Scripture Reference: 2 Corinthians 4:18 (NKJV); 2 Corinthians 5:1-2 (NKJV); Luke 12:15-23 (AMPC); Luke 12:16-18 (MSG)
Pastor John:
Hello, everybody.
Pastor Sharon:
Hi.
Pastor John:
Welcome. We’re glad to be able to spend time with you again. Pastor Sharon, isn’t it amazing to be able to share the Word?
Pastor Sharon:
It is.
Pastor John:
Always and we’re glad that you can be with us, even though they’ve put constraints on us and they’ve tried to limit our ability to see each other, thank God that we have this ability to meet with each other this way. I’m using those words on purpose, ‘meet with each other,’ because you were saying to me earlier, Pastor Sharon, that actually we are still assembling around the Word.
Pastor Sharon:
That’s exactly right. Our assembling hasn’t been stopped. We’re assembling around the Word and if we didn’t have this medium of television then the Holy Spirit would have inspired Pastor John to write letters to the people in the Church and you would have all been awaiting his letter and with all the Scriptures and the messages that God keeps on bringing and keeps on bringing. So there’s just always a way that God just circumvents anything that the enemy might want to bring.
Pastor John:
That’s so powerful, Pastor Sharon, because that’s how the Apostle Paul and the other apostles did it. They wrote letters and then they prayed over the letters and they believed God that the anointing of what they were communicating with the churches would be done by the Holy Spirit through the words that were on pages and in this case, these are words that are on airwaves.
Pastor Sharon:
That’s right, exactly.
Pastor John: We trust and we believe that you receive the anointing of the Word, you receive the message that God has, specifically for you at this time to help you, to encourage you, to exhort you. And in some cases, the Word says, all the words of God are profitable for exhortation, encouragement and reproof. In other words, correction. We want correction, if we’re headed in a wrong direction, we want some correction. Thank God that we have the Word of God that is that way for us.
Pastor Sharon:
That’s right
Pastor John:
Sharon, I’m going to just read 2 Corinthians 4 verse 18, in the New King James Version Bible says, 18While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18 NKJV). For sure, we can take this passage of Scripture immediately and say, the things that are seen are temporary, so any sickness that can be seen or the effects of sickness, or poverty, or anything that you can see with your eyes – it’s temporary. It’s subject to change. It’s subject to change, it’s temporary, it’s going to change. It’s not going to last forever. But the things which are going to last forever, those things are eternal and so you can’t see them but they’re eternal. This is very powerful because everything that you can see is subject to change. But everything that you live by the Word of God and by the Holy Spirit, that is spiritual based, it’s eternal and doesn’t change.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes, and it’s actually the Word that is changing my current circumstances.
Pastor John:
Right. When the Word changes it then that becomes a sure momentum because that is not subject to change because that’s the words that God is creating for you to put your foot on and that’s a sure foundation.
Pastor Sharon:
It’s a sure foundation.
Pastor John:
Even though it might take you in different directions or do certain things at different times, it’s a sure foundation and that doesn’t change.
Pastor Sharon:
That never changes. All circumstances are subject to change by the power of God’s believed Word, God’s Word that is believed in your heart – all of it is subject. All the circumstances are subject to change. Hallelujah.
Pastor John:
I just have it on my heart right now, just to talk about something personal to me. You recall that at the end of 2019, the Lord began to speak to me about striking the ground for different things in my life to bring those things to pass. Certainly, when it came into 2020, I was very active and flowing with those things.
One of those things was to strike the ground for conditioning. So before covid came and before lockdown happened and all that stuff, I was very focused on improving my fitness, eating well, improving my overall conditioning. As lockdown happened I continued to do that, I continued to exercise a lot and I didn’t allow myself to eat whatever I wanted to eat. I was focused and I was determined to stick with striking for conditioning. As the year went on I just began to sense that there was something that God had for me that was needed for my conditioning. Pastor Sharon was on this journey with me where I ended up going to see a particular doctor. In this case the doctor, he did an analysis of my blood and immediately he said there are a couple of areas that we can immediately address. We can fix them. And actually, if you address these areas, your actual output as an athlete and your ability to do endurance exercises and to do strength training will improve and increase and you won’t even know yourself.
Pastor Sharon:
That’s what he said, “You won’t even know yourself.” Yes.
Pastor John:
“You won’t even know yourself. You will be able to do so much better than you have done till now.” Well, you know, I could have kept training, I could have kept eating the way I was.
Pastor John and Sharon:
And had strong will power.
Pastor John:
Had strong will power and kept using the Word of God. But the wisdom of God came to me and said, “Go and see a doctor and let him analyse what’s going on in your body.” What it did, it did two things for me Sharon. It prevented me from danger and it increased my potential going forward and my well-being has soared and increased measurably. So that all happened at a time when sickness and disease was rampant on the earth. Everybody was shutting down, down; everything was… in the meantime God was using the moment to bless me.
Pastor Sharon:
And ramp your conditioning up. Ramp it up.
Pastor John:
For my future. And bring more knowledge and enlightenment and revelation to me.
Pastor Sharon:
And restoration to your body.
Pastor John:
Even though in normal circumstances other people weren’t experiencing that in their lives, you know. And so, that’s just an indication that things that are temporal are subject to change but when God ministers something to you He puts something into your life that you can go by. You can live your life on it. You can be satisfied in the revelation of what God is giving you, you know. So to be honest, what knowledge and revelation the doctor brought to me was very simple information about hydration and about eating and about having certain types of vitamins and minerals and things in my body and already the difference in my body is remarkable in terms of my sense of well-being and my overall capacity and capability. My sleeping has improved, my overall focus and attention and energy levels have improved – everything has improved.
Pastor Sharon:
And that was just your conditioning strike.
Pastor John:
And that was just speaking the Word of God for conditioning.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes, and continuing to strike with faith in your heart for your conditioning to be everything that God knows it can be. Praise the Lord.
Pastor John:
Praise the Lord.
Pastor Sharon:
Praise the Lord.
Pastor John:
And so, in the last couple of Sundays we’ve been talking about that God wants to take care of our needs without us even asking Him. He already knows we need clothes to wear, food to eat, houses to live.
Pastor Sharon:
Cars to drive or transport.
Pastor John:
He knows we have need of these things. And so, unlike the world we don’t have to chase after those things. We just have to seek Him and then He’ll bring those things to us. So we’ve been talking about that and so once again if we go to 2 Corinthians chapter five verse one, which is the very next verse, 1For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2For in this we groan, in this body, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven (2 Corinthians 5: 1-2 NKJV).
I am wanting to use this scripture for us to just transition into the next area of conversation we’re going to have and that is this; certainly, anything that is temporary is subject to change. Anything, that if I read this Scripture to you again, 18For we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18 NKJV). So, even though we’re living in a natural body God is saying, “I want you to look at the eternal things. I want you to be looking at the things that are not seen. I don’t want you to be looking at the facts about sickness and disease. I don’t want you to be looking at the facts of where’s my money going to come from? I want you to be looking at the eternal things. I want you to focus on the things of God; seeking My Kingdom, seeking Me, seeking My way of doing things, My righteousness. And then the rest of the things will be added unto you so that the Church can actually become on the earth, the force, the dominating dominion, life-giving force of God into the earth.” Pastor Sharon, you’ve got some scriptures there and some things you want to read there.
Pastor Sharon:
They’re just some things on the back of the scripture in Matthew that you brought about don’t worry about what to wear, what to eat. As I was meditating on that, you know, the Lord … that your life is more, your life is more than that. There was one part of the scripture that you read that said it’s lesser important these things of what to wear,, where to live, what to eat – they’re lesser important because all the heathen are chasing it but we’re to chase the Kingdom.
He spoke to me out of Luke 12 verses 15 to 23, the Amplified Bible I’m reading from, 15And He said to them, He was speaking to His disciples and speaking to the people that were wanting to listen to Him. Jesus said to them, Guard yourselves and keep free from all covetousness (the immoderate desire for wealth, the greedy longing to have more); for a man’s life, here it is in context, a man’s life does not consist in and is not derived from possessing overflowing abundance or that which is over and above his needs (Luke 12:15 AMPC). Now this is going to be a very key scripture for us going forward because God has promised overflowing abundance to us. Abundant overflow but we are to recognise abundant overflow in the proper light of God. Our life, even though we’re going to be experiencing abundant overflow, our life does not consist and is not derived from possessing overflowing abundance or that which is over and above his needs.
Pastor John:
So perhaps, if I might just interject here for a second, Sharon. Perhaps we must say that we must see the eternal component of the abundant overflow. We must see the unseen reasons for why God wants us to have the overflow and not to see the obvious reasons which is just to have bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger, everything.
Pastor Sharon:
More and more of what we’ve already got.
Pastor John:
We need to see the eternal reasons why God’s doing this, not just the temporal reasons why God’s doing this because that’s what that scripture says. Our lives are not just merely made up of these things. So even though we will experience abundant overflow in these things, our lives are not designed and built just for those things. We are to see the eternity, the unseen things of why God would want to do this for us. Right?
Pastor Sharon:
That’s right and how that’s a collaborative work with God and sons and the reason sons work with God and God blesses and abundant overflows His children. That’s right. 16Then He told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich man was fertile and yielded plentifully (Luke 12:16 AMPC). So rich is relative because in verse 15 Jesus explains this, that which is over and above your needs. if you have got that which is over and above your needs, then you have got more than what you need. It begins to be classified in the ‘rich’ category. Right? So just to qualify this as well, which is what we’ve been speaking about, Jesus preached the Gospel to the poor. The Good News to the poor is that you don’t have to be poor anymore. I’m reminded of what God said to Kenneth Hagin; “If my people will obey Me with their money, I will make all My children rich. They will all be able to have an abundant supply.” Right, so, the parable of a rich man was fertile and yielded plentifully – he got a harvest, abundant harvest.
17And he considered and debated within himself, What shall I do? What shall I do with this harvest? I have no place [in which] to gather together my harvest. 18And he said, I will do this: I will pull down my storehouses and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain or produce and my goods (Luke 12:17-18 AMPC). The Message Bible says this, Jesus told them this story, 16-17“The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself: ‘What can I do? 18My barn isn’t big enough (Luke 12:16-17 MSG). Remember our word, Going Big and Bold. Now He’s got a different idea of ‘big’ here and God wants us to get the right idea of ‘big’. He’s saying, 18My barn isn’t big enough for this harvest. ‘Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones (Luke 12:18 MSG). This is not the kind of big that God is talking to us about.
Pastor John:
This is chasing after
Pastor Sharon:
This is chasing after what all the whole world and all the unbelievers and all the heathen and the whole of the Babylonian system is chasing after. I’m going to get more for myself.
Pastor John:
They find security in having bigger barns. To them the security is in having more and bigger and keep on building bigger – the bigger I have and the more I have because it is a reflection of my chasing based on what Matthew 6 said. You chase after these things. So this is a measure – you could use that in another way – this is a good indication of how well I’ve chased.
Pastor Sharon:
That’s right, and how secure I feel in my chasing because look what I’ve got.
Pastor John:
Look what I’ve got, right?
Pastor Sharon:
Yes, and this all happens in the heart with internal conversations. And so then the next verse 19, here, in the Amplified says, 19And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many good things laid up, [enough] for many years. Take your ease; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself merrily (Luke 12:19 AMPC). Haven’t you heard that expression that the world uses;I want to retire by the time I am this, I want to make a lot of money by that time, so that I can retire and enjoy myself. This is what the world does. This is not what we do in the Kingdom, right? Take your ease; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself merrily. 20 But God said to him, You fool! So that’s foolish for us to think like that. God’s going to teach us in the weeks to come what a wise Kingdom living and chasing after the Kingdom realm is about. You fool! This very night they [the messengers of God] will demand your soul of you; and all the things that you have prepared, whose will they be? 21So it is with the one who continues to lay up and hoard possessions for himself and is not rich [in his relation] to God [this is how he fares], or this is what happens to him. 22And [Jesus] said to His disciples, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious and troubled [with cares] about your life, as to what you will [have to] eat; or about your body, as to what you will [have to] wear. 23For life is more than food, and the body [more] than clothes (Luke 12:19-23 AMPC).
Pastor John:
So this scripture is bringing a direct contrast between a chaser that has been very effective in his chasing after the things that are clothes and food and cars and houses – the things that Matthew and Luke talk about. So He’s referring to this is someone who’s been an effective chaser and he’s been so effective in his chasing after those things because he’s not been seeking God for it. He’s chased after it. He’s been so effective in his chasing that he’s saying, “I’m so comfortable in what I’ve got I can just enjoy my life but actually God’s saying because you’ve put your trust in those things, you will never enjoy those things because your soul is required of you. You can interpret that in many ways. For sure, you can say that that could have led in death. But it could also be if your soul is so captured by your chasing, then your soul is completely only focused on what you’re going to eat or drink or wear. And so you can’t actually enjoy anything else in life. You can’t actually enjoy anything that God really wants us to be full of wonderment about Him. You are so captured by your chasing and the things that you build bigger barns with, you are so captivated by the more and the internal speaking’s of ‘look at me how well I’ve done, look at how well I have chased, look at all this wealth I have created for myself. The houses I have built are not big enough so I’ll buy more, I’ll buy bigger, I’ll do better and bigger.’
In the meantime it can be just like that in a matter of moments where your soul can be taken away from you, your life or you could just be captured by your chasing that you never actually see revelation light about there are other things that God wants for us in life.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes, God wants us to seek first the Kingdom of God. He doesn’t want us to seek like this. No, no, no, we are foolish if we seek like this. You know, Pastor John, we were having this conversation this morning and I was saying to you that a lot of people – especially with the prosperity message in the Word of faith – look at the lives of people like Brother Jerry, Brother Jesse, Brother Copeland and they think that Brother Jesse, Brother Jerry and Brother Copeland got the wealth this way by chasing after it. They actually don’t understand the body of Christ, they don’t get it that they got it by completely seeking God’s Kingdom and they found themselves with it added, added, added added.
Pastor John:
With abundant overflow.
Pastor Sharon:
No sorrow, it was the blessing that brought it. There was no sorrow added to it because they were so seeking the Kingdom of God. They have always transferred their wealth into the Kingdom of God. They did it when they were poor, they did it when they were a little richer, they did it when they were a lot more richer and they still do it now. They will give God anything at any time and they want to. They seek Him about what to do with all their abundance, their abundant overflow. That’s something that the body of Christ needs to understand. They can’t look at someone like Brother Jerry, Brother Copland and Brother Jesse and think that they got things the way many in the body of Christ go after things. They did not. They did not.
Pastor John:
They did not because that is the heart of someone who is really a seeker. I am so glad you raised that, Sharon because the nature of a seeker is that he is looking to have that walk with God. He is looking to have the words of God – or her – have the words of God vital and alive in them because they find joy in the presence of the Lord. They find joy in the Word of God. They find joy in God and in who God is.
If you just consider this for a moment; if you have that personal relationship with God and God calls you into the ministry, – into the five-fold ministry. Let’s call it a pastor, an evangelist, a teacher, one of those five-fold ministry gifts. So now you have a heart that is seeking Him and you are called to reveal to the body of Christ what you have learned from Him and words that He would put in your mouth for the body. Your life gets completely filled up with Him. Now, if you understand that and you have the revelation that He wants to make all those basic things that you need in life come to you in abundance, so it’s not so that you have bigger barns or buy bigger barns. It’s just that when you are seeking Him the abundant good God that He is, just begins to be in your life, you know. That’s why many of these ministers – Brother Jerry, Brother Copland, Brother Jesse, you and I – people look at our lives and they see the abundance and the blessing of God in our lives. And so they think it’s because we also chase, and we just use church and ministry to chase. But the reality is that we chase after God, we seek God and it is our responsibility to bring messages to the body of Christ.
As we do that and we’re filling ourselves constantly all day, every day, our lives are filled with meaning, our purpose is the Kingdom of God – His ways. Our purpose is to transfer and transmit and teach that to other people. He is just always there with us. He has been there with us, walking with us, living with us, being there with us, fills our lives with abundance. He can’t help Himself. That goodness is just there. And if you’re there where the goodness is, the goodness just overtakes you.
Yes, like the apostle Paul said, sometimes – and Jesus said that if I’ve been persecuted you will also be persecuted – and sometimes that persecution, the way it manifested it sometimes comes against your goods because the persecution wants to undermine your position with God. I don’t want to focus too much on the story of Job but essentially Job had this very good relationship with God and God blessed him. And to the point where the persecution came and the enemy of God said, “But if You take Your hand of protection off around him, he’ll stop serving you.” It wasn’t about his goods. It was about whether the goods were facilitating him believing in God. The goodness of God and the believing of God, the enemy of God put those together and said, “Take the one, and the other one will be gone.” But Job stayed and the Bible says his mouth sinned not against God. In all of his words, he sinned not against God. And then God revealed Himself in a greater way to Job at the end of his persecution. His blessing from God for doing that was double everything. That is what God has for us, Sharon, He wants us to live in that place, that blessing, that space.
Pastor Sharon:
They are examples to us and even if we never heard about Brother Copeland, Brother Jerry and Brother Jesse, they would have been – and brother Hagin too – we would have found out about them in eternity because they would have lived like this on the earth as sons of God. They don’t live the way they live because they’re ministers; they would have lived this way on earth because of their hearts with God and how they want to walk with God and how they want to obey God and seek first the Kingdom of God.
Pastor John:
As we’ve talked before, the most powerful being on the earth is not a minister of the Gospel. The most powerful being is a dedicated disciple because a dedicated disciple is pressing into God and wanting God and so that is an established being in God because their heart seeks after God. God can use them, God can talk to them, God can work with them because they are seeking Him.
Pastor Sharon:
And the other things are overtaking them.
Pastor John:
And so many people actually take a pastor, an apostle, a prophet, and put them on a pedestal and say that’s the most powerful calling and the most powerful being in the universe. But actually, you can’t be an effective prophet, or a pastor or an evangelist, you can’t really do the will of God in those giftings if you are not first a disciple and seeking first the Kingdom of God. So, yes, there are people out there unfortunately, there are callings out there, there are giftings out there that their giftings – the way they can communicate, the way that they can share words, the way that their gifting operates – and they have no intimacy with God. Their gifting still makes a noise, it makes a space, it attracts resources. It is unfortunate that it is out there. But we’re talking about an effective tool in the hands of God that you are first a disciple, and then you function in your gifting, and the power of God is about disciple.
We’re going to close in a minute, Pastor Sharon, but isn’t that really the essence of the power of the body of Christ that we are a bunch of disciples that we gather? We gather. The gathering disciples all have giftings and callings. Some of our gathering disciples are called to teach, and the gifting of evangelism and the apostle, and the prophet and the shepherd. They have five fold giftings. Some of the gathering disciples have that. But then some of the gathering disciples have the anointing to serve, a special anointing to serve. Some of the gathering disciples have a special gift of mercy. Some of the gathering disciples have the gift of finances and hospitality and things of that nature. And so that is the power of the gathering of disciples; we each have to do what we have to do. God requires us to do that. Every disciple has to spend time with God, whether you are a prophet, a pastor, or whether you are someone called to the mercy ministry, or hospitality ministry.
Pastor Sharon:
Or finance ministry.
Pastor John:
You have to spend time with God. The person who is called to teach and preach, he will receive things from the Word of God how to give that over to people. A person who is called to finances, he will have to learn how to use his finances to serve God with to promote the kingdom of God. But every disciple tithes.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes, brings offerings and obeys God when He tells them, asks them what to do.
Pastor John:
Even if a disciple does not have the gift of financing, for example, but wealth comes to them, their perspective of that wealth is that it belongs from God. The overflow, the abundance, is not to build bigger barns, and bigger houses and bigger … Their first perspective is; let’s see what God wants to do with this. Then as they always keep seeking God with their overflow and their abundance, and God says, “Yes, I want you to go and build that church, or pay off that one’s bond, personal life, their home bond, or buy a car for somebody.” God keeps adding to your abundance because as you sow, you reap.
Pastor Sharon:
That is right. God is after the obedience.
Pastor John:
He is after your obedience. So it does not matter what you are called to, that increase will come from tithing, from understanding who God is that He meets all your needs. As your needs are met the goodness of God overflows in your life. It does not matter whether it is covid. It does not matter whether it is lockdown. It does not matter what it is, it doesn’t matter. Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.
Pastor Sharon:
Hallelujah. Well, this is a lot for you all to meditate on, for us all to meditate on. These scriptures that we have brought, let them speak to you during this whole week that comes ahead. This one in Luke 12 from verse 15 to 23 in the Amplified; meditate on it. Meditate on these transcriptions of these messages come up on the website during the week where you can go and get on the website, highlights and headlines out of this message and so that you can meditate on it and you can be obedient and believe and prosper.
Pastor John:
I want us to close by making this statement; we are after the things that are not seen. We are after the eternal things, not the temporary things. We are not sharing this message with you because we are seeking your money. We are not sharing these things because we are seeking anything from you. We have a walk with God that He provides and meets all of our needs both personally and in the ministry. I can say as the Apostle Paul says in both Corinthians and the book of Philippians, we speak to you about these things so that in your learning, in your knowledge, in your giving, in your walking with God that all of these things may come to you and to your account – be accredited to your account as you live this life fully. And as we continue to preach this, we feel very strongly led by the Holy Spirit, we feel very strongly about the prophetic anointing that is on us right now to speak about this because the world, there is a war going on to separate the believers, separate them from the life that is God, the intimacy that is with God, and therefore the abundance and the overflow that comes from that knowledge with God. It applies to everything.
So let us just pray in closing. Father, we pray that this word will come upon your people and in the week ahead they will meditate on this word. No weapon formed against them will prosper. The peace of God will be upon them. The blessing of God will come to them. We thank You, Lord, that they are blessed in their going in and their going out. Your angels have charge over them and they are blessed in everything that they do. In Jesus’ Name. Amen. Glory to God.
Pastor Sharon:
Bye-bye everybody.
Pastor John:
Bye.
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