Scripture reference: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 TPT; 1 Thessalonians 2:10-13 TPT
Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. That’s good to praise the Lord like that. Wow. I am standing in the back there, dancing my feet away. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.
I, thank you Father, that already You’re anointing is here. Your presence is here, because we give You glory and praise and honor You, with our words, our instruments and everything that this service is all about. As we come together as a body today, Father, I pray that Your words and Your will are done for this people. That You touch us, direct us, guide us and lead us in the ways that we should go. We ask You for this Father in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated.
Praise the Lord. Good morning, I have food to eat. Huh, how about that? While we are having church, we’re going to be talking about food. I have quite a lot to get through today. So, if you just bear with me, I’m going to move right along. Thank you for being in church today. Thank you for being faithful. Thank you for serving the Lord Jesus Christ and loving Him. Amen.
It’s not something that anybody can dictate and it’s not something that anybody can place in your heart, only Jesus can do that. Only Jesus can cause that desire to grow. As messengers, we carry a message to you and we are instruments of His word and instruments of His Holy Spirit, but it’s Him that does the work in you. It’s you who must let Him in. That’s the way it works, and so, thank you for being here.
I want to read this passage of Scripture to you. It’s First Corinthians chapter one, verse 18. This is the Passion Translation. 18To preach the message of the cross seems like sheer nonsense to those who are on their way to destruction, so you understand that there is this message that we live in that Jesus Christ is Lord. When you preach this message of salvation to some, to them, it’s nonsense. They don’t even want to acknowledge or recognize that Jesus is the Christ.They do not want to receive Him into their heart because they don’t believe that that can do anything for them. There is, a lot of people out there like that, but to us who are on our way to salvation, it is the mighty power of God released within us. 19For it is written: I will dismantle the wisdom of the wise… (1 Corinthians 1:18-19 TPT) I will dismantle the wisdom of the wise. Bring us all the wise men of this world. Bring us them, let them debate with God, and let them see Him dismantle their wisdom. It’s busy happening. The world economic system is busy dismantling. The world’s health system is busy dismantling, the world systems that have kept going for a long time are dropping down into chaos and disorder everywhere.
This is what the Word says. Where is the wise of this world? The wisdom of God is going to dismantle it. You know, I like that word because it’s like, they put all the structure together. Then you just, you know, like you build a lego thing or you build a domino’s thing, and you just shift one block out and then the whole thing comes crumbling down, dismantle it. 19…and I will invalidate the intelligence of the scholars. In other words, people are really educated and think they have the answers, I will invalidate them.
When you take a card, you want to get out of a parking garage, and it says, “invalid.” Invalidates you and sends you back to go and find out what’s wrong. Why is this card not working to let you out of the parking garage? It’s not valid. In other words, all of the intelligence of the world system, God is going to invalidate their thinking, their smartness.
20 So where is the wise philosopher who understands? Where is the expert scholar who comprehends? And where is the skilled debater of our time who could win a debate with God? Hasn’t God demonstrated that the wisdom of this world system is utter foolishness? 21For in his wisdom, God designed that all the world’s wisdom would be insufficient to lead people to the discovery of himself. (1 Corinthians 1:20-21 TPT)
So, if God is the source of all things, and He is, then all truth is in God, it can be found nowhere else. Experts, scholars, philosophers, all the people that have got cleverness in this world, they think that they have made themselves god of their own intelligence and their own will, and their own ability, but all they’re invalidating is that all sorts of truth comes from God, because God gives each one of us an option to either follow our own will or to follow His will. In following His will, He’s already dismantled their life, because they’re following the wrong course of action. Any success that the world may think they are having, from fame, to wealth, to any kind of new types of research, or things that come their way, anything like that, is actually only because God permits it. It’s not because they themselves are separate to God, and they can do something that God can’t do, but they think that they can do something that God can’t do. So, they do it for themselves by themselves and with themselves, because they don’t trust God enough.
They don’t, most of them don’t want to know Him, because somehow they think science and God compete with each other. When all that happens is that all of science and all of man’s endeavors, actually validates the fact that God is the truth. 21…He took great delight in baffling the wisdom of the world by using the simplicity of preaching the story of the cross in order to save those who believe it. 22For the Jews constantly demand to see miraculous signs, while those who are not Jews constantly cling to the world’s wisdom (system), so the Jews wanted to see signs and wonders and they wanted to have special miracles appear to prove that Jesus or any prophet was from God. Whereas people who didn’t know the covenant of Israel, a covenant God of Israel, Jehovah, their God that they followed was the wisdom of the world. You had really two systems, but neither of those systems actually could show them the direction to God. In the Hebrew system and Israelis in Israel, they only had things that pointed to a savior that was coming, but when those signs were fulfilled, they couldn’t read them. Because they were operating in a system, in a world where they thought they would be able to manage the signs.They will be the ones who will be able to validate God, in His signs that He sent them.
When the Messiah comes, if we don’t recognize Him as Messiah, then it can’t be the Messiah. So, they placed themselves in a place where they said, “This can’t be the Messiah, because the Messiah would come to actually just wipe out the Roman army and set us in charge, but He’s not doing that.” So, we do not recognize Him as Messiah, the Savior. Therefore, He can’t be. Isn’t that the question that they always asked? How can you say God is your Father? How can you say these things? How can you and everything was to try and trip Him up because they wanted to discredit Him, as the one that God sent? Because He didn’t fit their mold of what a Savior should look like.
23but we preach the crucified Christ, Messiah. The Jews stumble over him and the rest of the world sees him as foolishness. 24But for those who have been chosen to follow him, both Jews and Greeks, he is God’s mighty power, Jesus is God’s mighty power for us, in us, working with us. Not many of you were considered the elite when you answered God’s call. (1 Corinthians 1:21-23 TPT) So, in those days, you were either Pharisees, Sadducees or Rabbi, or you were in the rabbi School of teaching, or you were a Roman elite. If you weren’t one of those, you were just nobody. Come on now.
Verse 24, let me read it again. 24But for those who have been chosen to follow him, both Jews and Greeks, he is God’s mighty power, God’s true wisdom, and our Messiah. 25For the “foolish” things of God have proven to be wiser than human wisdom. And the “feeble” things of God have proven to be far more powerful than any human ability. 26Brothers and sisters, consider who you were when God called you to salvation. Not many of you were wise scholars by human standards, nor were many of you in positions of power. Not many of you were considered the elite when you answered God’s call. 27But God chose those whom the world considers foolish to shame those who think they are wise, and God chose the puny and powerless to shame the high and mighty. Wow, that is quite something. 28He chose the lowly, the laughable in the world’s eyes–nobodies–so that he would shame the somebodies. For he chose what Is regarded as insignificant in order to supersede what is regarded as prominent, (1 Corinthians 1:24-28 TPT)
Anything that you see in the world that considers themselves to be prominent, God is about to choose the insignificant to bring you to shame. Speaking of the world system. As Christians, we choose to want the world’s prominence rather than to live in God’s power. Then whatever we choose to create for ourselves that is prominent, we are likely to find out that we are being shamed because it cannot last, that system; cannot carry you. Only God’s power can carry you.
29so that there would be no place for prideful boasting in God’s presence. 30For it is not from man that we draw our life but from God as we are being joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. And now he is our God-given wisdom, our virtue, our holiness, and our redemption. 31And this fulfils what is written: If anyone boasts, let him only boast in all that the Lord has done! (1 Corinthians 1:29-31 TPT). Praise the Lord. Thank You, Jesus.
This morning service is a little different, because I am going to do a presentation to you in a short while. I want to briefly share with you; I know some of you have heard this in different ways, but I need to share with you this morning, parts of my personal testimony. You know that I grew up as a preacher’s kid in a preacher’s home. My mother tells me I gave my heart to the Lord when I was five years old. When we were in the room and she prayed with me, and I was a young, unknowing five-year-old, where I prayed, the prayer and I asked Jesus to be the Lord and Saviour of my life. She led me in that prayer. I am told; I don’t remember it.
How many of you remember anything when you were five years old? Not too much, right? I suppose the older you get, maybe those years fade a little bit, but I don’t remember too much of when I was five years old, maybe the brief memories. I certainly don’t remember that, but she told me I did it. I do remember when I was seven years old, sitting in my father’s church on a Sunday evening service and he called for people to come to the altar and to come and have a time of devotion towards God, in the altar of the church.
I was sitting in the second row in the pew and I was watching all of these people. Some of them crying, some of them quiet, some of them just doing different things. As I was watching these people, the Spirit of God came upon me and His presence was so strong upon me, I just knew that something was happening to me now that I could not control. The next I knew, I was lying on my back on the pew and I had all these adults looking at me, which included my mom and my dad. They were looking at me and I was lying on my back, and I was speaking in tongues. Flat out, and then I heard myself, I was speaking in tongues and the Spirit of Life was flowing out of my inner spirit. It was just flowing, and I was just speaking in tongues and speaking in tongues.
Let me tell you; when you’re a seven year old, you can’t fake that, neither can you plan that, neither can, when you have an encounter with God like that, neither does it ever leave you. I remember everything about it completely, clearly, as though it were yesterday. I remember everything about my spirit realm encounter that I had in my spirit. That’s awesome. Do you know that from that day onwards, my walk with God was completely different? Because from that day onwards going to Children’s Church as they used to call it then; you know they used to have Sunday School, which used to be before church, those days.
You had to go to Sunday School which was an hour before church started, and Sunday School was now something I wanted to do, but more than that, I even wanted to be in the main service every Sunday. I was seven. The Word of God exited me from that day. I used to listen to my dad preaching and I used to be thrilled by the words that were coming from him. Why? Because my spirit had been filled with the Holy Spirit, and my spirit was calling to the wisdom of God, the simplicity of the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus. My spirit man was calling to that, even though I couldn’t have described it, that’s what it was at that point.
You know, from about nine years old, nine, ten years old, I used to go to every church service. Before I went to church on a Sunday morning, I used to get into the Bible, and I used to prepare myself a sermon in case God would call me to preach that Sunday, in case my dad didn’t want to, or he got sick suddenly or… and that was all of me hoping, you know? Just give me a chance to preach in the pulpit for whatever reason, you know. I just wanted to do it.
Our church structure at that time, a denominational church, Pentecostal Denominational Church was that they would give time for people to preach for like ten minutes. You could have three minutes, and you could have three minutes, and someone else could have three minutes and you could share the Word and come forward to the pulpit and share a little bit. That was the way the structure happened and every Sunday I was ready, every Sunday.
When I was fourteen, round about my fifteenth birthday. It was round about that time. We used to live, we were in a time of transition in our lives as a family and we lived downtown Johannesburg. You know there’s a big round building? Have you ever seen that big round building? I think it’s got Vodacom written right at the top of it. It’s called Ponte. Huh? We lived on the thirty third floor of Ponte. I went off on a Sunday afternoon to go and preach the Gospel in Hillbrow. Play my guitar, megaphone, preach the Gospel, get people saved in the street and then everybody would go to church and take the people that got saved, and give them a lift to church and then bring them back to Hillbrow.
The Lord just said to me; “Go home, don’t go to church tonight” and that for me was like, “Don’t mess with my life in church, I love church too much. I love to hear preaching too much. Don’t mess with my church, God.” It was because of the chaos that was in our personal lives at that time, in my family. It was one time where I could be alone, and God was wanting to be alone with me. It literally, when I got home, I walked into the flat, I went into my room, and as I walked into the room, the presence of God was there. He was just there. I couldn’t see Him. He didn’t speak to me with an audible voice, but I knew He was there, like I know you are here. He was just there; I knew His presence.
It was like I could reach out and touch Him. His presence was just in the room and I immediately fell on my knees next to my bed and I just began to speak words of love and gratitude and thanksgiving and wonderment to God. Then a while went by and He said, I mean, basically you know, “I want to speak to you, John.” “Yes, Sir.” He said, “I want to take you to this scripture.” He took me to this scripture in the Bible and said, “Read it.”
I read it and I read it. He said, “Read it again.” I read it aloud and I read it aloud. He said, “This is the calling I place on you today. This is what you will be doing for the rest of your life. This is the ministry that I’ve called you too.”
Next minute, His presence left and my parents walked in the door. For me, it felt like it was this quick, but it had been three hours, that I’d been in the presence of God. I remember every detail. I remember every moment, every word, that He said everything that He said to me. As I say He didn’t speak with an audible voice, it was all in my spirit. I remember it.
Do you think? Do you think that I’ve had an identity crisis in my life? No, I have had no identity crisis, because when He calls you, you know what you’re supposed to do? You then take your identity, and you just emerge or immerse yourself with what He’s calling is. Right?
I mean, what else is there? I mean, sure, if you’re playing sports, you might have an identity as to what crisis as to what position you’re going to play. When you meet a girl. It’s like, is this the girl for me or not. I mean, if you want to call those identity crises, then I had them too, but I wouldn’t call them an identity crisis like that, because I had a knowledge, a certainty and a surety of what my future would hold because I knew what I was destined to do.
I’ve spent my life, my entire life, I’ve spent my life in service to the church. I used to work every day to earn an income, but my life assignment, and my real work was done in the church. I used to, first of all, I was an usher and I’ve spent years ushering, getting there early, spending time praying before the service that all would go well with the service. Anything that I was asked to do as an usher I would do it for years and years. Then I was asked to lead a home cell and then I was asked to lead many home cells and then I was asked to lead many, many areas and districts of home cells. I was also leading the business people’s prayer and fellowship and all those things.
Pastor Lynn knew me at that time. He knew the whole system that worked… and because the anointing of God was on my life, the fivefold ministry of the church at that time recognized that it was upon me. They asked me many times to come and be in the full time ministry. Whilst I knew, that was my destiny, the execution of it, the plan of it, was waiting for God.
When God began to show me that I was called to Brother Jerry Savelle, I needed confirmation, and a blessing from the church that I’d served for many years, that they would release me into serving someone else, because I can’t do two. I accepted, I accepted what the Lord wanted me to do. I accepted that and I went and started to serve Brother Jerry Savelle, but God was also preparing me to have our own churches and our own ministry, under his apostolic leadership. So it has been for the last 20 years.
I had not had an identity crisis. The only time that I’ve ever had a question mark over what was going on, was when the enemy caused the division to happen in the church, and people attacked me, for things that I knew I didn’t do. I was innocent of them and in fact, they called for a meeting with Brother Jerry Savelle and threw all these accusations against me.
While they were talking and putting the accusations against me, one by one, they even answered themselves and said, “This is not true. I don’t know why I’m here. Why I’m saying this, this is not possible. Pastor John is the most spiritual leader, I have ever worked with,” and then got up out of the room and walked out and said, “Sorry for wasting your time” and left.
But the damage in the church was done, and that was my only time when I could say, I had a crisis. I had a crisis because I said, “Lord, I’m a nice guy.” I’ve loved You all my life. This is what I’m called to do, and yet people can do this to me.
Then the Lord said, “They did it to me, John, you’re not alone and you’re in good company because they did it to Me.” That’s something that will always happen, is that the will people will agree, people will, don’t agree and people will do that. Why am I saying this to you today? Because when I stand here, and Pastor Sharon and I stand here, and we teach you, and we preach to you, that God has come to take our children.
He does not want your children to suffer with an identity crisis. So you can make a lot of plans, just hear me out now. You can keep yourself very busy and you can make a lot of plans, but if all of those plans that make you very prominent in the world, are not God’s plans for your life, then you will have an identity crisis until you find God’s plan for your life.
You may not think so and people get… I ask you this; and I speak as plainly but as carefully as I can. Do you think that all the sexual immorality that we have in the world comes from a strong, solid identity foundation? Most of what’s going on in the world because they all have an identity crisis. So, they try to find it in something else. Then they say, “Oh, I found something that really pleases me. So, that’s what I must be.” Right?
Do you think it’s any different with people who pursue power in political circles? They want to achieve something. Most of them don’t really, really go into it because they know for sure they’re called to politics, and God’s called them to politics. They go there because they’re looking for an identity to make a difference, but they don’t want to look forward to looking for it where God wants them. They want to look for it where power is. Right?
Because that’s where they’re going to find their stuff to do, power. Surely, or maybe they pursue wealth, because if I can’t have power then I must have wealth and wealth will give me power. It’s about identity. It’s about that feeling of insecurity and fear of failure, and fear of not knowing exactly what my future is going to turn out to. So, I do whatever I can to make my future what I can control and then my identity is in what I can control.
When you have Jesus as your identity, then you lose control of your life, but you find it. Because you lose control of you, but you find everything in Him. When it comes to parents, I say to parents, “If your life is about controlling your child’s destiny, because you think you know what’s best for your child, it’s time for you to hand over that control to Jesus. Because He’s got your child’s best interest more on His heart, then you have.”
I promise you, if you think you birthed your child, you’re wrong. You are just the vessel that He chose for your child to come into the earth with, but your child belongs to Him, because as soon as he grows up to be or she grows up to be an adult, they are no longer yours. They’re biologically yours, maybe relationally they are yours, but God has called them to a life of destiny, and the life that they must walk with God because He’s called them to gifts and callings. This is true, hallelujah.
So, I’m about to go into the presentation now, and it’s an appropriate time to do this to the church, with the church, because I believe there’s a spirit of fear that is coming into the world because of Covid. Europe’s busy shutting down. United States politics is uncertain. China, for sure, wants to dominate the world. If anybody doubted that, Donald Trump has been an instrument of God to reveal that China wants to dominate the world. The Chinese Communist Party wants to be the world domination.
Don’t for a second doubt that, and if they don’t want to dominate the world Iran does. If they don’t want to dominate the world, Russia does. America in the past wanted to influence the world to be a democratic system. In the end, people will tell you that actually, it’s not about political systems. It’s about theologies and, and it’s about religious rights, because you have the Judeo world. You have the Judeo-Christian world, and you have the Islamic world, and then you have the Chinese Communist Party who make themselves as the emperors, of all of their people. You may not actually worship any god in China, you only may worship the government. This is real.
If you think you and I are not being influenced by the world, and by what’s going on in the world, then you’re wrong. Because everything that’s going on in the world is spiritually based. There is a war that is happening for the souls of men, God has paid the price, His victory is sure for those who have received Him.
But if there are those that the devil can deceive and not have them choose Jesus, then he’s after their souls, because their rejection of Jesus is his praise. You get that? The spirit of the Lord is growing stronger inside of me day by day. And what’s happening to me is I’m becoming bolder, and I’m becoming stronger and I’m becoming fearless.
I am fearless, let’s rather say that I’m fearless, but I’m becoming stronger and bolder because I understand that things are happening in the world, that the world cannot control, but in Jesus, we find ourselves steadiness. He doesn’t want us just to get through the bad times. He wants us to conquer and gain territory in bad times. He doesn’t want us just hiding and go play, hide and go seek until the bad times leave. He wants us to walk in victory.
I’m supposed to have a cable to go in here somewhere? Is this it here? Got it. All right, let’s see if this works. I need to read you a scripture. So that’s why we have a slightly different system today. So before this comes up on the screen, I just want to read. Is it on the screen? I know that there was a thing about dual screening here. I can’t see what to do Matthew, but let me read this passage of scripture first.
I’m reading it from the Passion Translation. First, Thessalonians two verse 10. 10With God as our witness, you saw how we lived among you, in holiness, in godly relationships, without fault. Now, if you want to really scrutinize our lives, you will find fault with us. You can find fault with anything, but what he’s saying is; My walk with God, before you is transparent, it’s open. It’s clear, we are not hiding from you. Amen. Right? You know you don’t sound so certain about that and we’ve been together for so many years. You’re all there? Thank you.
11And you know how affectionately we treated each one of you. Like a loving father cares for his own children. We comforted and encouraged you and challenged you to adopt a lifestyle worthy of God, who invites you into His kingdom and glory. This is why we continually thank God for your lives.
You’ve heard me say this to you many times, I thank God for you, because you have chosen, because 13you received our message wholeheartedly, you embrace it, not as the fabrication of men, but as the Word of God and the Word continues to be an energizing force in you who believe. (1Thessalonians 2:10-13 TPT)
I say to you, I have not been in the ministry to build myself an empire, I have not been in the ministry to try and make my name prominent and have my name on the billboards, have my name, be the one that everybody talks about. I’m not in any way putting down men that are more famous than me, in the church. Just saying that in my ministry, this is not the way God has led me. And He has led me to do things, I have obeyed Him in that I haven’t tried to make it happen for myself.
In the same way that we are now on TV, and we are doing many things and we have an international profile. God gave those things to us. It wasn’t me. I didn’t invite myself to go and do a prayer conference at Brother Jerry’s ministry. We were invited. Then our prayer conference that was held there, went to so many of the churches their brother Jerry’s connected to. We didn’t do that, God did that. It’s better if God does it, then you know that it’s actually not you that’s doing it. Right?
There are some things that God has placed in my heart that are coming to pass. Ten years ago, I knew in my spirit that there is a generation of young adults, young people that are being lost to the world system, and we have to do something about it. So we started, I started a ministry called MiXchange. The whole idea about this MiXchange, 10 years ago, was please exchange some of your time to find out and have an encounter with God. Exchange what you think is your future, and come and spend time with God, so you can find out what God says for your future.
MiXchange, the first person that came to MiXchange, the first two people… I’d like him to come and stand here, please. Matthew, and Sarah. Sarah, I know you’re a mom, and you’re like not wanting to be in the limelight today. Don’t worry, it’s not about that. Where’s Saartjie? She’s in the back. She’s running down the side of it. [Sarah runs onto the stage].
These were the two first that were in MiXchange. Both of these, I mean, they were on a path going nowhere. They were on a path that actually their lives were heading for destruction. These two are young people that have blessed me so much in their lives. If she hadn’t had a baby, she would still be working with me, but I understand that life moves on, but she found her husband here. Matt, he’s been here for 10 years. He came first, he’s been here for 10 years, and he found his wife here. They are blessed and they have found what God wants them to do. They live in joy and peace. These are the first MiXchange students. Thank you. I love them. They are like my kids, they are my kids. Hallelujah.
Is this working? [Pastor John talking to Matthew] You want to do something while you’re here? Now he just runs the whole ministry’s, technology stuff, you know? Can you run it and then I’ll just follow it from the back? Okay. We were concerned about this particular technology, and I was away on Friday and yesterday. Praise the Lord. We even had a Bluetooth mouse pad that I could work with here. Anyway, we’ll get it working.
MiXchange was created and birthed out of my spirit because I’d seen the destruction that had happened to my sons. I just want to be clear with you about this. My two sons grew up with a father and a mother who prayed every day, who grew up in the Word of God, living in the church. I want you to know that as parents, I smacked their bums. In other words, I disciplined them the way God says discipline them, with love, with correction; according to the Word of God. You understand? We went to church every day, every Sunday and had oftentimes home cells and things happening in our house and my kids were involved with me and Pastor Sharon, in our church life.
When they grew up, and they were, we were as poor as we started, God blessed our lives. Our boys were going to private schools, have the highest education, because that’s what we wanted for our children, is to have the best prominent education that the world could give. Because we were in the mindset, I was. I served God while I was in school, I served God when I was in the army. My walk with God was as strong in all those places; so my kids growing up in my house should be able to do the same thing.
The sneakiness of the world system has developed significantly and I’ve had people actually come and go away from our church, long time ago, when my sons were in a bad space. Choosing wrong things and making bad choices. Their accusation was, “You could not have raised your kids properly, because if you raise your kids properly, they would not make choices like this. We are raising our kids properly, so we are leaving our church so that… because we don’t believe you’ve done a good enough job.” In other words, they accused us of doing a bad job, they don’t want to be tarnished with our job. So, in other words, they said, “A child growing up that grows up under the right sort of circumstances must automatically choose right.”
Well, I can take you to just about almost any preacher’s kid around the world, 90% of them, how they all turn out to be rebels, because they grow up in church. They see all the politics and the nonsense of the church, and so it’s alright, for people to have opinions and judgments like that about us, but we are not allowed to say anything like that about them. We choose not to anyway.
You, us, we don’t know, what devil’s scheme is out there, waiting to grab your child, or one of us, to divert us, distract us and take us on a path that is not God’s will, because where God’s will is for you, all of your joy, all of your resources, all of your life’s blessing is where God called you to be. Not where you plan to be. That’s where all the goodness is, for your life.
That’s why I had it in my heart 10 years ago to start MiXchange, but like everything, I’ve experienced a lot of resistance, a lot of resistance about it. But here we are now, and it’s a season and God’s favor is on us and MiXchange is happening. I wouldn’t have called that like that, I call it my A-team, but actually what happened is that God created an environment where young people could come in there, and they could find God, encounter God. They could encounter gifts and callings and anointings. That God’s calling them too.
A number of the young people, a number of the young people. I want you to understand this, please, I want you to… and I’m going to Joburg next Sunday to do the same thing, but I want you to know that not one young person that’s coming here was influenced by me. They all made a choice between themselves and Jesus. This is the first decision they must make.
They must make, not the parents must make, they must make for their future. Because most of them have been accepted into University, to go and study medicine, or to go and study law, or to go and study some kind of financing degree. Some of them have the probability that they could play first team University sports, big sports.
But these messages have been speaking to them and young people, you must choose whether that system is the one that you want prominence in and you want the prominence to come to you from that system, or you want God to actually do, in your life, what you need God to do.
I have asked even the parents not to interfere with this decision making. I don’t go to the parents and ask them, “What’s happening with your kids?” Because they don’t know, until the kids tell them. If they’re going to go live and stay in university and be subject to that system, then they must already be in a place where they can make a serious decision about their life already. Because if they’re not, they shouldn’t be going into that system. If they are, then they can make their own choice. Follow Jesus or go after the world system first. What is it about first fruits? Give God first, that the rest may be blessed. If you give God’s first fruits, the rest will be blessed.
[HOFMI Projects Presentation]
Alright, this is the main Heritage of Faith website. I don’t like to talk to a screen, but I’m going to have to do that, you’re going to have to bear with me on this session. If you’re going to the main Heritage of Faith Ministries, HOFMI website, HOFMI.net, you will find a project’s portal and we’re going to click on the project’s portal. Maybe we can switch off a few more of the big lights.
So when I arrived this morning, my computer’s slow, all the computers were slow, we don’t know. Well, okay. So, I would like to go to buildings, the project tab called buildings at the top, not all, next to the buildings. If you can click on the A-team workspace. If you see this slide on the left hand side, the first slide, it’s where that’s currently what the workspace looks like. And as you go onto the website, you can go and look at all of the project portals there, through the project portal. You could look at all of what is in our hearts to do in the ministry, some of the stuff related to Joburg, some of the stuff relates to Witbank.
But we have up to eight young people coming to join the A-team next year. We are going to be about 20. Some of them are going to stay for a year, and then go to University, some might stay for a year, find that God has called them to something else and go and pursue that.
We have, we have started to establish a thing called my MiXchange Forum. The MiXchange Forum is a young person, let’s say, is coming from Johannesburg, a young person will come into the ministry, when they come into the ministry, they’re going to do Bible school, they come into the ministry, they are going to have two or three people that are going to manage and mentor them.
We’re going to have a parental body that will work with the mentors to manage and mentor the young person. What we don’t want to do, is to allow them to have an encounter with God, which they then do, but when they go into the rest of the world system, after they’ve encountered God, then the influence of the world system comes and undermines what God’s done.
They’ve got to have a system that carries them through all of their learnings, if it’s University, or all of their direction that they must go through, so that they can connect with other businesses. Say, somebody is called to business, then we will have a forum of business people, that over a period of time in the time that they are with us, they’ll have meetings. “Let’s talk about this, let’s talk about this. This is how the system works. This is how that system works. So, if you want to do this, and you want to start a business, then that’s how you watch out for this, don’t do this.” So, they are prepared to go into business in the time that they are with us, but they’ve encountered God, and they’ve encountered good business wisdom.
We are not just saying, “Come in here, and maybe you’ll meet with God, maybe you won’t.” We can’t say how people are going to meet with God. That’s not for us to determine, but in the meantime, whilst they are here, we are going to be responsible and guide them and lead them. We’re going to have Psychologists involved, to actually make sure that from a perspective, that is an educated perspective, because we don’t want to get into trouble with anybody that says, “But you only had these people on your team, and so, you needed to have more qualified people.” We are going to use qualified Christians, believers that are filled with the Holy Spirit to come and help with that. So, that when our children are ready to go and do what they must do, that they are grounded in truth and they’re grounded in relationships that will hold them strong, no matter where they go.
What do you think about that church? So, this thing that’s going on here is, we want to change. (Pastor John referring to his presentation) We want to have a proper rest space, we want to have a proper canteen. We want to have a proper, properly worked out working environment, as they get skills and Bible school work to do, and many things that they’ve got to do during their time with us, that they’ve got proper space to work in. We have a budget, this is the low end of the budget. If we really want to do something really special here, it would cost R600,000 plus, but we’ve given the low end budget here.
If you wanted to, you could immediately and you could see there, there’s the space A-team workspace, I want to donate there. If you say you want to donate, if you have a credit card or whatever you want to do, you could donate and it will immediately allocate that money to that to that project.
If you don’t have a credit card, or you don’t want to give via a credit card, and you want to donate to something, you can still do it through electronic transfer, the way you normally do, just make a marker there of what project you want to give into.
If we can go back to buildings… what you will find is all of the scope of what we are wanting to do in the ministry. So, if you go back, back to ‘projects’ and then click on ‘buildings’ again. You can see we’re wanting to put in air conditioning systems in Johannesburg. We’re wanting to make upgrades… All the details are there for you to read, what that project stands for. Some are R50 000. Some are R60 000. Different prices that we have.
We have the possibility of having our TV studio, for Digital Touch and for everything else that God is wanting us to do, we have a home that we can use and we can refresh all the furniture every six weeks and this company will actually make our studio look like a brand new studio basically every six weeks, but it costs R20 000, every six weeks. We have a period of time that we want to do this; 3 or 6 months we want to work [Pastor John claps hands] flat out and do a whole lot of recording for MiXchange for the future, for Bible School, for business leadership, for just leadership in total, we have an opportunity to do something really significant. You want to be part of that, you can be part of that.
All of the stuff is there. Let’s go to the next tab. We are busy building a HOFMI App for your phone, so you can do everything on your portable device; you don’t have to go through the website, you’ll get all the messages downloaded, all the videos will be downloaded, everything… Just by the way, in case you didn’t know, if you go onto this HOFMI website, all the messages and the TBN sessions and everything that we do, are embedded in the website. It’s not on YouTube. You don’t have to go through YouTube, it’s embedded in the website, you click on it and you can watch it on the website. Amen. We’re making progress. Hallelujah.
There are some things we want to do with Slipstream. You have a virtual fitness friend now, it’s called Slipstream. Amen. We’re wanting to do a whole lot of IT and media developments. There’s a lot of infrastructures that we have to change. One of the things that we have found out, just by divine connection, is that it is almost impossible to get any authority from the council to bring more power here and we have run to the top length, to the top limit of our pipe of watts that are available to us here. Through a divine connection, we have discovered that it’s available if you ask the right people and so we are in the process of asking the right people, to bring another pipe that has a similar power capacity, which will allow us to grow more. We didn’t intend to have all this power stuff that we need here in the building.
Thank you, go up a little bit. Is there more on this page?
We have lots of multimedia projects that we are putting together and you can read all about it more. Let’s go to the next tab because I’m running out of time.
There are things we want to do; live streaming to Johannesburg. So, we’ve already paid for, put in the infrastructure. We’re using a dish because the dish is the fastest and we’re going to live stream this service to Johannesburg and it’s going to be a direct connect. We’re also going to do a pilot project with Jerry Savelle Ministries in the USA and we are probably going to send them our equipment that we’ve investigated, send it to him, so that they can plug it in and we’re going to have live, interactive services with Brother Jerry in the USA before he can come here. What do you all say about that? We’re testing the Joburg site, then we’re going to do the thing with the American site, so that we can do many things. If we’ve get this right then we can go just about anywhere in Africa and host services in Africa or the world and we can live stream to them and they can interactively live with us as a ministry.
Our praise and worship is going to go global because God has put in my heart a project for 2022. It’s not time for me to release it yet, but I can tell you, 2022 is a significant year for us because of what God’s calling us to do internationally. Amen.
Next one. Many of you are going to love this. We’re going to do, there’s no price to this, but this is Extreme Adventures. We want to go and get on our bikes, motorbikes, and go and do things where we can have fun and we can go and preach the Gospel and the technology that we are testing now, we are likely to be able to take it with us and do a live streaming if there is enough… if we’ve got a tower, got enough bandwidth, we can live stream services wherever we are to lots of places around the world. Extreme Adventures.
[Screen shows error page: It seems like you got lost]
We got lost? I don’t know. Extreme adventures, we got lost in ourselves.
I urge you to go onto the Project Portal. Go into hofmi.net, go into the Projects Portal and there’s lots there, you can read about it. I’m encouraging you to do this, because some of you think you’ve got to hold onto your money because bad times are coming. I want to tell you; this is the time you must tithe, this is the time that you must get before God and ask Him what to give. Because let me tell you, what happens and before December break, I will be teaching on this. Let me tell you, when God sends a prophet to you and says, “Give me the last of your money,” it’s not because he’s trying to take your life. He’s trying to save your life.
God sent a prophet to a widow woman who was about to eat her last and God said through the prophet, “Give Me what you have,” and she said, “The only stuff I’ve got left is what I’ve got. We’re going to eat this meal and die.” You understand the poverty was so acute in that time that she couldn’t go and ask anyone else to help them? Because nobody else had anything to give them. The Bible says that when she gave the last, it just kept growing, it kept building.
Now, let me tell you something, church. This is why I read you that scripture, we have lived before you holy lives, we have lived before you affectionately, we have lived before you transparently. We don’t hide our lives from you and if you see any humanity in us that you can accuse us of, so be it. You know, we are human, but we live spiritual lives and there are occasions when sometimes our humanity, you get to see it. I don’t believe that that undermines it, I just believe that makes us more of a family, but we have lived before you.
The Lord has come upon me, and Brother Jerry has a word for 2021, but it is in my heart that I must bring you the word that God has given me. I’m going to bring it in the next two weeks, but I first had to say this; this is a time that, when God speaks, for us to be bold and to be big and to be fearless and to go after what God says, not to go and hide, because if you go and hide, you’re going to eat the last of what you’ve got and you’re going to die with the last of what you’ve got. Amen.
Won’t you stand, please? Oh! I didn’t get to my example, my food example. Shall I give you my food example quick-quick, in two minutes?
I mean, how many of you want to eat this good looking, delicious piece of food? [Pastor John lifts a plate of cookies]. Now come on, be honest now, come on. Put up your hands now. En die wat nie julle hand opsteek nie, julle lieg. Because look, the packaging is very attractive, right? And this biscuit with chocolate in it… Shh, dis lekker nê? Double Delight. [Pastor John lifts a second plate of food] How many of you want to eat baby marrow? You guys are spoiling my day. Avo? [Congregation says yes] You guys have been trained too well. Because I’m trying to make a point to you; that actually one is very attractive, one is very unattractive, but most of you know that this [gestures to healthy plate] is where your life is. This [gestures to plate of cookies] is actually not where your life is, this may taste good, but you can’t live on this. You can try, but you’ll get sick. You eat this [gestures to healthy plate], doesn’t look that good, takes more work to get it done, but you can live on this. Right?
I’ll tell you, that’s the difference with what I was reading. I was reading; if you want the world system and the prime prominence and all the stuff that they offer, they offer it in pretty packages [lifts bag of cookies] to eat. When you come to the Word of God and say; I want to do it God’s way, then you come where the healthy stuff is and it actually makes your life fruitful and blessed. Hallelujah.
Let me just pray for you; Father, I thank you that Your Word has gone out today, that it touches the hearts of people, that they will be blessed in their thoughts and their ways and their relationships. No weapon formed against them will prosper. And they’re blessed coming in and going out. And all of the good things that You have in store for them, Father, I pray that You will bless them. In Jesus’ name. And everybody said; amen. Thank you for coming. God bless you.
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