Session 2 of 6 - Christ's purpose

Thanks for being on time — it makes it so much easier for us to get going and for me to fit in two hours.

Take your right hand like this, and then just greet the person next to you and say, "Enjoy the ride." I'm sure you're buckled up already, so it wasn't necessary for me to do that part.

I need to quickly check who of you were not here last week, or didn't listen to the audio. Raise your hand high so I can see. Okay, it's quite a lot of you. If you invite people for next week, please encourage them to listen to the audio. Although each session can stand on its own and be independent, they certainly do build on each other, so it will be better if they understand what we covered the previous week. Who of you were here last week and listened to the audio again as well? Wow, that's amazing.

For the sake of those who were not here last week, I'm going to recap in a nutshell what we did — and it really will be a nutshell. We spoke about your purpose; that's why we're here, it's all about your purpose. But God has a purpose. God had something in mind. God's purpose right from the beginning was to fill this earth with His presence, to come into dominion in this earth.

The way God wanted to do that was through creating man, replicating Himself in man, giving man the ability to replicate Him in this earth, and through that, fill the earth and come into dominion. I showed you last week that on day six of Genesis 1, God created man in His image and in His likeness.

God is a Spirit — remember, that's where we started. In these last days, God is looking for true worshippers; He is a Spirit, and He's looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. So God created man in His likeness and image, which is that He is a Spirit, and created man as a spirit inside of him. Then on the seventh day, it says there was no man to till the ground.

Then God formed man from the dust — the physical being — and breathed into him the breath of life, which was the spirit being placed inside the physical being. The idea was that they would continue to replicate the physical, but especially the spiritual. That was God's intention: to replicate the spiritual. He even gave them the instruction, "Go and fill the earth," while they were still just spirits — to replicate, to come into dominion in this earth.

And then you know the story. Everything went wrong because of sin. God cannot be part of sin; separation took place. God said, "If you eat of this fruit, you will surely die." They ate of the fruit — but what happened? They didn't physically die; they died spiritually, because spiritual death is separation from God. So they were separated from God — that is spiritual death. And every person subsequently born into this world was spiritually dead, because they were born already, by default, separated from God.

So God had to come up with a new solution. The first Adam didn't work, so He got a last Adam — that is why He sent Jesus Christ. The first and foremost, most important thing Jesus came to do was to make us one with the Father again, because that was the original plan. The solution had to address the problem, and the problem was separation from God.

Jesus came, died, was resurrected and ascended, and what He made possible — as I showed you in 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 — is that we have been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. So what Jesus came for was to make us one with the Father again.

Then I explained the process — it is not religion. Jesus Himself said,

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

John 3:3 (NKJV)

There is no other way; you have to become born again. Romans 10:9-10 explains how you become born again: you must believe with your heart unto righteousness, which is amazing, and then confess with your mouth unto salvation. Without that, you will never see the kingdom of God. That was how God provided a solution to go back to His original plan and purpose.

We briefly touched on the different components of Jesus — I said there are about seven things or more that Jesus actually did, though we didn't get to all of them, and we won't tonight either. But specifically, we spoke about the categories.

Firstly, Jesus was 100% man in this earth — the same way that you are — and He showed us what is possible as a human being, as a man in this earth. We looked at some examples:

“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)

That was the first part of Jesus, as man. The second part was Jesus Christ, the Saviour, who came to pay the sacrifice for what was necessary — the wrong that happened and the sins that had to be paid for. He paid as the Saviour; He was the sacrifice Himself, which made it possible for us to stand in front of God righteous. When God looks at you, you are 100% righteous. That was Jesus Christ, the Saviour, the sacrifice.

Then we looked at the last part, which was Christ Jesus, or Christ — the manifestation of the Kingdom of God in this earth. We'll touch on that aspect tonight and elaborate a bit, because there is a lot of detail concerning it.

So ask your neighbour, are you with us? Yes. That took me five minutes — I'm not sure why I didn't manage it in five minutes last week; I should have at least tried. We ended off, near the end, with the scriptures from Daniel about the rock that was cut out without hands, and I showed you that the intention of that rock was to destroy every other kingdom and grow into a mountain in the earth.

There are a few things I'm going to repeat tonight, but there is great importance in you tapping into some of these realities. Some of you sent me emails, and you were so excited about some of the things you heard for the first time. It's maybe important that we create the perspective again about what purpose is all about.

It's very important to realise that although we need to do teaching — because the Word says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, so we need to impart the Word, because conviction comes into your heart through the Word — it's critical that you understand our primary focus of purpose is not teaching. It's activation. So you must clearly understand: I'm not going to teach for seven sessions so that you go home and say, "Wow, I heard ten things I didn't hear before, and that was awesome." By no means.

You'll see in later sessions we're going to start changing a few things to achieve that. But you need to keep in mind that our purpose is activation. I am here, as I said from the beginning, to help you fulfil your purpose, and we need to realise it's impossible for us to fulfil our purpose without helping each other fulfil our purpose. That's just the way God created it; it's not possible for us to do it otherwise. So it's very important that we have that perspective.

What is really great is that many of you heard a few things last week for the first time and said, "How come I've never seen that before?" There are two things I want to touch on that are very relevant. God works in times and seasons, dispensations, ages — whatever word you want to use, there are different words used in the Bible for it. With those times and seasons come revelations — things that God will reveal to us and give us a conviction about that is relevant for that time and that dispensation.

It's critical to understand — and that's why I want to use the word — that it's not business as usual. There are a few things I'll touch on tonight that will really be relevant for your activation. I'm here to help you fulfil your purpose, and I cannot fulfil my purpose without you; you cannot fulfil your purpose without me, as I've already said. But it's important that we realise that all times are not the same, and the dispensation...

Let me say this to you: what I'm sharing with you — some of the things last week that many of you said was the first time you'd heard it — is not new, and it is not unique to me. I want to make that very clear, because I'm not here to impress anybody, and I'm not here to say, "Wow, look at this revelation God has given me." Some of the things I recently spoke about, somebody came to me and said, "I heard a teaching recently — the guy said exactly the same thing."

I said, "Well, give me the details of the teaching, I would love to listen to it." And listening to it, I thought, "This is me speaking. Where did this guy get this stuff?" — because it was everything I had spoken about. The amazing thing is that if it truly is God wanting to achieve something in this world, then surely God must be speaking to many people, and He must be conveying the same message to everybody. It can't be dependent on one person; it can't be dependent on me. I want to make that very clear.

It's not unique to me — it's a universal message, but a timely message, if that's the right word. It's the right time for that message. The amazing thing is, looking at the number of people back here tonight, I think the victory right now is the fact that your heart is ready to hear these things. If I had shared what I shared last week five years ago, half of the people would not have come back.

Not that I would have been able to share them five years ago, but that's just the reality if I had spoken about them then. So there is something being made available to us — a dispensation, a season — and you must have a great expectation about the time and season we are going into. I'll share something now that might be a bit bold, but if my boldness didn't offend you last week, it will never offend you, okay? I know a few people didn't come back, but some of them have other reasons, and they will be back next week.

Speaking about God's eternal purpose, I think what is really critical to understand is that God's eternal purpose was fulfilled in Christ. Let's look at Ephesians 3:8-12. You need to get perspective. I am going to be moving fairly fast tonight — there is a lot of information, but you have the benefit of listening to the audio.

I really want you to open up your spirit to hear and see the things God wants to communicate with you. Even tonight, there are things He wants to activate inside of you. You need to understand this: the eternal purpose that God had was fulfilled in Christ.

“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, 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.”

Ephesians 3:8-9 (NKJV)

I explained to you last week that there are truths, and there are higher truths — different levels and depths. You might feel that I speak a lot, but I actually have a lot more to say, so I can't cover everything; in coming sessions we'll cover a lot more. But there is a reality that Christ existed inside God before the creation of the earth. Christ existed, and you existed in Christ, in God, before the creation of the earth.

And Eve existed in Adam, inside God, before the creation of the earth. There's something significant about that relating to marriage and the things we see in Peter, but we'll get to that in another session. It's important here: it was hidden in God, who created all things through Christ Jesus. So it was already there.

“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 3:10 (NKJV)

That's us, the body of Christ — it's going to be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. I trust your heart is really open to accept things you may not have heard before, but there are some things you know that angels don't know. Angels don't know everything; angels need to act on instruction.

So there are things we do that actually reveal to angels what's going on. It's the same with this: as the church, in the revelation, the way we communicate with the Father, our oneness, we express and reveal things that the spiritual principalities are not aware of. So there is something we will reveal, as the church, about the mystery. Even the demons do not fully understand the significance of the dispensation we are going into — I'm referring to the dispensation of the fullness of Christ, which I'll talk about now.

“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, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Ephesians 3:10-11 (NKJV)

Do you see that? The eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now that sounds like a bit of a challenge, because we are all sitting here, ready, psyched up, wanting to know our purpose and wanting to walk in it — and now we say, "Don't worry, the thing God wanted to achieve, He achieved already." He achieved it already, because it says, "According to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord."

“In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.”

Ephesians 3:12 (NKJV)

Can you see why I have boldness? We must have boldness, okay? I already mentioned that you are part of that.

“Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”

Ephesians 1:4 (NKJV)

You were in Him before the foundation of the world. You made up part of Christ. If this doesn't speak to you, then just park it — but this is one of the higher truths. The reality is you made up a component of Christ inside God before the creation of the earth. There is something significant about what we need to achieve now, again relating to that.

So if we say this thing has been accomplished in Christ, what is left for us to do? It seems as if this job is done.

Just a quick side note, because a lot of people are here for the first time: I like to change some of the terminology we're used to from a religious perspective, from a habit perspective, because it forces you to think about it a bit. Where I use terminology you're not used to, don't see it as negative — see it as an opportunity to challenge something you already believe.

One of those things I'd like to speak about: it's easy for us to say we are building the church, but what does that really mean? It's equally easy to say we are building the body of Christ, because it's a common term — but it can lose its value. Nine years ago, when my life changed, in the first week the Holy Spirit told me to get an English Bible, and there was a very specific reason for it.

I grew up in religion, in a religious house, with an Afrikaans Bible. If I had to read those same words, it would be really difficult for me to attach a different interpretation to them — Psalm 23 is Psalm 23, "die Here is my herder" — does it really mean something to you? So immediately that week the Holy Spirit told me to get an English Bible. I come from Namibia, in case you don't know, from the southern parts, where it's fairly desert-orientated, and there aren't many English people there — I think every three years a tourist might come past who speaks English, so other than that.

It was an amazing learning curve for me. I didn't even know the meaning of the word "righteousness," but God started taking me through that, and the important part was that He started making me think about what I read and what it means. That's why I'm going to use the term — although it's not that easy to grasp — I'm not saying we're building the church or building the body of Christ. I'm saying we're building God in earth.

Because if I say that, you sit upright and think, "How do I do this thing?" So it's important that you think about it slightly differently. And if I say we build God in this earth, it's not inconsistent with how God describes Himself in the Word. Here's an example:

“Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the Lord, or what is the place of My rest?”

Acts 7:49 (NKJV)

Do you get that picture? God says heaven is His throne, but earth is His footstool. It's not Mars, not Jupiter, not whatever — it's earth. There is a place where God's feet are. Does that mean something to you? So when we say we are building God in this earth, it must mean something to us.

“Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

1 Peter 2:4-5 (NKJV)

We know this scripture fairly well — that we are all living stones and we are building up this spiritual house — but sometimes we don't have the right perception. That's why I use the term that we are building God. When we say we are building in this earth, building a spiritual house, and that we are all living stones, you must understand we are not building something separate from God. If we build this wall, it's a physical building we built — it stands on its own, and then you walk into it. It's not possible to do it that way when we are building God, because the only way you build God is when you become born again, become recreated, receive the life of God inside of you, and you yourself become a living stone. So the presence of God is already inside of you.

Understand that, because it can become — since we were taught all these things as children in catechism and whatever — that when we say we are building this dwelling place for God in earth, we somehow get disconnected from the fact that we are building God.

I want to put it this way: through the body of Christ, we are the ones who determine the size of God in this earth. Now that's not that easy for somebody to consume if religion is still very strong in your spirit. But the amazing thing is that, to the extent you can accept it in your spirit, I believe every single one of you here has been handpicked by God.

There is not one person here who is here by accident — even if there is just one thing you must hear that must activate you. I tend to say to people, "I thank God that He gave me a teachable spirit." What does that mean? You don't have to agree with everything I say, but that doesn't mean you can't derive value from every single session you attend. Because if you believe it is the Holy Spirit speaking to you, there is something there.

I might get 9 out of 10 things wrong that the Holy Spirit wants to say to you, but there might be one thing the Holy Spirit is going to say to you that could affect your life, your ministry, your purpose, for eternity. So we need to be teachable. We need to be open-minded about looking differently at these things, understanding we are not building something separate — it's not this dwelling place; we are establishing God, and we determine the size of God in the earth.

Now, some people thought it was very bold towards the end when I spoke about the fact that the earth doesn't look the way it looks because of Satan, and I said it's because of you. Some people felt that was really confrontational. But let me continue, and I'll explain as we go.

But I want you to have a total conviction and understanding that what we are doing is we are building God in this earth, consistent with what His original plan was.

We are building God in this earth. Because if you have that mentality, you'll understand quite a lot of things that the average Christian doesn't actually understand.

Now, the part that we spoke about, the vision that Daniel had about the stone that was cut out without hands – it crushed all the kingdoms, it grew into a mountain in the earth. It grew into a mountain in the earth. Maybe can we quickly read that again? I think that's so relevant. I need to read it to you again.

“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)

And even verse 44 confirms that.

“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)

Now, I'm really going to, hopefully, I want to challenge you now. I hope I'm going to challenge you and confront you with some realities. And I'm going to make a very bold statement, because you need to be stirred in your spirit about this. And I'm going to make a statement that what we need to achieve now, in this dispensation, in this time that we are in the earth, has not been seen in this earth yet.

It has not been seen. It has not been seen in this earth. Because the whole purpose of what God wants to achieve is based on what we need to manifest in this earth. And to the extent, in terms of the description of our purpose, it hasn't happened yet. So the reason I say that is our mentality must be that I am open-minded to be able to do something that I haven't heard somebody do before, or I haven't seen them do it before.

I always think about this picture of Moses when he got to the river and God said, okay, just open the river. I'm just paraphrasing now. And he would probably have stood in front of the water and looked at God and said, "How many people have done this before?" And God would say, "Let me count – nobody." He says, "Now, how do you expect me to do it?" We need to move.

And that's the dispensation that's been opened for us. We need to move from such a reality conviction of the physical realm to a conviction of the spiritual, that the things of this world grow dumb to us. We need to move to a place where we understand that it's not a nice to have.

You and me need to do things that has not been seen in this earth before, and I'll show you that now. It's not a nice to have. It's a massive responsibility. The challenge that we have – and I'll speak about some of the things that people tend to have questions about, about where's God when bad things happen and all of those things – but we must have a conviction about God, God's character, His intention, His purpose.

And then I must understand – I spoke about reality last week, the word truth, alethinos. We must get to a point where if the Word of God says this is how it is, then we must see that as the ultimate authority. And it sounds so simple to say it's the ultimate authority. But in reality, if you look around you, people will question a whole lot of things for which there is a very clear answer in the Word of God already.

And we have become so accustomed to the physical world, and that that is our reality, that when the true reality comes along – which is consistent with God's nature, His ability, His Word, and His expectation from us – we measure it by the physical. That is why people will say, when something happens... Or if you read some of the things and say, "Okay, but this is what God says we must go and do," then people will say, "But I've never seen anybody do that before." How is that relevant? Since when is that the measure?

Or this one: "It's inconsistent with my experience. My experience is I have prayed for ten people, and only seven of them got healed." So what does that mean? What has that to do with anything?

We must look at what the reality is, what the Word of God says, what His intention, what His instruction is, and that should be the reality that I respond to. If I continue to measure things by what the Church has done in the last 100 years, I've got news for you: Jesus will never come. We cannot measure what our responsibility is based on what the Church has done in the last 100 years.

You cannot, because the thing we need to do has not been seen in this earth yet. It has not. So you cannot measure it. We need to get out of that rut. There's no time for playing church anymore, and denominational kingdoms, and whatever. I'll show you everything from the Word of God now. Let me take it slower. Some of the things is difficult to leave to the end, so some of it is realities that I need to speak about now, although I would have liked to build it up to the end and then give you some of the things, assuming that would make it easier for you to consume them. But I have to speak about this now.

Do we have a clear picture of what the coming of Jesus actually is all about, and what it looks like? Now, I don't by any means, in these sessions, have time to start talking about rapture and things like that. But I can tell you this: there's a lot of common perceptions about rapture and how it'll happen, that are totally in contradiction of what the full picture is in the Word of God.

But I'm going to park it there, because if we go there, we're never going to get to what we need to establish now. But I can tell you this much: the common perception of the end of this world is that Jesus comes on the clouds and takes us all away, and we measure the fulfilment of what needs to happen in this earth by Jesus coming on the clouds.

So I touched on it last week – there is this common misperception that we as Christians will just continue to suffer in the earth, and there will be all these end-time signs, and that's why so many people get hung up about the end-time signs: wars and rumours of wars, and earthquakes, and blood moons, and whatever else. And then we believe it's going to get so terrible that, for the sake of the elect, God will take us out of this world. That is not consistent with the full picture of what God's painting about our intention in this earth.

So it's not the question of, okay, the outcome is just Jesus will come on the clouds and then take us away from this misery. That is not what the Word of God says. Firstly, you must understand that Christ... Let me put it this way – Jesus, to distinguish between the two. Jesus is the head.

“And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

Ephesians 1:22-23 (NKJV)

So it's His body, His fullness, but Jesus is the head. So Jesus – now you need to stay with me – Jesus on His own is not the fullness of Christ. I'm speaking about Jesus: on His own He is not the fullness of Christ. Jesus is the head. I'm using that terminology so that you understand – for all intents and purposes He's also referred to as Christ, but so that you understand: I'm talking about Jesus, He's the head, and then there is the body, and Jesus and the body together we'll describe as Christ.

Now, the Bible is clear that what needs to happen is that Christ needs to manifest. So what needs to happen, in very simple terms, is Jesus is the head. He's in heaven. He's done what He had to do. He's in the position, and can I put it this way, the size that He needs to be at. What needs to happen is Jesus will return when the size of the body matches the size of the head.

The head is already the right size, but the body needs to grow to match the head. So when we want to talk about the end times and Jesus coming on the clouds, the solution, the fulfilment, is not Jesus on the clouds – because that's the head coming. Christ in His completeness is not coming from heaven.

Can I shake your boat a little? Christ is coming from earth. Now, some of you, your eyes are this big. That is why you need to understand what the Word of God says, and you need to say, "I don't care what you have been taught in the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years, or what the Church has taught in the last 200 years." That doesn't mean... I said to you right at the beginning, what I'm saying to you is not new. How come you were never taught before that on the sixth day God created Adam and Eve as a spirit, and only after the seventh day He created them physically? Why were you never taught that? How many other things are there that you have not been taught?

So we need to step back, and it's like you have to say, "I'm starting with a clean slate." And if you have the mentality to understand what God is saying to us, and you are willing to accept it, that involves that we need to build Christ from the earth.

And it says when that... That's why it says in Ephesians 4 – let's read it so that you know I'm not thumb-sucking these things.

“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)

This makes things simple for me. Do you want to make your life simple? When you read a verse from the Word of God, you just say, "Yes, God, that's how it is." Not, "But you know what, my uncle said that," or, "You know what, I also prayed for five people and two of them still died, and ugh." Let's focus on reality, because the variable is not on God's side. Okay, we'll get to that aspect because it's always contentious. But if you look at it from a point of view that the Word of God is reality and it shows you reality, then we must start with that as a base.

So: 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. So the fullness of Christ – we need to come unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. God says He will send Jesus to a bride that is without spot and without blemish.

I often use this example: what does the Word of God say there? Till we all come to a what? A perfect man. So then I ask, "Who of you think you can be perfect?" And normally people say, "No, but I could never be perfect." So what are you saying – Jesus will never come, or what? It is important, however, that it doesn't say perfect men. It says perfect man, because we are all building one body. The Bible says there is only one God, one Spirit, one baptism. We are building one body, and that body needs to be perfect. But surely you cannot build a perfect body with imperfect components. So that surely should imply some things.

Okay, so coming back to this – we are busy just talking about the end times, so I'm not going to spend time on that any longer. Understand this: the fulfilment, the victory, that is Jesus coming on the clouds, is a sign of what has happened in the earth. So by that time it means we have established the body of Christ, and He's coming to meet up with His body.

And that is not the only age or time or dispensation. It doesn't say, "Okay, there it ends, we go to heaven," and that's it. No, there are further dispensations. That's not the end of everything. Revelation speaks about a thousand years where we will reign with Christ, and things like that, which I don't want to get into now because we need more time for that. But understand something: there's a preparation process that we are busy with. There's a dispensation that we are going into now.

I see often people live as if there is only one dispensation, only one age, one time, one function: we live, we suffer, Jesus comes, we go to heaven. It's not that way. There's dispensations. There's ages to come, and they function differently. But we need to understand we are the ones that will determine when Jesus is coming.

Now I want to quickly get back to this perspective and go into a bit of detail. If God wants to establish Himself in the earth, if He wants to manifest Himself in the earth, because that's what it's all about that we are talking about – God wants to manifest Himself. He wants His presence to grow into a position of dominion. That is why that rock that we speak about. We must change our mentality to understand that Christians in this world, by the time that Jesus comes, are going to be a powerful force in this earth.

We need to grow into dominion. This body of Christ, the being of Christ, will destroy many kingdoms and come into a position of authority on earth. That's a totally different story, because that changes how you look at what your responsibility is and what you need to do, and that has not been done before in the earth. That is why we need to have a different mindset.

The amazing thing is I just spoke about that person sharing the teaching with me. I am hearing more and more people speak about these things – that when I go into my inner room and I pray and I spend time with the Holy Spirit, there are some things that I shared with you last week that no man has ever told me. No man. Only the Holy Spirit revealed them to me. But then I listen to these teachings that people forwarded to me, and I hear people speak about exactly the same thing. And that's why I say to you, we must wake up and understand that God is opening up our hearts to say, "Okay, you know what, I accept these things."

I told you the story about the fake Porsche, and I can tell you that the fake life in Christ, the religion, the dead works, the keep-trying-to-keep-the-law, has destroyed people's hunger. Not necessarily their hunger, but it has destroyed their thinking, to realise and open themselves up to say there is something more.

And to the extent that we realise that the something more... Can you accept this? The something more has not been seen in this earth yet. The massive responsibility that we have, to do something in this earth that has not been done before.

And my personal perception is that I'm not sure who has prevented the body of Christ from being able to do that more – Satan or religion – because religion brought us into a place where that's all there is. We play church. We go to church. We listen to an hour sermon. We stand afterwards and say, "Yeah, that was a good break," or, "Yeah, what did he talk about today?" And we go home and we continue with our lives. We think that's what it's all about.

So if we talk about this manifestation of God's presence in this earth, I want to quickly demonstrate from the Word. I want to show you, because we need to start understanding – if we really talk about manifesting God's presence in this earth, we need to start getting a picture. What does it look like? What does it look like if God's presence is manifested in this earth? What is God's expectation? What should it look like? Not my experience or exposure up to now, or what my uncle told me, or, "I haven't seen this before." Nothing like that.

If we start from a clean slate, and we're all on the same page, and we say God is God, He is God, and there is something that He says we must do – and if we start from that place and say, "God, if I have never seen it before, I will still do it because You say I must do it," that's the place where we need to get to. Not argue with God and say, "Yeah, but I haven't seen it, I don't understand it, I saw somebody else try it, it didn't work." None of that.

Really, we talk so easily about putting God first in our lives, but I see very few people where that has happened. Because if God is first in your life, we will stop questioning Him, and you say, "God, You are God, and whatever You tell me, I'll do."

I've learned in my own life, from nine years ago, that there's no replacement for obedience. It's not how clever... I come from a business background. I've run many successful businesses and whatever, and nine years ago, when my life changed, God sent me to do specific things. And when He sent me, I said, "Okay, just give me two years to study the Bible and at least be prepared." And God said to me, "At what stage did you think it was dependent on you? I mean, go now."

He taught me from day one it's not going to be a success because I am good-looking and well-spoken and intelligent and run businesses successfully. It'll only be a success because I allow Him to be God and function through me. So there were many instances where I thought, "This is a great thing," and I embarked on something and I did something, and then it didn't work out, and then I go back and say, "But God, what happened here?" And then He will say, "Did I tell you to do it?" I say, "Oh, yeah, well, no." He says, "Okay. Right. So do what I tell you to do."

One of the things that God taught me as a practical example, right from the beginning, He said to me, "Never pray for the anointing." Because I want to go do something and I know I must do it by the Spirit, so I say, "God, please give me the anointing so I can go and do it." God says, "No. Go and do what I tell you to do. When you get there, the anointing will be waiting for you."

It's the difference between saying, "God, You are God. What do You want to do? Just allow me to be able to facilitate. Let me be faithful to what You want to do through me," and then this world will look different. Because if this thing that we are meant to do was humanly possible, it would have been done already, and we haven't even properly started with it.

And I am by no means degrading or breaking down the amazing work that's happening all around the world, in terms of evangelism and churches and whatever else. That's amazing and it's great work and it's necessary. But there is something that God has opened up for us now to move into. Although it was His plan all along, it is like, you know, when He speaks about Israel in the Old Testament, He says, "You stiff-necked people." You are hard in hearing. Your ears are closed. You are stiff-necked people, and nothing has changed. We as Christians have still been that way. We say, "God, we worship You," but if God says, "Go do that," we say, "Well, you know, I've got other plans today, I'm playing golf." But You are God.

There are people that God needs, and that is probably why the Holy Spirit made me start with that verse last week: God is seeking true worshippers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

That truth being reality – His reality, not my perception of reality, because we don't fully see reality yet. We don't fully see it, so if reality was based on my perception, I would never be able to establish the full component of reality. Truth and spirit – it'll be given life by the Spirit, not by my own ability.

So if we talk about this presence, I need to quickly start moving into this: the presence of God manifested in this earth – what does it look like? What was God's intention? How does it function? And I'm going to distinguish between the Old Testament and the New Testament, so I'm going to quickly touch on that and tell you what it looked like in the Old Testament and how it worked.

Okay, can I ask this: who of you thinks Christ existed in the Old Testament? If you read through the Bible, who of you thinks Christ existed in the Old Testament as well? Who of you thinks Christ didn't exist in the Old Testament? Who of you is not sure what I'm asking?

Right, so I'm going to shorten some of these aspects in terms of what I wanted to say, and get to the point a bit more, and then you can go... I'll send you the scriptures and you can go and study it a bit more on your own. But you need to understand – how am I going to easily get into this? I'm going to put it to you this way: Christ was present in the Old Testament already, but the fullness of Christ was not manifested, and they were not given access to Him in terms of a life form before Jesus died and was resurrected. But I'll show you quickly in the Old Testament how He was present and how He was relevant. Now, to explain that to you, you need to understand a few things.

Let's quickly go to Hebrews 10:1.

“For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.”

Hebrews 10:1 (NKJV)

So we need to understand that the Old Testament, and many of the things we see in the Old Testament, was a shadow of things to come. So we know we live in the New Testament, but we can't just go and say, "Okay, but throw out the Old Testament, it's not relevant to me." It's a shadow. So if I, as a human being, am throwing a shadow, there needs to be a being first for there to be a shadow. So the Old Testament is not disconnected from the New Testament. It's not totally irrelevant, but it's showing us some of the components that exist in the New Testament and how they function to some extent.

Only to a limited extent, because as I've already said, the fullness of Christ didn't manifest. So I'll show you this.

“Which is a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.”

Colossians 2:17 (NKJV)

Isn't that amazing? Like we would say, "This is my body, that's my shadow." So if we look at the Old Testament, we say, "That's the shadow in the Old Testament." But you know what? What does the body look like? So in the Old Testament we see the shadow so that we can get some sort of perception about what the body looks like, but the full body was not possible to access in the Old Testament.

So even in the Old Testament there was... We're talking specifically now about the manifestation of the presence of God, and I'm specifically talking about the manifestation of the presence of Christ, because that is what is now relevant to us. How do we manifest the fullness of the presence of Christ in this earth, and what can we expect? What should it look like if we manifest that presence on earth? So if we go and look in the Old Testament and we look at the shadow, we say, "Look, if that's the shadow of the manifestation, then that's at least where we should start."

Surely it can only get better than that, but at least that gives us a starting point, and then we can move into the New Testament. It's not that the New Testament doesn't give us sufficient information, but we can start with the Old Testament anyway and see what it looks like.

Regarding the manifest presence of Christ, I heard some of you know Pastor Lewit. He used the term recently, Christ anointing, and that actually makes a whole lot of sense. It is a term that resonates with my spirit, so I'll also use it, but let me explain what it means. When we talk about the Christ anointing, we are talking about the manifest presence of God. That's where we start.

But then we talk about the manifest presence of God in the earth, and then we talk about what is the ability or the result of that manifest presence in the earth. So for me, when I talk about the Christ anointing – which I'll show you now was actually present in the Old Testament already – I'm specifically talking about the manifest presence of God and the result thereof in the earth, because that just starts to give us a bit of a picture of where we are going with the Christ anointing in the New Testament, which is still referring to the result or the ability of the manifest presence of Christ in this earth.

In the Old Testament, when Israel was going through the desert for 40 years, look at the results that it had in their lives.

“Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.”

Deuteronomy 8:4 (NKJV)

“You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock.”

Deuteronomy 7:14 (NKJV)

There was a presence that went with them as they went through the desert. It was the pillar, the cloud, and the fire – the pillar during the day, the fire during the night. During those 40 years, there are various verses – I'll send them to you, I'm not going to go through all of them now – but they showed us the implication of that presence with them.

It says none of them were barren – not one. Even their livestock, not only the people – not one could be barren. All of them could give birth. There was none of them sick. It says there were none of them feeble; even the old people were strong. There were none of them sick, feeble or struggling. Their clothes didn't even wear out. Their shoes grew with their feet.

Now, this is the shadow. Is it starting to awake something in you? This is the shadow of the real thing. It's not even the real thing, because remember, in the Old Testament...

Let me give you one verse, then I'll explain it to you so you can see there is a very clear connection. I'll show you now that it's even more direct.

“Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”

1 Corinthians 10:1-4 (NKJV)

Now, Moses normally would refer – where they use the word Moses, it will refer to the law – but I'll explain that now. Those of you who didn't know whether Christ was in the Old Testament, there it says, not indirectly, not by interpretation, it clearly says the Rock that followed them was Christ.

So Christ was present, but He wasn't manifested in the way that we have access to Him now. Apart from that presence, which you already saw the benefits of and the implications it had in their lives, there was a different way. And that is why, when everything went wrong in the beginning and that separation took place – the anointing that was meant to be in us and upon us, that is why God created Adam and Eve in His image and likeness, that anointing and ability was meant to be in them and upon them, and it was meant to continue that way.

But then separation took place. And if I can put it in simple terms, God still wanted to create a way for them to access those benefits they would have had by default, and the way He had to do it was by way of the law and by way of sacrifices. So the law for the people in the Old Testament was a way by which they could still access – although in a limited way – the Christ anointing, the benefits of Christ. It's important to understand that.

So God gave them all the laws, and I'm sure you learned all of that when you were a child. It would say: if you do this, you will experience these benefits in your life. If you do this, it will go badly with you. But if you do this, you will see this and this and this greatness and benefit in your life. And what was that all about? It was just to give them a way to access what God wanted to see in their lives – the Christ anointing, the benefits of it – but the only way they could access it was by way of the Law of Moses, and they could access it only in a limited way, because it was not the fullness manifested, and also it was dependent on their doing.

Now, that's the dispensation of the Old Testament, so that is why people will read the Old Testament and say, "God is cruel; people do this and He just kills them." But God is a righteous God and a just God, so He had to adhere to those principles. He could not go against Himself, otherwise He would not be God. So He had to adhere to them. But for His own people – remember, the law was only for Israel – He gave a law and said, "If you access through this law, you can still access some of those benefits that I wanted to be with you anyway by default."

That is how they were able to actually access it, and that is why even today, look at how successful the Jews are – and I'm talking about those who are not even born again. Look at how successful they are, because they still access the benefits through a different way, but they still access it. It is still God that is prospering them; they're just accessing it in a different way. That has not been taken away.

Now I want to jump from that, because I'm taking you through all the different categories: the default presence, the implication it had, the presence through the law or the accessing through the law of the Christ anointing, which I'm not going to explain too much, and then the presence of God in the Ark of the Covenant.

I'm just going to read one scripture to you about that. But again, I want you to have the perception that this is the Old Testament we are talking about. This is the shadow, and these are the results of that presence of God in the Old Testament, and what it should look like in the New Testament.

You know the whole story about how they had to move the Ark, they didn't do it the right way, and then David got scared because of the one guy who got killed – there were specific instructions that said only the priests could carry it. They said, "No, no, no," smart – a chariot and whatever else – and it didn't work. David got afraid. He said, "Just put this thing somewhere." So they took the Ark of the Covenant and put it with Obed-Edom.

“The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-Edom and all his household. Now it was told King David, saying, 'The LORD has blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.'”

2 Samuel 6:11-12 (NKJV)

So David went and brought up the Ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom. They came to him saying, "Everything about this guy is prospering. His children are doing well at school. His cornfields are just bigger than anything else. His apples just look better. His finances – he bought another house that he's renting out. This man is just prospering." And what did he do? Nothing. He did nothing.

But the presence of God that is inside that Ark – that presence just had that influence by default. Now say with me: shadow. Shadow. This is still the shadow. If this is the shadow in the Old Testament, we need to start understanding what this thing is meant to look like in the New Testament. This is still just the shadow.

Now I'm quickly going to jump into the New Testament, and now you know there was the phase in the New Testament – because you turn your Bible to that page where it says "New Testament," but that doesn't mean that's actually the New Testament, okay? The New Testament starts after the ascension of Jesus. But be that as it may, there's a phase where Jesus lived on earth, which is actually not New Testament, okay? It's only after that that the New Testament starts.

But during that phase – we already spoke about that last week – Jesus showed us what was possible to do as a man. But it was a man with a relationship. It was a man with a relationship with God, and because of that, He could do these things that other human beings could not do, because He had that awareness.

“Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."”

John 14:6 (NKJV)

So Jesus is confirming what his purpose is, what his ultimate intention is. He says, "Nobody comes to the Father except through Me." That was the purpose all along. We've established that already. That was step number one: you need to become one with the Father. That was the first purpose God sent Jesus for. Then, once you are part of the Father, we can start with the rest of the journey.

So Jesus made it clear: that's where it started. "I am the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." So we clearly know what his purpose was, and we know that God's purpose is to establish that oneness. But here's the thing where I think a lot of Christians stop. Once they have this knowledge and revelation about our oneness with God, they think it's enough. God's intention from the beginning was not just oneness. God's intention was to manifest that oneness into a position of dominion. I'm still talking about your purpose - don't think I got distracted. You must read between the lines; I'm still talking exactly about your purpose.

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him. Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us."”

John 14:7-8 (NKJV)

Philip says, "Show us the Father." Man, just show him - it's simple. "Show us the Father, and we're happy." Does that sound familiar? Our terms, see. God says, "This is how it is." We say, "Yeah, okay, but show us." God is saying, "No, you show Me. You show Me what I've created you for and what is inside of you, not the other way around."

God did what He had to do. He doesn't have to prove anything. He established and achieved His eternal purpose by the fullness that is in Christ. Now the ball is in our court.

“Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works."”

John 14:9-10 (NKJV)

Now I want to start moving in a different direction. So just check with your neighbour - ask them, "Are you with us?" Check your other neighbour and say, "Are you with us?" If their eyes are closed, tell them, "You've prayed enough, now you must listen." He says, "But the Father who dwells in Me does the works."

Now, here's something very interesting, and this is something I want to dive into now. We, as Christians, have not by default had a total, strong conviction and expectation about results - manifested results. We come to that point where we understand there's a spiritual realm and a physical realm, and we know we have a responsibility to establish the spiritual realm in this physical one.

But if it doesn't happen, then we just say, "Well, you know, I don't understand. I will never understand. Maybe, I don't know," and we just accept it. But what Jesus is starting to say here is something different. He's saying, "How come you don't know My Father? Have you not seen what I have done?" Suddenly He's positioning it differently, saying, "Where the Father is present, there should be results."

He says, in the next verse, "Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves." Isn't that interesting? He says, "Believe that I'm in the Father, and the Father in Me," and He's still talking about the works - He did it in the previous verse, and He's doing it in this one.

He's saying, if this concept of oneness and being one with the Father is too big, then at least just believe Me for the sake of the works. Believe Me enough so that you will also do the works. Even though you don't understand the spiritual concept, believe Me enough in terms of what I'm telling you so that you can go and do it as well.

Because this leads into John 14:12. He says, "Most assuredly, I say to you..." Now, you always know when Jesus starts that way - most assuredly - it means there can be no misinterpretation, no misunderstanding.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”

John 14:12 (NKJV)

Remember the previous two verses - they were saying, "But we haven't seen the Father." Jesus said, "Haven't you seen the results?" Now He's saying, "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father."

Now, this is one of those things where we often get to T-junctions in our spiritual journey, where you have to get to the point where you say, "Either God is God, or He is not. Either the Bible is the Word of God, or it is not. Either the Word of God is truth and reality, or it is not." You can't continuously keep the back door open. You need to get to the point where you say, "Okay, God, You are God. The Bible is the Word of God. The Word of God is truth and reality." You need to go through those three, and then you must be in a position where you say to yourself, "Now I can't question those three anymore."

If you don't question that, it means that you are at a point where if God says something to you in the Bible, you say, "Yes, sir." If He says, "This is what you can do," then you cannot... And this is where I want to do a wake-up call - it's maybe a strong word, and I'm not generalising, so if this is not for you, then just ignore it.

You cannot base it on your experience in your life up to now. You cannot base it on what you have experienced in the church. You cannot base it on what you have seen in church history in the last hundred or two hundred years. The Word of God reveals reality to us. There's one specific session where I focus just on the Word of God, which is an amazing session - even for me personally I receive so much from it, and we'll get to that. I don't want to touch on the content and purpose of that now.

But you need to understand: if this is what God says to you, and Jesus starts the sentence with "most assuredly" - now, if I ask you, and I don't want you to raise your hands, but if I ask you, are you a Christian, do you believe that you can do greater things than what Jesus did on earth? How can we say anything else than yes? Jesus Himself said it.

It's the same thing as I said to you about Moses. He's standing in front of the water. God says, "Open it." Moses stretches out his hand, and he opens the water. It was based on his relationship with God. He just says, "Okay, but if God says I can do it," there you go - go through. All two million Israelites went through there, and then the Egyptians came and the water closed. It's simple.

It's that way with most things in our life, but we get to the water, and then we want to say, "Yeah, but maybe the Word meant it figuratively. Maybe it's only for those few that have the gift of splitting the water. Maybe it's..." It's amazing how people can become creative if they don't want to just say, "God, what You say, You are God, and what You say is truth and reality, and yes, God, I will do it." Because that is what's necessary.

So we need to change our mindset. If Jesus said the things that He did, I can do - and greater works than that. How many people do we want to go to hell before we get to the point of saying, "You know what, God? Actually, Your Word is truth and reality, and what You say I can do, I can do." You are who God says you are, and by default, I can say you can do what God says you can do.

And that's fine, but you know what? I shared with you the scripture last week in Romans 12:2. I've never said this before, but I'm just assuming you know that I'm not speaking to you from a point of view of achievement or that I've attained. I'm only speaking to you from what God shares with me in my heart that's relevant to you now. So everything I'm saying to you, I'm saying to myself as well. Please don't ever think I'm saying, "Hey, I'm doing everything right, what's wrong with you, man, get with the programme, do what I'm doing." That's not what I'm saying. I'm speaking as much to me as I'm speaking to you. But this is the reality of the challenge we have to face: when do we get to the point where we just say, "Jesus said I can do this, that means I can do it"?

“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)

My problem is - think about it - the average Christian in this world, their life looks no different than somebody who's not a Christian. No different. Yet God says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed" - metamorphosed - "by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God for your life."

So we must change our mind. The Bible talks about having the mind of Christ. We need to align our mind with what God says about us, because just to say, "I am who God says I am, I can do what God says I can do" - but when I get to the point of having to make the decision, then I start functioning from here and not from here.

“He who believes in Me... from your innermost being flows rivers of life-giving water.”

John 7:38 (AMPC)

From your innermost being. Some translations say from your womb, from your belly. It's like you can't describe it physically, but it's the core of your existence where the life of God is present. He says from there you have the ability - from you will go forth life-giving water. But your mind has to allow it. If your mind doesn't allow it - and that's why it's so critical for us to renew our mind. You don't have to be creative; you only have to look at the Word of God, and then decide that everything God says about you is true.

Everything that God says you can do, you can do. It sounds simple, but that is the way we have to start living. And I'm going to come back to the point: the radical change we have to make in our minds is to understand that what we are talking about here is not just another teaching. It's not just another coming together and hearing something you haven't heard before. This thing that we are doing here - you have to get into your spirit what the significance of it is and how critical it is.

And to start understanding, it requires that we will do something that has not been done on this earth before. It has not. Have you got any idea what the responsibility is that we have? I'm going to get back to that, but if we talk about Jesus saying to us, "The things that I did, you will do, and greater works," then what does that look like? Surely we must at least get some confirmation of what that looks like.

But I want to emphasise this aspect I referred to. I'm quickly going to sidetrack, because of the significance of our mindset in this process - let's quickly go to 2 Corinthians 10:3.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (NKJV)

We need this body - I explained that to you. We need this body in this physical realm, but it's not who we are. You are a spirit, you have a soul, and you stay in a body. So although we walk in this body, we do not war according to that. You're not limited to your physical ability. Our ability is in Him. What we have access to in Him is far beyond anything in this world that could come against us or that could look impossible.

It's beyond the ability of anything - it's logic: God created everything by just speaking. So what can come against Him that's bigger than Him? The creation cannot be bigger than the Creator. But it says "pulling down strongholds." Now, typically we'll easily fall into the category of strongholds - okay, we're going to do spiritual warfare, we're coming together tonight and we're going to fight against all the demons and whatever else. This is not what it's talking about. But that would be the easy route to take in terms of what we deem spiritual strongholds to be.

But now it says, "Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." You have to get that. As a matter of fact, the Greek word used for "thing" is actually "barrier." So it's talking about any barrier that is preventing us from thinking the way that God thinks.

The problem has been - and I say this respectfully, trust that you will not get offended by what I say - the body of Christ on the earth has been paralysed. It's been paralysed because we are the body of Christ. There isn't another body. There isn't a Christ that overrides our inability to be the body. We are the body, full stop. That's why I said to you, we determine how big God is on the earth.

Why do you think the world looks the way that it does? God makes it clear in His Word that He loves us, that He only wants the best for us. He doesn't want one person to go to hell - that is His intention - yet look around you. It's not consistent with what He says in His Word He is and what His intention is.

But the world will look the way it's meant to look when the body of Christ looks the way it's meant to look. We've paralysed the body because - if you are born again, you are in the body - but our own thinking is, "We can only do this, we can only do that, I don't understand that, no, you know what, this church thing is not for me, so I stay home." Now I'm not saying you must go to church - that's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about these thoughts that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

The world looks the way it does because of the mindset of Christians. God has given us all the ability. His eternal purpose has come to fullness in Christ already. What He wanted to achieve, it's there. But now it's up to us to say, can you change your mindset to understand that we haven't seen Christianity yet on this earth?

I say it very respectfully, but we haven't seen it - not the way God describes it, saying, "You know what, I'm building a kingdom on this earth that will destroy every other kingdom, and it will come into dominion." We haven't seen it yet. That means the body is not looking the way it should be looking, and why not? We say we put God first, but we can't come to the conclusion that Jesus says, "Everything that I do, you will do, and greater works." We say, "Yeah, well, maybe figuratively..." That's why it looks the way that it looks.

And here He's explaining to us. He's saying our problem is not that we physically don't have the ability. Our problem is the six inches between our ears. It's the only battle that's left, the only one. There's no other battle.

Jesus died on the cross. He paid for your sins. He went down to hell because He had to pay the price. When He was down in hell, Satan wanted Him to bow before him, the same way he wanted it three years before. All the demons came; they wanted to push Jesus down to bow before Satan. The Bible says He made a public spectacle of them, and He took from Satan the keys of hell and death. Jesus overcame Satan already, rendered him powerless.

He got up from - Satan could not keep Him in hell. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, He was raised from the dead out of hell. He was resurrected, and He ascended, and He's sitting at the right hand. So part of that process, He has stripped Satan of his power and ability, even as far as death is concerned. But in the Old Testament, God said, "My people perish due to lack of knowledge." I said to you last week, Satan is not our focus. He might be causing a whole lot of trouble, but he's not our focus.

If you walk into this room and it's dark, are you going to roll up your sleeves and start fighting this darkness until it gets light so you can see? No, that would be stupidity. So how come we do that with Satan? How do you get it that there's no darkness in this room? You switch on the light. It says that God brought forth light out of darkness, and darkness could not even comprehend it.

The world so easily wants to depict God and Satan as being on the same level - this battle between evil and good, and they're on the same level. Sometimes God wins, sometimes Satan wins. Satan was only an angel; he was never even close to being on the level of God. But in the world, and even sometimes in our mind, we put Satan in the same position as God and say, "You know, but he's got the same power and the same ability and the same influence in my life." It's a lie.

He's an angel, and a fallen angel for that matter, and Jesus went down to hell, and He overcame him, and He took his power from him. The only power that Satan has in your life is the power that you allow him to have, based on ignorance.

The Bible says Satan walks around like a roaring lion, and people stop there and say, "Oh, look at it - roaring lion, ooh, terrible." No, no, no. It says he walks around like a roaring lion devouring everybody - no, that's not what it says. He walks around like a roaring lion. He's making a whole lot of noise because he knows he's been stripped of his power, so he's trying to scare people through the noise that he makes. He walks like a roaring lion; he walks in and says, "Rawr," and then sees who falls over. He says, "Ha, okay, that one, I can go for that one." He walks around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

He doesn't have the ability to just devour whatever he wants. He needs to seek those that, based on lack of knowledge, based on ignorance, he can come and have influence in their life. If we live in the position that God has put us in now in this dispensation, Satan is not a factor in our lives. Darkness is not the issue. Hallelujah. Yes, there are a lot of challenges, there are enemies, there are things coming against us, but we don't look at them and give them our focus.

Whatever you focus on is what you will achieve. If you continue to focus on the issues in your life, if you continue to focus on fighting demons every night, if you focus every night just praying against Satan, against Satan, against Satan, and you can't understand why things are not changing, just change direction slightly and look at a loving Father who says, "I am only light; in Me there is no darkness." He says, "Walk in the light as I am in the light," but it actually means as I am the light, because He is the light.

Even in Revelation, if you want to talk about the presence and ability of God - when it talks about heaven, it says there is no need for a light. There is no darkness, there is no night, twenty-four-seven. Hey, I'm looking forward to that, 'cause I don't like sleeping - sleep is a waste of time, so I can't wait for heaven, that I don't have to sleep. But twenty-four-seven, it says there is no need for the sun and the moon because He is the light. That is His presence, that is His ability - not our focus.

And that's why it says our biggest challenge here - what is our struggle against? It says, "Casting down every argument." So I can't just be ignorant. And I'm going to make a call to you today, and I'll do it at the end, for you to stand up and take a position in terms of what the rest of your life is going to look like.

Because we need to give each other the opportunity to say, "Look, man, I don't care about this thing, the body of Christ can perish and it can take longer for Jesus to come, I don't care, I want to go and do my own thing." But if you have the intention in your heart to make a difference, we need to make a stand and say, "Look, from today, I'm going to make a difference." Because we just can't continue with this paralysed body. We think we're going to do something, but the body is just not in the position it should be, because not everybody is doing what it should be doing and doesn't have this mentality.

That is why our fight is against this. Every thought in my mind - if I make this decision that I want to manifest Christ on this earth, I must say every thought that is in my mind that is inconsistent with the Word of God, I need to get rid of it. Amen. And again, I don't focus on the wrong thoughts. When we have that session about the Word of God, I'll teach you some things about how you fill yourself with the Word and how you manifest the Word of God, so I don't want to spend too much time on it now.

But there's a process for us to get rid of every argument, every high thing, every barrier that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. That's why even in Ephesians 4 it says, "Till we all come to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" - what did it say just before that? How do we get to it? Through the knowledge of the Son. Through the knowledge of who God is, who the Son is. If I focus on that, then darkness will disappear and we manifest light.

We need to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience - and it amazes me that it ends off there and speaks about the obedience of Christ. It's talking about something very specific. This body - now you need to follow with me - I'm talking about Christ, I'm talking about the body that we need to manifest on this earth, and I'm saying it needs to yield a certain outcome, a certain result. What does that body look like? And now it says every thought that comes against us that is not consistent with what this body should look like, I must take that thought and I must...

I don't know if you can picture it, but I've got this picture of you putting this thing there and you step on its neck - you bring it into the obedience of Christ. Why of Christ? Because we need to understand what the ability of Christ is. So when I understand what the ability of Christ is, of the Christ anointing, of the manifestation of God on this earth - if I know that is what it should look like, then I must have that picture that is consistent with the Word of God. I don't know if any of you have ever done this before in your life, where you have these boards where you put things you want to achieve in your life - they say if you continue to look at that, chances are much better that you'll actually achieve it.

But we must put this picture in front of us: what does the body of Christ look like? And anything inconsistent with that, I need to get rid of out of my life, so that I can manifest what this body is meant to look like. Bring everything into submission, so I know that is what Christ looks like. When a thought comes and says, "You know what, you've prayed for ten people now, two of them still died - do you really think this is for you, do you really think the Word of God is true?" - you take that thought and you say, "Apparently I still have something to learn."

Out of ten people I've prayed for, two still died. But I know what the Word of God says, what Christ looked like. So I take that thought and I put it under my foot and I say, "You, come to obedience into Christ," because this is what Christ looks like. And in Christ, ten out of ten people get healed. I don't have enough time to go through all the detail; you know all of those things very well. What did it look like when Jesus did these things, when He was still Jesus the man? Acts 10:38 says God anointed Him with power, with the Holy Spirit, and He went around doing good.

Do you know all the things? You must go read through the Gospels again – all the things that Jesus did. He healed the sick. He raised the dead. He cleansed the lepers. He walked on water. He knew things about people before they even said anything to Him. Nobody said anything to Him. When He called His initial disciples, or when they came to Him, they had this perception. Even Nathaniel came, and Jesus said, "I saw you when you were sitting under the fig tree." He said, "You are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel."

Jesus said, "What, because of that you say that? I'll show you bigger things than that." When He got to the well and the woman gave Him water, He said, "Go call your husband." She said, "I don't have a husband." He said, "Yes, you speak well." And with all the others as well, who were not Jewish, she said, "How do you know this?" If you look at the things that Jesus did as a man, all of those things, we must have an expectation. When we get up in the morning, we should have an expectation to say, "What am I going to do today that I've never done before?"

Otherwise we are not going to get to the point where we need to be. So if Jesus did all these things, go and look at everything that He did. And He says, "Everything that I did, you will do." And that would have been enough – it would have been enough. But He says, "Greater works than these you will do, because I go to My Father."

Why did He say that? Because He said, "When I go to My Father, I will pray, and He will send you another helper, the Holy Spirit." Now, we'll have one session only on the Holy Spirit – that session you cannot miss. I even want to go in that direction now, but not now.

Jesus said in John 5:19:

“He answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel."”

John 5:19-20 (NKJV)

When Jesus said these things, He said, "I can do nothing except what My Father showed Me." I said to you, why could Jesus do the things that He could do? He had a relationship with the Father. If you want to start living this life that God intended you to live, you need a relationship with Him – but we'll get to that.

That is why Jesus could live this life – He had a relationship. So when He spent time – there are often nights that Jesus prayed throughout the night. In the evenings and the mornings, Jesus went on His own in isolation, He prayed, and God would show Him what would happen during that day. So when He showed up and there wasn't enough food, He wasn't surprised, because the Holy Spirit had already shown Him. He said, "All you do, you start breaking the bread and the fish. Just break it. It's all you do." It's not rocket science. You break it, you bless it, you pray, you break it.

And as you break it, it'll just start multiplying. So nothing was a surprise to Jesus, because of His relationship with the Father, the Father showed Him. But I'll expand on that when we talk about the Holy Spirit.

But what I really want to talk about here is, He says, "But what He sees the Father do, for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner." Now, it's not as much as the Father showing Jesus and saying, "Okay, you take your hand like this and you turn it forty-five degrees, and then you quickly touch the person and then he will be healed."

No, that's not, that's not what the Father showed Him.

Where did we start off? God is a spirit, and He is looking for true worshippers to worship Him in reality and in spirit, in truth and in spirit, in reality.

So what did the Father show Jesus? Reality. The Father would just show Jesus – and I'm paraphrasing for the sake of illustrating it – the Father would say, "Look around Me. What do you see?" Jesus would look and say, "Wow, there's only light. That's amazing. I see there's no lack, there's no sickness, there's no death."

The Father showed Him reality. The Father didn't have to show Him what to do. The Father gave Him a conviction of reality, and that is what we need. Do you know what it looks like in heaven? God is expecting us to manifest heaven on this earth. We know the Our Father prayer so well, but Jesus prayed, "Let it be on earth as it is in heaven."

Why did He pray that? Because that is what the Father showed Him – that in heaven there is no sickness. I'm not going to give you all the scriptures of everyone Jesus healed, but Jesus walked out and, with compassion, healed everybody who was oppressed by Satan. Why? He looked at them and said, "Wait a minute, I just saw reality, and in reality there was no sickness. How come there's sickness here? I am meant to manifest My Father's kingdom."

When we talk about that kingdom, you can see it as the reality of heaven, His presence, His ability. "I look there in My Father's realm, I see there's no sickness. I come into this physical realm where My Father wants to be glorified and exalted, and I look and there is something here that is not consistent with My Father and that I know My Father will not like." He sees sickness and says, "Go." The Father only had to show Him reality, and because of His conviction, when He went into that, He could immediately identify what is not consistent with reality.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the average Christian is that they do not have a conviction of who God is, what His nature is, and what it looks like around Him. Around God there is no pain, no sickness, no divorce, no darkness, no poverty, no lack, no limited resources. But that is our responsibility. We need to take that kingdom – that is what God wanted right from day one.

We spoke about the ability of, and the result of, the manifest presence of God. In the presence of God it is impossible for sin, sickness, disease or poverty – whatever it is – to exist. Remember I spoke to you about how God introduced Himself when Moses asked, "Who will I say sent me?" He said, "I am." The presence of God is enough.

Those of us who have developed a desire to do God's things sometimes fall into the trap of thinking it's all about the doing. It's not about how much you can do. It's about how much you can let Him do through you. He can do in a fraction of time what you cannot do in eight years. But we will not allow Him if we don't have a conviction of reality, because God still gives you the ability to choose, and the only way God can manifest Himself through you is if you choose to do it.

I want to end off with something specific about how the disciples functioned, linking these things together, because we saw what Jesus did – and sometimes people cannot put themselves in that same category, although Jesus said, "You will do these things and more." But even if you look at the disciples, we must at least say: whatever the disciples were able to do, we should at least be able to do that, if you cannot get over the mind step of doing what Jesus did.

Now, what is very interesting is Mark 1:14-15.

“Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."”

Mark 1:14-15 (NKJV)

Isn't that interesting? Jesus was preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. He had a conviction of the kingdom, of reality, and of what it should look like on earth – that our purpose is to establish the kingdom. You are not meant to just live and try not to sin and go to heaven. You were not created for that. The average Christian might live that way, saying, "Yeah, I'm just trying not to sin, and then one day I will go to heaven." You were not meant for that. You were meant to manifest the fullness of His presence unto dominion in this earth.

The kingdom of God is the same as the presence of God, because where God is present, everything will manifest. That's what's meant to be our lives.

The light and the ability and the life that is inside of us – I said to you there are truths and there are higher truths. We can start at a place where, for everything we want to happen, we just pray to God and ask Him to make it happen, and that's fine if you're a babe. But you get to a point where you start saying, "Okay, I'm going to command this in the name of Jesus." You don't have to wait for God. You just know in your heart this is what you must do, and you command it in the name of Jesus and you see results.

Then you get to the point where, depending on circumstances – it's not necessarily a category you simply grow into, different circumstances require different things – you walk into a room and you manifest the presence. Just by walking into that room, people's lives are changed.

I have an expectation about this series, and I've gone through a lot in the last nine years in terms of ministry and how to do these things. One of the things I have a conviction about, and that I'm bold about, is that it's not meant to be just about the person standing in front, as if he's the only one who has the solution and can pray for people to be healed. Every single person is meant to manifest the presence of God, and where the manifest presence of God is, these things simply cannot exist.

I have an expectation – when I spoke to the leaders and the people helping here, the Holy Spirit told me to say to one of them, "When you stand in front there with your clipboard, ticking people off as they arrive, there will be people who, when they get to you and you look in their eyes, will receive their healing." Because that's what it's meant to be like when it's the gospel of the kingdom. The word salvation includes everything that goes with it. The Bible says if God gave us Jesus, how much more will He give us everything else? That includes unlimited resources, health, whatever – it includes it.

When Jesus sent the disciples, Matthew 10:7-8 says:

“And as you go, preach, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.”

Matthew 10:7-8 (NKJV)

I want you to focus now, because I'm ending off. What is He saying? Just manifest the kingdom of God. You don't have to fight with these things on their level.

When I started nine years ago, I had a ministry specifically in areas where people engaged with forefathers or whatever, and that demonic influence was in them – they were often demon-possessed. On Sundays I would go and preach, and these people would come demon-possessed; I'd cast the demons out, feel very good although tired – it would take two hours to get rid of all the demons, with people crawling on the floor. Then the next Sunday, they were back again.

One day I started speaking to God, asking, "What's going on?" He said to me, "What are you doing? You put yourself on the same level as them. You go there and you fight this demon." I would chase the demon out, and the next Sunday the guy would be back with the demon's brother, because he told his brother, "That guy chased me out – go give him a hard time." If you don't know who you are, you will position yourself on the level of Satan and his demons, and fight on that level. That's not the solution.

That's why He said, when you go out, what is your message? The same message that Jesus had. Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom. He sent the disciples and said, "Just go to the people, say, 'The kingdom is here. The kingdom is here. The kingdom is here.'" And the person who accepts that the kingdom is here is healed automatically, because that's what is in the kingdom – there is no sickness.

If that's the instruction Jesus gave the disciples, He said in Matthew 16:19:

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Matthew 16:19 (NKJV)

People can go into such theological debates about what that means. All it means is we live in heaven. That is our reality. That means I represent heaven, I function from heaven. When I go and do something here, the same thing is happening in heaven. So it's not this weird thing that people try to make of it – that's just how it is. I'm a representative of heaven, and I've got all the backing because I function in both those dimensions.

I'm going to end off with this, Acts 2:17:

“"And it shall come to pass in the last days," says God, "that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams."”

Acts 2:17 (NKJV)

The reason I'm using that verse is that there comes a time that is different from other times. There were times – I'll quickly give you two examples. Ezekiel 22:30 says:

“So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.”

Ezekiel 22:30 (NKJV)

And God destroyed it. Then there's another verse, Isaiah 6:8:

“Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."”

Isaiah 6:8 (NKJV)

That was God's plan to manifest Himself in this earth. His presence is enough. God has sent Jesus to make it possible to recreate His life in this earth, and we have become part of that life. And now the only thing left for us is to establish the kingdom of God, the body of Christ, the body of God, unto dominion in this earth.

When we establish, when we facilitate, we are hosting that presence. When we just host that presence, when the presence of God is there, everything else that is not consistent with His desire will disappear. But there is a core element to it: the body of Christ needs to move into a position of dominion and authority, which it is not at the moment. If you look at what the world looks like, it is evident that the body of Christ is not the authority it is meant to be.

Tonight, for me, was difficult content because it feels all over the place, but I know that God has conveyed to you what He wanted to convey, and explained a bit more about what we spoke about in the first session. We are now going to start changing direction from the third session, and it's going to start looking totally different, because I believe we have now established what you needed to hear and have a conviction about why we are here: to build the body of Christ unto a force of dominion, and the world has not seen that before.

It has not. And that means you must have an expectation. I'm always careful to use the word revival, because it can be seen as some temporary thing – that's all revivals up to now have been, a temporary thing. But we should have an expectation that there will be, for lack of another word, a revival in terms of the establishment of the authority of the body of Christ, to such an extent that it will cause Jesus to come back.

And that is not going to happen by just doing whatever we have done up to now. Even Einstein said that's the definition of madness: to continue doing what you have done and expect different results. So get a conviction about what God wants to do. His plan hasn't changed. He wants the earth filled with His presence, with His glory, with His ability. He wants to be in dominion in this earth, and the way to do it is through the body of Christ – that's our responsibility.

Now we'll start talking about the Word and about the Spirit, which is really going to be amazing, because now we actually know the what, and we can move into the how.

Can I pray for you? Seeing that I've started one minute late, I'm going to take one minute more. I want you to quickly close your eyes.

I cannot assume, because there are a whole lot of people here for the first time. I explained in the beginning: Jesus said, "You cannot see this kingdom," this kingdom that we spoke about, "you cannot come into it, unless you are born again." And the only way to become born again is to believe in your heart that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for you and was resurrected, and when you believe it, you must speak it as well.

So I'm not going to call you to the front or anything. Right there where you sit, everybody can just close their eyes. If you want to accept Jesus as your Saviour today, if you want to become born again today, just raise your hand right there where you're seated.

I see those hands. There's a lot of hands. Okay, you can drop those hands. I'm going to ask that everybody, for the sake of privacy, just pray with us, because even if you're already born again, it wouldn't matter if you pray this again.

Thank You, Father, 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. I receive eternal life into my spirit. Thank You, Father, that You do not leave me alone, but You send Your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, come and fill me. Give me the ability to function in the supernatural and manifest the kingdom of God, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

I would like to pray for you. Thank You, Father, for every person You have handpicked to be here. Thank You that their hearts are open to hear from You and You alone. Thank You, Father, that this Word You have given them will drop into their spirit, and it cannot be stolen. This Word will produce a harvest. Thank You, Father, for conviction in their hearts of the significant role each and every one of them plays in the body of Christ. Thank You, Father, that You command Your angels to surround them, protect them, strengthen them, and bring them back to continue to receive from You. Thank You, Father, that each one of us is equipped to help each other fulfil our purpose and strengthen each other, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

One of the significant things that came up in my spirit as I speak now: don't start thinking that this journey is meant for you to only figure out by yourself and do on your own. One of the most significant things I'll get to – there's a whole session just on that – is how we function in oneness. There's a difference between unity and oneness. How we function in oneness, and help each other to fulfil what we need to do.

So don't think for one moment – it might be a daunting thing for you at the moment – but don't think for one moment you are meant to do it on your own. Okay. Right. Thank you very much. I'll see you next week.