Scripture Reference: Luke 18:1 AMPC; Colossians 3:1-3 NKJV; Colossians 3:1-2 AMPC, TPT, MSG; Ephesians 1:15-23 NKJV; Ephesians 3:20 NKJV
Welcome to church!
I must say, I’ve been talking to a couple of people on the phone. I’ve been observing some things on Facebook. I don’t often get onto Facebook, but these last couple of days, I have been on Facebook, and I’ve been just observing some comments and things and seeing how many people are watching us on YouTube and all that kind of stuff. I want to tell you that, Pastor Sharon and I, we miss your faces. Like I always say to my sons when I haven’t seen them for a long time, I want to hug your neck. You know? I haven’t seen you for a while. You can see me, but I don’t see you. I can’t wait to see your face, to hug your neck and just show brotherly affection to all of you because that’s the way God designed us. Designed us to be able to love one another, connect with one another, and for our hearts, our souls, our spirits to just feed each other with energy, the life energy of Christ. It does us good. It does us good. I’m looking forward to the good ahead that God is going to do when we get back together again.
In not too many days from now, we are going to see each other face to face. Until then, in this message on this Sunday morning, I have something from the Lord to share with you. I know that this is a game-changer for you. This is a life-changer because it’s certainly been impacting me and what I have to share with you is just some of what God has been speaking to me about.
So, wait for it, wait for it; the title of my message is Blow Your Mind. Ugh! I can just hear faith people everywhere, religious people everywhere, “Blow your mind?” Hmm, just wait till I’m finished before you judge my title; Blow Your Mind.
I’m going to read from Luke chapter 18, verse 1. I have read this previously to you. 1 Also [Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to turn coward. This is the Amplified version. Some other versions say; not lose heart, or some say do not lose hope, but in this version it says, ought always to pray and not to turn coward (faint, lose heart, and give up). (Luke 18:1 AMPC) In other words, you should always be praying and not lose heart, don’t be a coward.
Do you know what a coward does? A coward backs down backs away. We ought always to pray and not back away. We need always to pray and not give up. We ought always to pray and not lose heart.
The interesting one here is we ought always to pray and not faint. Faint is literally; you’re not in control of your movement, you just completely fall down, and then someone else has got to revive you. It’s a fairly dramatic way of losing heart.
God will always answer prayers, but He also needs to strengthen your heart. In other words, He needs to strengthen the spirit man and the soul component of your life. If He just kept answering all of your prayers instantly, then you would not be in a place where you would have to exercise faith for anything. It would just be; I ask, He answers. It’s a bit like a child – a little baby that’s hungry just opens their mouth and cries, and mom feeds them.
You can’t stay in that condition forever. In order for you to be a proper lookalike of your parents or a proper responsible human being in a community, you have to go from crying and having your needs met to actually exercising some discipline and some self-restraint and some endurance. Sometimes you want food right now, but you’ve got to wait a couple of hours, and it’s all part of the growing process. Not so that there’s anything wrong with you. It’s so that you can experience the growing component of you.
That’s very important. If you don’t have an immediate answer to prayer, it’s not because God’s not ready to answer your prayer or that you don’t have a need. There is also a consideration that God wants you to grow.
The other day I saw my grandson, you know, he’s all of three years old. [Pastor John laughs] When I looked at him, he had this big bruise on his head. I said, “Gabriel, what happened?” He was very dramatic about it, you know, “Bumped my head, Grandpa!” “Why’d you bump your head?” Oh no, bouncing or something, and he fell off and hit his head. It Happens, happens in life. It doesn’t mean to say that he did anything wrong. It doesn’t mean to say that mommy or daddy weren’t there to help him through the pain of it. It’s just a growing experience.
A strong heart can complete assignments needed to bring heaven to earth. For sure, a little baby or a little one might be a look-alike or might be a very beautiful, vibrant young person. Take a two-year-old child. I mean, a two-year-old child’s got some teeth, got some hair, making noises, maybe talking, certainly walking, but there’s no way that that child has any understanding of what it is to have a positive influence on a community. Other than, aren’t they cute? Aren’t they beautiful? But they’re extremely resource hungry and demanding. I need nappy changes. I need feeding; I need sleeping, I need constant monitoring that I don’t get hurt myself.
Well, that’s not the kind of relationship God wants with us. God wants us to have a relationship where He can instruct us, and then we can get on with the job of doing what He wants us to do on the earth.
Let me just go through those two sentences again; God will answer prayers. He will answer prayers, but, He also needs to strengthen your heart. A strong heart can complete assignments needed to bring heaven to earth. It means someone who’s resilient and enduring and, of course, the rest of that chapter in the book of Luke that we’ve read. Chapter 18 talks about the widow that’s continuously going after the judge and demanding that the judge give her help against her adversaries or judge against her adversaries. She was talking about endurance, and Jesus was reflecting endurance and persistence.
Asking in prayer and being focused on assignments strengthens your heart. Asking in prayer and being focused on assignment strengthens your heart. It creates confidence and trust in the process of God’s order. We learn to continue to mature in the things that matter to God. I’m going to read that again, slowly, so that you just get the fullness of it. Asking in prayer and being focused on assignment strengthens your heart. As it does that, as you continually ask in prayer and you’re focused on your assignment, your heart gets strengthened, it creates confidence and trust in the process of God’s order, and we learn to continue to mature in the things that matter to God. Not those things that just matter to us.
If I use the 2-year-old again. It’s rather an unfortunate place for Christians to think in their spiritual maturity as a 2-year-old or as a 5-year-old. Every time I bleat something to God, He must just answer it. I’m still bleating to God about my next meal and about the next, the last knee that I scratched, or the head that I bumped, and our God must always be there to help me, protect me, make me feel good, make me feel safe, make me feel secure. You expect that from a two-year-old and a five-year-old, but you don’t expect that from a 20-year-old or older. You expect older people to say, “Hey, I can, I can take a bit of pain, ohh, that was sore.” I carry on. I don’t cry for daddy to come and fix my knee for me.
Unfortunately, we’ve had this thing spiritually, where people are constantly relying on God to meet all their needs all the time, emotionally, physically, financially, in every area. I must just pray, a prayer, and God must answer. In some cases, I’ll make confessions for a week or three or five, and now my whole life must change.
Jesus will answer prayers, but He’s also wanting you to be a strengthened spiritual being, which means your spirit man must get stronger, your soul must be in agreement with your spirit man, so it can begin to understand what the world is around us. Then you have confidence in and trust in the process of God’s order. As we have confidence and trust in God’s order, we learn to continue to mature in the things that matter to God.
As we start to be somebody that does things that matter to God, then everything we do, if it matters to God, everything we need becomes a matter in the real world. What we do that matters to God becomes matter for us. It’s such a simple thing, such a simple little phrase. If I do everything that matters to God, then everything He does brings matter to us. He brings matter to us in everything that matters to us because now we’re doing everything that matters to Him.
I’m not just using fancy words to get my point across. But it really is something that you can begin to declare; I, thank you, Lord, that as I ask you for things in prayer, that I’m asking it, focused on my assignment that You are giving me. As I’m doing that, my heart is being strengthened, my spirit life is being strengthened, and I’m creating a confidence and a trust in the process of Your order in my life, and I’m continuing to learn to mature in the things that matter to You.
Great declaration to have, great thing to pray. That will be a prayer that God will begin to answer immediately, and sometimes you might feel like, oh, my prayers are not getting answered as quickly as I thought they would. Don’t quit, have endurance. Be persistent in your asking, but don’t quit because God wants you to strengthen your heart. He wants you to grow so that you understand what matters to Him.
I’m going to read a passage of scripture now. In Colossians, chapter 3, verse 1 to 3, I’m going to read it in 4 different translations. First, the New King James, Colossians 3 verse 1, 1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, (Colossians 3:1, NKJV) If you were raised with Christ, are you raised with Christ? Are you a born again person? Saved by the blood of the Lamb? If you have received Jesus into your heart, then you have been raised from the death of separation from the Father, you have been raised with Christ into the presence of the Father. Hallelujah.
You need to settle at once and for all, that when Jesus lives in your heart, you have been raised with Christ into an eternal communion with God the Father, an eternal place of I am the Father’s and the Father is mine. So, 1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. (Colossians 3:1,2 NKJV)
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. Can I perhaps say to you, on the outset, set your mind on things above and blow up your mind as it thinks about things on the earth? When you are not thinking about the things that are above, and you start thinking about things on the earth, blow it up. Toss hand grenades on your thinking. Bible – hand grenades, verses – hand grenades, Holy Ghost praying in the Spirit – hand grenades. Throw bombs at your natural thinking, and blow it up. So, that you can set your mind on things that are above and not on things that are beneath. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. I’m not going to read verse three again in the other versions, but I just want to say, 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1-3 NKJV)
For you died. How come you’re still alive? Well, you died to yourself, you died to your sin nature, and your life is now hidden in Christ before God. When you are before God, He doesn’t just see you. He sees you behind Christ; you are hidden in Christ before God. When you have a conversation with God, you’re having that conversation through Christ, which is absolutely pure. Again, we can go back to a whole righteousness teaching here because Jesus doesn’t have to prove anything to God about His righteousness, about His intention, about His motives, about anything. You’re hidden in Christ before God. Then, we must think about things that are heavenly minded, rather than things that are earthly minded.
Yes, I know what’s going on in your mind right now. I’ll get to it in a few moments. Let’s first read the same passage of scripture from the Amplified. 1 If then you have been raised with Christ [to a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead], there we go, we share His resurrection from the dead, aim at and seek the [rich, eternal treasures] that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2And set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth. (Colossians 1:1-2 AMPC)
The Amplified Bible is just so gorgeous on this because I mean, verse 1 is so rich,
1 If then you have been raised with Christ [to a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead], aim at and seek the [rich, eternal treasures] that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Where do you want your eternal treasures? Where are they? At the right hand of God, in Christ Jesus, 2 And set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth. (Colossians 1:1-2 AMPC)
Challenging? For sure. I’m going to talk about that in a few moments. Let’s read the same passage of scripture from the Passion Translation that says, 1 Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honor, and authority! (Colossians 3:1 TPT).
Wow. In the other versions, it says, “Set your mind on things above.” In the Amplified, it says, “The rich, eternal treasure.” Now in the Passion Translation, it says, “That’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honour and authority.” Is that eternal treasure, power, honour and authority? I would say that’s a good place to set your mind, not on the things that are below.
2 Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm. I’m touching on some things here today. Let’s feast on the treasures of the heavenly realm, and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with distractions of the natural realm. (Colossians 3:1-2 TPT).
Finally, let’s read Colossians chapter three verse one, in the Message translation. Are y’all ready? Here goes. 1-2So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. If you are serious about it, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Honour and authority and power again. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you, everyday. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective. (Colossians 3:1-2 MSG).
See things from His perspective. Much, much of our life is shuffling along, just shuffling along, shuffling along, just looking down on the ground. What’s the next thing I’ve got to do? What’s the next thing that’s taking my attention? Where am I going next? What’s my next decision? Oh, I wonder if I’m going to have enough money. I wonder if that’s going to happen, I got a job. Is this going to happen? Am I going to have the rent? We shuffle along with all the things where actually what God is saying, “Lift up your vision, lift up your understanding” of where you’re at. Live in the heavenly realm and the way that He sees things and His perspective because He’s not worried about whether He can feed you. He’s not worried about whether He can give you a house to stay in. He’s not worried about whether He needs to get you from A to B. He can get you there, but we got to take our minds off what’s down here and lift them up to where He sits. Let’s see what He sees. Let’s think the way He thinks, let’s, let’s have His realities as part of what we do.
A long time ago, we heard … This has been a part of our lives for a long time. Your desire follows your attention. What you give attention to is what you will desire. Now, I recently had a conversation with somebody about following God’s plan for your life, and I said, “So, how do you know if you’re following God’s plan for your life?” He said, “Well, I’m a Christian that prays every day, and so I just follow what I desire.” I said, “Well, on that basis, every Christian is perfectly in the Will of God because what I desire, I just follow that.”
No, no. You can’t say that because if your whole attention is focused on what I’m going to do next and where I want to go and what I’m going to do, and this next thing. It’s all about me, and it’s all about what I’ve got to have next. Then your desire is not focused on what He wants; it’s not focused on His realities. It’s not focused on what He’s wanting to do on the earth through you. It’s just focused on you. Certainly, God loves you. Certainly, He’s not going to abandon you or fail you, but you’re also going to be just like that two-year-old or five-year-old. You’re going to say, “My desire is I want food right now. Feed me, God.” Or if you’re a little bit older in natural world terms, but you’re still a baby spiritually, “I need food.” Therefore this must be God’s desire, so I’ll go to pizza and go have a pizza because I’m following my desire for food. Whatever you put your attention on, that’s where your desire will go. Your desire follows your attention.
You will see people that are extremely career orientated oriented, “I’ve got to work late, I’ve got to work later than someone else. I’ve got to work longer hours. I’ve got to play politics. I’ve got to do all kinds of things.” Because to them, it’s all about career. When the choice comes between family and career, they choose career. When a choice comes between doing something else, they choose their career all the time. Why? Because that’s where their desire is, so their attention follows their desire and the more they give their attention to it, the more they desire it. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.
I’d like to say it like this, where your thoughts, your mind and emotions find a home (call it a place of habitation), that’s the reality you’re going to live in. If I find a comfortable place that I’ve constantly been giving my attention to and I desire it, my thoughts, and my mind, and my emotions find a place of habituation, habit, habitation. I’m constantly living there with my mind, my thoughts, and my emotions and so what happens to me is the more I do that the more that is my reality. The more that becomes my reality, the more I want to live in that habitual habit-forming habitation. I want to be there because I’m comfortable there because my reality is there because my thoughts, my emotions and my desire, and my attention is there.
Now when somebody comes to you and says to you, “I want to give you a completely different worldview than what you’ve got,” it’s like, “Wow, don’t come to me with that. That’s not even on my radar. I’ve got my whole life scoped out here. I’ve got my whole deal worked out here. I know what I want to do. I’ve got my attention; I’ve got everyone. Don’t come to me with that.” That’s someone who’s been pursuing that kind of mental, thoughtful, emotional attention, constantly focusing on that. It’s a place; I call it habitation because it’s like a home. When you go home, it’s like your safe space. It’s your; everything is where you want it. Your bed’s there, your bathroom is there. I call it the habitation because whenever you go there, it’s like, “Yes, I know this is what it is. This is what I feel this is. Yeah, I’m back feeling comfortable here.” When you walk away from that, you say, “Okay, I’m going somewhere else for a while, but I’ll come back to the place I feel comfortable again.”
I have learned this. I had to learn this because there were many times I would, especially in the early years of having children, making big decisions about many things. I often found myself very uncomfortable in a place of discomfort. Yet there was a part of me that was very much at peace, but my discomfort and my peace were at war with each other. I began to say to the Lord, “Lord, how is it that the peace is going to lead me, but yet I feel very discomforted. I feel uncomfortable. It’s out of my comfort zone.” The Lord taught me this. He said, “Any kind of change in any kind of growth you’re going to have is going to make you feel uncomfortable, but you have to learn and discern the difference between discomfort and My peace. If you follow My peace, it doesn’t matter how uncomfortable it comes, My peace will always guide you and lead you, and you’ll win. Sometimes you gotta not allow the energy of that discomfort to destroy your peace.”
It’s a big lesson to learn, and I’ve discovered over the years that many people that make uncomfortable decisions end up saying, I don’t have peace here. This doesn’t feel right to me, but it’s not because it’s not the peace of God. It’s because they naturally feel uncomfortable. Right?
If I had to call on someone to come and you do what I’m doing here and preach a message, and they’ve never done it before, they’ve never done it to even five people before. And so now I’m going to say you’re going to be on live television, come and do that. I mean, for sure, they’re going to be uncomfortable. Right? This is not a comfort zone for them. They’ve never done it before. They’re going to feel under pressure. They’re going to feel very uncomfortable because “Am I getting it right? Am I getting it wrong? Am I doing it right? What people are thinking?” Whatever, it’s going to be uncomfortable.
That doesn’t mean to say it’s not what God wants you to do. That discomfort doesn’t mean you’re not doing what God wants you to do. It might be the very thing that God wants you to do. So, it can break that discomfort in your life. Even though at that moment, you can’t discern the difference between discomfort and peace. The peace of God might be having you perfectly in this place to say what you have to say, even though you feel uncomfortable.
All revelation is intended to replace your current reality with redemption and restoration. I’ve taught on these, some of these aspects before in different ways, but just bear with me. All revelation that you get from God is intended to replace your current reality. Revelation replaces reality. Why? Because your reality, if you’re looking on the earth here, here, stumbling along, looking at things that are on the earth. Busying your mind with the things that are below. You can’t get revelation and stay there. Revelation comes from God. It’s a part of God’s reality and knowledge base that He’s giving to you.
When you receive that revelation-knowledge from God, and that reality that He’s revealing to you, comes into your heart, it must, by definition, replace your current reality. You can’t stay in a current reality when you’ve got revelation from God. If you get revelation from God and you stay in current reality, you immediately say, “I don’t trust God.” In which case, you will go around that mountain of where God wanted you to change for a long time until you allow that revelation to change your world. God will not keep feeding you significant revelation to change your reality until you start doing what the revelation says and change your reality.
Otherwise, why give you any revelation? God’s not going to waste Himself on people that don’t do what He says. All revelation is intended to replace your current reality, and it’s done with redemption. Never does God just say I’m going to replace your reality. One old car for a different old car, or one bad emotion for a different kind of bad emotion. Whenever He comes with a revelation to replace a reality, it’s always with redemption. He’s redeeming something in your life, and when He redeems it, He restores it. Always.
But not by living in your reasoning, and only those things relevant to you and your plans. When He comes with His revelation that is intended to replace your current reality with redemption and restoration, it’s not by your living in your reasoning and only those things that are relevant to you and your plans. I’m going to turn this on its head.
If you have a lot of reasoning that are only about your plans that are relevant to you. I’m reasoning. My plans are relevant to me. I’m shuffling along on this everyday world. Just looking down if I’m only in a space where I’m making plans that are relevant to me with my reason, then as I keep doing that, I’m not looking up higher to receive revelation that will change my reality, with a redemption restoration phase in my life. Often, this is the case, often, when people look at your life, and they see you making progress in your life, they often look at your life, and they say, “I don’t understand how you can be making progress when everybody in the world is obviously not.”
Well, it’s because I’m not looking, shuffling around in this present-day reality, trying to see, trying to make do with what I’ve got here. I’ve got my sights set on things above. I’m seeing the world with His perspective. I’m seeing the worlds, I’m seated at the right hand of the Father, in Christ, I’m up there, and I’m seeing the world with His perspective. The minute you see things the way He sees them, you stop having to be in your reason, making plans for your life that are relevant to you.
I come back to that comfort zone. If you’re in a comfort zone, and you always like this comfort zone, and you’re in this little bubble of your comfort zone, then you’re always going to have a reason to make plans that are relevant to you, that keep you in this bubble of your comfort zone. There is no growth there; there is no progress there. There is no new revelation that will change your reality that will bring redemption and restoration to your life. You just don’t let it in.
Certainly for me, I have shared some of this with you before. I had a moment where the Lord said to me, “Go and have a 40-day fast, John – or rather go have a 40-day separation. I want to encounter you. I want to speak to you”. And so I mean, that was a difficult thing for me to take myself out of the leadership of the church, everything that was going on and just be on my own for 40 days. As I began to spend time with the Lord, I mean, you all know the story, the Lord began to deal with me, “Pray for Brother Jerry, pray for Brother Jerry, pray for Brother Jerry”.
Actually, as I wanted to hear more from God about my life, that got stronger and stronger in me to actually pray for Brother Jerry until I eventually phoned my wife, Pastor Sharon, and I said, “Pastor Sharon, I want you to mobilise the church. We have to all pray for Brother Jerry.” That began a journey for us as a ministry that changed everything in the way that we have a relationship with Jerry Savelle Ministries International, in the USA in South Africa, my personal relationship with me. It ended up leading me to have a five-week time with him and then a seven-week time with him. Then having this whole relationship with him that I didn’t think was possible.
Notwithstanding that not soon after we started praying for him, he was in hospital with major heart surgery. He went through a process of a year, two years, where he had to have different surgeries. He had heart surgery. Then he had a stroke while he was in surgery. He had all this stuff that happened to him, and God said, “I want you to separate John, I want you to separate.” Then He made that separation all about me and Brother Jerry and to pray for him. And I’m saying, “Lord, this is supposed to be about us.” He says, “I want you to see things from my perspective. I want you to have my reality about this. I want you to not just think about yourself and be here. Oh Lord, where must I change? What’s Your vision for my life? What’s Your plan for my life and for the church? I want you to think about My reality and sit with Me in heavenly places.” “Okay, Lord, I’m here. So what must I do now?” “Pray for Brother Jerry.”
“Well, what’s that got to do with me?” “I can’t show you more than what you see now, John. I want you to see what I am seeing right now, but I can show you see this and do this.” The minute that began to happen, a whole lot of things over time, I began to see. First of all, it was a revelation He gave me. The second thing is that that revelation replaced my current reality, and it began a redemptive and a restoration process for Brother Jerry’s life and for my life and ministry. Praise the Lord.
I was immediately out of my reasoning of all my plans that were relevant to me. I’ve made plans that were relevant to me, and my reason said this is a good thing. I’m being Spiritual, I’m going to take time out for myself and the church and the Lord’s leading me, and everybody agreed. They witnessed with it in the Spirit. I must go and have that moment with God.
When I got there, “Change your plan, John. I want you to see things from My perspective.” So, it made me a little bit uncomfortable because I’m spending all this time praying about Brother Jerry. I wanted to be there for me, and I’m wasting time. I’m wasting time because I’m supposed to hear for us as a ministry, and all the time I can’t even get before God, and it is just, pray for Brother Jerry, getting into Brother Jerry’s book, and I got Brothers Jerry’s book out In the footsteps of a Prophet, and I started going through that, and I just kept praying into that and praying to that. It was like; God kept speaking to me about my walk with Brother Jerry, my relationship with him, the same way that he walked with Brother Copeland. Revelation began and had replaced my current reality, and it began a redemption and restoration process for both him and for us. Don’t you want to rather walk like that?
Revelation is personal. At that moment in time, no one could get that revelation except me. It was personal to me. Revelation stimulates inspiration for activation. The first revelation that I got that was personal is, I must go and pray. I’ve got to go pray. I’ve got to go and spend time alone with God. Revelation is personal, but that revelation stimulated me to be inspired and activated to go and do what I had to go and do. Ultimately, when you act on the inspiration and the revelation, it leads to restoration – and watch this -: and ultimately, it leads to dominion or domination.
Because from that moment onwards, there is no devil in hell that can replace God’s agenda for me and Brother Jerry. I mean, it’s not to say that everything that Brother Jerry does in his life, I’m immediately the positive recipient of everything that he does. There are things that he does, and I’m thinking, wow, I wish he would do that for me. I’m like, I’ve gone out of my way to bless him and to go and be with him and give my life, to show him that I’m, but then I began to realise that this is a reasoning about my reality that’s relevant to what I think is good.
The minute I begin to think like that, I lose sight of where Jesus is in heavenly places, and, and my revelation of what I previously received. The minute I go back there, then the devil can’t come and intrude with his reality thoughts about my reality. When you have that revelation, and you receive the inspiration as you activate.
Inspiration in itself doesn’t do anything. It’s just an emotion. But it’s a powerful emotion that if you act on it – activation – you can begin to see results. Inspiration gives you the empowerment to act. But you can stop that.
But inspiration, I want to say it, the Holy Spirit motivation. The Holy Spirit motivation. I use the word inspiration just because it’s a term that people are more familiar with, and it’s a term that people understand more. If I say, Holy Spirit motivation, we’ve got to reading recently more about the impulses of the Spirit. It’s the Holy Ghost impulse. It’s a Holy Ghost inspiration. When you get that, along with that inspiration, that impulse of the Holy Spirit, He empowers you to get things done. The empowerment comes from the Holy Spirit, making us able to do all the activation that we need to do, with wisdom.
Now understand, when I received the revelation from the Holy Spirit, I must go and spend time in prayer, and I must begin to pray. It’s a practical, real-world experience. I’m not finding myself somewhere in a cloud. Hello. I’m also not finding myself somewhere in a visionary, other world experience. I had to meet with all the church leaders. I had to make announcements to the church: “Please don’t phone me. Please don’t bother me. I’m leaving the church in the hands of other people. I’m around to make significant serious decisions if I have to, but I hope I don’t have to. Please try and keep them away from me so that I can go and…”
Practical stuff. Whatever God’s got to do for you, with His heavenly realities, seeing things from His perspective will always have a practical implementation. Always. Because we live in this natural world. When Jesus was here, He healed people. When Jesus was here, He fed people. When Jesus was here, He had to sleep, He had to get in a boat, and He fell asleep in the boat. He had to do everything practically.
Everything that happens is practical and real to be fully complete, but as you do the execution of it, it brings complete restoration.
This changes your thinking and your reasoning to a more heavenly reality. So, that you now have a complete over all of what’s relevant in your life and the world you’re in or the world that you’re occupying. Ultimately, that’s what God’s after. He wants us to have a complete over all of what’s relevant in your life and what’s relevant in your world and the world that you occupy. He wants us to have His reality, and we need to be fully occupied with His stuff that He wants us to get done.
I’m going to use a very simple example. How many of you really, really wanted something? Let’s use a simple example; you really wanted chocolate? Something triggers you to want chocolate. You don’t know what I’m talking about, right? Okay, maybe it’s, in some people’s case, it’s a doughnut. In other people’s cases, it’s maybe cheesecake. In other people’s cases, it’s maybe Chuckles. There’s a whole bunch of things that I could begin to speak, and as I speak, the more I talk about it, and you get a visualisation of it, the desire grows for chocolate. The more you think about it, if I keep talking about it… I mean, if I talk about it, I had somebody make me a Bar One cake one day with a Bar One caramel sauce that was like poured over this chocolate and then it had caramel in between the layers of the chocolate and the Bar One caramel sauce. When you eat this Bar One cake, it’s like, Ah! Is this Heaven or what? It’s like your mouth waters for the Bar One chocolate cake.
The more I talk about it; you begin to desire it. The more you desire it, the more you give your attention to it, you start to make a plan to want to go get it. The devil only has that in his weaponry. The only thing that he can do when you are a person that is involved in heavenly realities, the only thing that he can do is say, “Hey, John, don’t you want this chocolate? It’s a lekker Bar One chocolate cake.” “Why are you presenting this Bar One chocolate cake?” “Because I want to distract you from heaven realities, and I want your realities to be about this Bar One chocolate cake.” Because when it becomes my reality, it becomes relevant to me, it becomes what I want, and I reason it, and I think about it and then eventually I act on it, and now my whole focus has been on the Bar One chocolate cake.
That’s the only thing the devil’s got going for him; give you something else to think about, give you something else to put your desire and your attention on. As long as you’ve got your attention on those things, you’re not thinking about what God wants you to think about.
Do you want your life to be about the chocolate cake or the chocolate? Or do you want your life to be about what God wants for you? Here’s what the average Christian does; here’s the Bar One chocolate cake. They walk into a shop, here’s the chocolate, here’s the Chuckles, here’s the Bar One chocolate cake, here it is, “I rebuke the devil from bringing these chocolate cakes into every shop that I go into! I’m taking authority over every retail store and every supermarket, and every distribution network in the country to stop bringing chocolate bars in front of me! Wherever I go, there’s a chocolate bar, and there’s a chocolate cake. I rebuke it in Jesus’ name!”
The next time you walk into the store, there’s a chocolate cake. See, cause you don’t have the authority over all that stuff, but what you do have control over is you.
If I keep thinking about the chocolate cake, when I walk into the next store that’s got it, the thing screams at me. You know what’s just happened? The devil has just overtaken your whole life’s agenda. He’s just imposed himself on your whole life agenda because all you can think about is the chocolate cake or the chocolate.
We are constantly reacting to what he presents to me. That’s not the way that God wants us to live. What He wants us to live is; He wants us to live in Him, living in Him. I’m living in Him. I’m getting His reality. I’m getting His heavenly ideas. I have authority. I have the power. I have honour. I’m walking in the things that God… I see everything from His perspective. From His perspective, I can’t stop all the distribution networks because there are lots of men that want chocolate bars. Those men are all over the place, and they want chocolate bars, and they want chocolate Bar-one cakes. So, I can’t stop men from desiring that and from going after that. They will be everywhere. Take your mind off the Bar-one cakes and the chocolate, and put your mind on the things above.
Now what happens is that the desire inside of you changes so much, you don’t even have to take authority over the devil anymore. Because when you walk into the shop, you don’t even see the Bar-one cake anymore, because you are so full of the reality of God.
Inevitably what happens is that people have a financial need, and the devil wants you to focus on meeting your financial needs. So, you keep making a declaration all the time, my financial needs. You don’t bind the devil, but maybe you do bind the devil a lot. You’re always praying about your finances. That’s like a five-year-old saying, “Make my financial needs come true, make my financial needs come true, make my financial needs come true. Eee! I need more money. Eee! I need more money. I need to meet the rent at the end of the month. The Lord is saying, “Hey, hold on, I will do that, but rather come and think about My realities. Because as you come up here, then you can see many ways of how I can meet your needs.”
There is a process of learning because you can’t just become 20. You got to become 3, and then you got to become 5, and then you got to become 10. So, you got to go through the “Whaa, I need my needs met, whaa, whaa, whaa, whaa”. I’m not running that down. But I am suggesting that many, many Christians stay right there.
I would like to suggest to you that actually, the children that came out of Egypt had that same approach. They were not ready and prepared to grow into a fuller relationship with God, Who would see things from His perspective. They kept murmuring about wanting to go back to Egypt. They kept complaining about, when we were in Egypt, we could eat whatever we wanted. We had all kinds of lovely delicacies. Now, every day God feeds us with manna and water, and we can’t eat what we used to eat. We didn’t have what we had in Egypt. They kept going back to their past realities, which was all about relevance to their own comfort zones, instead of actually seeing that God is taking them to a promised land, where they can live in a full wholesome relationship with God and man being in partnership to bring about this earth domination and restoration and all of this amazing stuff that God wanted to do with these people.
They got stuck in reality. They got stuck in their reasoning. They got stuck in their own stuff. They never saw the revelation of the new land. The little bit that they saw with all the fruits came alongside it with all these giants, and they saw giants, giant fruit, giants. Oh, the reality of giants became so big that they folded once again except for two. Then God said, Okay, these two and all of your families and all of the people that are with you, you will see the promised land. You will have a revelation of it. Then you will see the new reality of it. Then you will see the restoration of what I have planned. You will see the redemption plan that I had for Israel. You will see all of the good things, and ultimately, you’re going to be a people that will dominate the earth under My covenant.
If you want to know what the Promised Land looks like, if you want to have a promised land teaching, it’s about that. It’s not about just living in houses that you didn’t build and drinking from well’s that you didn’t dig. That all comes with a package, but it’s actually from God’s perspective. I’ve got a people who know what I want and how to get it, and they will listen to Me, and they will worship Me, and they will praise Me. When the enemy comes to war against them, I will defeat their enemies before them. I will show Myself on the earth as I Am, with people. Think like God, live like God, behave like God, get like God, show God off, not just to the earth, but to the principalities and the powers, and those that are in heavenly places.
I want to read to you in closing, from Ephesians chapter 1, to show you what God thinks about this. Ephesians chapter one from the New King James, verse 15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints 16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you. Watch this now, a Spirit, the Holy Spirit, 17 the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, His realities, seeing things from His perspective, 18 the eyes of your understanding, being opened, being enlightened; that you may know, because now you see, like He sees, you have the knowledge and understanding that He has, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. That means His calling is about you.
19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His mighty power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, That same power is at work in you and me. That same power is moving us up from everyday shuffling, looking at your feet daily reality, moving us up into a heavenly reality.
Pastor John, you’re talking to me as though I’m 20, but I’m just five in the spirit. That’s okay. Because even a five-year-old will have a piece of biltong, or a five-year-old will have a piece of chocolate cake, or a five-year-old will eat a meal. They might be forced to eat some broccoli and some asparagus. They don’t maybe understand fully what it’s doing for them, but they’ll eat it anyway.
Because eventually, it will take you to being 20. 18the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, He seated Him there. Where did He seat Jesus? 21 far above all principalities and all power and all might and all dominion, bringing it right down to the practical thing, even against your chocolate cake.
He has put, and every name that is named, not only in this present age that you and I live in, but also in that which is to come. In every person’s age where we live in, it’s the present age, but when we go on, it becomes someone else’s present age. There will be an age to come when all the present ages become one present age. I don’t want to talk too much about that, but it covers everybody. Ah, here’s the real kicker. 22And He put all things under Jesus, His feet, because He’s seated at the right hand of God and all of those things are under His feet. He has authority over all those things. We are in Christ, with God. Whose we? All of us saints. Me and you.
22And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things, gave Him to be head over all things, the same things that Jesus is head over all things, gave Him to be head over all things to the church. The church is? Me and you, us together, all of us. He gave us the same authority and dominion, the same ability to see things the way He sees things. He gave it to us. 23which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:15-23 NKJV).
I’ll say something to you church after this teaching today. If you are not convinced, if you are not sure that actually God’s got a lot more for us than we are settling for right now, then I don’t know what will convince you. Praise the Lord.
I want to finish off with one more scripture. I’m allowed to do one more. It is from Ephesians, chapter 3, and I’m just going to read verse 20, 20Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, is able to do above all that we ask or think, we ask or think according to our reality, according to what is relevant to us and according to our reasoning, reality, relevance. He’s also able to do more than we can do, even when we ask according to His reality.
Watch this, according to the power that works in us. Let me read that again. 20Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. (Ephesians 3:20, NKJV).
Even as we ask, according to the revelation that we have, the redemption that is in us, the ability to sit with Him in heavenly places, He’s able to do more than that. Why? Because He’s seated at the right hand of the Father, and we are in Him. And we must just ask, and He’ll do whatever we ask. We just don’t ask enough because we can’t imagine enough because we don’t see ourselves there. That’s what the Apostle Paul was trying to say, is that when you’re at that place, you will ask more, and He can do even more than you can ask. 21To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:20).
If you are a next-generation person, you should not be in a place where you have to think about repeating what your mom or your dad did or didn’t do. Even if what they did was spectacularly great. I have this myself. I should not settle to just get to what Brother Jerry did, what Brother Copeland has done in life, although they have done spectacular things. That’s not what God has for me.
What God has for me is what I get revealed from Him to me—what I get revealed, what He wants to restore through me, through us. We have a unique thing to do. Our thing is not to repeat their things. Our thing is to have their things which they got done, so we can do our things. Hallelujah.
We follow in the footsteps of Revelation, that is, knowledge and insight and wisdom that we receive as we grow. It’s like being a child. I mean, I know that when Pastor Sharon and I grew up, I mean, the food, the kind of food that we ate was so unhealthy. Then when we grew up, we decided to explore what healthy eating looked like.
Suddenly, we were eating raw fruit and nuts and doing veggie juice and doing many things, and other people would look at us and say, but that’s not real food. One day, we had a guy come around for lunch, and he thought he was going to get a cooked meal, and we put it in a box of grapes and bananas and mangoes, and lychees and stuff on the table. He said, “So, when’s lunch start?” This is our lunch. This is what we eat. I’ll never forget the moment he thought we were crazy. I mean, he literally thought we were crazy. This is not Sunday lunch; Sunday lunch, you get roast and gravy and potatoes and all that kind of stuff. Well, not if you have a new revelation. Not if you have a new reality, not if you’re walking in the things that God wants you to have. You can have greater dominion over things that other people that came before you couldn’t have dominion over because they had a limited revelation that they walked in. We built on that, we grow on that, but we go further.
I have a lot more to share about this, and who knows, maybe God will allow me to speak next week about Blowing Your Mind. Do you have an understanding of why I called this now, Blowing Your Mind? You got to throw grenades and rocket launchers, all kinds of stuff at our own natural thinking, and allow God’s reality and everything that He sees to be the thing that we live in.
That is my prayer for you. That you would be absorbed in your life and your thinking about what His reality is, what He sees, what His knowledge base is. The revelations that He has, I pray that you will have an open heart, open mind and open spirit that you would receive those revelations. As you receive them, I pray that you will begin to operate in a place where you would be inspired to activate, so redemption and restoration can take place, that you would experience all the goodness of God.
In this season, in particular, you cannot live in the reality of men. You cannot live in the reality of governments. We recognise that, but we don’t stay there. We look to the God solutions for our lives and, therefore, our communities. In this season, I pray that you will receive what God has for you right now because He’s changing your future so that He can be glorified, especially in these moments.
May His peace be upon you. May the fullness of His life and His joy rise up inside of you. May your whole world be full of His knowledge and all of the stuff that you can even think of, and imagine He’s going to get it done for you.
That is my prayer. Bless you in the name of Jesus
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