Scripture reference: 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 (NKJV), Hebrews 12:1-3 (NLT)
I just want you all to agree with me that the Holy Spirit takes every word and ministers it to you, multiplies it to your heart, into your life, touches you, increases you, and blesses you with the word of God tonight. Are you all in agreement? Hallelujah. Will you get into agreement with me this way; just touch someone else’s hand and say, “It’s multiplied to you. It’s multiplied to you.” Yes. Thank you. Then you may be seated. Praise the Lord. Glory.
You know, we’ve only got tomorrow morning’s meetings left. Look at all of you how well you’ve done. You’ve done proper conditioning this week. You’ve been stretching every day. You’ve been growing every day. You’ve done a couple of high intensity training sessions, and then you’ve done some tempo work, we’ve done some proper spiritual conditioning over the last couple of days. Amen. Hallelujah. What a way to go into a new year. Amen. Praise Jesus. So well done, everybody. Tomorrow morning, we’re just going to glorify and celebrate the Lord Jesus and give Him the first of our new year. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Alright. You know this morning, it was not my intention, I didn’t have a pre-considered view of the fact that I would talk about what happened with Grobbies and Christie and all of that. That was purely led by the Holy Spirit this morning. Do you recognize that? And so this afternoon, I was just considering it. When the Lord actually gave me the whole scriptural dissertation on God’s Judgment is God’s Secret Weapon of Love, when He gave it to me, He started off by showing me just what that meant with Jesus. And whether you think so or not, your sin is as bad as anybody else’s sin in the eyes of God.
In society, we tend to have a measurement of how bad sin is. In God’s eyes, sin is sin, right? And so once you’ve separated yourself from the life of God through sin, there has to be a price that’s got to be paid. There wasn’t a being that was good enough to pay the price for everybody forever, until Jesus. And then when Jesus came to the earth, He basically said to the Father, “I’ll come and live in a human body, and in this human body, I will live as men lived, and I will go through every temptation that men go through, and then You can judge the sin of the world on My body.”
You understand that the Spirit of Jesus was perfect, and His soul was completely submitted to God as was His body. There was nothing about Him that was imperfect, and it required a perfect lamb to stand for the sin of mankind in a human being. So when Jesus was hanging on the cross and He said, “It is done, it is finished”, He was declaring to all eternity that the judgment of all human beings, past, present, and future has been judged on My body.
The sin could not be judged in His Spirit, but it had to be judged on His body, and that was the first thing that God did with Adam and Eve. He cut the skins of animals and He wrapped them around their body so that they could have a restored dignity and honor returned, because there had to be a price that was paid. Blood had to be shed so that their shame could be covered. Then when Jesus came and He died on the cross, He died to restore a form of glory back to earth and to the humans on the earth, that we can live continuously evermore in the glory of God because of His judgment of Jesus. Wow.
So the Father gave us a gift, and His gift to us was Jesus. There was not another being in the universe that looked like Him, talked like Him, behaved like Him. The last being that existed on the earth that was like that was Adam. And from Adam until Jesus, there was not another being on the earth that could pay the price for us until Jesus. And when Jesus came, He came to pay the price, and God judged Him.
God judged all of the sin of mankind on Jesus so that when Jesus was raised from the dead by the Father, there is a heavenly requirement, there is a heavenly court that had to be satisfied that the judgment had been paid, that the price had been paid for the judgment. So Jesus goes into heaven and He goes to the Father, and the blood that He shed is laid out on the mercy seat in heaven. In that mercy seat in heaven, forever, the blood of Jesus that is on that mercy seat speaks for us eternally. We do not have to pay the price of sin anymore. We just have to pay the price of believing in Jesus. And whatever that comes with, that’s what we have to do, is believe in Jesus.
So now, eternally, if we just believe in Jesus, we have everything we need. Amen. That is a gift. It is the gift of gifts. There is no greater gift that you and I can ever have than the gift that Jesus paid the price for us. That’s impressive. That’s impressive how God got Jesus to do that, and Jesus did all of that. That’s impressive, you know. Praise the Lord.
We have an amazing heritage, you and I. We have an amazing heritage, and the heritage that He has given us, is the heritage of faith, love, and hope. Those three things the book of Corinthians says, will abide forever. They will never ever disappear, even though knowledge will leave the earth and all of the ways of men will change, but faith, hope, and love will always be with us eternally. This is amazing. This is amazing and we have been given that to live by. Wow.
So you know, there is only one thing you and I are left with to do while we are on the earth. What are we going to do with Jesus? What are we going to do with Jesus? When I talk like this, you might think that this is a salvation message, but it’s not. Every day you are faced with a decision: What am I going to do with Jesus today? What am I going to do with Jesus today?
If you and I have a very simple life to live and we break it down to the very simplest condition of our lives, then every day we should be waking up and saying, “What am I going to do with Jesus today?” We speak about it in different languages, and the language we speak is, what are we going to do with the Word of God today? What are we doing with the Word that comes out of our mouth? But if the Word is Jesus and Jesus is the Word, then you are saying, “What am I going to do with Jesus today?”
If you understand that Jesus is your gift and whatever you are doing with Jesus today is how you are unwrapping the gift. How are you going to present the gift into the very essence of the life that you live around you? When I go into the world, I have Jesus inside of me, and as I go into the world, wherever I go, whether I go to the shops… I mean this church should buy shares in Woolworths Benfleur. It’s like after church service on a Sunday or any other day, you get to 12 o’clock, and there are only Heritage of Faith people in there. You know? Wow. It’s like when you go into Woolworths or Checkers or any other place, you are taking Jesus with you. You are taking Jesus with you. You have a gift inside of you that, aside from the other Christians that are around there, you carry a gift with you that is very special. Amen.
Here’s what second Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14 says about this. 14 Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place, (2 Cor. 2:14 NKJV). Do you know what a diffuser is? It’s these sticks you put it into a little jar. It’s got fragrant oil in it, and it diffuses the fragrance into the room. There’s electronic ones too, where you put it in there and it makes a little puff of smoke, and it puts a fragrance into the room. Right? It diffuses the fragrance so that more people can smell it. So, the scripture in Corinthians says, 14 Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ. If we are always in triumph, then it means we are always in victory. Are we not? We’re always in victory. Amen.
We could put it this way. 14 Now thanks be to God who always leads us to victories all the time in Christ, and through us – through what? Through the victories that we have in Christ. … through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. This is amazing. This is amazing that we are a gift. God has given us a gift and now we become a gift. 15 For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. (2 Corinthians 2: 14-15 NKJV)
So amongst those who are being saved, we are a fragrance to God. When we hang out together like this, our fragrance comes together, we diffuse a fragrance to God that Jesus is our gift, and we’ve received Jesus as the gift. Come on, that’s what the scripture is saying. Amen. We are a fragrance to those that are perishing, because when you walk into Woolworths or you walk into Checkers or you walk into those places, you bring your gift with you, and the fragrance of your gift can cause other people to, (sniff) “What’s happened here? Something good has walked in.” It’s the gift of Jesus. It’s the gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s the gift of life that came into the room or into any place when you arrive. It’s a gift. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
I know what I want to do in 2024, 2025, sorry. I’m at the end of ‘24, but I know what I want to do in ‘25. I want to become a gift. I want to be the best smelling gift anywhere. Now don’t walk up to me, you MiXchange in the middle of the year and go (sniff, sniff), “I smell you, Pastor John.” Especially don’t do that when I’m on the bicycle. But, you know, I mean, we are a gift. We are a fragrance wherever we go.
So, 16 To the one, those that are perishing, we are the aroma of death leading to death. Why? Because when they smell the fragrance of God on us, they realize they don’t have it, and they have either going to make a choice immediately to have it or to reject it, and if they reject it, this aroma is going to lead to their death because someone came to them with a proper aroma of life. 16 … and to the other the aroma of leading to life. (2 Corinthians 2: 16 NKJV).
So, whether you like it or not, you smell. You do. I mean, aroma is a smell. It’s a fragrance, it’s a smell. You smelly thing you. Come on, tell somebody, “You smell.” Come on, tell somebody, you smell. Hey hey, listen. You know, every now and again, Pastor Sharon will come up to me and she says, “Can you smell me? Can you smell me baby?” “You smell so good.” You know, she wants to know do I smell this perfume that she’s got on? Well, that’s what happens when you walk into a place. Do you smell me? Do you smell me? You should be able to smell the fragrance.
This morning, I arrived here at the church and Empie said to me, “How are you, Pastor John?” I said, “I’m doing just great, Empie. What about you?” And before I could say anything, he says, “Yes. That’s how I know you, Pastor John. You’re just doing great.” Because I am. I’m great. I’m doing great. Smell my fragrance. I’m doing great. Amen. Hallelujah. Even when I’ve got a thick lip, I’m still doing right, and my lip has got to come in line with my fragrance. Come on. Even when your lip is hanging, you got to say, “Lip, hey, you smell good. Stop it now.”
“To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death and to the other, the aroma of life leading to life, and who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as so many, peddling the Word of God, but as of sincerity. But as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 2:1 NKJV). So, what is he saying? Here, he’s saying, we are not peddling the Word of God. We are not making the Word of God for sale. We’re not teaching the Word of God. We’re not a fragrance to you so that we can make money out of it. We are a fragrance of God because this is what we are, and we come to you with the Word of God because that’s what we’ve got to give. It’s the Word of God. Amen. Hallelujah. Are you ready for me tonight? I don’t know if you’re ready for me tonight. Are you sure you’re ready for me tonight? Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus.
So, the Lord began to deal with me over the last month or so, maybe 2 months, I don’t know how long it’s been, let’s say a month. I’ve been talking about the God dimension, the 4th dimension, the God dimension. So, I had an experience in the Spirit. And, what I started to share with you tonight is how it was actually given to me. And I’m not going to talk so much about the experience because it was a really wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful experience. But I just want to share with you the glory of the Word that God gave me. It has to do partly with the scripture that I’ve just read to you.
You know, I have this cell phone here, and if I had to give someone the cell phone and they are even an Android user or a Google user, or whatever operating system or kind of phone they have. If I gave them my Apple phone, if they don’t have the latest version and all that kind of stuff and know what it is, they might not know how to use my phone, right? Certainly with this phone, I have a face recognition on my phone. So in order to get into my phone, you either are going to have my password or you have to put it by my face, otherwise you can’t use my phone. So it doesn’t matter if I give you the gift of my phone, there is nothing you can do with my phone unless you know how to use my phone. So you have to have certain rights of access to be able to use my phone.
But now if I unlock my phone and I give it to you, and you have the phone and I say, “Now use my phone”. If I give it to pastor Sharon, I can tell you I know what she is going to use the phone for. She is going to look for Audio Note software, and she is going to look for Bible software, and she might look for my phone book here to see if there are common phone numbers that she can use. But she is not going to use half of the apps that are on my phone because she is not interested in them. Nine tenths. Okay baby, nine tenths. Because what I want to use my phone for, she doesn’t want to. She has a certain attitude towards the phone. I’m not going at her now, I am actually using this to get to what God showed me when I had my encounter. I’m wanting you to receive the truth of my encounter with God, rather than what happened in my encounter with God.
So if I ask pastor Sharon what she is doing with her phone, she uses her phone for very little stuff and to the point where she says, “I’m not going to let this phone dictate my life. I will leave it in the kitchen and walk around the house.” And when I try to phone her, she can’t hear the phone because she is somewhere else in the house. And if she does hear the phone, it takes her a long time to get to the phone, even how fast she does move down the stairs or whatever. So maybe she’ll phone me back. Maybe it’ll take her 10 or 15 minutes to find out actually, she gets to her phone and she finds out somebody tried to phone her. Even if it’s me and you are not by your phone, you are not going to get who’s trying to phone you on your phone. Right? Amen. I’m not having a go at you, babe.
So I’m wanting to tell you that even if we have the same phone, if I give her the gift of a new phone, the way she’s going to use that phone, I can stand by and watch her. I can watch her use her phone, and I will be interested as to how she uses this gift that is her phone, right? And the way she chooses to use this gift is her business. If I gave her the gift, its her’s to use. Whatever she does with this phone, if it’s 10% of the value of the capability of the phone, it’s hers to choose. Right? If you give me the phone, you will find out what I use the phone for, and so that would be an interesting thing for you to watch me use the phone.
Now, I have people around me, and from time to time, there’s something on my phone I want to do, and I’m not exactly sure how to do it. And I’ll call Matthew over and say, “Matthew, I can’t do this.” Then he will say, “Pastor John, do this, do this,” and he will watch me. He will watch me try and do it, and I’ll do it at my speed. Now, by the fact that I’m asking him what to do on my phone, it will tell you that he knows more about the phone than me. So now, he’s being respectful and he’s being honorable by letting me try and find my way around the phone, and he has to be patient.
Why? Because he already knows what I want to do. He already knows the answer. Yes? Not only does he know the answer, but he can get it done five times quicker than me or maybe even quicker. But let’s just say – no, I don’t wanna give him that much leverage over me – let’s say twice as fast. Only twice as fast. I don’t want to give him that much credit. But whatever, he’s much faster than me. Okay? So, if he’s watching me, he’s now observing how I do it. Now, if I was as fast as him, he might not be as impatient, or he wouldn’t be required to be as patient because I could be as fast as he could. He could see me typing with my fingers as quick as he could, and he would say, “Okay, Pastor John is moving along nicely. I don’t have to interfere here.” But he’ll be respectful, and he’ll watch me, and then after a certain amount of time, he’ll say, “Pastor John, can I do this for you?” “Okay, here we go, Matt.” And then I will say, “But now, slow it down a little bit so I can see what you’re doing.” And then he will show me what he did, and then, okay.
If I just left him all on his own, and I was just watching him, I would be amazed at the speed at which he could work through the phone. And from time to time, we’ve been out somewhere doing something, and I have watched him do stuff on his phone. I’m amazed at how small the words are on his phone, number one. Number two, I’m amazed at how he can type so quickly on that little thing, and those small words, and still see what he’s doing. He can flick through different kinds of applications so quickly that it blurs my mind, my eyesight. You understand what I’m saying?
How he can use the gift and the way that I can use the gift are two completely different things. If I’m observing, if I’m watching what’s going on, then I have to watch what’s going on based on the fact that the gift now belongs to someone else, and whatever they do with the gift is their business. That’s not my business anymore. Amen.
When you are operating in the realm of the spirit, you see things in the realm of the spirit, and you don’t know how much time has gone by, but you just receive things from God in a way. Perhaps I can put it to you this way: If you’re watching a movie and you are in a small home theater, and you’ve got big surround sound, and you’re in that. It’s maybe just you or you and one other person in a theater. And it’s a very exciting movie and all of that. You might feel, and this is actually the trick of movie making if you like, they want to make you feel like you are the character in the movie, because they want you to be so engaged in the movie, that you are the character in the movie, and so you want to identify with that character and all the ups and lows and things that they’re going through. Right?
But you are not the movie. You are just watching the movie, but you feel like you’re in the movie. That’s what happened to me in my supernatural encounter. I felt like I was in the movie. I was in the spirit realm, but at the same time, I was observing what was going on in the Spirit, and although I was part of it, I wasn’t part of it, but I felt like I was part of it. Amen.
The way I can share it with you is this, Jesus gave me, He gave me to the earth. He gave me to the earth. This is a marvelous thing that He chose my spirit, and He put my spirit in my body. But He could have put my spirit in another body you know. He could have, but for some reason, He chose to put my spirit in my body and He gave me to the earth. This earth has to deal with me. Whether the earth likes it or not, the earth has to deal with me. Come on.
Now how about this? In humanity every being that is born, He has given that being with that spirit to the earth. Whatever He’s placed in that being, He’s given it to the earth. I saw that. I saw that. He gave the gift of spirits to the earth, into beings. For me, I saw myself and how He gave me to the earth. I need to read you a passage of scripture, because this is the scripture that God the Father spoke to me by the Holy Spirit in that moment when I was in the Spirit. I almost want to quote what the apostle John said, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” In that moment, I was in the Spirit. And in some ways, I can identify with the apostle Paul that says, “Whether I was in the body or out the body, I don’t know.”
What was happening to me was a movie. It was a vision. I saw things and, I’m going to read it to you from the New Living translation, Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1. ¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. 2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honour beside God’s throne. (Hebrews 12:1-3, NLT)
If I gave a cell phone to Pastor Sharon, and this is the best way that I can describe it without getting involved in everything that happened to me. I don’t feel the liberty to talk about it in that way, I feel more that I need to share the truth of it with you rather than the encounter, okay? If I give a gift of a phone to Pastor Sharon, I’m going to watch her use the phone. I’m going to see how she uses the phone and what she uses it for, right? And I’m going to watch how Matt uses his phone, and you can watch me and see how I use my phone. All of us have been given maybe the same phone, but we’re all going to use it differently.
I saw God give me as a gift to the earth, and then I watched how people used my gift. How people received my gift, and how they experienced my gift that God gave me to the earth. I can tell you this part, that I immediately, at the same time, I was part of a great cloud of witnesses, and I saw the faces of people who I knew. It was quite an experience. I saw the faces of people I knew and I was with them. In the crowd of witnesses, I was with them, but at the same time, I was aware that they were watching me, and I was watching me too. How do you figure that? I don’t understand that, but it is what it is. They were watching my gift work on the earth. They were watching me, and words were spoken to me. Words were spoken to me. I’m not going to go into all of that tonight.
Jesus is our Champion because He did all of that stuff for us. Although the Father knew that Jesus was going to be judged and all of our sins were going to be judged on Him. When Jesus started His ministry, John the Baptist was a witness and he made a declaration to Jesus and to everybody around, “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” He had to make a declaration of the Gift that had been given to the earth, the Gift that was about to be revealed, the Gift that he was not even worthy of to even pronounce who He was, never mind baptize Him. Because when Jesus said, ’’John, you must baptize Me so that prophecy can be fulfilled,’’ he said, ’’It is not me that should be baptizing You, You should be baptizing me.’’ He said, ’’No John, you must baptize Me so that this thing can be fulfilled.’’ Right? Yes.
What John was observing was the Gift that God had given to the earth, given to humanity, given to all of mankind, the Gift that had arrived on the earth. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit were watching their Own Self in Jesus. Watching Jesus, the Gift, be what He needs to be on earth. So, even though He was eternally part of Them and They were watching Him, He was with Them watching Him, but at the same time, He was the Gift. Jesus was aware that when He came up out of the water, the Heavenly Father spoke from heaven and He said, “This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him. This is My Beloved Son. I’m well pleased with Him.” Well, it was later on the mount that He said, “Hear Him.” This time He said, “This is My Beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased.”
God the Father, what was He declaring about the Gift that He gave to the earth? He was making a declaration, “I’m watching. I’m watching. Heaven is watching. The angels are watching.” At that time, Abraham and all of the people that had previously died on the earth, they were in a waiting place and they were waiting for this very moment. They were waiting for this very moment, but they couldn’t go into their eternal future. They had to go to this waiting place and wait there until this time was fulfilled. In the spirit realm, we are being watched. We are being watched.
This scripture says, “since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith.” We are being watched. Everything that we are doing that is to do with the Gift that is Jesus, we are being watched. We are being observed. What are we doing with Jesus? What are we doing with Jesus? What are we doing with Jesus? What are we doing with the Word in our lives? We are being watched. This is amazing. Just work with me for a minute if you will.
How far away do you think this realm of watchers is away from us? How far do you think they are away from us, this realm of watchers? I mean, if we talk about the God dimension or the heavenly realm, and we could just open our eyes and see, then you would realize it’s a different realm, so we can’t see them. But it’s not like they are far away. They are just here, watching us. They’re just here. Well, anyway, that’s how I experienced it. It’s like this realm is right here. It’s right here. It’s like almost if I could go through this roof right now, I would be in it. It’s amazing. It’s amazing. It’s that close. It’s just that close.
I’ve had the privilege over years to have myself in many different wildlife situations, and some of them have been very close, some of them have not been so close, and then you take a very good pair of binoculars and then you go and look at the wildlife. And what it does is, it takes something that’s far away and it just brings it right here. When you’re looking through those glasses, it looks like the animal that is far away is right here.
Right now, the way we feel about the heavenly realm is that it’s so far away because we can’t see anything through where we are naturally. But if you had the glasses and the eyes of God, if He can give us those glasses, we would see that this realm is right here. It’s right here. It’s right here. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
You know, brother Jerry had an experience similar to this. If you haven’t had an experience like this, you can’t describe it to anybody else. In the sense of, you can use words in the best way that you can use words, but it can never describe what you’ve experienced, you can never describe that.
But, you know, when Brother Jerry was given a word from God on, “You must go and tell My people that sowing in famine,” that whole message that God downloaded him. He was in his hotel room with Carolyn and she went to sleep, and he was sitting in the lounge, and he got engulfed in the glory of God. If you’ve heard him talk about it, he would say it’s not like he was out of his body, but certainly the glory of God came into his room and he knew that he was in the presence of God. The realm of the supernatural glory of God was with him, and he was one with it in that realm, in that room. When Carolyn came walking out, she walked into the glory. She knew something happened here. Right? And that night, Brother Copeland was about to preach and he was standing at the pulpit, and then he couldn’t get to preach. And he said, “Jerry, you had an encounter with God today. Come and tell us what He said.” Have you heard all of that? You remember all of that?
Well, I’m glad I heard that because the other person that I know that had many encounters like it was Kenneth Hagin. Most of his encounters were like visions where he could actually see like a movie that was playing out. That’s the best way that I can describe it, it was more like what happened to Brother Jerry for me than like what happened to Brother Hagin. But at the same time, I saw stuff. I saw it as though my eyes were seeing it. You know?
I’m not going to go into any more detail about it other than to say this, that when I saw them looking at my gift, when I saw them looking at the activity and the function of my gift on the earth, I knew, that I knew, that I knew… I mean, some things were said to me, but I knew, that I knew, that I have to do what I have to do, so that without me doing what I can do, God was counting on me to do what I had to do. And there were some in the cloud of witnesses that I knew by name. I knew them by face. I knew them and they were in agreement, speaking over me that I must do and finish what I must do. Amen.
You know, the most amazing thing of having this kind of experience is that it opened my eyes to all of you. It really did. It opened my eyes to all of you because I saw how God sees all of you. I mean, not that I was watching you, but I now have a recognition that all of this heavenly realm is actually watching you as much as they’re watching me and how you respond to what God’s put in you. Everybody’s watching for you to fulfill your assignment.
I don’t know why it happened, I can only say thank you to the Lord for it because I wasn’t fasting. In particular, I wasn’t fasting about anything. I wasn’t spending extra hours of praying to have an encounter with God. And to that extent, I can say it was more like Brother Jerry. He wasn’t in a particular frame of mind or in a particular seeking place with God that Jesus would show up and give him that Sowing in Famine message. But God just chose in His wisdom to come and encounter him. Amen.
I have been careful in my life. I’ve been careful, and I feel that care on me. It’s a positive thing, it’s not a negative thing. I feel that care on me, that I should not be bringing attention to the encounter itself, but rather to the truth of the encounter. Because, you know, I don’t want to go and write books. I don’t. I don’t sense that that would please God, that I must go and write books and try and make money out of telling people my story. I don’t know if you guys can understand what’s happening to me. I feel like God gave this to me, and He gave it so that I could share it with you in the right moment and that He will do with this whatever He needs to do with it. If somewhere down the line He wants me to be more vocal about it, then He’ll let me know. But for now, it’s a precious thing that happened to me and I feel alright to share it with you, according to the Holy Spirit, and this is the way that He gave me the wisdom to share it with you.
We are a gift. In the same way that Jesus was given to us as a gift, we are a gift. Now I know there were some things that I know, that I saw, that He was ministering to me about, that my gift to the Body of Christ, as a ministry gift, that He gave me to the Body. I was aware of what He was showing me with my gift. I was aware of how people were interacting with my gift, and how some people were receiving my gift with joy and gladness, and other people were not. I was observing how different people were receiving or not receiving my gift. But I was also aware that my gift was given so that people could have that experience, that everybody was going to have a different choice of how they were going to receive my gift. And that’s the way God intended all of our gifts to be – whether to choose or not to choose to do something with it. God has left it in our hands. Hallelujah.
A lot of what was happening to me in that encounter was about my gift, but I saw more than that. I saw how everybody’s gift was at work. I mean, it’s not like I saw that, it’s, I knew that. I just knew that everybody’s gift is treated the same way on the earth. And whatever their gift is, as you encounter people’s gifts and how their gifts function on the earth, so God will multiply those gifts back to you, as you receive those gifts that He has placed in your life. And how you perceive people’s gifts, and how you interact with people’s gifts is a big deal to God, because He put a gift in them to be around you, to be with you, to work with you, and you with them, and the multiplication of the gifts is how these gifts work together. I just knew that. You know what I’m saying?
I have read a lot of Scriptures since then, looking at the Scripture through different eyes, because of my encounter with the Supernatural, and it was marvelous to me. It was marvelous to me. Praise Jesus. When I read you the Scripture this evening that we are a fragrance, our fragrance is diffused. 14 Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place (2 Corinthians 2:14, NKJV). I’ll tell you what, when you come with a gift of Jesus, the gift that is Jesus that’s in you, comes alongside your gift, and He multiplies your gift and diffuses the fragrance of your gift in so many different ways. It’s unimaginable.
You know Matthew is probably one of the more proficient users of a cell phone. I know there are many other young people here that can use a cell phone. I just interact with Matthew more often than most others. I know what he is capable of on a phone, but there are many young people that are good on a phone and can do many things on a phone. But even with that, they’re probably not using twenty, thirty percent of what the phone can do just because the phone is designed to actually, whatever anybody wants to do with the phone, the phone can do that. It can be used for whatever they have a niche use reason to use it for in their life. So, you’ve got all these apps and these app stores, and it’s designed so that if you’ve got somebody that is wanting to diagnose some kind of medical thing somewhere in the field, they could use an iPad with a specific bit of software, and it’s the same operating system just on a bigger screen. They can use it for a very niche thing. So you look at something like that and you say, “I didn’t even know that a phone or an iPad could be used for something that is so specific.” And then you look at the power of that phone or the iPad and you say, “Wow, look how much this thing can do, but it’s in the hands of the person who is applying that particular set of stuff in that particular way.
Then it becomes a fragrance of usefulness, right? And so Jesus is the fragrance. Jesus is the multiplier. Jesus is the One who is the aroma, and He is in us, and He wants to diffuse Himself through us in all the different ways that we can be together. Wow. Wow. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.
You know, Jesus, He had to face that when the Bible says that He was sent to His own and His own received Him not. Can you imagine Jesus is walking on the earth and He knows He’s the gift to them. He’s the Messiah to them. He is the eternal answer of everything that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was a forerunner of. He is the answer of everything that was prophesied through them about them. He is the answer of David, King David and his throne that will reign forever. He is the answer of all of the law of Moses. He is the answer of every prophetic word that was ever declared by all the prophets. And here He is walking on the earth, and He is called to all of these people, and they don’t even know Him. They can’t recognize Him, and they are blinded by their own state of consciousness and their own state of law, and they are blinded by it, and yet He is still their gift.
Wow. He just had to allow all of the love that was in Him eternally, the Continuous Perfect State of Being that He ever was, that ever planned to become the gift to them. He had to still let that love flow through Him to all of these people. As they even rejected Him and even as they were putting Him on the cross, He was still saying, “I’m here for you. Eternally, I’m still here for you. My gift will never change for you. Whatever you do with it, it will never change for you.”
So for some of them, He became the aroma of death because some of them said, “Let His blood be on our hands and on our children’s and our children’s children.” The judgment of their whole decision to hang Him on the cross, they were so bold as to say, “Let this thing, this judgment of this thing, let it be on us and our children and our children’s children.” So it was for a hundred years, Rome ruled Israel and all of those people and their children. Their children’s children were persecuted and under extreme duress of much persecution. Many things happened to them because of their own mouth that they rejected the gift.
Now, if you read the Bible and you read what the Apostle Paul, when he talks about himself in his apostolic ministry, when he talks about himself in who he is to different people and what he writes to them. When he talks about them, he realizes that he is a gift. His gift is connected to the gift that is Jesus that was given, and now his gift is just another part of the gift that is Jesus, that is available to everybody, and what they’ve chosen to do with him as a gift. He has to just love them and be patient with them and share the gift with them no matter what they do with it. Wow. It’s quite something, hey. It’s quite something. Hallelujah.
So you know what, hey, Pastor Melusi? At some point in time, it got very… it was about me, and most of it was about me. The Lord wanted to show me stuff about me. If I had to put it to you this way, I would say to you, this is what happened to me in some part. It was like the Lord wanted me to know this. “I’m watching you, Melusi. I’m watching you. Don’t give up. Don’t allow your gift to stop working. No matter what they do with it, or they don’t do with it, whatever. It doesn’t matter Melusi, just be the gift. I’m watching your gift. Just let it be. Just let it be there. Never quit being the gift, Melusi. Never quit putting yourself out there. Don’t quit. Whatever you do, Melusi, keep being the gift for all while you’re alive. All of what you ever have to do, just always be the gift.” We got to be the gift.
So what is it to me if some people just say, “I don’t want to do anything with your gift? What must I do with that?” It’s not my business. It’s not anything for me to even mourn over, is it? I mean, if they could put Jesus on the cross and He was the gift to them, then I must mourn over someone that just doesn’t like my gift. I just got to keep being the gift, right? I’ve got to just be the gift. And so, there’s only one way that I can keep being the gift and that’s I’ve go to let His love completely dominate everything that I do. Because if I don’t, then my humanity will observe my own gift and my humanity will look at my gift and say; what use is it doing because look at them. Come on now. But in Jesus, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
So, the greatest love that God could show us, was that He gave us the gift of Jesus and then judged all of our sin on the gift that was Jesus. And that’s the greatest gift that He’s given us. How we choose to walk on this earth now, is up to us. It’s up to us. So, there are people that are watching us. There are beings that have left their earthly bodies that are living in the spirit realm, and they are together there. They are together in the heavenly realm. They are there together with angels. They are there together with all of the previous saints that have left the earth. This is amazing.
There is so many things you see, the fullness of things and like everything, and I learned this from Kenneth Hagin. Whenever he saw something in a vision, he would say, “Okay, Lord, now you must show me what it says in the Word, because if it’s not in the Word, then I’m not going to say that there was a vision from the Lord.” And so, the Word will always be the foundation of everything that you have as a spiritual encounter. Otherwise, you must be critical of those encounters because there are two realms of spirits out there. But the realm of the Spirit where the angels are, where God lives, where the saints are residing, watching us. There’s stuff that I knew.
Actually, if you walk into a stadium and you are there with two or three other people – if I went to go and watch a game of soccer or rugby or something like that, there might be 60, 70000 people in the stadium. But if I’m going to the stadium with Gideon and Grobbies and Christi, and we are all in the stadium together, how many of you know that my experience is with the four of us together. We are experiencing this together. It doesn’t matter that there’s 60,000. When I walk in and out of that stadium, I’m aware there’s 60,000 people, but I don’t know any of those 60,000 people. You know, if I looked at them, I could recognise there’s those supporters, there’s those supporters, there’s groups of people that you can recognise this is what they stand for. This is what they do, this is what they’re about. But actually, my experience is just with these few. Right?
That is kind of what happened to me, is that my experience was just with a few, but I was aware there were many. There were just many, many, many, you know, But my experience is just with a few, and that’s not the part that I’m going to talk about because that is personal. I have shared it with Pastor Sharon, but that part is personal to me. And until the Lord gives me something else to say about it, it will remain that way. Amen. Hallelujah.
But I will tell you that I am greatly, greatly encouraged. I’m greatly encouraged by the Lord. I’m greatly inspired by the Holy Spirit to continue to run my race with joy, to continue to do what I have to do with great assurance that actually He is aware of everything that He has put in me, and that He has ordained me to walk in and to be. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
I have had a lot of reflection since then, and you might go back on one or two of the messages that I’ve preached in the last two weeks, and you might hear me talking about some encounters that we have had, spirits that we have confronted, things that we have done. My awareness of this has increased greatly since I have had that encounter. I’m aware that there are things that I have done in my life.
I am aware that when I was at Rhema, I was in my twenties and the Lord dealt with me to go and be part of the business people’s prayer meeting. At the time the church had between 6 and 10 000 people that were in the church. They had these early morning prayer meetings for business and finance. So I started to go to the prayer meeting. I was maybe 25, 26 years old. I would go to the prayer meetings, and I was shocked that when I walked into the prayer meeting, there were 10 people there. Out of 6000 members in the church, there were 10 people there. On a good morning at 5 o’clock in the morning – and the prayer meetings were held early in the morning so that we were done by 6, so that if people had to go to work, they could still get to work on time and not be hindered by the prayer meeting – and there were maybe 10 people there. On a good day, there were maybe 14, 16 people there out of a church of 6000 people. I was shocked about it. But, anyway, you know, here’s what I’ve reflected on, and as I have reflected on what happened to me, the Holy Spirit has ministered more things to me, and here’s what He’s been speaking to me about.
He said, “John, you had a desire, you had a desire to go to that prayer meeting. You didn’t have a desire to go to that prayer meeting because you were a pastor. You were not a pastor. You had a desire to go to that prayer meeting not because you wanted dramatic change in business and finance. You had a desire because your gift pulled the desire out of you. Your gift was motivating you to go to that prayer meeting. Because as a ministry gift that you would be functioning in somewhere in your life, your ministry gift was drawing you to the things of the Spirit, to the activities of church life, to the things that I wanted you to get done in the earth to come. And your gift was already calling you into those processes and you responded to My gift and calling that was already calling you, and you didn’t even know that you were doing that. Wow.
I remember when Pastor Ray called me and I was at work and the phone rang and his secretary said, “Pastor Ray is on the phone. Will you talk to him quickly?” And I was like, I was shocked. First time he’s called me like this, you know. Pastor Ray called me. I mean, at that time, the church had maybe 10 – 15 000 people in the church. He called me and he said, “John, it’s Pastor Ray here.” “Yes, Pastor Ray.” He said, “I want you to head up the Rhema Business People’s Fellowship.” I said, “You got the wrong man. I’m not the right man for you. I’m too young. I’m not experienced in business. There’s lots of wealthy guys out there.” “No, no John, you’re the right man. I’ve spoken to this man. I’ve spoken to this man. This is what’s happening. They say you are the man for the job, and I’m in agreement with them. I witnessed with that in the Spirit. Will you do it?” “Yes sir. Yes, Pastor Ray. I’ll do it. You’re going to have to help me though, because I don’t know what you want me to do.” He said, “I’ll help you. Come and see me. We’ll talk about it, and we’ll talk with these guys and these guys, and we’ll make sure you’ve got everything you need.” I don’t know. I’m 27, maybe 28. I’ve got millionaires, big guys, CEOs, big guys all around me, and I’m a salesman.
So, here’s how the Lord was speaking to me. He said, “John, your desire of your gift that pulled you to that prayer meeting, was establishing your faithfulness and obedience to the gifting and the calling that I was calling you to. And because you obeyed the gifting that was calling you, because you gave yourself to the gifting and the desire that the gifting was calling you to do. I was showing you, I was setting you up so that your obedience and your sacrifice and your responding to the gift, would set you up to bring you before kings and before great men. And they would then recognise your gift and they would call you further into your gift. Wow.
One of the men that I actually had a business people’s breakfast with was – what is that guy Sharon? Roy Hicks. None of you would have ever met Roy Hicks or know very little about Roy Hicks. Roy Hicks was one of the most remarkable men of God that was a friend of Kenneth Hagin’s. He came to South Africa because Ray McCauley came out of Rhema and Brother Hagin said to Brother Roy Hicks, “You must go to South Africa. God’s doing something there.” Watch this people.
Kenneth Hagin is talking to Roy Hicks, he tells Roy Hicks he’s got to come to South Africa because Pastor Ray is in South Africa and God’s doing something there, and Roy Hicks and Pastor Ray get connected. Pastor Ray brings Roy Hicks into South Africa, and his delegated authority is who? John Bendixen. Here is a man that is directly connected with Kenneth Hagin, that is bringing the gift of all of the relationships and everything with them. He is bringing it to South Africa, and I’m the delegated authority that must look after Roy Hicks and hang around with him, and drive him around and have business people’s breakfast with him.
And he brings with him a set of knowledge and information and Spirit life that Sharon and I had an opportunity, me more than her, because I was the one who had to look after him.
But here I am. I’m 27, 28 years old, and this amazing gift has been hanging around with Kenneth Hagin, and with T.L. Osborn, and with Kenneth Copeland. II didn’t even know that my life was going to enter their world yet. God was bringing those gifts to me, and my gift was already functioning in that anointing because of our obedience to go to a prayer meeting.
So here we are in Witbank. All of these years later. All of these years later. I’ve been reflecting on this since I had that encounter. All of these years later, God has been taking me to this place, taking me to that place, having me go here, having me go there. As years went by, He said, “John, I’m going to bring you closer to Brother Jerry. I’m going to bring you closer to Brother Copeland. I’m going to bring you closer to these people because I need when the time comes and they’re going to go, I need someone that is going to carry on the spirit of Elijah. The spirit of Elijah needs to continue, and you are the person I’m going to continue it in. And then you are going to be faithful to raise up a set of disciples that will receive the spirit of Elijah, so the spirit of Elijah doesn’t die. When the times come, you will restore the sons and the fathers, in the spirit of Elijah, to the Father.”
There is no casual event that happens in God. And here you are sitting in Witbank. And Witbank is what town? It’s like this little coal town somewhere in South Africa. And that’s the encounter that Pastor Christi had with God when God said to her, “You must be in Witbank because there’s going to be a church in Witbank. The church that’s going to be in Witbank is going to be the church that you need, that is going to be the right church for you.” She didn’t know at that time because she was listening to Kenneth Copeland, and Jerry Savelle, and all of these guys, and she was thinking, “Where am I going to find a faith church in Witbank?”
All the while, God was arranging it for my gift to come out of Johannesburg to come back to Witbank, because my dad lay under the stars in Witbank here in Springvalley, and he gave his whole future to God lying under the stars and said, “I commit my calling and my destiny to You.” In Springvalley, 1 kilometre from here, he lay on the floor at a conference giving his heart to Jesus, and his life to Jesus. And God said, “I’m honouring everything that I put into your life. I’m bringing you back to this place.”
So, here we are in Witbank. Why Witbank? Well, I can see part of the heritage of why Witbank? But it doesn’t matter. It’s the people that God has for us here, that God has called to be with us together. Us here together, we are God’s people. And some people in Joburg, Cape Town, other places in the world, they may say, “Well, you know, that can’t be too great a story because there’s only so many of you,” or, “It’s Witbank for goodness sake. Surely, God must use some place like Pretoria or Joburg or Cape Town, you know, some big city, surely.” Oh, that’s what they said about Jesus. “He’s from where? Nazareth. What good has ever come out of Nazareth?” It didn’t matter to God. It was, in fact, in the whole order of God that He would come out of there. No one could say, “Well, He came from that big place, of course. Of course, it had to be that way.”
So hey people, here we are. We’re stuck with each other, and I will tell you this, it’s something that I’ve said all along because I’ve had this thing in my heart all along. If you want to get unstuck, that’s up to you because I’m not getting unstuck from you. I’m not leaving you, and you’re not leaving me either, Bridget. That’s what God put in my heart, I’m just that way. I don’t get unstuck from people. I stick with people. When all their warts are showing, I’m happy with the warts. Because God wouldn’t have called me if I wasn’t comfortable dealing with warts. So, your warts are not a problem to me. Your ugly, messy stuff, it doesn’t sway me. It doesn’t. Praise Jesus.
That’s the way He made me, that’s the way He designed me and I’m thankful for it. I’ve got a huge capacity. God put it in me. It’s in my gift. It’s in my calling. It’s who I am. It’s got a capacity inside of me that I can love. It’s not that I tolerate, it’s that I love. Praise Jesus. So, if you don’t want to love me back, that’s on you, but I’m just going to love you from here till kingdom come. And it’s either your kingdom come or my kingdom come or His Kingdom come, but whatever kingdom comes, I’m going to love you till kingdom come. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
So, whatever you do with my gift, that’s up to you. But you can receive from my gift, and whatever you receive from my gift, and I’m talking about me tonight because this is what happened to me. But I know your gift is your gift and your gift is, I see it. Do you understand? I see it. I see it. Hallelujah.
So in its basic form, I’m not coming into Loutjie’s life and asking Loutjie to be any different. I don’t want him to stop being a farmer. I’m not trying to come into his world to change him and his world, and the way he operates as a farmer, because that’s what he is. That’s what God’s got for him to do right now. As long as he is a farmer, I’m going to love him, I’m going to support him, I’m going to encourage him, I’m going to stand with him. Whatever God’s going to do with him as a farmer, I’m going to stand with him. The highs of farming and the lows of farming. Right? I mean, that’s what God wants us to do is, “Here’s my gift, use it, Loutjie.”
At the same time, I see Loutjie’s gift and I’m going to use that, and together we have a multiplication of stuff that happens here. But you know, look what happened with Zelda and Loutjie because of Christi’s gift, they began to touch my gift. They didn’t first touch my gift by me, they touched my gift through her. And so they began to hear stuff from her and see stuff in her that was me in her. They got enough of that to say, “We like this. Can we come out there and see?” They came all the way from Morgenzon. They’ve been going like that with all those trucks on those roads for 13 years or whatever it is, maybe longer than that now, but they smelled something. They smelled an aroma and they said, “Hey, we want that smell.” Over the years that we’ve walked together, what’s happened is that their natural offspring have also become their spiritual offspring, which has become our spiritual joy. All of their natural offspring of the gifts that they have birthed, have now become our gift, and we touch the gift of their children in our community and we smell the fragrance of Jesus. We smell the fragrance of gifts. Hallelujah.
Glory, it’s a glorious thing. It’s a glorious thing. What a way to live. Legacy generation after generation, what a way to live. What a way to live. What a glorious way to live. Touching Jesus in each other, touching the gift that God has given to us, to each other. Wow. Amen. Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus.
Do you feel Him? Do you know He’s here? Do you feel His love? Do you feel His presence? Wow. This is like having a bath, isn’t it? It’s refreshing. It’s cleansing. It’s beautiful. The anointing of the Holy Spirit, His presence, the aroma of who He is. Hallelujah. I’ve got more to say, but not tonight. Tonight, I’m done. The Holy Spirit has said what He wants to say, and so I’m done.
I pray that you will go tonight when other people are having a party that’s noisy, and they’re going to do fireworks and do all kinds of stuff. You just bask in the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Just let Him minister to you the stuff that He wants to show you about 2025, about your life, about anything. Just let the Holy Spirit minister to you.
I don’t know if some of you have thought you’re going to have a meal, braai, or do whatever tonight. Okay. Do that. But have fellowship around the word. Have fellowship around unwrapping the gifts. Amen. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. I’m grateful. I’m so grateful that God put us all together because you are an aroma to me. You smell Jesus. You do. You all smell like Jesus to me, and that’s a marvellous thing. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for smelling life, Jesus. Thank you. Thank you for being amazing people. Thank you for allowing God to use you for His purposes. And I tell you, you won’t even begin to know just how much it is. You are going to get to heaven one day, and you’re going to see, wow. You mean I was just doing this and doing that, and it did all of that? Because God has ways of multiplying your gift on the earth more than you know, more than you know.
I trust you have been encouraged by the Lord tonight and that He has ministered the Word of life to you. Amen. Thank you for being here. Tomorrow morning, we will enjoy the 1st day of 2025 together. Amen. Tonight is but a pup. Look at you. You guys don’t want to go home. You just want to sit in the presence of God. Wow. It’s amazing. It’s amazing.
It’s a beautiful thing. I am convinced of this. I am convinced of this that the enemy of God has used systems, He has used the world’s ways, He has used people to come and try and prevent you from being the gift that God has placed in you in its greater fullness. But I’m convinced that He is busy redeeming time, and He is busy redeeming your gift in your life. Really. I am more convinced of that than I’ve ever been. Ja. I want to encourage you to press into God in 2025 and beyond. Just press into Him and let Him redeem your gift. Yes.
If you only live 24 months more and the last 24 months of your life are completely useful in the hands of God, don’t you think that’s amazing? Let’s not even think beyond that. Let’s just think about being useful to God right now. Let’s not try and evaluate or measure our gift and our lives. Let’s just be useful now and let Him do what He needs to do. Do you all agree? Yes. Amen. Amen.
2025. I’m going to be alive. I’m going to be very alive in 2025. Amen. You know, God is going to cause us to advance and accelerate into the things that God has for us, into our future, He’s going to accelerate things in 2025 and beyond. The acceleration has begun in our lives. Yes. Hallelujah. It’s already visible in the natural, but you just keep speaking it and watch God do something.
Do you believe it, Melissa? Amen. The acceleration has begun for all of us. Do you believe it Nikao? Ja. I believe it. I believe it for you. Yes. Wow. Tom, do you believe it? Ja. Ja. Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Glory to Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Wow. Wow.
It’s like the Lord is just putting His arms of love around us. He’s just loving on us right now. It’s so wonderful. It’s so wonderful. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you for bringing your wonderful selves to church. I’ll see you in the morning. Bye.
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TOUCH | TEACH | TRAIN | TRANSFER
