscience to be synchronized to the truth of the Word and to believe. To effect change in us where we fail to live up to the standards of the Word, there needs to be a heart attitude of sincere, godly sorrow without self-justification, comparison with someone else or trying to shift the blame onto someone or something else. We need to embrace God’s pruning in our lives – it is to our benefit. The pruning brings us to greater fruitfulness, to a place of more dependence upon Jesus, assures of his love, it brings us to a place where He can answer more of our prayers; it takes place in order for our lives to bring glory to Him and that His Word can become flesh in us. God is always good to us, regardless of which circumstances we find ourselves.
To see God’s will and purpose for each one of us be fulfilled, we need to keep the vision that we have for our lives fresh. This will give us a sense of destiny and hope. Everything we go through in life is part of the preparation to fulfill our destiny. On our way to the fulfillment of our destiny, we receive spiritual revelations, all of which have a practical application. Revelation is a realization that translates into a lifestyle wherein we manifest the personality of Jesus, which is love or the fruit of the Spirit. All of this is realized through the power of God within us. The measure to which your prayers are answered is directly related to the measure of the manifested power of God in you. Receiving more than what you could ask, think or imagine is not something experienced by a fleshly carnal believer who is not obeying God’s principles or getting in line with God’s will. We have got divinely powerful weapons and authority inside to bring the arguments, pretensions, self-justification, and dishonesty of our own minds under control and demolish these strongholds so that we can synchronize ourselves to the truth of the Holy Spirit’s conviction. We have the authority to have a mind focused on who we are in Christ – this is the mind of Christ. The ways in which we open up to the old man and thus lose connection with the residential power inside and derail the development of ourselves (the vessel) towards our destiny are: guilt about the past, low self-esteem, grumbling and complaining, holding on to unforgiveness, toxic attitudes, fear of rejection, self-justification, and fear of failure. To revert back to the power inside when one has reacted and given in to the old man, you need to have a mirror moment with Christ and commit to being in control of your life and reactions, give yourself a neutral moment in other words, step back and observe yourself and question your reaction, get the truth about the situation and decide what the result of your reaction will be, what Jesus would think about it and lastly, what people observing your reaction would learn about you. We need to work out our awesome salvation unto the fulness of Christ with fear and trembling.
The death of Jesus on the cross would have been pointless if He had not risen from the dead. He was the first person to lay down His life and thereafter take up a powerful eternal resurrected life. We are the crown of God’s creation, having this same powerful resurrection life inside, which life we are living unto God. This life is victorious, overcoming, prosperous, successful, healthy, blessed, meaningful and productive. This resurrection life must also apply to our daily living. God does not want us to be living or just existing, but to be revived. It is easy to live a self-centered life but we have the power to lay down our lives in obedient service to the Lord, unselfishly loving others, and thereby experience the honour and glory of God in our lives. We are called to be part of a body, not selfish isolationists, but truly caring for each other more than ourselves – thus finding our souls. Our example is Jesus who loved us more than himself. The way to disciple people is to train them through life-on-life transfer. When you have gone through a time of trial which had caused you to cut yourself off from God and a life of service to others, the resurrection life inside also gives you the power to take your life up afresh. In order to do this, you need to avoid living your life on sorrows and memories instead of vision and keep a vital, strong and fresh mindset, despite your age. How to live again requires you to: remember the service which you loved providing to others and do it again, reconnect with your dreams and dream big, expand yourself out of your comfort zone, become quiet listen and pay attention to God’s voice, remember that because Christ dwells within you have the power to be, do and have anything which you set your heart to, and be honest at difficult times and ask for help.
In times past there has been a wrong doctrine preached in the Church that God was angry and full of wrath towards man. In reaction to this, the love of God is presently being overstated and it is being assumed that a loving God would compromise his righteousness and not cast people into hell. This is also erroneous because there is a hell and people do go to hell because they reject the means of salvation that has been provided by the cross of Christ. Discipline is not separate from love because discipline prevents negative consequences. The revelation of the fierce love of God causes people to tamper with the cross by making an assumption that this love will negate God’s righteousness, justness and sternness, but love does not rejoice with evil but delights in the truth. It is written all throughout scripture that Jesus would be crucified and die, carrying the punishment for mankind’s every sin, covering it with his blood and thereby justify God’s forgiveness and reconciliation with us. The crucifixion would have been pointless if it was possible to be justified without Jesus’ propitiation. Propitiation does not make an angry God loving, but is the way towards obtaining and continuing to experience the favour and grace of a loving God. Jesus carried and experienced our sin, as well as the sense of being separated from God caused by sin. He redeemed us from this separation by restoring our oneness with God and each other. Jesus gave us the gift of expiation through the cross – removing not only our sin but also the feeling of guilt which the sin had caused. Our reconciliation with God is so powerful that we have become one with Him and everything He is. He not only fully redeemed us, but defeated the powers of darkness. The cross should forever keep us humble and serve as an example that we are to lay down our lives in service towards each other.
Life and death are controlled by the tongue, through positive judgment and prayer. By raising our words or prayer up to God, we can change things. We have a hope for an inheritance inside, through having accepted Christ. Christ was put in a position of eternal, total authority, towards the benefit of the Church. We need to tap into this benefit in this life, since we are Christ’s Body, a part of Him. The key is to speak out, because as long as we are keeping silent, we are still acting like children, although we are heirs. We are to stand in our position of having all power and authority and use words to fight and defend our every moral and ethical value as well as our dreams, not allowing the enemy to incrementally undermine them, neither should we allow any additions to be made to the gospel which detracts from the simplicity thereof. Keeping silent spells death. We are to call out from the word and anointing within us, or go to someone else who has an anointed word for you and put a demand upon the storehouse which is there for us, to fulfill our every need.
There are times when we lose focus due to the business of everyday life. King David is a man to whom we can relate. David was a man after God’s own heart, but we see in the Psalms how he went through emotional ups and downs. He was anointed with oil when God called him as king and by this anointing he was elevated, called, stepped into authority and attracted the attention of the enemy. He always respected and valued the anointing as his greatest treasure. This anointing made him bold and turned his greatest challenge into his greatest weapon – as we see when he killed Goliath. David understood that the anointing was not conditional upon his feelings and he knew how to re-activate and bring into manifestation the anointing in his life because he could not function without it. It is the same with us, it does not matter what we have been through or what we are going through, we are still anointed and we need to remind ourselves of this. We need to meditate on the times when we experienced the anointing and have it refreshed. The anointing is the presence of the Holy Spirit in manifestation, it strengthens and invigorates us and results in us being fruitful and flourishing. One of the things which will help us recover the anointing is to recover the sense of the presence of God. It is important to stay in peace because it is from that place that the anointing operates. We do not need to meditate on our problems, but on that which is the solution to the problems, which is the anointing, the presence of God, and set our hearts at rest there. This is also the place to stir up our zeal for God anew and become full of positivity and faith. This is our key to breakthroughs.
Consistency is crucial to experience a breakthrough. Being consistent in your prayers, reading the Word and continuing in your service unto God will result in experiencing breakthroughs because the power inside of us is greater than any power which the enemy has to resist you. Sometimes breakthrough is not an event, but a lifestyle of growing from glory to glory. The troubles, trials, mundaneness and drudgery of life is God’s way of building character and shaping something inside of you concerning faith, for example, as we see in the life of Joseph. Always looking for experiences and the excitement thereof can be a sign of immaturity because you cannot live your life by that, but the consistency of a deliberate and focused effort to stay on course, to be steady, unchangeable, immovable, constant and firmly fixed in a position will lead to experiences with God. Consistency will put you in a place of faith over emotion and cause your roots to grow deep. To stay consistent, we need to discipline our emotions and stay by the rivers of living water, the well-spring of life, which is our relationship with Jesus. Instability and inconsistency will derail your destiny. Double-mindedness is the root of inconsistency. There is no inconsistency in God, He is always the same and we should be a portrayal of that.
Words contain a powerful energy. Words are so powerful that information technology is built around it. In Genesis, there is a portrayal of the relationship between God and the Spirit. When God spoke, the work of the Holy Spirit was to manifest that which was spoken. In the life of Christ Jesus, the power of the spoken word brought life to a corpse and created wine out of water. God watches over his word, to perform it. On the other hand, when the enemy places people under pressure, he is waiting for them to speak negative words, empowering him to perform them. We should submit our emotions, which are often the source of our words, to the Holy Spirit. The enemy attacks the integrity of the Word of God by saying ”did God say?” but we should abide by the supreme and elevated Word of God and not stop believing that which He has spoken. Our spiritual state i.e., whether we are babies, young men, or fathers, is measured by our words. We are enabled to wage war with the prophetic words over our lives. The enemy does not attack our faith, but the information or words which generate that faith to try and stop us from reaching our destiny. If we do not diligently speak the word of God but rather listen to the enemy, we are candidates for failure. Even when circumstances are contrary to God’s word in our lives, we should cherish His word and keep saying “be it to me according to your word”. God loves his uncompromising, exalted word and anyone who cherishes his word becomes very close to him.
We need to awaken to the spiritual reality that when we got saved, it was through a simple act of faith that instantly changed us from natural to spiritual people – Romans 10:3. This simple act of believing and speaking your acceptance of Christ immediately places a person in a position of having become absolutely righteousness – no works need to be done to attain it, it comes by the grace of God alone. It is the desire of every Christian to be right with God and to be anointed. Again, this cannot be attained by works, it comes from the understanding of who we now are in Christ – and that is God’s view of us. This happens when we repent of the faulty view we have of ourselves. When we get reconciled with God, we are in absolute union with Him and share with His divine powerful being. We are not sinners saved by grace, but righteous saints, children of God, the righteousness of God in Christ. That then means if we do sin, repenting brings immediate forgiveness from God, and as we accept this, we walk without a lingering condemnation (condemnation is a tool in the hand of the enemy and the flesh). Where the revelation of righteousness is lacking, people are enemies of the cross of Christ, carnal, babies, dull of hearing, unable to handle spiritual meat, in bondage and unable to exercise the ministry of reconciliation. Thus a person’s understanding of the righteousness of God determines his/her maturity. Understanding righteousness gives the power to live in victory over sin – it is not an issue of don’t sin and be righteous, but rather you are righteous – don’t sin. This revelation of our righteousness gives us all things pertaining to life and godliness, has us immersed in the divine nature escaping the lust of the world, and one becomes a proof producer in the knowledge of Lord Jesus Christ. The Kingdom is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Being assured of your righteousness and freedom from condemnation produces a powerful, fruitful and joyful walk in the Spirit.
The Bible talks about three worlds, each of which consisted out of a heaven and an earth. The third world – again with a heaven and an earth – started with the death and resurrection of Jesus, and this is the new heaven and earth spoken of in II Peter 3 (the home of the righteous). In II Corinthians 5:17 Paul calls us new creatures in Christ Jesus. That means that anything inside of us which is not of Christ, belongs to the old and that in that area we are failing to live up to what the Word says about us. We need to be taught the reality of who we are in Christ by the Holy Spirit, in other words, to have our minds renewed. As new, freshly created creatures in Christ after being born again, we have new realities, the first being that we have moved into an abundant, eternal, God-kind of life right here, right now, ruling and reigning in this world through it. Our second reality is that the only nature we now have is one that is new, sinless and divine. Thirdly, we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit of Christ and God, who is making us holy, unlimited, creative, powerful, unique and distinctive. The fourth reality is that God has given us the potential of having another mind, which is the mind of Christ, the unlimited genius of God, enabling us to know all things, for instance, who we are in Christ, or having divine ideas about new inventions. The fifth reality is that, even as God formed Adam with his hands, we have also been lovingly newly formed by God himself and that He had sent his beloved only Son to die for us in order to accomplish this – He loves us so totally. The sixth reality is that we have total authority in heaven and on earth. The seventh reality is that we have become God’s dwelling place and are totally and completely blessed and loved by God.
God’s promise to us is that we will be awakened to know Him, his truth, power and purpose. In these times it is important to have the right theology in place. The Word of God is our firm foundation during times of fear and confusion in the world. The teaching that the Kingdom of God will be coming at some time in the future or after we die is incorrect, for the Kingdom of God is now, inside of us. Jesus died on the cross to establish the Kingdom and make us part thereof. Jesus was born a king and He preached the Kingdom performing signs, wonders and miracles in confirmation thereof. In receiving the Holy Spirit, we receive the spirit of a king. A King’s position is inherited, he cannot be voted out of power, his word is law and he owns everything. God’s priority is for us to first seek the Kingdom, a kingdom of righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Ghost and we will see everything else we need added when we find it. Religion is a system that produces rules and regulations, but The Kingdom produces a culture where it is normal to read the Word, to pray, to love, to give. To experience the Kingdom of God, we need to be born again, believe God like a child, and be filled with the Holy Spirit. We need to constantly, in every situation, have our priorities straight and be aware that we are kings with the Kingdom of God inside of us and rule over these situations – manifesting and representing the Kingdom, wherever we go.
When we look at the cross the first question to ask is “who was the angry party here”? The angry party was man’s fallen mindset, not God. When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they identified themselves with natural corruptible creation instead of the incorruptible likeness and image of God, which action led to death. In their own minds, they became enemies of God, while in actual fact He was not their enemy, He was still searching for them in the Garden of Eden. They perceived God as being angry, and that they needed to appease Him by a sacrifice – which mindset was continued, carried over into the times when people believed in false gods, also trying to appease them with sacrifices. The second question is: “what was the demand”? Jesus came to reveal the Father. God’s true character is to love, not to want sacrifice and burnt offerings, as is stated in Hebrews 5. It was the law that demanded the sacrifice of blood. Having been born under the law, Jesus came and laid down His life to appease man’s anger, guilt and shame once and for all, so that we can start identifying ourselves with our true identity which is the image and likeness of God, our Father in heaven. God’s justice is corrective, not punitive; He always has our best interests at heart, His will being to give us life, not death. Death is the result of sin, not an act of punishment from God.
We have been redeemed to rule and reign on this earth and there is a coming glory that will cover the face of this planet. We need to awaken to the reality of who we are in Christ – a new creation, not beneath, but above, not behind, but ahead, not under- but above circumstances, not cursed, but highly blessed – all through the grace of God. We are of heaven, living on earth. We are being transformed into manifesting an ever-increasing, unending glory and light as we behold the image of God in the face of Christ. We, as the second creation through Jesus, will redeem the first which had been subject to decay. The seven miracles done by Jesus which are listed in the gospel of John are paralleled by that which God did in the first week of creation – confirming the fact that Jesus was establishing a new creation. The eighth miracle (the number eight symbolizing the beginning of something new) was the resurrection of Jesus. The hope to which we have been saved is not a rapture, but the redemption of our bodies, the adoption to full mature sonship, resulting in a glory which is to be revealed through us, covering the whole planet. To be in Christ means that there are no generational curses, because we are a completely new creation, we do not have the nature of Adam, but that of Christ, and we will never be subject to negative judgment. We are His planting, His building, connected with Him and each other; we have full access to God because of His righteousness having been imparted to us. We are to awaken to who we are – sons of God, earthen vessels filled with a glorious treasure, fearfully and wonderfully re-made in Christ Jesus.
Like in the days of Daniel and his friends, there is a generation coming who will not bow its knees to the spirit of the world but will stay true to God. Daniel’s prophecies are some of the clearest in the Old Testament. He prophesied the rock (God’s kingdom) which would demolish the statue (depicting the worldly governments). The accuracy of these prophesies proves that there is a God in charge who is with us and communicates with us. We are part of His kingdom which is increasing and filling the whole earth. Since the time of the fall in Genesis it could be clearly seen that natural man is not inclined to submit to the rulership of God. However, since the time of the fall, every man-made kingdom or government which at first seemed to be to the benefit of man, contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction and eventually imploded. The same is true today. We see a world-wide shaking taking place which is largely self-manufactured because of the refusal to bow to Jesus Christ. But, through all of this God is getting the Church ready. God is increasing His Kingdom and of the increase thereof there will be no end. There is no rapture, tribulation or millennium to come but this shaking is causing an awakening, causing revival in the Church as well as in society because confidence in worldly supporting systems has disappeared. Spiritual slumber is caused by the sin (the flesh), a time of lack or famine, fortune and fear but we are going to wake up and see God’s provision in every situation and not be distracted by fortune or familiarity, casting out all fear. God is telling us to awaken to what He wants to do in 2021. He wants us to awaken to His person, to the truth of the Word, His power and to His purpose – which is His Kingdom.
Nothing in scripture is recorded by happenstance. Everything written down is inspired by the Holy Spirit and it is there for a reason. Centuries before the birth of Jesus Balaam prophesied the star which was to be seen in Bethlehem. In the time of Daniel, the magi or wise men were taught by Daniel about the coming Christ and they could accordingly work out the time when He would come. They saw the scripture in the book of Isaiah about kings coming to the light of His dawning and that was why they eventually went to Bethlehem to welcome- and bring gifts to Jesus. They were wise gentiles, who feared God and their actions were prophetic and symbolic of the fact that the gentiles would join Israel in the kingdom of God. The gifts brought by the magi, which gifts were brought in the absolute correct timing of God, was the provision needed for Joseph, Mary and Jesus to live in Egypt for three years. The gifts were symbolic, gold because Jesus was a king, frankincense symbolizing the priestly ministry of Jesus and myrrh speaking of Jesus being anointed to be the prophet of God. God has got a plan for our lives and we are to only keep walking with Him in wisdom in the new year, serving Him with our time, talents, treasures and testimony to see this come to pass. Whatever He calls us to do, He will make provision for and our part is to believe that the glory of the Lord has risen upon us and stay in the glory because that will attract the wise that are searching for God.
When the angel Gabriel appeared to Zachariah the father of John the Baptist, that was the beginning of the fulfilment of the prophesies regarding the Messiah. John was to be the forerunner to prepare the way for the Messiah and to return the hearts of Israel back to the faith and obedience of the fathers or patriarchs who had previously been expecting the Messiah. When Jesus came, it was a visitation of God to the earth which brought us merciful redemption from the enslavement to the god of this world, sin and fear of death, an enemy that hates us, and man’s unredeemed passions and desires. The coming of Jesus was the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham that all the earth would be blessed through his seed. Jesus was the horn of salvation – horn speaking of strength – powerful enough to redeem us. Our salvation was a power-extraction. We became the New Jerusalem, Zion. We are the righteousness of God in Christ, graciously and lovingly enabled to live a holy life by the Holy Spirit through believing in the offer of Jesus on the cross and repentance. Jesus was the light of God which came into the world to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, confirming every prophecy ever spoken about Him.
Although God had spoken creation into being, there is a very real aspect in which God spoke with His hands. God formed Adam with His hands, breathed His spirit into Adam, and thereby got intimately involved with His creation. Throughout the Book of Psalms, David refers to the work of God’s hands. Every human being has been formed by the hand of God – wonderfully, fearfully and specifically towards the purpose that we have in life. He will not forsake the perfection or fulfillment of the work which He had begun when He created us. God created nations, seasons, circumstances and events – for instance, He formed Israel to be a praise unto Him and He was intimately involved in the growth of Israel. The birth of Jesus was God’s last attempt to hold out His right hand (Jesus) towards wayward Israel and heal them from their religious cripple-mindedness. When they would not change, God’s hand turned against them. Jesus was the hand of God resting upon His little ones and He came to bring to fulfillment the prophecy of Isaiah, which was to take out the old and bring forth a new thing, a generation of Sons of God. God says through the prophet to ask of Him as well as to command Him in things concerning His sons. We are engraved and kept in God’s hand – we are irrevocably the recipients of the blessings and provision flowing from His right hand. Not only that, but we are now the hands of God stretched forth towards a dying world.
There is nothing that takes God by surprise. Before He does anything, it is preceded by intense preparation. Before the creation of man, God prepared the earth with the resources to sustain life. He also prepared the heavens or spiritual realm to be one with the earth. After the fall of man, God said that the seed of Adam would crush the head of Satan and He has been preparing this seed throughout history. From the beginning, there has always been and will always be enmity between the seed of the devil or serpent and the seed of God and although there may be a bruising to our heels as we stomp on him, we will always have the victory. Just the entrance of Jesus into this world spelled the destruction of Satan – how much more, now that He is ruling and reigning on earth in and through us. After the flood, Noah first released a raven, symbolic of flesh, and then a dove, symbolic of the spirit. When the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, it was God finding a dwelling place with man - heaven on earth. Jesus had a body that was prepared to do the will of God. Jesus went and prepared for us a place in the Father, He prepared for us to be part of a Body, as well as a garden, as we are His planting. We are part of a city, a Bride. A new heaven and earth have been prepared for the righteous. We are vessels of honour and God has perfectly prepared and equipped us for our life and good works. He has got us in his hands; He is in perfect control of our lives.
Every human being grows up disadvantaged with a wounded broken centre of gravity, fractured and having a defaced image of God – we are all in need of healing. This healing is called sanctification, a process which is geared toward the goal of perfection, maturity, the full stature and image of Jesus Christ, a life of godly love. From the moment when we first profess Jesus as our Saviour, He begins His ministry as our apostle, shepherd and high priest, husbanding the garden of our lives to bring forth the fruit of a godly character. When we get saved we are righteous because we are placed in Christ but we are also taught by the Word that we must clothe ourselves with Him and train ourselves, or our senses, to live a life of manifested holiness, discerning good and evil. Jesus is our armour, enabling us to stand in the day of evil. He is our guarantee of perfection. If we live by the Spirit and keep in step with Him, we will not fulfil the lust of the flesh and eyes, we will not have the pride of life and love for the temporal things of the world in us, but we will experience that the spirit of our minds is changed and transformed to love God. This love of God inside of us will result in our senses being so trained and exercised, that instead of them being an enemy, they become our ally, assistant and friend. This exercise of godliness and doing the will of the Father has eternal value. Drinking in the rain of the word of truth which is often falling has an automatic result in a person, which is the God-pleasing fruit of a godly character. Such a person can be entrusted with the blessing, power and authority of God, without the danger of being destroyed by it.
Walking and living in the Spirit naturally results in the Fruit of the Spirit being manifested in your life. Our walk in the Spirit and being led by the Spirit requires transformation. In view of the mercies of God we need to offer up our bodies as living sacrifices, this being our reasonable act of worship. This means the whole of our lives is to declare the worth-ship of God and exalting Christ. This will happen through us not conforming to the world, not having the lust of the flesh and eyes, and the pride of life – no conformity, but transformation. This transformation is a process of metamorphosis into the will of God, and understanding what his will is – not necessarily his sovereign will, because that is not always known to us – but certainly his revealed will, which is contained in the Bible. The path that we take towards this end is the path of wisdom with humility. We are not to walk in casual, spontaneous, powerless godliness (Christian by name and not by nature) but to walk on the path of wisdom from above which is obtained through knowing the Word. This brings us into freedom, which is not the freedom to do whatever we want. On the contrary, the transformation is to such a measure that we love to do that which we ought to do, all through the love of the Father inside of us. This transformation takes place in our minds, but also the spirit or attitude of the mind is changed because in the natural mind of man there is rebellion, self-centeredness, ignorance, passions and deceitful desires. We need the illumination of the Holy Spirit to get rid of the ignorance, but we need the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome the passions, otherwise, we will still be ruled by them instead of loving to do the will of God. The Holy Spirit illuminates and gives an understanding of the Word and in that process changes the spirit or viewpoint of your mind into seeing the glory of God in Christ. The transformation of our minds brings us to the light yoke of love and grace, free from the heavy yoke of law, sin and death. This is a truly free, transformed life of utter submission, total, loving enslavement unto God, a blending of your will with His – this is the mind of Christ. This results in godliness which is powerful, the path unto perfection. This is life in the Spirit.
The Bible differentiates between the flesh and the spirit. Old Testament living was very much in the flesh, but born-again believers, having the Spirit of Christ (or the image and likeness of God) inside of them, can live in the spirit. The likeness of God inside of us is His righteousness, His love. Walking in the Spirit and being led by Him, means that you have to fill your mind with the truth of the Word which will enable you to know His will. You also need to be conscious of- and prepared to acknowledge that His will takes precedence over yours. Walking in the Spirit means that you need to walk with a constant awareness that the Holy Spirit is walking with you. He is helping you in the process of your transformation through unutterable groans and tongues when you pray. He is leading you into all truth to a place where the fruit of the Spirit is manifested in you – this is the Spirit’s greatest priority. We are led by the Spirit to victory over certain characteristics of brokenness inside us. It is a lifestyle of transformation, where you will get numerous opportunities towards change. As many as are led out of their old broken way of living, into manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, are called the Sons of God. We are being led by the Spirit through the powerful hope which is put inside of us, i.e. that we will become a reflection of Jesus. God has created us and filled us with the spirit of adoption, lovingly working in us with the end-product in mind, which is us manifesting the fruit of the Spirit – a reflection of Jesus
The tone of our lives is of extreme importance. When a person is walking in the gifts of the Holy Spirit this should not be taken as a measure of the person’s spirituality. The gifts speak about the giver, but how much of the fruit of the Spirit is shining through someone’s character, is a true measure of growth and spirituality. However, God is constantly cultivating the garden of our characters, to bring us to the place where the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit are working in tandem. One of the most important fruit of the Spirit - which we see portrayed throughout the Bible - is an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude, or knowing how to properly say thank you, has two components, one being to glorify God and the other to manifest gratitude to the person who has done something for you. Gratitude needs to be expressed humbly, personally, with appropriate and sincere words – if necessary repeatedly, without using your gratitude to manipulate in order to get more, or making it about your own spirituality. You could be creative in showing your appreciative gratitude for ongoing support by giving a card, flowers, etc. When receiving a kind deed from someone, pass it on. The results of saying thank you properly are: It glorifies God, it brings His favour (because He gives grace to the humble), pride and independence are dealt with and in the process of learning to receive, one becomes a better giver. Gratitude prevents a person from having a victim mentality and makes you a you happy, fulfilled and resilient person.
We need to have a fresh desire to exercise the prophetic, which is a powerful, vital, important and relevant gift in the Body of Christ. The prophetic gift should be used to uplift, strengthen, encourage and comfort. To operate in this gift it is essential to walk in the Spirit and one’s motive for ministering prophetically should be one of love for the people. A prophetic word often serves as a confirmation of that which God has already spoken to the recipient of the prophecy. It also is a timely and directional word where God is foretelling, encouraging and inspiring someone towards fulfilling their destiny. There are various ways of receiving a prophetic word to minister to someone. For example, welling up from your innermost being you may see pictures, hear your own voice inside encouraging someone, have a specific scripture coming alive or a person being laid on your heart for prayer and encouragement. You may also experience someone being highlighted to you by the Holy Spirit. To grow in the gift, it requires faith, obedience and constantly exercising it. It is important to minister prophetically with a loving kind spirit in order to portray the heart of God correctly to the person being ministered to. When prophecy is not received in a positive way, it is good to stay objective and prayerfully trust in the Holy Spirit‘s leading on how to proceed and not allow this to discourage your further growth in the gift. The prayer life, walk with God and character of anyone ministering prophetically is of extreme importance. Prophecy is often preceded by a word of knowledge to help the person being ministered to, to believe that the word is in fact coming from the heart of God. Unfulfilled prophesies which have been discerned as having truly came from the Lord, should be contended for with faith and prayer, not put on the shelf and forgotten. There is a difference between the gift of prophecy, which everyone can walk in, and the ministry of a prophet. Prophets should not be put on pedestals, they are simply human vessels of God – support and pray for them. In the case of when there is a monetary pre-requisite from a prophet before a prophecy is given – do not go for it that is not how God operates.
The character of God is unity. There is coming a day when Jesus will be king over all of the earth, a kingdom of unity. When God created man from dust, He placed his image and likeness in him, but the first sin which man committed was trying to grab a hold of being equal with God by eating from the forbidden tree. Jesus was sent by God in the form of a man to be our Savior, the light of the word. Though born as a man in the form of God, He did not grab a hold of equality with God, but letting that go, He became a servant. Now that Jesus has been in a fleshly body such as we have and having put us in unity with the Father again by the cross, He has gone before us to prepare a place for us. This place is equality with God, but now through the right door, Jesus himself – this is what we are looking and reaching for. But, until then, let us follow our calling unto unity, loving God with everything in us and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Through Jesus we are all brethren. We are the generation who are to shine even brighter in this world than what He did.
Jesus was really serious about his instruction that when we give to the poor, pray and fast, it should be done without fanfare and having an expectation to be honored or rewarded by people for doing it. Prayer, fasting and giving which is done in secret and with a pure heart motivation before God, are game changers in the process of seeing a prophecy fulfilled in your life. Whatever is done in secret, will be publicly rewarded by God and be to His glory as well. These three things are game changers not only in our personal lives, but also bring the solution to the mess the world is in. It is necessary for us to be serious in following God’s principles and fighting for God’s promises and prophesies to come to pass. We will experience His favor when we follow His righteous principles with an unselfish heart. Brought by Nkosi Mohlopi
The seals of the book opened in Revelation 5 were all about the plans and purposes of God for creation – choosing a man (Abraham) to bring forth a pure nation (Israel) in order to bring forth the pure seed (Jesus) as God had promised Eve in Genesis and to eventually have the whole earth saturated with His glory. This will be the dispensation of God, when heaven and earth are brought together. Israel did bring forth the seed, but spurned the glory which God wanted to reveal through them by refusing to accept Jesus as their Messiah and killing the seed. Israel became a harlot, because the nation continuously turned away from God and worshiped idols instead. Revelation 17, 18 and 19 talks about Israel as Babylon, the harlot reaping a harvest of judgment. Revelation 10 talks about an angel with a rainbow over his head, legs like pillars of fire and a little book in his hand. This is Jesus coming with the cloud of witnesses, the rainbow over his head symbolic of a redeemed people after judgment, his legs like pillars of fire – symbolic of a people being led out by the Spirit. His one is foot on the land and one on the sea, speaking of all peoples and nations on earth being one in Christ. The book in his hand is an open, unsealed book – the revelation of Jesus Christ. The open revelation of Christ is as follows: Jesus came to reveal the glory of God – manifesting God in the flesh. The glory of God is his character, nature and essence. Christ in us is the hope of the brightness of this glory. This glory is the Spirit abiding in us. He is the hope, the guarantee, the pledge, down payment and seal of ownership, first-fruits, the seal and a guarantee of authenticity as well as a mystery. While we have this hope of the glory in us, creation (and we) is waiting and groaning for the revealing of the full glory of God through us, in order for creation (and us) to be liberated from frustration and corruption. We are awaiting our adoption – the redemption of our bodies, the full manifestation of the glory, to be conformed to the very image of Jesus and being placed as fully matured sons. The Spirit himself makes intercession for us towards this goal so that we can be to the praise of the glory of God. There is coming an appearance of Christ when we shall appear with him in glory. All flesh shall see the Glory of God in us – that is His will for us. If God is for us, who can be against us?
In the Book of Daniel there is a description of how judgment was set and the books were opened. God judged the nations symbolised by the beasts and statue unto destruction, and the everlasting kingdom was given to the Saints of the Most High. Revelation talks about ‘books’ and ‘a book’. The ‘book’ is the book of life or the Lamb’s book of life and remembrance wherein there is an indelible record written in Jesus’ blood of the name of everyone who has accepted Jesus as Saviour. These names have been cancelled and removed from the ‘books’. This book of Life is mentioned a number of times in the Bible. There is a number of a hundred and forty four thousand being sealed mentioned in Revelation – this represents the whole of the Church, old and new. They are sealed on their foreheads and right hands with the Father’s name for them, which is ‘Son’. They are the Body of Christ. Where there is judgment upon peoples’ works mentioned in the Book of Revelation, it is talking about the dead whose names are written in the ‘books’. This is another group of people, those who are without Christ, natural men, without the Spirit, empowered by the system of the beast. They are marked, their names are written in the ‘books’ and they are awaiting judgment for their works before the great white throne. This body of people is called the anti-Christ. Revelation 13 talks about a beast coming up out of the earth causing everyone to have a mark upon them. The earth here is referring to Rome combined with the religious system of Israel. The number 666 refers to a natural person, the evil trinity (the devil, the beast and the false prophet – Israel, whoring with Rome). We are sealed with the name Son upon us, which locks up God’s promise within us, authenticating us and also talking about an element of mystery. We are sealed with the Spirit of Promise until the day of full redemption. All of creation is looking and travailing for the unsealing, the full redemption, the unsealed glory of God’s Sons and Daughters
When Jesus said that He was going to prepare a place in the Father’s house, He was talking about a Jewish wedding, where the bridegroom and his father would pay a bride price to the bride’s father, which meant the couple were already legally married. The father and his son would then go back to their house to prepare a place for the bride – however long that would take – while the bride remained with her father. When the preparation was complete, the father would send the son to fetch his bride and a trumpet was sound, which was a signal to the bride to put on her wedding garments. Thereafter the marriage would take place. This was an analogy of what Jesus came to do. At the resurrection Jesus ascended to the Father after he appeared to Mary, to prepare an abiding place for His bride. In Revelation we read that the first heaven and earth had passed away and there was no more sea (outer court). The bride (The Body of Christ, the city, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the New Jerusalem) came, prepared for her husband. In the Jewish mindset the father’s house meant the temple in Jerusalem. The Holy of Holies was seen as heaven (the throne), the Holy Place was seen as earth, and the Outer Court contained a brazen container where the purification washing took place and that was called the sea. This was all a shadow of the true tabernacle in heaven. Because the Jews held on to this temple, which had a veil (the law) they were blinded to the new temple, it was a mystery. Jesus called Himself the temple, the new access to the Father, which statement thoroughly riled up the Jews. He was going to prepare a place of fellowship within Him. Jesus came through the true tabernacle (his body), He is the High Priest over the true tabernacle of God (man), writing the new law on their hearts. In the 40 years after the resurrection, Jesus was preparing a place for his Bride by revealing to the Church that they were the temple, the Kingdom of God. In AD70 the previous holy place (Jerusalem, the temple – the Jewish heaven and earth) was surrounded by the abomination of desolation (the Roman army) and everything prophesied about the day of vengeance against Israel in the Old Testament was fulfilled, total destruction of the system of Law and sacrifices. We need to get the revelation of the fact that God and His Kingdom is in us, that we are His temple, Holy Priesthood and have our actions manifest that to the people around us.
Looking at the dreams and prophecies in the Book of Daniel, it was all about what was going to happen to Daniel’s people, in other words, Israel – it had nothing to do with our day. The covenant being broken is referring to when Jesus died and the covenant God had with Israel was broken – His death was God’s release from His marriage to Israel, as well as the start of Israel’s judgment. Isaiah prophesied to Israel that their end had been determined by their beginning. Throughout the Old Testament God continuously warns Israel to amend their crooked and perverse ways – especially as was prophesied in the Song of Moses, where Israel’s end (although God had faithfully loved and cherished them) was predicted, should they fail to heed to God’s warnings. Deuteronomy 29:29 says that the secret things belong unto God, but the revealed things belong to us. When we look at the book in the right hand of God in Revelation 5 it was sealed, a secret. God had at first openly showed all the blessings and secret revelation which He had purposed to be Israel’s portion, but they refused to listen and it became sealed up, a mystery. God took His glorious mysteries back unto himself and kept it for a people that would see and understand. That is why Paul says in II Corinthians that as long as Moses is read, there is a veil. Jesus was the book which was sealed, spoken of in Daniel. By dying on the cross, He was opened, the mystery revealed. We are in Christ, and thus in that book. All of creation is groaning for its redemption which is in the final revelation – us being revealed in full sonship, because from the time of the fall, creation had been subject to frustration and vanity, but under a condition for hope. Jesus spoke about the Kingdom in parables, because the religious leaders of Israel were not willing to see and understand, although God graciously gave them multiple chances to repent. Jesus opened up the mysteries of God and the Spirit revealed it unto us and thus it became revelation. The scroll opening was the final judgment upon Israel and also the removal of the old religious system because Israel had forgotten the person and worshiped the form, even as it continues up until today. Let us accept the whole council of God in order to grow in Him and the understanding of His mysteries.
In Revelation 5 the Lion of the tribe of Judah came forth roaring to destroy the enemy, but the way by which He did it, was by being the lamb that was slain, enabling Him to open the scroll. In Hebrews 5 it is written about God taking away the first (the dispensation of the Law and everything pertaining to it) and to establish the second (a new city, priesthood and temple). Jesus said that after the cross He would be seen, sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven – clouds of judgment. In the book of Daniel, Daniel‘s interpretation of king Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was as follows: he saw that the statue had a head of gold (Babylon), a torso of silver (Mede and Persian empire), a waist of bronze (Grecian Empire), legs of iron and feet of a mixture of iron and clay (Roman Empire). A stone came and destroyed all these kingdoms. In a dream Daniel had, he saw beasts coming out of the sea (the sea being symbolic of nations) – a lion (Babylon), a bear (Mede and Persians), a leopard (Greece), and a terrible beast with iron teeth (Rome). God was saying that He would be ruling Israel with a rod of iron through Rome. Daniel then saw a vision of the Ancient of Days sitting, judgment being set and the books being opened. This judgment is on the nations being portrayed by the different parts of the statue and the beasts. They would be broken and their power taken away at the time of the cross (the stone), when the first is taken away and the second established. The spirit of the anti-Christ was the ruling and driving force throughout all those successive kingdoms, and still is today in the nations of the earth. Daniel then saw a glorious, everlasting and indestructible Kingdom being given unto the Son of Man. When Jesus came, it was the end of sin, iniquity and transgression and the start of everlasting righteousness, the anointing of the new holy temple. The seals being opened by the Lamb in the book of Revelation was portraying the same of that which Daniel saw, that is, judgement upon Israel. The seals were the judgment upon the people (Daniel’s people – Israel), the trumpet was the judgment upon the city and the vials of plagues upon the temple. The vision of Daniel and the vision of John is connected because John saw the same beasts (kingdoms) arising – energised by satan. The false prophet being Israel, because their priesthood spoke lies in comparison with Jesus who spoke truth, at the same time Israel also being the whore sitting on the beast with iron teeth (a dragon energised by satan – Rome). God has got a record of every evil deed done by every nation and organization and unless there is repentance and acceptance of Jesus, judgment will be invoked for these deeds, but the Saints of the Most High are blameless, judgment having been made in our favour on the cross of Jesus. We have received an everlasting Kingdom, dominion and authority. God has got the whole world in His hands!
Revelation 5 talks about a book or scroll which is written within and without and sealed with seven seals. The Lamb, having being slain was worthy to open this book. The moment Jesus died on the cross; the scroll began to be opened. Jesus said that it had been written about him in the volume of the book, which means that Jesus is written about throughout the whole Bible and to understand the ministry of Jesus as well as the book of Revelation (which is a revelation of Jesus Christ) one need to read the whole Bible. The Bible has two Testaments, containing 66 books, written in 3 basic languages (Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic), by different writers from all walks of life, all inspired by the Holy Spirit. Every book mentioned, but not included in the Bible, was not inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Bible is where heaven and earth meet because it is an expression of God’s will, desire and character. The first 5 books, the Pentateuch, were written by Moses through revelation given to him by God. It consists out of the Book of Beginnings, the Book of the Generation of Adam, the Book of Memorial, the Book of Wars and the Book of the Law. The Pentateuch is followed by the chronicles of the Kings, the Book of Psalms and the Books of the Prophets. Jesus said that all the books of the Old Testament were fulfilled in Him. With the exception of the books written by John, the New Testament was written over a period of 40 years, a time of testing, judgment and a time to end or establish a generation. Jesus came like a thief in the night to Israel at their time of gross darkness. This was the beginning of the end of the Kingdom of Israel and the Law and the beginning of the Kingdom of God and of his Christ. The old had to pass away in order for the new to be established on the earth. John did not write about the law, condemnation and fighting the devil but he wrote about the God of love, the glorious Son of God and the Kingdom of light, and his writings culminate in the Book of Revelation, which was all about what Jesus had accomplished on the cross. This was all written about by Daniel – the destruction of every other Kingdom, the establishing of God’s Kingdom and authority in and through His saints, judgment being made in favour of the saints, and then he is told to seal it up until the time of the end. This end was the end of the Jewish religious system – when Jesus came. Through Jesus’ death on the cross we have authority over all realms, our names are written in the book of live, in heaven, in the palms of God’s hands, a glorious, victorious Church – open books.
When we look at what happened in Genesis with the building of the tower of Babel, there was great power available to people because they had the unity which came from having one language. That unity was countered by God by creating many languages. In the Book of Acts we see the Holy Spirit bringing unity by giving the gift of tongues to the Church. Tongues can be towards being interpreted, speaking mysteries to God or declaring the wonders of God to someone in that person’s own language, which language is unknown to the speaker. Language defines a culture, it can be developed, interpreted, and be used to exhort or express an emotion. It is the same with the heavenly language. It is important to speak in tongues, because God wants the Church to have the power locked up in this gift. To receive this gift takes getting out of your mind, using faith, and allowing God to grow it. Speaking and singing in tongues is speaking to God, strengthening or edifying yourself, building faith and praying God’s solutions. During a church service, messages in tongues (through two or three persons) need to be interpreted to build up and uplift the Church. Don’t rob yourself of this powerful gift, and in every circumstance, default to praying in the Spirit.
It has been found in a scientific study done about faith and character, that there is nothing that transforms a person’s character and conducts more than the understanding of grace and faith in Jesus Christ and having learned during childhood that God is kind, merciful, and forgiving. We have all received faith as a gift from God and we use that faculty to believe God. The goal of our faith is the salvation of our souls. Hope is the start of, and a big component of faith. When we believe, God is pleased because our faith is a commodity which is being exchanged for the fulfilment of promises and blessings in our lives. It was found in the abovementioned study that everyone goes through duration of stress which is made up of life events, chronic strains, and daily hassles and uplifts. In all of this, active faith is needed. During these times, who and what people turn to, determines whether their faith is active or not. Of the people who were studied, there were pertinent characteristics typical of those who had an active faith: they tend to be happier, deal better with life’s difficulties and are healthier and more prosperous. They have far less struggles with a low self-esteem. These people have an inward locus of control. (Locus of control is the control a person has over his/her life) When a person’s control is internal and based on faith, they can say during stressful times “look what I can do”, “I can determine my future”, “although I failed, I will try again”. People like this have a higher thought level, being extremely positive, optimistic, hopeful and peaceful, believing that all things are possible to God. When your control is external, your attitude during duration of stress will be to try to run and hide, saying “why me” or “why bother” – a victim or martyr mentality. Although we often vacillate between the two, one can change and become a victor in Christ through an active faith, believing God. We need to guard our faith with the help of the Holy Spirit because in the process of actively believing, transformation takes place inside of us, moving us to a place of a continuous strong internal positivity.
In Genesis we see that God was a gardener, having planted the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve would fellowship with God in the cool of the evening, eating from the Tree of Life (God) – Hs Words which had seed inside – and that is why they were then in the nature and character of God. When they ate the words of satan (words containing the seed of death), they were no longer the seed of God but of satan, and that is why Jesus called the Pharisees the seed of the serpent or children of satan. In the Garden of Eden, the fig tree was a picture or parable of fruitless man-made religion. The symbol of Israel in the Bible is an olive tree. Jesus was the Tree of Life. He went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray before He was crucified. Gethsemane means ‘an olive press’ and that is where the pressing of Jesus had begun, so that the oil could flow, enabling his anointed ones to come forth. On the resurrection morning, Jesus did not deny it when Mary thought that He was the gardener, but told her not to touch Him, because His blood had to be presented to the Father – after that the Tree of Life could be touched – the way into the garden and the Tree of Life having been opened. In the Book of Revelation we see that from the throne of God and the Lamb there is a river flowing, which is the river of life (the highway of holiness). There is the garden restored, because there is a nurturing gardener. We have the right to eat from the Tree of Life - Jesus - because we have believed and overcame. That also makes us trees of life. We are the planting, the well-watered garden of the Lord, being husbanded, blessed and restored by Him. Jesus broke sin’s curse of thorns and thistles upon the earth and the curse upon man having to earn a living by the sweat of your brow, by wearing a crown of thorns upon his head so that we may be blessed and in our turn, release the planet from the curse of poverty and sickness. We have the fruit of lips (our words) which contain the seed-word of God and it will produce supernatural results. God is at present opening up the garden, which is the Church, pruning her, because He wants fruit, more fruit and much fruit. That is for His glory, our good and towards the benefit to the whole world which needs our light and fruit.
HE MAKES ALL THINGS NEW 4 (OVERCOMING GOD) While we are already saints, we are also in the process of sanctification or the nurturing of our nature because God is completely, relentlessly and lovingly committed to our lives. When we look at the history of Jacob, we see an example of God’s nurturing or sanctification of an individual. Even before Jacob’s birth, God had promised Rebecca, his mother that he, the younger, would be served by his older brother. Jacob was named a conniver from his birth and throughout his life we see him (and his mother), conniving to get a hold of this promised blessing of God – this was all a work of the flesh, and he had to undergo some nurturing or sanctification of his nature, to get him to the place where he would stop conniving and give over to God completely. Jacob went through the experiences of having to flee from his home, chaotic and complicated marriage situations and an uncle with the same conniving nature as him. Although it seemed like God was absent in Jacob’s life throughout all of this, He was there all the time, nurturing Jacob. When Jacob returned home, he had reached a time-sensitive, critical hour in his life. There at the brook Jabbok, at night, and all by himself, he wrestled with God. This was the place where he cried out, weeping, travailing and wailing unto God for His blessing and favour. They wrestled until daybreak, when God had Jacob admitting who he was. God then admitted defeat and blessed Jacob, which blessing revealed who God was, and He changed Jacob’s name or nature from being independent and manipulative to being dependent upon God, a prince of God, a God-overcomer. The Church as a whole and many individuals are also at a dark, time-sensitive hour, a Jabbok time. We are at a place where we need a greater revelation of God, wrestling and overcoming Him, seeking to meet with Him face to face, in order to become partakers of God’s blessing. We need to get to the place where we have a revelation that He is OUR God, even as Jacob did. When you overcome God, you actually overcome yourself and everything around you will change. God is nurturing the Church, preparing us, enabling us to contain that which He is going to bring to pass in the earth.
Because of the nationwide lockdown which came through the COVID-19 virus, there was no business done, jobs were lost and a lack of finance coming into households. This is also a time of sickness and hopelessness, causing fear, doubt and destruction. The solution to all of this is to know our awesome God and to have a deep realization of everything which Jesus did for us on the cross. We need to connect to God in this troublesome time to turn this mountain into a molehill. For that to happen we need to have a persistent, persevering, determined faith in God’s nature and who He is. There is no giving up on persistently and desperately seeking and calling out to God when circumstances try to shut us up. God is moved when He sees this faith in you, because your persistence is a sign that you know who God is. Tenacious faith does not happen by chance. Faith comes through hearing the Word and trusting God and totally surrendering to Him is a conscious decision. Faith is where risk, trust and obedience are involved. Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible. God loves us, and He has got us, although we do not always see it.
The things of faith and spirit are always invisible, but God speaks about them long before it happens. God always takes the initiative and makes the first move towards bringing new things to pass, as He is doing now. Our response to God’s initiative is faith – cause and effect. Looking at it in escalating order, the first component of our faith is to trust the Lord (move the weight of your dependence onto Him), doing good and being fed by Him. The second component of our faith is to delight ourselves in the Lord and get to know Him better in a tender relationship and see your heart’s desires met. The third component is to commit (rolling over) your way unto the Lord – seeking His ways, not your own, in order to find fulfilment. The fourth component is resting (being silent, not complaining and fretting) in the Lord, acknowledging His greatness and see Him act on your behalf. The fifth response is to stop reacting wrongly (anger, despondency) to circumstances and rather respond with faith and reaching for an infilling of more of the Lord. All these points are counted as meekness – which will result in us inheriting the earth. We will see God responding to our response by encouraging us to go for the Kingdom.
Heaven is an intangible realm, but Jesus is the contact between that intangible and the realm where we are. When we look at the prepositions ‘from’ and ‘in’ – the Bible says our citizenship is in heaven, where our names are recorded, so we are powerful representatives from an intangible realm in a tangible realm. Whatever God has spoken from heaven over our lives, is settled – all it requires of us is to believe and speak the same word, to see angels going into action to bring it to pass. Every need which we have for life and godliness is met from heaven. There are blessings which we still have to experience, provided that we keep in touch with heaven. God looks down, hears, answers, and provides from heaven, and He is the one fighting for us in our battles, using all kinds of spiritual weapons from heaven, for instance, the angelic hosts.
God has got a plan for this planet and we are not stumbling along at the whim of people who are manipulating the system for their own gain. Morning is preceded by the night, a period of darkness, which can perceived as a lack of God’s presence, the lack of opportunity, a time of no word and revelation from God and of demonic activity - sin and iniquity abounding. However, God is bringing a joyful new day or morning, which speaks of a new set of activities, a time of new opportunities – a time of His favour which will last for a lifetime. Morning is God’s time to start something new, a time for fresh vision, new spiritual commitment, and the occurrence of special events. Morning by morning He dispenses His judgment, positive towards the righteous and negative towards the unrighteous and wicked. God sends out His vindicating word every morning and we need to position ourselves in the day of our trouble, in a sense rising early in the morning, responding with worship and prayer and looking unto Him instead of being negative. That is the way to hear from God about new opportunities and provision. It is a new day for spiritual insight and growth. God is creating something new in the earth now and we need to be aware of it. There is coming a morning when all unrighteousness in the earth will be reversed, because God is not mocked.
God wants us to be prosperous for the sake of the gospel and the kingdom. However, if the issue of prosperity and financial gain is not in a right and balanced place in someone’s life, it can become a snare. Godliness with contentment is of great gain. Discontent or mal-contentment can form a major base of being offended with God as well as people who seem to be more blessed than you – true contentment rejects envy. Contentment is not being indifferent to the suffering of others and tolerating wrong. It is not eradicating a desire from your own heart for change, upliftment, growth and financial prosperity, neither is it passivity, capitulation, fatalism, petulance and denial nor even resting in the status quo. Contentment is an inner heart attitude and an acceptance concerning God’s provision for you and also of the position where you find yourself at that moment of your life. Contentment is a settled disposition and heart-attitude of where you know that God’s gifts are sufficient and his assignments appropriate for your life and knowing that God is always propelling you forward and upward. True contentment avoids the love of money and grumbling, jealous comparison with others, whining and complaining. Get wisdom from God for good stewardship and to manage your finances. We need to be deeply grateful, while simultaneously having a godly dissatisfaction, groaning and travailing, knowing and understanding your upward calling and God’s good plan for you and His expected end for your life. Walk with God – He is your true contentment.
God is really good at hiding Himself during times of chaos (like now, with the COVID-19 crisis), but then the time comes when He reveals and manifests Himself, in the same way as when the Holy Spirit was hovering (incubus or incubating) over the waters during the time of creation. When God said “let there be”, that which had been in incubation by the Holy Spirit, came into manifestation. This is also happening during this time period. At this moment there is an overshadowing of the Spirit taking place over the earth. What shall spring forth now, is that God will anoint us with fresh oil, doing a new thing in the earth, asking us to forget all that has gone before and focusing on Him alone. This fresh anointing, a touch of God, is what we need to change every adverse circumstance in our lives. God, as a master builder, is building upon every previous anointing, bringing a fresh new surpassing glory, new wine, a different nature or identity, a new song, everything fresh and new The glory of God is our reward. The results of the fresh anointing are: consecration for the mission, God ennobling you, invigorating and enabling you, giving you an overflow wherewith to bless others, illuminating and enlightening you and making you a sweet-smelling perfume, to spread everywhere the fragrance of Christ.
In Genesis we see that the Spirit of God, with whom He had created man, left after the fall and that man was no longer immortal. After the fall the Spirit would come upon people for specific tasks or reasons and then leave again. In the book of Joel, he prophesied that God would pour out His Spirit on all flesh. Jesus, the last Adam, received the same Spirit of creation who now abided with Him and Jesus started healing His creation. We have received this same Spirit (the breath, the energy of God). He is the Spirit who knows the deep things and thoughts of God and reveals them to us. To walk in the Spirit we need to deeply know our identity as Sons of God, walk in love, be diligent to obey the promptings and guidance of the Holy Spirit and pray in the Spirit through tongues. This will produce the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. God has enabled us to have the default of walking in the Spirit by the indwelling Holy Spirit, but we have the choice, whether to follow Him, or the dictates of the flesh.
God delights in pleasing us with every good and perfect gift from Him. Our response to His goodness should be an intense desire to please Him, even throughout the hardest times in our lives as well as at the times where there is pressure from society to conform to some things which are not pleasing to God. We please God by: Sharing the Gospel with people. Approaching Him with faith – consistently seeking Him and believing under every circumstance that He is everything which He says He is. Being spiritually minded – having a mindset which is in accordance to God’s word and principles in everything (which is, in actual fact, the very best way to live). To Conduct your life with a healthy fear of- and respect for God – which is a motivation to avoid sin. Following Jesus, since He was always absolutely obedient to God, pleasing Him, and being found in Christ, we are accepted in the beloved. Being obedient to God is pleasing to Him. Lastly He is pleased with the sacrifice of our lips, that is, our praise unto Him amidst every circumstance. We need to live right and always be consciously pleasing God because the pleasure of God comes back to us in the form of favour. Our continuance in pleasing God is extremely powerful.
God is not the originator of tests and trials, but He allows us to go through them. He then turns them into something which He can use, by revealing things about ourselves to us – but that not in a negative sense. Tests are there to proof the things which you have learned by trial. The purpose and advantage of this is that one is to come out of the trial with a pure, powerful faith which will stand up to anything as well as being enabled to help others who are going through the same kind of trial. God is setting you up for success, to be glorified. Our response to- and application of the Word throughout the trials will be a revelation of the glory of God. The result flowing out of a test is firstly a proven faith, life and character. Secondly a pure life, thirdly a powerful life, fourthly a productive life and lastly a praised life where others will praise God for you and God will then praise you. Having a lifestyle of doing healthy and Godly-righteous self-introspection and testing is a good way of avoiding trials in your life.
Traditional Jewish weddings consisted out of a bride price being paid by the bridegroom’s family to the bride’s father and then the bridegroom would leave his future bride with her father and go and prepare a place for them to live after the wedding. At the completion of this preparation, the actual wedding or marriage supper would take place. Jesus paid the price for His bride on the cross. He spelled out to his disciples that He was the temple or the father’s house, and that the dwelling place He was going to prepare, was in him, not actual houses. He was the true tabernacle of God, a building not made with hands. Jesus prepared a place for us by building us up as a spiritual temple, a true temple of God, where the veil is removed so that we can see who we are. The temple of God is us, not some earthly building or temple. The marriage supper of the Lamb is to freely eat of the tree or bread of life which exists within us.
When we pray, we must believe that God has heard us and that God has grace with us. When there is a delay in receiving the answer, do not repeat the prayer in unbelief, but pray against that which is causing the delay. Rather confess and speak grace and that which God has said in His word over your situation and believe that. In His grace is healing, help, salvation, protection and provision. When we shout grace, grace, we are actually shouting provision, protection. When we cry for help, we immediately receive grace and more grace. There is coming a day when we, as the church, will be as bright as Jesus, who is the sun. This will be the day in which we are perfected and walking completely and uncompromisingly according to the will and word of God.
Very often we are waiting for God to do something but it could be that God is waiting for an action from us – when you move with vision, God responds with provision. We see examples of this in the Bible where it says ‘give and you shall receive’, ‘show mercy and forgiveness and you will receive mercy and forgiveness’ or ‘if you lay down your life you will live’ – this is how the Kingdom of God operates. When we move towards God, He will move towards us. We need to trust God, submit to His Lordship and move with him and not hold on to what is comfortable or familiar to us – Abraham had to act by leaving his home in order to obtain the Promised Land and be a blessing to the countless generations which followed him. It could even be sin, being in a relationship with the wrong person, or a wrong attitude which God cannot bless, which is keeping us from receiving from God that which He wants to give to us. Sometimes it is necessary to complete the last thing God had given you to do before the next phase or move of God will come. It is important to get wisdom from God in doing the works of faith and move on with Him.
God has blessed us with the amazing gift of eyes, but there is one flaw to this gift, which is that our eyes can only see the physical reality around us. However, as Christians, we are enabled to see far more than this physical reality by spiritual sight, whereby we can relate to God and each other. Once one starts seeing spiritual truth, this ability becomes accumulative. Our spiritual vision is often blinded by the glare of that which the physical eyes are beholding. It is important to cherish spiritual sight which comes through the Word and the Holy Spirit. It is important to not only see what God has done in the past but to be able to see the plan which He has for our lives in the future - this enables us to dream, see visions and prophecy and declare those dreams and visions – dreams and visions of hope, life, prosperity and blessedness. Once we operate in these dreams, visions and prophecies (which God has given initially) He responds with wonders in the heavens because He is watching over his word, to perform it. Vision has got power – it gives you focus, energetic passion and motivation and will help us to channel and form priorities to change the trajectory of our lives and aim it towards the end-goal which God has purposed for us. Vision also attracts the attention of- and provision from God.
Keys to your prosperity - Part 2 http://www.acf.org.za/ Go and subscribe to our social media platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/OutrageousGraceTV/ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/outrageousgracetv/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/john-wasserman-podcast/id1472356627/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnWassermanACF/
We need to trust God, since He knows every situation which we face and it is His will for us to be blessed. He is faithful and He is with us and for us, and having given us Christ, will graciously give us everything which we need for life. Signs, wonders, miracles and healing should be our normal every-day Christian experience – it is now the time for the Church to progressively be the gracious hand of God extended towards the world. We need to release our faith to speak and demonstrate the Kingdom of God. In this broadcast Pastor John shared testimonies of many occasions where the Holy Spirit revealed the plight of people who needed healing and their resulting miracles. He also demonstrated the gift of knowledge by calling out many prophetic healings and miracles.http://www.acf.org.za/ Go and subscribe to our social media platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/OutrageousGraceTV/ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/outrageousgracetv/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/john-wasserman-podcast/id1472356627/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnWassermanACF/
Our God is a supremely generous, lavish, and giving god and He blesses us abundantly according to his riches in Christ Jesus. Stewardship and finances are one of the central themes of the Bible because that is one of the means by which God blesses us. Generous people are people who often give more than required, give towards causes, give out of their substance or sacrificially, give more than just their money, give when it doesn’t make sense, to help others – even to those from whom they happen to differ. Generous people give to see the impossible become possible – even sometimes just in the form of a breakthrough seed. Generous people give out of a transformed and enlarged life, out of their own poverty, and often where others will not. Generous people are concerned about people, and therefore generously give of their time, energy, and spirit in intercession for others. Generous people are worshippers, giving their adoration freely to God. People of a generous spirit are those who are not self-focused but enjoy serving, lovingly putting the needs of others first and uplifting them. In all of this Jesus was our perfect example, when He gave his all for our salvation. http://www.acf.org.za/ Go and subscribe to our social media platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/OutrageousGraceTV/ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/outrageousgracetv/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/john-wasserman-podcast/id1472356627/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnWassermanACF/
A sign of being filled with God’s Spirit is that you firmly, persistently and consistently take your stand upon God’s word, His principles and commands and delights in doing so, because you realize that they are to your benefit. To have this attitude, requires a firm grip upon your heart, what you look at or listen to, refusing negativity and keeping your eyes on Jesus and the Word of God. Other signs are consistent giving and a holding on to your good, positive confession. People who do this, is the kind of people that God restores after a time of loss. He is a God of restoration and He will restore everything to the Church, the Bride of Christ which had been lost, whether physical, financial or emotional. We are prisoners of hope and need to trust God implicitly because He will fulfill his word to us after we had clung tenaciously onto him throughout every negative circumstance through which we have had to suffer.
The post-Pentecost church or apostolic community was a totally different group of people from what they were before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit now indwelling them, they were a group of people who needed no forcing or cajoling to be together, but they devoted themselves to joyful fellowship and connection to each other. They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching, because they hungered for the word and could now understand through the Holy Spirit, the spirit in which they Old Testament had been written. They also devoted themselves to the breaking of bread, celebrating the powerful reality of Christ, participating in His death, burial and resurrection and everything that He had accomplished on the cross. They devoted themselves to fellowship, being overwhelmingly generous and genuinely loving each other with a godly love. They also devoted themselves to prayer, having experienced the power of prayer prior to Pentecost. It is important to be committed and connected to the Body of Christ, in order for the blessings which is in the Body to also flow through each individual. This New Testament Church was also a church of joy and praise, reflective of the dynamic, energizing life of the Spirit within. They were also people who joyfully and spontaneously witnessed about Jesus to others. They were positive people, an incredibly powerful church with their hope firmly fixed on the Kingdom of God, a Church who changed the whole world. http://www.acf.org.za/ Go and subscribe to our social media platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/OutrageousGraceTV/ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/outrageousgracetv/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/john-wasserman-podcast/id1472356627/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnWassermanACF/
The Holy Spirit is the gift which had been promised. He also brings to fulfillment all the promises of God in our lives. The day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was the birth of the Church, the new covenant or testament. In the Jewish culture the day of Pentecost was a day of great celebration, rejoicing and happiness. This was a foreshadowing of Jesus’ eternal abode in the heart of every believer. On the day of Pentecost it was the first time in human history that God came to indwell human beings. It was a supernatural, powerful, forceful and energetic occurrence. He is the dynamo and energizer in our lives. Being baptized in the Spirit unifies people from all nations, making us Christians. There are two aspects to the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Firstly the person being baptized is put into Christ, and secondly, simultaneously, Christ is placed into him/her. We need to constantly keep on filling up the Spirit within us, because the Spirit within us is an ever-increasing glory. The heavenly tongues spoken on the Day of Pentecost was a sign to Israel that the old had gone and that the new was come. Tongues were also a sign of the unifying of all nations as one City, the heavenly Jerusalem in Christ, in contrast to the division which came through the language confusion which God implemented at the Tower of Babel. The Church was established here as mount Zion, the chief of all mountains, the light of the world. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was firstly the arrival of Jesus’ indwelling presence and secondly the empowering of the Church for the mission of being witnesses of Jesus Christ as well as the enablement to live the day-to-day Christian life. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of glory, grace and truth and He has a ministry to-, in- and through us. He is always with us, helps us, convinces us of our sonship, anoints us, sanctifies us, removes our loneliness by grafting us into a local Church, gives our lives a purpose and destiny and enables us to fulfill it. Jesus called us to live a supernatural life and endued us with this supernatural person who enables us.://www.acf.org.za/ Go and subscribe to our social media platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/OutrageousGraceTV/ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/outrageousgracetv/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/john-wasserman-podcast/id1472356627/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnWassermanACF/
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Jesus instructed his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they had received power. Waiting patiently is something which we need to learn, because no-one likes to lose control over their lives. Our biggest battles are often during long periods of waiting, when we have to fight to keep all the negative emotions of fear and anxiety at bay. Waiting could also be frustrating and many people try to help God when things don’t happen when expected and thus negate the plan of God for them. God, however, has a pattern, which is: the word plus waiting equals manifestation. Instead of fretting and looking around at circumstances, He wants us to quieten our hearts, get the peace that comes through faith in his character, praising him with songs in the night and to stand strong, taking courage. The disciples had to wait 10 days – which is a time of submission with a view to receiving privilege and responsibility. How we wait determines how long we will wait. Waiting on God is not passive. We need to wait strategically, cultivating good fruit such as patience, perseverance and endurance. We need to believe that the God, who saved us, loves us deeply and is intimately involved in our lives, has the best in store for us and hears our prayers. The cross is the guarantee that God is for us, and committed to us. We also need to have the grace to understand that God will sometimes say ”not yet” or even “no”. Make sure that the promise you are waiting for is in accordance to- and in the spirit of the promises given in Word of God. During the times of waiting for God, there is much power in staying steadfastly in prayer and thanksgiving and waiting with expectancy and being prepared for an answer. Meditation on and confession of God’s goodness are a team during a time of waiting. Blessed are all who wait for God.
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God is love, and He made us in his image – we were made to love. Nothing will ever separate us from the love of God and we need to have a revelation of this unconditional love. Jesus was the goal and end of the age of the Law. The goal of this age is our maturity and perfection, standing in the full measure, the full stature of the fulness of Christ. This stature is perfect love. We need to have the revelation that we are living in the boundaries of the irresistible love of God and have been delivered from the torment and fear of judgment. There is no greater revelation than the fact that God loved us with such an absolutely perfect love that He gave Jesus to die for us to be reconciled to Him and that we need not fear judgment ever again+-. We need to allow Jesus to heal our brokenness and accept His perfect love. Love is essential for our physical, psychological and spiritual health as well as to grow up towards spiritual maturity. We have literally been engineered to love and be loved. There is nothing else in existence that can fill the need every human being has for love. Love is the core of Christianity, in contrast to the theory of evolution which is based on ‘survival of the fittest’. In accepting and abiding in His agape love, we will also be enabled to give the same love to those around us.Go and subscribe to our social media platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/OutrageousGraceTV/ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/outrageousgracetv/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/john-wasserman-podcast/id1472356627/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnWassermanACF/ http://www.acf.org.za/
As we progress through the Book of Revelation, we see a progression from Jesus as the Son of Man to Jesus as the Son of God, the Lord of Glory the King over his Kingdom on earth. He has set us up as kings and priests here to rule and reign forever. In Hebrews 9:28 it is written about them (us) who are looking for and expecting Christ and that He shall appear to them a second time, bringing full salvation. In Ephesians 1:13-14 Paul talks about the Holy Spirit being the down payment of the full redemption or inheritance which is ours in Christ Jesus. In II Corinthians 5:1-8 Paul talks about our permanent heavenly body. Romans 8:18-23 talks about creation groaning for deliverance from bondage through the manifestation of the Sons of God and here it again talks about us having the deposit of the Spirit and groaning for the full redemption of our bodies. In I John 3:2 John talks about us being like Christ at His appearance. II Timothy 4:8 talks about something which those who have died and those who are alive, will experience. From all these scriptures it is clear that not everything was fulfilled in AD70. II Timothy 1:10 talks about death having been abolished and life and immortality brought to light through the gospel – which is still to be manifested. In Ephesians 4:11-16 Paul also talks about the Body being perfected unto a perfect man, the statue of the measure of the fullness of Christ – something for the future. I Corinthians 5:23-28 talks about the first-fruits – those who came out of the graves when Jesus was raised and Christ reigning until all his enemies have been put under his feet, the last enemy being death. It is written in Acts 24:15 talks about the resurrection of the dead – an occurrence which is still to happen. In Acts 3:20-21 we read about Christ being retained in heaven until the time of the restitution of all things. This is also something which is still to happen. Paul talks about the judgment of the quick and the dead at the appearance of Christ. In other words, His appearing will be consummation of His kingdom. In I Thessalonians 4:13-18 it talks of the voice of the angel (Jesus) calling forth all who have died to be united with their bodies and those still alive to be changed into immortality. This event is the returning of Jesus to earth, not the rapture. He is bringing the saints who have died with Him and this is when the meek inherits the earth, to rule and reign here. Revelation 21 says that the tabernacle of God is with men. The words ‘caught up’ means to be in another state, even as Paul experienced on the road to Damascus. “In the air” is talking about our breathable atmosphere. ‘Clouds’ are referring to the cloud of glory and divinity and the cloud of witnesses surrounding us, as was seen on the mount of transfiguration. In the last day there will be a rising up to full salvation, immortality and life and life in abundance. Jesus is returning spiritually, globally, to all peoples, to the whole Body of Christ. The return is conditional upon our expectation, our preaching of the gospel and our personal holiness. His glory is to be reflected in His glorious, victorious body, the manifestation of the Sons of God. This Kingdom is filling the whole earth.
The image, mark, name and number of the beast talked about in the book of Revelation is not some futuristic mark on our foreheads and hands. It is spiritual or symbolic of a mindset, conforming to a certain nature, in other words, it talks about people having the same mindset or character as the beast, being a reflection of him. There are more instances talked about in the Book of Revelation about the mark of God on His saints than that of the beast, all speaking symbolically of a mindset, character, actions and state of heart, not a physical mark. What John was writing about in the book of Revelation was an empire with an emperor with a religious order attached to it with the devil behind it that is influencing religious and secular rulers so that people would take on the image of this anti-Christ system. The number 666 is the number of man (or a group of men) elevating himself and putting himself in the place of God, to be worshipped as god. It is a body of people, an empire (as seen in the statue which king Nebuchadnezzar dreamed about in the book of Daniel and all of the beasts, also in the Book of Daniel as well as in the Book of Revelation) aligned with religion and energized by the devil, against the Messiah. The Anti-Christ has been in the world from the beginning, trying to destroy the seed that would eventually crush it. The Kingdom of God, however, is forever – world without end, amen.
The time of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 was the time of Christ’s second coming in judgment, as well as the time of the great tribulation. The visions and dreams written about in the Book of Daniel were all about God’s plans and intentions for- and the future of Israel, not us. The statue and beasts coming out of the sea were symbolic of successive future kingdoms, and correlates with the beasts in the Book of Revelation. The prophecy in Daniel is what the disciples were referring to, when asking Jesus about the end of the word. The prophecy talks about 70 weeks (490 years) pertaining to Israel and Jerusalem. The first 7 weeks were about the rebuilding of Jerusalem, then the 62 weeks (added to the first 7 = 69 or 483 years) goes up to the time of Messiah. The 70th week follows immediately thereafter, not 2000 years later – it is about Jesus, the Holy One who was made manifest and revealed by God as the Holy Spirit descended upon Him at His baptism, at the exact time prophesied by Daniel. Jesus was cut of 3½ years into his ministry after He had been baptised – making an end to sin and unrighteousness.. Jesus’ life sealed (verified) the vision of Daniel. The gospel of the Kingdom of God within a person was also a mystery to the prophets, but it was revealed through Jesus. In the book of Revelation John sees all the things written in Daniel coming to pass and the angel tells him to not seal it up, because the time was at hand. John had these visions very close to AD70. The sealed book written about in Revelation 5 was opened by the lamb, pointing to the crucified Christ who had to conquer and bring judgment on Jerusalem and bring to an end the whole sacrificial system which the Jews had corrupted and perverted, even being called the Synagogue of Satan in the Book of Revelation. The interpretation of the seals, trumpets and vials spoken of in the Book of Revelation, are as follows: The seals were about the judgment being poured out on the people of Jerusalem, the trumpets were about the city and the vials were judgment being poured out on the temple. All this destruction was prophesied over Israel in the Song of Moses.
The disciples asked Jesus about the end of the age – when the signs of not one stone left on top of another would be, the time of His coming, and the sign of the end of the world. Jesus’ reply had everything to do with what was going to happen to the generation of people listening to Him at that time, not 2000 years in the future, the ‘end’ referring to the end of Israel as a nation and the end of the Jewish religious system. In Daniel it is written about the sacrifice that will cease in the middle of the week – referring to the ministry of Jesus and Him being sacrificed, causing all other sacrifices to cease. The abomination which causes desolation was the armies of Rome which surrounded Jerusalem in AD70 and Jesus advised those living in Jerusalem at that time to flee. The Jewish religious leaders were the stars in the heavens (symbolic language for a system of government) which fell at the end of the previous age and now Jesus and the Church are the stars shining in the heavens. .The vultures gathering about the carcass also speaks of Rome’s armies gathering about a dead Israel. The sign of the Son of man shall appear in the heavens, not the sky and He shall gather His people (not the Jews, the Church) from the four corners of the whole earth. This was the beginning of the oneness of the Church, His Body, the Kingdom of God. The fig tree was not a reference to Israel, but simply used as a sign indicating that summer, or in this case the time of the fulfillment of the prophesy, was at hand . At Jesus’ trial when He was asked if He was the Christ, He told the high priest that THEY would be witnesses of the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the majestic power and coming in the clouds of heaven. This was a direct quote out of the book of Daniel where judgment was set by the Ancient of Days and Jesus was given power, authority and dominion to rule and reign over all nations. He was telling them that the day of Lord, the day of judgment; wrath and vengeance of God were upon them because of their rejection of Jesus, who was their salvation. Coming in clouds was a well-know Old Testament metaphor of God coming in salvation for this people and judgment upon his enemies. The fall of Jerusalem at AD70 was the second coming of Jesus.
The Bible sheds enough light towards its own interpretation and for every scripture there is a corresponding one elsewhere in the Bible. Jesus is central to- and the primary interpreter of all scripture. Jesus talked about signs in Matthew when his disciples asked about the end of the world and He said that all these signs would be fulfilled during the generation of the people listening to him. The word ‘world’ in the Greek is ‘cosmos’ which talks about the whole world. The second Greek word for ‘world’ is ‘oikoumene’ which refers to a part of the globe, a terrain, or the area we live in. This is the world Jesus talked about in Matthew 24:14, referring to the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom in all of the world. A third word for ‘world’ is ‘Aion’ which means ‘age’ or ‘era’. This last word was the one which the disciples used in asking about the end of the world. Hebrews 1:1 talks about the ‘last days’ and God having made ‘worlds’ by His Son and these ‘worlds’ means dispensations or eras. There were four worlds created, the first from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Moses, from Moses to Jesus and then from Jesus onwards forever. It was the ‘world’ or ‘era’ lasting from Moses until Jesus which the disciples were asking about in Matthew. The book of Revelation was not written as a futuristic book, but to reveal or unveil Jesus Christ. When it is written in this book that Jesus had been crucified from before the foundation of the world the word ‘Aion” is used. That means that Jesus was born at the end of the Moses era and when Jesus was crucified, it was the beginning of the new world or era, which was built on the foundation stone of Christ. He also was the door for entrance into the new world or age. We are the living stones being built upon the foundation of Christ. When there was a change of world, there was also a change of heaven and earth. The world in which we are living, is an unshakable world, a world without end, the home of the righteous.
In the period between Jesus’ resurrection and the day of Pentecost, Jesus was really busy, lovingly and graciously explaining His death, resurrection, His kingdom and confirming that He had risen from the dead. His appearance to the travelers to Emmaus was probably to show that he was no longer to be known after the flesh, but the Spirit, his appearance to Peter was that of a saviour, high Priest and shepherd, forgiving him for his denial of Jesus and re-instating Peter in his commission. He appeared to his half-brother James, instating him as an apostle. James’ heart was changed through this appearance from being a bit cynical about who Jesus was and he became known as James the Just, or James the Righteous – a bold, powerful and influential man of prayer and stature in the Church. We should also be reaching out towards visitations from Jesus, especially during this time of lockdown, because He loves us and cares for us.
Throughout the Bible we see people building altars unto the Lord, which altars remained. This is a type of the kind of priority we need to give to spiritual things in our lives. An altar is a memorial, a place for sacrifice. When we can go to the altar of the joy of our salvation and thanksgiving in our hearts in a time of adverse circumstances and despite those circumstances offer up a sacrifice of praise, thanksgiving and worship unto God, we will see Him responding with heaven getting activated on our behalf.
There were many, many credible witnesses to the fact that Jesus had risen. We need to know the power of Jesus’ resurrection. Mary saw two angels at the place where Jesus’ body had been placed, symbolizing that Jesus had become the ark of the covenant - He was now the new atonement and mercy seat, the place of reconciliation. The resurrection of Jesus appeared to be so improbable to his disciples, but when they accepted it, they moved with great power and grace in ministering to the world. Even so, we also need to be prepared for the improbable, the impossible and the miraculous in our lives through the power of His resurrection and the fact that He is with us, in us and will work through us, even at the worst of times. The resurrection proved that Jesus was exactly who He said He was - the Son of God, that the penalty for our sins was paid in full making us Sons of God as well. The resurrection is also the guarantee that God will raise us up to immortal, eternal life. By his resurrection, Jesus became the active, living head of His Body, which is us. His resurrection also guarantees His appearing and our full bodily redemption and ultimate justice. Jesus is our Savior, our hope, Lord and Christ, the Son of the living God
In the cross of Christ, there is a justice for us against the bitterness of slavery to sin and the powers of darkness. We have now received righteousness and life through grace and faith in the blood and sacrifice of Jesus and will not come under any condemnation again, because we have chosen and love the light of God. God could not just ignore our sin because He is a just God, but through Jesus’ identifying with us and carrying the penalty for our sin, He satisfied the justness of God and we were set free to identify with Him and receive justification from sin, thereby measuring up to the plumb line of God’s righteousness. God’s judgments are always just and true and His judgment on our behalf is that we are pardoned, free, not guilty, un-blameable, unreproveable and perfected in the love of God because of the sacrifice of Jesus – which judgment we welcome. The cross is the throne, the altar, the footstool, the mercy seat and the judgment seat of Christ. The judgment seat, because that is where He took all of our judgment upon himself. On the cross He made the judgment of saying “Father forgive them...” which meant that He was justifying sinners, confirming it by forgiving the one man being crucified with him who sought forgiveness.
Jesus was the fulfilment of every prophecy, type and shadow which had been recorded in the Old Testament. There were a number of feasts in the Old Testament, each displaying one aspect of all that which Jesus was going to fulfil by dying on the cross. On Palm Sunday He overtly entered Jerusalem displaying the fact that He was the King, the Messiah, ushering in the New Testament and seeing out the Law. In cursing the fig tree, He was demonstrating that also man-man religion of dead works was coming to an end. He entered Jerusalem as the High Priest, to cleanse the temple. In Him, God was visiting His people, in order to give them the glory, dominion and authority which had been lost. Through all of this Jesus was saying that there was going to be a new mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the City of God, a clean temple filled with His Spirit, which is His Body. He is our High Priest, our Prophet. In this city there will be a new presence – the presence and glory of God, the presiding of a new Priest-King, the purpose of the Kingdom is restored, and purity being restored. If we get back to understanding and seeking His presence and realising that there is a new King/Priest presiding over the city and temple, back to the purpose of the Kingdom which is purity, prayer and praise, we will see the power of God unleashed on this world through our lives like never before.
We need to add to our faith in order to avoid being blind and forgetful. The Communion has been put into place by Jesus so that we can remember, meditate on and believe how powerful his death, burial and resurrection was for us to come out of a place of death, judgment and wrath into a place of life, forgiveness, acceptance and grace. Partaking of communion while believing this, is partaking of it in a worthy manner. The cross was the judgment seat of Christ, where He took all of our judgment upon himself. The Communion consists out of a dual memorial – that of the believer, as well as God remembering the believer and His promises to us. We are in God’s presence when we remember Christ’s sacrifice during the Communion. .
Prayer is of eminent importance and we are encouraged to be faithful in prayer during this time of lockdown and not lose heart but keep our eyes on the advancing of the Kingdom of God. Prayer will give us hope and encouragement and carry us through. The Scripture is full of the injunction from God for us to pray. Our prayers need to be preceded by thanksgiving. Christ has already won the victory, so let us rejoice in singing praises to Him and praying in the Spirit. Let the world see that we are a community of love, faith, hope and the peace of God, the rock and solid place in this time of storms.
The whole purpose of Jesus’ coming was to submit to the plan of the Father, fulfilling all righteousness. He submitted fully unto the Father as the Son becoming a suffering servant, giving up His divine attributes and immense rights. He committed himself from before eternity to do this. Although a suffering servant, the offices which Jesus had were those of prophet, priest and king – which offices were confirmed by God during the baptism Jesus went through in obedience to fulfil all righteousness. As a King He operated in the manifesto of the Kingdom which He pronounced, which was justice, tenderness, gentleness, kindness, and mercy. As a prophet He introduced (and fulfilled) the new blessed laws of the Kingdom. As a priest, He taught people and prayed for them in reverent submission unto the Father. As a priest He also was the sacrifice, offering His own blood on the cross. During the temptation Jesus went through in the wilderness, the enemy tried to get Him to bypass the suffering of the cross, to tempt God by going beyond the proper way of scripture and short-circuit the principles of God - this is also our temptation. Every Christian wants the end result of seeing prophecy and scripture fulfilled, but only a few will pursue scripture to the end. A part of fulfilling all righteousness is humbly serving in the Kingdom of God – the route to greatness. Rightness with God will bring about fulfilment of scripture. In our environment which is a culture of permissiveness, it is important for us to not live according to the culture of doing ‘my will’, (which is idolatry) but in accordance to- and in obedience to the Word and will of God while hungering after the fulfilment of all righteousness. We will receive God’s blessings when we fulfil all righteousness by following His principles. Let us drink of the well of the Spirit inside and spend time with God and become God-confident through the understanding of His love for us. The world is looking for Christians who not only speak, but also live the beautiful message which we preach.
Jesus is our righteousness – He was the ransom for our sins and we are in complete right standing with God. That being the case, why do we need holiness? God instructed us (or stated our position) in the book of Leviticus to be holy, because He is holy. A person manifesting holiness is someone who is manifesting the character of God, infused by His Word. It is a person who has gotten rid of all the chaff in his/her personality by going through the process of being trampled upon and sacrifice – a process of perfecting holiness. It is a person who is full of grace and truth – being gracious to others at the sacrifice of your own liberty. God sees us as being holy and thus will only use us for the purpose towards which we have been sanctified – we are safe in His hands. To be holy, we need to be focused, efficient, aligned with the Word of God, determined, fully adapted, wholly synchronized, bursting with light and zest, have authority, have godly knowledge and have health and heal others. Holiness is a life pleasing to God on all levels.
Jesus needed to be circumcised, go through the baptism of repentance officiated by John the Baptist and eventually go to the cross to fulfil all of God’s requirements for righteousness. Even as He did, we also need to serve God in His way, not ours. Water baptism needs to take place publically, because it is not only a re-enactment of our salvation, but something which seals the deal. Water baptism replaces circumcision, and in the process thereof the sinful flesh or nature is cut away from our hearts. Going through water baptism is an act of obedience to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life as well as an act of fulfilling all righteousness. To disobey means that the counsel of God is being rejected and all righteousness is not being fulfilled and that person’s spiritual revelation and growth is stymied. We need to get established in doing all that which God requires of us. When Jesus obeyed God’s requirements by getting baptised, the heavens were opened or split apart to him. God will also violently tear open heaven for everyone who fulfils His requirements unto righteousness, causing us to be living in the heavenlies – a place of wholeness, affirmation and healing to our souls because we are being accepted by God as sons. This is a place of extreme powerfulness and blessedness, an uninterrupted flow of resources and a ceaseless supply of the Holy Spirit, God having His habitation with you. God rips open the heavens to be involved in your life and you become a conduit from the heavens to earth.
When Jacob wrestled with a man, this man was God himself – which proves that we have been created in the image of God. As Jacob did, we also have permission to wrestle with God. At the burning bush in Exodus 3, God spoke to Moses face to face but Moses hid his face, because he was afraid. In Exodus 33 Moses again spoke to God face to face without fear, because he had built a relationship with God based on real-life events which had changed his life. Face to face communication with each other is very important in this life, because if we cannot master this by practising it, how will we be able to communicate with God – whom we cannot see? By becoming deeply and intimately acquainted with God and recognising and understanding His ways more clearly, we will find grace and favour in His sight and everything we ask from Him, will be granted to us. To get to know our Father better, we need to rest upon his bosom, because there his voice resonates on a different level. The secret to get to know Him better is to listen and take comfort in Him. A moment in the Father’s presence will change everything for you.
We need to look at the culture at the time in which the Bible was written, to understand what certain words really meant. The meaning of the words ‘first heaven and earth’ which passed away and ‘no more sea’ in the book of Revelation was not referring to what we see as the heaven sea and earth today, but in the time this book was written, John was talking about (and it was understood by the Jews as such) the temple where the holy of holies was known as ‘heaven’, the holy place as ‘earth’ and there was a molten sea where the priests washed themselves before entering the holy place, in other words, John was talking about the destruction of the temple here. When Jesus spoke about the destruction of Jerusalem and the great tribulation, He was referring specifically to that generation and all the signs He was talking about came about during their lifetime. The Jewish people saw God as a judge who, when a person was rich, was blessing that person, and when a person was poor or sick, He was punishing that person. Jesus came to change this wrong perception of who God was and to manifest God’s true character to the world. The word judgment tends to have a negative connotation, but it simply means to make a decision or a decree. God does not judge, but warns people through His prophets about the consequences of their wrong decisions. To not defend and take care of the poor and judging them to be under punishment was called an unrighteous judgment. God’s judgment towards mankind is to heal, make whole and save. He is only light and life and anything opposite of this means an absence of God. Jesus had drawn all judgment of the world upon himself when He hung on the cross, to replace all of mankind’s hatred and violence with God’s love.
Psalm 1 stands as the doorkeeper to the rest of the psalms, and it says that in order to be blessed one should not walk in evil, but meditate on the Lord. The rest of the psalms weave you through the entire tapestry of life and what your response should be like in every circumstance. The book of Psalms ends with an ascending crescendo of all-encompassing praise unto God, done with words and instruments. Throughout the Bible high praise is not silent, matter-of-fact, routine, learned by rote, or religious but heart-felt, clamorous, exuberant and ecstatic. With the high praises of God in our mouths, we are assured of victory. High praise is militant and powerful and God has given us the honour to execute judgment on spiritual forces of darkness by our high praises unto Him. High praise consists of words of wonder and awe about God, it is a new song revealing new truth as well as a fresh revelation about old truths. High praise is getting lost in God and being unaware of yourself. Worshipping God is done in Spirit and based on scriptural truth – that constitutes high praise, declaring back to God who He is with words of faith. A part of faith-praise means that that which you stand for has not happened yet, but you believe it will and you keep on praising God for it. High praise is heart-felt, emotional and devotional because it comes from deep conviction and not mental assent. Let us believe God and praise Him and thereby see victory in our lives instead of being depressed!
When Jesus came, his purpose was to reveal God as Our compassionate, tender, loving and comforting Father, instead of a distant, uninterested God. God, being in Jesus, experienced every human trial which we go through and can empathise with our weaknesses. God is for us and always with us, whether we experience His presence emotionally or not. He will always provide an escape and deliverance in times of trial. These times of trial are there for us to have an opportunity and training to remember the word and humbly praise God regardless, because God is being kind and gracious to you to reveal to you and deliver you from things in your own heart which are keeping you from victory and maturity. To pass on praise to others where it is due, speaks of maturity and grace. Let us boast and put our glory only in the Lord and His goodness because without Him we can do nothing, but in Christ Jesus we can do all things. Praising God gives us a fixed point on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, keeping us steady throughout all the trials of life. Praise makes you positive, more objective and active. We need to develop a life-style of praise, starting with the little things and constantly walking in forgiveness, totally trusting in our Father with a child-like faith. Part of praise is to constantly remind yourself of all the good things which God had done for you.
Being in the ministry is not a job, but a function of raising up spiritual sons and daughters to fulfil their mandate in the purpose of God. For that purpose grace is needed and outrageous grace always start with me first – it needs to be experienced, bringing a change of heart, a pattern, before it can be extended to others. For outrageous grace to be preached is a divine enablement. Becoming this pattern works in two stages, namely spending a lifetime in pursuing the goal of getting to know who God is and getting to know what task God has for you. We are saved by grace unto works. Grace comes in four parts, firstly from the Father which comes with an enablement to fulfil an assignment; secondly it comes from the Holy Spirit to empower us. Thirdly grace came from Jesus, wherein He imparted all his gifts to the Church in the form of the five-fold ministry. Fourthly there is the grace which comes from a fellow-Christian when you partake of the grace which is upon that person.
Initially in the Old Testament the priests were anointed for the singular purpose of being set apart and sanctified for their office. Later we also see kings and prophets being set apart and anointed for their office, endowing them with a divine enhancement of natural abilities and an enablement to do things which were impossible before. When Jesus was baptised in the Holy Spirit, He was empowered into His ministry and this was immediately recognised by the devil as well as the needy people around him. The same is true of us when we get baptised in the Holy Spirit. We are all graciously endowed, enabled and qualified with and by divine gifts to operate in the designated area for which we were called, as we also see in the life of the apostle Paul. This does not necessarily exclude studying and training. Training can direct the anointing and make it more efficient. We need to be satisfied to operate and function in the place where God has anointed us to be, because that is where we will be effective. This is also the place where we can operate with ease, boldness, confidence, power and authority. The anointing gives us divine wisdom to operate in this area as well as the willingness, enthusiasm and energy to do so. Through the anointing we have the power and ability to set people free.
The message which came to us when we accepted Christ and which we are called and appointed to take to the world, is that Christ, through His Holy Spirit, comes to the meek and poor in spirit, that He binds up the broken-hearted and sets the captives free. Our message is also to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord’s favour, giving people beauty for ashes. The process of going from ashes to beauty is started by a meekness and a mourning on the inside about the spiritual bankruptcy and the sorrowful state in which find ourselves, whereupon God comforts us, removes the ashes and crowns us with a beautiful diadem, a cloak or righteousness, the inheritance of all the earth and the oil of joy instead of mourning. We have a double portion of that which is good, with everlasting joy on our heads. We are flourishing trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord to the display of His glory and splendour. We are planted in Christ, in the anointing, and our leaves are for the healing of the nations. We, the trees, are bearing the fruit of joy, praise and gladness and it is a visible sign to every onlooker that we are genuinely approved of by God. Not only does God give us the oil of joy, but also the garment of praise instead of heaviness, which is the antidote for the ashes. Because of all these awesome things which God did for us, praise should be a first action for the Christian in every adverse circumstance and then the needed change will come, because praise magnifies God and diminishes every problem.
We were created to praise - it is an integral part of every human being. We praise the things which we support, value and love. We should be just as enthusiastic about praising God celebrating His love and everything that He has done for us as what people are at a sport event. Praise is where God dwells. When we praise the Lord, we have got his ear, His presence manifests and things start to change. Praise gives us access to God because we enter His courts with thanksgiving in our hearts. When your heart is open God can work with you and through praise you will be changed, healed and restored, because your focus is removed from you and your problem unto the solution – which is God. Praise brings us to a place of humility because it brings to our awareness our total dependence upon God. Praise brings deliverance and changes our garments from heaviness. Praise is also an effective weapon of spiritual warfare. When you enter God’s presence with praise, He will fight your battles. We praise God because He is immutable, self-sufficient, infinite, omnipotent, all-powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, perfect in wisdom, faithful, gracious, kind, loving, holy, glorious, good and always true – and the list just goes on. Two ways of praising God is through scripture and singing.
God is looking for worshippers, because worship is an indication of where your heart is. The word ‘praise’ means ‘to ascribe value to something or someone and then to describe that value’. The word ‘worship’ means ‘ascribing worth-ship to someone’, in other words, declaring that person totally worthy of your adoration. Many people teach that praise is about God and worship is to God. Praise is usually associated with exuberant loudness and worship with softer, meaningful expression, but a person could be in worship while being in a state of praise at the same time, as well as the other way around. Praise always begins out of contemplation and the revelation of the TRUTH of who God is. Praise comes out of a humble and child-like heart. All of creation has a voice with which it praises God – how much more us, the redeemed! God is a god of majesty, holy, imminent, omnipresent, omniscient, sovereign, providential, beautiful, kind, faithful, righteous, patient and full of goodness. It is in particular through God’s wisdom, love and power (which are the works of God) that He was brought to His saving work, which is the redemption of humankind. That shows his involvement, concern and care for us. The contemplation and revelation of His vast love for us, the benefits which He bestows on us and the resulting inner emotion of gratitude and joy is the basis for our praise. Out of our praise flows thanksgiving. Praise needs to be vocalised and it has an attribute of bringing people together in a joyful utterance of music and physical reactions like for instance clapping of hands or dancing towards God. Praise is incredibly attractive to Him.
We do not base our excitement for 2020 on various prophetic words, although they are an excellent reminder, but we need to realise that all the good things promised to us in God’s word are available to us all the time and that they are not seasonal or occasional. We reach for the fulfilment of all these things by being grounded in God’s word and ways. - Pastor John
The new year does not only indicate the progression of time, but also new hope. God loves us with a zealous love. Zeal means to have a strong, intense devotion, enthusiasm and commitment to something. God’s zeal also encompasses tenderness, care and compassion for us. He begs us to stay in this protection of his zealous love. Zeal provokes jealousy. God made an everlasting covenant with King David because he was zealous for God. That promise was fulfilled in Christ. God also made a covenant with Phineas, because of his zeal, of an everlasting priesthood. This was also fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Because of His zeal for us, God has made a new and everlasting covenant with us to rejoice over us to do good to us. The whole of the universe speaks of the hope which we have in this awesome covenant. The zeal of the Lord will perform this. - André Blignaut
We need to get ready for the new year and do our part in making the prophetic words spoken over 2020 come into fulfillment. To make this new year different from all the previous years, we need to do things differently, get involved in serving in God’s activities in some way, embrace change (through acknowledging it, adjusting and accepting the change), guard our hearts against offence and clothe ourselves with hearts of mercy, gentleness, kindness and patience – bearing with- and forgiving one another - following the example of love which was shown to us by Christ Jesus. This is the year in which we are going to choose to enjoy the presence of God, prayer, praise, worship and the word. With joy we shall draw water out of the wells of salvation. - Johan Dormehl
Jesus said that everybody in the Old Testament prophesied up until the time of John the Baptist. In the Book of Revelation John is talking about the days of the seventh angel who carried out his instructions – this took place around the crucifixion of Jesus. With the completion of his sound the mystery of God was complete. In other words, the work of Jesus on the cross was finished. When that happened something changed, and that is why it is written that time shall be no more and why Jesus told the disciples that it is not for them to know the time of the second coming. Throughout the Old Testament everything happened at a specific times, for example the prophetic feasts and sacrifices. However, God is not on a specific timetable any more. In the light of this, we are enabled through what Jesus did on the cross, to access at any time any blessing of God - it is no longer something that is necessarily time-specific - in other words, God does not only work in the time span from January to December of a specific year, but He does so all the time to see His purpose fulfilled in us. By walking in the Spirit we can have whatever we need in 2020. God’s purpose and focus is the Church, the Body of Christ and the five-fold ministry has been given as gifts to the Church to see that we all come to the full measure of the full stature of Christ and that this conformation to Christ comes to completion. God is at work with the Body of Christ, raising us up more and more in authority unto completion – the place where even death is subject to us. What we have to do in this year is to fervently and passionately pursue God with the purpose of gaining this completeness in Christ.
The purpose of Jesus’ coming was succinctly spelled out by his name ’Joshua’ which meant ‘He is to save his people from their sins’. He was specifically anointed to save us from our sins – sin as seen from the viewpoint of a holy God, not our prideful and self-justifying one. In the incredible grace and condescension of God manifested to us by Jesus’ coming, His first point of contact with us was not based on our goodness, intellect, intrinsic value or worthiness, but on the fact that we are sinners. That was mankind’s specific, direct need. In the Old Testament there were many a fore-shadowing of a saviour like Moses, Samuel and all the judges who led Israel. They, however, could only deliver Israel from the consequences of sin but never from the horrible evil of sin itself, like Jesus did when He came. Jesus also delivered us from the punishment of- and the pollution of sin, as well as the inclination or tendency to sin. He lastly delivered us from apostasy, so that we are enabled to serve and love Him forever. He healed and changed us – a total salvation. This gift is for everyone who believes.
When we look at the physical genealogy of Jesus, which the Bible calls the circumstances under which He was born, there are people listed in it who were far from glowing or pure, but often unrighteous, wicked and evil. This continued wickedness had a consequence of Israel going into exile and slavery in Babylon where they quoted the saying “our fathers ate sour grapes and our teeth are on edge” thereby trying to indicate that they were innocent and God unfair to judge them. This thinking morphed into the present day doctrine of blood line curses which have to be broken off from the children of God. The scripture about the sins of the forefathers being visited on the children to the fourth generation is also being used to back up this doctrine, but the Bible is very clear that God is talking here about idol worshippers and people who hate God, not Christians. God’s blessing rests upon a thousand generations from those who loved Him and kept His commandments. In Deuteronomy it is written that a child (and this is God’s law) should never be punished for its father’s sins. Jeremiah 31:29 says that in the days of the new covenant which God will make with his people, people will no longer quote the saying about sour grapes and children’s teeth set on edge but that instead each one will die for his own sin. In Ezekiel 18 God says that this proverb is not to be used any more since each person will bear the consequences of his own sin, or be turned back to God through repentance. Because our Saviour was born righteous in an unrighteous lineage, we are also righteous, because we are of Him and nothing of our natural ancestry can come through to us. We have personal accountability and the freedom of choice in our behaviour and lives.
Jesus came as the Son of God, divine and perfect, but his whole life was given over to and saturated in prayer – modelling for us what to do. It is important for us to understand that prayer helps us to access all the grace of God. We are Kings and Priests unto God. Our priestly ministry is to represent each other to God and God to each other. In anything which we ask from God according to his will He hears and answers us. God’s express will for us is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, full of the Holy Spirit and His fruit. Praying for this is the starting point and priority in prayer and from there we branch out to other needs. Prayer in- and of itself has no power – in many religions people pray – the power of prayer for the Christian lies in the power of God. Prayer is the means by which that prayer is released into our lives. Our prayers touch the throne of God and become part of God’s being, resulting in authority being released on earth. Our prayers avail much, they are powerful and effective. All that which God is and has is at the disposal of the one who prays. Prayer can do anything that God can do. Prayer is the key to a successful and blessed life and ministry to the glory of God. Prayer is a great key unto defeating the power of darkness. Prayer will keep and save us. Our prayers will exist forever. God forbid that we should sin by not praying.
When God teaches us His word, it is a seed planted inside of us to remember Him by, especially through the intimacy of meditation. Our capacity to remember enables us to relive past experiences and those are invoked by certain triggers, like for instance a certain aroma. God wants to heal us from negative memories coming from our past. This healing comes when we experience meetings with God and the Word inside becomes connected between heart and mind. We need to keep re-visiting those meetings with God and reliving them to empower them again and again. Remember who God is to you, that is He is good, that He has power to create everything from nothing, His powerful Word sustains everything, He has power over death, all creation is dependent upon His presence, He has chosen us to become like Christ, He is the only sovereign, He keeps His Word and is full of grace and truth and is always faithful even when we are not and His love towards us is never-ending. He is our faithful Father. Remember also who you are, that God has formed you, knew you and set you apart for Himself as his son. When you approach God as a son, He will respond to you as a Father. Remember the prophetic words over your life. They are God’s perspective on your future in any given situation. Remember what God has done for you in the past and know that He will do that again. Remembering is extremely powerful.
To understand the Kingdom, is to understand prayer. Total governance over the world was put on Jesus’ shoulders and delegated to the Church, His brothers, who have been taken from out of the dominion of satan and put into the Kingdom of light. We are His Body, who fills everything in every way. We are His feet, under whom everything has been subjected. We are about the Father’s business, which is to rule and reign – that is the purpose for which we have been delivered. We have to understand this to be able to pray effectively. We need the revelation and agree with God’s word that there is nothing on earth which is meant to rule over us because we have unlimited, incredible authority over everything (all). We have been crowned with glory and honour. Legions of angels are standing ready to act upon our prayers. God says we are gods – there are things going wrong in this world because the elohim are not using their authority to rule and reign. Our authority works by speaking – there are times to pray about and ask for things, and there are times to say and command God’s works into reality. When we speak God’s words, it sounds like His voice to the angels who are waiting to do His bidding. Rulership and great authority however, begin with ruling your own spirit or having self-control. This is measured by how you respond to criticism, correction, potential offence, ruling your own tongue, controlling your appetite, readiness to forgive, ruling over your own fears, false guilt and condemnation and low self-esteem. We need to rule over these weaknesses in ourselves in order to be effective in ruling in this world. The Christian life is a disciplined and persevering life.
What we agree with in our lives will have an influence over us and the one or what we submit to, will rule over us. We have agreed with the truth which Jesus brought and lovingly submitted to His lordship over us. Jesus did have all authority before He became part of humankind because He was with God and He was God, but laid it down and emptied himself to be born as a man, thereby identifying himself with us. As a man He submitted unto the greatest enemy of mankind, which is death, and conquered it. After the cross Jesus regained total and all authority in heaven and on earth as a man (a Son-King authority) and He delegated to us this same authority when He commissioned us to go and make disciples of all nations. We need to have the same mind as Jesus and that is that we have been raised up through our faith in Jesus Christ and his blood to be gods, to have dominion and thereby co-rule and co-reign with Him on this earth. Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power and authority. We have the authority because of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit endows us with the power to execute God’s will and rulership on earth. We have the keys to bind and loose on earth to see everything which is in the heavens being brought into being and implemented on earth. This is our executive power and divine right – to speak on God’s behalf and see His will done on earth and finish off that which Jesus began to do. Prayer is being in partnership with God. God acts on earth through the prayers of those whom He has delegated – His Sons. This is a human-divine co-operation. Whatever exists in your world which is not reflective of the Kingdom of God, needs to be changed through the keys we were given exercised through prayer. It is your responsibility.
Jesus said that He was in the Father and the Father in Him, with means that they were one and from out of that unity the works of God flowed forth. For us to do the works of God and even greater than those which Jesus did, we need to believe in the prayer which Jesus prayed that we share in this same glory and relationship of oneness with God – that is the place that Jesus went to prepare for us. This faith results therein that whatsoever we ask in the name of Jesus, the Father will do. Praying in the name of Jesus is not praying like as if using a magic formula, but praying from out of a revelation of what He has accomplished on the cross, the authority which came forth from this and who we are in Him. This unity we have with Jesus and the Father was the result of the Holy Spirit being poured out in us. Thus we are in a mature relationship with the Father and a first reflex action which comes forth out of this relationship is prayer. Growth in prayer is directly related to growth in sonship. Prayers live throughout eternity and are extremely powerful. The second reflex action we have is an awareness of our identity in the context of our relationship with the Father as Sons of God. In understanding the fact that we are Sons, we also understand that our purpose is to be a representation of the Father and to bring forth much fruit – speaking His words and doing His works. In other words, prayer is co-operation with the Father. We do all of this by firstly abiding in His love, which means we stay conscious of how much He loves us and that we are inseparable from this love and what He did for us on the cross. Secondly we do everything possible to live a life submitted unto the Word of God. The result of all of this is peace and joy. Peace because our hearts do not condemn us when we pray because of the assurance that we are reconciled with God and will never be punished, and joy because we are operating in that which we have been created for as Sons, and seeing to- or fruit of our prayers.
We are inseparable from our words, which are powerful and an expression of who we are. Our words are authoritative and powerful when combined with faith in a truth in God’s word. The continuous repeating of the Word of God to ourselves is a way to renew our minds. We should speak out of the abundance of God’s word which we have stored up inside of us and thus be justified and impart life and healing to others. Speaking evil of a brother or sister in the Lord is something which is a communication of hell inspired by demons and you bring yourself under the judgment of the Law by doing this. Words can be extremely powerful unto evil and sway countries to war like those of Hitler did with Germany or positive and sway a country to victory as the words of Winston Churchill did to Britain in the Second World War. The person, who masters his tongue, is mature and powerfully prophetic. As the book of Proverbs says – life and death is in the power of the tongue. God is always listening to what we speak because it matters to Him – He is watching over His word in our mouths to perform it. He is watching and listening for the words of repentance instead of self-justification from our mouths, in order to extend forgiveness. We need to learn to speak less and listen more, think and judge before we speak if that which we want to say is really necessary, speak wisely, peacefully, with reconciliation, gracefully, lovingly, encouragingly, beneficial in building up and wholesome. Use words to disarm strife and bring peace in relationships.
Our righteousness is from Christ and is eternal and complete; it cannot be taken away from or added to. The Holy Spirit will continually convince you of your righteousness by giving you solid evidence thereof - which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The salvation Jesus brought has everything to do with our life here on earth. Everything is right about you – healing, prosperity, blessing, peace – all this comes from God through the Holy Spirit, in other words, God has blessed us with Himself and our role is to believe and confess it instead of begging God for things. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. Speaking God’s word brings faith to the hearer thereof. Keeping the faith in that which God had said will bring total victory. Often the process which we go through waiting for a breakthrough is actually the process of us being fully persuaded and convinced of what He says about us. When you live by faith in what God says about you, you will experience and manifest this righteousness.
The most successful times we experience in life are the times when we spend the most time in the presence of the Lord. Time spent with God and in His Word brings powerful wisdom, energy and ability to do what He gives us to do. In order to be a revived Church, we need to have hearts that consistently seek after God. We need the presence of God in our lives and homes. If we will lift up our gates, the King of Glory will come in to have a relationship with us. We need to be a generation which perseveres in seeking after God in spite of a seeming lack of success. Although God is omnipresent, He is not always manifestly present like, for instance, the cloud and fire through which He manifested with Israel in the wilderness. We have got to get to the place where God is a reality. God is not lost that He has to be found, but veiled so that He has to be sought after. When we spend time in prayer, sowing for ourselves righteousness, the dry areas in our lives will start to produce a harvest. To seek God, He has to be the main priority in your life and you need to be constantly conscious of Him, giving Him the attention of your mind and the affection of your heart. This needs to be followed up with time spent in fellowship with Him in His presence and Word. To become a person with a seeking heart, you need to avoid everything which dulls you spiritually. If you seek Him, He will be found by you and you will never be forsaken and you will find life and blessings.
We are living in a time at which God is enabling and mobilizing the Church. God is calling all of us to fish for people. There is a huge harvest, but someone needs to bring it in. The world system is one or working and obtaining a reward. We, however, are part of a different system – a heavenly one. We have a God who anoints, blesses and empowers us before we go out to be a blessing and a manifestation of His glory unto the rest of the world. The glory of God is drawn towards hunger. Where there is physical abundance it is unfortunately often the case that the abundance is not stewarded correctly and people lose their hunger for God and become ungrateful and unfaithful, which is the worst thing which could happen to a Christian. It is important to always remain grateful to counter this. As believers, we can create a hunger which will result in a meeting with God. We need to abandon the nets that keep us from doing God’s perfect will for us. One of these ‘nets’ is the false identity and security which we have, for instance the one gotten from natural things - that which we own, or a title. Your bank account, however, is not a reflection of who you are. Your value is found in your purpose, and not in natural things. Your true identity is in and from Christ and when you have found that, it will enable you to serve with the right attitude. There is a difference between entrusting God with your heart and with your life. To trust Him with your life requires real honest faith and an obedient willingness to have Him in charge of everything.
When we discern that it is time for the rain to come we need to visualise it and ask for it in prayer. Even as Adam had to maintain the Garden of Eden, we are instructed in the book of Proverbs to keep our hearts for out of it will flow the springs of life. By acknowledging the Spirit of God within us, we are rivers being sent by God into the dry and thirsty wilderness which is the world. We need an awakened generation who will make a difference in the world. To make a difference, we need to serve God unreservedly with all of our hearts, because He has given us all of His heart. God is waking up the Church, bringing resurrection and a release from weariness to us in this day. We are being resurrected and released to declare the joyful sound of heaven upon the earth. We need to abandon the nets that keep us from doing God’s perfect will for us. One of these ‘nets’ is the false identity and security which we have, for instance the one gotten from natural things - that which we own, or a title. Your true identity is in and from Christ and when you have found that, it will enable you to serve with the right attitude. When we have been revived by the Lord, we need to protect that revival against tradition and religion coming from the enemy and the world system. God is pouring out His Spirit and building the Kingdom all over the world right now. We need to be a part of this Kingdom and speak life, in spite of circumstances around us.
For too long the Church has been unconscious. More harm is done through weak people (those who look on and do nothing) than through wicked people. We need an awakened generation who will make a difference in the world. The transformation of our hearts will bring reformation. The sleeping Church and has lost her influence in this world because of the spirit of Delilah who is after the hearts of the children of God. Dead and sleeping people cannot change anything. To make a difference, we need to serve God unreservedly with all of our hearts, because He has given us all of His heart. God is waking up the Church, bringing resurrection and a release from weariness to us in this day. We are breaking out of deadness and limitations, having our dreams, deeds and discernment revived. We need to move from survival to success to significance, from desire to action to results. We need to wake up to the fact that the purpose of our lives is not to be happy, but to be useful and make a difference in the world. We will see the grave clothes removed from the church and the eyes, ears and mouth of the Church released. We are being resurrected and released to declare the joyful sound of heaven upon the earth. We need to see, hear and speak – our words create our world. We are never more like God than when we speak the words to bring the truth of His will for our lives into existence. Let us not be imprinted by a principle or culture of religion, but implanted into a person, who is Christ.
When we discern that it is time for the rain to come we need to visualise it and ask for it in prayer. We need to repent and have our minds renewed, transformed and aligned with what God wants to do through the Spirit, so that He can send times of refreshing, which is the presence of God. Accepting the invitation to look intently at Jesus will enable us to progressively see more of Him and experience newness and constant transfiguration. Even as Adam had to maintain the Garden of Eden, we are instructed in the book of Proverbs to keep our hearts for out of it will flow the springs of life. God wants our hearts to be His perfect garden, where the only things which we are thinking about, are His thoughts about us, instead of the enemy’s lies. What grows in the garden of your heart is that which you delight in. When we delight in God’s thoughts, we shall be like evergreen fruit bearing trees, trees of righteousness and life planted by rivers of living water. By acknowledging the Spirit of God within us, we are rivers being sent by God into the dry and thirsty wilderness which is the world.
I am a spirit, I have a soul and I live in a body. When you get born again, your spirit is born from God and does not sin. Most, if not all of our problems, however, come from our soul-area which is comprised of the mind, emotions and will. That is the part of man which is conformed to the world but needs to be transformed into the image of Jesus by the renewing of the mind. The end-goal and purpose of our faith is the salvation of our souls. God is changing us by degrees in order for us to ascend out of the flesh into the spirit, into maturity and walking in pure love. The change comes through humility, having your soul weaned and calmed like that of an undemanding child, who has no need for pride, recognition and attention, does not need to defend or justify itself and has no relentless driving ambition. The end-product of this is that we are brought in line to be promoted by God. Your soul is very needy and demanding, especially during tough times. In those times we need to remember God’s mercy and faithfulness. We need to be in contact with our emotions and motives and acknowledge our need for God to become and do and not be full of pride our own accomplishments. Humility comes from the spirit and pride from the flesh. Humility is having a healthy perspective of who you are and who God is. There is no gain in trying to appease the soul with all kind of things, there is only one thing which your soul craves and needs and that is Jesus. When you can quieten the storm in the soul and trust in God, is when that which you are waiting for, will happen and when you are released for promotion by God.
The only proof that Jesus gave of being the Son of God, was that He was operating in the power of God. In Genesis we read that heaven (or the spiritual dimension) was created first by God. We were all first created in heaven and earth was created for us to manifest in. Whenever we believe, we are taken out of the earthly realm and put into the eternal or spirit realm. God is looking for people who can not only hear, but also do the Word which He is speaking. We need to listen what God says about us, speaking and prophesying that and disregard negative things which people are saying. When you are waiting for God to do something in your life pray and give Him the facts about it, so that the truth can change the facts. At such a time, it is good to give that which is scarce in your life as an offering to God (under His instruction), so that that which is impossible in the earthly realm, can be brought into manifestation here from out of the heavenly. We see an example of this in the Bible when Elijah had to pour water, which was a scarcity in the time of drought, over the offering in order to give God water to form the clouds which broke the drought over the country. God uses what you have in your hands. Thus the natural and supernatural work together. To access the power of God, you need to send His word in your life back to Him, saying “Father let it be according to Thy Word”, it is that simple!
From the time of after the birth, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus there was a 40-year period (a generation) – called the patience of Christ during which God extended the time for the Jews to repent which comes up to 70 A.D. when Jerusalem was destroyed. Paul talks about this 40-year time period when he is talking about the time when some will depart from the faith and give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. That happened then, because the enemy was trying to prevent people from entering the Kingdom which God was establishing at that time. In our day we also, should be careful to be grounded and established in the Word and stay with simple, correct doctrine and not be swayed by spectacular and titillating winds of doctrine coming through the extensive media of the day. This is also in our day the enemy’s reaction to what God is doing now. We are getting closer and closer to the time of the appearance of Christ. Anyone who tampers with the person of Jesus who was fully man and fully God – that is a doctrine of demons. Another example of this is the conscienceless and unscriptural doctrine of the rapture – a doctrine of demons. Another false and unbiblical doctrine is the one which lies a law upon people forbidding them to marry, as if a life of celibacy is somehow more holy, which has resulted in the abuse of children taking place in the church which practiced this doctrine. Marriage is God’s plan, not something which is unholy. The unhealthy obsession of the Church with all things Jewish is another false doctrine. God loves the Jews and has got a plan for them, which plan is for them to be saved by accepting Christ. The Church does not have to become Jewish. There is an antidote to being put into the bondage which comes through believing doctrines of demons, seducing spirits, garbage and silliness, empty formulas and profane old wives’ tales. This antidote is to be spiritually nourished and exercised in Godliness by daily saturating yourself in the Word of God, words of faith, purity and sound doctrine. This gives you strength and discernment to withstand deception. Exercise godliness by earnestly developing yourself in wholesome, uplifting conversation. Walk as a heavenly being and thus counter the evil in the world by your lifestyle. Love and encourage people and control your spirit to act and live in purity like Christ, unlike the world which has no moral values anymore. Neglect not the gift God has made you to be unto the Body of Christ and nourish them therewith. There is an irreverence in the world towards the Church because of the silly doctrines being preached and resulting powerlessness, which needs to end. We need to take our place of impacting the world by our godliness.
Water baptism is not just a reminder, symbolism, a visual of your salvation or a ceremony, but on the contrary, extremely powerful. When we believe and are baptized, we have died to our old life – it was destroyed. By having been planted into Christ’s death, we are also planted into His resurrection life. Christ died once and having been being resurrected, now lives for God – even so we do not have to keep dying to sin, we have died once in baptism. After baptism, there should be a difference in your life since by grace you are now effortlessly living for God through His life which is in you. We live our lives for God by: Having a Word-based God-consciousness which requires a moral response to that which Jesus did on the cross. We have a consciousness that God is with us all the time, seeing everything which we do. Secondly, living a holy life with Biblical-based moral values in the midst of an evil world where good has become evil and evil good. Thirdly, we are to live lovingly – a life or no judgment, forgiveness, mercy and grace towards people, serving them. Fourthly, we need to our lives purposefully and not (as we previously did) by instinct, by investing in time spent in prayer, the Word, etc. thereby disciplining yourself and exercising your spiritual muscles. Lastly, it should be a reality for us that our time, talents, and treasures belong to God. We need to freely give that which we have freely received. There are no secret agents in the Kingdom – the testimony which our lives are, is of great importance to the world.
Our identity does not really come from our skills or talents. Everything in our lives is determined by our perception of who God is. Exodus 20:7 can be directly translated from the Hebrew as “do not present the character of the Lord your God falsely”, so it means more than saying His Name wrong, applying it wrongly or just using it as a swear word. When God created man he placed a representation of Himself in man who has absorbed God’s light. Our identity lies in being one with God. In the history of Jacob we learn the lesson that he was obedient to God, but did not trust God. When you get emptied out like Jacob and God keeps on pushing and twisting until there is absolutely no moisture left and you are dust it means that, like with Jacob, you need to be emptied of everything which you have kept for your own safety – your own strength, talents, skill sets – until your only need is to be filled completely with the water which is God. We need to meditate on the Word of God and to trust in Him only – that is the water which we need. We have to stand in that water and constantly absorb it to be righteous, like the cells of a plant which are filled with water and thus standing up or is elevated and not wilted. We need to not only obey, but also trust God and let our faith carry us instead of the other way around. The answers to restore our shattered dreams are in a revelation of who we really are and how much of ourselves we have held on for so long so that we can learn to let go and let God’s perfect plan come into being through His love for us.
We have the Holy Spirit in us and are anointed, appointed and sealed by Him. Jesus received the person of the Holy Spirit without limitation. When you are anointed with the Holy Spirit, it is with a Person, not just a power or a force. When the person of the Holy Spirit comes upon you, something changes. It is amazing that the person of the Holy Spirit can be encapsulated in oil called the anointing oil, so much so that kings, priests and prophets were inaugurated and anointed with oil. When that happened something transpired, qualifying kings to rule and reign, priests to minister and prophets to prophesy. It is something miraculous and mystical, above and beyond physical properties, almost like the miracle of the communion. The anointing consecrates and sets you apart, defining you as being different, a saint. The anointing also illuminates and imparts authority and gives us abilities which we did not have before, as well as power. The purest anointing oil which comes from the first pressing of the olives, (virgin oil) is used for illumination; the oil from the second pressing is for anointing the sick, i.e. for medicine and the oil from the third pressing is used for soap (or cleansing) which is all symbolic of the perfect work Jesus did on the cross. The anointing oil was made out of olive oil with the addition of myrrh, sweet cinnamon, sweet calamus and cassia. Anointing oil was only meant for Israel, (the Holy Spirit is only poured out on believers) and not for anointing flesh, but the garments of the priests (not for natural, only spiritual people clothed with the garments of salvation). Anointing with oil can bring blessing, healing, financial breakthrough, restoration, and fruitfulness. We need the oil of the Holy Spirit. We need that awareness of our connection with God through the Holy Spirit.
The image which you have of yourself will reflect in your life, determining your finances, health, relationships and the way you react to your circumstances. We need to get our image from the way in which God sees us from the Word instead of from life experiences - for instance, upbringing, poverty, health issues, crimes committed, etc. Failure to do that will result in a life of failure and fear – we need to speak to circumstances in accordance to who we are. The real you cannot is fearless and cannot be threatened by anything. We were shaped from out of God and filled with His image. We are His family, kind and offspring. To get to know who we are, we firstly need to know who our Father is, and that happens as you get to know Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, who confirms our sonship. Thereby we are being transformed from glory to glory, revealing the Christ within. From Adam up to Jesus, no-one really understood who God was and no-one revealed Him because of the veil that was put upon man by the serpent when Adam and Eve believed his lies. Only Jesus, the image and Son of God, could reveal who the Father really was and had been from the beginning. All men have sinned and fallen short of God’s opinion of their true value, which is Christ in us – the hope of Glory. The cross is where the veil of lies was removed so that we could see how valuable our lives are to God. When we reveal the truth of who they really are to people, it will lead them to wholeness and repentance.
God really wants us to know Him and has done everything in His power to make this possible to us, and He is continuously drawing us nearer to Him through worship, the Word and ministry. But, we also need to be still and know that He is God – invest in intimate times where there are only Him and you. Don’t let circumstances define God to you and change your perception of God’s goodness. To ‘know’ according to the Hebrew meaning of the word, is to know someone personally and have an intimate relationship with the person. The word ‘still’ means to be weak, to let go and release. God’s glory is manifested through our weaknesses and his power is made perfect therein. Embrace your weaknesses and allow God to use that for His glory. During times of weakness and difficulties, we need to be still and allow God to give us strength and wisdom. When you become silent, you learn to listen. Practical steps to become silent are: Write down the things occupying your mind and set it aside to deal with later, embrace the atonement of the cross and deal with all condemning thoughts, let your motivation for being still before Him be pure i.e. seeking HIM instead of an experience, and be led by faith instead of feelings. Practice plus the grace of God will help you learn how to become still. Do not limit God to one kind of experience. After having done everything in fighting a battle, become still before Him and allow Him to fight for you. The God who sees you in the secret place with reward you openly.
God is a communicator and His primary method of speaking to us is through His Word. Secondly He speaks through the Spirit in the Word. In order to hear the voice of God successfully, we need to quieten everything going on in our minds, in other words go into your closet before God, physically or spiritually. We need to take time for intimacy with the Lord to hear his voice. God’s speaking could be audible or visual. God has given us the faculty of imagination to see the future plans He has for you, not to abuse it by seeing a dark future. Every one of our physical senses is matched by a spiritual one, for instance one can see a flash picture with your inner eye and thus hear God speaking. Another way of seeing is by an open vision, which was the way in which many of the biblical prophets saw and heard from God. That is when the Holy Spirit so overcomes your faculties that you are in a trance-like state and find yourself to be in another realm. Another way of seeing is through dreams or a vision of the night and one needs to get the interpretation from God because it came through your own personal dream language. You can also see and hear God through your circumstances – this needs discernment. Another way of seeing or hearing is through association i.e. a set of circumstances, a face, a smell or a feeling of déjà vu, etc. Sometimes God speaks with an audible voice, but mostly He speaks through the still small inner voice which sounds exactly like your own voice or thought. Your own thought processes can also be inspired by God because of the oneness between you and Him. We can also hear God and be led by feelings, for instance like a strong feeling of no desire for something or intuition to avoid something. Qualities of hearing His voice are (1) that the thoughts are spontaneous, (2) they are like the voice of my own thoughts, (3) His voice is always light and gentle and easily cut off and (4) without condemnation, (5) always in the first person, (6) has higher content than my own thoughts, and results in a positive reaction from you.
The Spirit speaks to Sons whereas the Law speaks to servants. Jesus was the true caring, loving shepherd who came at the time of the latter rain, in other words the time of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Jesus came into the sheepfold in a legitimate manner, born of a woman, whereas the enemy did not. Jesus says that his sheep hear his voice. There is one sheepfold and one Shepherd, not Israel and gentiles, but one sheepfold. There is a tone to God’s voice which is going out and to hear his voice we need to invest time in a relationship with Him. In order to hear God’s voice, firstly, become still before Him, He will not compete for your attention. Be quiet and listen – by practising to be still on the inside, you will be able to also hear God’s voice during the business of everyday life. Secondly, read the Word, wherein God can quicken a verse and speak to you because the Word is Spirit and Life. You will discover wisdom which comes from the Word and can be applied to your everyday life. The Word is God’s boundaries for all theory – anything contradicting the Word and the Spirit of the Word is wrong.
We are all Sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. We are in a loving family relationship with God. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of adoption, makes us what Jesus is. Being legal Sons of God by being in Christ, we also have legal rights. Anything less than what Christ has obtained for us on the cross, is an injustice. We are fully righteous in Christ in accordance to the righteousness which was required by the Law. Jesus was, with his baptism and the Holy Spirit coming upon Him at about the age of 30, acknowledged by the Father as a mature, adopted son in accordance to the Jewish definition of adoption. We are baptised in Sonship by the Holy Spirit of adoption from out of the place of being a slave to fear, to a place of knowing the love of the Father – free from fear of judgment. Being led by the Spirit out of the old death-life and into the new Spirit-life, is being a Son of God. A key to walk in the Spirit is to have your mind set on the thinking of the Spirit and the Father about you, thoughts of righteousness, sonship, purity, God’s faithfulness etc. instead of fleshly desires and thoughts. The mind is the switch – what your mind is full of, will determine whether you walk in the Spirit (life and peace) or the flesh (death and hostility to God’s thinking). The Spirit helps us to mortify the works of the flesh and thus inherit the immortality of our bodies. The Spirit within, the advocate, is constantly witnessing to us that we are children of God. This all is in a process and the Spirit in us as well as creation is travailing, to see us walking in what is our portion, the full stature of Christ. The word ‘led’ consists of three parts – firstly being led as a child is being taught and trained, secondly leading by connecting person to person since the Holy Spirit is living within you, and thirdly being led and guided when you are totally oblivious or blind. We need to be led by the Holy Spirit.
There are pitfalls in our relationship with God wherein we can move from relational to mechanical. We need to have a heart-relationship with God. An early warning sign that person’s connection with God has become compromised, is a callousness of heart when you are in His presence and your emotions are untouched. At all costs that connection must be kept alive, because that is your life-line, especially in times of distracting difficulties and trials and even in times of financial abundance. A second warning sign is when you stop caring about anything and anyone and thirdly, when everything just feels mechanical, routine, boring and passion is lacking and you become impersonal when you refer to Jesus. The next warning sign is when you find it hard to believe the best about people and situations, in other words your outlook on life is one of pessimism. You have no compassion enabling you to help others because you are totally focused on yourself and your problems. It is all about your heart! It is dangerous to accept this kind of relationship with God as normal. Break the mechanical patterns and get the freshness of a heart-relationship back. The response from God to your little steps to re-connect will be overwhelming. When you are connected with Him, you will speak with His breath into situations and that is powerful. Your prayers will be powerful. Those that KNOW their God shall be strong and do great exploits.
God is holy, righteous and true. The Law, or the Ten Commandments, was the embodiment of all these characteristics of God. Paul said to the Jews in Romans 3 that there was no value to them in just having the Law, since the requirement of the Law was to fulfill it. The heathen who were without the written law of God was also in unrighteousness because they did not observe the unwritten law of God which was apparent in the creation and cultural moral values. As such, there was no-one who was righteous with God. In spite of it being a reflection of the righteousness of God, the law was set aside as a means of attaining righteousness. In the book of Romans, Paul introduces the righteousness through faith which came from heaven. Righteousness with God is thus not through what you do and then faith, or faith and then what you do, but faith from the beginning to the end. The mercy seat or judgment seat on the Ark of the Covenant was a symbol of Jesus on the cross, before which we must all appear for the things done in flesh. Rejection of the cross brings degeneration to mankind but for the righteous, there is a re-generation from glory to glory with ever-increasing glory - only because of faith in the perfect and legal fulfillment of the Law by Christ Jesus. We are in a mystical, legitimate union with Him and thus there is no conflict between the holiness and righteousness of God and his love and mercy. We are legally and morally gifted with righteousness. We are the righteousness of God by faith alone, by grace alone, by Christ alone. Before we received the Spirit through Whom we were baptized in Christ it was not possible to not sin, but now that we are in Christ it is possible not to sin. We are holy and blameless, our sins forgiven and we are sealed with the Holy Spirit in Christ. We are legitimately placed as mature Sons and enabled through the Spirit to call out to God as our Father. Therefore the Holy Spirit converses with us on a mature level so that we grow up in the things of God. Everything which Jesus obtained on the cross is our legal right.
There is an apparent conflict in the manifestation of the nature of God in His dealings with mankind. He is love, grace and mercy, but also holiness, (as reflected in the Law) righteousness and justice. There were two streams of revelation of who God is to the world, firstly to Israel through His Word and secondly to the gentiles through the created universe. Creation revealed his eternal power and divine nature. The inherent morality which does exist in mankind despite a lack of knowledge of the Law is also a proof that there is a God. Everyone who has never heard the gospel nor has no knowledge of the Law will eventually be judged according to his/her response to the revelation of the Godhood in these two areas. Those who had received the written Law given by God will be judged in accordance to their obeying the Law (which was found to be impossible). In conclusion everyone is guilty of legally and morally being criminals and sinning against a righteous and just God. Into this scenario Jesus came as atonement and propitiation for our sins, which was a legal as well as a moral fulfillment of the Law of God. Before Christ we were married to the Law, an abusive and tyrannical partner. Now we are in a mystical and legal union through our marriage to Christ. Being in Him, we have died with him to the Law, of which He was a representative before His death. There are now legally and righteously no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We are no longer condemned to be in a body which acknowledges God but cannot serve Him, but we can now be master over sin, be free of a guilty conscience and we are judged by God as righteous and without damnation. What Jesus did on the cross fulfilled God’s legal requirements in accordance with His justice, as well as His moral requirements, because it was a demonstration of His love. Everything which God did through Christ was legal and moral, because legally He put us in right standing with him and morally He changed us – it means that there is no charge against us, we have complete acquittal. Any effort to set yourself right with God through your own works is an illegal act. The greatest honour you can pay to God is to accept the forgiveness through the cross.
We are established in Christ through the Spirit. “In Christ” is a powerful legal and forensic term. Because we often do not understand the power of this, we try to establish our own righteousness. Once we are established in Christ by the Holy Spirit, He then anoints us and we become ‘christed’ or an anointed one. The Holy Spirit’s ministry is firstly TO us and then THROUGH us. He also seals everything of Christ in us and authenticates us as being anointed and genuine Christians – heavenly approved. The Holy Spirit also is the earnest, guarantee or pledge of the fulness of our redemption. The Holy Spirit imparts to us the Christ-life, produces the Christ-fruit, reveals everything which is of Christ, imparts to- and endues us with Christ’s power, He is the presence of Christ in- and with us. He is the comforter and advocate who is in us, who calls out to the advocate above the deep things which we cannot articulate. The word anointing means to rub or smear and the anointing from the Spirit renews your faith (shield of faith) even as the leather shields in the past would be rubbed with oil to make them viable again. The Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of burning who burns with fire, zeal, compassion, love, comfort. He is also the eternal Spirit, the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of glory and illumination. He is the Spirit who brings us through our trials and achieves for us an eternal weight of glory. The Holy Spirit is also the glory, the tangible presence of God. The Holy Spirit is sensitive, we need to learn how to respect, honour and value Him and focus, hunger and desire for Him in order to provide the right environment for Him to manifest in glory. The Holy Spirit inspires and enables us to worship God and minister as priests unto Him.
The point of the New Testament is the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament is full of prophecies about the coming of the Spirit and of the Shepherd, which was Jesus. When Jesus said “I am the good Shepherd” He was saying that the rain of the Spirit was coming and that blessings would fall all around – which means blessings to everyone. We should be constantly praying for this rain, because the Holy Spirit loves to be wanted, invited, desired, thirsted and hungered for. He is the very breath-life of Jesus, of God, the third person of the Godly Trinity. He is singular - THE Holy Spirit. He is Holy – holiness is the white-hot heat of righteousness. He is Spirit – operating in all of the awesome dynamics of the spiritual realm. In order for us to respond intelligently to the Holy Spirit, it is vital to understand who He is and what His role is. The Holy Spirit is a person, even as God is a personal God. God could not get more personal with us than by living in- and through us by His Spirit. Because He loves us, He is deeply interested in being involved with us, in other words He is Emmanuel, God with us. With the outpouring of the Holy Spirit there was great power and a responding great grace was upon all. What happened to Ananias and Sapphira however, showed that the grace of God does not spell out that God is lenient towards sin but on the contrary, The Spirit of Grace enables us to withstand it. More grace means that more responsibility to walk in holiness. Walking in honesty, integrity and truthfulness is the way to receive more of the power of the Holy Spirit. Character is important! Do not lie by your behaviour or tempt God by trying to serve Him in your way, disobey the Holy Spirit, grieve or quench Him – that is not the way to be blessed and continuously filled with the Spirit. You cannot NOT serve God and expect God to serve you. We need to live the life of integrity and holiness in order to have the life of power. God cannot bless that which is not His will. Through the Holy Spirit everything that God has for us has been sealed and through that seal we are certified and approved as genuine and God’s own possession.
The day of Pentecost was marked by wind and fire. It was, as on the day when the Law was given on Mount Sinai, a sign of the presence of angels. On that day angels were permanently assigned to the apostles. This day marked the end of the dispensation of the Law where the Spirit only occasionally came upon individuals as well as the beginning of the New Testament where the Spirit abides within, never to leave. The city of God, the New Jerusalem (the Church) was formed on this day. The whole of the Old Testament was showing precedents of and preparation for the eventual outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the recognizable change that people underwent because of the influence of the Spirit, for instance Joel 2, the anointing of leaders like Joseph, Joshua, Gideon, Samson, Daniel, the Judges, Saul and David. The Holy Spirit was hovering over formless, void and dark creation to create even as He did in the womb of Mary with the incubation of the Christ inside of her. The same happened on the day of Pentecost with the formation of the Church. The Holy Spirit is also known as the life-giving breath of God. He strives with people, convincing, leading, convicting and influencing them to turn to Jesus. The world cannot receive the Holy Spirit, it is only for those whose psyche, mind, actions and walk (spiritual leprosy) have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus. We are a kingdom of priests with authority because of the Holy Spirit’s anointing. It is time for creativity, inventions, entrepreneurship and business to be birthed in the Church because of the Holy Spirit’s anointing. The wind of the Spirit brings inspiration, moves, drives, and influences us. The Holy Spirit is described in the Bible as fire, zeal, comfort, purification, water, rain, rivers, pools, dew, a dove, wine, our clothing, the earnest of God, our comfort, strength, advocate and a seal. The Holy Spirit is a person with feelings and senses. We have a living relationship with Him and need to be constant sensitive to Him.