Scripture Reference: Psalm 8:3-9 (NKJV); John 8:25, 32, 38 (NKJV); Hebrews 2:14-15 NKJV); Ephesians 2:1-3 (NKJV); Colossians 1:13-17 (KJV)
We have been born into an age where mankind’s life is developing at an incredible pace. We are privileged enough to grow up in a time when no significant major war exists. The greatest thing that has affected us, in terms of a global impact has been Covid. Although Covid was a wake-up call, we are living very much free of Covid now. We are in danger of thinking, from a human point of view, that the spiritual forces that have been at work amongst mankind for centuries and millennia are no longer operating in our lives today, and that there is not going to be that kind of major global impact ever again. We somehow think that spiritual forces have no direct impact on what is going on and that we have our destiny in our own hands.
Pastor John shared that he grew up completely oblivious of political matters, in a mindset of a relatively hopeful and optimistic outlook, a feel-good view of the future. It was only in the military that he was confronted with a world that could not be controlled, where politics put him in a place where his life was threatened and his trust in God and the depths of his walk with God went to a new level as he put his trust in Him.
When his children went to school, Pastor John shared that he didn’t really find it necessary to consider the options of alternatives. He thought a good education would set them up for a future (within his optimistic view of the world). He could not anticipate that the acts of spirits that have been at work in mankind for so long would start to manifest in a younger and younger generation than he grew up with.
Pastor John is gently going to approach the subject of end times, not talking about dates but about our journey as a church and how we need to be paying attention to what is going on around us and have knowledge of what is happening in the world events, and how we should be preparing ourselves for the journey that God has us on that we have to undertake. We must discover what God wants us to do, not what every other church is doing. It is very important that we understand that God has this church on a very specific mandate.
In our humanity, we have no hope for a future, but in Jesus, we have every hope for the future. If we are in Jesus behind the Blood, and the power of the new creature is waiting to be released so that we can live in power and dominion, not in our weakness. Jesus came as a fulfillment of the promise so that we can be free from performance. If we know the truth that we are being born into we can live in power. The power of God overrides our persona. If we live in the power of God and not in the personality of ourselves and others around us, we have the opportunity to live in power and not in performance. We exchange our lives for purpose and not live in popular culture.
People adapt themselves to the culture of the time. If you live in popular culture, then popular culture will always drive your agenda. For the past 30-40 years popular culture said that you can be whatever you want to be, you can dream as big as you want to dream, and become whatever you want to become – there is no stopping you. It is still the popular culture of our day to “be everything you could be”.
If you cannot have a simple truth like, “Are you a male or a female?” and you cannot identify biologically what you are, where is the spectrum of truth that is your foundation of truth? If your foundation of truth is so fluid, then what is truth to you? What is the end game? That you pursue your own agenda in life and the last thing you want to hear is what God has for your life. If the church allows the popular culture to integrate the church, then we are going to be somewhere along the spectrum of morality and being whatever you want to become. The church has to stick with one truth – that Jesus is Lord, and that the Bible is the foundational truth of our lives. We certainly can’t adapt ourselves to the popular culture of the day, we must go with what God says.
Pastor John is not your truth; he is only a messenger of truth. He lives vulnerable before you and is delighted that the integrity and the foundation of God’s Word have protected him all these years. God gave him men of high levels of integrity to model themselves on and to follow their example of following Christ. But the Word of God and the Holy Spirit have always been his direction in life.
Hebrews 2:14-15 (NKJV)
Death is the separation of life. The devil had the power of death. God had the power of life. Jesus came to take back the power of death that was held by the devil. We will never taste death. The minute our body collapses our spirit and soul transition into the eternal realm in the presence of God.
Ephesians 2:1-3 (NKJV)
The prince of the power of this air designs the popular culture of this earth. We were by nature like those people who wanted to live with the popular culture of the day. Jesus delivered you from that same spirit that has the legitimacy to death and who is still at work in children of disobedience.
Colossians 1:13-17 (KJV)
Jesus delivered us from death, but He also delivered us from the darkness.
Darkness is the absence of light; the shadow/shade caused by the interception of light; an umbration – something that comes between the light source and where the light is going.
Jesus delivered us from the intercepting light source – the devil/popular culture – that comes between us and the source of our light. The more we give ourselves to popular culture the more we are in the dark. If we are going to journey and discover new things that God wants for us, we are going to have to see what the common culture of the day is when it comes to finances, relationships, the way we see God, our future, and destiny.
God didn’t intend you to be part of a mass group of people who would just be part of popular culture. We all grew up affected by popular culture, in the shadow/shade/darkness of popular culture. Our only reference point was what the culture was teaching us was relevant. Popular culture can affect you even though you don’t even know it. So, we have to move away from these interfering objects that would come between us and the truth. We must confront our popular culture of this day, whatever it is, we must walk in the light so that generations that are coming after us can be delivered and walk free.
The safest place you can be in the world is where God wants you to be. God has divinely given us a legacy and He is bringing legacy to life in us. We are going to confront popular culture and we are going to say, “What is our journey to the truth?”
Pastor John is going to share what God has placed in us as a ministry in education in the future. Your agenda for your child is likely to have been driven by a popular culture already to some extent. If we are not honest about that then we are fighting revelation and we can’t receive the life of the truth of God’s Word. In the truth of God’s Word, He has a plan for you right now. God’s plan for us is to bring us away from and cause us to see with eyes that will see, to hear with ears that will hear, and to give us the power to live the way we need to live so that we are no longer competing or impacted by the popular culture.
If you want to live in the popular culture, you will suffer the consequences of the end result of what the popular culture will bring to your doorstep. You are going to pay a bigger price than you ever thought you would pay. It will be a price of darkness, despair, and destruction in your life. Many people are paying the price with their lives because of what the popular culture says or by institutions that are driven by what the popular culture says. It is all part of darkness trying to control your future by wanting to control your language, what you think, and what you choose.
But Jesus died so that He could raise us up, and we no longer have to walk in death. We no longer have to be driven by the popular culture of the day. He has given us the power to speak words into our future. As we speak words into our future, we walk into the future of our words that are based on His words. We walk into a prepared life that is free from any obscurity; there is no darkness there. There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God. His love is higher, deeper, and wider than anything that can try and prevent you from your future in Him. This is where our source of strength comes from. Hallelujah.
Say, I am a child of God. I have a bright future. I walk in the light, and I do not walk in darkness. My future is in Jesus and not in the way I grew up. I will see and fully grasp all the things that God is speaking by His Spirit to us at this time. I have supernatural momentum. I have boldness and strength and all the things that I need to go with Pastor John and Pastor Sharon in this Ecclesia – and to not stay behind. I will not get lost in all the nonsense of popular culture. I am part of a mighty, powerful church in the hands of God.
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