Scripture reference: Galatians 3:6-12 (NLT), 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (NKJV), Genesis 15:1-18 (NKJV), Genesis 17:2-11 (NKJV), 2 Corinthians 9:7 (AMPC)
Last night, the last two nights there has been activity at the Witbank Dam, lots of revving of motorbikes and lots of noise, to the point where my lady had to find alternate accommodation because she couldn’t sleep. She can’t sleep very well in noise, I do a lot better, but last night I got to a point where I put earphones in. For me to put earphones in, you’ve got to know there is something going on here, you know. But I put earphones in, and I put my music on, and I went downstairs and I said, “Well Lord, here I am.” And I had myself a dance session all by myself, in my kitchen last night. I switched off all the lights because I thought, you know, people see me going all crazy like this, who knows what they are going to think about me.
But it was just, there was something inside of me that said, the music doesn’t belong to the world, and noise doesn’t belong to the world, it belongs to the Lord. And I made a decision that I was going to do a God thing between me and Him. And so, when I came up here, I wanted this to be played, because I’ll tell you what, I just had a thing rise up inside of me last night. We are going to make more noise than the world could ever imagine. So, you better get ready, we are going to make a noise in this church. We are going to get noisy; we are going to get as good and better than what anything the world has to offer, and we are going to go crazy. We are going to go crazy. We are going to be known for those crazy people that just have such amazing music, but they are crazy in the way they serve God. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise Jesus, praise Jesus, praise Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise You Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
I came up here fully intending to control myself and not to dance this morning, because I’m dressed smart, and it can get quite hot in a suit. So, I’m exercising a little restraint, just a little, praise the Lord. Glory to Jesus. I’ll tell you what, even next Sunday we are going to have some more loud music because we are celebrating, we are celebrating us as a church. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Well, I’m glad you are at church today. Just say, “Hello,” to somebody, and then say hello to someone else, even if you just go, “how’s it?” And, then you may be seated.
Praise Jesus. It was quite something for me last night. You know, I became aware of how much I was going at it, and then I thought, whoosh!! Because I was going all around, and I thought, if someone comes walking down that path, they can look into my lounge there. They might think someone is going crazy in that house, that Pastor. Praise the Lord.
We are going to have communion. And so, the people that are serving us communion, you can get ready with the communion. I just want to read this: Galatians chapter 3:6: 6 In the same way, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” 7 The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God. 8 What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would make the Gentiles right in His sight because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when He said, “All nations, the song we sang all nations will be blessed through you.” 9 So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith. (Galatians 3:6-9 NLT)
This is amazing, that we have such an amazing covenant because of Abraham and because of Jesus. Verse 11 11 So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. Rules, rules do not make you right with God. It’s faith and obedience that do that. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” 12 This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says, “It is through obeying the law that a person has life.” (Galatians 3:11-12 NLT)
Well, on the one hand, people want to say you have to do everything right. And if in any way you don’t do anything right then you are not worthy. Jesus says, “It’s not about how worthy you are, it’s about whether you receive Jesus, and you have faith and trust in Him.” I have one more scripture to read to you briefly, and that is in 1 Corinthians chapter 11:23: 23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. (1 Corinthians 11:23-26 NKJV)
Can I put it to you this way? For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim His covenant through His blood for you. You proclaim His covenant with you. You proclaim His covenant for you. And you enforce the covenant rights that you have, every time you partake of this communion. Because without His blood you don’t have covenant. Without His broken body you don’t have covenant. So, when we eat this and we do this, it’s covenant. This is the essence of covenant. [To the ushers: Come everyone, please come and hand out the elements]
This morning I’m going to be talking more about covenant. I trust that you will be really blessed this morning. Amen. I don’t know about you but I hope you’ve been receiving something from the covenant messages that we’ve been enjoying here. Because covenant is really powerful. Amen. Me first. Me first. [Pastor John addressing the ushers to serve him communion] Thank you. Thank you. Cobus, your daughter is so beautiful. I mean she’s getting so big. Feels to me like the other day she was born. Hey Carrie? Look how quickly she has grown up. Wow. We are getting younger, I believe it. Amen. Praise the Lord.
The Bible says this, there is no greater gift that anybody can do for you than to give you their life, right? And Jesus gave us the greatest gift that we could ever receive. He gave us His life. While they’re busy doing the elements, I just want to reflect to you that the reason Jesus came to die, shed His blood and have His body broken for you, is that there was never ever going to be any other way that we could enter into a covenant with God. There is no way we could enjoy the covenants. And wherever there is a covenant, there are two sides to every covenant. There is the blessing side or there is the positive side of covenant, and there is a downside to covenant, always. Because if there is a covenant then there is a strength to the covenant. But wherever there is weakness, there is that too. Wherever there is blessing there is also anti-blessing. So, there is always two sides to the covenant. There is the right to choose life or death. There is the right to choose blessing or cursing. So, we never had that choice actually. We were always destined to live in someone else’s choice that was made for us, until Jesus came. As Gentiles, Jesus made it possible for us to be sons of Abraham, the first covenant man. And so, because he had covenant, we can have covenant. Through Jesus we have covenant.
So, if you read the whole Bible – and I was talking to you last week about Malachi and tithing – if you look at everything that tithing represents, and the covenant that you can have with God, I said this to you last week, tithing is a covenant connector. When we do this today, this is a covenant connector. The Lord is saying, “Remember what I’ve done for you by taking the body and drinking the blood.” This is a covenant reminder. It’s a covenant connector. When you do this, the Scripture says, “Examine yourself.” Now I’ve spoken about this many times again but I’ll do it one more time. It’s worthy of mention.
What I’m talking about is, “Thank You Lord that I have all the blessings of the covenant.” Right? This is not an examination about where your sins are. This is about “I have covenant”. Ok Lord, my covenant is in Your body. Your body is the church. I must examine my condition towards Your body, the church. That is the examination, while I am enjoying the covenant. Because it is through the church, it is through His body that we have the flow of the covenant, it’s the flow of the blessing, it’s the love of God in action, it’s the covenant in action through the people that are in the body of Christ. This is already a very good teaching just in a few minutes, amen. So, won’t you all stand with me, please? Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
So, we are here today, Lord, we recognize that without Jesus we had no hope. Every day if we live without Jesus, we live hopeless. And so, we make a declaration that because of the body of Jesus that was broken for us, we live with all of the good blessings that You have provided for us. We live with health. We live with healing. We live with all of the wonderful things that You have provided for us – body, soul, and spirit. And so, as we remember our covenant with You today, we receive everything that You paid a price for us to have, and we thank You for it Lord, in Jesus’ name. [Pastor John and congregation eat the bread] Hallelujah.
I’m going to share with you just very quickly. As the food goes into your body as a representation of the elements, the process of doing this is designed to put it into your body, for it to become part of your body, because that is the intention of what you do with Jesus. He comes into your body and He becomes part of everything that is in your life, and He brings health to you. So, when you take the blood of the Lord Jesus, anything that is in the material world is taken care of through the body. Everything that is in the spiritual world, the moral world, the emotional world, and all of the sin consciousness and all of the things that relate to your soul is taken care of with the blood.
So, Jesus came to make sure that there is not one part of your life that is not taken care of, through the covenant of Jesus. And so, we receive freedom from agitating passions, freedom from fears, freedom from moral conflicts, and we thank You Lord that we have the power, we are bold, we are strong. We are completely fulfilled through the blood that completely heals us and saves us from ourselves, in Jesus’ name. Amen. [Pastor John takes communion with the congregation.] Thank you. Praise the Lord.
The people around you are the body of Christ. There is a reason why the people around you are called the body of Christ, because all of you represent Jesus. In His spirit life He is with the Father, but in earth, you are His body. So, the way we treat each other is very important, very, very, very important, amen. And so, I know this may feel a little bit uncomfortable right now, but I really want you to greet somebody and just say, “I see you as the body of Christ.” Just do that to a few people please before you sit down. This is an important moment, “I see you as the body of Christ, I see you as the body of Christ.” Amen. Praise the Lord.
Priorities. I would like to make a suggestion to you today. I don’t want to sound like a motivational speaker, but I would make a suggestion to you today, that priorities are the power of your person. Your priority gives you power. Whatever your priority is, that is where your power goes. And every person’s power comes from their priority.
So, if my number one priority is to be a professional athlete, yes? If my number one priority is to be a professional athlete, what am I going to spend my power on? Training. I am going to do physical training and I am going to train my skill, because that is my priority, to be a professional athlete.
If my priority is to be a success in business, what is my priority going to be? I’m going to take my time and I’m going to exercise my time into the power of my business life, right? So, what I am going to do is, I am going to put a lot of time and effort into what I do. I’m going to continue to improve myself so that when I am competing in the business world, I am able to compete in such a way that I am a winning person, right?
So, your priority determines where your power goes. And so, that also defines who you are as a person. So, when we talk about time management, often people will take time management and connect it to priorities, because they will say, how you spend your time will reflect your priority. And so, you will know that for a long time I’ve been teaching, I don’t really teach so much about time management as I do about energy management, because your energy is a reflection of your priority. Where you put your energy, that is where your priority is.
“Pastor John, why are you talking like this?” Because before time began for humanity, God had a priority. Can you tell me who His priority was? His priority was us. So, before time began, where humans would measure their days by the hours, or the sun and the moon, the day and the night, God said, “Let Me, You, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, let Us make man in Our image.” We became His priority. Where did He put His power? In line with His priority. So, whatever I need to do to make man in My image, My power is going to My priority.
So, bear with me now. If I talk to you about my relationship model, it’s got a circle. The first relationship in the circle is covenant, because without covenant there can be no touch. Without covenant there can be no integration of ways. There can be no strategic intentions. There can be no divine productivity, which leads to covenant. The covenant starts it, and the covenant closes it. It is the circle of priority. Hello?
So, covenant is where God began. He made covenant with Himself – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, made covenant with themselves that They will make this come to pass. They will make man in Their image and They will create an environment for man to live there. God’s priority, His power. It’s the essence of His being. In human language, it would be the essence of His person.
Before He started this, He knew that there was a likelihood, because He lives in the eternal now, that men were going to make something else their priority. So, He had to make His power available to reinstate His priority. His priority was always to have relationship with you and me, where there are no barriers. There is nothing between us and God. So, that is His priority.
So, He then exercised His power to bring Jesus into the earth through a woman that had never had intimacy with a man. How did He do that? He took His power of His Word, to establish His priority, based on His covenant. In order for Him to get to the point where Jesus was in the earth, He had to prioritize other covenants. And so, He had made a covenant with Abraham and all of those that came after Abraham. He made a covenant with David so that when Jesus came into the earth, He could be both the reflection of Abraham’s covenant, and a covenant with David, a king. He had to make covenants along the way to make sure that His power was in line with His priority.
So, when we in our life, talk about priorities we would be, I mean it is like a really crazy thing for us to say that priorities are a man-made concept, good for us to learn about priorities. Actually, priorities are a thing that God is, and He says, “This is where My focus is. This is where My power is.” And so, we have a priority. Right? So, you can see where your priorities are, by where you spend your power and your energy. Right? And so, if you just look at your day, and your week, and your month, and you say, “What am I doing?”, then you can see where your priorities are.
Now, priorities are not always an easy thing to recognize and they are not an easy thing to come to terms with especially if your priority is very self-centered. If your priority is about yourself then it is a very difficult thing to come to terms with. Because you don’t want to recognize selfishness or self-centeredness, because it would be an admission of a fault or a weakness. Or we could put it another way, it would be a recognition of you not being bigger than yourself. In other words, everything else that is happening around you, you want everything to be designed for yourself. You are unwilling to let the world around you receive yourself in a way that helps someone else. You are wanting to create a world that is a reflection of your priorities. I hope you understand that. So, it’s not always an easy thing to be honestly evaluating your priorities, especially if it’s all about you.
And so, most people will say, “Well, it’s not about me, it’s about my circumstances. My circumstances don’t permit me to do something different.” No. If you are a Christian – and I’m talking to Christians this morning – if you are a Christian, God has taken His priorities to make a covenant with you, so that through the covenant He can release His power to you, for you, through you. And there is nothing that His power can’t do for you. So, it’s never then about circumstances, it’s about an unwillingness to use His power.
Probably it’s because you are concerned that God will let you down, and so, then this image that you have of God who is a Saviour, He is an initiator of love towards you, He is an amazing God, He is a wonderful God, that that God-image somehow, will be tarnished in your life, and so, you can’t trust God with everything that He gives you in covenant. Then so you take it upon yourself to do what you can do for yourself, in your world, and you make the world what you want it to look like. Because you don’t trust God’s covenant to make it happen for you, because you don’t trust God, you would rather trust yourself.
So, Abraham had to face this decision, because when God first appeared to him, he was in a city and a place where there was the worship of many gods. And so, God, the living God, came to speak to him and broke out if you like, broke through all of the noise of many gods and the culture of the day, to get to Abraham. So, if you hear me talking in weeks ahead, you will hear me talking about culture and covenant. In fact, the title of my message in Ultimate Impact Series – Limitless Imagination, the title of my message today is Covenant vs Culture.
Because actually, culture is trying to constantly undermine God’s covenant, and culture will always tell you that the human part of social living is more important than the covenant part of God, always. Because people will say, “I am in your face, I am real, I am flesh and blood, my emotions are real, my needs are real, my world is real, I’m real, God is not so real.” Because you can’t see Him. You can’t touch Him, you may say. You feel Him but when you really need Him for say money, or some intervention in your life, then He’s not there, whereas other things are there.
So, culture will always compete with covenant, and if we put culture before covenant, then our priorities are completely different. What do you all say to this today? I’m sure by now you’re saying, “I want my priorities to be about covenant not about culture.” Right? Yes, I think so.
I need to read to you a little bit what happened to Abraham. Genesis chapter 15: 1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, and if you have been listening to me in the mornings, you will know I have been talking about dreaming and visioning. And if you have not been listening to me, “Angels get them. Wake them up. Make them be so uncomfortable that they first have to listen to what I have to say in the morning before they even go to work and before that other nagging voice….” No, it’s not your wife or your husband, it’s your boss, oh maybe they, no.
1After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” 2 But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” 5 Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” Look what happens next. ⁶And he believed in the LORD…(Genesis 15:1-6 NKJV)
So, Abram was about 75 years old when God told him to leave the city and the people. And so, when he eventually had Isaac, he was 99. I wonder how we would have fared with all of these cultural and physical, circumstantial things that would tell us we can’t trust God. “⁶ He believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.” ⁷ Then He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.” Wow. ⁸ And he said, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit this land?” ⁹ So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ Then he brought all these to Him to Him being God and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. ¹¹ And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. ¹² Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, serve that nation and they will afflict them four hundred years. ¹⁴ And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” ¹⁷ And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. ¹⁸ On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying:- (Genesis 15:6-18 NKJV)
So, just before I go on reading this, I want to ask you, “Who is dictating the terms of this thing that is unfolding here?” It is God. God appeared to Abraham; He had a conversation with Abraham. He made His will known to Abraham. Right? When God made His will known to Abraham, Abraham had a choice. He was then called Abram. Right? He had a choice. The Bible tells us that his choice was, “I am going to believe God.” Yes? “I believe God.”
What would have happened if he said, “I know Your will, but I don’t want to do Your Word.” There would be no covenant. Right? So, it is important for us to know, that God started the conversation. God spoke words, made His will known, and then Abraham responded to the will of God and said, “I believe You. I believe You.”
So, God wants to formalize this covenant with Abraham, so they start to kill animals and put the animals in a display on the ground. Put the animals in a display and so, now Abraham knows something significant has happened here, because blood has been shed.
There is so much imagery here and I don’t want to teach so much on the imagery and on the process of what is happening in this covenant agreement, so I’ve got to restrain myself not to get into the imagery and the process. Okay? But maybe, the Lord willing, one day we can talk about this, but for now I just want to say, Abraham is aware of the blood that is shed, he has got all these animals, put them out in a fashion, and now he chases all the vultures away, all the birds in the air, that want to come and eat the meat, and then the evening arrives.
You know, some people might think, “Evening came Abraham was tired, he fell asleep.” That is not what happened. The presence of God was on the elements of the covenant and as the presence of God comes upon the elements of the covenant, Abraham goes into a deep sleep and while he is in a deep sleep, God starts to reveal to him….I want to put it, probably, one of the first movies ever made. Can I put it to you that way? He was watching a movie while he was sleeping, and the movie that he was watching was the movie of Isaac and Jacob. How Jacob would have sons, and how those sons would end up in Egypt, and how those sons would have many, many sons, and those sons in Egypt would be there for four-hundred years, and they would become a mighty nation, and they would accumulate much possessions, and then they would come out of that place, and they could come back to the land that Abraham was in now, and then he would have them as His people that would be back in the place that he, Abraham, was in now.
So, when the Bible says that God said to him, in the scriptures it says, Abram; 12….and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. What was the horror and the great darkness? The horror was, he could see the slavery of his descendants. I mean imagine having a movie about your kids and their choices that they make, and the things that your kids find themselves in. Slaves. Being absolutely dominated by a nation. How would you feel about creating a future for your kids? Probably you might think about having children because maybe you don’t want to be part of that pain. Right?
But now God is saying “I am in covenant with you Abram, this is a necessary process. The time will come when they will become a mighty nation and I will release them and bring them back to this land where they can live and they will be a mighty nation.” 17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. 18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates” and all of these other things. (Genesis15:17-18 NKJV)
Just as a matter of interest. You know there is talk about China invading Taiwan. They say Taiwan is part of their land. Russia is trying to dominate Ukraine. Over the years Germany has tried to take over Europe at least twice in the last 150 years, and not just Europe, but actually a large portion of the world. War and domination are not a new thing, but isn’t it interesting that Israel is the focus of the world’s attention and it is such a small piece of land.
Why would Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah and Syria and all of these other nations, why Turkey, why would they make it their mission to just obliterate Israel? Why? It is because of this covenant. Because them living in that piece of territory, is an evidence of God’s prophetic word; honouring Abraham. And in the spirit realm, every year they live there as covenant children, it reveals the living God. Maybe not to us Christians as much as it does to the spirit realm, that this word is still working. This word will continue to work until the end.
That is why we say, “Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC’s formal position on Israel, is not our choice. They do not speak for us. They may speak for their own government, but they don’t speak for the people.” Because we recognise God in this matter. But I want to show you that it started with Abraham. God says, “Abraham, if I showed you everything, you couldn’t handle it so I am going to put you to sleep to show you some things, and I am going to bring Myself into the equation, and while My presence is at work here in evidence, I am going to make a declaration over you, and it is a declaration of My covenant to you, because you have already agreed to this covenant, and believed Me. Now, I don’t need you to be part of the next part of the covenant. I am making this covenant with myself,” what did He say? “To your descendants, I have given this land, this is the way it will be.” Hallelujah.
When Abraham was, this is Genesis 17, 1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. 2 And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” (Genesis 17:1-2 NKJV). Now, you know, just because it’s written in chapters, we read it in chapters. But I want you to know that in God, everything happens in the eternal now. So, even though in the eyes of men in the way of the storytelling it might happen like this and we might read it like that – with God, He is in the process of cutting covenant. Are you all with me? “2 And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: 4 “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. 5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham.
What He was saying, “I am putting My…” [Pastor John making the sound of the breath of God entering into Abraham] meaning the breath of God, into the middle of your name. So, when people now call you Abraham [Pastor John making the sound of the breath of God entering into Abraham] they are calling on the Father of God that will be the Father of nations. “For I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant.” (Genesis 17:2-7 NKJV)
So, is this a covenant that will ever end? Is it going to end when we all leave the earth? What does everlasting mean? It means eternally, forever, this covenant stands. Wow. So, when God, from beginning of time, when He said, “My priority is covenant.” Then when He cuts covenant with men, He has already established in a covenant with Himself – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That means His priorities are always in line with His covenant because that is where His power is. Come on church. This is a very good teaching on covenant this morning, because if you understand that His power is where His priorities are and His priorities is where His covenant is, then you never have to worry about whether there is enough power available to you to get done what you need to get done because you are His priority, because He has already established the covenant of such.
And so, He says, “Abraham, I’m going to make a reminder of this.” 9 So “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. (Genesis 17:9 NKJV)” You got to teach them to keep this covenant.” Are you all with me? Now what happens if I teach you that you don’t have to have a covenant with God, you just need to have a covenant with yourself. Because your priorities about yourself is the most important thing that you could ever do, is be yourself. Be yourself, for yourself, to yourself, with yourself. You know what I am teaching you? I am teaching you that covenant is no longer important. It’s all about me and it’s what I want. Then I’m not teaching you according to the generational covenant of what God said to you and your generations and all of your descendants.
So, I have a responsibility, and we have a responsibility to remind each other of covenant. That is why we had communion today, that we would remind each other of covenant. Because if we understand the covenant, then we understand where His power is amongst us, because this is His priority. That is why we need to have communion because communion reminds us of the covenant. It reminds us of where His power is and that we are His priority. Wow. Wow. Hey? This is wow. You might be understanding the words of it, but the revelation of it is much more powerful than the words that you may understand and I trust and I pray that you will receive the full revelation of it.
I thought about this and I asked the Lord when I was preparing it, I said to the Lord, “How can I explain this to you?” And so, right before I came into the service, He said this to me, He said, “John what makes a good lawyer?” I said, “Well, he’s got to know the law.” “Yeah, but there is a lot of people who know the law real well, but that doesn’t make them good lawyers. So, what makes someone a good lawyer?” What makes someone a good lawyer is they can take a situation, a circumstance, something that occurred and they can understand the situation and then they can interpret a law for the situation. Right? So, it’s not knowledge that makes you a good lawyer; it’s the understanding of how to apply the law in any given situation. Yes? And so, I would go so far as to say, that is what makes a very good accountant. It’s not knowing how to add numbers, and it’s not knowing how to put the numbers on a ledger. It’s how to interpret the numbers of activities in business so that when it comes to producing balance sheets, it has a reflection of the spirit of the business not just the law of the business. Huh?
So, you can be a Christian and you can really know a lot about Christianity and you can have all of the right phrases; you can ask all the right questions; you can have so many of the right answers; you can have a lot of opinions about what you know. But, it is not what you know that matters, it’s what you know how to live what you know; how to take what you know and put it into action in your life. That is what makes the difference.
So, “10 This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you. Abram, I’m going to make you remember Me every single day. Every male child among you shall be circumcised; 11 and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.” (Genesis 17:10-11 NKJV).
Let me just tell you, if you are living in the natural course of life, drinking fluids, having to go to the bathroom, you are going to remember God as part of your covenant every day, and more than once a day. If you understand what He said about the covenant, what He made Abraham say, “The most vulnerable, reproductive productive part of every man’s life, I’m going to make that make you remember Me and My covenant with you, all the time. You will never be able to escape it.”
I think God is quite serious about us remembering covenant. I mean isn’t this what He said? “You will remember the covenant. This is how you are going to remember the covenant. When a child, a boy child, a man child is eight,”… this is going to do. I am going to be a little naughty now, “Don’t chop it off, just chop a part of it off.” Right? So, that when you live the rest of your life, you will remember that part of it got chopped off on purpose. So, for the rest of your life, you will remember the covenant.
I think God is quite serious about us remembering it. So, when He says, “Hey, you must eat My body and drink My blood, as to remember Me, what is He saying? “Remember My covenant.” When you speak His Word out, “I don’t live by sight, Lord. I don’t live by my emotions, I live by faith. I am trusting You. I am speaking these words over my life, that everything that I touch, I am blessed because You have blessed me in covenant. I thank You Lord that no weapon formed against me prospers. I thank You that I am blessed going out and I am blessed coming in.” Those words coming out of your mouth are a reminder of covenant. It releases the power of your priority. My words are my priority, so I am releasing my power. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.
I am going to finish here in a few minutes because next week is a nog a week. Amen. This tells me I have got 8 minutes left. I have now switched it off, so I have got 80 minutes left. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
So, if I make God’s covenant with me a priority, then He says to me, “John how do I know that My covenant with you is a priority to you?” Come on church, we know how to do this. It is called The Sower Sows The Word. “How do I know John, that you have made My covenant with you a priority?”
“Well here is what I am going to do Lord, I am going to speak Your Words back to You, so that You know that Your covenant with me is my priority. If I am going to live based on my emotion, I am going to make my own emotion my own priority, that means I don’t really care what Your covenant is with me.” It is an interesting thing, most Christians want the benefits of God’s covenant and this is the thing – most Christians want all the benefits of God’s covenant, but they don’t want to make a commitment to the covenant.
They think – and unfortunately, grace has been taught the wrong way – they think grace covers all your sins so that the covenant blessing is all yours, regardless of how you behave because grace covers all of bad behaviour. Grace, certainly His mercy, has covered all of your sins and certainly grace is His power to not live with the sin.
But the activation of the covenant is the grace at work to say, “When I don’t want to speak Your Word I can. When my emotions overwhelm me, I can speak Your Word. When my circumstances are in my face, I can speak Your Word.”
And you know what I learned? I learned this, that just like Abraham said, “I believe You,” and then you’ll see a lot of his behaviour pattern almost contradicted his belief. Right? So, you know, when he thought his life was at stake, “Don’t tell him you’re my sister, you’re not my wife.” And what kind of covenant man is that? Where is your trust in God now, Abraham? Come on. I mean he had to be pretty far gone, hey? You know, going to another man’s household there and tell him that you’re not my wife, that you’re my sister. “Hey Luke, how do you feel about doing that to Ester?” Not so much, hey? That’s what I’m saying, Abraham had to be pretty far gone. Pretty far gone? “Hey Sarah, go and tell him that you’re my sister not my wife, in case they kill me.” Oh, man of great faith, you covenant man you.
But the Bible says that he believed God. That didn’t remove his human weakness, but his belief was in God. When circumstances came his way, God said “I made covenant with you Abraham and in your weakness, I’m going to enforce My covenant.” And so, He appears to that king in a dream and says, “You touch this woman, you die and everything else around you die. You will exist no more. You touch this woman… because this woman is another man’s wife.” And so, this man says, “Whoa, I’m not touching you.” He goes and he gives her back to Abraham and says, “Why didn’t you tell me?” He says, “Well, I thought you were going to kill me.” He says, “You nearly made me do a bad thing here. And your God would have wiped us all out.” He says, “Take your woman. And what else can I give you? All of this wealth that I have, take it too.” That is God looking after His covenant, because God’s priority was His relationship with Abraham, regardless of Abraham’s weakness. Hallelujah.
But you see, Abraham did a lot of stuff to show God that he would trust in Him, but that doesn’t mean to say you will never have any weakness. But I’ll tell you what; the power of the covenant is that He has always got us covered. That is why we have the body of the Lord and the blood of the Lord Jesus that we can remember that He paid the price. Amen. Priorities. You know, if you and I have a priority, then our priorities will reveal where we put our power. Amen. Praise Jesus.
I have observed God giving things to people. I have observed what He has given me, and so,I think you would recognize that I in my ordinary human life being, I’m quite a good communicator, and I am quite good around people. Right? I mean I’m not unlikable. I think you all like me. I am a likeable person. Right? God gave me that. I was born with it, I was. You know, I might be a little bit of blue and a bit of yellow and a bit of red and I might be, you know. You might call me sanguine; you might call me phlegmatic, whatever floats your boat, you know. You might call me that, but I’m a people person. I’m a likeable person and I will tell you what I’ve discovered that God’s calling on my life, God’s calling for me to preach, is evident in the way that I communicate with people. People like me and I like people and I get on well with them and I like to hang around people. It would be a sad day if a Pastor didn’t like people.
So, I am aware that this thing that God put on me, it gives me favour. Even when I was a little boy, teenager, everywhere I went people liked me. I could just get on well with people. Why? Because before I was born, He said, “I’m going to call you and I am going to make you like this, so you can fulfil your calling.” Right?
Now watch this: I know I am called and people like me, this natural thing that God has given me, I use it for my self-benefit. If I’m using it for my self-benefit and all kinds of good things come because I’m a Christian, I’m in the church and I’m doing stuff, and all kinds of good things are happening to me because this is who I am as a person.
Somewhere along the line, God is going to draw a line with me and say, “John, I called you, and you are not doing what I called you to do. So, I can’t take away from you the things I naturally gave you, but My everlasting covenant-blessing, I’m withdrawing it from you so that it will bring you to your assignment. Because I can’t let you live and die without matching and meeting and working on your assignment. My covenant needs you on the earth, so I’m making My priority to reveal to you where your power is and where your power is not.”
You know I asked the Lord, I mean I’ll never forget that moment I had with God and I came out of the military, and I was about to walk into life, and I knew that my calling had the potential of calling me any day into the ministry. And I had this very deep conversation with the Lord. I said, “Lord, I’m so grateful that I’ve had this opportunity to walk with You in the army, and You have shown Yourself great towards me. But would it be possible for me to go into business and make some money so that my family is not subjected to the poverty of the church and all of the church stuff that comes with it, where everybody is controlling the Pastor through money?”
So, can I go and make some money, and then when You call me, I’ll go into the ministry. In the meantime, I’ll serve You in the church, I’ll give my gift to the church, I’ll continue to grow in You.” It was just like that the Lord said, “That will be okay by Me. That will be okay by Me.”
Wow, so guess what happened? All of that gifting of people stuff, all of that anointing and that calling to deal with people, to work with people, to draw people, to manage people, to help people, all of that anointing was now available to me in the business space. So, when I went there the Lord said, “I’m going to show you how to use faith, so your faith and your calling can work together for your favour that you have asked of Me.”
So, then as I went about business I had some hard times, I think you could say I had a few Abraham moments. I didn’t give my wife up for slavery for sure. But I had some Abraham moments, you know. I got fired because I wouldn’t go drinking with the boys and take women to escort agencies or massage parlours on behalf of the business that wanted me to do that. I refused to do that. So, I got fired. So, God had to bring me to another job, but always God’s favour was there to restore me because Him and I, we work things out. Praise Jesus.
So, as my faith and my exercising my faith grew, my gifting that God gave me, my natural gifting and calling that God gave me, was working in the corporate space, and there I found myself just earning bucket loads of money, and I got promoted and more promoted and more promoted. And it was like, I went to work every day, I worked hard make no mistake I worked hard. I wasn’t lazy. I mean my girl will tell you. I’d be up early in the morning. I’d come back at five, six o’clock at night depending on the season and the time. Sometimes as I got promoted my responsibility grew. I found myself on occasion doing corporate budgets. People will tell you those things, at the time of the year and you work long hours. You’ve got proposals to do, special customer things to do, and suddenly you’re working eighteen hours a day for a period of time. But that wasn’t the priority of my life. That was not where my power went.
My power was, every morning I got up, before I would go to work, I would say, “Lord, I thank You that You are with me today. Thank You that everything that …..” I would speak the Word. I would get myself ready and I would be in the car and I would speak Brother Jerry’s words, “If Satan can’t steal my joy he can’t keep my goods. I’m a sower that sows in famine, I don’t just sow in the times of good. I sow in everything, every time, all the time and I thank You that You bless me. On every wave, it comes back to me, Father. Thank You, that whatever I put my hands to I am blessed. Wherever my feet go, there You go with me and I’m prosperous.” I would speak the Word of God and my faith was working. So, money flowed into my hands. Promotion came to me all the time. God’s covenant was at work. But He never lost sight of His priority for me to be in the ministry.
Now if I had said, and this is really what happened you know. The Lord said to me, “John, I want you to serve Brother Copeland.” “Yes Sir.” First, I must serve Brother Jerry with Pastor Ray and then I must serve Brother Copeland. And then while I’m there, I’m with Brother Jerry, God says, “I’m connecting you to Brother Jerry.” And so, “Yes Sir.” I went and I spoke to Brother Jerry and our covenant was established, from then till now. Praise the Lord.
You know what would have happened if I had done this? I would have said – because this really happened. I was entering into a season where I had been making a lot of money but actually, in the natural – I’m just talking in the natural – in the natural, my reputation and my maturity in the industry, my position in the corporate world had increased to the point where the real flow of money – I mean I was already making a lot of it – but the real big flow of money was still to come.
So, what do you think my temptation might have been? Just wait two years. Just really milk this for two more years and then you can go into the ministry. What do you think would have happened if I said two more years? God would have raised up someone else to go and work for and be with Brother Jerry, because he needed someone right then. He didn’t need someone years later because He was on a covenant priority with His power for Brother Jerry, and we were the answer to the power and the priority of Brother Jerry’s prayers and requests. And because there was an…. I’m the man. “Now come on, John, it’s time for you. That thing you asked Me when you were younger, I’ve lived with you, I’ve blessed you, I’ve shown you My covenant. Now it’s your time to respond to Me. I want you in the ministry right now.” “Yes, Sir.”
And I thank God for my partner in life. She didn’t blink. She asked me some questions. She asked me some really tough questions like, “Where’s the money going to come from, John?” “Well, I don’t know, babe.” “When are you going to have the money conversation?” “I’m not.” “Well, how’s it going to work?” “I don’t know.” “Do you have any answers, John?” “None at all. “How are we going to do this?” “By faith, Sharon.”
By faith. Do you know what I had confidence in? In covenant. I had confidence in covenant. My living, breathing God that is with me every day of my life, He was walking with me and He would always walk with me and He would always be there for me. He would never leave me and forsake me. My obedience would trigger all of the stuff He ever wanted for me and all of you. Because in case you haven’t figured it out yet, you wouldn’t be here learning what you are learning, going through what you are going through, having the things of God. You wouldn’t have any of this, if I had disobeyed. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank God for obedience.
And so, now it’s your time to be obedient. It’s time, whatever God is telling you, this is our time. This is our season. Come on, every day is a day of obedience. Every day you are going to make a decision that I am going to walk in the covenant of God. I sense right now, and now I know why the Lord wanted me to do it like this. I sense right now that there’s an anointing, there’s a presence of God here, right now, that some of you need to just make a recommitment to your covenant with God. Say, “All right Lord, I hear you, I’ll obey you, I’ll learn to trust you. I will trust you.”
Let me just say this to you. The blessing is where you want to live your life. You do not want to live your life based on what you think is the best for you now. Because you will always live in the ever-present now for yourself, you will never change it. The only way it can be changed is if God comes and intervenes for you. And it is always going to happen in the form of a messenger. You will not change it for yourself because in yourself you are incapable of overcoming yourself. You need someone to come into your life by God and say, “Here is the grace for you to change self-based decisions.”
So, guess what is happening to you today? The messenger is speaking. The messenger is here. The messenger is bringing that out today and God has sent me as a messenger to say, “Come on you can do this.” Don’t make a decision based on all of your promises to God that you couldn’t fulfil in the past, because all of those things you made in the past that you couldn’t get to, they were all based on your own interpretation of what you could trust God for or not. Don’t think like that. That is always going to limit you to go back to yourself. Make a decision and then let God’s grace work for you. Come on, what do you say, people?
Stand with me, please. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. There is a strong presence of the Holy Spirit here today. Now you all know me from now. You know me that I don’t do this lightly. I’ll tell you a little secret. I woke up this morning and I had messages that I was going to preach and ways I was going to bring this out, and the Holy Spirit was all over me. I guess it had something to do with the dance last night, but the Holy Spirit was all over me this morning and He said, “John, I don’t want you to go to all of your notes. I don’t want you to go to your notes.” I said, “Well Lord that’s the way I work.” He said, “I don’t want you to go to your notes.”
So, I got myself ready and came to church because I didn’t know what else to do. I had notes but I didn’t know what else to do, and when I walked into my back room there, the Lord began to say, “Okay John, I want you to do it like this, and do it like this, and do it like this.” And then He didn’t give me a whole lot more, because He had a plan for this morning. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.
You know, this is a church service, it’s a Christian meeting, it’s a believers meeting. So, we can do things here because we are family, right? So, if we need a few moments here today, let’s take some time, let’s take some time. I feel led of the Holy Spirit to do something like this today. If you want to come forward and you just want as a sign of, “Lord I’m re-establishing my covenant with You.” Remember you are not making a covenant with me. I’m not asking you to join a church. You are making a covenant with God. Right? I’m making the altar available for you to come and do that. If you feel like you want to just be quiet, sit on the chair, kneel by your chair, kneel in the front here, go for it.
Where’s my son Garth? If he is available, he can come and play on the piano or Melissa. They can just come and play on the keyboard. Come on, come up front here, do what you need to do. Just come and kneel in the front. Come and make your commitment known to the Lord. This is just a moment.
This is between you and God. I’m not going to lead you in a prayer. I am going to speak the Word of God to you. This doesn’t have to be emotional. This is a spiritual decision. Hallelujah. [Congregation members move to the front] Yes, I see some people coming forward that I knew in my spirit needed to come forward, and now they come. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Jesus.
I’ll tell you what people, I’m going to just make this declaration. You know the Bible says, there’s many attractive things out there in the world that might seem like for a season, they really, they mean so much, but really your future is in God, He created us and He designed us for it. So, right now where you are before the Lord, wherever you are in the auditorium, just make a commitment, say, “Lord, I’m historically weak. I’ve historically let myself down in my walk with You. And there’s many things that could stand between me and You, but I declare today that I’m not going to let those things stand between me and You. I’m going to live in covenant with You, Lord. I’m going to establish that today, You are my covenant God. And you make Your power available to me so that Your priorities will come to pass in my life. Thank You, Jesus. I receive power now, I receive Your power, I receive it. All of Your power, I receive it right now, so that Your priorities and my priorities will be the same. And whenever I’m weak and I can’t make it happen, and I let You down, I let myself down, I declare it in Jesus’ name, that You make me able. That You, all of Your power, is available to me, in Jesus’ name. In Jesus’ name. In Jesus’ name. In Jesus’ name.”
It’s the power that’s in the name of Jesus. It’s the power in the blood of Jesus. It’s in the power of His covenant with you. He cares for you personally. He cares for us, each one of us. So, powerful. Hallelujah. Just where you are, just speak the name of Jesus. Just say it, “I trust the name of Jesus. I trust the name of Jesus. I receive. I receive what I need through the name of Jesus.” Thank You. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. Ah, the beautiful name of Jesus. The beautiful covenant of Jesus. Beautiful Jesus. Beautiful Jesus. Beautiful Jesus. Hallelujah. Thank You. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus.
Well, Father, here’s Your people. You see them here this morning. Jesus, this is Your Body. These are Your people. You see them as they are with their hearts pure before You. You see them as they are in all of their messiness of their life, but You see them as marvelous in Your sight. So, thank You, Lord, that as they come before You today, You receive, You receive them. You receive their desire to be in covenant with You. So, now I thank You that Your power is available, and that from this day onwards there will be a different priority in their life because of what You have called them to, in Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ name. And if you are in agreement with this prayer, you can say, “Amen.” And then you guys may go back to your seats. Thank you. Thank you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Hanna, are you ready to speak? I need a microphone, please. It’s next to you there, Sharon. So, Hanna and I have been talking about this for a while, and so, the devil has tried to lie to her about her healing for a long time, and she has had long moments where healing has been her portion in her body. But, you know, we just have made an agreement, and then every now and again, there will be symptoms that will come back into her body, and they will lie to her that she is not healed. We decided by the Spirit that she will make a declaration of her healing today, publicly, just so the devil understands that this is a covenant child of God. This body belongs to Him, and He has got it covered with all of the healing power of God that is in her. It flows in her body. Say what you want to say, Hanna.
Hanna: Sure. I wasn’t prepared for this, so I need the Holy Spirit, always, but especially now. Yeah, so it has been a long-standing thing. It has been for many, many years, since 2017, where it started, and I mean, he literally tried to take out my life. I mean, there have been portions of time where I could not function for months and months, and months, and months. You know, it was really extremely debilitating, what happened. I got stronger over time. But I mean, to give you an idea, at one point, I could not walk 200 meters. We would go for a walk, and we would walk 200 meters, and I would think, “I don’t know how I am going to get home. I can’t do this. I am so tired.”
So, I mean, there are many other symptoms. I don’t want to talk about it because we don’t want to give the devil glory, but it was serious. It wasn’t just, “I’ve got a flu, and I’ll get over it in a week or two.” You know, and even now, still, when he brings the symptoms back, It takes me several weeks, even though I’m much stronger and I can, to a portion, function but the grace of God in all of it was extraordinary. I think those are the things I wanted to talk about, Pastor John, initially, before he then came with the attacks again. The one thing was the extraordinary grace of God. There were times, I’ve got my own business, and if I can’t function, there is no money coming in. There is no other stuff happening. There were times when, literally, a company would get me in. One day, a client of mine phoned, and they needed some urgent work done, but it was very intense work. It was training work for their people who were going through retrenchments, and I needed to train their people. That day was one of the worst days I had, that I literally, of that entire day, only knew that that client phoned, and I remember there was another client that phoned in the morning. I could not talk to them or anything. So, the one I just ignored, this one, I just said to my sister, “Just say to him, I will call him back on Monday.”
That’s all I know about that entire day. I know nothing else about what happened that day, and they wanted me to start doing this work for them in a week’s time. God was so gracious. He provided someone who could help me just take information, and put it together in PowerPoint so that I could present. I would present for two hours. I would go and sleep. I would come back. I would present for two hours. They did not know for a moment that anything was going on. There were other days when a client came with a massive, massive recruitment thing that they needed to do. There were 10, or 12 positions that I needed to do.
I have to today, no idea what I did, but the grace came on me, the can-do of God, and in those moments, I could function. I could do this. I placed all of those positions. I made millions, and I still don’t know what I’d do, and that was before you had that word for me that there is big business coming, but I mean, you saw me through this. You know, at times. So, God’s been so good.
There is another thing that I learned now much later, but Rick Renner speaks about the word eau mayo, which is the word of healing, and it’s especially used in the sense of when someone is healing the broken-hearted. That’s mostly how it’s used in the New Testament, but it also is just a word that means healing, but it’s not an immediate healing. It’s layer upon layer and so, when the good news of the gospel comes through an evangelist who preaches that good news, it will every time bring another layer of healing. It will take away some of that stuff that the devil has done. So, I found with my healing thing, I had all the prayer, I had all the support, but it didn’t happen one day or two days, but progressively, progressively I got better.
At one stage, you know, after something happened for months, I couldn’t function. Then I could at least function after three weeks. Then I started being able to at least to some degree function within the first week, you know. So, it was just how the Lord kept on working His healing, working His healing, until it then got to a point where I was for a very long period completely walking in that healing and just getting stronger and stronger and stronger. Then the enemy comes, and he’s got the cheek.
Pastor John: So, what happened, and the reason why she’s talking now is that we were talking about, it’s time, it’s time to release the testimony, and we were waiting for the time, and when we agreed, the next attack came. And so, I went to the Lord, and I said, “Lord, what happened here?” And He said, “John, I need Hanna to make this public so that you don’t wait until the symptoms are eventually none.” Speak it because it’s true. Speak it because it’s already happened. It’s already a healing process that is happening, and when you’re speaking, we’re in agreement that the devil has no place in her body. Or your business.
Hanna: And there’s some payback too.
Ps. John: Amen.
Hanna: I wanted all that restoration. But yes, it is. So, that healing is full. So, even if he did try to attack again, that’s not the truth. It’s not the truth.
Ps. John: Yes. Amen.
Hanna: No.
Ps John: So, you know, the Lord has been showing me this recently, and we had a moment on the mountain yesterday on our bicycles, I shared it with some of the cyclists. But the Lord has shown me from 2 Corinthians chapter 9. He’s shown me that in the Amplified Bible, He says He is unwilling to do without a giver whose heart is in their giving. 7 for God loves (He takes pleasure in, prizes above other things, and is unwilling to abandon or to do without) a cheerful (joyous, “prompt to do it”) giver [whose heart is in his giving]. They are prompt to do it, cheerful giver. Here is such a person. Here is such a person. She doesn’t see her assignment as making money for herself. She sees her assignment as making money for the kingdom. God is unwilling to do without you. Productive – Hanna. And we are all in agreement as the body of Christ that her healing is fully manifested forever. Forever. Forever. We don’t look at symptoms. We don’t look at anything. You are healed, Hanna.
Hanna: Yes. Yes. Yes. [Pastor John hugging Hanna]
Pastor John: Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. So, if you see Hanna in the next couple of weeks, all you say is, “Hey, healed one. Hey, blessed one. Hey, anointed one.” You just speak the word of God over her. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah. This is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Yeah, I better do an offering. You’re telling me I must do an offering I almost forgot again. Thank you, Empie. Let’s take up an offering. Praise Jesus. Thank You, Lord.
You know, this thing has been in my spirit since yesterday. So, while they’re taking up the offering, I’m going to share it with you. There’s so much available to us in the power of His priority that we will never know how much power is available until we make our priorities His. You know, I experienced this when I was in the military. They needed to give us weapons. Our first weapon was a rifle. Why do they want to give us a rifle? Because a rifle is what military people use to defend themselves. So, what would be the highest priority that anybody does that gives all of these young men 17, 18, 19 years old? I was 17 when I went into the army. Dis ‘n kind.
They gave me this heavyweight weapon. Those days it was called an R1. 7.60 calibre rifle that can create a devastating impact on someone’s life. What is the highest priority for all of this power that they gave me? Safety. Before you even learn how to use a rifle, safety. Safety. For those who were in the army, those who were in the military who’ve done any kind of weapons training, you’ll know that safety… It doesn’t matter what they teach you, how well you can shoot. It’s about safety. It’s about safety. It’s about safety.
So, what do you think? God the Father, He says, “I’ve got all of this power that’s in My priorities of My covenant. You want My power? My safety that I have to teach you is; make your priorities Mine. Because then I know you’re learning My priority and it’s a safety mechanism. Safety.”
Now I feel like a motivational speaker again, but, just points, nê. Things that I’ve got to share with you. That’s why some people want to go, “Whoa, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! I want to go with God! I want to do this… I want to do that…” God says, “My power is there for you, but I need to make you aware of My safety mechanism, that My safety – to teach you safety – is to make your priorities Mine, and then you’ll learn the safety of the power that’s available to you.” Shh… Come on, if you only came to church for this, it’s already good. Won’t you all stand with me, please? Come, Cobus.
Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord, that You are in covenant with us. You bless us with all the goodness of covenant. Our tithes and our offerings, this offering this morning, is just a sign of our covenant connection with You. And we thank You for it, that it’s blessed, that You bless everything in our lives, every harvest, everything. We thank You that it’s blessed, in Jesus’ name. In Jesus’ name. Hallelujah. Thank you.
I just want to declare, won’t you put your hand on your chest like this and say, “I’m a child of God. I love God. He is my Father and He is my Covenant-Partner. Thank You, Lord. And from this day, I will do everything that I possibly can, through the help of Your Word and the Holy Spirit to make Your priorities my highest priorities. And that Your power is now available to me to establish Your covenant on the earth, in Jesus’ name.”
So, people, be blessed going out and blessed coming in, because that is the order of your covenant. No weapon formed against you will prosper. He will make sure that your foot is not caught by a hidden snare. Hallelujah. I pray that whatever you put your hands to will prosper. I declare the health and the healing power of God come upon you and all of your household. Hallelujah. And great peace is yours. Peace is your portion. Just say; I walk in Shalom. I receive Shalom, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you for coming to church. We’ll see you at 5 o’clock. Hey! There are some lekker goodies to eat and stuff out there. And next week, wow, next week is going to be a celebration Sunday. We’re going to celebrate Pastor Lynn’s 80th birthday and we’re going to celebrate our time together. So, next week, bring everybody because we’re going to feast. But there’s a mini feast out there for you this week. And did you receive your bookmarks? Not yet? There’s bookmarks out there for you to get. Bookmarks. Celebrate 24 years in 2024 and we’ve got 24 months, ensovoorts, ensovoorts. Okay, goodbye.
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