This episode is all about optimism for a glorious Church, and experiencing the fullness of God’s glory in your personal life here and now (not waiting for heaven!).
Crucify the way of thinking that says, “God is mostly concerned about my performance — He likes me when it’s good, and He’s not happy with me when it’s not good.” God does want us to live above sin and there is a healthy method and mindset towards repentance when we fall short. But first of all, He wants us to live above unbelief.
When we live above unbelief, we have more faith in the power of the finished work of Christ to make us accepted by God than we do in the power of our struggles to make us unacceptable. As long as we are mourning over our weaknesses, we are in unbelief.
The goal? To believe that the Father so wants you in His presence that He has made all provision necessary for you to live as though you’d never sinned, even as you struggle with your flesh.
Additional Resources
Time Magazine center of Christianity article (actually appears in The Atlantic)
Transcript
If you’ve got a Bible, please open it to Philippians chapter three. The Lord has been speaking a lot to us this morning in intercession and in worship, about his glory being manifest in us, in the church. Glory is the physical manifestation of the nature and character of God. God is always the same, but he’s not always manifest. When his acts are seen His glory is revealed. You remember when Jesus changed the water into wine? After that episode, John writes, and says, “This, the first miracle of Jesus.” He began to demonstrate his glory, because He God is always the same, but his glory isn’t always manifested. His character and His nature aren’t seen. When God breaks through into the physical realm, His glory is being revealed. And we have to get a hold of that thought when we talk about glory. You know, sometimes Pentecostals say “We’re gonna die and go off over into glory.” Well, I think God’s plan is to get glory over into us now.
Don’t postpone the glory till heaven. Open your heart to receive it now. You’re destined to receive the glory. Of God and to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. Whom He called he justified and whom He justified, he glorified. You’ve already begun to partake of His glory, and you’re destined to see Christ revealed in you the hope of glory. The temple filled with the glory of God. And so we are a people destined for great things. And so we want to set our sights on the coming glory.
I’m having occasional phone discussions with a fellow that attended one of my meetings in another town, who has been through a lot of trauma, and has kind of been on some kind of assisted care and struggling through a lot of things. He got a hold of my book Who We Are In Christ, and he calls me about once a week, and I talk with him. Most of our conversation centers about him understanding who he is in Christ and about what God’s done in him. That’s helped him get out of a lot of psychological problems. But he said “You know, I really want to share with you, Joe, about what’s really got me excited.” And he began to share with me about end times. And he began to share about how you know, the Tribulation is about to break out on us and the world’s about to end and the Lord is about to come and take us out of here. And, you know, I said, “Well, you know, I appreciate you wanting to share with me something that’s meaningful to you, but I don’t believe that.
“What? There’s people on TV saying this.” And, you know, I began to just share with him, I see in the same scriptures that you see calamity, I see glory. And I’m looking for the glory, not the calamities. I’m looking for the church coming to maturity, not the Antichrist coming to maturity. Actually, just an aside, how many have been taught that the Antichrist is a person who arises at the end of the age, and forms one government and heads this false covenant with Israel and breaks it and you have to have his mark? Or, If you have his mark, you you’re condemned? How many have heard that teaching? Okay, how many know that the Antichrist is not even mentioned in the book of Revelation? The only place, the five times Antichrist is mentioned are in first and second, John, or First and Third John, the epistles of John? And it says clearly there that the Antichrist is not a person, it’s a spirit, and it holds to a certain thing, and it holds to this: Jesus Christ does not come in the flesh.
Now how we got that into a political ruler at the end of the age…. the assumption is that the Beast of Revelation is the Antichrist. But that’s a great leap of interpretation because he’s not even mentioned. Antichrist is not even mentioned in the book of Revelation. I just say that to say, examine what you’ve been taught, it might not be the word. Let’s call it end time speculation. We tend to interpret the things of Revelation, and then try to understand the rest of the scriptures in the light of an interpretation of Revelation, which is all symbolic, prophetic language. +
Why not interpret the symbols in the light of the clear teaching of the epistles and the statements in the Gospels? Well, if we do that, we find out that the same apostle who talked about the man of sin, and all of these things that are interpreted in end time context, he’s the one that said that Christ would return for a glorious church without spot, wrinkle or blemish. Now, if he’s not going to return until there’s a church without spot, wrinkled or blemish, it makes sense to me that he’s not going to return today. I don’t see a church without spot or wrinkle or blemish. But the word in its clear statements gives me the hope of seeing that in the earth.
And then we have Jesus saying that, “Father, I have given them your glory, my glory, that they might be one even as you and I are one father, that the world may know that you sent me.” Does the world yet know that God has sent Jesus, because they’ve seen His glory in us? No. Well, Paul said that we’re being built together into a holy temple, a habitation of God in the Spirit. Now, let me just ask you a question. Can the world around us see the habitation of God in the church? Can the church see it? No? All right, so the apostle Paul wrote those things, and they’re not ambiguous, revelation symbols. They’re clear statements of the Word of God.
Let me just encourage you, interpret the obscure by the clear. “Well, what about those nucclear helicopters in the book of Revelation?” Oh, you mean the locusts? Now the apostle John said, “Oh, that’s a nuclear helicopter. But I don’t know about those yet. So I’ll call it a locust.” Okay, I’m going too far. Because it doesn’t matter what you and I think about the end times. We’ve got to walk out whatever’s going to happen right now. And I find that if I have the hope of God’s manifested presence in me and in the church, I’m better equipped to face the future.
So I’m going to make that my emphasis. I’m going to make that my focus. Christ being formed in me, the hope of glory. You see? So, what do you see in the future? glory. What do you see for your personal life? Glory. What do you see solving the problems and difficulties in your life? The glory of God. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But Paul says in Romans five, he said, “But having been justified by faith, we boast in hope of the glory of God.” We boast: the word means to rejoice or to glory, we glory in the hope of glory. And then in Romans eight, he said, “I consider the sufferings of this present life, not worthy to be compared to the glory that’s about to be revealed in us.”
I’m a glory fanatic. I’m obsessed. Not with fear of the end times, but with the hope of glory. Why is this important? Well, the world around us is… I mean, do you realize that terrorism is a manifestation of demonic forces, to keep the church living in fear instead of faith? So how are you going to face the future with the knowledge of terrorism? Well, you might focus your heart on the coming glory and God’s ability to keep his own people. “So are you saying we’re going through the Great Tribulation?” I’m not actually. I think the early church went through it. And I think you’ll find there’s coming a great shift, in our view of the future to the church, because we’ve been robbed of our future by fear of the Antichrist.
“Well, do you believe hard times are gonna come?” Well, listen, go to China. Hard times have come. Tribulation has come, and it’s pretty great. But it’s not universal. It’s not everywhere. Tribulation has always been in the church. The true fired up Church has always been persecuted. There’s always been spiritual warfare against any part of the church that possesses its inheritance. And as we do, we’ll find great tribulation. But I don’t believe it’s a worldwide thing. In fact, many people who actually believe that tribulation has yet to come see it entirely focused in the Middle East because that’s the only thing that early church authors would have known about. They didn’t know about America.
We think America is the center of prophecy. What happens to America is what’s happening to the church, and that’s why we know that the church is the Laodicean backslidden. Church. Listen, take a trip to Brazil. Take a trip to China. Take a trip to Korea. And see how lukewarm the church is. An author for Time Magazine has recently written a book about how Asia, Africa and South America are becoming the new centers of Christianity. And Europe and America are drifting away from being the center of active powerful Christianity. And one of the things they say is that the church in Asia the church in Africa, the church in South America, many of the people involved in revival are members of traditional denominations, but they also embrace the moving and the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Muslims are greatly encouraged. Fanatic Islam I’m talking about here. According to a report from Roland Baker, through someone who somehow got into a high level meeting of militant Islamists, that they’re doing really good in Europe. That Britain is moving right along. And as far as it’s being taken over, America, Canada and the US are also things that are just going great. But they’re having to give up on Africa because of the brand of Christianity being manifest in Africa with signs and wonders. They can’t compete with it. I wonder what the answer for the West is. Supernatural signs and wonder glory Christianity
Philippians chapter three. Let’s start with the 10th verse. “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection.” That I may I know him. Spiritual knowledge is personal and relational, rather than informational. There are facts that we need to know. But those facts are empowered by the presence of a person in our life. Revelation knowledge, revealed knowledge Holy Spirit, inspired knowledge, always brings us a fresh and enlarged view of the Lord Himself. There are many facts we can learn from the word and we need to. My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. But the kind of knowledge that God advocates for us is spiritual knowledge, not intellectual knowledge. You could go to Bible school and have your head full of Bible knowledge but not know the author well enough to have it change your life. Or you can have a deep relationship with God, go to Bible college and add all kinds of revelation and understanding to your knowledge. It depends on your relationship with God.
And God’s purpose as voiced here by the Apostle Paul is the we may know him and the power of his resurrection. You see? Everything you need to overcome is in the resurrection. When he arose, you arose in him and everything he put off, you can walk in that too. He put off sin, death, disease, failure, defeat. And all of the package that was ours to bear that he bore for us. He put that off when he was raised from the dead and you were raised in him. You put that off too, if you know it.
And the next thing it says and the fellowship of His sufferings. You know, you can suffer because of poor decisions. You can suffer because of demonic assault and the evil of human beings. But there’s a kind of suffering that you face when you desire to do God’s will and to seek His face. You enter into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings which came from hell to stop the purpose of God in the earth through the Son of God. You see, a lot of times people want to write a lot of value into suffering. Well, sometimes we suffer because we made poor choices. Now God can even redeem that, but there’s a particular kind of suffering that as you read through the New Testament, the apostles rejoiced in the honor of being partners with Christ in that suffering. So it’s a backhanded compliment when the devil attacks you because you’re seeking God, because that means you qualify for the power of his resurrection. To overcome those sufferings and fulfill the destiny of God in your life.
So, the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. What does that mean? Well, on the cross, it says in Romans eight that what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did in sending His Son for sin, and in the likeness of sinful flesh. He condemned sin in the flesh. Not just that he bore it, and it was condemned, but sin in the flesh was judged at the cross, that you might have righteousness of life in your spirit now and no longer be bound by the flesh. So you want to be fully conformed to His death to your fleshly, carnal desires and carnal ways of thinking. You want to be conformed to that death, no longer living in the ghosts of the old man, the life in Adam, but rather you’re now made alive, raised up and seated with Christ in heavenly places, and the works of the flesh are under your feet, because of who you are and the authority you have in Christ. Glory to God, I’m doing better preaching than you are saying, Amen.
All right. He says, “If by any means I may be I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Now, many scholars believe and I think rightly so that Paul’s not talking about going to heaven, or receiving a new body when you die. He’s talking about receiving the fullness of resurrection life in this life. You see? How much power is in the resurrection? Is there enough to overcome your flesh? Is there enough to overcome your fears? Is there enough to heal your diseases, to restore your soul, to bring the life of heaven into your relationships?
When we talk about resurrection power, we’re talking about the power that all the sin of the world was on Jesus. He was in Hades, a captive of the demonic forces who had the authority of death. Therefore, when Jesus was made sin for us, he came under the authority of death, therefore he could die. And he did, and he was held by death until the price was fully paid. And then the Bible says in one translation, it said, by the descent of the Father’s glory, He was raised from the dead by the Spirit of holiness. Was there enough power to make you holy in that resurrection?
We’ve got to get delivered from legalism and law. We have to crucify the way of thinking that says God is mostly concerned about my performance and he likes me when it’s good, and he’s not real happy when it’s not good. God wants you to live above sin. But he wants you first of all to live above unbelief. And when you live above unbelief, you have more faith in the power of the finished work of Christ, to make you accepted to God than you do in the power of your struggles to make you unaccepted. And you began to believe that the father so wants you in His presence, he has made all provision necessary for you to live as though you’d never sinned even as you struggle with your flesh. You know, it’s called good news.
Jesus, you know, he started his ministry out, he said, Repent and believe the good news and he was talking to God’s people. He wasn’t talking to unbelievers. There weren’t any in Israel. Jesus earthly ministry was a ministry of restoration to the covenant people of God before they could be released to minister to the world effectively. And really, the church needs to repent and believe the gospel. Because as long as you’re mourning over your weakness, you’re in unbelief. You say, “Well, aren’t we supposed to be repenting?” Yes, but repent doesn’t mean feel bad all the time and impress God with how bad you feel. Repentance actually means to change the way you think. What people mistake for repentance is godly sorrow. Now godly sorrow comes when you see how your unbelief has kept you from God’s love and God’s purpose. And when that light flashes, you feel sorrow for what you’ve lost through your unbelief and sin.
But whenever God brings light, he also focuses on the work of his son and turns you immediately from your darkness to the light of His love, grace and provision. And then at that moment, when you see the provision, you have repented, because you’ve changed the way you think about what you were doing, or the or the weight of that sin to keep you from God, or God’s ability to cause you to overcome that thing. You see, repentance is light from heaven that enables you to think differently about the way you’ve been living or the way you’ve been thinking or the way you’ve been believing. It’s a change in your perspective, that comes through the grace of God being bestowed on you and bringing light where darkness has reigned in your life. Repentance is good news. It’s the grace of God manifest in your life to see things the way he does.
Well, okay, we’re getting there. He says, “Not that I have already attained to the fullness of this resurrection life yet. Or that I’m already perfected, but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. But one thing I do.” One thing I do. This is the bomb from Heaven this morning. Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
Now, what I believe God wants to say to us this morning is, you have had struggles. You have had problems and difficulties. And the enemy’s plan is to bring discouragement to cancel your hope to undermine your faith, to make you wonder if you’ll ever see the breakthrough you’ve been looking for, to rob you of confidence for the future. Well, now is there anybody whose life history as a believer could have brought despair it was the Apostle Paul. I mean, think of a bad week for you, and then compare it with a bad week for the Apostle Paul. Shipwrecked. Can you imagine the temptation hit? “Here I am. I’ve given my whole life to God. I’m trying to do His will. I sacrifice everything to do His will and he tells me to go on this boat. And what does the boat do? The boat sinks!” You think you got problems. So you get to hang onto a piece of the boat to get to shore and then you think, “Well, Praise God. I got to shore. Here we are in this island. Let’s gather some wood and let’s make a fire.” So he’s gathering the wood, puts the wood together and a snake bites him. I mean, here he is. He’s having a good week. But God turned his snake bite into an opportunity for ministry, because when the snake bite didn’t kill him, the whole island thought he was a god. Which led to him to say I’m not a god, but I do serve one and is there anybody here sick?
But you see, if you are on the depressed side of thinking about your circumstances, you’re gonna miss the divine opportunity and the miracle because he learned to live in that flow of forgetting the problems of the past, and reaching forward into the glory that’s about to be revealed. And that’s what God’s saying to us today. Is that, “Yeah, you’ve got struggles, you’ve got problems, you face difficulty and the more you sought God, the tougher it got. But God. But, forgetting the things that are behind.
I’ll tell you something. I’ve had about seven years of hell, but I’m about to possess glory. I’m determined. I’m convinced I will not believe how short a time it takes me to forget what was behind. Just not even think about it, because I’m already living in where I’m going. You see? I already see myself preaching in Brazil. I see myself going to the nations where according to my medical reports, I can’t do. But I have by faith what’s about to manifest by sight. See? And I’m forgetting the things that are behind. I’m no longer seeing myself in them. I’m not planning for the future to be like the present. I’m planning the future to be a greater participation in the glory of God. And because of that, I see a flow of miracles being released.
Now, is Helga here today? Helga got up and testified to her heart being healed. And in her unique way she also rebuked me for the way I prayed for her. She said, “You know, I asked Joe to pray for me, and he just said, ‘Well, God has healed my heart. Yours is going to be healed. Be healed in Jesus name.'” And she said, “He hardly even prayed for me.” But she was up testifying to the fact that her heart was healed, and she had the documentation with her. Well, because my heart was at a place of a 15% blood flow, which is congestive heart failure. And God has so reversed it. As he said prophetically that my heart would be the first thing healed. So He healed my heart and it’s now at 59%, which is almost the top of the percent. 60% is the top end of normal. So, when Helga says to me, she’s got a heart problem, I say I know about getting healed of those. And I know it wasn’t my good looks that made God give it to me. It was his grace. So, in Jesus name be healed! Because God giving me victory in that area gives me authority in that area.
Now, take a look at your trials. God giving you victory in that area gives you authority in that area. Why? Because you now have faith that God can see you through and give you victory. And when someone comes to you facing the same problem, you have a word of faith for them. Your testimony imparts faith to them so they can rise above their trials. And we become walking ministers of the grace and glory of God every time we overcome a difficulty. So difficulties exists to serve the greater purpose of God, which is to manifest His grace and glory in our lives, so we have a testimony. And so we overcome by the word of our testimony and we help others overcome by the word of our testimony.
So you’re in training for reigning. But you have to embrace forgetting the pain and looking for the glory. You see? What I face today is gonna give me a testimony as God manifests His faithfulness and His kindness to me. As you’re praying before God, reminding God of His word, say, “Lord, I just see myself testifying publicly to how you brought me out of this present problem, and how by your grace, I was sustained through it. And now how I’m not afraid of that kind of problem anymore, because I’m now established in your truth about your victory and your faithfulness. And I now have a word of testimony to my brothers and sisters, as they face the challenges of life. And I am a walking bucket of encouragement, because I have found God faithful and I know it wasn’t because of how faithful I was.
One preach preacher said, “If you want stability in your life, don’t look to see how faithful you are to God. Look to see how faithful God is to you.” Because, I don’t know if you realize this, but he’s not moved by the undiscovered areas of your life that are out of alignment with it. And when you get to see them isn’t when he saw they were first there. He knew all along. Loved ya all along, was faithful to you all along, was unmoved by the strongholds of darkness and carnality left in your life. So no reason for you to fall under a cloud of condemnation when you see them. Just rejoice that you see them and that God is granting you repentance so you can change your mind about them and move on.
“Well, Joe, don’t you think sin is serious?” Yes, I do. I think it’s so serious it cost God his son. But I’ve now come to believe that sin has been dealt with eternally and my job is to appropriate the provision, not to focus on the failure. I glorify Father God by honoring what God’s Son did for me at all times. You see, there’s a little principle in the book of Romans. Paul says pauses as sin has a bounded resulting in death, much more has Grace abounded in providing life. You see?
So it’s biblical not to major on sin. The devil wants you to meditate on how bad you are. Now, he’ll even tell you that’s religious humility. But it’s nothing but unbelief. There’s no hope or help in you meditating on your failures, your weaknesses and your shortcomings. You can’t fix it. “How do you know people do that?” Don’t ask. I know it from many years of counseling, and more years of living. I mean, I was Mr. Introspection. If we ever heard a word preached about being bad and disappointing God and God wanting to really work us over, I was the first to sign up.
And then I got the message of death to self and if you don’t like yourself already well with this is wonderful news. I’ll just annhilate myself and then Christ will be revealed in me and I’ll be somebody I wasn’t.
But you see, that’s identifying with the old man. Why not identify with the new man. Why not say, “Father, I know what I was, and I’m still endeavoring to overcome much of that, but Father, I thank you for what I am now in Christ. Did you notice that Paul says here in verse 14, “I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus?”
As long as you’re double minded (one day you think you’re in Adam, and the next day you think you’re in Christ or one day you’re focusing on your life in Adam and the next day you’re focusing on your life in Christ) you have not got your focus right yet. He says, I’ve made the goal to get the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Now think about this: Father God is calling you to move up out of the Adamic life in the flesh into the dynamic holy life in the Spirit in his Son, Jesus Christ. And he says in Second Corinthians, he said,since Christ has died, he said we now no longer know any man after the flesh, because if anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation. So what’s slowly emerging in the church is revelation to the hearts of God… see where some of us you know, bless our hearts… we’re going to every conference we can to hope to get some glimpse of new light that will somehow help us live the Christian life in victory. But we haven’t yet comprehended the basics of the gospel.
We’re reaching for the prize we think, you know, as the prophetic movement arises, new revelation will come and we’ll finally learn how to walk in the Spirit. Here’s what’s happening: the gospel is preached. We get saved, we get filled with the Holy Spirit. We you know, we want to walk on with God. We’re doing all that we know to do. But we don’t know how to take the basic truths of the covenant and walk in them. So we look for a further revelation, a greater understanding, a deeper thing.
There was a time when I was so enamored with the prophetic movement, that you know, basically, I had a disease called prophetic arrogance. “Well, at least we’re seeking God we’re after that deeper life. We’re really pressing on.” You know, and you get arrogant as well. You know, “God’s gonna judge his church, bless God and all of us holy remnant are gonna press into sonship and oh bless the Lord, we’re the holy people.” And you know what God thinks of that?
The more revelation you have of the real deal, the more a servant you become to the rest of the church. Maturity is measured in servanthood. Laying down your life for the purpose of God. I went through a little time where I thought, you know, you had to have the end time revelation, to be in the in crowd. And then I kind of got the idea that perhaps in God’s heart, the whole world was the in crowd. And he was trying to get them to his Son, so they can be manifestly a part of that in crowd.
And then I came to this other conclusion. I don’t know why I’m saying this, but it must have relevance for somebody. I got around the end time group. I’m not talking about what I was talking about earlier. I’m talking about the prophetic wing of the church that moves so far into loving the prophetic that they’re above evangelism. “Well, you know, we’re the bride company. We just love Jesus. Other parts of the church take care of evangelism.” Remember what I said about prophetic arrogance? “We’re the deeper life club.” Well, let me just say to you, the deeper life club consists of those who get the heart of Jesus and they’re not looking to exclude, they’re looking to include. And as God surveys the earth and looks into all the various denominational structures, do you think he’s saying, “Ooh, they really have their doctrine right?”
Or you think he says, “Ooh, there’s someone who’s hungry for me.
Ooh, there’s someone who wants more of me. Ooh, there’s someone who’s longing for a deeper walk with me and wanting to help people, and is moved by my compassion for the lost and the hurting?” Or do you think he says, “Well, let’s see they’re in that denomination. They don’t have it quite together. Oh, well, they’re in that group.” See, he’s not looking at groups. He’s looking at hearts.
And he’s looking at hungry hearts and he’s looking at people who want to love other people and have compassion on them and minister that compassion to them through the grace of God manifest in their lives. Grace changes you. Grace makes you more like Jesus. Grace delivers you from arrogance. Grace makes you have true humility, which is not putting yourself down but embracing the truth of God about yourself and others.
The more of God’s grace you have in your life, the more you’ll see that God’s more concerned about them knowing his love than he is about them knowing their sin, because when we know his love, our sin is self evident. Our selfishness, which is the root of all sin, is self evident when we see this on uncontaminated love.
I have become convinced over the last years that the holiness of God is not his hatred for sin. It’s his love, of self giving love. It’s his nature. It’s the fact that his love cannot be contaminated by selfishness. And when our life, which is in this stage, yet mixed with much selfishness, encounters that holy love in a sense, it terrifies us because of its purity, because we’re still learning to believe love’s the better way.
For most of us when we get in under enough pressure, we revert to selfishness. Even if we’re doing good on a good day. Get enough problems that we revert to thinking Me, me, me. What can I do for me? Me’s hurting. Me’s not feeling good. And all of that assault is to get me focused again on me. You see, when when the man was created, he was spirit, soul and body. His body related to the world, his soul related to himself, and his spirit related to God. But when man fell, his self consciousness took away the place of God consciousness, and he became obsessed with himself. That’s what we’re walking out of. That’s what we’re endeavoring to get delivered from, our obsession with ourselves. Whether it’s our religious self looking at how bad it is, and thinking it’s being humble, or it’s our carnal self indulgint the desires of the flesh and of the mind, it’s still self.
The more of the grace of God you discover the less time you spend thinking about yourself. Whether how good you are or how bad you are. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil judges itself good or judges itself bad but it’s still its own independent judge of self. But when you get into the Tree of Life, when you start eating of the Tree of Life, you start saying, “Father, what may I do to release your mercy and grace and kindness in the world and to show people what you’re like?” We become like Son number one, a father pleaser obsessed with revealing the Father.
You see, we can’t yet say it as he did. He said, “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father.”
But in the heart of every new creation son or daughter, is the desire to be able to say, “If you’ve see me, you’ve seen Jesus.” To be the hem of His garment, that if people can get to it, they’re going to receive the very life of heaven. The high calling of God in Christ, to be like the Son of God, to grow up into him in all things, who is the head which as every part does it share edifies itself in love. Every believer when you come into the church, you come in with a renewed mind that says, I’m going to worship God because that’s the beginning of my part of participation in the body.
And the other paradigm shift that we’re walking into… some church has written on the door as you go out, “You are now entering your mission field.” Every place around you there’s divine appointments, because you’re not looking for one, you are one. Because where you go God goes, and where God goes the manifestation of the kingdom could come. So you’re looking for people who are ripe to receive the revelation of God’s goodness.
You know, when you see somebody kind of stumbling along, say, “Ooh, there’s a candidate.”
What’s really thrilling to be is the amount of you who come back out of your week reporting that you had an opportunity to pray with somebody who was hurting or sick, and God did something in their life. And, you know, of all the people that are doing that,
the reports that people coming back and say, “They said no, and they were mad at me, and it was an awful experience,” are very, very, very small. But we have lots of reports of people who like one person said, “I see you’re struggling there. Can I pray for you?” And he said, “No, but that’s the kindest thing anybody’s offered to do for me this week.” Well, that was a winner. You see, the kingdom, the compassion, the goodness of God was ministered to them, even though they wouldn’t receive prayer.
And you’re sowing a seed just by offering. The amount of people who are seeing healing as they do that is just increasing wonderfully, because we’re getting the idea that the gifts of the Spirit are not so much for the church service as they are for the marketplace. “Lord, show me something about this person.” “Lord, tell me what your heart is toward them.” Some of the most ornery people are closer to the kingdom than you might think. You just really can’t be moved by by what people act like. Even in the church, because some people really need their souls healed.
What we’re supposed to do in the Christian community is making a commitment to learn to love one another, even while our baggage is still not sorted out. “So. Well, I’m getting out of this church, I wasn’t treated right.” WA renewed mind says. “I’m facing an obstacle in the church that love can prevail over and I will grow as I learned to overcome it.” But the Adamic mind says, “I wasn’t treated right. I’m outa here. They offended me.”
Now, let me just tell you, if you’re going to be mature, you’re going to have to recognize that number one, you’re not wrestling with flesh and blood, number two, there’s a promise you want to put on your refrigerator from Jesus that says, “Offenses will come.” How many of you are claiming that regularly? But it’s a fact you see, and Satan always seeks to divide gems, because Christians in unity draw the blessing and the authority and the anointing of God.
If you were the Devil, what would you do in a church that wanted to possess all that God has for them? You’d really work to break up relationships, to bring division, to bring offense. But wake up saints. Offenses will come. Learn to overcome offenses by forgiving, blessing and releasing and saying “I’m not falling for this devil. You’re trying to separate me from my brothers and sisters. You’re trying to bring disunity and a lack of harmony to the saints. So I refuse to be offended. In fact, I think I’m gonna go out and buy a nice gift for that person.” Buy ’em a present. Mail ’em a nice card without any undercurrent of anything. Just say, “I really love you and I appreciate you. And I just believe God with you for God’s best for you.” What’s that gonna do to disunity and disharmony and broken relationships? It’s going to undermine him because you’re taking the kingdom and outsmarting the kingdom of darkness.
Pressing toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, forgetting those things that are behind. That’s the message today. You can forget the past. Let me just say something: if you’ve been contending for God’s miracle breakthrough in your life in some area, forget the struggles. Last year struggles don’t count anymore. The future is going to be different than the past. But you have to forget it.
Now let me just make one more application here: Last year, when you prayed for the sick, you saw a certain level of results. And it was less than you wanted. Forget those things that are behind. In The Healing Centre you saw one level of manifestation. Forget those things which are behind. When you start praying for for the sick, it’s a new day. Raise the level of your expectation.
God is pouring out His Spirit. So the water’s rising. So this year, and this season, and every time you pray, forget those things which are behind and say, you know, this might be the day when the manifestation level leaps up, and we see more quicker healings, more full manifestations, and we see more. Part of the warfare is to say, “Same old, same old. We’re seeing a measure, but we’re not seeing the possible.” Don’t say that. Say “Well, we’re seeing a measure of healing but we’re expecting more. We’re not going to limit ourselves to last year’s results. We expect a new level. We expect it to rise. We expect to see more and quicker manifestations of the healing power of God. And the effectiveness of our sharing our faith and ministering to people, praying for, we expect the level to rise. Greater manifestation of the presence and power of God through us.”
Okay. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give His peace. And go forth bearing the name of the Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
