Let Christ live

Thank you, Father, that You love us so much. Thank you, Father, that Your love is more real to us than anything in this earth. Thank You for reality. Thank You for taking us into that reality. Thank You for enabling us through Your Word, through Your Spirit, through fellowship, through oneness, to manifest Your presence in this earth, to manifest Your kingdom, Your reality, Your ability to make You real to so many people in this earth. Thank You, Father, that tonight is a night for activation, a night of overcoming, a night of realisation, enablement, empowerment, building on the foundation like no other.

Thank You, Holy Spirit, that You are present here, that You minister to every single person. Thank You, Father, that our hearts are open to hear Your voice, and only Your voice, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

You can grab a seat. You know that I like running around on the stage, so tonight I got a surprise when I got here that the other mic is not working, so I need to use this one. But I'm sure I'll at least be able to run five metres that way and five metres that way, so stay with me.

It's great to have you here, and I'm so expectant about tonight. What is so amazing to me, when I prayed just now and said, “Thank You, Father, for opening our hearts to only hear Your voice,” there's a grace in you showing up here. Even if I mess up, God will let you hear exactly what you need to hear.

But it means you need to listen. Listen for His voice. Lodewyk always said to us that you must hear God's voice in the person next to you. So hear God's voice, receive it and embrace it.

Even while we were worshipping now, I realised there are probably forty opportunities during a night like this where you can receive from the Lord – just somebody looking at you and you see the love in their eyes, the smile, the greeting, having coffee or tea, standing next to somebody and them sharing a word with you, touching you, embracing you, praying with you, the worship, the Word, the fellowship, the prayer.

There are so many opportunities throughout the session. I always try to encourage people to realise that even when you woke up this morning and opened your eyes, the Holy Spirit had already started ministering to you. And that's amazing, because it's that much better if what you hear now is a confirmation of what the Lord has been speaking to you about throughout the whole day. So continue to receive from where the Lord wants to minister to you tonight.

As we were worshipping, singing “Our Lord Reigns,” I realised that it's so in line with what is in my heart to share tonight: the ability to let the Lord reign from within your heart. It's fine to sing “He's reigning from Heaven above,” because we understand His positioning. But part of what is in my heart tonight is – and you know I'm a practical person – I like to lay things out in terms of where are we at, where are we going, and how do we get there.

If we are talking about God reigning, there's something we need to do to allow Him to reign in this earth. I've explained this many times before, but for those who haven't heard it, let me share the structure the Lord showed me many years ago about the sequence that enables us to provide a solution, or to provide Him, to our environment. The first one is being.

I saw a picture the Lord showed me: three pipes connected together. The first is being, the second is knowing, and the third is doing – doing, or growing; maybe I'll add that as a fourth pipe, growing.

So what is that about? Being, knowing, doing. If you start with the being part – and I'm not stepping on toes, I'm just stating it as it is – religion has done this country a lot of damage. Because if you look at the sequence of those three pipes, and you want the water of God to flow into this earth, and for you to be that instrument to allow that, you need those three pipes connected: being, knowing, doing.

If you have the doing part separated from the first two, you end up with religion. You end up with something that's dead. You are doing because you feel guilty, because you feel you will be punished, or condemned, or whatever. So you are doing, you are showing up at church, you can tick the box, you've done the right thing – but if it's not connected to the previous two, it's dead religion. There's no life in it.

But if you start with the first one, the being part, that's where we all have to start. Understand me correctly here, because I realised when my life changed thirteen years ago that all my life before that – because of my family, my great-grandparents, their love for God, their prayers for their descendants – there was a grace functioning in my life, and the Holy Spirit was working in my life even though I didn't know it and even though I didn't know Him.

So I'm not saying that grace was not present. But the being part is where we start: when you receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour in your life, and you become born again, and you become one with Him. That's the being part. Only when you start with the being part do you have the life of God inside of you. You have to start there.

Then comes the knowing part. The Word says, “The truth that you know shall make you free.” Knowledge is relevant. If you have become born again, it is sufficient for you to receive eternal life, to have eternal life, and one day to show up in heaven and be accepted there, if I can put it that way. That's the being part, because you have the life of God inside of you.

But that's not what we were created for. You were not sent into this world just to become born again. You were sent to make God a reality. It says you have been blessed – I don't want to go all the way back to Abraham, but that's where it started – “In your seed…” You are blessed to be a blessing to the nations. You have been sent to the nations.

And I say this so many times: if you just take your eyes off your own issues, your own ambitions, your own struggles, and you start realising you are here for a bigger picture – the amazing thing is that when we come to that realisation, you don't have to sort out your own life first before you can help other people. You don't have to be perfect, because He's perfect. But you need to be willing, you need to be enabled, you need to be present, to allow Him to function through you.

So the being part is understanding you're born again, the life of God inside you. The knowing part – if we don't know who we have become in Christ and why we are in this earth, you are going to show up in heaven and, like that verse says, you are going to have built with something that will be tested. It says that when we walk into heaven it will be like walking through fire, and that fire will test what we bring with us. If we are carrying a whole lot of hay, when we walk through that fire it will just disappear, it will be burnt up. It says you will go through, as one who went through fire; you will walk into heaven, you will be there, but you will have nothing to present to God, because you built with hay – the things of this earth.

So the knowing part needs to position us to say: Who am I? Why am I here? What did God create me to do? Only then does it come to the third part, the doing part, which becomes relevant.

Then, when we do, we allow – and now I'm shortcutting a lot of things, because this is just the intro; I'm taking you somewhere else – but it starts taking us into the position of John 7:38, which says, “From your innermost being will flow rivers of living water,” rivers of life-giving water. We are instruments on this earth, but what we have to offer has eternal value and eternal life, and you need to realise that.

So the being part – yes, receiving that life – is greatly significant. The knowing part – we need the Word of God, we need the Spirit, we need fellowship, we need times like this, where that knowing part, the epignosis, moves from just head knowledge into doing knowledge, into reality. When your reality becomes that, you just function from that. That doing part needs to flow out of the first two, so that the life of God can impact this earth. Otherwise it's only dead religion.

So it's important: why are we doing these things? Why do we have fellowship? Why do we spend time in the Word? Why do we pray? If you are already going to heaven, why bother? Because it's not about you anymore. It's all about Him. And the Word says He doesn't want one person to go to hell. So what does that mean? We need to do something.

But I'm not talking about the dead works the Bible speaks of, and we can't use that as a back door so that I don't do anything because “that's dead works.” No, it's not dead works. When the Spirit is in you, there is life in it. That's why Jesus, when He spoke about it, said, “From your innermost being will flow rivers of living water,” and it says He spoke about the Spirit who was going to come. So when you have the Spirit of God inside of you, you have the ability to give that life, that everlasting life.

What's always interesting to me, and I shared it recently as well, is that when Jesus spoke, and even the apostles and disciples in the New Testament spoke about the gospel, there's a different mindset we have if we realise that the gospel is the gospel of the kingdom. We can often get caught up in the methodology, the solution, the key, without realising that the key actually opens a door.

Yes, Romans 1 says the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation. It is not a theoretical thing written on a piece of paper. The power of God was made available through the gospel. But that gospel is not the end – and I'm comparing it to the being, knowing, doing. The being is not the end. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not the end. It is taking you somewhere.

Through the gospel of Jesus Christ – and this is what I want to touch on – there are so many verses in the New Testament that speak about the gospel of the kingdom. Even as I was preparing for tonight, that was so overwhelming in my heart, and I pray to God that you hear this and understand it. There is a reality. It says God is a Spirit; those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth – Alethinos. He is Spirit. There's a realm, a reality, a kingdom where God is from. That kingdom is reality.

Just quickly have this mindset: this earth where you are living is temporary. But you were created since before the creation of this earth. You have been birthed within God, and you have been destined. It says He had you in mind even since before He created the earth – in terms of eternal life, in destiny, manifesting Him and His presence in this earth, and that you will continue to live with Him forever. He had that in mind.

So where you are now, if we talk about the gospel of the kingdom, we understand nobody can come to the Father other than through Jesus Christ. It's not possible. You cannot live good enough so that your righteousness will take you into heaven. It's not possible. Only Jesus Christ – and then you receive the gift, Romans 5:17, the gift of righteousness. You receive that gift because of what Jesus did, and I'll share more about that just now.

But if you are at that place where you understand it is the gospel of the kingdom, it is a reality that exists. In this earth, we are here, whatever, eighty, ninety years, but this earth is like a drop in the ocean compared to what you have been created for and compared to the journey you will have with your Father. So this earth is short. But do we realise that you only have the time you are in this earth to lead people to Christ? That's why it's so important.

If I ask, “Why are we here? What are we doing together like this?” – one of the most important things we are doing when we come together like this tonight is, firstly, to acknowledge that every single one of us is important in the Kingdom of God. Secondly, that every single one of us has a responsibility to ensure that the person sitting next to you will fulfil what God has sent them for.

I always explain to you, because that is the conviction God gave me in my heart – hear me on this: it is impossible for you to fulfil your purpose in this earth unless you help the people around you fulfil their purpose. The same way I've explained to you, we talk so easily about loving God. The Word says, “How can you say you love Me, whom you can't see, if you can't love the one you can see?” The way we love God is to love the person next to you.

So we sometimes need to get rid of a religious mindset of just saying, “God, I love You, I tick the box, I've gone to church today, I go home.”

Before my life changed, one of the things that really didn't make me interested in Christianity was seeing the head elder who sits in front of the church on a Sunday being the same guy I saw fall over drunk in the pub the night before. Immediately you get the perception that this whole thing is fake. But that's not what Jesus died for.

You need to hear that tonight. Some of you are sitting here and you got hurt in church. Now listen, don't misunderstand me – there's nothing wrong with church if it's functioning in truth and reality, being led by the Spirit; that's great. But many of you got hurt in church. That doesn't mean that was the full answer. That doesn't mean there isn't a reality. The fact that a human being turned that pipe – took the doing out of being and knowing – and the way they interacted with you, the way they did it, maybe hurt you in that process. That doesn't mean there was life in it. That doesn't mean there was Spirit in it.

So you can't throw everything relating to Christianity under the same umbrella, label it, and say “that's what it is.” Some people prefer doing that because it makes it easy for them not to take up their responsibility.

There is somewhere that we are going. There's a reality, which is the Kingdom of God. What I have in my heart for you to receive tonight and embrace in your spirit is that we are not going to wait until one day when we are in heaven and then walk in that reality. That defies the whole purpose. You need to hear me on this.

Our purpose now is twofold: to walk in the reality that already exists, which is a different reality from this physical world, and secondly, to manifest that reality to those around us. That's why that process is important. I need to know why it is that we…

And that's why I say religion has done so much damage – maybe you are used to an environment, or you grew up in an environment, where there was no life in it. It was just tradition. It was legalistic. It was a set of rules. You were punished if you didn't do that thing, and it took the life out of it. I know of a lot of people who stopped believing because of that kind of exposure, but that is not the truth. That is not reality. Yet we have a responsibility to embrace that reality.

We cannot walk away from our responsibility: the being part, receiving the life of God inside of you. The second step is the knowing part, and that knowing part is our responsibility – spending time in the Word, spending time with the Father, spending time in fellowship, worshipping. All of that brings you to that knowing part. The knowing part is not only reading the Word, although that's the foundation, the basic, where you need to start – you need to test everything against the Word.

But there's more to it, because God wants your heart. That means you need to set aside time to just find yourself at His feet, taking away all other agendas.

We were praying last night, and we spent about three hours together here just to pray, and we are going to do that every time. We pray every time before we have a session like this – the night before we pray here. If you want to come, you are really welcome.

When we showed up, I was standing there thinking, “Okay” – because I've got a doing mindset, and I often need to get that out of the way. As I'm standing there, I'm thinking, “Okay, I'm here to pray for tomorrow night. I'm going to pray three hours for tomorrow night.” And immediately, when I said that to myself, it was like the Spirit said to me, “No, that's not why you are here. Not why you are here.”

You are here to seek the presence of the Father. First seek the Kingdom, and then everything else shall follow. He knows what He destined tonight for. You might not even grasp it that much yet tonight, but I can tell you, if you are here tonight, you are here for a reason. There is not one person here by accident tonight.

We need to learn, when we pray, to come into His presence without an agenda, not with a list: “Sort this out in my life.” Just come into that presence and say, “Father, I just want to seek Your face. I want to seek Your presence. Fill me. Flood me.”

Although I gave you that simple illustration of being, knowing, doing/growing, I put that in the context of realising that God can do through you much more than what you know. So don’t think I am putting everything under the second pipe in the middle. That’s why I say part of that is your relationship and the time you spend with the Father. What God seeks is your heart, and from your heart will flow everything in life. You will overflow.

I touched on the verse that says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and everything else shall follow.” I am talking about the fact that our gospel, yes, we know it is the gospel of Jesus Christ – it is the only way you can receive salvation – but that gospel is for a purpose. The whole mess-up that happened with Adam and Eve caused separation to take place, and then 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 explains to us that we have been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation.

So what is our purpose? Our purpose is making people one with God. I say making, enabling, allowing, leading – we need to share the gospel, and then they receive that, but that is what it is about: making people one with God. That is what we have been entrusted with. If we function in this earth, we make that a reality to every single person.

But I need to know what that reality looks like, and the thing I am continuously reminded of is: why could Jesus do the things He did? Why did He function the way He did? Because the reality He came from was just so much more of a reality than this physical world. Jesus could look at things and experience, “But it doesn’t look like this where I come from, which means I can change it.”

We are here because we need to encourage one another to finish the race. I fully understand that many of you are going through challenges, and I am not saying embrace those challenges, I am not saying tolerate them. What I am saying is: just think for a moment whether that challenge is merely training ground for you to get to where God wants you to be.

It says faith, hope and love will remain. I always ask the question, why would faith remain? Remember, there is a next dispensation that comes after this one – before we get to the final dispensation, well, there’s more than one, but I don’t want to talk about that tonight. Let me just end by saying: have a mindset that you are preparing yourself now to become familiar with the reality you will continue to function in, in a different way, in the next dispensation. So just have that mindset of what that reality looks like.

I am so much aware that when we speak about doing, somebody can immediately think, “Ugh, dead works.” But I want to position it slightly differently for you tonight. Some of you will know I have spoken about this quite a lot previously, but for some of you it may be the first time you hear this, so just embrace this with me and open your heart to understand it.

Galatians 2:20 – now this is from the King James Version. Most of you know I mostly read from the New King James, but there are one or two verses, very few – it is not as corrupt as some people try to portray it – but there are one or two verses that were just not correctly translated, and this is one of them. So this verse I will always read from the King James Version.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 2:20 (KJV)

I am going to read that again. Just embrace that.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 2:20 (KJV)

This is a core principle. We all know the verse that speaks about the manifestation of the sons of God – the whole of creation is crying out for the revealing of the sons of God. We all know Ephesians 4, which speaks about coming to a certain measure. Maybe we must read that verse, because I haven’t yet.

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

Ephesians 4:11-13 (NKJV)

Say to your neighbour, “Perspective.” We can end up with the pastor, the teacher, the evangelist, the apostle – whatever – becoming the focus and the important thing, but that was not what it was about. It’s characteristics of something bigger. Why did we receive that? For the equipping of the saints. The proper rendering of that word “equipping” is “perfecting” – you are being rendered perfect, positioned so there is nothing lacking, just like in the old days when they sent a boat out: they went through it and checked everything, and until it had everything, that boat wasn’t equipped, wasn’t perfectly rendered. This is talking about positioning you in a place where you have everything to fulfil what you’ve been called for.

For the equipping – or perfecting – of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Now we’re starting to talk perspective. Edifying of the body of Christ. We need perspective on why we are here, what we are doing, and what we are busy with, and we need to remind ourselves and help each other, because we can lose that perspective.

We are edifying the body of Christ till we come to the unity – that means oneness, oneness of the faith and of the knowledge, the epignosis knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That fullness is pleroma, that which is filled. I always see this picture: the stature of Christ, what He looks like when perfected, and something being poured into that shape. Until that shape is filled, the body of Christ has not come to perfection – and that is what we are busy with. We are growing into that.

What are we busy with? If you cut out all the detail, we are busy with edifying the body of Christ so that we can come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is not what I actually wanted to speak about tonight – if I get tied into it I’ll speak the next hour just on that, maybe another time – but I wanted you to have that perspective. We are moving somewhere.

The body of Christ needs to come into a certain position in this earth, which it is not at yet, but it is growing towards that. That’s why I said being, knowing, doing/growing – you cannot be where you were six months ago; if you are, we are missing something. We are going somewhere, and we need to edify the body of Christ. For me it’s a simple thing: whatever you are busy with, ask yourself, “Is this edifying the body?” That sounds simple, until I add: “Is this edifying the body, or myself?” Now it becomes a bit more complicated. But use that test for yourself when you are busy with something.

So if we go back to Galatians 2:20.

“I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 2:20 (KJV)

I live by the faith of the Son of God. This is a heavy topic and an important one with a lot of depth, but for those who have not heard it before, I want you to understand this: Jesus Christ exercised His faith when He gave His own life. He said, “I have the right and the ability to give My own life, and I have the right and the ability to take it up again.” The Father gave Him that right and ability. He exercised His faith, and He died, He was resurrected, He ascended.

What makes it possible for you to receive eternal life? First and foremost, this is talking about the faith of the Son of God. This might give some of you a slight shift in perspective on how important you thought your own faith was. Is my whole life determined by my faith? There is a role for faith – I’m not saying there isn’t – but if we really start talking about what is significant, I need to change my mindset and understand that what made it possible for me to receive salvation is His faith, the faith that Jesus exercised. That’s what makes it possible for you to receive salvation.

If you understand that, you will realise – let me read this verse to you, Romans 6:4.

“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.”

Romans 6:4-7 (NKJV)

We often refer to this in the context of baptism, which is fine – it does demonstrate and explain baptism – but there is something you need to realise, not just figuratively speaking: when Christ died, you were in Him. When He was resurrected, you were in Him. When He ascended, you were in Him.

So can you understand, when we talk about the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God? I realise that what made that process possible was the faith of Jesus. The fact that I believe in Jesus enables me to be – the Bible talks about being clothed with Christ – I can put myself inside of Him by accepting Him as my Saviour and my Lord. I put myself inside of Him, and at the moment when He died, I was in Him. I died with Him, I was resurrected with Him, and I ascended with Him.

So whose faith was relevant? His. It was His faith that made it possible. Yes, Romans 10 explains to us that you must believe with your heart that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for you and was resurrected. You must believe it.

“For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Romans 10:10 (NKJV)

But listen carefully. With the heart you believe unto righteousness – why? Not because of what you did, not even your faith. Hear me on this: you believe unto righteousness for one reason only, and that is because you accept that the price Jesus paid was enough. You can add nothing to the price that Jesus paid. Through that price He attained the option, the right, for you to receive righteousness, and it is your nature, your righteousness, that makes you acceptable to God – not your lifestyle.

Now I’ll touch on that, because even Paul writes about that – it doesn’t mean we just continue to sin. But understand this: you live a life based on the faith of Christ, Galatians 2:20. If it’s the first time you’ve heard this, I often speak longer on it, but just allow the Spirit to minister that to you.

If we go back to Galatians 2:20, there are a few aspects that are relevant. “I am crucified with Christ” – that’s the reality. “Nevertheless I live” – okay. “Yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” Now that’s important. Christ lives in me.

Remember, we said the gospel is the gospel of the Kingdom. Even in the New Testament, when the disciples were sent out, it says, “If the people do not accept you, then just say to them, ‘But the Kingdom came near to you.’” I thought it was a person – no, no, the Kingdom. Have this perspective: what is it that you have to offer? What is it that you represent? We are not perfect, but what we have to offer, what we represent, is the Kingdom of God, the reality of God that exists. Our responsibility is to manifest that Kingdom in this earth.

It says Jesus will return for a bride without spot, without blemish. This ties in with Ephesians 4, which speaks about coming to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. There is something we are growing towards that will allow Jesus to come back.

It says, “But Christ lives in me. The life which I now live, I live in the flesh.” So it’s acknowledging – why does it say “in the flesh”? That’s not the same context as living in the flesh versus living in the spirit. It’s in the context of: I live in a physical world. So I know I live in a physical world, but this world is temporary. My ability to change somebody’s life, my ability to offer something of eternal value, is not based on what I have to offer in the flesh.

That’s why I said to you right at the beginning: be open to hear from God, because I may be sharing seventy facts tonight, but the Holy Spirit will use the one you need to hear tonight to minister into your heart. As I’ve said many times, sometimes I teach or share, and then somebody comes to me: “When you said that, it was amazing, it changed my life,” and I think, I never said that – but okay, if that’s what you heard. That’s why we need to allow the Spirit, because it’s all about Him and what He has to say to you tonight.

It says, “But Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh” – just in the physical world – “I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” If we can truly come to that place, I believe that if you have a total conviction and revelation of this verse, it is impossible for the condemnation that Satan uses as a tool to be relevant in your life. This just destroys condemnation, because you are living this life based on the faith of the Son of God – not on whether you get it right all the time, not even on whether you have enough faith from time to time. As I said, there is a time and a place for it, but there is something that takes us into a different dimension and place of functioning when you have the conviction: Christ lives in me. Christ lives in me.

“But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of God, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

Romans 8:9-10 (NKJV)

The body is dead. Did you hear that? The body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

“And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

Romans 8:10-11 (NKJV)

You know by now that you are a spirit, because God is a Spirit. He created you as a spirit. That is who you are. That is the being that will continue to exist for eternity. You are a spirit, you have a soul, and you stay in a body. So there are three components: you are a spirit, you have a soul, and you stay in a body. Your soul is your mind, your will, your emotions, and obviously there is your physical body.

Your physical body is only needed in this earth. After this dispensation, you won't need your physical body. Your inner being – your spirit, your soul – is what will continue. I'm not going to talk about the new body now.

So now I need to start understanding: it is not a figure of speech. This life that I live by the faith of the Son of God is because He is inside of me. It was not just a once-off thing. I gained access to it by making a decision. You made a decision to accept Jesus as your Saviour and Lord of your life. When you made that decision, you entered a life form which is one with God. You entered a reality which is the Kingdom of God, and then you became an agent. The Bible talks about being an ambassador.

That is why we need to unlearn so many things, because we grew up in a physical world and we were taught all the rules of the physical world, until we became born again, until we became Spirit-filled. Then we start gaining knowledge about who Christ is, through His Word and through the Spirit, and we start realising, I'm not from here. This is a temporary dwelling place. This is where my tent is; this is not where my home is. I'm from a different place. I'm from a reality.

But I need to make that reality a reality to those around me as well. We need to use that reality to change the reality of this world. The things going on in this earth – do you think it is pleasing God? We could always go back to Isaiah and say, "Gross darkness will cover the earth," and so on. We know that, but that is not what we were called for. We were sent to be the light, to be the salvation, to be the solution – not because of our own ability, but the life we live by Him, the reality of a kingdom.

I want to say that what I'm trying to share with you tonight is a reality, as opposed to a doctrine, as opposed to a revelation. A revelation can only be a revelation of something that exists. I'm trying to let you grasp what exists. I'm not trying to share revelation with you. There is something that exists, that reality. When you accepted Jesus Christ, you became part of that reality.

Now it is like you are in a room and it is dark. You don't know – you've just been born again into this reality. But if you take the Word of God, that's why it says, "The Word is a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path." If you switch on the Word of God, it's like in this pitch-dark place you now switch on the light and you can see – oh, okay, there's a keyboard. Now I know what it looks like. Even if I switch off the light, I can still see there is a keyboard. I spoke about that in the previous session.

If you didn't hear that, go to the app, download the Alethinos app – the teachings are all in there. Listen to that one, Seeing With the Eye of the Spirit. So I switch on the Word, and it shows me what that reality looks like. We don't inherently know what that reality looks like unless we see it in the Word of God and have interaction with the Holy Spirit, and then it becomes reality to us.

That's why I say my definition of faith is only that: it is knowing what God's reality looks like and acting accordingly. It's not a hope. It's not a wish. It says, without faith it is impossible to please God. Why? The same reason it says God is looking for true worshippers – those who worship Him in spirit and in truth, not by our own ability, but by the life and the ability of the Spirit. And what is the truth? It is His reality. God is not impressed when we come with all these things and it's not consistent with His reality. What God wants is for us to know His reality, and then to function according to that reality.

That is what faith is. Faith is not wishful thinking. Faith is knowing reality and acting accordingly, because we need to make that reality a reality in this earth. And how will I do that if I don't know what that reality looks like?

This verse we had previously, in Romans 6:4-7, touches on that:

“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Romans 6:4 (NKJV)

Walk in the newness of life. There's a different way of living, but it's His life, His ability. I just need to walk in that. It moves the ability to create something of value, of significance, of reality, away from me, to explain that that which is of significance, of reality, has been there all along – because God is in that reality.

That is Him. That reality is Him. Then Christ came, and He made that reality a possibility for us to access. So my responsibility is to access that. I don't have to come up with something new. I don't have to come up with new revelation, new ability, or live in a different place I don't know how to reach. I just need to understand that reality and live from that place. And when I do, I walk in the newness of it. This whole context explains that we died with Him, we were resurrected with Him, we were ascended with Him.

It says if we were in the likeness of His death, we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection. So now we are there. But I need to switch on the light, and there are many ways to do that. One of them, the most significant, is spending time in the Word of God. There is no shortcut.

Maybe we should change our habits around this. When we greet somebody and say, "How are you doing?" and they say, "It's good," what I actually want to know is: how much time are you spending in the Word of God? I'm not talking religion. I'm not talking dead works. I'm not talking a tick list. But if somebody tells me it's going well with them and they're not spending time in the Word, that's a contradiction. Our first question to each other should really be, "How is it going with you?" – meaning, what is your relationship at the moment with your Father?

That relationship with the Father consists of time in the Word, time in worship, time in fellowship, time in prayer, time lying at His feet without an agenda, just seeking His face and His presence. If we tell each other "it's going good," we are measuring what the tent looks like, not what the home looks like. He that hath ears, let him hear.

There's something in this that spoke to me, and I want to share it. There are two components to what I'm sharing about, and one is the principle of dying to yourself. What does that look like? If we say it is Christ who is living, there's a component that speaks about dying to yourself.

What does that mean, if I say die to myself? What I experienced in my heart concerning that topic is this: immediately, when we talk about dying to yourself, don't you immediately think about all the things you need to get rid of in your life? All the sin, all these things I'm not doing – that's dying to myself. I mustn't watch television anymore. I mustn't do this. I mustn't look at that woman. That's dying to myself.

But there's no sense in dying to yourself if something else doesn't come alive. So I received this conviction that dying to yourself is not as much about what you let go as it is about what you let come alive in you. The way I die to myself is to let Christ come alive in me. The same way you can't walk into a room and fight the darkness and hope it disappears – you can't. The only way darkness disappears is if you switch on the light.

If you think dying to yourself is cutting out all these things, you're going to do that for the rest of your life. You're going to continue to die to yourself until the day Jesus comes. And to some extent, we will – but that's not the primary focus. And that's why I started with this: the life I live now, I live by the faith of the Son of God. It's His faith. The same way that verse explains, this life that I live now is Christ that's living. So dying to myself is allowing Christ to live. And then we're back to the same point.

How do I do that? How do I allow Christ to live through me if I don't know Him, if I don't know His reality, if I don't know His heart? We must get to the place where, when my heart beats, it is consistent with the heartbeat of the Father. It must just be His heartbeat, His blood flowing through me, His reality. When I close my eyes, I should see His reality. The way we look at people should be the way that He looks at them. It doesn't matter what they've done, doesn't matter whether it's the Russian or the Ukrainian, the president or the soldier.

It doesn't matter. We only have one way to look at people – it's the way that God looks at them, and Jesus died for every single person. Even if something is not close enough to home for you to get emotionally involved, we need this reality check to ask, "How do I function from the place where the Father functions?" Otherwise, how do I die to myself? I can only die to myself when Christ comes alive in me.

Now that touches on a fairly heavy topic, which I could go into in quite some depth, but I'm not going to. I believe what I want to say will be enough for you to hear and process tonight. This is when the Bible talks about crucifying Christ again. It just came up in my spirit while I was talking – coming to this conviction that dying to myself is actually letting Christ live through me, which by default means...

I didn't say that lightheartedly, to say cut out television or cut out whatever. If that's what is necessary for you to allow Christ to come alive in you, then that's what you must do. Make no mistake – some of us need to cut things out. When my life changed thirteen years ago, within six months the Lord said to me, "You can't drink alcohol anymore" – not a drop, in no form. That was something for me; it doesn't mean it's for everybody. But there are things like that in your life that you need to get rid of so that Christ can come alive in you.

So I needed to say that so I didn't get the wrong message across. But when we talk about crucifying Christ, and I know the verses in the Bible about crucifying Christ are very much focused on a particular place – now this is already taking me where I don't really want to go, but: if you are born again, is it possible for you to lose your salvation? Now we're talking heavy topics here tonight.

The reality is, it's possible. But what does it take? It's not sin. It's not even close to that. It's not until you come to a place where you physically denounce God, denounce Christ – you physically believe Christ didn't die, you physically believe God doesn't exist – that it's possible to lose your salvation. The chances are very, very small that you'll get there, with the Spirit in you, spending time in the Word, spending time in fellowship.

Even as I was preparing, it came up in my spirit that this talk of the newness of life, of being dead to sin, positions us to say – I saw a clip today speaking about the righteousness of God and living in holiness, and the fact that that is the breastplate. I realised that even though Christ paid the full price and you received salvation because of what He did, we have a responsibility.

Your righteousness is your nature. You are righteous because of your nature. But that righteousness, which is your nature, needs to transfer into righteous living, into holiness – to function in holiness. So we have a responsibility to grow into that, but not from a dead religion perspective, from a conviction. You need such an intimate relationship and conviction of who the Father is, what Christ did, the function of the Holy Spirit, the Word, that environment, that reality – such a conviction that you want to live holy.

And living in that holiness, as opposed to – it says we have died to sin. What is the problem with sin? What came up in my mind was the story of Samson. Samson is a peculiar fellow: he was sleeping around with a whole lot of women, and still the anointing functioned in his life. That was grace. But hear me on this: the problem with sin in your life is not the sin itself, it's what it can lead to, because the Word says sin leads unto death. So entertaining that sin can position you at the point where you denounce God. Even in Samson's case, God's grace continued the anointing in his life, but it destroyed Samson.

Don't think it was okay. What was the end? He was destroyed. For us it's that much more significant, in the sense that you don't want to end up in a place where you lose your salvation.

So what is the problem with sin? It's not that we walk around trying to tell each other, "Don't do that, that's wrong." It's not about that. We have not been entrusted with the ministry of judgment. We have been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation.

It's the same principle with darkness: how do you get rid of it? You switch on the light. If a brother next to you is living in sin, it is not your responsibility to keep telling him how big that sin is. It is to switch on the light so that Christ may function in him, because it only means Christ in him is not yet a big enough reality to him that thing just starts disappearing. The Bible says, "Look away." Whatever your challenge is, you need to first look away from it and then look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

There it comes again – the same principle of living by His faith. It didn't originate from you; it originated from Him. But the principle is: we turn away, we look unto Him, and our responsibility is to help one another. There are maybe things you need to get rid of in your life, and if the Holy Spirit is giving you a conviction about those things tonight, take up the responsibility.

The most amazing thing for me, functioning in an environment where there's a variety of faith communities represented here tonight, is that what changed my life when I came into a faith community was really having brothers next to me who loved me unconditionally. Not people trying to condemn me, not trying to tell me how big my sin is, but saying, "Look, you've fallen over this rock six times now. Don't you think it's enough? Don't you think you should walk that way instead? But even better, can I walk with you and we make sure we miss that rock?"

When you are here tonight, your responsibility is – and I know some of you came here because of how big the problems in your life are, and that's pretty much how my journey started too – you're going to walk out of here tonight with a conviction of how big the solution inside of you is to change the lives of those around you.

I've seen it over the last thirteen years since my life has changed: the people who grow spiritually the quickest, by far, are those who immediately look away from their own issues and say, "How can I help you?" If you want to change things in your life, forget about them – look onto somebody else's issues instead.

You might think, "You don't understand how big my problems are." I've been doing counselling for many years, and when people start to explain their whole story for an hour about how big the issue is, I often say to them, "With all due respect, I don't need to understand how big your issue is. You need to understand how big the solution is." So if somebody needs to talk, let me talk – because otherwise we're going to talk for an hour about how big your problem is, and then you go home crying, and I go home crying.

Let's rather stick to what the solution is. When we talk about crucifying Christ, I understand the context of that being about losing your salvation, but I think there's more to it. I think it's as simple as this: not allowing Christ to live in you is actually to crucify Him. Now, that sounds a bit heavy, but just process it.

We think, "Oh no, the Pharisees, they killed Him." But to not allow Him to live through you is also killing Him. You need to kill Him to allow Him not to live through you. Yes, I'm using it figuratively, but this is something that just came up in my heart about crucifying Christ - on the one hand, living by Him, through Him, by His faith, Him alive in me, versus denying Him.

Not only denying Him in His name, but denying Him the ability to live through me. And I'm trusting that as I've shared this with you, it will take a burden off you. My intention is not to place a bigger burden on you, not to cause condemnation. What I have in my heart is that you come to that place where you can have a sigh of relief, knowing that it's all about Him and all by Him, that you live by His faith and His ability, and that you have people around you who love you.

You are significant in the Kingdom of God. Maybe there's somebody sitting here tonight that you don't even like. Get over it. Go to them tonight and say, "My brother, sorry. I've been harbouring these feelings. Let's get them out of the way." We, as the body of Christ, do not have the luxury - I already told you God taught me this thirteen years ago.

I come from a different background, which is not relevant now, but it maybe took more from me than it will take from you. God taught me and showed me there are only two ways you can look at somebody: the fact that they are born again, or the fact that they need to become born again. There's no other way to look at them, and that makes it very easy. When I look at somebody, no matter what they've done, I can only say, "Christ died for you." Otherwise, we start interfering - I crucify Christ.

I had this picture when I was preparing, when the Holy Spirit kept speaking to me about this crucifying Christ thing, and I don't even fully grasp it yet. I'm not standing here saying I've got everything worked out, but I know the Spirit is working with me. The one picture I saw is that to crucify Christ, you take Him out of heaven and put Him back on the cross - because you want to go back to that point where the Son is no longer the relevant one, instead of the victory and the life that should be relevant.

I'm going to end with this verse, Colossians 2:2:

“That their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ.”

Colossians 2:2 (NKJV)

That is my prayer for you tonight, my wish, my desire, that your heart will be encouraged because it is knit together in love with those around you.

Stop believing the lie of Satan that you must sort out your own life on your own. Because if you're going to do it on your own, you are going to fail - one hundred percent guaranteed. And I know already you're sitting here thinking, "I'm already a success. Am I doing it on my own?" No, because you are measuring with the wrong ruler. Success is what God destined you for, not the things you are measuring it with at the moment.

So you're already failing if you're going to do it on your own. This is my prayer for you tonight, that you realise this was one of the most significant things that changed my life. Even though I'm functioning from that place, it's still too big for my mind to grasp - that there's Someone who loved me so much that He would do everything for me to receive salvation, and He journeyed with me and didn't want anything from me.

There are people like that sitting next to you - living only for Him, with no other agenda, willing to allow Christ to stand up in you and live through you. Trust the people around you. I'm not saying we're perfect, but we cannot journey alone. And if you fail, we all fail.

Don't disappear. Use the opportunity God has given you to function within the body of Christ. We are all one in Him. We have different gifts, we spoke about that, but all is for the edifying of the body in love. My prayer for you is that in love your heart will be knitted together. I'm praying that you can discern the love, the sincerity, the purity and the integrity in the person next to you - their willingness and their ability to help you continue unto victory. The world needs it. The Kingdom of God needs it. It is not a nice-to-have.

I thank You, Father, for this amazing time together, for this opportunity, and to once again be reminded of Your love, Your ability, to be reminded of the fact that You are God and there is none like You. We want to continue to worship You, Father. We want to worship You now and for eternity, for You are God and there is none like You.

Thank You that You have created us. We didn't create ourselves. You have put us in this place, in a time such as this, for a reason, in Your Kingdom, in Your purpose. Thank You, Father, that every single one of us is significant in Your Kingdom. Thank You that we can help one another. Thank You that our hearts can become knit together as one in love, to function from that place where we can allow Christ to stand up in us. Your ability, Your ability, Your ability, Father.

Thank You that we can die to ourselves and do that by allowing Christ to stand up in us, live through us - His faith, His love, His ability. Thank You, Father, for everyone who is present here tonight, everyone who will listen to this message. I pray, Father, that You touch them through Your Spirit, that they will take up the opportunity to use those around them to help them. Thank You that we can be transparent, that we can get rid of that which is standing in the way - our pride, our sin, our failures, our history, even our mindset that we have formed.

Thank You that You give us the mind of Christ. You renew our mind. You renew our thinking, the pathways in our brain. You allow us to speak differently, think differently, do differently. Manifest You in this earth. Thank You, Holy Spirit, that You are present here tonight to heal, to restore, to renew, to uplift, to encourage, to propel by the Word of Your power. We love You, Father.

We adore You, Holy Spirit. We thank You, Lord Jesus, for the price You paid to make it possible for us to become one with our Father, to be set free from sin and religion and death, and to live in light and love and eternity. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

I just need to make sure - since we're speaking so much about this eternal life, I cannot assume that, although tonight's topic is to a large extent a fairly heavy topic with different components that actually need a lot more time to flesh out - I want to be sure that every person here has accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour.

I'm not talking about whether you've been to church your whole life. I'm talking about whether you came to the point where you accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and as Saviour. There are two components to it. I often experience that it's easy to make Him our Saviour, because that brings salvation, but to make Him Lord means you need to die so that He may live.

So there are two components to it, and I want to be sure that every one of us here tonight has come to that conviction in our lives, that we've made the decision to make Jesus our Saviour and our Lord.

Jesus said in John 3:3:

“Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

John 3:3 (NKJV)

I already told you Romans 10:9 and 10 explain to us how we get to that:

“For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Romans 10:10 (NKJV)

I'm going to ask everybody just to close your eyes right there where you are. Just allow everyone the privacy - I'm not going to call you to the front or anything, but right there where you are, just close your eyes. Everybody, just close your eyes. If you want to make one hundred percent certain, or reconfirm and accept that Jesus is your Saviour and Lord of your life, if you want to do that tonight, just raise your hand. I'm not going to call you to the front.

I see those hands. I see those hands. The only reason you're raising your hand is to make that decision for yourself, because you need to act on it. It's for nobody else. If you want to make that decision, just raise your hand. Okay, you can drop those hands. I see a number of hands, and I'm going to ask you just to pray this after me - if all of you can, just to help also with the privacy.

Just say: Thank You, Father, that You love me so much You sent Your Son, Jesus Christ, to die for me. I accept Jesus as my Saviour and Lord of my life. I am born again. I am a new creation. Thank You, Father, that You do not leave me alone, but You send Your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, come and fill me. Come and fill my heart. Come and fill my mind. Come and fill my body. Thank You, Holy Spirit, that You stay inside of me and give me ability beyond my own. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Awesome. Awesome.