A life lived by the Spirit

Thank you, Father, for this opportunity to come together in oneness, to come together in fellowship, to commune with You, to commune with each other. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for Your presence. Thank You that You give life to every thought, every interaction, every word, every purpose. We worship You, Father. We worship You, God Almighty.

There is none like You. Thank You, Lord Jesus. You are our Lord, our God, our Master. Thank You for paying the price to make it possible to receive eternal life, to be reconciled with our Father. Thank You, Holy Spirit, that You come and touch every single person tonight, every single person that will listen to this message. As they listen, let them receive, let them be touched.

Thank You, Father, that everyone will hear only Your voice. Let it be personal. Let it be unique. Let it be what they need right now. In the name of Jesus, amen.

Hello, everyone. You can grab a seat. Ah, it's great to be here. Who of you are glad that you are here? Yes. Despite this heat wave, we are working up our own heat wave here, or rather a spirit wave it looks like. It's just amazing to be here. This is such a precious opportunity that we cannot miss. I want to congratulate you on being here, despite whatever resistance you had to just be here. I'm going to jump straight into what the Lord has placed in my heart, which I believe is significant for this year.

By maybe the first few sentences, you're going to think that you've heard it before, but I want to urge you to really listen, because it might not be what you anticipate. I really have a conviction in my heart that this is a year for us to live by the Spirit, to live by the Spirit. That means we need to build, increase, establish our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Now, that sounds fairly obvious, but I think all of us have such a conviction that we are not seeing in this earth the fullness of Christ, not even close. But we are growing towards something. We are accessing something that God wants to express. And for us to get there, it is only going to be possible through a life by the Spirit. A life by the Spirit just looks different.

I think for this year specifically, I just realised that what we can understand, what we think, and what we think the plan and the process and the next step is, is a drop in the ocean of what the plan is according to God. He is God. Did you get that? He is God. Not what we think He is, not what we can comprehend of Him. When you get to the highest revelation that you can have of Him on earth, you are only scratching the surface of who He is. We sometimes live as if we have come to that place where we understand a hundred percent of God.

If you have it in your heart, it's maybe a good time to go study Job. I studied Job over this holiday period, and you're probably just going to study it and get to one conclusion, and that is that God is God. All Job's friends accused him that all these things happening to him were because he was self-righteous, because Job was a righteous man. Even God described him as a righteous man. He said, "Look at him, what he lives like."

Job described his life, said, "I don't do this, I don't do that. I live a good life." And his friends came and accused him chapter after chapter after chapter. You'll do well to get through all of those chapters, because at some point I started thinking, "Yeah, if I can get hold of some of his friends, maybe I can help him." But you start thinking that Job's issue is his self-righteousness, because he keeps talking about what a good life he lives, how he lives a righteous life, how he wakes up in the morning and sacrifices for his children and all of that.

Right at the end, when God starts speaking, God never refers to what Job did or didn't do. He's not talking about whether Job is self-righteous or not righteous or anything. God says, "Where were you when I did this? Where were you when I did this? Where were you?" God was saying, "I am God." The picture is just much bigger than what we think, and a life by the Spirit is going to be required for us.

I really have in my heart that in this year there are going to be significant opportunities in your life where everything in the flesh is going to point to you doing something. Everything is going to fall in place. They're going to come to you with a great business deal, with an opportunity, and you are going to look at it and everything is going to look right, everything is going to look great. If you take it in the flesh, it will be a disaster.

There are things that in the flesh will look like the right thing to do. Everything will look right. If you don't act in the Spirit, it will be a disaster. This, I believe, is an opportunity. Remember, this year for us is not the end result. I strongly believe we're in a training ground. I've spoken so much about the Word speaking about hope, faith, love that will remain. Why will faith remain? We are entering so many different dispensations after this where you will still require faith.

What you do now will determine what you will look like and how you will function in the next thousand years, or the dispensation of the thousand years. But I don't want to speak about that. What I'm saying is, see this year as a training ground – a training ground for us to function in the Spirit, because that is what will be required from us.

As we were worshipping now, just before we started, I received a word for you, every single one of you, and I felt that I needed to go to every one and whisper it in your ears. But for practical reasons, I'll whisper it from here, if that's okay. God says, "I want to give you My best." But there's a catch to that. Not your best – some of you already maybe interpreted it that way – not your best. His best for you.

And His best for you – hear me on this, because I'm going to refer to it a few times tonight – His best for you is not necessarily what you think is the best for you. We need to understand a life by the Spirit will make you access His best for you. So this year, I believe, is a great opportunity for us to really grow in our relationship with the Spirit, in our ability to function by the Spirit, just in general, to live a life by the Spirit as opposed to the flesh.

There's a lot of components to it. I'll start running through some of it, and let's see how far we get through it. The first question for me is, why is it significant to live by the Spirit? Why is it significant to live a life led by the Spirit? You know the Word says that those that are led by the Spirit are called sons of God. For the dispensation we are entering, for the manifestation of the body of Christ, there needs to be something the Word speaks about – the manifestation, the revealing of the sons of God.

There's a process we are entering, and it's impossible to get to that by a life in the flesh. So part of why it is so significant is to enter into that dispensation. The next thing why it's so important to have a relationship with the Spirit, to live a life in the Spirit, is that the Holy Spirit brings you the presence of God. That is the purpose of the Holy Spirit – He brings you the presence of God. So we can sit here and talk about God, but without the Spirit, you will talk about somebody you don't know. You will talk about somebody you don't understand. You will require the Spirit to bring you the presence of God, to reveal to you so much more of God.

“But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him."”

1 Corinthians 2:9 (NKJV)

Have your heart open, that you don't think what I'm going to share with you tonight you have heard before, because I certainly, in preparing for tonight, felt that it was like I thought, "Okay, the Spirit is taking me down this road," and then all of a sudden He says, "Make a ninety-degree turn." And then I'm at a different place from where I thought I was going to be. There are some things we choose to ignore, and I find with myself that it tends to be the B part of every verse.

There's a second component to the verse, but we only read the first part and then we end there and say, "Ah, everything will work together for good." We stop there. It says these things have not entered into the heart of men, but things which God has prepared for those who love Him. There's a second part to this verse:

“But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.”

1 Corinthians 2:10 (NKJV)

God the Spirit searches the things of God. He searches the deep things of God, and then the Spirit reveals to us. You will see just now as we continue with this verse – the Spirit reveals those things to us.

“For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.”

1 Corinthians 2:11 (NKJV)

You need to hear that. I know I've spoken about this verse a thousand times, because I love this portion of the Bible. It's all about living from the Spirit. There's not another way to access it. There's not another way. He that has ears, let him hear. You cannot know anything about God other than what the Holy Spirit reveals to you.

If you start turning it into a doctrine, into a religion, into theoretical study, you will go on the wrong track, or it will lose the life. It might look like truth, but it will lose the life in it. It is only by the Spirit that you can get this revelation of the nature, the ability of God, as well as all the things that He has prepared for you.

“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”

1 Corinthians 2:12 (NKJV)

What is God's role in this? I Am. Who He is, is sufficient. The Holy Spirit searches the deep things of God, and the role of the Holy Spirit is to come to us and reveal those things that have been freely given to us already. That is why it's so critical to live a life by the Spirit, for it says those in the world cannot receive it. What makes us different in this world? A life by the Spirit.

So the Holy Spirit brings us the presence of God, but with that, He also shows us the heart of the Father. There are so many religions in this earth, so many traditions, so many things that have lost their life, even in churches, where there's no life, for the Spirit of God is not there. It's tradition, it's religion, it's a set of rules. If the Spirit is not in it, there is no life in it.

“Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

Romans 8:27 (NKJV)

I want to tell you something else through this verse. The Holy Spirit shows the Father your heart. You know what I received in my spirit when I was preparing and I saw this verse? I realised God is interested in that which looks like Him. God is interested in that which is Him. That is why – think about righteousness.

We say when you become born again, you become the gift. It's a gift that you receive – you receive the gift of righteousness. When you have received that gift of righteousness, you have become righteousness. When God looks at you, God the Father does not see sin. He only sees righteousness. He sees what looks like Him. So when He searches the hearts – this chapter explains that to us – the Holy Spirit reveals what is in your heart that looks like Him, and then God recognises Himself in you, and God responds to that.

So the Holy Spirit not only brings you something from the Father, shows you the Father's heart, the Father's character, and gives life to that in your spirit, but then at the same time, when the Father's eyes go through the earth and He looks, the Holy Spirit reveals everything of the Father that is in you, and the Father says, "There's My son. There's My daughter. It looks like Me." That is what the Father is interested in. The Father is not interested in whether you live right or you do good, because why would Jesus then have paid the price to send His only Son? He has a purpose – to manifest Himself in this earth. He's interested in everything that looks like Him, that has become Him in this earth.

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

Romans 8:28 (NKJV)

That's why I warned you – that's where we stop. "All things work together for good." Unconditional. I've got news for you: it's not unconditional. We have such a danger on earth, even if we start going in the right direction and we start experiencing the presence of God, and we come into ministry and start experiencing and talking and learning about gifts and callings and offices, that we get to the point where it starts becoming about my gift, my office, my function, my ministry, my ability.

It's His purpose. We need to lose ourselves in His purpose. It's not possible other than a life by the Spirit, because Satan will deceive you, he will mislead you. How many great men of God have fallen right when they are at the peak of their ministries? Why? Because Satan starts telling them, "Look how good you have become. Look how well you are functioning in your calling." It's not about your calling. It's about His purpose. We need to have perspective, and the Spirit will remind us of that continuously. That is why we need the Holy Spirit, why we need that relationship. He makes it possible for us to focus on God's purpose and to fulfil His purpose.

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.”

Romans 8:29 (NKJV)

Let's just stop there. The Holy Spirit is the only option to make you look like Christ. We always say, "More of Him, less of me." You cannot achieve that through your own ability. It is only through the Holy Spirit. That is why we need to live – I think you can gather I'm blending and deviating from time to time to talk about a relationship with the Holy Spirit, but it's more than that. It is a life by the Holy Spirit. I'm so worried that talking about the relationship puts it in a box and only refers to a very small component of living a life led by the Spirit.

That is our purpose. In Ephesians I speak about that a lot, that we, the body of Christ, the bride, are growing towards something. There is something we are aiming for. We are not nearly there – not nearly. I don't even think we are scratching the surface of the fullness of Christ, until we come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, unto a perfect man, through the knowledge of Him. We need to come to that place, and the way we come to that place is every part does its share and every joint supplies. But we are moving towards that, and in that, it means we are being conformed to His image. It's impossible without the Holy Spirit.

I want to quickly deviate, and I want to tell you that part of what I'm speaking about here is that if you think your greatest purpose and ambition is to use the Word of God to sort out your own life, you are missing the point totally. The first and foremost purpose is not that you can sort out your finances, that you can sort out your relationships, that you can sort out your health, that you can sort out even your own ministry. That is not the first purpose.

If you think that's what it's about, you are missing it, and that's why I'm saying to you there's a higher level of looking at a life by the Spirit, because what you think is the best for you in this year, I can nearly guarantee you, currently where you are sitting, might not be what God thinks is the best for you. It will require a different place for us to function from, to start realising the significance of who He is and what His purpose is, as opposed to thinking, "I've got a list of twenty things I need to sort out, and that is all what God is about, that's what the Word is about, that's what the Spirit is about – that I can sort out the things in my life."

I started sharing with you previously about Paul and what his life looked like, and the fact that he had to be in captivity to be able to release a gospel that explained to us what it means to be a slave for Christ, yet you are free. God will do whatever it requires in your life for you to release the gospel and the sound which He has birthed and placed in you since before the creation of the earth. I say specifically "sound", but tonight is not enough time to speak about that.

So whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. You have been predestined to look like Christ. So you cannot fall into the trap of religion that says, "Who do you think you are? You can never be like Christ." That is your mission, that is your purpose – but not through your own ability. The more the Spirit changes you, renews you, conforms you to Christ, the more you will fulfil your purpose, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

So we all need to look like Him, we need to function like Him.

“Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

Romans 8:30 (NKJV)

You will do well to spend some time on those few verses, and especially there towards the end as well, to understand why the sequence is the way it is.

“…who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”

2 Corinthians 1:22 (NKJV)

The NIV says, "Set His seal of ownership on us and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come." Often when you read about Abraham, you will read about the fact that Abraham had this expectation to see a city that is not from earth. He had an expectation of a realm, a reality that exists far beyond the physical realm, and he had that expectation.

When we live on this earth, you need to realise there is a life of eternity. There is a plan, there is a purpose, there is an existence of the Alpha and Omega that is far, far, far bigger and beyond this time that every one of us is on earth.

I started sharing with you last time as well about the fact that there are big cycles taking place, dispensations that are happening, times and seasons. It's been like that throughout the world. What if you live in a time and a season that is five hundred years, and in that time, in that dispensation, in that season, there are things that God has ordained in a variety of ways, including what is revealed about His Word and what is revealed about Him? If you live in that five hundred years, it is very likely that your ceiling of what you can achieve in your, let's say, eighty years will not exceed the ceiling that God has put in that five-hundred-year dispensation.

That's why I believe we are crying out and saying, "God, look at this earth. Look at what it looks like. Where are the awakenings? Where are the revivals? Where are the healings, the manifestation, the presence?" If I read some information about people, I see they say, "God is absent. Why are we not hearing God's voice?" I shared with you previously, there's a time in the Old Testament where it says, "And the word of the Lord was rare in those days." There's a time at the end of the Old Testament going into the New Testament where there are four hundred years about which nothing is written in the Bible – a time which is just like, "Where's God?"

So we need to understand, if we live – I'm using it as an example, please, this is not the important aspect for me, this is an example – if we live in a season of five hundred years, and within that five hundred years there's a ceiling on what will be revealed on earth, what will be released on earth, that doesn't mean we can sit back and say, "But God, these things that You speak about in Your Word, we are not seeing it." We can't get frustrated or negative or say the Word is not true. It is one hundred percent true, it is one hundred percent relevant. But it might be a time, like in the Old Testament, where it says, "This is the dispensation that you are in."

I said to somebody yesterday, it might be a dispensation where you enter walking against the wind instead of with the wind. So in your time walking against the wind, you can only progress five kilometres, whereas if you were walking with the wind, maybe you could have done fifty. But the five you do against the wind, in this dispensation that we are in – which most certainly is not the end in terms of what is described in the Word, what the body should look like, coming to the fullness of Christ – the five kilometres you progress, we all want to do the fifty. We are crying out for that. But maybe because the wind is blowing from the front, we can only do five. But the five you do is as significant as the fifty they will do in a dispensation where the wind is coming from behind.

Can you understand we need to stay true to what God has entrusted to us? We need to continue to fight the fight of faith. We need to continue to do what God has told us to do, so that the progress we make in this dispensation will position those who need to take the baton from us. It will position them at the place where they are meant to be. If we just sit back and say, "God, we don't see the awakenings, we don't see the revivals, we don't see the healings, we don't see the shadows falling on people and them getting healed – we don't see it," and then what? We sit back and say, "God, we're going to wait for that." No. Like in the whole Old Testament, the Jews were the custodians of the gospel. They were the custodians of the line from which Christ needed to be born.

They were the custodians of the Word. They were the custodians of the gospel. They were the physical line through which Jesus Christ would have been born. If they sat back and said, "God, look at this, no, we're going to give up," they would not have fulfilled or positioned Jesus Christ to come based on the prophecies given in the Old Testament. Can you see the significance of that? Let us not judge our ability to manifest the Word and to see the things the Word is speaking about, based on what we see with our eyes.

Coming back to living a life by the Spirit, that is why it is so important that we do not give up. The most important thing for you is to not give up, to not think, "But God, where are the results? Where are the signs? Where are these things Your Word speaks about?" Our responsibility is to hook in with one another.

That was a vision that Colleen saw five years ago already, with the wind blowing from the front and people hooked in like this, making very little progress, but making sure that nobody stays behind. The risk is if you start measuring the physical things you see – whatever it is, the result in your bank balance, the business deals, the relationship, whatever it is – if you start measuring the greatness of God, the love of God, the purpose of God, the dispensation we are in, by the results you see, you are on the wrong track.

But if you function in the flesh, that is what you will do. That is why I say to you, it is critical for us – not just for this year, but this is on my heart – this year we need to live a life led by the Spirit, where if you stand in front of something and you need to make a choice, you will not make that choice based on what you see. We spoke about this the previous time: when Moses was in that position, Moses said, "God, let us not go up if You are not with us." I am still at that place, where this year we need to live that life by the Spirit, where you look at something and you will not look with the physical eyes.

When you look at the results, you will not measure them from the physical perspective. You will say, "God, my bank balance doesn't look the way it should. This relationship doesn't look the way it should. This ministry doesn't look…" whatever it is, "but Father, I want to measure it by Your Spirit. What are You saying in the Spirit?" And maybe, just maybe, when you hear by the Spirit, you will realise you are exactly where you need to be, and that maybe the bank balance is not the issue. I'm using it as an example, because otherwise it becomes too complex if I use other examples.

For God is firstly after your heart. When He has your heart, you can hear His voice. When you respond to the Spirit, you can become effective in His purpose on earth. Don't measure your purpose, the Word and the Spirit working through you by the physical results you see in your life. Measure it by what you hear God saying to you that you are meant to be doing. That is the measure.

So the Holy Spirit is this guarantee. He is the guarantee, He's the deposit, He's the guarantee for what is to come. If we do not have this relationship with the Holy Spirit, how will we know what is coming? How will we know that we are on track? If we just looked at this physical world and measured the love of God, the purpose of God, and our own love and purpose by what this physical earth looks like, we would all give up.

We would give up and say, "Well, what are we doing?" Because it isn't working, by that measure. But by the Spirit, God is revealing to us the things He has prepared for us. God is revealing to us His purpose, His times. The Holy Spirit says, "I will show you things to come." The Bible says, "Hold on to the more sure word of prophecy."

If we have the picture, if we have the end result, if we have the purpose of God, and we say, "This wind is coming and it's blowing and it's hard and I'm not moving, I can only move one inch," but you know you are holding on to that which He is showing you – where you need to go, not your own purposes, not your own ambitions, but where He is taking us – that is why the Holy Spirit is that guarantee, that we can say, "Okay, God, we know where we are going." We live in a broken world, a disastrous world in many aspects, but we know where we are going.

If we talk about a relationship with the Holy Spirit, that relationship starts when you receive salvation.

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?”

Luke 11:13 (NKJV)

So we know where the relationship starts. The only way to become born again is through the Holy Spirit. You cannot become born again other than through the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit births you into God and you become one. You have that life. That ministry of reconciliation is only possible through the Holy Spirit. And then you become the temple of the Holy Spirit.

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.”

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NKJV)

Do you realise that? Since you received the Holy Spirit, that seal is not just a seal to give you the convenience of knowing you have eternal life. That seal also means you belong to Him now.

Remember the gospel of Paul. Paul says, "I am sitting in captivity, I am a slave, yet I am free." He was trying to explain to us: can we get to the point where we say, "God, I'm willing to do whatever it takes for me to reveal what You have entrusted to me"? Whatever it is – if it's sitting in jail, then it's sitting in jail. Whatever it is. We spoke about this previously: it's all about Him. You are bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

So we know where this relationship starts, we know that initial journey, but now I want to speak about how you build that relationship – and I'm going to become very practical. The last thing I want is for this to be a theoretical message for you. What came up in my spirit is the difference between salvation and relation.

Salvation and relation. Salvation – hear me out on this – is static, because you are born into God. You can only become born again once. You might have people say, "I'm backslidden and I recommit," or whatever – that's just a lifestyle that changed. You can't become born again again. You only become born again once. That's why I'm saying salvation is static. Yes, the Word says, "Work out your own salvation," but don't misunderstand that. That is not achieving salvation. Working out your own salvation means manifesting what you have already received through salvation, the fullness of Christ – the things God has prepared for you that the Holy Spirit will reveal. So working out your own salvation is the manifestation of that which has already happened. That's why I say salvation is static. Relation is not static. It is dynamic. It needs to continuously evolve.

Now, you need to understand this, because you often find people who say, "I feel far from God, I don't hear God's voice, I don't experience His presence, and I know I've sinned – now I feel condemned, and now I feel further from God." You need to understand, and that is why I want to make the distinction between salvation and relation: your perception might be far from God, but as far as your salvation is concerned, nothing has changed.

Zero. I say this very respectfully: once you have become born again and have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, there is nothing else you need to do to go to heaven. If He is your Lord and Saviour, you are going to heaven. That's your salvation. That's enough for you – enough for you to go to heaven. It's not enough for the people around you. It's not enough for you to fulfil your purpose.

So then when we start talking about relation – and that's why I said some of the things would take a 90-degree turn, and I'm going to throw the cat among the pigeons a bit; you can go and process that on your own. Remember, whenever I share the Word with you, you need to go and hear it for yourself. You can't live off my revelation – I'm just sharing what I have in my heart. Your relationship with the Holy Spirit is not static, is not fixed.

That's why it's important to understand the different roles between the Father and the Holy Spirit. Your relationship with the Father is fixed. Your relationship with the Holy Spirit is not fixed. That's why the Word speaks about things like, "Do not quench the Spirit." You get the picture with quench: you take a bucket of water, and there's a fire burning – this fire is the Holy Spirit. You throw that bucket on the flames, and the fire dwindles. But that's the work of the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Holy Spirit. So it says you can quench the Holy Spirit. You can frustrate the Holy Spirit.

I spoke about that previously, and I don't have time to go into it now. I would recommend you go and look on the Eleutheros app – if you don't know about the app, ask somebody afterwards and they will help you download it. There's a teaching there about the person and the presence, distinguishing between the person of God and the presence.

When we talk about the Holy Spirit, you need to understand – and I need you to get this tonight, because otherwise it creates a lot of condemnation and the wrong perspective – your relationship with the Father is static. I said to you: when God looks at you, all He sees is righteousness, because that was a gift; you received the gift of righteousness, so God sees that. But when you talk about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will not show up in your life unconditionally. The Holy Spirit will not work through you unconditionally. There's a relationship required, there's a positioning required, and that's why a life by the Spirit is so critical.

There are times when I'll show it to you from the Word, because maybe you start thinking otherwise. Ephesians 5:17 speaks about, "Therefore do not be unwise." Let's actually read the whole portion so you can get the perspective.

“Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.”

Ephesians 5:17-18 (NKJV)

Man, Louw de Vreugde always said, "There's no prize for speed reading." That line alone should keep you busy. "Understand what the will of the Lord is." The proper translation, the rendering of "be filled with the Spirit," is "being filled with the Spirit." It's continuous tense.

Why does it matter? Being filled with the Spirit is a continuous process. It's the dynamic relationship component, as opposed to the static relationship. It will never tell you "be being born again" – that's not a continuous process, it's a once-off process. But this is not. Being filled with the Spirit is "be being." It's a continuous process. But we always choose to ignore the rest of that verse, saying, "Nah, it's just a figure of speech." It's not a figure of speech.

“Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another…”

Ephesians 5:18-19 (NKJV)

Now, listen to me. It starts explaining that there are fruits of the Spirit, there's a reflection of a life by the Spirit and a reflection of a life by the flesh, and it has implications. That's why it's saying to you – and hear me on this, because I am certainly not talking religion, I am certainly not talking condemnation – I'm talking about the opportunity to live a life by the Spirit, and that opportunity is not a nice-to-have.

Every single one of you here – God said to you tonight, and you cannot unhear it – God said, "I want My best for you this year," and His best for you this year is a life by the Spirit. Forget about whatever other goal you've set for yourself this year. His purpose for you is a life by the Spirit. That is what He said to you. This is explaining that there are implications for a life by the flesh, and implications for a life by the Spirit.

And now He says – the same way in the Old Testament He says, "I put before you life; choose life." God cannot force anything on you. He gives you a choice. The same way in the Old Testament God says, "I put before you life, choose life," the same way God says, "Here is My Spirit, choose to live by My Spirit." I want to encourage you to make it your purpose this year to understand and to live what it means to live a life by the Spirit.

It says, "Speaking to one another." So this is the Spirit side – it says, "Be filled with the Spirit." Then it continues to say how you are filled with the Spirit: "speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing" – not "thinking" – "singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord."

This whole week I've experienced so much about the significance of just waking up in the morning, and before you start thinking, you just start thanking God. And you start worshipping Him. Before you think, "Oh, but my knee, and my disappointment, and the dog…" – no. Before you think, say, "Thank You, Father. You are God, now and forever." Just thank Him and worship Him.

If you have done that, your day is a success. It doesn't matter what happens through the rest of the day. This is what we have been called to do. What do you think your number one purpose is? To worship God. What do you think you're going to do for the next ten billion years when you get up there? You're going to worship Him. You may as well start now – you'll be much better prepared when you get there.

So this is speaking about the Spirit life: speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks. The fact that you are sitting here tonight means you have at least twenty reasons to be thankful for, at least twenty, before I even go into detail. So don't say to me, "Ah, you don't know what my life looks like." Just thank Him. Just thank Him. Just thank Him. Don't start thinking about the negative things.

You know how much of the spiritual life is physical, how much of the physical life is spiritual? The spiritual life is more physical than what you think. There are things that even happen in your mind physically. We think it's just spiritual to thank God, but when you wake up and thank Him, and praise Him, and worship Him, apart from what happens spiritually, there are things that physically happen in your body. Scientists have proven that. But anyway, I'm deviating – that's not the point.

“…giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”

Ephesians 5:20-21 (NKJV)

Oh, man. People with what we describe as the Western lifestyle don't like submitting to anybody. But when we are in the body of Christ, we submit to one another. One of the signs that somebody is in a good place spiritually is if they are willing to submit to the brothers and sisters, the elders placed around them. If there's an opportunity or a time where somebody needs to say, "Look, this thing going on in your life needs to change," the person who is at a place where they can submit to that – their life will just look different, as opposed to the person who says, "Who do you think you are?"

We don't have a choice but to submit to one another. Now hear me carefully – I'm not saying a thousand people submit to one person and that one person submits to nobody. That's not the model I'm talking about. I'm talking about everybody submitting to one another. Go back to where it started in verse 18: "Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit." It puts the two things in opposition to one another.

Now, this is always very dangerous territory, because so many people put their hands up and start fighting when you talk about whether you should be drinking alcohol or not. I've got good news for you and bad news for you. The good news is, it doesn't matter. The bad news is, it depends on what the Spirit tells you – for then it does matter. So God is much more significant. Your salvation is much more significant than whether you use alcohol or not.

But when you come to a place like this – and in my experience, I'll put it out there – look at the Old Testament: the people designated to perform a certain function, the Levites, the priests who had to perform that function, there were certain things they could not do, and one of them was they could not use strong wine, no strong liquor. Why? I'm certainly the last one who will be prescriptive, and I'm only using this as an example because there's much more to it. But I would always say to people: go and hear what God says to you. Those are words that have been weighed, if you hear me.

I'm not saying that idly, because that means you have a responsibility – you have heard this now, you can't unhear it. Go and hear from the Lord what it is. I have experienced – and I'm not telling anybody what to do, this is not condemnation – that most people I have encountered who come to that point where they say, "God, it's all about You, I exist for nothing else, here is my whole life, I give it to You," one of the first things that happens is God tells them to give up alcohol. That's my experience.

Can there be people who can drink alcohol and continue? Most definitely, you can drink alcohol and continue to do God's things, but then you need to be sure that is what the Spirit is telling you. Samson was able to do things that would not be acceptable for others. That's why it is specific, it is unique. That is why, whenever we come together, we will never give you a set of rules – "Here's our set of rules, this is what we stand for." No. We only have the Word of God.

That's all we have. But there's an additional component, and that is what the Holy Spirit is telling you, because it is unique, specific to you. But what I can tell you, even from these verses, is that it is given to you as an example to say, "Choose to live a life by the Spirit." There are many verses and many examples – I don't have time to go through all of them. I'll add some more of the scriptures when we load this on the app.

I hope all of you know that when you listen to a teaching on the app, underneath the image there is a link that says "Verses." If you click on that link, there's a PDF with all the verses I refer to, and sometimes a few additional verses.

Now, our methodology – maybe I should touch on that, seeing that I've said we don't have a set of rules. Our methodology has always been, because that is what God sent us to do, to activate every single member. I have a certain role, you have a certain role. Your role is equal to what my role is – it might just be different. Some of you are maybe also teachers, some also pastors, so there's an overlap of giftings and offices, but every one of us is equally significant in the body of Christ, and you need to function in what God has given you and take your responsibility. You need to have your own revelation, and that is why we do not have a set of rules.

What we do have is our mandate, and my mandate is to help every single one of you sitting here to start loving the Word for yourself, to study the Word for yourself. When I started on this journey five years ago, for me it was a revelation that people came alongside me and said, "I don't want anything from you, but how can I help you fulfil what God has sent you to do?" It's the same with us. We never ask you for anything – that's not why we're here. But we will always tell you, "How can we help you fulfil what God has sent you for?" And to do that, you are going to require a life by the Spirit.

To do that, you are going to need to be able to hear for yourself, and that is why when I share something with you here tonight, I will only share with you – I hope – at least ninety percent of what God tells me to share, what He speaks through me. But you still have the responsibility to go home, process it, and say, "Holy Spirit, this thing he said, I don't like it, I don't agree with it, I don't understand it," whatever the case, "help me work through this." And maybe you conclude you only agree with ninety-five percent of what I said – then I'm happy, as long as you hear what the Spirit wanted you to hear.

I can tell you, which I sensed right when we started tonight, there is probably, of everything I say tonight, five percent that you need to hear. But that five percent is unique to you. And the amazing thing I've experienced so many times is that five percent might be something I didn't even say physically.

So what does a life and a relationship with the Holy Spirit look like? I want to talk about one or two things practically – I said I'm going to get practical. How do you build a relationship? How do you interact with the Holy Spirit? How do you grow your relationship with the Holy Spirit? This will be in the notes as well, so you don't have to make notes unless you want to.

The first thing for me is you need to see Him as a person. If you think the Holy Spirit is a dove, you're not going to make much progress building a relationship with Him. That verse speaking about a dove – I'm not saying it's wrong to have a dove on your Bible or whatever; if that demonstrates to you the presence of the Holy Spirit, then whatever, we're not into religion. But you need to understand the Holy Spirit is not a dove.

When it speaks about Him descending on Jesus in bodily form, it says "like a dove." It means the way He came down was like a dove flying and settling on a roof – that movement of settling is what is being referred to. The bodily form was exactly like the form of Jesus, because the Holy Spirit is a person.

Why? Think about it: the Trinity of God, the Father, the Son – Jesus said, "I look like My Father." So the Father looks like Him. All of a sudden there are two who look like people, and one that's a dove? Really. So you need to see Him as a person.

Secondly, you need to talk to Him. Thank Him – I already said that to you. Thank Him, worship Him. When you open your eyes in the morning, just say, "Thank You, Father. Thank You, Holy Spirit. I worship You, I praise You. Thank You for this day. Thank You for being God. Thank You for being God in my life."

I can tell you, it's like I said about the Word: you can force somebody to spend time in the Word for a week. If they spend half an hour in the Word every day for a week, it will not be forced anymore after seven days, because somewhere the Holy Spirit is going to start taking over. I don't mind forcing people to spend time in the Word for at least a week or two, because after that, it's not forced anymore. So you might force yourself to thank God for five minutes in the morning when you wake up. It will not be forced for long.

When you start experiencing – when you wake up and you feel, wow, the Holy Spirit is already there before you started doing anything, you feel that presence, you feel that joy, and your physical circumstance doesn't justify it – then you start realising, wow, this is what I've been created for. Talk to Him, speak to Him, worship Him. Ludovic always said, go and sit in the park on a bench and have an ice cream with the Holy Spirit. But that's the reality – you need to be able to talk to Him.

Some of us, in terms of the relationship we had with our fathers, always struggle in certain aspects relating to God our Father, because you bring in your own father and your relationship with him. But as far as the Holy Spirit is concerned – and I can tell you, I have godly reverence, most of what I do when I pray is I lie on my face, because once you experience who He is, it's impossible not to do it. I have godly reverence. But that doesn't mean you are disrespectful when you speak to the Holy Spirit as if He is somebody sitting next to you. It's got nothing to do with disrespect. He loves you so much.

Jesus said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father." If you are struggling to relate to the Holy Spirit, then think about Jesus, because Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are one. They look the same. They function – well, they have different functions – but just think about Jesus. Think about the compassion Jesus had. Think about the children who sat on His lap. Think about the compassion He had when people were struggling. Think about that, and then you can communicate with the Holy Spirit.

The function and the interaction we have with the Holy Spirit is different compared to that with Jesus and the Father – that's why I started deviating when I began speaking.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.”

2 Corinthians 13:14 (NKJV)

Now you know this is how he ended the letter, but listen to this: it's actually a beautiful sentence for a variety of reasons. As far as we're talking about the Holy Spirit, you can see there are different functions that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have, and different ways that we interact with them.

Yes, you have fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit, but you can't have it without the Holy Spirit. Here it speaks of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ – that's amazing – the love of God – awesome – and then it says the communion of the Holy Spirit. So you need to understand that it is critical and important for you to have communion with the Holy Spirit.

That communion – most of you will know that word is koinonia, which means interaction, participation, sharing what one has, intercourse, fellowship, a gift jointly contributed. That is what that word communion means. So that by itself should tell you there is a bunch of interaction required with the Holy Spirit. And then it will practically start manifesting.

Another example, Acts 15:28 says, “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.”

Isn't that amazing? This is the life we need to live. I need to make a decision. I say to my business partner, “Hey man, it seemed good to me and the Holy Spirit that we do this.” That is different from functioning in the flesh. I'm not saying be arrogant about it, and don't say it's you in the Spirit when it's not, but this is the life they lived: it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden. I already mentioned to you that there are things that impact the presence and functioning of the Holy Spirit.

I'll share this one with you as well: Ephesians 4. I'm going to read from verse 25 fairly quickly, because it's a number of verses and we don't have much time left. But listen to this in the same perspective as the other verse we looked at. What does a life by the Spirit look like? What does a life by the flesh look like? You need to understand there are things you do that will cause the Holy Spirit to remove Himself.

Remember, static, dynamic doesn't impact your salvation. But that which you have been called for – your relationship, your ability to manifest God and His purpose – will be affected if you cannot establish that relationship with the Holy Spirit, and you continue to grieve Him, frustrate Him, quench Him. You cannot expect to have that relationship where you can continuously hear Him and manifest the presence of God.

All I'm saying to you: you can frustrate the Holy Spirit, you can quench Him, you can grieve Him, and you cannot expect Him to continue to manifest the same amount of God's presence in your life, depending on what you do. You cannot continue to live in sin. Nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with condemnation, nothing to do with the completeness of the price that Jesus paid – nothing to do with that.

But when it comes to allowing the Holy Spirit to function through your life, do not think it is unconditional. He's not going to show up because you tell Him to show up. The condition of your heart, the way you live, is required. A life in the Spirit is required to have Him manifest.

“Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”

Ephesians 4:25-32 (NKJV)

You can go and read all of that, but you are getting the picture, and there are many more verses. When you speak about the fruits of the Spirit, I'm not even going to speak about that tonight – I don't have enough time. But you can go and study that and understand it requires something from you if you expect to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit, to have His presence, to have Him manifest in you and through you.

Maybe it's important that I state that it's not about condemnation or feeling guilty when you are not spending time in the Word, or your lifestyle is not conducive to inviting the presence of the Holy Spirit. It's not about condemnation.

Hear me on this, like I said to you before: get over yourself. God and His purpose is so big and so significant that all it takes from you is to go on your knees and say, “Father, I am truly sorry. I have messed up. Forgive me.” The Bible says if you mean it and you ask for forgiveness, at that moment you receive it, unconditional. The only condition is you need to mean it.

You need to mean it when you ask for forgiveness. You need to have a true intention that you are not going to do that again. If you have that, you receive that forgiveness. So get over yourself. Whatever you have done wrong up to now, or haven't done that you feel you should have, or whatever the Spirit told you to do and you didn't do it – get over it and move on, because what is important is going forward. God is not interested in your past. He is not interested. But He is interested in how you will proceed to work in the purpose that He has set you apart for.

So understand, it's not about condemnation.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

Romans 8:1 (NKJV)

There's a B part to this verse – did you get that? What does that mean? The same thing I explained to you now: you can't ask for forgiveness if you don't mean it. If you already have the intention to go and do the same sin tomorrow, you are not truly sorry about what you have done. Asking for forgiveness is a waste of time; in your heart, you've already decided you're going to do it again. But if you truly have the intention, that's a different story.

It's the same thing this verse is saying: there's no condemnation if you are functioning in the Spirit. If you are going to function in the flesh, you are guaranteed to experience condemnation every single day. So it's not saying there's no condemnation because you are a Christian. That's not what it's saying, even though that's how many people read that verse. It says there's no condemnation if you are walking in the Spirit.

That also doesn't mean there's no room for mistakes. You can make mistakes, you can mess up, as we all do. It's not about that. It's about the intention, and you get up. That's the important thing – get up and continue, and surround yourself with people who will help you fulfil what God has sent you for.

I'm going to end off with this. It is impossible to have a significant, purposeful relationship with the Holy Spirit without the Word.

Did you get that? Yes, you can sit on the bench and have an ice cream with the Holy Spirit, but you cannot do just that. Because – you need to hear me on this, it's important – the Holy Spirit will never tell you something that is inconsistent with the Word of God. It's impossible. And that's why, when people in the past have come to me and said, “The Lord says this and this,” and I think, that is right against what the Word is saying.

But how will you know that if you are not filled with the Word? The Holy Spirit needs the Word, and you know what the next verse is that I'm going to use.

“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”

Ephesians 6:17 (NKJV)

So you cannot have an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit, you cannot live a life by the Spirit, without spending time in the Word. The two go hand in hand.

For me, if you say, “So what are the action steps if I walk out of here? How do I increase my relationship with the Holy Spirit?” I will tell you two things.

Wake up in the morning and thank God, thank the Holy Spirit, thank the Lord Jesus, and start singing songs and hymns and psalms. If your wife throws a slipper at you when you start singing, then do it quietly in a different room or whatever. But the principle is: acknowledge Him, thank Him, praise Him, worship Him, sing psalms and hymns. That already will position you in a different place.

The second thing is spend time in the Word of God. That is the most important thing – other than the first step – for you to build a relationship with the Holy Spirit. You will all have experienced it: when you spend time in the Word of God, all of a sudden, as you start reading, the Holy Spirit will start directing you to another verse, and another verse, and another verse. And before you know it, He's painting a picture and communicating with you in a way that is amazing, and He can only do that through the Word of God.

That is the primary relationship and interaction with the Holy Spirit – in the Word. Then that continues into your daily life. As you continue to live, you should have an expectation. I've said to many people before, you do not always have the opportunity, when you are confronted with a choice, to stop and pray about it. Sometimes you have, but in many cases you don't have the time to say, “Wait, wait, give me ten minutes, I need to go pray about this.” No. If you live a life by the Spirit, you do not need to go and pray about it in that moment. You already know what to do in that particular instance. But that is an outflowing of what happened when you were in your room alone with God. That's why that whole aspect about praying ties in with it. What happens in there will be expressed in what is out there.

I want to encourage you. I'm going to give you homework. The good news is the homework is for tonight. The bad news is it only starts tonight. That homework is that you make a decision today whether you want to live this year as a life by the Spirit. And if you make that decision, the second decision that goes hand in hand with it, inevitably, is that you commit yourself to spend time in the Word of God.

I'm not talking from a religious or burdensome perspective. Many people say to me, “I've started so many times reading John, and then I lost interest when I got to a certain point. I can do maybe two books in the Bible, and then somehow the discipline is gone.” Don't worry about that now – we've got some great ideas that we're going to share with your home fellowships in terms of what we are going to do. We're not going to talk about that now.

What I need you to do tonight is make two decisions: that this year you are going to live a life by the Spirit, and hand in hand with that, you are going to commit yourself to spend time in the Word of God.

But you're not just going to do it on your own. You're going to pick one person tonight before you leave here, go to that person, and make yourself accountable, even if it's just for the next week, because that accountability might change to somebody else – but that person needs to pass the baton. Not a case of, “No, I've got somebody else, but I still need to figure out who they are.” I'm not talking about that. Before you leave here tonight, one person: you make yourself accountable if you make the decision that you're going to live a life by the Spirit this year and commit to the Word of God, and you tell that person, “This is what I'm going to do.”

You can exchange numbers with that person. I want to recommend it's the same gender, and preferably not somebody you came here with. So it's already a good opportunity – the Holy Spirit will show you the right person, same gender, preferably not somebody you came here with. All you need to do – they're not going to check up on you, that's not the role. All you want is, like accountability groups work, to say, “I'm here to help you with the decision that you make,” not a burden that somebody places on you and checks up on you.

No, you make the decision and then you say, “I'm making myself accountable, please just help me get this in place,” and we'll speak about the practical stuff about how that's going to happen. I'm not going to do that tonight.

Can we close our eyes? Thank you, Father, that we can acknowledge that You are God, that we are dependent on You, that we are dependent on Your Spirit to live a meaningful life. We want to express, Father – and I want to express on behalf of everyone here – the desire, even for those who are living a life in the Spirit, to increase in our ability to function and live a life by the Spirit, to increase in the desire, the thirst, the hunger for Your Spirit, hunger for Your presence, to desire it, to cry out for it, and to spend time in Your Word.

Thank you, Father. Even this ability to make this decision is given to us by Your Spirit. Even the ability to commit to it is given to us by Your Spirit. Thank You for that opportunity. Thank You that we may continue to live a life by the Spirit this year on a level unlike we have ever experienced before. In the name of Jesus, amen. Amen.