Scripture reference: 2 Corinthians 12:10 (NKJV); Colossians 1:13-14 (KJ21); Revelation 12:11 (KJ21); Romans 5:1-2 (KJ21); Philippians 4:1 (KJV); Ephesians 6:10 (NKJV); Luke 4:14 (NKJV); Luke 24:49 (KJV); Acts 1:8 (AMPC); 1 Corinthians 2:4 (KJV); James 5:16 (KJV, AMPC); 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (KJV, AMPC, Moffatt, JB Phillips New Testament, Knox)
Amen, Praise the Lord. So, I’ll just jump straight in, right? Are you ready for me to keep going? Brother Hagin was ministering in a district, in a state, and he was in a certain area in that state, and in those days, he used to have meetings that would last two or three weeks at a time. That’s just the way that they did church services in those days. So, one of the preachers in a town quite near to where Brother Hagin was ministering, was trying to get a hold of him because he was wanting him to come and preach at his church, or at the church in his town. So, eventually this guy got a hold of Brother Hagin and asked him to come and preach at the church, and Brother Hagin said, “No. No, I can’t come and preach at your church.” He said, “Things will not go well for me. The Lord will not permit me to come and preach at that church because things will not go well for me.” So, the man said, “What do you mean things will not go well for you? How do you know things will not go well for you?” He said, “Well, the people in that church are stingy, and the spirit of poverty and stinginess is upon those people, and I will come there and I will preach there for whatever period of time, and they will not receive my gift, and they will not give me anything for my gift.”
The man was silent on the other side of the phone and he said, “Who told you about our church?” He said, “I didn’t need to be told. The Holy Spirit showed me that the spirit of poverty that is in the world, has come into that church, and because they think like the world thinks about how, what you should do with your money, and how you should not give your money to things that are not important to you, because of the way they think, it will not go well for them, and it will not go well for me, because if they don’t receive my gift, they can’t receive the revelation.” And then he went on to say, “And I can tell you by the Spirit of God that actually, many preachers have come and gone in that church, and this has always been the pattern and the trend that preachers never come back there because they are not treated well.” He said, “Somebody’s been telling you about our church.” He said, “I don’t – no one’s told me about your church. The spirit of God told me about it.”
So, that’s just another indication of what is happening in your spirit. If the Holy Spirit is mighty and powerful in your spirit, He will show you things. He will show you things in places and in circumstances where you don’t have to be there and hear people tell you stuff, but you will know stuff. You will just know stuff. If I could give you some counsel right off the bat here, I would say this, “Sharon and I have had to learn and still now, this is not something you conquer once, and then it’s always conquered in your life.” You always have to be watchful about this. Pastor Sharon and I, we have always, we’ve had to be watchful over this all of our lives. If you start to see things and people behave in ways that are not according to what you would expect them to behave. Let me put it to you this way – I have a high understanding, I have a very significant understanding of honour, because I chose to honour my spiritual leader Brother Jerry. It started with me before that when I honoured my pastor that I was with for 19 years. I walked in a high level of honour, even though if you had come to me and said to me, “John, will you teach me about honour?” I couldn’t have told you that I had a recognition of honour, but it was in my spirit life that I lived that I honoured the Word of God. I honoured the messenger of God, and so I walked in honour.
So, when God brought me together with Brother Jerry, even though he was living in America and me in South Africa, my honour was the same, if not higher as my life grew on. If I come and stand in the pulpit and I teach about honour, I’m teaching from my position of revelation. You are now able to receive honour, because I have a revelation of honour. But if you’re in the church and I’m often preaching on honour and we’re often talking about honour, and then you find actually, you know, they are not operating in the same level of honour as your understanding, then you have to recognize that even though they were hearing – they were not hearing. They heard it with their ears, but they didn’t hear it with their spirit. Therefore, even though they may be sitting a lot of hours in the church, hearing lots of stuff, doesn’t mean to say they’ve received it. But from my position here, and maybe from someone else that is connected to them, you might expect them to think, “Well, they’ve heard this message about honour enough, they should know what it is,” but it doesn’t mean they do, because their whole base of revelation knowledge might be very different to what you expect.
So, you know, when you talk to people you don’t have enough interaction with them that you can always get the whole depth of what their revelation is. Yeah. So, then they sometimes, they behave in a way that is like, but I didn’t expect that from them, I thought they would know better. But none of us can assess that, because you don’t know what people are really hearing, you know? You assume that they’re hearing, but you don’t always know.
So, you can only live according to the revelation, and if they’ve got the revelation, then it’s like Brother Jerry and I always used to say, “I don’t understand how people can hear the message of faith and not understand that this is the whole of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That they would actually label it as a movement, and walk away from it because it’s a movement which means it’s about a group of people that have a doctrine, and because these people have the doctrine of faith, they label it a movement because there’s these pioneers that have the highest profile that preach this message. So, because of that they walk away from the movement of faith. Brother Jerry and I used to have this conversation even in the last week or so. I had this conversation with, maybe two weeks with, because he’s been on holiday, Brother Joe – we had this conversation, you know. I mean, how is it that people can hear the message and then not live it when the message is so plain and clear, you know?
So, Brother Hagin, I mean, he was clear by the Holy Spirit, “I can’t come preach at your church because the spirit of the world has come into the church, and that spirit that is predominant in that area is a spirit of poverty. They are stingy, and they cannot receive what I’ve got to give them. So, it will not go well with me because I would be disobedient to the Lord, number one, and number two; it would hurt them if I came to preach the stuff I’ve got and they can’t receive it.” Hallelujah. So, we are instructed to be strong in the Lord, to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
Well people, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 10, 10 when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10 NKJV). We have to be strong in the power of His might, and when you’re strong in the power of His might, then you can stand. Part of the way that we must learn to stand is to stand in the armor of God. You can’t stand without the full armor of God. So, I’m not going to preach on the whole armor of God today because it’s not the essence of the message that the Lord has me to say to you, but I do want to say; there’s a reason why you have the helmet of salvation, because the helmet of salvation is the protection against your thought-life, against human reasoning and arguments that will raise themselves up against the knowledge of God. That’s why you have the helmet of salvation.
You have to constantly wear the helmet of salvation that covers your head. It covers your thought-life. That’s where you stand when thoughts come and say, you know, “That pastor, he preaches a kind of message that is too strong for me. It’s too radical for me. It’s too way-out-there for me. It really challenges my social norm. It really challenges my life and all of that kind of stuff.” You must understand that – that is a thought that is rising itself against the argument of God’s Word that I’m bringing. Amen.
So, by the way, I just want to share this with you. I thought about it at the break and so I’m just reminded of it right now. I’m not doing the Absa Cape Epic again, but don’t be mistaken if the Lord is still wanting to favour me with other blessed things to do on a bicycle. I’m not even going to tell you what God is doing for me, but He is doing grand things for me, and you can watch what is going to happen in 2025. Watch. As I am pursuing Him more, and I am going to be going after Him harder and stronger and faster than ever before, He is going to make it happen on a bicycle. I am going to run so fast; I am going to have to get a bicycle to keep up with myself. Amen.
That is how God works. You see, because I learned and I said, “No, Lord, I am not going to do that,” and then later on things started to happen, and stuff started to come out, and I prayed about stuff and I spoke to Pastor Sharon about stuff, and I said, “Hey Sharon, we got Project 45, and we got all kinds of other projects on the go, and what do you think if this thing is coming? What do you think about this thing, is coming in my – what do you thing about this?” And we prayed about it, and she said, “Babe, I think his is a thing from the Lord for you.” And I said, “I like that.” So, it’s not just one thing, it’s a whole bunch of things. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
So, you know, when we stand, and having done all to stand, the way that you can stand is you have to have the armor of God on you: the breastplate of righteousness, which says, “I don’t have to be intimidated by my own self-life that is not perfect, because He has made me righteous.” At the same time, your loins are girt about with truth, because you need that belt to uphold everything, to protect your most vulnerabilities, and that’s the truth of the Word of God. It’s where your productive-life lies. It’s the truth of God’s Word. And you have to put on the shoes of God, which is the preparation of the gospel of peace, so that wherever you go, peace goes with you, and you are encapsulated with peace. And wherever your feet go, peace goes with you. Nothing missing, nothing broken. Wherever you go, peace is with you. Amen.
And you need to have the shield of faith, because it is the shield of faith that is the first defense against everything that the devil brings against you. It’s there to quench all of the darts that the enemy might fire at you. What are those darts? They are the darts of thoughts, of circumstances, of doubt, of unbelief, of human reasoning, of arguments, of relationships, of things. I have an armor of faith; I’ve got a shield of faith here. It’s a big shield. It stands in front of me, and it’s quenching all the fiery darts of the devil. And I’m not even just in a defensive posture; I have a sword that’s at my disposal. It’s the sword of the Word of God that I can pull out, and I can attack the devil and all of the stuff that comes at me with a sword of faith. I have to have these things working for me. Amen. You know, there’s more that I can teach on this, but this is not for today.
We also have to make sure that we understand that we are in a position with Jesus. In Colossians 1 verse 13, He, Jesus, ¹³ hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son. So, He has brought us out of darkness into the Kingdom of His dear Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption through the blood, even the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14 KJ21) We have redemption through the Blood. Hey people, if you think that you can do anything without the blood of Jesus being your number one protection in your life, you are wrong, because of the Blood that we are made pure and perfect. Hallelujah.
You remember the scripture in Revelation chapter 12 verse 11, ¹¹ And they overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:11 KJ21) You can’t have a testimony without the blood of the Lamb. The blood of the Lamb gives us testimony. Amen.
So, I’m going to preach for another 15 minutes or 20 minutes maybe. Are you okay with this? I won’t preach for a whole hour, but just hang with me for 15 or 20 minutes and we’ll get it done, and then we can go and be fully satisfied after five days of ministry. I salute you, all of you. I salute you. You’ve done well. You have done marvellously. Praise Jesus.
So hey, the scripture tells us that it’s not about how strong you are, it’s about your posture that you take. If I try and rely on my own strength and say, ’’Look how strong I am,’’ that is about the time that I’m about to set myself up for a fall. What I have to do is I have got to stand – my posture must be, I’m standing in Christ. I have got to stand in Christ with His armor that He has given me to stand in, and now that I have the armor of God on, I have got to stand here. This is my posture, I’m standing. I’m not going to lie down. I’m not going to sit down. I’m going to stand. I have to, from time to time, I have to trust the Word of God and say, ’’Even though I may fall seven times, I will get up another time.’’ Doesn’t matter how many times I fall, I’ll get up and I will get back to my posture of standing. I have got to keep standing. I don’t make any progress unless I’m standing. Amen.
So, we got to appropriate and we got to stand in grace. Right? We have to stand in grace because it is the grace of God that empowers us, that gives us power. So, Romans Chapter 5, verse 1 and 2 says, 1 Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand (Romans 5:1-2 KJ21) We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. We stand in His power. We stand in His grace. So, we are accelerating into our future, and if we think that we are going to be in a place where in our future, there is never going to be any challenges, then we are mistaken.
Some of the challenges that come your way are going to feel like you’re not making any progress, never mind accelerate. You might think … there might be times where you think, “I’m not accelerating, I’m decelerating.” In fact, it feels like I’m going in reverse acceleration! You must not for one minute think that in this moment of acceleration that it’s all just going to feel like it’s all smooth.
I want to ask you this question: If you parked your car in the parking lot today, then you had to drive in here and stop, and switch the car off. Depending on where you parked, you might have to reverse so that you can go forward. I just want to encourage you that a reversal does not mean that you have quit. Yeah? Sometimes you just have to stop – reverse and go in a different direction, then you can accelerate again. Hey, that’s part of what God does for us. What God does for us is, He tells us, “Listen, you messed up here, John. Reverse now. Go in a different direction and now your acceleration will be sure.” That’s not an admission of failure, that’s a position of correction. Why would you get down on yourself because God made you reverse and take a different direction? Don’t get like that. Just say, “Thank you, Lord, that You corrected me and I’m going to go in a different direction. Now I can accelerate properly.” Amen.
You see how the enemy’s wiles; he tries to bring things to us and he always wants you to think you failed and you’re hopeless, and you’re never going to make it and all that rubbish. But we actually just need to have the proper mindset and the proper understanding of what’s happening here. Hallelujah.
I want to read you this scripture here, it’s in … I want to talk to you for a minute about stand fast in the Lord. Philippians chapter 4 verse 1, says 1 Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. (Philippians 4:1 KJV) This is the King James Version. I mean, this is a significant thing to me because if you read it in the King James Version, this is really about a partnership that Paul has with the Philippian church. I mean, it’s interesting, he says, 1 Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved dearly beloved and people that I longed for, my joy and crown. Yoh!
Hey, can I tell you, I am going to give you a little insight here. Can I tell you what happened with my supernatural encounter? I was led to understand that there are those that are in heaven that see me as their joy and their crown, that I am a beloved. I am a beloved. I’ll tell you, that was a moment for me. That was a moment for me. I’ll tell you something about all of you here – you are my joy and my crown, and you people are my beloved. I love you all dearly, more than you will know; I love you. Yeah. Praise the Lord. This is an eternal connection.
I’ll tell you this, you are not going to get to heaven and wonder about who you’ve seen and wonder about whether they, and you know what happened in their lives on the earth. You are going to know exactly what happened in their lives. Everything spiritual, everything done for Jesus, everything done for His church, everything that you did in the Spirit of God, you are going to know what’s been done. It’s not going to be hidden from you. You’re going to know. You’re going to know. Hallelujah.
So, again Ephesians 6 verse 10 says, 10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. (Ephesians 6:10 NKJV) So, we’ve got to be strong in the Lord.
Jesus, in Luke chapter 4 verse 14, 14 Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee (Luke 4:14 NKJV) So, we can function in the power of the Spirit. Yes? We can function in the power of the Spirit.
Luke 24 verse 49 says, and 49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but you must wait in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. (Luke 24:49 NKJV) So, we have the power and we have the Holy Spirit. The Amplified Bible in Acts 1 verse 8 says, 8 But you shall receive power (ability, efficiency, and might) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you (Acts 1:8 AMPC) Hey, this is a good confession to make: “I receive ability. I receive efficiency. I receive might, because I receive the Holy Spirit.”
1 Corinthians 2, verse 4 says, 4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: (1 Corinthians 2:4 KJV). I mean, can you see in Corinthians why he had to talk like this? Because he was talking to them and the power of his word was stronger than the power of his personality. Amen. Hallelujah.
And then finally, I want to just share this last bit with you. It is that we must be fervent in prayer in 2025. We must be fervent in prayer. We have to continue to pray as much as we possibly can pray. James 5 verse 16 says, 16 The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:16 KJV). The Amplified Bible says, 16 makes much power available and is [dynamic in its working] (James 5:16 AMPC). Right? I mean, this is how we have to behave in 2025. We’ve got to pray. We’ve got to pray more than ever.
You know, I believe in the next year we are going to, in this year of 2025, we are going to have some victories in prayer. We are going to have some victories in prayer. I’ll tell you; I already have spoken to Pastor Sharon about this, and this is again as I said, “I’m not using these meetings to tell you about future stuff that we are going to do in terms of actions, “ but I’ve spoken to Pastor Sharon about this. I believe that one of the things that we have to take to America is that we have to take the ability to pray as an Ecclesia, and teach people how to pray in America in an Ecclesia, because they don’t know. They don’t know how to pray. I believe this is a thing, so, what’s going to happen is that the Lord is going to cause us to have victories in prayer, and we are going to raise up people that can pray around the world. This is going to be a mighty, a mighty thing for God that’s going to happen, and it’s all because of you, because you come to prayer every week. You come to prayer before service, you come to prayer for missions, you come to prayer for pre-service prayer, you come to prayer. There’s prayer happening every day here in the ministry. There’s prayer happening everywhere around Johannesburg and Witbank is prayer happening all the time, because we have established a praying church. So, we have to continue to be a people that are fervent in prayer. We cannot lose our fervency of prayer. We have got to be fervent, means you are zealous. You are committed to it. You are going to stay the course. You’re fervent in it. Yes, amen.
You know, every, every time I start training for a significant event, cycling, or there was a time when I was training to do Ironman, and I was going to do an Ironman, and then COVID hit, and so, then swimming stopped and everything, and I was kind of motivated to do an Ironman, at that time, but because of COVID, things changed. But every time you go into training for something, you have to be fervent about it. That means when you have to do training, you can’t say, “I don’t feel like it.” Then that means your feeling is more fervent than you’re acting. You can’t be fervent about a feeling because if you fervent about a feeling then you’re always going to live in the feelings of the moment, but you have to be fervent in your acting. Right? You have to be fervent in your acting.
Do the Slipstream people remember, we will go or we all going to do Ironman? Some of them did. I mean, Luke did a half Ironman. I think Caitlin, you did a half Ironman. So, there were a couple – I did the Race to The Sun at that weekend. We all did a weekend together and some did half Ironman. Some did the half marathon; some did all kind of stuff. I did the Race to The Sun, the 160km ride, and we all had a lot of fun together. We were all training, we were all going to do half Ironman’s and then COVID came, or COVID happened before then and you guys, I don’t remember exactly now. Hey, but anyway, it all happened. I mean, that was the season and now it’s changed. I guess I’m just trying to say, “Fervency is something you need as a matter of commitment.” It’s not just something that you do because you feel like it in the moment. On the contrary, the most times you know that you’re fervent about something is when you don’t feel like it and you show up anyway. That’s when you know you’re fervent is when you show up anyway. Hallelujah. Amen. Alright. I’m going to just share this passage of scripture with you, and then I’m done.
I’m going to just finish off by drawing a contrast for you because as we go in 2025, we are going to have to stay plugged into God to get all of the rewards, all of the opportunities, and all of the benefits of living in faith. We’re going to need to stay plugged in, because 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 4 and 5, I’m just going to read it to you again. It says like this, 4 (for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;) 5 casting down imaginations – the other version I read you in the Living Translation says, “reasonings and arguments” – 5 casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:4-5 KJV)
Now do you know that there’s a scripture in Ephesians that says, “He can do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can imagine or think about?” So, on the one hand, we can tap into God’s imagination, or we can have other imaginations come and affect us. I’m going to read that scripture to you out of the Amplified Bible. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds, [Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing So, every proud and lofty thing, every imagination, every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One (2 Corinthians 10:4-5 AMPC)
I’d like to read this to you out of a different translation. So, the Moffatt translation reads like this, 4 the weapons of my warfare are not weapons of the flesh, but divinely strong to demolish fortresses. Do you have a fortress in your mind that is a human experience fortress? It’s a social fortress. It’s an education fortress. It’s a financial system fortress. The divinely inspired things that God gives you is designed to break down fortresses. 5 I demolish theories and any rampart, anything that leads up to it – thrown up to resist the knowledge of God, I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:4-5 Moffatt). Every project that we do in our lives, I take it captive and submit it to the will of God. Another translation, verse 5 says, 5 we are engaged in confuting arguments, and then we come against arguments and pulling down every barrier raised against the knowledge of God.
I’ve always liked the Phillips translation. You can’t really buy the Phillips translation anymore, but the Phillips translation says it this way, 5 Our battle is to bring down every deceptive fantasy and every imposing defence that men erect against the true knowledge of God Wow. Come on. Hey, everybody, don’t fall asleep on me five minutes before I’m about to end here, yeah. 5 Our battle is to bring down every deceptive fantasy and every imposing defence that men erect against the true knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5 JB Phillips New Testament).
There’s a man that did another translation, just the same way that the Message Translation was done, and his name was John Knox, and the Knox Translation reads as follows, 4 Yes, we can pull down the conceits of men, 5 every barrier of pride which sets itself up against the true knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:4-5 KNOX) So, we don’t fight against flesh and blood, we fight against principalities and powers, but we have the Word of God that can bring down strongholds that are erected.
So, finally, let me say that as we are now in 2025, and as we move through 2025, we are going to be moving at a pace. We are going to be moving at a pace. I want to encourage you that as we are moving into the really wonderful things that God has for us, that you stay focused. Be mindful of arguments, reasonings, thought-live, the stuff that comes here (Pastor John indicating to your mind). The deceitfulness of the systems around us, the fantasies of men, the extreme things that come your way. Remember, that actually God has got His own things that He wants to do for you that are beyond your wildest imagination. They are beyond your way of being able to think, because in Him everything becomes possible. In Him, not by the world system, in Him everything becomes possible.
I was just listening to somebody that was doing an analysis of what’s happening in the financial industry in America. You know that the government in America after COVID, they started issuing these relief packages to people. At the time when they started relief, giving these relief packages to people, the amount of credit card debt that was – just credit card debt in America, was 1 trillion dollars. 1 Trillion dollars of credit card debt. When they started giving out all of the money to help people get through their bad times, the credit card debt in that year after COVID was reduced from 1 trillion dollars to 500 billion.
I mean, 5 billion is still a lot of money, make no mistake, but the debt was reduced by half. What does that tell you? People were stuck at home. Money was coming into their hands. What they were doing is taking the money and paying off the credit card debt. So, if I can just put it to you this way – the interest on the credit cards in America, if you had a credit card debt of $1,000, your interest that you were paying on a monthly basis, it wasn’t that much money every month, but on a monthly basis, it was 23 to 25%. Which means that on a $1,000 of debt, you were paying about $230 to $250 worth of interest before you even started to pay off the capital. You were just paying the interest. So, if you were able to pay off half of your credit card to $500, obviously your interest was greatly reduced and you start to put yourself in a very good position. So, I mean, this is a good thing if you’re looking at a macro-economic perspective. People have reduced their debt from a 1 trillion to 500 billion. That’s a huge difference.
COVID restrictions were lifted. People that had been confined that were uncertain of the future, suddenly they were released. Now the confines are gone. What happened? Within a space of 18 months the overall debt went from 500 billion back to 1 trillion. Now the debt is even more, it’s like 1.1 trillion. So, in the last year the credit card debt has not just increased, it’s increased by a substantial – it’s huge. So, what does that mean? It means, when people were constrained, they were constrained by circumstances. They took a position; We’re uncertain of the future, and because we can’t go out and shop, we’re going to save our money. The minute the constraint was lifted, they went out and spent the money, knowing the difference of the consequence. So, can I put it to you this way; if you understood good financial practice, then you would have stayed the course of paying off the debt of your credit card so that in another 12 months you were now completely free of that debt, and you were no longer going to have to pay the interest on that debt, or human systems, human reasoning, human arguments against sound financial principles raise themselves up and suddenly that raising up; “Go spend. Go spend. Be free. Enjoy the new freedom.”
The one was in a fantasy, a human fantasy that spending is going to satisfy you, make you feel better because I’ve been constrained. Meanwhile, actually if you kept off paying off that debt, you were going to be in a position where you could get stronger and stronger and stronger, and just a little way down the line, maybe 2 – 3 years down the line, you would have a surplus, and now you can experience true freedom of spending. Not the fantasy freedom of spending which is on debt. I’m just giving you an example of how the system wants to entrap you whereas God wants to deliver you and free you. If you go with God’s way, you will experience true freedom. If you go with the enemy’s way and just, I got to feel good about myself, then you’re never going to be free because the next freedom is just about feeling good about myself. That’s never just freedom. Amen. Praise the Lord. Yes, my darling.
Pastor Sharon:
Pastor John, I had no idea you were going to bring this up about debt and credit cards. I’ve had it in my heart throughout this whole weekend just to share briefly, it’s for somebody in this congregation, what you and I did in the power of agreement as a married couple when we were in debt. Just very quick. We got into the power of agreement to constrain ourselves that we would not spend, because very often, a wife is not working together with her husband in saying, “Let’s do this together. Let’s get out of debt together.” The power of our agreement, and we actually got out of debt together. Because a husband sometimes feels he needs to spend because his family is expecting it. His family… and he should be, but actually, the whole family works together to say, “We are going to put a constraint on ourselves. We’re not going to stop our tithing and we are not going to stop our giving.” Because you and I got out of debt by constraining our spending and continuing our tithing and our offering in Jesus’ Name. That’s all that I wanted to share.
Pastor John:
Amen. Thank you, darling. Yes, amen. Listen, that was a long time ago but it is no less powerful today as it was then, because the power of agreement is really what established us, that when we received the Word from the Lord… because hey, I came from poor poverty and then God blessed me and we used all of that blessing to get ourselves into debt. And it was all of us getting into agreement all the time to spend money, and then the Lord said, “The same way that you got into blessing, is the way you can get out of debt.” So, then I used the same stuff, the same Word, the same faith principle, the same discipline of going for God to get us out of debt, and then we haven’t looked back since then. Because it is the same order of God, the same blessing of God that is the power of agreement, it’s a very powerful force that works both positively and negatively. The power of agreement is a very powerful thing. So, get into agreement on the Word of God, because it can really bring you deliverance. It can really bring you great things.
So, let’s all get into agreement right now, can we? Let’s get all into agreement that 2025 is our year of acceleration, and God is going to accelerate us into the good things that He has planned for us. His plans and His purposes, we are going to accelerate them, and wherever the enemy wants to try and distract us, slow us down, and bring up arguments and theories and all kinds of imaginations, we put aside those fantasies. We recognize them by the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit. We put aside those fantasies and we keep running hard for the price of the high calling of our Lord Jesus Christ. Are you in agreement with that? Hallelujah.
We are going to stay alive in 2025. We are going to be alive to all of the things that God has planned for us, and we receive all of the good things that God has for us – both spiritual blessings and natural blessings. We receive them in 2025. Amen. Again, I want to salute you and commend you for making yourselves available and coming here all of these five days that we’ve had the Word together, and thank you for drawing things out, out of the spirit realm of God, drawing things out of me, and well done on the message moments. Wasn’t it amazing thing, the message moments that we had? Wow!
So, whatever you’re going to do now, be blessed in what you’re doing, knowing that you are full. I like what Empie said on the break, because Sharon was saying, “What are we going to eat now? We’ve been eating and eating, and now we’ve got nothing to eat for the next couple of days and whatever,” and Empie said, “We’re going to be like cows. Cows got three stomachs, and one of those stomachs he keeps bringing up and he chews on it, and then he swallows it again and brings it up.” So, let’s go and be like cows and keep chewing, and we’re going to keep chewing like cows, and we’re going to keep chewing. What do you say? We’re going to keep chewing on the Word of God while we’re having our break.
Well, be blessed. Be protected. Be strong. May you go in the peace of God and the well-being of the Holy Spirit. Nothing missing, nothing broken. Protected everywhere you go and all things God is directing our footsteps. Amen. Thank you for coming everybody. Amen.
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