Scripture reference: 1 John 4:14-18 TPT
Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. Glory to God. There are conservative people in this auditorium, and when you see a conservative person, even tapping their foot, then for them that’s a big deal. That means, something is going right here, you know. [Pastor John laughs] Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.
I believe that the Spirit of God rests upon you, in your heart, in your ears, your mind so that you can hear what you need to hear today, receive from Jesus what you need to receive today, so that you can be changed, and you can grow, and you can become more like God and have the things God want you to have on the earth. Amen, Praise the Lord. You may be seated, thank you.
One of the reasons Pastor Sharon, we had it in our hearts to minister on tithes and offerings, is a pretty much, we haven’t spoken much about money for six months, through the whole of the Covid thing, and we certainly haven’t taken up any offerings and anything like that, and we haven’t send out letters asking you and reminding you to tithe or anything like that. We have been fairly low key about it because I fundamentally believe that God works on your heart and is working on your heart and that is the most important place for Him to work on, is your heart, right?
The Lord spoke to me during the course of this week, and He said to me “there is a lot of words that are being spoken in the air out there, there is a lot of words about poverty and about defeat and the enemy wants to deflate you, and defeat you, and cause division, and cause all kinds of devastation. All the words that are out there are fear-filled words and they are very negative words, and if you don’t speak words into the Spirit words from a level of spiritual authority into the earth, then actually the words that are been spoken the most, are the ones that are going to have the impact.
The Lord began to say to me: “Speak words, speak My Word, speak My Word so that the faith, and the hope, and the things that the Lord wants you to have in your life, begin to rise up inside of you.” Amen.
So, that is what we have done this morning, we will continue as the Lord leads us to speak, what He wants us to speak, because the Lord wants to create things for you, the devil wants to deflate everything that is in your life. God wants you to have good things, the devil wants you to have bad things. It is not like he is out to get any single person, he is wanting the way he feeds on the worship of humans, is when people speak the words that he deceives them to speak, and what those words are, are the words of reality, they are words of what is really happening in my life, versus what God says about my life.
When you speak words that are, what are facts of your life and what is happening in your life, then you worship those events with your words, but if you speak God’s Words in your life, then you worship God. Then you give God a chance to actually create for you, as opposed to when you speak negative and bad words, then God can’t create from those words and the devil uses that momentum to deflate and to cause negative things to happen to you.
I am going to read you this passage of scripture quickly from 1 John chapter four verses 14, 14Moreover we have seen with our own eyes and can testify to the truth that Father God has sent His Son to be the saviour of the world. 15Those who give thanks that Jesus is the Son of God live in God and God lives in them (1 John 4:14-15 TPT)
Just note that God the Father has sent His Son to be the saviour of the world, He sent His best, He did not send, something else that might just get the job done, He sends His best, because He knew His best was the only thing that could get the job done when it came to saving you. Hello. He sent His Son because He knew only His Son could save you, only His Son could die for you. Only His Son could pay the price for you, and so He gave you His best.
When it comes to tithes and offerings, it represents your energy, it represents your skills, it represents your talent in life, that’s what money represents, and so when you tithe, you are giving Him back what He has already given you, but it is an indication of your trust in Him, when you give Him your best, then it gives Him space to operate. Hallelujah.
I’ve got news for you, there is nothing that you’ve got, there is nothing you can do, you need to hear me on this, this morning church, there is nothing you can do, that is good enough for Jesus. Not before you were saved, and not while you are saved, and not after you are saved.
I mean, there is nothing you have got that is good enough for God. The Bible says in Romans, that the best that you have is like filthy rags to Him, so there is nothing that you could give Him, that was good enough that could speak up and say “Here is my best I have got to give to you, so it is good enough to get me saved,” it is just not good enough, Right?
God, the Father said, “Okay, there is nothing good humanity, there is nothing good enough, humanity can do to change their situation, so I have got to send My best as a seed into the earth, I have got to send My best because My best can get the job done.”
So, then Jesus died for us, and all of our negativity, all of our sin, all of our wickedness, all of our iniquity, everything was placed on Him, judged in Him, and still now, even after He died for us, when we come to Jesus with our best and say I’ve got something good to offer you, He says “That is not good enough.” It means nothing to Him, if you bring Him your best. I am going to bring Him my best, that is not what He is after, because it has never been about… give Me your best. It is about believe in Me, that I gave My best, that I died for you, because when you believe in Jesus, that Jesus died for you and God gave His best in Jesus, then you honour God, the Father that He gave Jesus as His best and that Jesus died in His wisdom, Jesus died, He raised Him from the dead, and in that process now you say “I can still realise I can’t be good enough, I have always got to trust in the goodness of what Jesus did for me.
Now this whole performance mentality of performing or earning my salvation, gets removed out of the equation. So, what the devil wants to do all the time, is he wants you to keep earning your relationship with God, he wants you to keep earning it, he wants to earn it, you got to do things to earn it.
Meantime, the Father is saying, just speak words out of your heart, that is love words, and that is all I want you to do, is to believe Me through your words. How did you get saved? Did you not believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord? Come on everybody, I’d like you to say this with me this morning, I believe it in my heart, I confess with my mouth that Jesus is my Lord. Did you believe that in your heart when you said it?
So, if you believed that in your heart when you said it, you are saved. Because that believing, and speaking is enough to get you saved. Now listen, what happens is that the devil may confuse you about what you believe. That’s what he will try to do, he’ll try and confuse you, that you still got to earn the right to be a Christian or a good Christian. You still have to earn the right to get the goodness of God in your life, and God has never said you have to earn anything. You still have to do the believing and the saying. I believe in my heart and then I speak the words that God gave me to speak. I believe in my heart and then I speak the words that God wants me to speak. Hallelujah!
I’m going to go to the middle of verse 16 which says, 16….God is love and those who are living in the love are living in God and God lives through them. 17By living in God, love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fearlessly face the day of judgment, because all that Jesus now is, so are we in this world. 18 Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment, but loves perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. Whoever walks in constantly afraid of punishment has not reached loves perfection. (1 John 4:16-18 TPT) The thing about this love is, if you feel like you always got to live in love and the love that you live, is always got to be earning the right to get a response or to get a return, then that kind of love is a performance-based love.
If you live life with a performance-based love, you give me, I give you back, then your performance-based love is based on reward and punishment. Right? God says, this relationship does not exist between us, because if you understand My love, you understand there is nothing you can do to earn anything that you got from Me. So, if you just trust My love then you can face the day of judgment on which all your stuff is going to come before God, and before all of the beings of the Universe. That judgment day is coming, that we will account for everything that we did.
On that day, if you have learned on this earth to stand behind the Blood of Jesus and say it’s not my good works. It is His Blood. It’s not by my works, it’s by His power. It’s not by my might, it’s by His Spirit. When you have learned that, then you approach that judgement day fearlessly, cause you know there is nothing that about your works that is about to be judged because that was never ever about your works. It was always about Jesus who died for you. It was always about Jesus who paid the price for you.
If you can live for that day, fearlessly then surely you can live in this time, fearlessly. Because now you don’t need to be in a situation where it’s the amount of works that you do that earns God’s blessing. It’s what you do with Jesus in you, that creates the blessing. Remember Jesus is the creator, the enemy is the deflator. He can’t create anything, only Jesus can create. He only distorts what Jesus creates. He brings deception. What he will do, is he will keep reminding you of all your faults, all your failures, all your sins, all of your things that you have done wrong, so that he can keep you from having conversations that are based on a love relationship with God, because it is the love relationship that brings goodness to your life.
I’m preaching really good today! If you understand that there is never a situation that you go into, where God’s trying to punish you, or trying to bring revenge or retribution or try to teach you something painful, for anything. That He is always going to be loving you, then you get confidence before Him that the love of God is always going to be there for you. If on the other hand, I choose not to believe what God is saying, then I’m going to be listening to what someone else’s saying. Right?
Somebody’s always saying something. The earth is filled with words right now? Are they not? You can’t hardly turn on a radio station, a TV station or anything, even news on your cellphone if you get on text, news on your cell phone. That’s the new Covid results, that’s the death’s, new cases, that’s the new this worldwide, there’s this economic recession and this, this and this that and how are we going to, and these many people lost their jobs and how we going to do this and if you have lost your job now how are you going to find a job because there are no jobs to find.
Come on now! Except you don’t belong to this world! You belong to the world that everything was created from. You are just living in this world. So, your creative power doesn’t come from what this world system says you can have. Your creative power comes from what God says you can have.
If I’m listening to all the words that everybody else’s saying about my world, then I begin to think like they tell me to think, and my words begin to align with their words, and my thinking and my words and my behaviour then becomes in line with their words and fear grips my heart and then I start to live out by fear. God doesn’t want us to live in fear, He wants us to live fearlessly, because in any given time if you live in the creative power of God, then He can create things for you that no one else knows about, and you know, He is a Master at it.
Hey, listen, if He can just take bread and multiply it in someone’s hands, then he can multiply your money! I don’t care what the South African Reserve Bank or the mint says about it, and maybe He doesn’t actually make separate notes, but maybe when you go to buy food, you find somebody’s paid for the food before you and said, whatever they want and they come, I’ll pay that bill. God can do that, can’t He?
Yah, He had a situation Himself, He arrived at shore of the Lake. He didn’t have anybody with Him that had money, just Him and Peter went to go and take care of some of God’s business. When they got there they said, hey, you landed on the shore here, you got to pay tax. They just made up taxes those days, cause that’s what the Roman Empire did. They just made up taxes, when they needed more money. Oh, now you got to have a special tax. Jesus didn’t know that, had to pay a new tax now.
He didn’t think, hey, I’ve been around this way before, I’m quite well known, my aunty, uncle, cousin, aunty so, and so that knows the third cousin. I know they live around the corner here. I think I’ll knock on the door and go and asked if I can have a coin and you know, my treasurer Judas, he’s on the other side of the lake and when I’ve got the time I’ll send money via you know, what do they call this thing that you send money buy now?
E-Wallet? One of those things, you know? Electronic transfer, I’ll send it. Don’t worry I’ll pay you back. He didn’t do that. So, Father I found myself here I’ve got no money, these guys need money, they tell me I can’t go anywhere, I can’t do Your business without money. Okay? Here, Peter you got to go fishing! What? Here, go fishing, put a rod into there. When you catch a fish, cut the fish open, the coin in the fish’s stomach, that’s enough to pay the tax. Your mind would say, listen where on assignment why go and fishing? Listen if God wants you to go fishing on assignment go fishing, you never know what you are going to catch!
He’s got something for you, if you’re hearing Him, He’s got something for you all the time, everywhere you go, if you’re hearing Him. If you think that you were the first person to meet a situation, where you didn’t have money or you didn’t have a circumstance, that there was anything going for you, Jesus has been there already. He paid the price for you, so that when you got to this point in your life, you couldn’t say, “I’ve earned the right to be able to have faith, so that my faith can pull it in.” No, you haven’t. He gave you the faith. Use the faith that He gave you, use the words that He gave you, speak the words that He speaks. Let the power of His creativity be the thing that makes a difference in your life. Then He gets the glory and you just enjoy the blessing. Covid or no Covid.
I was so poor, I couldn’t pay attention, and I really couldn’t. I mean, I couldn’t pay my bills, my cupboards were bare, I didn’t have a car at that time but then the car came, but I didn’t have petrol for the car and we couldn’t pay the rent. So, I did what Jesus did. I went and I opened my kitchen cupboards, me and Pastor Sharon, we opened our kitchen cupboards, we opened our fridge. They were all empty and bare. We began to speak to it and we said; “Now, Jesus, if You were here, You would speak food into these cupboards and so we speak food into these cupboards and we command them to be filled. We command our fridge to be filled. We began to speak that and nothing happened that day, but we did it the next day and the next afternoon and the next night and every time we were there – command the food.
Until one day somebody arrived, and filled our cupboards with food. We took half of that and gave it away to somebody else that was struggling and we spoke to the cupboard again and said, “Be full again.” So, then that cupboard became full and we gave half of it away and we commanded it to be full again.
I commanded my business to be full and I commanded my business to be active and so I went from having nothing, to God beginning to supply and then beginning to supply more and the supply began to flow more and more and more.
I didn’t need a Covid situation in my life to have a desperate situation in my life. I had a desperate situation and it didn’t matter whether there was Covid or there wasn’t. Desperation is desperation – whether there is sickness or nothing. Right? The Word of God is true. The problem is that if you don’t begin to walk in a foundation, where you have a heart that you understand that God is the Difference Maker in your life, then you begin to live by yourself, with yourself, through your own strength and you solve your own problems.
Then one day you find you’re in a desperate situation and then you become very intense, very desperate and very sincere about your prayers before God and you might even sow a seed before God, but God doesn’t answer your prayers out of desperation. He doesn’t answer you out of a one-time-seed, neither does He answer you out of a heartfelt prayer. He answers you because you have chosen to live your life in Christ. He answers you because you’ve chosen to live in Him.
Are you getting something out of this today? I need my sons to come up here, please, and then I’m done.
You see, my son, Brynn, here, is a big boy, hey? Strong man, but him and I have a kind of relationship, that I love to just hug him, you know. So, I love him [Pastor John embraces Brynn] and I just love him and there’s no issues here. It’s just love. There’s no fake love here. There’s lots of hard conversations that have been had. There’s lots of relationship here. We’ve had uncomfortable conversations, truthful, heartfelt conversations about some issues that have happened. Sometimes he’s said things to me that I didn’t like. Sometimes I said things to him that he didn’t like. But if you’re the father, you’re never wrong. I’m kidding [Pastor John laughs].
There hasn’t been a situation in our lives where it’s been his performance that has determined my love and I always told him that. I said, “There’s nothing you can do that can stop me from loving you. I don’t care how bad you get. I don’t care what bad you do. I will love you unconditionally. My free love is always free. It is never constrained – never. I might not like what you’re doing, I might not like what you’re saying, but it’s never ever going to be withheld from you. It’s pure, it’s based in God and I will always have a relationship with you, even if you don’t want it.” There have been times when he’s done his own thing and there’s been no, much fellowship between us because of what he did, not because I chased him away. Come on, now.
So, in his own self he says, “Eish, I can’t go to my dad. I can’t go hang out there because I’m doing all these bad things.” He was always welcome and he was always welcome for this love. Right? Where’s my other son?
Now, him and I have a different kind of way of hugging. This is a personal thing you get to know about our hug, today. He always does this, without fail, when we hug each other he does this to me, you know. [Pastor John hugs Pastor Garth; Pastor Garth rubs ears with Pastor John] You see, he rubs ears with me? You know, always, when we’re having a good moment of affection and love like this, then he wants to rub his ear against my ear. It is like; this is my place, this is my unique place with dad.
Here’s the wonderful thing; each of us has a very unique relationship with Dad, Father God. There’s not one of us that’s got the same relationship. We’re all different and we’ve all got a different way of expressing love and our love language and His love language to us is also through us, uniquely. So, just because somebody does it one way is not right or wrong. It’s just the way that it is between you and God.
I mean, for example, my wife, when she’s alone with God, she jumps up and down, shouts and makes a noise and I’m quite content to just sit and have a cool time with God. Sometimes I will jump up and down and shout and scream if I find it’s necessary, but she can’t come and say, “Hey, you’re not having any time with God if you’re not jumping up and shouting and screaming,” because I’m unique with God in me. Los me uit. Los me uit, me and God.
Here’s what I want to say; so if I’m their Father, God and all of the creative power to bless their lives is in me, it’s in me, I am the creative force for them, what do I want them to do? I want them to be here by me [Pastor John draws his sons closer to him]. Right? And then I want to hear what they have to say.
So, Brynn, what is it that you want from me?
Brynn:
Your blessing. The blessing. I want covenant. I want my life to demonstrate a good, perfect son. To be obedient. To walk in your ways so that I’m blessed all the days of my life.
Pastor John:
So, what can I do for you? What’s next on the agenda? What do you want? What do you want?
Brynn:
More homes. More money. Bank account filled, overflowing.
Pastor John:
Okay. Angels, you hear that? This man speaks my language. He’s intimate with me, he knows me, he knows what I think, he knows what I talk, he knows how to talk, he knows how to be led by the Spirit. Go work at it. What do you want, Garth?
Pastor Garth:
I want to be like you.
Pastor John:
You do? Anything else I can do for you?
Pastor Garth:
Money, houses, cars… that’d be great. Lots of income.
Pastor John:
Lots of cash?
Pastor Garth:
Lots of cash.
Pastor John:
Angels, you hear that? He’s in agreement with my words. Go get it done. But now, don’t stop, hey. You’ve got to keep talking because we’re in this together. Because the Bible says where two or three agree; it’s done. One put a thousand to flight, two puts ten thousand to flight. What can we decimate on the earth that stands in your way?
Pastor Garth:
Absolutely
Pastor John:
Right? Hey I see there’s some legal stuff being held up there. Hey, Angels, I want you to go and send some, there’s some held up there because money is supposed to come to Garth, and it is not coming. Because the guy I spoke to, so that blessing could come to him, that guy has decided to spend it on his own new car, when he was supposed to give it to Garth. He disobeyed. Go and encourage Garth and tell him not to stop with his words, because I need to be in agreement with him because my power is working. It’s working, tell him. Just encourage him.
Garth sitting there, it’s been six months and nothing. It’s not long Garth, that guy has been disobedient. Sorry about that, but I’ve got other things working and don’t worry it’s coming any way.
Pastor Garth:
Amen
Pastor John:
But I want it really him to be blessed but he didn’t want to hear. He got fearful. So, I got to work through some other channel and it will take time, but hold on son. Hold on son it’s coming.
This thing that Brynn wanted, hey Angels come minister to him. Just come and bless him. Make sure that he’s blessed because there’s other guys that try and interfere. The devil is trying to interfere, put all kinds of fears in his head, and thoughts and stuff and then he’s struggling with that. So, come minister to him, in his dark hours of his night. So that he doesn’t give up; so that he doesn’t quit.
Because we are Father and Son, we can get the job done. Right? Just keep speaking My Words. If they stop speaking My Words, then what happens is, they just start to move away from Me. It’s not, I’ve changed, my world is still there, everything is there for them. If they’re listening to words that are out there, that are coming from sources and different people and different things, and they start speaking those words, and they stop getting in agreement with Me then My creative power stops.
Doesn’t stop working, it just stops, because the angels are like, “Getting it done,” but then they’re talking another thing. Now they’re talking in fear and they’re worshipping the circumstances through their words of fear. I’ve got to stop now, because they’re not trusting Me anymore, but the minute they come close and they say, “Hey, Dad let’s get in agreement again. We gotta get this thing moving.”
Come on angels, make it work. Let’s see if we can work it faster, but they have to also learn, that this is not a quick fix thing all the time. Because they got to learn that there is a whole life that they’ve got to live this way. There’s kingdoms that they got to overcome, there’s lions they got to fight and they can’t learn that, if I just answer their needs every second they just go, “Bha.”
Sometimes I will, but sometimes they got to learn to stand a bit longer and not change. Not change because we got to fight and we got to really get this job done. Hallelujah. [Pastor John to Pastor Garth and Brynn, Thank you]. Praise Jesus. Praise the Lord.
This Covid thing that came and hit the earth, this is not a small thing. This is a contest for the souls of men. This is a power grab, spiritually speaking, in the universe. The devil is using power politic governments like China, like Iran, like Russia. It’s using power grab governments to try and interfere in the ways of men so that they can grab and destroy all forms of religion, other than worshipping their divine supreme leader that they think is who they obey, to actually run the earth.
If you think that this is not a spiritual war, it’s just a sickness then you already misunderstand what’s happening here. What’s happening here is a war, against humanity to bring poverty, sickness, disease, death, destruction by the devil. In the meantime God is saying to His kids, “Come, stand with Me. Talk with Me, speak with Me, agree with Me. Don’t quit with Me. Because we can get the job done against all of these things.” Hallelujah.
This is not a time to be afraid. This is a time to be fierce. It’s a time to be fierce and to be fearless. This is not a time to be afraid. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Did we have church this morning or what? Praise Jesus. Some of you will know by now, I may be a sort of more quiet kind of fellow, you know. There are some of us that are more boisterous than others. More vocal than others and I might be a more temperate person, but there is nothing temperate about the warrior that’s inside of me. You don’t often get to see the warrior that’s in me, but the warrior that’s in me is on full charge at the moment. It’s on full charge.
I’m telling you, every single one of my swords, my spears, my arrows, my everything is working overtime. It has been for some time now, but in the last two or three weeks, I went up a level. Because I’m telling you, God needs people that will believe Him to get the job done. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
Let me tell you, He needed to get a job done and so He had to go and speak to a man that had a creative way of making food happen. He was actually pressing wheat in a winepress because people wouldn’t come and look for his food. They were stealing the food. He took his wheat to the winepress. So, God says, “I like this kind of creative thinking.” I’m sure God put the desire in him to do that anyway. Creative thought, let’s go and do the winepress and so he’s there and so God comes to speak to him and say, “Hey, listen I need you to do a job for Me.” “What’s that?” “You go and pull an idol down that’s in the middle of the town.” “But you get killed for that?” “Just bring the idol down.” “Hey, man, my whole life is on the line here and I just try to exist.” “I’m just asking you to bring one idol down that’s in the middle of the town.” “Okay.”
He goes in the middle of the night, hooks it up, pulls it down, drags it away. In the morning everybody wakes up, “Who pulled the idol down?” They want to find the guy and kill the guy. It’s tjoep stil. He doesn’t want to say a word. Why? Because he’s life is on the line. The Lord says, “This is the kind of warrior I need. This kind of warrior.” You think the oke is a wussy, he didn’t go and in daylight where everybody could watch him. Hey, he did what God told him and he got the job done regardless of how he got it done. Hey?
Some people will say, “Oh no, you gotta be bold, in the front, in the midnight, in the daytime, in front of everybody.” That’s the way God intended it. God didn’t give him such an instruction. God just said, “Pull the idol down.” Because if you can do one little thing like that for Me, which wasn’t so little, but if you can do that, then I can make you the army of my warriors. That is going to defeat the enemy that comes against you once and for all and you can set the whole nation free. Just one guy that pulled down one idol. Praise the Lord. Please stand with me.
Put your hand on your heart. Say, “I’m a son of God. I thank You, Lord, I live fearlessly. I live in the love of God. I don’t earn anything, I just receive everything. And from this day, I receive every blessing that You have for my life. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”
It’s a good idea to say, “I’m a son of God” first thing when you wake up in the morning. It makes a legal statement spiritually and it makes a spiritual statement. I am a son of God. Amen. Thank you for coming to church. God bless you.
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