Scripture reference: 1 John 4:14-19 (TPT)
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Thank You, Jesus, thank You, Jesus. We give You praise today. We thank You that we can gather this way in Your presence today. In Jesus’ name. Thank You, Lord, that You touch our hearts, You touch our minds and our ears so that we can hear and we can change in Jesus’ name. Amen. You may be seated.
Glory to God. So, I don’t have to go through a lot of detail to all of you that are here today, to remind you that there is nothing that exists in the natural realm that didn’t first exist in the spiritual realm. In other words everything that is in the natural realm was created from something that was in the spirit realm. So, God is the Spirit that creates. The devil is the spirit that deflates. To put it mildly. Okay, so God is the Spirit that creates, the devil is the spirit that deflates.
So, it is important for us to understand that God is the Spirit that creates and the enemy is the spirit that wants to tear everything down. Not because he doesn’t want anything to exist, but it is the way that it affects humanity. So he wants humanity to be distracted and divided against the love and the joy of God.
Okay, so there two languages that exist in the universe. There is the language of light and love and life. Then there is the language of darkness of death and distraction. Two languages, they exist. The language is being currently exercised as a communication language in heaven. I do not know exactly what the sounds are sounding like, I don’t know what symbols or what kind of utterances mean different things, where the angels communicate in languages that are relevant to men or not, they have a language. One thing that I am sure of is the language they communicate in is the language that promotes life, it promotes protection, it promotes creation. The language of death, darkness and distraction is the language that those spirit beings use and they use to infiltrate life for death and darkness and distraction.
Part of the reason why Pastor Sharon and I, and it really was born in my heart, wanted to share things with you on tithes and offerings today, is because the Lord spoke to me this week and He said to me, “John, for six months you’ve said nothing about money.” Because our trust is in God. He said, “In a vacuum of no words, someone is gonna fill the vacuum with words.” Right in this moment in time, the devil is filling this space of the world with fear and distraction and disaster and is filling the space in the earth, with economic hopelessness.
He said, “I know you trust Me, but you need to be speaking words into the atmosphere because the words of life and words of hope need to be heard by God’s people. Because your hope is not whether the government is going to recover, the government stimulus packages are not where the hope lies, your hope lies in Jesus becoming life to you and creating work for you that can pay.” Jesus can do that, the devil can’t. Hallelujah. So, it is important for us to have said those words.
Now, I just want to talk for a moment about the love of God and how all of this conversation leads to and comes from the love of God. I’m reading from The Passion Translation, in one John chapter 4 verse 14 and it reads, 14Moreover, we have seen with our own eyes and can testify to the truth that Father God has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world (1 John 4:14 TPT). Can you see that he is testifying that God has sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world? He gave something before we asked for something. Right? He gave the best of what He had before we could give anything of what we had. He gave the best of what He had. He gave His Son. Because He knew the only the best of what He had could actually get the job done.
I didn’t speak to Pastor Sharon and I have this trust relationship with the people that come and stand in this pulpit, that they have enough spiritual understanding to believe God for what they must say. Occasionally, I’ll ask them, ”What has God given you because I’m going in this direction,” and we will communicate, but in this case, today, there was no communication between me and Pastor Sharon. I did not know what scriptures she was going to use. When she used that scripture about, you think that you can give God your blind and your lame and your secondhand stuff, it’s not because God can’t use that stuff, it’s because in your heart, that is good enough for God. Whereas God understands that nothing that is second rate in your life can ever get anything done in your life because the reason you’re given something second rate is because something that firstclass, first rate that occupies your heart and it is not about what you give Him, but is about what your heart occupies.
if your heart occupies second-rate or there’s something more important in your heart than what you can give God. God wants to occupy the highest place in your heart. This is a fundamental reason why people don’t see financial breakthroughs. They don’t see relational breakthroughs. They don’t see things happening in their lives, is because they are not prepared to give the best of their heart to God, because they don’t trust Him, because he’s that you can’t touch Him and you can’t feel Him and you can’t smell Him, you can’t talk to Him like you can talk to another human being.
So, you begin to trust your senses and your experiences much more than you trust what He says about you. That is a journey that you have to take, is that the more you give yourself to learn about Him, the more you’re going to find out He’s trustworthy. He’s trustworthy and He’s trustworthy because, 14God has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15Those who give thanks that Jesus is the Son of God live in God, and God lives in them.
So, that’s why I said to you every day, wake up in the morning, put your hand on your chest and say, I’m a son of God. Thank You Lord that I’m a son of God, because right there when you make that declaration, it becomes more real to you. Remember I’ve been talking about two sets of languages. I’m going to get back to the languages now in a minute.
So, 16God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them. 17By living in God, love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fearlessly face the day of judgment. (1 John 4:14-17 TPT)
Now I just want to use these words, if you’re living in God and the God of love is living in you, you can fearlessly face any day. The worst day that you will ever face will be the judgement day, but if you can face the judgement day fearlessly, then surely you can face today fearlessly. Come on now. So you can face today fearlessly because the love of God lives in you and you live in the love of God, 17because all that Jesus now is, so are we in this world. All that Jesus is now, we are like Him in this world.
I have a question, so let me finish reading 18Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. Or some sense of wrong. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. Whoever walks constantly afraid of punishment has not reached love’s perfection. 19Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us (1John 4:17-19 TPT).
Let me put it to you this way, to me, if you do nothing wrong, then you have an open face relationship and you don’t fear anything. Right? But the devil comes with a language and his language is a constant language of wanting you to live life in the margins. You don’t have to live life hundred percent for God, you can live life for God just in these areas this much and if you live for your own self and your own way and you do your own thing in these areas, those margins don’t matter so much. As long as you’re doing most of the things right.
Those margins are the margins where you start to find death and destruction and deflation happening in your life. That’s why most people, not you bunch, but for those people that watch on other platforms, most people want to experience a really amazing Christian life, but they never really get to it because they never really commit to it. Never really commit to it.
I’m going to just use language now as an expression of how things really work and this is how God’s love and Christianity really works in the real world, because what happens is that you come to church, you worship God, you hear me speak or Pastor Sharon speak. You hear other Christians and it’s a really nice wonderful atmosphere. It’s a good vibe that goes on here and it is spiritual and it’s anointed and you leave here and you’re encouraged and inspired and that’s what it should do for you.
Then you go out there and then you hit the real world, because now you got to go and buy something at the supermarket and it costs real money and you don’t have enough real money to see you through the month in the real world with real money and that is a real problem.
So, what you’ve done is you said, you’ve left the real God at church. He’s not real enough though to meet me at the shopping mall because who’s ever heard of a Christian show up at the shopping mall and God standing there handing out money to everybody. Right? So, because they don’t see God’s outward expression that way, they say that’s real life, but God’s not part of real life.
We have personally experienced that. We have personal experience in our lives where we have had no money. We could not pay the rent. We didn’t have food in the cupboard and we spoke a language. We spoke the language of God to the circumstances that were in front of us. I did not need at that moment in time, I did not need a Covid-19, economic recession, to tell me I have nothing in my cupboard. Covid, no Covid. There was nothing in cupboard. No job, no income, no thing in cupboard. No car, no fuel for car even if I did have a car. No money. Come on. Deflation, destruction, division between husband and wife because there is nothing. What are we going to do next? There is no good thing happening here. Right?
So, the first thing we had to decide, and make a quality decision, is we are only going to say what God would say when He looked into the cupboard. So, what does God say when He looks into the cupboard? Well, He has had that experience in the Bible and so we decided to take what God did because He arrived at a place where people demanded money from Him, taxes from Him, that He didn’t have. He didn’t have cash on Him. He didn’t carry His wallet and so He found Himself without money to pay taxes. Legal or illegal. People in those days just made up taxes from one week to another to extort people out of money, depending on what the Roman government wanted from them.
Jesus finds Himself on His journey doing things for God and He has no money, and neither does Peter, but Peter is a fisherman, so He speaks God’s words. He says, “Peter, go to the lake, go catch a fish. The fish that you catch, cut him open, it will have a coin in his belly. Take the coin, go pay our taxes.”
He didn’t say, “How on earth am I going to make a plan? I know somebody that lives around the corner, that’s got a house and I visited there once before when I was with my mom and my dad, long ago. I’ll go and ask them if I can have money.” Huh? That would have been looking to a natural way of solving a problem that God the Father already had solved, if He just spoke the words that the Father spoke.
So, when He spoke Father’s words, “Go and catch a fish.” Now, Peter is thinking, “Surely there are so many fish in the sea. I got to go and catch one fish, that that one fish is going to have money in the belly? What are the odds?” They are God’s odds, because when you throw the bait into the water, God makes that fish swim to that hook. Then He pulls that hook and that fish on the end of it out of the water and it is that fish that’s got the money in the belly. There may be a million other fishes in that water. None of them had money in the belly, but the one that had money in the belly, He made that one swim to Peter’s hook.
What do you think about Covid-19? Do you think that because there is a recession and there is a ten percent job reduction, labor force reduction in this country and because things are not opened up and things are not working well. Do you think that, that applies to you? Only if you let it. Only if you let it.
If you say, “God can’t. What’s God got to do with this recovery? I’ve got to make things happen for myself.” Then you say, “No, I am going to speak what God speaks.” Now this is not like, “Praise You Jesus, You meet all my needs, Thank You, Thank You, Jesus. Okay, where is the money?”
You see, because this is got to be a demonstration that you know in your heart that He is your Provider. You have got to know it, here [Pastor John points to his heart], and so if you don’t know it, the way to begin to know it, is to speak what He says about it, rather than to think what you think about it. Has the earth not been filled, has the earth not been filled with words of fear? Has the world not been filled with words of economic disaster? Has the world not been filled with the language of deflation?
Well, I want to say to you, church, we are the only people that have the answer, where the world doesn’t. The President is doing a good job, as good as he can do. You know, all the presidents of the earth, all of the nations of earth are doing what they can do. I mean, I can’t speak for all presidents, you know, but surely people don’t want more death and destruction here, but they don’t have all the answers. But you have an answer for you. The Bible says, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue and you’ll eat the fruit of whatever you speak.” Now, if you are meditating and you are thinking all day and all night about all of the stuff that is going on around you, then what’s coming.
The first thing that will happen is that nothing is coming out of your mouth. You just think a lot about it. When your thoughts get occupied and get filled with this stuff and you don’t speak something else, then eventually your actions will follow your thoughts. Even if you haven’t yet said it, but then you find someone on the way and you will tell them what you are doing because you are now acting out what you are thinking.
I am preaching good today. Now the reason I want to tell you about the love of God is because I want to demonstrate it to you today. I want my son, Brynn just to stand up, please. This is something that I do everyday that I see him, everyday that I’m around him, all the time I’m around him. I have absolutely no barrier between me and my sons. You know, I do, I just love him. [Pastor John hugs Brynn] Covid or no Covid, I love him and I just hug him and I do and him and I, we’ve got no challenge with this. Because I just love him like this. I’ve got no problem showing him affection. I don’t care how big he is as a man. He is a bit stronger than me now, [congregation laughing] but I love him. And there is no, you know, to love him like this is an expression of what’s in my heart, yes? If this wasn’t in my heart then what I would be doing up here with you would be fake. Right? It would be an act, but you all know us by now that this is not an act. This is real love, it’s real affection.
I want you to know today, that every time you say something out of your mouth, if you speak God’s words, God’s words, He wraps himself around you like this [Pastor John hugging his son, Brynn] with His words. He wraps Himself around you like this. That’s what He does. You speak My Word, you got My love, You got Me, You got Me I’m right here. You speak My Word, you got My love, I got You right here. Just keep speaking My Word, keep speaking My Word. The minute you start speaking deflation and darkness. I don’t separate, I don’t separate, he separates himself and the further I get away from him, the more he is on his own. The strength of our unity gets diminished, and what we need right now is more strength, not less strength. [Pastor John hugs Brynn]
When we are together like this, it’s like we become a formidable force because one puts a thousand to flight and two puts ten thousand to flight and then if I have a couple of others join us, where is my other son? Come here, my other son. [Pastor Garth comes to the front]
You see now, now we’re becoming a Church. Come this side of me. Now we’re becoming a Church. Look at us, now we’re a Church, father and sons. Now we’re a Church because we speak the same language and when we get around each other we don’t permit each other to speak fear, we don’t permit each other to speak destruction, we don’t permit each other to speak deflation, we don’t permit each other to speak death. Because when we’re around each other, we know what we say to each other matters. When they’re around me and all of My universal power, now speaking as God the Father. [Pastor John and Pastor Garth laughing.] He works me out in pilates every day so, you know, he looks at me like; “My universal power,” you know, but if I’m God and these are my two earthly sons, if they want my power to be working for them, they got to speak my language. I can’t hang around them if they speak… not because I don’t want to hang around them. It’s because they will separate themselves from me.
If they’re silent for too long, I’m going to start nudging them, speak, say something, but say something like, say life, come on speak life into your money, speak life into your business, speak life. Come on speak life, don’t be quiet. You have got to speak Me into the situation, so I can work for you. I need to create for you, I need to work for you, speak it. Speak it, speak it, speak it. Speak it, don’t be quiet, I’m here, we’re loving together, we’re walking together, we’re in each other, come on let’s go! Umm, I think I’ll think about this a little bit, you know. Maybe God’s right on this, maybe God’s not right on this. Or I wonder if He’s really going to be truthful and really honest and whether this is going to work.
See, I’m not going anywhere, but they remove themselves from me and so they don’t have the experience because they don’t stay here long enough. They don’t stay here long enough. This feels so good, they know this is where the power is, but they don’t stay here long enough. Because someone calls them from that side and say, “Hey, I’ve got a job for you, I have a deal for you, I have something going on here.” And someone calls from that side. And they run off here, and I’m standing here, Let’s talk, let’s create, let’s create. No, no I got a deal… It must be You, You created… Did I tell you that? No, you didn’t hear anything from me, you just hear someone shouting that side… “There’s a deal here, there’s a deal here,” so you ran. I want to create and when I am ready to say the creation is ready it will be released into you with such power and glory. What do you think, church? You get something out of this today? You got a message from God and sons. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
That’s why the Lord wanted me to speak to you today and have Pastor Sharon speak about money and me to speak to you about the love of God, because there’s world out there that’s being filled with words, filled with stuff and it’s all designed to deflate you, to defeat you, to bring destruction to you and if you listen to it, it is going to bring you down and you are going to chase your tail, you know, like a dog chasing its tail. You are going to chase your tail looking for the thing that is going to be your salvation, meantime, God’s just saying, “Just let’s, let’s have time you and Me, talk My talk. Talk about abundance. Talk about increase, God’s way. Talk about He meets my needs according to His riches in glory. And when you hear about the tithe don’t say, “I’ll give Him the little bit that I’ve got.” Say, “Let me the tithe because I know the tithe is my covenant connector to hearing what He’s got to say.” Because if you can’t hear what He says in His written Word, you are not going to hear what He says when He speaks to you. Stand, please. Glory to God.
Put your hand on your chest, say; Thank You, Lord, I am a son of God and from this day, I commit to hear from You, and to speak to You, every day even if it is just like this because I am Your son. I receive Your leading and Your guiding for blessing and protection. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
It is wonderful to see all of you. Love you all. I miss you lots. I think one day when this thing is eventually over, we must have a curry night, a pancake night, a potjie night, a whatever night, a keto night, “sommer gooied” into the mix and we have a whole lots, of just party fun. Neh? Amen. Thank you, God bless you.
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