Session 1 of 6 - God's purpose on earth

It's really a privilege for me to be here tonight. It's something I've been looking forward to. Before we start, just take your right hand like this... Okay, you're not going to do an oath, don't worry! Feel on the right-hand side of your chair, just below there – there's a safety belt. Just put that on, is that okay? Have you got it on? Yes. I'm going to go at a great pace, and I heard Brenda emphatically announcing that we will not be later than nine o'clock, so that's going to be interesting. We have a lot to cover tonight, and I certainly have a lot in my heart.

Maybe speaking about that, let me quickly give you one or two pointers to help you derive more from these sessions. Let me mention two things: why I'm doing what I'm doing, and how I'm doing it. So why I'm doing what I'm doing: my life changed radically about nine years ago, into a life that I didn't know existed.

Part of what happened during that time is that God gave me a new heart, literally, and that new heart also refers to Him giving me a love for people. There are a few people here that know me from before and that will know the significance of that. And to a place where I can now say that God has filled my heart so much with love for you that I might not even know – I love you more than I actually loved people who were close to me before those nine years.

It's only God that could make that possible. Part of that, apart from changing my heart, is that God started taking me into my purpose, and for me to experience the significance of living a purposeful life as opposed to a successful life. Because in worldly terms, people could definitely describe my life as successful. I had the business, the car, the house, the holiday property, the farm, whatever, overseas holidays.

So for all intents and purposes, I had a successful life, yet it was not purposeful. And when God brought me into this, I had such an overwhelming victory in my spirit and a conviction that I just felt I wanted to share it with people. That's why I do it free of charge. There's a lady that phoned me this afternoon, because my phone number is on everything. Ninety-nine percent of the time it's practical; sometimes it has its challenges.

This lady phoned me and said, 'Okay, are you sure it's for free?' I said, 'Yes.' She said, 'Oh, okay, so it's just the first session that's free.' I said, 'No.' She said, 'Are all the sessions free?' She asked me about five or six times, 'Is it free?' She's actually a teacher, so I think she probably realises that these events don't come cheap in terms of renting this hall, the equipment and whatever else. But anyway, that is because it's in my heart to...

I turned 40 in the year that my life changed, and I just felt it's not necessary for people to wait that long. Having said that, it's a progressive journey. I am by no means trying to tell you that I've attained it, but I'm growing, and I just feel that if I share some of the things that I've experienced and that God has taught me, then it can maybe help you. I must clarify that I don't have an agenda in the sense of asking you to come and join me.

That's not my purpose. My purpose is to tell you to go. I am here to help you towards what God created you for, what He called you for, and maybe to inspire something again that you previously had in your heart but that you have left, or got discouraged about. So if I can motivate you, encourage you, inspire you, trigger something in you, and maybe even create the desire to walk in your purpose, then I've done what I needed to do.

Then the second component – now you understand why I'm doing it, here's how I'm doing it. There are two components to how I do it. Everything I say to you is based on the Word of God. Now, that might not be as simple as you think, but I'll talk about that just now, because it can be quite diverse. Secondly, it is based on the Word of God, but it is given life by the Holy Spirit.

So what does that boil down to? Truth and spirit. Can we hit the road running? Let's quickly go there. I'll take you to the scripture and then we're going to run from there. Be ready to receive.

“But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.”

John 4:23 (NKJV)

I'm using the New King James Version for most of the verses I show you. As far as I'm concerned, the most accurate translation is still the King James Version, but it's very hard for people to follow if they're not used to it. There are very few places where the New King James is not accurate, and in those cases I'll tell you, or I'll use the King James Version. So don't sit with this hang-up about which version I'm using; it's just easier for people – it's the more normal English that we speak.

This is quite significant: the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. And then it follows and says, 'For the Father is seeking such to worship Him.' Now, isn't that so significant, to understand that there is something that God desires? We think of God as this complete being that needs nothing, yet there is something that God desires. I'm not saying this is the only thing, but it's very significant that God is desiring, and He's seeking true worshippers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Which means you must understand what we are talking about. If we talk about spirit and truth, it's quite important. And I think it is as opposed to something: God is seeking worshippers to worship Him in spirit and in truth, as opposed to in religion, in habit, in doctrine, in rituals, in man-made rules.

Now, the one thing you will realise during this session is that God gave me such a love for people, but He didn't take away my boldness. So see it in context: I will still call a spade a bulldozer, okay? So we'll stick to what is truth, because I'm not here to pamper you. We're here to talk about what the truth and reality is.

And the reality is Christianity is not a religion, because religion is man-made. It was all designed about control, to control the people – a man-made set of rules: you go to this church, you must have these 40 rules, otherwise we throw you out, or whatever. And it was never meant to be. Christianity is not a religion.

So that is why this verse says God is seeking people to worship Him in spirit and in truth, not in a specific building with a specific thing hanging in front, with a specific structure, with the Ten Commandments that are read out on a Sunday, and whatever. God is seeking people to worship Him in spirit and in truth, so we must understand that. And I must quickly speak about both aspects.

Let me read verse 24, and I'll come back to it. It says in verse 23, 'For the Father is seeking such to worship Him.' Then it says:

“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 4:24 (NKJV)

He's repeating it. It shows you the importance of that particular scripture. Again it says, 'God is Spirit.' So that is telling you something.

Now, can I quickly give you a side note tip? I don't expect you to understand this yet necessarily, but as we continue, I'm sure you will understand it more and more. If I am not here, and what I'm giving you is not the Word of God and the Spirit of God, then I'm wasting your time. That means the Spirit of God is not put in a box. Sometimes I prepare to say something, and then the Holy Spirit will show me something different to say.

I don't expect you to understand this, but when I pray for these sessions – and I can assure you there are many hours and days of prayer that go into this to make sure that every person God wants to be here is here – when I pray, God will even show me the face of a person and where they will be seated in this place, and I don't even know them. Why? Because He loves you so much.

There is something that He specifically wants to put into your heart, or that He wants me to put into your hearts. The reason I'm saying that to you is that there might be times – and I just realised that now, that's why I'm saying this, I didn't plan on it – there are times that I might get quiet for a few seconds. Don't think it's because I don't know what to say; it's because I'm listening to something the Holy Spirit is showing me or telling me to say.

And the tip I want to give you is: don't get distracted. Tap into what the Holy Spirit wants to do in that moment. Let's quickly do this. Can I ask everybody to close their eyes? Just close your eyes. Take a deep breath, and blow it out. Take a deep breath. Another one. Deep breath, just blow it out. Just relax.

That's fine, you can open your eyes. God wants you to worship Him in spirit and in truth. God started ministering to you before you came here; He already started preparing you. Some of the things I'll say tonight will not be a surprise to you, because the Holy Spirit may even have spoken to you about that last night.

So, coming back to God is a Spirit: He wants you to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Part of what I will be doing is breaking down some religious thoughts, habits and traditions, because this country of ours, this beloved country, and the beloved people of this beloved country, are very much stuck in religion where there is no life in it. There's no life in religion. The life is in the spirit. So I will be telling you a lot of things in terms of that.

Can I have Romans 12:2?

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Romans 12:2 (NKJV)

Let me read that again. Listen to what it's saying: 'Do not be conformed to this world.' So firstly – and this is now a verse for Christians, okay – it's saying, don't be conformed to this world. So if you are a Christian, you shouldn't look the same as the rest of the people in this world, okay?

Secondly, 'but be transformed.' He says, basically the same thing as in the first part: there is something that must change, that must look different. When you were still in the world, you were not a Christian, and now you are a Christian, things should look different. So it says you must be transformed – metamorphosed, that's the word actually used there. What is it saying? Transformed how? By the renewing of your mind.

You will see on many of the posters in terms of what we advertise: what's God's responsibility and what's my responsibility? Because religion has had us held in captivity by not really telling us what our responsibility is versus what God's responsibility is. So it was just easy for us to say, 'God, we don't know, we don't understand, You are God.' And I sit back and say, 'You know, God, You must come and do something about this.' Now, I don't have enough time to speak too much about that concept tonight.

We'll probably get to it in one of the other sessions. But it's important to understand that God has done everything He needed to do. It is now up to you. You have a responsibility, and God has made it available. What did He say here? He did not say, 'I'm going to come and transform your life.' He said, 'How will your life transform? By the renewing of your mind.' Why is that so important? And this is now a sidetrack, I didn't plan on sharing this: the reality is that if you are not going to change the way you think, you are not going to change the way you do. If you don't change the way you do, you are not going to see different results in your life.

So don't think you're just going to wait and pray and cry, and God is just going to come and change things. There's a way that God functions. Even in the Old Testament, in Psalms, it speaks and says He showed the people His acts, but to Moses He showed His ways. So the people just saw, 'Here's water, here's food, there's that,' and they would say, 'God, please,' and then God would give. But not so with Moses.

Moses started understanding the ways of God, and he could respond accordingly, and that's why his life was different, and that's why God walked with him in a different way than with any of the other people. So you must understand there's a responsibility. If you want to maximise what you are going to receive out of these sessions, you need to say to yourself that you are willing to change some of the thoughts that have been embedded in your mind for the last 35 years. You need to be willing to change it.

So don't wait for God to do something – take up the responsibility to renew your mind. Now, there's a whole lot of things relating to that, but I'm not going to spend time on that tonight. The Bible talks about how we have the mind of Christ, et cetera, but not tonight. 'That you may prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.' It doesn't say that God will come and manifest His perfect will in your life. He doesn't say that. He says: renew your mind to align with the way that God thinks, and the way He thinks about you, and when you are willing to think that way, then God can actually start working through you and manifest the things He wants to manifest in your life.

It's your responsibility, not God's responsibility.

So now I'm going to come back – this was just a sidetrack. I'm going to come back to what we are speaking about: worshipping God in spirit and in truth. Now, we need to understand a few things. Let me actually throw it all together. It says God is a Spirit. We need to understand that God pre-existed the physical world – He existed before He created the physical world, and God is a Spirit. So something we must accept is that the spiritual realm pre-existed the physical realm, and with that, the spiritual realm is the more superior realm, because the physical realm flowed out of it.

So there are two things: there's a spiritual realm, there's a physical realm, and all of us live in both realms at the same time. You live in the physical as well as the spiritual realm. Now, most of us – and I'm generalising – didn't grow up with much sensitivity to the spiritual realm. We didn't. You only know the physical realm, and you only know that if you do a physical thing, these are the results. We were not taught much about the spiritual realities and the spiritual realm.

But now God says He wants us to worship Him in spirit and in truth, and it continues and says, because He is a Spirit. We need to understand that He pre-existed the physical world, and the spiritual realm is the realm with the authority, and it is superior. So if we start understanding that God says we must worship Him in truth and in spirit... Now, what is truth? I want you to really hear what I'm saying to you now: truth is the spiritual realm.

Truth is reality. The Greek word that's used for truth is aletheios. Aletheios – it is that which is real, that which exists. The spiritual realm is real, it exists, and it is superior to the physical realm. So when God says we must worship Him in truth, which is reality, reality that exists, He's talking about worship according to the reality that He is, and that exists in the spiritual realm. So if God says, 'I want you to worship Me according to truth,' that is according to reality.

Another side note: when we talk about faith in the Word of God, faith is not hoping that God will come and do something. That is not faith. Faith is acting based on reality – that's all it is. Faith is not, as we say in physical terms, a leap in the dark. It's not that. That kind of faith will never work for you. Faith is one thing and one thing only, and that is acting based on reality. But that means we need to know what God is, who God is, what the spiritual realm is, and what the laws are in the spiritual realm, because they are superior to the physical realm.

We know all the physical laws. If I take this thing, we know there is a law called gravity. So if I drop it, who of you thinks it's going to go up? Nobody. So when I drop it, it goes down. Now you need to understand that God illustrates things in the spiritual realm to us in the physical realm, because the way that God created the physical realm stems from realities that exist in the spiritual realm. It was not something totally independent and disconnected from the spiritual realm.

He took realities in the spiritual realm and created and manifested them in the physical realm in a certain way. That is why there are laws in the physical realm and laws in the spiritual realm. I am mainly talking now about spiritual realities and spiritual laws, but I need to explain it to you in a way consistent with the physical realities. If you don't like gravity, does it mean it is going to work differently for you? No. Walk off a seventh-floor balcony and see. Whether you agree with it or not, like it or not, understand it or not, gravity always works.

It just works because it is a law, and we come to accept it as a law. But gravity can sometimes work for you and sometimes against you. If I walk off the seventh-floor balcony, gravity works against me. Where I'm standing now, gravity is working for me because I'm not all over the place – maybe in terms of what I'm saying, but not physically.

So if physical laws are that sure, and the spiritual realm is the superior realm, how much more sure are spiritual laws? But we need to know it, and that is the reality, and that is faith. Faith is nothing else than spiritual laws. As sure as that thing works, so surely will spiritual laws work. But if we don't know it, it doesn't help – we just walk on in ignorance. Even in the Old Testament, God said, "My people perish due to lack of knowledge." Not because I don't help them – lack of knowledge. So we need to gain knowledge from the Word of God, and that's why it's important. You need to be willing to renew your mind and get your mind to be consistent with the Word of God.

When we talk about truth, that is reality. When we talk about spirit, that is the part that gives life. The Bible is full of verses that say it is the spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing. The life is in the spirit, not in the word – talking about the physical word. So it is the spirit that gives life, and that is why God says, "Don't think..." – and this is a word for many of you sitting here. I saw some of the questions you asked and some of your concerns. Many of you want to walk in your purpose and think it is dependent on your own ability. It doesn't work that way.

What God needs is your heart. When the Bible talks about your heart, it is talking about your spirit. God needs the condition of your heart. God needs you to focus on Him. You need to turn to Him, like Moses had to turn to the burning bush, and then God could start speaking to him. There comes a point where you need to turn – turn your heart, be focused on God – and then you will start receiving in your spirit. Then God will start speaking to you.

And then, through His ability, you can bring life into what you are doing. Maybe the physical thing you are doing will not even change, but through the spirit you will put life into it. That is why God says, "Worship Me in spirit and in truth" – which means reality, and my ability to give life to your reality.

So for you to understand your purpose, you need to know what God had in mind. This is very important; this goes to the core of what we are going to talk about. You need to understand what did God have in mind. In actual fact, you need to know the three – God is a Trinity, so you need to understand all three parts.

You need to understand what did God do and what is He doing. You need to understand what did Jesus do and what is He doing. You need to understand what did the Holy Spirit do and what is He doing. You need to understand all three of those, and if you don't understand it, I will respectfully say you will never walk in your purpose. It's not possible. So I'm going to start with God the Father, and some of the things I say now might sound very simple, but again, allow the Holy Spirit to minister to you to truly understand, because the risk that we have with religion...

I didn't plan to tell this old joke, but I have to tell it in this context. The problem with religion is it's not neutral. We can say we understand religion and we are against it, and that's fine, but here's the problem. If you have a friend who is good with his hands, and he builds a car in his garage from all sorts of scrap parts, and when he's finished he goes to the scrapyard, gets a nice Porsche badge, and puts it on the car.

He phones you and says, "Let's take a spin with my car." You get there and say, "Wow, this is amazing." He says, "Yeah, it's a Porsche." You get in, drive halfway round the block, and the Porsche falls apart. You have a bad experience and walk home. Five years later, a colleague at work gets very excited, comes into your office and says, "I bought a Porsche – you want to take a spin with me?" You say, "What? Are you crazy? I'm not walking home again."

What was the problem? The fake Porsche prevented you from experiencing the benefits of the real Porsche. That's the big problem with religion, because religion doesn't have answers. People stuck in religion have all these repeated questions: why did my child of four years die? Why did God not do something about it? Because they never get an answer in religion. They ask, "Why did I have to get divorced? Where was God when I got divorced?" – because there's never an answer in religion. The churches that are in religion are running empty because people are sick and tired of it, realising there's no answer in it. But the problem is, people experience that religion and think that is all there is to Christianity, and it makes them miss out on the real Christianity.

When I talk about these things, maybe you've heard it before, but maybe you need to wipe your mind and say, "Holy Spirit, come and instil new truths into my mind tonight." Because the problem with your mind is that the life is in your spirit and your ability is in your spirit, but you need to get through your mind. That is why God says to you in Romans 12:2:

“Do not be conformed, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Romans 12:2 (NKJV)

Because God cannot get to your spirit unless your mind agrees. So when there is a particular topic that religion has not been able to give proper answers to, don't just accept that as the complete solution and all the answers available. I'll explain a bit more about that, but what I am saying is: make sure you have a renewed mind when you hear these things.

So I'm going to tell you what God did right from the beginning, and what God wanted to do. It sounds very simple: God wanted to establish Himself in this earth. God found this earth in a certain form of existence. It doesn't matter now – let's not get into the technicalities of what the world looked like before that. Let's talk about where we start from Genesis 1; let's not go into useless discussions. So God came, and that was the way He found the world. But God had something in mind: to turn that which was dark, where there was no life, into something He could associate with Himself.

He wanted to turn it into beauty, He wanted to turn it into life, and He wanted to put Himself into that thing and establish and recreate Himself in that environment. So God had something in mind with earth. That's critical for you. I'll explain it in a lot more detail, but it's critical when you want to start talking about your purpose. Let's go back right to the beginning and see what God had in mind: He wanted to establish Himself in earth, He wanted to have dominion in earth.

He wanted to replicate or procreate Himself into this world. If you understand that this is what God had in mind, it starts shaping how you understand and get perspective. He didn't just want to fill the earth – you must understand that. He didn't just want to beautify the earth. He wanted to fill the earth with His presence. That's critical. You need to grab hold of that statement: He wanted to fill the earth with His presence.

By the way, just a side note – I'm not going to go into debates about this – there are no other terrestrial life forms out there on other planets. Why can I easily say that? Because God created earth and He created man, and ultimately He sent Christ Jesus as the solution, and Jesus Christ died. He could only die once. If you understand the legalities of what Jesus came to do, He could only die once, and He died on earth for human beings. So don't get misled by all that other stuff – that's just a side remark.

Now let me show you Genesis 1. We're literally going right to Genesis 1. You need to be very awake to pick this up.

“Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness..."”

Genesis 1:26 (NKJV)

Let's just quickly stop there. So what did God have in mind? God wanted to put Himself, a form of Himself, into this earth. He wanted to procreate, recreate, put His life into this earth and beautify it with that. So the way God decided to do it was to make a physical human being and put His life in that being, and allow that being to recreate God in this earth.

“...Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 1:26 (NKJV)

That was God's desire. He wanted to recreate Himself in earth, but He wanted there to be dominion. Now listen, verse 27:

“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Genesis 1:27 (NKJV)

God created. He created man in His own image. Tonight, to a large extent, it's like digging for gold. I'm going to put stakes in and stake out this claim – we're going to dig for gold, but I can't dig for all the gold tonight, so I'll just stake the claim by putting pegs in, and then we'll work from there. Otherwise I'm never going to finish before 9:00.

“Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

Genesis 1:31 (NKJV)

How many days? The sixth day. So on which day did He create man and woman? On the sixth day. Interesting.

Let's continue. Genesis 2, from verse 1:

“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown.”

Genesis 2:1-5 (NKJV)

Say with me: for. He is explaining why.

“For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.”

Genesis 2:5 (NKJV)

Wait – you didn't get that. We just read that on the sixth day God created man. Now we read on the seventh day, and He says there was no man to till the ground. Somebody who has played a significant role in my life always says, "There's no points for speed reading the Bible." He created man on the sixth day, yet on the seventh day there was no man to till the ground. You thought you've read Genesis before – no points for speed reading.

“But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

Genesis 2:6-7 (NKJV)

What's going on here? He just created them on the sixth day. Then on the seventh day He says there's no man to till the ground. Then after that He forms man from the dust. Interesting. Now, I don't want to get too technical, but if you look at the Hebrew words, they are different words – the concepts are different. In verse 27 it says God created man, and specifically that He created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them. But here in verse 7, it says God formed man. That's a different Hebrew word altogether, meaning to put together, to form – like He did from the dust.

Now you need to understand what happened here. On the sixth day, God created man in His image and likeness, and what is God? God is a Spirit. So He created man as a spirit. And where was man when He created him? Inside Him. The same way that you read in John that Jesus, or the Word, was in God, was with God – the same way, God created man firstly as a spirit, because God is a spirit. So He created them spiritually.

Follow with me: He created them as a spirit in the spiritual realm, but earth God created as a physical realm. So He created them on the sixth day as a spirit; it was still inside of Him. Can I go this deep? The reason He says "He created man and woman," but when He formed from the dust, He formed man, is because when God created man and woman, He created Adam inside of Him as a spirit, and the same way that Adam was in God, Eve was in Adam.

Okay, I'll just park that there for those who want to grab it. So here in verse seven, He formed man from the dust. So what happened? He created man on the sixth day as a spirit. The spirit was inside of him. Then He created the physical realm. Now man is still a spirit, he's still in the spiritual realm, but God wants to duplicate, recreate Himself in the physical realm. So He goes into the physical realm, He takes some of the dust of the physical realm, He creates man as a physical being, and when that being is ready as a physical being, it says, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

Not oxygen. The spirit that He created inside of him, He breathed into, He transferred into this physical human being that He formed from the dust, and man became a living being in the physical realm. He was already a spirit in the spiritual realm inside God, but then God put him inside of a physical being.

Now I'm going to emphasize this again. It sounds like grade one, well, not really, because you look very surprised about the fact that there were two creations, or one creation and one formation, which are different words. But the reality is to get to the point of understanding what God wanted to do. Who He is, His nature, His ability, He wanted replicated in the earth. We're still talking about your purpose.

You need to understand, as far as your purpose is concerned, what God wanted to do right there has not changed. It has not changed, because we are talking about what God did and what He is doing, and probably what He wants to do. That too is probably the same. God still wants to do exactly the same thing. So when we talk about your purpose, you need to understand: what does God want to do? He wants to manifest Himself in this world. His intention right from the beginning was to have something like Him, an extension of Him, function in this earth and create dominion. It hasn't changed. The way had to change, but the purpose that God had has not changed.

And I must admit, I respectfully say, the average Christian has never realised that. If you only get that from tonight, it must make a difference in understanding, because most of the things Christians blame God for are things that Satan caused in their life, but they've got no idea who God is, what His nature is, and how He functions.

My people perish due to lack of knowledge, and Satan is laughing this much because people keep blaming God for things that Satan did. You need to understand who God is, what His nature is. God cannot act inconsistent with His nature, and His nature is love. But we'll get to that on another stage. Understanding what God wanted to do on earth goes to the core of your existence and your purpose. You need to understand that. But it's got implications for us.

When we talk about that – when God had the intention to say He's going to manifest Himself in this earth, He wants His presence in this earth, He wants to duplicate Himself in this earth, He wants it to come to dominion – we must understand there is something that the presence of God causes.

When Moses had to take the people out and God sent him, he said, "They've got so many gods. Who am I going to say sent me? Because it's not going to impress him – he's got hundreds of gods. Now I say, here's another one." And he said, "Who must I say sent me?" What did God say? "I am." That's it. In this case God did not say, the God that did that and did that, and the God that can do this and can do this. No, He just said, "I am," because who He is is enough.

We often think about God the way we think about a human being. God is not a human being; we can't put Him in a box like that. His presence, His ability, who He is, is enough. And when that presence of God is there, it causes things to happen. You need to understand that. If you look even in the Old Testament, at Israel, when God was with them, what did their lives look like?

There was an atmosphere that was created, that they carried with them. That atmosphere was the presence of God. And what happened in that atmosphere? The Bible tells us they did not get sick. Not even the old ladies were weak – they were strong. Their clothes didn't wear out. Their shoes didn't get too small. Why was that? The presence and the atmosphere of God.

Now, God wanted to put that inside a physical being into this earth, and that presence was meant to have effect in this earth. It was not a theoretical exercise. It was meant to have the same kind of results He demonstrated at different places in the Old Testament, like the one I just shared with you. There are some things that cannot exist in the presence of God. Whatever is not from God, whatever is not love, whatever is not beauty, whatever is not joy, whatever is not peace, it cannot exist.

Sin cannot exist in the presence of God. That's where the whole thing went wrong, because God created Adam and Eve – remember, He says they walked with Him in the garden. They had the same life form, yet it was in a physical being, but they walked with Him because they had the same nature, the same likeness, the same image – but that was in the spirit. The spirit had exactly the same image and likeness and ability as God, and it was put into a physical being. It wasn't referring to the physical being, because God was never a physical being.

So the image and likeness was referring to His spirit, but He put it inside the physical being. That was God's intention: that they would create that atmosphere and have the same kind of impact. But because of the sin they committed – and I'm not going to go into much detail here – what actually happened? God cannot be part of sin.

Because God cannot be part of sin, He had to separate Adam and Eve from Himself. Now, God's instruction was, "Do not eat of this tree. If you do, what will happen? You will surely die." So they ate of the fruit of that tree, and what happened? Did they fall down dead? No, they didn't. So what was God referring to?

Spirit. He was referring to the spirit. So what was spiritual death? Spiritual death is separation from God. They were one. Because of sin, there was spiritual death, which was separation from God.

Now that goes into – I was speaking about what was God's intention, what did He do, what does He want to do? Now that takes us into Jesus. What is the reason Jesus came to earth? Firstly, the reason Jesus came to earth was because of that problem. God's plan and intention hasn't changed – it still hasn't changed. But plan A didn't work. So He had to go for – I don't even want to say plan B, because it's the last plan. Adam was the first Adam, and then Jesus was the last Adam. It was the last plan, the only plan. But the purpose of that plan still hasn't changed. The purpose still hasn't changed.

So the initial reason Jesus had to come was because the plan God had, to procreate Himself into the earth, didn't work. What happened? That spirit man, made in His image and His likeness, that He put inside man – and the whole Bible is based on the principle of seed. Everything is based on the principle of seed. So the way God creates things is with the ability to recreate. God created the physical being with the ability to recreate, with the intention of recreating Himself spiritually into the earth.

So what happened? Separation took place, which is spiritual death – the spirit that was once one with God was separated. And what happened was that the physical being on earth kept on recreating, but without the life in it that God intended to replicate and fill the earth with, and create that atmosphere where His presence is felt and known, and the results of that presence experienced.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Romans 3:23 (NKJV)

That's not you doing something wrong that we call sin – this is referring to the nature. All of us who are descendants of Adam and Eve are physically born into this world spiritually separated from God. You are spiritually dead into this world, and that is why Jesus had to come. That is the first thing. There are seven things I want to tell you about what Jesus did, but let's see how it goes. Let's just focus on this one for now.

People will often ask, "But didn't God know that Adam and Eve were going to sin? If He knew that, why didn't He leave it, or why didn't He do different?" You can ask Him one day when you see Him. But apart from that, the answer is fairly simple. God created man in His image and likeness, and the core image and likeness and nature of God is love.

So God had to create man with an image and nature of love. God created man to love man and to be loved by man, and the only way that would be possible is if He gave man the option to choose, otherwise He would have created robots. But He created people with the ability to choose. You need to hear what I'm saying: God created you with the ability to choose.

Not everything that happens in your life is God's will. Forget about that religious doctrine that keeps saying to you, "Everything in your life is God's will, God makes bad things happen in your life so He can teach you something." I'm sure it cannot even make sense to people when they talk about sickness and the whole debate about whether God wants people to be sick. There is no example – given that there are two radically different realms we're talking about, Old Testament and New Testament – there's not an example in the New Testament of God making people sick.

When I started out, I said to you that what I say to you is based on the Word of God. I don't have my own opinion. If I can't substantiate to you what I'm saying from the Word of God, then there's no interest in saying it. So what I'm saying to you is based on the Word of God. But you should also renew your mind: when we talk about truth and reality – we spoke about truth earlier – the thing about truth is that it exists. It is there. It is not dependent on perception or on experience.

So if you say, "I don't think that way, I don't agree," or whatever, it doesn't change reality. If your experience has been that you prayed to God once when your nephew was ill, and the nephew still died, and now you're still asking why God didn't show up and heal your nephew, you cannot continue to ask questions that are obviously not consistent with the Word of God. You need to go to the Word of God, and God will give you the answer.

When we talk about the nature of God, and you look in the New Testament, show me where God killed people. And please don't mail me about Ananias and Sapphira – that's a different story, and maybe the presence of God withdrew, but it doesn't say God killed them; it's not explicitly written there that He killed them. But if we park that controversial topic there, there's no example of God killing people or making people sick. And I stand amazed by people who say, "God is trying to teach me something with this sickness." Really? So why do you go to the doctor then? Why do you take medicine? If God is trying to teach you something through that sickness, then stay home and suffer properly so God can get the job done. It's ridiculous, but that is what people believe.

People will stand next to a grave and someone will say, "Oh, God came and He picked one of His beautiful flowers," and we all think it's so nice what he's saying. It's nonsense. Where is it in the Word of God? When my life changed nine years ago, the first thing God showed me was all the things that are in the church that is not in the Word of God. And then He showed me the things that are in the Word of God that should be in the church but are not there. You need to renew your minds. God is not based on your perception, your experience, or what you have seen happen around you. You need to go to the Word of God and define God's nature and what He wants to do.

So when we talk about what Jesus had to come and do – now you already realise, and I'll explain it to you like this: God created you as a spirit. You are a spirit, you have a soul, and you stay in a body. So there are three components. You are a spirit because God is a spirit and He created you in His image. That's who you are – He created you as a spirit. You have a soul, which is your mind, your will and your emotions, and then you stay in a body.

The only reason you need the body is to physically function in the physical realm. You cannot function in the physical realm without your body. So this nonsense about forefathers that come and speak to you – it's demons. There's no such thing. You cannot function in the physical realm without a physical body. So you are a spirit – say with me, I am a spirit, I am a spirit. I have a soul, I have a soul. And I stay in a body, I stay in a body.

We know what God's intention was. That was messed up, so God had to provide a different solution in order to achieve what He wanted.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”

2 Corinthians 5:17-19 (NKJV)

Isn't that amazing? The original thing that God wanted was us being one with Him, one in the sense that we can replicate Him into this world. Because all that was messed up, God worked out a different plan to be able to achieve that. He sent Jesus. That's why Jesus said, "I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life." Does that sound familiar? I am the way, I am the truth, which means reality, the superior reality. I am life – that is spirit.

The only way God could fix the problem that went wrong originally, to make us one with Him again, was to send Jesus Christ. When you accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour and Lord of your life, you become what the Bible terms born again. You receive that life form of God again inside of you, and you are again one with God, the same way that was the original intention.

Now that has got significant implications, and we'll see to what extent we can talk about that – we might not tonight be able to speak about it all. But when you ask the average Christian, "What did Jesus come to do for you?" the answer is, "He paid for your sins." But the reality of what Jesus came to do is that He came to make you one with the Father. It emphasises this so many times. It says in verse 18, "Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself." I cannot say I'm reconciled with my brother unless I was at some stage with him and got separated. So I am getting reconciled with the Father because I was once one with Him.

This is maybe very high level, but I can show you some scriptures on the fact that the Bible says you existed in God before the creation of the earth. You were, at that stage, even inside God, because you were in Adam and Eve when He created that life form. So you were in God already at that stage. Because of the separation, Jesus came. When you accept Jesus as your Saviour, you become born again, you receive that life form of God again, and you are reconciled.

“Who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (NKJV)

What is your purpose on earth? To make people one with God again. Did you get that? To make people one with God again. That's where we start. That's not the end — there are meant to be implications because of it — but where you start is that people need to be one with God again.

It doesn't matter what your nature was — the spiritual death, the separation. God is saying He is giving you a new nature, one with Him. And He has committed to us the word of reconciliation, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to give people the opportunity to become one with God again. That's where we start. From there we start talking about what our purpose is subsequent to that.

Maybe it's apt that I ask: can you understand why Christianity is not a religion? The only thing — listen to me very carefully — the only thing that makes you a Christian is the life form of God inside of you.

That's it. It doesn't matter if you go to church or not — that one was still easy. This one is slightly more difficult: it doesn't matter if you are sinning or not, it doesn't matter if you are praying or not. That's not the factor that determines whether you are a Christian, and it's still fairly soft to say it that way. It's a bit bolder to say it's not the thing that determines whether you go to heaven or hell. You can never in your life pray, and still go to heaven. You can be in church every Sunday, and you can still go to hell.

Because the distinguishing factor is not — figuratively speaking, please — when you get to the gates of heaven, they don't look at a book and say, 'Ooh, no, no, no, no, this looks bad, that way please, that way.' No. They look at you, and they look at your life form. Listen to me carefully: if they see God inside of you, they know you belong here. If they don't see God inside of you, they know you belong there. It's the only factor.

That is why Christianity is not a religion. Christianity is a life form, and that is the life form of God inside of you, which was the original plan. The Word explains to us how we receive that life form, and I want to quickly share that with you, because I'm sure some of you haven't received that life form before and want to do so.

Jesus said in John 3 — let's go from verse one.

“There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, 'Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.' Jesus answered and said to him, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'”

John 3:1-3 (NKJV)

There is some real gold there that we'll dive into at other sessions, but for now we'll just take it as it is. You know that there are truths and there are higher truths, and you need to understand that. A higher truth doesn't mean that a truth doesn't have value, but you can function in a truth, and God doesn't want us to remain babies all the time.

So the truth is fine when you start out. It's like a physical baby — there are things a physical baby can do that nobody will frown about. If they're wearing nappies and they soil them, that's fine, because they're a baby. If you go to work in nappies and soil them, they're going to lock you up very deep. There are things that are fine for a baby spiritually that are not acceptable when you grow up, but it is still a truth.

That's why one verse I can explain to you on this level, which is the truth, and it's fine. But then in another session I'll explain a different meaning of that verse, because we're moving to a higher truth. It's like it says in Galatians 4 as well: the heir, for as long as he is a child, is no different from the slave. You might have inherited everything in Christ, but because you don't know it, you are spiritually a babe. Your life doesn't yet look like Romans 12:2, which says, 'Do not be conformed to this world.' It doesn't look like it yet — that doesn't mean you don't have the ability, it just means you are not yet on that spiritually mature level. So for now I'll cover it on this level.

So it says, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' Just in case they didn't understand it, he continues to explain it in the next verse.

“Nicodemus said to Him, 'How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?' Jesus answered, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.'”

John 3:4-6 (NKJV)

So, born of water — that's physical birth. When a woman's water breaks, that's physical birth. So you have to be a human being; you can't get born again if you're not a human being. So you have to be a physical human being first. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. So when you get born again, it is your spirit that again receives the life form of God, but nothing changes in the physical — well, strictly theoretically speaking. In actual fact a lot changes, but just speaking off-hand.

So how do you actually become born again? Romans 10:9-10 explains it.

“If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Romans 10:9-10 (NKJV)

Nobody can do it for you. You need to believe in your heart that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for you and was resurrected. And believing it is not enough — the Bible in James even says to us that the devils believe there is a God. That doesn't make them born again. Believing there is a God is not enough. Believing there is a Jesus is not enough. Going to church is not enough. Living a good life is not enough. Jesus said,

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

John 14:6 (NKJV)

He said in John 3:3, 'Unless you are born again, you will not see the kingdom of God.' There is no other way. You need to receive that life form.

I'm going to give two minutes now before I continue. I want to give everybody the opportunity — I'm not going to call you to the front, I'm going to ask everybody to close their eyes, and we'll allow everybody privacy. So just close your eyes for the next two minutes. I want to ask you: if you have not done this before, or you are not sure, and you have a conviction that you want to become born again, if you have a conviction that you want to make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, just raise your hand now.

I see those hands. I see all those hands. Raise your hand high — it's a statement you are making, not only in the physical, but also in the spiritual. That's awesome. Just drop your hands. There are many hands. For the sake of privacy, I'm going to ask all of you to pray this with me — even if you are already born again, it doesn't matter, it will not affect anything, you can pray it again. But it allows the people around you the freedom to also pray.

So the prayer went like this: '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 — You sent Your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, come and fill me. Come and fill my spirit, come and fill my body, come and fill my mind. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for supernatural ability, in the name of Jesus. Amen.'

It's always too big for my mind that we, in this earth, can present somebody with the opportunity to become one with the Creator of heaven and earth. It's too big for my mind, and I thank God for the opportunity. That is the ministry of reconciliation. If you prayed this for the first time and you have questions, please send me a mail — we can give you some more information. If you became born again, that is only the start. Now we actually start. And now I want to explain to you what Jesus came to do on earth.

I want to quickly divide it into three aspects: what did Jesus the man come and do, what did Jesus Christ come and do, and what did Christ Jesus come and do? Because those are three different things. I'm not getting to the seven things yet — we'll get to that. I'm just talking in terms of these categories, but this is the core.

Now is the time to really listen, because this relates so much to the dispensation that we are in. I've explained to you the three differences so that you can note, in terms of the terminology and words used in the Bible, that when it talks about Jesus, or Jesus of Nazareth, it is not the same as when it talks about Jesus Christ. It's not the same as when it talks about Christ Jesus. It's not the same as when it talks about Christ, which is often the same principle as Christ Jesus. Often you can't go on the exact word that is used — you need to look at the context and the intention of what is said. But you need to understand that it is different, and I'm going to illustrate that to you.

“How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.”

Acts 10:38 (NKJV)

Who of you gets excited about this verse? You know what excites me about it? How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth. What does that mean? The man, the human being. Forget about the concept now of the fact that there are two other categories which Jesus specifically came for — forget about those two categories. This category here, right now, must at least be applicable to you.

This is talking about Jesus, the physical man. Say with me, whatever your name is: 'This is talking about me, the physical man.' So it says, how God anointed Jesus, the physical man, the human being, exactly the same as other human beings around him, with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all.

Now we want to argue: is healing for everybody? Is it God's intention? Why doesn't everybody get healed? I'll explain something about that, if you are ready for it. Who of you is ready for a bit of higher stuff? Tonight I want to change gears faster. Doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. Firstly, it was healing all. Secondly, it's saying that those who were sick were oppressed by the devil. Can you see why your opinions, your perceptions, and even your experience — you can't say, 'But it physically happened to me,' and think that means it's reality? Because there is a reality, and this physical world is not our reality. There are reasons that things look the way they do, and I'm hoping I'll get to it tonight. I can see I don't have a lot of time for what I still want to cover, but if we change gears, we can maybe get to everything.

So — doing good, healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. That is the physical man. He did all of this as a man, not as Christ. There's no place to hide for you. He was functioning as a man — although he was functioning as a man with awareness, functioning as a man with a relationship. You will require that too: awareness of who you are and the life in you, and it will stem from a relationship that you have with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit.

I want to quickly get through the other things. That was Jesus the man. Then the function of Jesus Christ — I'm going to cut this short because I want to get to other things as well, although this is critical; the core point you will understand. This is the sacrifice on the cross that needed to pay for your sins, based on the principles in the Old Testament. It was explained to us in the Old Testament that they had to bring these sacrifices, the blood sacrifices, to pay for the sins of the people, and the only way that God could actually restore that which originally went wrong was He needed a sacrifice that was able to take all of that upon Him.

So that is what Jesus did on the cross — He took all your sins upon Him. Can you understand why sin can never separate you from God again? Don't misquote me — I am not saying sin doesn't have implications in your life, but sin can never separate you from God again. We'll talk about that in another session, but the reality is your life form became one with God. What did it say in Romans 10:10? Those of you who prayed it for the first time — what did you believe unto? You believed unto righteousness.

Do you know what righteousness is? When God looks at you, He can see no sin. No sin. It doesn't matter what you did last night — when God looks at you, He can see no sin. He cannot, because Jesus on the cross is like a magnet: if you sin, it goes to the cross. He paid for all the sins you have done, the ones you are doing, and the ones you will do. But what Satan does is he uses one of his nifty tools called condemnation.

So when you do something wrong, he creates this little hammer that keeps ticking. Tick, tick, tick, tick — remember that. The moment you think you've forgotten it, he comes and says, 'Remember that. I told you you're not good enough.' Because he wants you to base your perception of how God looks at you on what you are doing. Did you get that? God is not looking at you and forming an opinion based on what you do. He's forming an opinion based on your nature. When He looks at you, He sees you pure and righteous, because Jesus paid the price on the cross. That was the sacrifice — that was the Saviour that had to come.

Now I'm going into the third section, which is a bit longer, and it's important that we cover this: the function of Christ Jesus. You might have heard this aspect in various forms, maybe often in religious circles, and that's why I need you to be very attentive to understand the difference and the significance of it.

The generic term would be that He came to establish Christ, or the church, or the body, on earth. But I want to rephrase it so that it can challenge your thinking. Based on what we said God's intention was right from the beginning, the thing that Christ Jesus came to do was to be the instigator and the coordinator to build God in this earth again.

The instigator and the coordinator to build God in this earth again. Now, that is critical, if you understand it. So we can say He came to establish the church, and we are the body of Christ, but when you stand back and look at it from a different angle, you understand that He came to build God in this earth again.

And when we talk about Him as the head of the body, that is what He came to do. He is the head, He's not the body — He is the head, although the body goes by the same name, also Christ. But what He came to do is what God wanted to do all along: to establish Himself in dominion in the earth.

“Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose...”

2 Timothy 1:9 (NKJV)

Do you see? There it is — not according to your works. It's not about how good you are or not, but according to His own purpose. I'm excited about these things. Who of you is following me? According to His own purpose.

God had a plan. He had a purpose. Doesn't that make you relax, to think you don't have to figure out your own little thing, as if it's all about you, and if you don't get it right... no. Stand back, relax, and say, "God, You know what? Actually, after all, it's all about You. It's all about You and about what You want to do in this earth." We're not talking now about what God wants to do in Heaven. We're talking about what God wants to do in Earth.

“Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus.”

2 Timothy 1:9 (NKJV)

In what? In Christ Jesus. Not in Jesus of Nazareth, not in Jesus Christ. It was given to you in Christ Jesus. Now it starts becoming important to understand that when you became born again, you became part of Christ Jesus. So now when we talk about Christ Jesus, or just Christ, you are part of it — the same way that Adam was originally in the same image and likeness of God.

In your spirit, you are 100% God. But you cannot express that or live it if you don't change your mind. Your mind is the gateway that decides.

If you don't like change, if you don't like thinking differently, then get up from the other side of the bed tomorrow morning. Brush your teeth with the other hand than the one you normally use. Wear your brown shoes with your black pants. Whatever it is you have to do differently, start creating new patterns. You know that physically there are patterns created in your brain by what you do, and if you do the same thing all the time, a channel gets formed in your brain. So start changing those channels.

It seems like something so insignificant, but God says you cannot prove His good, acceptable, and perfect will for you in this world unless you change your mind. There is no sense in waiting for God. He gave you the Word, He gave you the Spirit, He made you one with Him. What else do you want? All that's left is to get over yourself and renew your mind. Now, that's actually a whole topic on its own, but anyway — in Christ Jesus. Say with me: in Christ Jesus. So already, that's where your purpose is.

And then it continues, verse 10. It says: 'But has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ.' Not Christ Jesus — Jesus Christ. Go back to the previous verse: it's been given to us in Christ Jesus. And then verse 10 says it has been made available to us, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

“But has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

2 Timothy 1:10 (NKJV)

Wow. I'm going to start screaming. If I explode, will you just take all the pieces and put them together again, then I'll continue? These things excite me because it's truth and it's reality. It's breaking down everything about religion. Jesus Christ made Christ Jesus possible, which is the life of God that wants to be built into this earth unto dominion — through you. God's not going to do it. I'll get back to that, because maybe it's still a bit too heavy for you right now.

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Ephesians 2:4-6 (NKJV)

Can you see how He's using the words and the terminology to explain to you who you are now, what you have been called for, and what your purpose is? Because Christ Jesus, or Christ, is in this earth for a purpose. And I'll tell you some things now which are maybe beyond what your religious mind can accept — not that you have a religious mind, but just in case there was one, we'll take it a bit further. We often use this phrase and say we sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Part of what Jesus came to do was to show us what reality looks like. Because of His awareness and relationship, Jesus said He could do nothing — nothing, I'm emphasising — except what the Father showed Him. That is awareness and relationship. You cannot just continue through your physical life hoping, praying, screaming, crying that things will change. You need to have a relationship with a living God, who through His Spirit will guide you and lead you to a superior life.

Jesus showed us, even as a man, the relationship He had with the Father through the Holy Spirit, and the awareness that came from it. That's why when He multiplied the fish and the bread, He wasn't surprised and didn't say, "What are we going to do?" No. That morning, when He was spending time with His Father in fellowship through the Spirit, God already showed Him what was going to happen. When He got there, He was not surprised — He just did exactly what the Father showed Him.

We come and we want to do, and command, and change, and whatever. Did the Spirit of God show you to do that? That's why people go out all fired up, try a few things, and it doesn't work, and they say, "I thought this wasn't true."

God didn't just say, "Worship Me in truth," as noble as that is. He said, "Worship Me in truth and in spirit." You can function in truth without ever seeing life manifested, because it's probably still religion. You can go and sit in church, and they will still tell you, "Jesus is Lord of your life," but they never give you the opportunity to accept Him as your Saviour.

It's truth, but it doesn't become reality, and it doesn't receive life through the Holy Spirit. The only way you can become born again is through the Holy Spirit. So it's not just meant to be sitting in Jesus Christ. Jesus showed us that it is possible to manifest the presence of God in this earth, and when you manifest that presence, it looks different — totally different. So when we talk about being seated together in heavenly places, it's not just a place to be — it's a place to function from.

You need to understand the reality of being part of Christ. Let me jump into what is our responsibility based on what we have just heard. Now open your mind for this one — is that okay? Your function in earth is to build God unto dominion in this earth.

We read all these scriptures about being living stones, all of us building up a temple, and it sounds so nice and lovely — "I'm a living stone." No, no, no. Do we understand what we are saying? That's why I changed the term. It's easy to say, "Let's build the body of Christ," because it's been so watered down by religion — body of Christ, body of Christ, body of Christ. Does it actually mean anything to us?

That's why I say to you: you are building God in this earth unto dominion, which was His intention and original purpose, and that's why it's still your purpose. The purpose hasn't changed. But this is not religion. You need to understand: wherever God's presence is, it looks different. That's why God says to you, do not be conformed to this world. If you build God in this earth, He needs to look different than anything you've ever seen in religion.

Let me read through this quickly so that you get an understanding. It says He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.

“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 4:10-13 (NKJV)

What are the saints meant to be doing? The work of ministry. Not crying out to God and saying, "I'm useless, I'm a poor sinner, I'm desperate, I can do nothing." No. You are meant to do the work of ministry, which is what? Building God in this earth. God is waiting for you to build Him in this earth, to establish Him in this earth. I'll show you something now about what we think the end of the world looks like, and what the Word of God says the end of the world looks like. It's two totally different things.

This verse moves me. The Holy Spirit showed me this a few years ago in a picture, so that we can understand it. It says, "Till we all, through the knowledge of the Son of God, come to a perfect man." What does that perfect man look like? I'm going to keep paraphrasing, so I need to continue to challenge your religious thinking. That perfect man is God in earth. Until we come to a perfect man — and what does that perfect man look like? The measure of the stature.

If you take a statue, and you say, "This is the size of the statue," and you measure it, you can say, "The statue is this high." It says, until we come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The fullness of God in this earth. We are not talking about Heaven here — we are talking about Earth. What is your purpose? We need to help each other come to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

If you don't understand it yet: you are the one that determines when Jesus is coming back. Because God gave us the responsibility — the ministry of reconciliation, the ministry of manifesting Him unto dominion, as I'll show you just now — in this earth. We have that responsibility, and the Bible says Jesus will return when the bride is ready.

The bride is the church, is the body. Can I put it to you this way? Jesus has done what He had to do. He has the presence, the dominance, the ability, the position, everything He must have. But He's the head of this body. He will return when the size of the body matches the proportion of the head. He's not going to come back with a head this big and we give Him this small a body. The variable is not the head — the head is perfect. The variable is that we need to get the body to a size that matches the head.

I was one day ministering at the Helderstroom Prison, and I was explaining something else. As I was explaining, I put my hand up against the wall, and God showed me a picture on the wall and explained it to me in that instant, because the Spirit can communicate with your spirit. In an instant He can say a lot of things. He showed me a blueprint, explaining to me — to help me understand it physically — that there is a blueprint of what the body must look like to fit the head. This is figurative; don't ask me where exactly this is in the Bible, I'm just explaining a principle to you. Actually, I could motivate it from the Bible — it just doesn't use the word 'blueprint.'

Every day, God takes that blueprint, measures the body of Christ, and says, "Ah, not yet." The next day He takes the blueprint, measures the body: "Not yet." But for every day He says not yet, people are going to hell — not because of Him. There is a day this body needs to match that blueprint, and that responsibility is our responsibility.

Let me show you something from Daniel 2:34. The Bible says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God — there's one of the sessions where I'll talk about the Word of God. For me, that particular session is something that changed my life; you cannot miss it. And there's one session that is only about the Holy Spirit — how He functions, your interaction with Him. You can't miss any of the sessions, really.

But getting back to this: Daniel is explaining the dream. He says:

“You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”

Daniel 2:34-35 (NKJV)

It filled the whole earth. Does it say Heaven? No. We live as if the victory will be one day in Heaven. I've got news for you: the victory is not one day in Heaven.

“And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”

Daniel 2:44 (NKJV)

Let's just park it there — I'll talk about that just now. We have been so misled as Christians, through religion, through a contribution of the world, and Satan, and tradition, and whatever else.

We have come to believe that in this earth we will continue to live and suffer, and that it will get worse, and we start specialising in all the signs of the end times. This is not about condemnation — please, not about condemnation, I'm just stating the facts. We start specialising in the wars, the rumours of wars, the earthquakes, the blood moons — all of that. We specialise in these signs, and then we say, "You see, it's the end time." Is it too strong a word if I say it's ridiculous?

We think it will get worse, and worse, and worse, because the Bible talks about how He will keep these times short for the sake of the elect, and all of that. But the whole message and purpose throughout the Word of God is that God wants to establish His dominion and presence in this earth.

So I've got news for you: the victory is not in Heaven — the victory needs to be in Earth. And the victory in Earth is dependent on the size of the body of God, the body of Christ that we need to build. And not only the size, but the level at which it functions, because the presence of God brings something with it. That is why all those things happened in the Old Testament that I explained to you.

There is a difference between a life in the ark and a life outside the ark. There is a difference between a life in Christ and a life outside of Christ. Don't get misled by what the Bible explains to us about the end times. Daniel explained that vision, and he said that God — because it is not made with hands — will cut out a stone from a mountain, and that stone will come into this earth.

Oh, you need to hear this. I pray that the Holy Spirit will touch your heart about this, because this is why we are here. That stone will destroy every kingdom in this earth. We need to build the body of Christ, the body of God, the manifest presence of God, into this earth. We need to build to dominion — not a secondary, inferior, struggling, mere-sinner mentality.

We need to build God into dominion in this earth. I've got good news and I've got bad news. What do you want to hear first? Bad news? Okay, I'll give you the bad news. I'm just not too sure if you're ready for it. You're ready for it? Gooi. Gooi. Okay, ek gaan gooi.

The world does not look the way it does because of God. I'm sure by now the door is locked. The world looks the way it does because of you. I'm glad for the Holy Spirit, so that nobody will be offended when I say that.

I want to add something else, because you kept that door open — I know you kept that door open. The world is not looking the way it does because of Satan. The world is looking the way it does because of you. We give Satan far too much credit. Do you think that in the presence of God, Satan has got any power or ability?

Zero. So why do we — and when I say 'we', I'm talking about myself as well — in this week, there are things that happened that challenged me. It tends to happen before I have a big meeting like this: things will come, and then I will say, 'You know, Satan is hard at work, look at what he's doing,' and I get people to pray a bit harder, and all of that. Even as I was preparing for this, I just realised we are giving him far too much credit.

The more we focus on him and the more we talk about him and what he is achieving, the more he is fuelled by it. That is why the Bible says God called forth light out of darkness, and He said darkness could not even understand it. The being that is in us is so superior that Satan cannot even understand it, let alone resist it or overcome it. So if I say it's us that's causing it, it is our...

I'll quickly read one or two things to you for the sake of time. It's our lack of understanding who we are corporately. I want to say something about that very specifically — I'm specifically using the word 'corporately'. In the last nine years I have been involved in a variety of dimensions and aspects of ministry, and I'm going to say this very respectfully, and you need to understand it in context. We keep using that verse in Colossians two, and that's the truth, it's reality, it's great and it's good, but we keep talking about Christ in me, the hope of glory.

Christ in me, the hope of glory — and that's great and it's significant and it means a lot, and there's nothing wrong with that. Christ in me, the hope of glory. But can I respectfully say, I think we've said that long enough now. The thing we need to start talking about now is me in Christ, the hope of glory, because it moves the responsibility. As long as it's Christ in me, the hope of glory, it's still dependent on Him.

I have to read that verse to you — I'll rush through this. We as individuals — and that's why I say corporately, it doesn't help — I want to guide you into something concerning, because we are talking about your purpose. It doesn't help that you continue to see your purpose as an individual, isolated thing, and you spend the rest of your life trying to figure out your own purpose. You only have a purpose as far as it is a corporate function, a corporate focus, to establish God in this earth.

We just read it from Ephesians four. He gave apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists — He gave all of that. Why? For the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry. They were not meant to be any more important than anybody else. If you are so individually focused on your gift and your office and your function that it just becomes about you, we've lost the plot. We need to understand that our gifts, our function, our office, is secondary to the purpose and the function of the body.

In religious circles it becomes so much of an issue — the apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, this one, that one. I'm not taking anything away from the significance of their spiritual purpose. But if it becomes all about the apostle instead of the body of Christ, we've missed it. So I'm not saying it's a lack of understanding who we are individually — it is a lack of understanding of who we are corporately.

As much as you don't want to hear it, your ability to complete what we have been sent for is dependent on the person next to you. The way God created us, it is impossible for you to complete your purpose unless you help the person next to you complete theirs. So I've got news for you — it's the way God functions. You want to start walking in your purpose? Look away from yourself. Get over yourself. Look away from yourself. Start looking at the person next to you. You'll walk in your purpose in one day. It's the way God created us.

Number two, why I say it's our fault: it's our lack of willingness to put God first. Man, put God first. I don't have enough time to say it fully. I'm not talking about Mickey Mouse, I'm not talking about playing church. I'm talking about putting God first — that means you give everything that you have, you give your life to put God first. Seek first the kingdom and everything else shall follow — Matthew 6:33.

It just doesn't work any other way. He needs to become your only reason for existence. As long as all these other things are more important, we will not do it. It's not about condemnation, it's not about me judging. It is about me saying, 'I need you, and you need me, and we all need each other to build the body of God into dominion, so that that stone that was not made with hands can come into dominion in this earth.'

Will people suffer towards the end times? Yes, they will — but that's the people outside the body of Christ. The ones inside the body of Christ, which was demonstrated by the ark in the Old Testament, their lives look different. We don't have to say, 'Well, all this suffering, and earthquakes, and wars, and whatever' — it doesn't have to affect us. But as long as it's just me, it will affect me. Can you understand why, as Christians, we have all these questions? We say, 'But I do everything right, and I believe, and God is faithful, and yet I take all these knocks in life, and I don't see the things that the Word of God talks about.'

Because it was never meant to be about you. It was meant to be about us. Until we come to the place of 'us', which is the body of God that we need to establish into dominion, it will not automatically have the results that you require in life. When it says, 'Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will follow,' it's not talking about, 'Okay, now every day I pray, that means I've put God first, I've sought the kingdom, so everything must go fine.' No. Seek first the kingdom is His dominion, His purpose, His original intention, which was to establish Himself in this earth.

If every one of us puts it first in our lives to establish God as the dominion in this earth, we will walk inside the ark, we will walk inside Christ, where there cannot be sickness, there cannot be poverty. All these things that the world would experience, we will not experience inside the body of Christ. But if you continue on your own, you will still experience it, because that's not the way God designed it.

Can you understand why I say, how is it going to affect your life if you keep talking about the end-time signs? The end-time signs started long ago. We know we're in the end times already, but Jesus can only come when we do our job. So stop reading up about all these signs and the moons, and 'everything will be in line', and 'it only happens every seven hundred years and now it's happened, it's in line.' Great. Now what? What does it change? Nothing. Stop worrying about that. Go outside and go pray for your neighbour.

Okay, so that was the bad news and the good news — but I'll read one verse, and I'll end off. If you give me two minutes, I'm just going to read these last scriptures.

“To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

Ephesians 3:8 (NKJV)

Who's Christ? All of us. Where's the unsearchable riches? It's not locked up in one individual. I've got news for you — it's not locked up in one individual. You will never individually be able to manifest the fullness of Christ, without exception, there's no hiding place.

“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 4:13 (NKJV)

“And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians 3:9-10 (NKJV)

It's been hidden in God, but now we hear it. Listen to this: the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. Who's the church? The body of Christ — we, us. We are the ones who will make known to the world, the physical and the spiritual, what the ability of God is.

That is what it's meant to mean when we say, 'Christ in me, the hope of glory.' But we've changed it into something that has become like a tool I can use to manifest more things for my own gain. It's not meant to be that. It's meant to be this: we, the church, make known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places — including Satan — what God looks like, and His ability.

“According to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 3:11 (NKJV)

Oh, no — His eternal purpose was accomplished in Christ Jesus, of which you are part. You are part of Christ Jesus, you are part of the body, and His eternal purpose, which He had all along and still has and will have until the end of existence, has been accomplished in Christ Jesus.

“Our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith.”

Ephesians 3:12 (NKJV)

“That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

John 17:21 (NKJV)

How will the world believe? They will see.

“And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me.”

John 17:22-23 (NKJV)

You can go and read all of that.

I need to say something spiritual to you, which I trust the Holy Spirit will bring into your heart. Don't think you have merely heard what I've said to you tonight, because if you do, you will miss what God wants to say to you tonight. There is something spiritually significant about understanding what God's purpose was, that you were in it; what Jesus' purpose was — simply to restore God's purpose; and that His purpose has been revealed completely in Christ Jesus, His eternal purpose; and that your purpose is to establish God in this earth unto dominion — not a mere, poor-sinner, secondary, lower-layer life where we don't know and we don't understand.

Your purpose is to manifest God, and we need to do it together. I need to end off, and I'll explain a lot of this in more detail in the coming sessions.

Can I pray for you? Thank you, Father, in the name of Jesus, that You guide us through Your Spirit, that You make everything that we hear come to life in our spirit and be able to produce and reproduce. Thank you, Father. It's all about You. It's all about Your purpose.

Thank You that You have made us part of that. Thank You that we can manifest You in this earth and bring You unto dominion. Thank You, Father, for every person You brought here tonight, and every person who will listen to this message, that they will receive this hope, this purpose, this life from You into their spirit, and they will respond to it. They will manifest You in this earth. And thank You, Father, that Satan cannot steal the Word and the reality and truth that has come to them, and that they will make the right decision to bring it to fruitfulness and bring it to life in them.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.