Session 3 of 6 - What is the Word of God

Hello, everyone. It's a privilege to be back. It's great to see you here. This week already feels a bit like a long weekend - it feels like it should be a holiday or something. These short weeks tend to throw one around a bit, but it's a privilege to be here. It's great to have you here. I'm looking forward to tonight. The content of tonight is one of the sessions that really speaks to my heart, and for me personally it's one of the great sessions. I know we've shared quite a lot already, and it's been, if I can call it that, a lot of theory, a lot of knowledge, but to some extent it forms the foundation.

So now we're going to start building some structure on that foundation and making it more practical and relevant to you, and start giving you a bit more responsibility. Keeping in mind - I'm going to keep saying it till the last session - that for me it's all about activation. So it must move you into something. There will be opportunity after this session tonight; I'll share that with you a bit later.

I want to be sure you understand - I said it right from the first session, but quite a lot of people joined after that. My function is to help you fulfil your purpose. It's not to call you to me and say, "Okay, come with me." It is to say, "Go." You need to be sent. So I'm here to equip you to do that, to help you to do that. My purpose is to help you live in your purpose and fulfil your purpose, the same way that your purpose is to help me fulfil my purpose.

I'm here to help you. We do it in a variety of ways, and there are continuous ways I'll be able to assist you, and there are also tools that we'll make available - whatever we can, to make it easier for you to fulfil your purpose. That's what all of us should be doing: helping each other to fulfil that purpose.

There are some strategies, whether you want to call it equipping of the saints or discipleship, whatever it is. I think one of the flaws that tends to be in a lot of these processes is that it starts making people dependent on the person helping. With me, my whole focus is to be sure that you are independent. Don't think I'm leading you into a position where you become dependent on me. I want you to be as independent as possible, like the role you play as parents: from the time you have a child, everything you do actually moves toward making that child independent, and that is the same strategy we should have.

We've spoken a lot about God's purpose and all of that. I'm not even going to recap, and I'm not even going to ask - I assume everybody here has listened to the audios. So we know there is a reality, a spiritual realm, and it is the superior realm. I also refer to that as reality because, remember where we started: God is a Spirit, and He's seeking true worshippers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. So now our function is to manifest that reality, that realm, into the physical.

We know that now, and we're all on the same page as far as that's concerned. But there are ways that God actually makes it possible for us to do that. Remember, the great thing for me in doing what we are doing is that my peace, my comfort, is in the fact that I know it's all about God, and it's all about what He wants to achieve. So I don't have to think out my own little thing or run my own little kingdom. I just need to hear what it is He wants to do, and I tap into that, and that's what I do.

The great thing is, I know God wants this to work. God has a much bigger desire than you will ever have to make this work, for us to complete the building of the body of Christ, the building of God, and to bring it to dominion in this earth. So that's great news for me.

There are mainly two things that God gave us to make this possible: the Word of God and the Spirit of God. That's why I always say to people, "I've got nothing to offer you other than the Word of God and the Spirit of God." Now, that's ninety-nine percent accurate. The amazing thing is that God uses us and our creative ability and our uniqueness. God has often told me, in a certain circumstance, "Paint this picture with Me." So there is creative ability in you that God wants to use. He wants you to have a bit of influence in how things flow.

But in essence, what I have to offer you is the Word of God and the Spirit of God. What God has given you to complete what you need to do - which is manifesting that kingdom in the earth - is the Word of God and the Spirit of God. In essence, it's a combination of the two; neither one is independent of the other. But for the sake of time, I'm only going to focus on the Word tonight. In all likelihood we'll look at the Spirit next week, but for now, tonight, we're going to look at the Word.

In its basic essence, the Word is the window through which we look and see this reality we are talking about. I know it sounds figurative when I say there's a spiritual realm and a physical realm. God is a Spirit, and it's not tangible; you can't see it, you can't touch it, you can't really quantify it. It's something difficult to work with. But the Word of God is the window that shows us exactly what that realm looks like and how it functions. It's the window to the Kingdom, to the reality - if you want to put it that way, it's the window to heaven.

And in essence, maybe not a window per se, but it's also a mirror that tells you exactly who you are. The Bible describes itself as the mirror - when it talks about the doers of the Word in James, it says we should not be forgetful hearers, like a person who looks into the mirror and turns around and forgets what he looks like. So the Word of God, the Bible, is there for you as a mirror to look into, because in this world - through your environment, through yourself, through Satan - there is continuous influence that wants to deform, adjust or mislead the way you look at yourself.

I even want to say that the mere fact that you look at yourself is one of the main things Satan can keep people busy with for forty years. It was never the intention that we just keep focusing on ourselves and trying to sort ourselves out. If your expectation is that your first goal is to sort out yourself, you will not do what God has sent you for. I've got bad news for you: it's not going to happen, because that's simply not the solution God provided. The solution God provided says, "Look away unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith," and, "First seek the Kingdom of God."

Now that's going to mean something different to you in future when you read that scripture and we talk about the Kingdom of God. It's not this theoretical thing out there. When it says, "First seek the Kingdom of God," it's talking, in essence, about manifesting God in this earth. That's what it's talking about. So it says: first seek to manifest God in this earth, and everything else you require in life will be added unto you. So, in its basic form, the Word is that window that tells us what this realm looks like and how it functions, and it starts helping us understand and grasp how we manifest it.

I think the amazing thing is that not only does the Word show us what reality looks like, but everything the Word shows you, it is able to manifest in this earth. The ability is in the Word to realise, to materialise, to establish, to manifest everything in the physical that it talks about that exists in the spiritual.

That's amazing, because when I talk about the Word of God tonight, I'm certainly not going to talk theoretically. I'm not talking about that book lying on your bedside table. I'm not talking about the written words in there. I'm talking about much more than that, and I'll continue to explain that as we go on.

There is something I always explain, and maybe it's relevant to do that now: the process of our spiritual journey. I normally explain it this way. The sequence of events is this: there is the being, then there is the knowing, and then there is the doing.

The being part is this: you first receive the life of God into your spirit. That's being. You become a new creation - those that are in Christ are a new creation. So you become - that is the being. Now that's great. If you become born again, you have received eternal life and you are going to heaven even if you do nothing after that. Being is enough. But that's not what God intended. God didn't just give us salvation for the sake of going to heaven one day - that's not the idea. The idea is to manifest Him in this earth. So it's fine to go to heaven - you never have to go to church, you never have to pray, you never have to do anything - you're still going to heaven. So being is enough.

I explained to you right in the first session that the thing that takes you into heaven, that gives you eternal life, is the life form that is inside of you. That is what gives you eternal life - your life form - not whether you live right, do good, or don't sin; none of that is what takes you into heaven. It is your life form. So being is fine for that. But then there is the second part: you will not be able to manifest in this earth who you are if you don't know who you are. That is why the knowing part is so critical. Only once you start knowing - and again, that is what the Word of God is for, it shows you who you are.

That's why it's the mirror - the knowing part. The more you look at it, the more you say, "Okay, if God says this is who I am, then this is who I am," and then you do according to what God says. But if you don't know it, you're not going to do it. And obviously, from knowing flows doing.

Now, a lot of people fall into "they'll be doing," but they never even became born again. So the life form that should be the source and the ability to actually manifest the supernatural in this earth is not there, and that's why it falls into the category of dead works and religion.

There are many people who sit in church who are not born again. I've spoken about that often - we've run this series so many times, we've done it in Stellenbosch before, and typically when we ran these sessions we roughly counted how many people became born again. If you were to ask people coming to the session, "How many of you are Christians?" ninety-nine percent will say they are Christians. Yet when you explain to them what it means to be born again and have the life of God inside them, and you give them the option to make Jesus their Saviour and become born again, a third of the people become born again at these sessions.

That means - and this is by no means representative, just in terms of our exposure - roughly a third of people who say they are Christians are not going to heaven, because of a lack of knowledge. So that is the sequence: being, knowing and doing, and that is why the Word of God is so critical.

If I explain this in terms of knowledge: remember, when we read the Bible in English, the Bible wasn't originally written in English, so you often use one of these Strong's dictionaries or similar tools. Nowadays everything is electronic and you just click on the word and it explains exactly what it means. There are different words used, for instance, for knowledge and for wisdom.

If you just take knowledge, there's the basic form, which is actually the Greek word sophia - that's just intellectual knowledge. You read something in the Word of God - let's stay relevant to the Word - you read something and gain knowledge, and that's sophia. That's not changing your life at all, not yet. It's intellectual knowledge; that's all it is.

Then, if you progress from there, you go to epignosis. With epignosis you actually start understanding this intellectual knowledge you have gained - you start understanding it to the extent that you actually start applying it. So now you have knowledge on the epignosis level; you apply it and you see, "Ah, there's a result." You apply it another time and see, "Well, there's actually no result." Now you're figuring out why - it worked one time, another time it didn't. So epignosis comes by way of experience, by way of results. You do, and you start gaining knowledge on an application level.

But then there is a higher level of knowledge: phronesis, where you actually just become - you become that thing the Word speaks about. It falls into the category of how God describes Himself when He says, "I Am." Who He is, is enough. In His presence there are things that cannot exist - there is no pain in His presence, no poverty, no unrighteousness, no sickness. It simply cannot exist in His presence. So there's a process, but we need to look at the Word of God so that we know what we are working towards.

If I can use this example that I've used often in the past - so those of you who have heard it, bear with me - it's like this scenario. If there is an elephant that is raised by mice, and that's the only lifestyle he knows, because the only family he knows is mice - their behaviour, their habits - the elephant starts acting like a mouse. He takes on those characteristics. And when the mice walk over the bridge and suddenly see a cat, they scream, "There's a cat!" and they all run. And what does the elephant do? He also screams, "Hey, there's a cat!" and turns around and runs. Why? Because his mentality is that he's a mouse, and mice run away when they see a cat. He doesn't know who he is.

It's sad to say there are many Christians in this world who are like that. They have no idea what God has made them to be. I touched on it last time when I said to you the Word says that Satan is walking around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. There is an authority that has been established, and we can walk in that authority, but if you don't know about it, you will not walk in it and you will not manifest it. That is why the Word of God goes to the core of us being able to be successful in this earth. Because if you don't know what the Word of God says about you, you will never act according to what it says. Which means there are a lot of things we are meant to manifest in this earth that are simply not happening.

But let's look a bit deeper into the ability of the Word of God, so that we can start changing gears a bit.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

John 1:1-2 (NKJV)

Now, if we start talking about the Word of God, your perception should start changing about what it is we are talking about when we talk about the Word of God. I'm staying away from the word "Bible," because I want you, in essence, to start hearing what it is we are talking about. I'm not talking about the Bible - I'm talking about the Word of God, and here it says that the Word of God was in God from the beginning.

And as if that is not enough - that it was in God in the beginning - it says, "And the Word was God." So there is something, and I'm going to start moving a bit quicker now, so stay with me. The Word of God is God. The Word of God is a life form. It is an ability. It is an extension of God. It is impossible to separate the Word of God from God.

So if you start thinking about the Word now, and understanding that the Word of God is God, it is a life form - it is like this picture I have in my spirit: the Word is the heartbeat of God. When God's heart beats and the blood is running through His veins, when His heart beats - it is you that is His body. Remember, you are the body of God. As His heart beats, as the Word beats in Him, that is the pulsating life that is flowing through you.

That is the life that is in you. That is the Word of God. But the fact that it is inside of you doesn't mean it will automatically manifest in this earth. That is why there are processes, and that is why the Word of God is not just one page. If it was only about salvation, we would only need one page: God created Adam and Eve, they sinned, there was separation, He sent Jesus. If you accept Jesus, you become born again, you go to heaven. Amen. One page. We don't even need one page.

We could put it on a business card. That's the whole Bible. That's the whole Word of God. But there is much more than that being revealed to us, and you need to understand that from these sessions comes responsibility, because God says, "To him that much has been entrusted, much is expected." There is word and truth and revelation and activation coming to you, and up to now you've sat back while I've been doing the work. Now I'm going to take this ball and start passing it to you and say, "It's your turn."

It's amazing how the Holy Spirit works with me – there are concepts He will just show me. Can I quickly sidetrack? I've said it before and I need to say it again: one of the major things where we are flawed in Christianity is expecting everybody to see God the same way, or expecting God to work with everybody the same way. It doesn't work like that. God is so diverse, His dimensions so far beyond what we can imagine with our minds, that God speaks to everyone differently.

There is not just one way that God speaks, one way that He deals. Some people God will deal with through pictures. Some He will deal with through songs. Some He will just give a written word. Whatever it is, He deals with people in different ways, even in different situations – He doesn't just speak to you in one way. But God will give me concepts that, throughout a series, become like a golden thread. God will show me the profile of the average person who will attend a series, and certain concepts relating to it.

One of the concepts God gave me concerning this series is the picture of a baseball player with the bat in his hand, and God says, "It's time to step up to the plate." I see this person standing like this, holding the bat like this. That is a message God is saying to you: "It's time to step up to the plate." You have maybe been hiding behind other people who you think are so well-spoken and know the Word so well. You have maybe had so many reasons why it is not you. God says you have no excuses anymore. Step up to the plate. You're up. It's your turn.

So coming back to this, we need to understand that the Word of God cannot be separated from God. It is the expression of Himself. When we look at the Word of God, we see God. There is more about that, but let's finish the scripture – I'll get back to it.

Verse three says, and remember this is still talking about the Word, and about the Word as a person as well, because later on it says the Word became flesh – the Word that was inside God from the beginning, and that Word was used to create everything, as we'll now read.

“All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”

John 1:3 (NKJV)

That ability has always been inside God, and that is the ability He used to create everything. Maybe some of you have seen this on YouTube or the internet, or have studied it a bit: a few years ago scientists started discovering that when you go into the lowest form of existence of any cell – even if you take this chair down to the lowest form of the material used, to its lowest form of existence – every single cell has a sound code. There is a vibration, a sound code in every single cell.

Why? Because that is how God created everything. He spoke, and it was created. Scientists are only catching up now to understand this, and that is why the Bible says everything can respond to sound. Every single thing in this earth can respond to sound because that is the way God created it. This is out there, I know, but I think there are people who need to hear it: the sound code in something determines its purpose, and every one of you actually has a different sound code in you. Okay, that was a side note – I didn't plan on saying that. Let's continue.

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

John 1:4-5 (NKJV)

Remember I touched on this previously: the world has created a perception that God and Satan are on the same level, as if it's a 50/50 battle between light and darkness. Remember, Satan was only an angel, and a fallen one, so he was nowhere near. There are few verses that speak about God being light – it even says He called light forth out of darkness. Here it speaks of that light forth, which darkness cannot even comprehend. It cannot even understand it, and that speaks to the superior life form and ability that is in God.

You must understand, this thing we are talking about that needs to be manifested in this earth is inside of you, and there is nothing in this earth – nothing – that comes close to the superiority and ability of that light that is inside of you. Not even close. That's why the extreme comparison of the elephant and the mouse applies. Jesus did what He had to do; what is left for us is to come to recognise who we are, what our ability is in the Word and through the Spirit and through God, and to be able to manifest that.

Understand that God is not God because He says He's God. Did you get that? He's God because He is God. He's a superior being and life form. He just is it – He I AMs it. That's who He is. It is superior. He doesn't have to explain Himself. He doesn't have to justify Himself. He just has to be.

Who He is is so superior that Satan and darkness cannot even comprehend it. They cannot sit and analyse, "What is this?" It is beyond their ability. So when we talk about the ability that is inside of you – remember, we'll talk about this in another session – the Holy Spirit actually acts in this earth.

Just to touch quickly on the relationship within the Trinity: the Holy Spirit acts in this earth based on the authority that Jesus established here, but what the Holy Spirit brings you is the presence and the ability of God. I believe the Spirit is ministering to at least some of you concerning that.

That's why in 1 John 5:7 – can I have 1 John 5:7?

“For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.”

1 John 5:7 (NKJV)

They are one, but they also have different functions, and they operate differently. All three have different functions. You need to understand the function and purpose of the interaction between them, and how the Holy Spirit functions – I believe we'll talk about that. It's limiting to even use the word "talk" when I speak about the Holy Spirit. We'll experience the Holy Spirit next week, because it's not something you just talk about. It's a person.

Anyway, let me not go there. We use this phrase often: when Jesus said, "I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life." Remember we spoke about this before – Christ was in God since before the creation of the earth. This is a picture God gave me long ago to help understand the reality of what He actually had to do for us.

When we talk about God sacrificing His only begotten Son, giving His only begotten Son for us, for our sins, for salvation, we think of it like this: if I had to take my son and sacrifice him for somebody else, many of you sitting here have sons, and if you had to think about taking that son and sacrificing him for somebody else, you'd think, "I'm not sure I can do that."

It's a massive thing to think about, and then we assume that is what God did. That is not what God did. For God to give Jesus as a sacrifice for you, Jesus was inside God – He was actually God's heart. He was that ability to create, because He was the Word. So what God had to do to give Jesus for you as a sacrifice, He had to rip out His heart and give that in exchange for you. It's not the picture we imagine as human beings, like taking a son standing next to me. God ripped out His heart.

So when Jesus speaks about, "I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life," and we've just seen that He was the Word that became flesh – there are three that testify in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Spirit – we get the picture that Jesus was the Word. He was the creative ability that was inside God, which made it possible for God to create the things that He did. That should say something to you.

So when Jesus says, "I am the way," I firmly believe that on a higher level of interpretation we should look at this as Jesus talking about Himself as the Word. When He says, "I am the way... nobody comes to the Father except through Me," the only way that you can come to the Father is to become born again, and the only way you can become born again is through the Word of God. So when Jesus says, "I am the way," He's saying, "I am the Word of God that makes it possible for you to become born again."

"I am the truth" – now you know by now what truth is: aletheios. It is reality; it is that which exists. So He says, "I am the truth." Can you grasp this? He says, "I am the manifestation of reality. I am that which exists." And remember, I explained to you before, the great thing about truth is the same as what I said about God just now: truth doesn't need anybody to defend it. It doesn't need to be explained or understood. Truth just is, and it exists, and it is what it is. It is reality. Whether you know it, like it or understand it doesn't matter – it exists, it is superior, it is reality. So Jesus is speaking about Himself that way: "I am truth. I am reality. I am ability. I'm superior."

So He says, "I'm the way, I'm the truth, and I am the life." We've just read that the Word of God is not separate from God. The Word of God is an expression of the life of God. It is the heartbeat of God. It's the pulsating life going through you. So I believe that scripture should be interpreted as Jesus explaining to us His position as the Word of God and His ability as the Word of God.

Let's quickly go to Hebrews 1:2.

“He has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.”

Hebrews 1:2 (NKJV)

There it is again – He made the worlds through His Son. Can you see these various places where it indicates that the creative ability was within Jesus? Then verse three:

“Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

Hebrews 1:3 (NKJV)

I want you to note something here, because people don't realise there's a difference in the wording. It says, "upholding all things by the word of His power." One would assume it would say "the power of His word." He is not saying He upholds everything by the power of His word – He says He upholds everything by the word of His power. What I want you to start understanding is that the Word represents something. "Represent" is not even a strong enough word, but for lack of a better distinction, the Word has the backing of the fullness of the ability of God. The fullness of the superior realm is within the Word of God.

When you start understanding that you can't separate the Word of God from God, and that God is light, and He says, "We must walk in the light as He is in the light," you should interpret it that we should be in the light as He is the light.

When you are in Him, when you are in the Word, that manifestation happens. You're going to continuously have this picture of what we are doing: we are manifesting His presence, His reality, His ability. I don't need to produce anything from myself. I don't go around healing people because of my own ability. I don't go and restore marriages because of my own ability. All I need to do is host His presence. I need to manifest Him. I need to be a vessel through which He can actually work in this earth.

The amazing thing is that right from the beginning, because of this physical realm and the way God created things, the intention He had, God doesn't function in this earth other than through people. Do you realise that? That is why some people got offended when I said this in session one – maybe I should have waited until session seven, but the things I have a conviction about are difficult for me to just soft-soap. The earth is looking the way that it's looking because of a lack of knowledge from our side.

Remember: being, knowing, doing. God Himself said to us in the Old Testament, "My people perish due to lack of knowledge." The earth looks the way it does because of a lack of knowledge, and even when we get people to a certain level of knowledge, there is still not a manifestation, still not a doing. I need to add, I feel in my spirit, that being, knowing, doing is fine, but when we talk about the levels and the knowledge I've spoken to you about, and we get to phronesis – which is the becoming of that and the manifestation of it – that sequence should actually be, and I think in future I will start saying it this way: being, knowing, doing.

But then, subsequent to doing, your environment becomes. Everything around you starts becoming who you are. That's when you start functioning in that place of manifesting. Remember, Jesus showed us, and then the disciples showed us, that they walked down the street, and when their shadow fell on somebody, that person got healed. There is no power in the shadow. It's got nothing to do with the shadow – it's merely a description to indicate how far away they were from the people. It's not to say there is power in the shadow; it's to say, okay, if the sun was there – because they tell you what hour they went to pray, so we know roughly where the sun was – then if the shadow fell on someone, that person was probably six or seven metres away.

That's the principle: when we start gaining this knowledge of who we are, who God is in us, who we are in Him, when we become Christ-conscious about His intention and purpose, when we become that – that phronesis, that becoming, that being – when we are there, people around us simply cannot stay sick. We manifest His presence, and in His presence there are things that cannot exist. When we come to that level, you'll walk into a hospital and people will become healed before you even start praying for them. That is what the Word of God shows us Jesus did, and shows us the disciples did. But I'll get back to that.

There is something we can never deny, and I say to you tonight is one of those nights where I'm going to start passing this ball to you: you need a personal revelation and conviction about these truths. I can share them with you, I can maybe stir up something inside of you, but ultimately it is meant to activate something inside of you. You need to go and spend time on this, and through the assistance of the Holy Spirit we'll chat about that next week, or whatever the timing turns out to be. You need to come to the place where you have a personal revelation, where you can look at that verse and say, "This is what God is saying, and this is how it is."

When you have a personal revelation and a conviction, you start functioning from that place. I have already explained the difference between being, knowing and doing, and where the lack lies in people doing without being connected to the source – the original source of life that is meant to be flowing through them to manifest it. Where that connection is missing, there is a shortcut: dead works, religion. I will explain more about that now.

What I am talking about here is revelation – this dropping into your spirit, into your heart, so that you have a conviction to start functioning from that place. Let me explain what I mean by revelation this way: what is so powerful about the name of Jesus? Do you realise there are many people in South America who are called Jesus?

So it is not the letters. It is not the significance of the name itself. What, then, is the power in it? The power is in what it represents. That name, Jesus, represents something, but if you don't have the understanding and the revelation of what it represents, you can use the name and still curse.

I love that story in the Bible about the time the apostles began to manifest at such a level that when Paul – remember, he was a tentmaker – was at work wearing a sweatband, someone would come and say, 'My auntie is sick, can I just take this?' They would take his sweatband, put it on the person, and they would be healed instantly, even though Paul wasn't there. Once they started functioning at that level, everyone wanted to do it.

There were some Jewish priests, and specifically one named Sceva, who had seven sons. These seven sons came to a person who was demon-possessed. They recognised there were evil spirits in the person and said, 'We command you to come out in the name of the Jesus that Paul preaches.' How did that work out for them? Not too well.

The evil spirit looked at them and said, in effect, 'Interesting. Jesus, I know, definitely. Paul, I know – ran into him a few times, don't want to do that again. But who are you?' What was he saying? 'You have no idea who you are.' Jesus knew who He was. Paul knew who he was. But these seven wanted to cast out the demon in the name of the Jesus that Paul preaches, with no personal revelation of who Jesus is themselves.

They were seven, and he was one man, yet all seven of them ran down the street bruised and naked.

You cannot live somebody else's revelation. Remember, I am here to assist you, to help you and guide you, to give you tools. I cannot do what you are meant to be doing, and I cannot build a relationship with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit on your behalf. I can guide you and assist you, but the responsibility is yours. Until you get to that point of personal revelation and conviction – and it is the same with the Word of God, which is what we are talking about now – if you don't have that conviction about the Word of God, about its ability and what it should look like, you will never manifest it.

I have touched on this before: religion – and please remember, I am not saying all churches are bad, I am talking about religion in the negative sense, where there is no life, where it is man-made – religion has caused the body of Christ to be paralysed. Part of that is exactly this: people don't have the full knowledge of the ability that is inside of them, or of what that life should look like, or of the responsibility we have to manifest God in this earth.

We need to understand that we ourselves must get the Word of God into our spirit. It is a personal relationship. You need to have the relationship; you need to have the conviction. I will explain more about that in terms of your spirit shortly, but let me round off what I wanted to say here.

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”

John 6:63 (NKJV)

They are spirit and they are life. What was the verse we started with right at the beginning of Session 1? 'God is a Spirit.' Now Jesus is saying, 'The words that I speak to you, they are spirit.' Jesus was one hundred percent man, one hundred percent human on this earth – but what made Him different was His relationship with the Father.

It was His willingness and His ability to let the Father show Him. Remember, He said, 'I can do nothing except what the Father shows Me.' He wasn't like someone who says, 'I know everything already, don't try to tell me something new, I've got it all sorted.' No – every opportunity He had, He listened to the Father. He looked, He saw with the eyes of His spirit, and the Father would show Him, would teach Him, would show Him the realities I spoke about last time. Then Jesus would simply act on it.

Why was Jesus able to walk on water? Because the spiritual reality had become a more real, more superior reality to Him than the physical. That is what our lives are meant to be. We walk in this physical earth, but only so that we can establish the dominance of God in this earth.

That reminds me what I wanted to say. Religion has brought us to a place where we are confused about what is God's responsibility and what is ours. The easy backdoor is always, 'We don't know, and we'll never know – He's God, He's the only one who knows.' That is not true. That is a lie from Satan. As we discussed last time, when the disciples asked Him, Jesus said, 'If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.' The Father has been revealed.

I said to you already: the Word of God is the window through which you can look. Do you want to know what God the Father looks like? Do you want to see what His character is like, how He functions? It is one hundred percent explained in the Word of God. God does not function outside His Word – it would not be possible for Him to do so; then He would not be God. So we have a responsibility to understand what God is doing, how He is doing it, and what my responsibility is.

In this earth, God needs to function through people, so I need to manifest in this earth what God wants to see happen in this earth. Religion just says, 'He's God, who knows? Today He loves me, tomorrow He kills one of my loved ones. Who knows?' That comes from a lack of knowledge. I will come back to that.

So we understand that the Word of God is Spirit, it is life, because God cannot be separated from His Word. When you talk about the Word of God, you are talking about His life-form, His ability. It represents something – it represents the fullness of who God is, and His ability, because they are not separate beings. It is one being. It is the ability.

You need to start understanding what the Word of God is meant to do in your life. What are you able to do with the Word of God – not the religious aspect, not the Bible lying on your bedside table, but the life-form, the existence, the pulsating life of God pushing through Christ, the body of God, that life pushing through, which is the Word of God. What is it meant to look like in this earth if we take up the responsibility?

You need to understand that God sent His Word as the solution. He sent His Word as the solution in the beginning, and He created everything through that Word. When things went wrong and it was a mess, He sent His Word again, and His Word became flesh – but it was still His Word. He sent His Word again.

Now, in the dispensation we are in, He has given us His Word, still, as the solution. There is no other solution. I stand amazed at the perceptions people have, and the discussions they can have for four or five hours about why God does this or that. It is not necessary. You go to the Word of God, and there is a clear picture of who God is and how He functions. If you have questions, the Word of God is there. More than that, He has sent us the Word as the solution, just as it says in Psalm 107.

“He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.”

Psalm 107:20 (NKJV)

I have explained this before, by way of figuratively describing how God functions, and now I can bring the two things together. I said there are spiritual laws – remember when I spoke about gravity? There are spiritual laws, and those spiritual laws always work, the same way gravity always works.

So there are things we expect God – the Person, the personality, the Father – to come down and do. Whereas He has put spiritual laws in place that simply work all the time. The simplest example: God says it is more blessed to give than to receive. That means when you have a giving heart, and you give with the right intentions, that giving will produce in your life.

That doesn't mean God the Father, as a Person, comes down every time you give and does something, saying, 'Here, I give you this now because you have given.' That is not how He functions. He has put spiritual principles and laws in place that always function. That, in essence, is the Word of God.

In my creative mind, I picture it like the laser beams in those movies where someone breaks in to steal the crown jewels – all these beams crossing the room. It is like that. The Word of God is all these laser beams. The reality, the truth, is present. If you can't see it, you'll walk straight through that beam without recognising it is there. But once you recognise it's there and start getting that personal revelation and conviction, you will act differently, and you will see different results.

So we need to start understanding how God functions – that is one of the core things we need to grasp. The Word of God shows us how God functions, and it is not that He responds every time we do something; He has put things in place that produce a guaranteed result. Part of that inevitably leads us into speaking about faith.

“While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:18 (NKJV)

We need to understand that this whole physical world we see is going to disappear at some stage. This is not the lasting thing; it has no eternal value. At some stage it will disappear – not necessarily with the coming of Jesus on the clouds, but that's a different discussion. The reality is, there is a superior realm, a reality that will endure. Isn't it amazing that the Word even says, 'Heaven and earth shall disappear, but My Word shall never disappear'? That should tell you something about how superior that ability is – and we have access to that superior ability. There is nothing in this earth that comes close to comparing with, or challenging, the ability that is in the Word of God. Do you see what you have at hand to effect change in this world?

It's what God gave us, and what God gave us is enough. When He sent Jesus, the price He paid through Jesus was enough. He has paid for all your sins. Even if you are – I am speaking to some men here – even if you are still struggling with pornography, Jesus has paid the price for it. He has paid the price for every single sin you have done, are doing, and will do. When God looks at you, He cannot see sin; He sees righteousness – because otherwise we would be saying Jesus only paid half the price and you need to pay the other half. You would not be able to do that.

What Jesus did was enough. When God sent the Word of God, it was enough. You don't need anything more than the Word of God and the Spirit of God – but there are ways we need to access it and manifest it. And because this realm cannot be seen with the physical eye by default, we need faith.

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)

So what is faith? Faith is not hoping that God will come and do something. That's part of the religious mentality that says, 'I'm waiting – God says He's a loving God, so I have faith in His love, and He must just come and do something about it.' That is not how it works. That is not faith. Faith is not a leap in the dark. Faith is this – and if you haven't heard it before, or didn't get it the first time, you need to get it now: faith is knowing what reality looks like and acting accordingly.

Whether you see it yet in the physical world or not is not the measure. You need to know what reality looks like, and that is why the life of Jesus looked different on this earth – because that reality became so much more real to Him than anything in the physical realm could tell Him otherwise. That is the same place we need to come to: oneness with the Word, conviction in the Word, and revelation of being one with Christ, bringing us to the point where we say, 'This reality is just much more real to us than the physical.' That is faith.

That doesn't mean the reality... let me jump into some straightforward realities in the Word of God. If you look at the New Testament, there was not one person that God made sick. It says how He anointed Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit, who went about doing good, healing everyone who was oppressed by Satan, everyone who was sick because of the oppression of the devil. He healed everyone, and it says God was doing good through Him. God doesn't need the tools of Satan. God doesn't make people sick.

That doesn't mean He cannot use a situation – the Bible says He will use it and turn it out for your good, that it will work together for your good. But that doesn't mean He caused it, because otherwise it would mean the Father goes ahead making you sick, making you sick, making you sick, and then Jesus comes behind, healing you, healing you, healing you.

They would be keeping each other busy the whole time – God making everybody sick and Jesus healing everybody. Even when He spoke about the demons, and they said, 'By whose power are you casting these out?' He said, 'If I am doing this by a demonic force, casting out that demon, how could those dark forces even continue to exist? A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.' So how could the kingdom of light stand if God goes around making people sick and Jesus comes and heals everyone? It's ridiculous.

But our exposure, our mindset, and a hundred and ten other factors have caused us to think differently – yet that is not reality. Reality is that God wants everybody to be healthy.

Look even at the Old Testament – we spoke about the Christ anointing, that presence, that atmosphere, during the forty years Israel travelled through the desert. There was none among them sick – not one. They were not barren; not even the old people were feeble. They were strong, they were healthy. Even among the animals, none were barren. That gives us just a glimpse of what reality looks like.

But if we don't get a conviction of reality, there is no way we will manifest it in this earth, and that is what made Jesus different. He saw reality – and that was without the written Word. He saw reality because He had a relationship with the Father through the Holy Spirit, and because of that conviction, He started living according to that reality. That is what faith is.

Faith is not, 'God, I prayed for this person, so why didn't they get healed?' You don't start questioning things that way. You go back to the Word of God and spend time there. The Bible tells us to go into our inner room and spend time there. You can wrestle with God there and get convictions – you equip yourself in your inner room – and then you go out, and God will manifest the victory in the open. It doesn't help to question it there.

It only means we haven't grown to that level of maturity to understand who we are and how to manifest it. That is why, I think it's in 1 John, when John spoke to the children, and then to the young men, and then to the fathers, he spoke to them on different levels.

When he speaks to the children he says, "Your sins have been forgiven" – that was as far as they could understand, and that was enough for them. But when he gets to the fathers, he says, "You know the Father." There's a level that we need to grow to. I've said to you before, if we look at the last 100 years, if we look at the last 200 years, we haven't seen Christianity. We haven't seen the body of Christ function the way it should.

There are things we should do that have not been seen in this earth before, and that means we need to go back to truth, to reality, not to perception and opinion and experience. I don't care what you have experienced in your life up to now in terms of determining reality. I'm not ignorant or insensitive to what you have experienced. As a matter of fact, I have a very strong expectation about what will happen through this series. As I was praying today, there is something the Spirit showed me.

There are some of you here sitting with a lot of brokenness inside of you. There are some of you here sitting with physical challenges. It will disappear before the end of this series, because we are not here to talk about these things – we are here to manifest His presence. Some of you will receive healing even without somebody else touching you or speaking to you, but I believe there might even be an opportunity that we'll create for people to lay hands on you and pray for you. I have an expectation, because that is what God has put in my heart, because God has given me a heart for people.

I sometimes look at people – you don't realise it, but I see the pain that you're experiencing. I've often seen people walk up to me, still five metres away, and the Holy Spirit already shows me exactly what is going on in their life, because that's the way God wants us to function. He wants us to do a quick work. That's what the Bible says: He's going to do a quick work, but He's waiting for us to step up to the plate. This is our age. This is our season. In this year, God will start doing things in this earth that we have not seen before, but we are the ones who need to facilitate it and manifest it.

It's a huge responsibility that we have. We do it through the Word and through the Spirit. We don't do it through our own ability, but God can do nothing if He doesn't have your heart. You are the one who needs to make the decision.

Now I quickly want to explain something about the Word. Again, this perception we have about what the Word is, how it functions and how we utilise it – the reality is, the form in which we receive the Word, we want the end result.

You need to understand, when we talk about the Word, everything in the Word is explained to us based on the principle of seed. Everything. Do you realise, when God created plants in this earth, in the beginning – you can go and read in Genesis – He didn't create plants. He created seeds. That's why it says in the beginning, nothing grew yet because it hadn't been watered yet, and then God made a mist come up, and then everything started growing.

What does that mean? It was seed, in whichever form and dimension – you get millions of different forms, but everything is based on seed. Jesus described Himself as the seed, and He said, "Unless a grain of seed falls to the ground and dies, it cannot reproduce." He Himself had to give Himself as a seed. He had to die, and then He was able to reproduce. That's why He became the first of many. The life form that He received through being born again was made available to us as the harvest of the seed that He gave, which was His own life.

Right throughout the Word, the principle that God works on is based on the principle of seed. When God gave us the Word, this is something you need to understand. If you want to start seeing the results of the Word of God manifest in your life, you need to understand what the Word is and how it works. Here it is – here's the Word of God, here's the Word of God. We think that the Word of God is the bread.

Okay, I know they don't make bread from mealies, but either way, it's seed. God gives us seed – that is what the Word of God is. Which means the way I go about utilising the Word and seeing results is different if I realise it is seed.

There are variables involved with seed that are not involved with bread. If I put bread on your table, you just eat it and you are satisfied. If I put seed on your table, there's a lot that needs to happen. You need to go prepare the soil. You need to go sow the seed. Once it starts growing, you need to take care of it. You need to take out the weeds. You need to nourish it. You need to strengthen it. Then you harvest, and only then can you go and produce bread. That has all along been God's intention – to equip us.

Remember, right in the beginning, Genesis 1, God created us in His image and His likeness. God has the creative ability, so God wanted us to have the ability to duplicate, to replicate, and that is what seed does. The amazing thing to me – just speaking about the physical, yet there are many things God shows us in the physical which actually tell us something about the spiritual – the amazing thing about seed in the physical is that the seed we see today still comes from the seed that God created in the beginning of the earth.

No man has been able to make a seed. They can modify it, genetically modify it, or mutate it, but they can't make a seed. They can't go into a laboratory, take some material, and make a seed that produces life, because it is the spirit that gives life. This might be physical, but there's something spiritual about it. The same way the lowest form of existence of a physical thing in that cell is a sound code, there is something spiritual about it.

The same way with a seed – the life form that is at the core... I remember even from biology, when I was in Standard Eight or so, when we looked at the mealie plant, it explained the anatomy of the seed, and right in the middle it says, "This is the heart of the mealie." Even in human terms, they explained it – this is the heart. The ability to give life, which is beyond human comprehension, that's what it is.

So there is something here that still stems from the original seed that God created. But you need to understand, let's quickly look at how it's described to us.

“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.”

Luke 8:11-12 (NKJV)

The sower went out and sowed all over the place, and this is the interpretation, the end result. For the sake of time, I'm going to jump to this. I want to start illustrating to you that the Word of God doesn't just work indefinitely. There are variables in place. It's the same as if I drive home now on the N1, and I throw a seed out the window, and I say next week, "Okay, let me go collect my harvest."

We think it's funny, but that's how we live spiritually. There are things that must happen. That thing, even if I carry it in my pocket, it's not going to grow in my pocket. As much as I can carry it in my pocket, and every day take it out and say, "Are you growing yet? Are you growing yet?" – it's not going to grow. There are variables, in the same way there are variables physically. I need to put it in the soil. The form in which God gave us the Word is seed, which means it doesn't just work automatically.

There are things in your life that you are frustrated about because you are waiting for God to do something about it. He did do something about it – He gave you the Word. Everything you need to change in life, you can do through the Word and through the Spirit, but you need to understand that the Word is seed. So here we see the variables: they all received the same seed, they all received the same Word, yet it didn't produce the same results.

I am sowing seed into your heart tonight. I'm sharing the Word of God with you. I'm sharing that seed with you. Will that seed produce the same results in every one of your lives? Yes, it will, because I have that expectation. But in general, the answer would probably have been no.

“Those by the wayside are the ones who hear, then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.”

Luke 8:12-15 (NKJV)

That's reality. Have you got any idea how many people from the first session didn't return? And I can tell you the common denominator for most of them: they look at this and they see that this thing is going to take them to a place where they're going to have to sacrifice something about their lifestyle.

We are talking about the Word of God here, and it's showing you that the Word of God – although it has all the ability, it has all the life, it represents everything about God – it's too big for my mind to understand that the Word of God represents, it's got the full backing of God in terms of ability and power and light and love and everything. It's got all of that, yet it will not produce the same results in every person's life, because it depends on what you do with it.

It's got nothing to do with God's intention. We blame God for things that go on in our life. If I can put it in human terms, it's not fair – it's not fair to blame God for things He gave us a solution for already.

I'm going to keep saying to you: you are not meant to try and overcome this by yourself. Many of you will say to me, "You know what, I've heard this before, I've believed it before, I've tried it before, and here I am again – it didn't work." I want to say to you, it's going to be different this time, because there are things we'll put in place to ensure that you don't try to do this on your own.

Because the thing Satan wants to do all the time is isolate you, demotivate you, bring you to a point where you say, "You know, I've tried this again and it's still not working." There are ways to implement to ensure sustainability. We'll get to that in other sessions.

Quickly, let me show you from the Word of God how concretely He explains it to us, so that we can have no uncertainties about the Word of God. Go to Isaiah 55 from verse 10. I suppose one shouldn't have favourite verses from the Bible – it should all be the same – but this is one of my favourite verses because it just energises me.

Here He is comparing the physical with the spiritual. God works with us on our level. The amazing thing is we never have to feel insufficient. If we could grade knowledge, and say, "To have the full understanding of the fullness of Christ you're on knowledge level 100, and if you only just got born again and understand nothing, you're on one" – it doesn't matter whether you're on one or a hundred. God deals with you on the level where you're at, but He wants to take all of us to a hundred, unto a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That means there is a continuous growing process. We can never say we have arrived, we can never say we have attained, until the day Jesus comes. So it's a continuous process, and that's why it's so important that we have a willingness to be taught. We must be teachable continuously.

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

Isaiah 55:10-11 (NKJV)

So He's saying, everything I explained to you in the physical now – so shall My Word be that goes forth from My mouth. Go back to the previous verse: the rain comes down, the snow comes, it doesn't go back, it's here now, it has come. But it waters the earth, it makes it bring forth and bud, it gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So there are the results – the rain comes and it has results. Then the next verse says, so shall My Word be that goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to Me void.

Isn't that amazing? Remember the scripture I shared with you from the Psalms that says, "He sent His word and healed them"? God says, "I sent My Word, and the amazing thing is it will not come back to Me void. It shall go and achieve the thing for which I've sent it." There is nothing wrong with God's intention. There is nothing wrong with the ability in the Word. It has all the backing to produce everything it speaks about.

And He sent His Word to bring you the way and the truth and the life, to bring you salvation, to show you reality, and to give you eternal life, but also the ability to manifest life in this earth. So everything God wanted to achieve through sending you the Word, the Word is able to do it. There is no shortcoming in the Word – none whatsoever.

The same applies – you saw in that verse, in verse 10, it does two things: it gives seed to the sower and it gives bread to the eater. It's fine if you're on a level where you've just got born again, you know nothing, and everything you want you pray to God for: "God, please give me bread for tomorrow." That's on that level. God says, "I'll give you bread," because He's a loving God, He's a caring God, He functions with you on that level. But there comes a time – I explained it to you before – it's okay to wear nappies when you are a baby.

When you are thirty and you go to the office in nappies, they're going to lock you up. You can't do it. So spiritually, there comes a point in time where it's not enough to just pray to God for everything you want, because He has given you everything you need in Christ, in the Word, and through the Spirit. So there comes an expectation. He says, "Those that come to maturity, that start understanding these things, I give them seed," because I expect them...

Remember what God's intention was? He wanted to reproduce Himself in the earth, so He put that ability in us to reproduce spirit, to reproduce life. We messed it up, but that was the intention. God's intention is still, He says, "I'm going to give you seed because I still want you to reproduce. The ability to reproduce is still inside of you, and that's how I want you to do it." It is not God's intention to come and interfere in everything. He wants us to manifest and reproduce.

“Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness.”

2 Corinthians 9:10 (NKJV)

He will continue to provide bread for those who need it, but that is not His intention. He wants us to come to maturity.

The principle of sowing is so strong. If you look at Galatians 6:7 – this is one of the most strongly worded verses for me in the Bible, speaking about God.

“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”

Galatians 6:7 (NKJV)

When we start understanding the life form and the ability that is inside of us, we start understanding that we need to function differently. There are some things we just cannot do any more, because you have received something inside you with the ability to recreate. The good thing is it can recreate everything positive. The bad thing is it will also recreate everything negative.

So when you start understanding the significance of that, it means we can't just do whatever we want. I've seen this many times before when people come to me for counselling and they talk about their relationships continuing to fall apart, and the Holy Spirit shows me: "Okay, but when you are standing at the water cooler at the office and somebody else is standing there with you, what are you talking about?"

What do you have to say about other people? You think you can say about other people whatever you want. You think you can talk behind their backs, but you expect God to come and bless you. God feels so strong about this – it is as if He got irritated when He told the Spirit to give us this verse. He got irritated with people who stand at the water cooler and talk negatively about people behind their backs, and then come back to God and say, "God, please bless me."

He says, "Do not be deceived." He says, "God is not mocked." Can you find something more powerful than that? Whatever a man sows, he will also reap, because what God gave us is the ability to reproduce. He gave us seed, and the seed will have a harvest. So we pray to God for things that should happen in our lives and complain about things that are not happening, but it is the harvest of what we are sowing.

It has got nothing to do with God's intention for your life. It says God is not mocked, because remember the system I explained to you that He put in place. God is not in person coming down and responding to every single thing. He put a system in place. He put His Word in place, and His Word has spiritual laws, and they just produce. The amazing thing, as a side note, is that this is why you find that religions like Buddhism, or the monks who live in the mountains and believe only in peace and love – they are not Christians, they are not born again, but because they apply those principles, they see the results in their lives. That is why people will sometimes tell me, "But this person is such a great person, they're not born again, but they give away everything and help so many people and are so blessed – how come, when they're not even born again?" It is because those principles work. Like gravity doesn't work only because you're a Christian – it works regardless. Spiritual laws work regardless, because they are in place. They don't need you to be a Christian; they work for every person.

“For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Hebrews 4:12 (KJV)

I want you to note this: this is talking about the Word of God. It is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Who is the discerner – the Father, or the Word? It is speaking about the Word here. Did I lose you for a moment? Are you reading the same thing I'm reading? We didn't edit this verse – go and look in your own Bible; this is how it comes.

The Word of God, the principles, the system that God has put in place – by default it functions like this: when you drive too fast down the road, there's a guy sitting behind the bush with a device that measures your speed. He can measure it; it discerns the speed you're driving. The Word of God is like that. You can outwardly look as if you're giving your money to charity, but at the back, you're only worried about status and position and people seeing you make a big scene of giving. The Word of God looks at your heart. Not God – the Word, the system, the laws that have been put in place, measuring the real intention of the heart, and saying, "This is all about himself; it's got nothing to do with love. That thing will not reproduce in his life." Because the Word of God is that measure.

I need to show you something the Holy Spirit showed me a few years ago that was really significant in my life, and it also goes to the principle of how the Word functions.

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

John 7:38 (NKJV)

Rivers of life-giving water out of his heart. Now, whenever the Word talks about the heart, it is actually not talking about your feelings – it is talking about your spirit. The Greek word used here is koilia, and if you look at the different translations – New King James, King James, Amplified, New Living, NIV, whatever – they all translate it differently because of how comprehensive that word actually is. Some say "from the belly," some say "from the womb." The one I love says "from your innermost being." From your innermost being will flow rivers of life-giving water.

That's why some translations use the word "womb" – it is that innermost part of you that has the ability to give life. Remember I spoke to you about the meliput, and I said right in the beginning they call it the heart because they don't actually know what to call it, but they know it gives life. It is that innermost part, beyond human understanding, that gives life. You've got something like that inside of you. It's the life of God. It's the Word of God. It is the ability of God. It goes to the core of you – that life-giving ability – and it says from there will flow rivers of life-giving water. The ability to change this world is inside of you.

There's a reason why it's described as the womb, and this is the picture God showed me. We said the Word of God is seed. God showed me that the reproductive system of a woman functions that way: you need an egg cell and you need a seed, and that is actually your ability, the womb it speaks about here, to reproduce.

You have your spirit, which is the life and the ability of God, that life-giving ability – the womb is there inside of you already. Then you receive the Word of God, which is seed. And the thing that has the ability to multiply, the egg cell, is faith. So in your spirit you take the seed, the Word, and you mix it with faith in a womb that has the ability and the life and the fullness of God, and it reproduces life into this earth. This is the same principle we looked at in the parable of the sower – you receive the Word, but you need to mix it with faith.

“For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.”

Hebrews 4:2 (NKJV)

No results in their lives whatsoever. The same Word, zero results. You need to take the Word of God, mix it with faith, in an environment where the ability and the life form of God is, and then you have something that has the ability to reproduce life. It goes to the extent of how the Word of God functions and what our responsibility is. Remember I said, "What is faith?" Faith is your response to reality. So if reality comes to you through the Word of God and you don't respond to it, it's not going to produce. You're going to wait for God till the day Jesus comes, and the things that happen will be because of grace – because He's a loving God, and because of grace He will take care of your basic needs, He will give you the bread. But He didn't create you so that He can give you bread till the day Jesus comes. He created you so that you can reproduce the life form that is inside of you. That is what He created you for.

Remember, right in the beginning I explained to you that in Genesis, God created man, and it was inside of him – it was spirit, and He even spoke to them in their spiritual form. Then, after day seven, He formed man from the dust, and He put this spiritual being that was His likeness and ability inside the physical being, to be able to function on this earth and duplicate and replicate itself. So it was the spiritual being able to function in the physical, and it needed a body to be able to do that.

Now, the amazing thing about words is that words are both physical and spiritual. That is why Jesus said, "The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life." So remember what I said to you: what is so significant about the name of Jesus? It is not the written letters or the composition of those letters – it is what it represents. Many people can use that word, but it will not have the same results. Same thing about the revelation of the sons of Sceva. You need to have a personal revelation of what the name Jesus represents to you, and you can speak forth the ability that it represents to you.

This is something the Holy Spirit showed me one day: the fact that words are both physical and spiritual. Do you see those bubbles? The same way that when you speak a word, something goes forth – but the physical word is the container. You decide what you put inside of it. A physical word is a container with the possibility to convey and transfer what you put inside of it.

You speak a physical word, but remember what I just demonstrated to you about receiving the seed, mixing it with faith, giving it life in your womb – now you've got that life inside of you. How do you manifest that life on earth? You speak it. When you speak a physical word, that is why two people can say exactly the same thing but not have the same results. People will look and say, "But he also said that," or, "He also did that." It doesn't matter. God looks at your heart. He looks at the ability to give life. So when you speak forth a physical word, your revelation of Jesus Christ, your revelation of Christ, your revelation of God and His ability, your revelation of the intention of God through you – when you put that revelation inside that word and speak it forth, it will manifest the presence of God and the ability of God, and, like Isaiah 55 says, the word that He sends will not come back void; it will go forth and achieve what He sent it for.

But you can say it in the physical and nothing will happen. You need to take the spiritual, your conviction and revelation of that spiritual, put it inside that physical word, and speak it forth, and manifest it on this earth. The speaking of the Word of God is critical. You need to do it more in your life. It's the way God created the earth. He spoke and said, "Light be," and when He said it, light was there. He said, "Let Us create man in Our image and likeness." You have that same ability inside of you to speak and let it be, but you need to put that life form inside of it, and only then will it manifest.

That is why Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14, says, "Desire spiritual gifts, but mostly desire that you may prophesy." Why prophesy? Because prophecy is speaking the Word of God. Even in the days of Samuel, when he increased in favour with God and with men, the Word says none of the words Samuel spoke fell to the ground. God wants to say that about you. He wants you to have a true conviction and reality of who He is. He wants to put that life form inside of you, wants you to generate and activate that life form and put it into every word you speak, so that God can say – what is your name? Anzel. He wants to say, "None of the words that Anzel spoke fell to the ground." They could not come back void; they went forth and achieved everything they were sent for. That is what God wants to say about every one of you.

I love the Word of God. I love the Holy Spirit. I love God. I could talk for five hours – we should make these sessions five hours!

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

Romans 10:10 (NKJV)

I want you to see something significant here – it goes to the core again of speaking the Word of God. How do you receive salvation? "For with the heart" – now you're going to look at that word differently: your ability to give life, the core of your existence – "you believe unto righteousness." It's amazing that salvation is all about believing righteousness, yet in religion we just keep hearing sermons about sin. Jesus paid the price for sin. That doesn't mean it won't have implications in your life, but it can never separate you from God and it can never keep you from going to heaven – but maybe I'll speak about that one day.

"For with the heart one believes unto righteousness," which means you are good enough, you are perfect when God looks at you. There is no shortcoming in you. Ladies, you might look in the mirror in the morning and find ten things to complain about, but God looks at you and sees you a hundred percent perfect and beautiful, the precious being He created you to be, to manifest Him on this earth. That's the only way God can see you. "For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." It is not possible – hear this – it is not possible to become born again without speaking it.

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Romans 10:17 (NKJV)

Listen to this – you need to get this, it is so amazing to me. Every word of God that you receive has inside of it the ability to achieve it. If you receive a word of healing, inside of it, like the bubbles I just showed you, when you receive the Word of God, inside of it is the life-giving ability of God to manifest that which it talks about. That is why the Word of God is able to manifest everything it talks about.

So faith comes to you by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Let's say somebody prays for you and says, "You are healed in the name of Jesus." That word that goes forth, you might say, "But I have no faith." Yet as you receive that word, inside that word is all the faith you need – all the faith you need for that word to manifest in your life. It comes with the word; it's part and parcel of the word. That's why it says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. That's why it's so important. It's not this religious thing and condemnation where we say, "Every day I must read from the Bible," as this cumbersome duty. No – the reality is, the more time we spend in the Word of God, with every word that you receive, embedded in it is the faith and the ability to manifest that word in your life.

So if you go back to Romans 10:10: "For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." It is not possible to become born again without speaking it. You receive the Word, and in that Word is the ability to produce salvation. Can you imagine that? In Romans 1 it says the Gospel of Jesus is the power of God unto salvation. In that word of the Gospel that you receive, embedded in it – it's beyond my mind – is the ability to produce salvation. Isn't that amazing? But you need to receive it in your spirit. That's why it says you first need to believe it. Remember that other scripture – they received the word but didn't mix it with faith, so it had no effect in their lives. You need to believe it. You need to believe unto righteousness, and then as you speak it, boom, you speak your own born-againness into existence.

Isn't that amazing? And that's only where it starts. The rest of the Word of God works on exactly the same principle, so we need to apply it. I want to end off with some practical things relating to this, and I want to touch on something I mentioned just now, and that is our mindset.

When my life changed nine years ago, in the beginning there were a lot of things God specifically told me, and one of them was how we look at other people. When we start understanding what we are all about and why we are here, there are some things we simply cannot do anymore. Immediately after my life changed, God started telling me things I could not do anymore. God deals with every one of us personally – there is not just one way, where we all do the same or leave the same things. There are things God will speak to you about and say, "Get rid of this in your life, because it's standing in the way of us building a relationship."

When God speaks to you about that, if you spend more time on something than you spend in His presence, in all likelihood God wants you to get rid of that thing. I'm not talking about your daytime job; I'm talking about other things. One of the things God shared with me was, "How do you look at people?"

There are only two kinds of people. In this country, let's face it, we carry a huge burden of racism or background racism and all sorts of things, and God said to me, "There are only two kinds of people: those who are born again, and those who should become born again." If you look at people that way, it becomes impossible to say certain things about them.

God deals with us on small, very practical things. In my own life, I used to drive to Stellenbosch three, four, five times a week, and the road passes Kayamandi, with taxis driving in and out, cutting in front of you, taking over the road, parking wherever they want. I used to have a fair amount of temper about that. Then the Holy Spirit started speaking to me and said, "No, you can't do that anymore. This is how you deal with it."

You look at that person – no matter what they do, cutting you off, stopping where there's no place for you to pass, standing outside stretching themselves as if they own the world, at the point where your rage meter would previously have blown a gasket – and now God says, "Look at it this way: there's a reason why they are doing that. They are probably not born again." That's a huge assumption, and I'm not saying it applies in every case, but the way you should look at them is: that is somebody I created with a purpose, and I love them as much as I love you.

We didn't deserve the love of God, so let's not treat other people as though I live good enough to deserve God's love, but that guy I can say whatever I want to. God loved him the same way He loved me. So here's what He started telling me: "There is obviously something in his life, because he's got disrespect for the law and disrespect for other people. You need to start speaking into his life."

Do you have any idea how that changed my life? Now, when a taxi stops in front of me or cuts in front of me, whatever they do, I smile first and say, "Thank You, Father, for the ability You have put inside of me to give life." I pray for that person: "Thank You, Father, that You give them wisdom. Thank You, Father, if they are not born again, that You create the opportunity for them to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and become born again. Thank You, Father, You grant them the ability to drive properly. Thank You, Father, You give them the ability to have respect for people around them, in the name of Jesus."

I used to say to people in Stellenbosch, "If you want to drive the route from Tyger Valley to Stellenbosch with the least amount of taxi issues, just drive the road that I take," because I have an expectation that I send forth the Word of God and it will not come back void to me. I am affecting change in the life of that person. But if I choose the other route and curse at them, how is their life going to change? How is my life going to change? These things become very practical, and that's why we need the Holy Spirit – this is not about condemnation, dead works and religion.

That's why the Holy Spirit session is the most critical and important session of the whole series. Even if you have to fly back from Joburg, you cannot miss that session, because listening to the recording will not be the same. You need to physically be here – that's next Thursday. Be sure to be here.

We need to understand the Holy Spirit will lead us into these small things, through which we will actually start manifesting God. With all due respect, we don't manifest God when we sit in church on Sunday. I'm not saying it doesn't happen there, and that the Spirit isn't there – I'm saying that when we are out there in the world is when we need to manifest God, because the way we live, people will look at us and glorify our Father in heaven.

“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)

If we all scream, shout and curse at taxi drivers the same way the world does, what makes us different? Zero. The Bible says you need to be doers of the Word, not hearers only, like someone looking in a mirror who turns around and forgets what they look like. The Holy Spirit will start ministering to you personally about habits in your life that need to change, and it starts with the mentality of how we look at other people and what our expectation is. I'll maybe share some testimonies next time about how God has worked in my life concerning that.

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:8 (NKJV)

Remember that – Christ died for us, and we didn't deserve it. So I've got some homework for you. Two things.

The first is that I want you to be aware and sensitive about what you say about other people, and create this change of mind and habit: if you cannot say something good about somebody else, then rather say nothing, until the Holy Spirit gives you the ability to say something good about every person.

Remember that powerful truth: God is not mocked. It's like saying, "You mess around with My system, you work against the system, and you want Me, as God, to come and intervene against My own system." It's not possible for Him to do that, because He is God. So He says, "Don't mock Me, don't go against the system and expect a different result – work with the system, work with God." Speak only good things into people's lives, because whatever you sow, you shall reap. You don't do it with the expectation of just receiving, but it changes your mindset, and that way you are manifesting Christ in this earth.

The second thing – I've touched on it – is the reason why we need to spend a lot of time in the Word of God. People's perception of God is based on perception, experience, history, what they see in the church around them, what they have seen in the church over the last hundred or two hundred years. That is not the measure, because it is not what is in the Word of God. You need to spend enough time in the Word of God to have a true picture of who God is.

There is a playing field where God operates. The Word says God is light, He is love; at His right hand are pleasures forevermore; there is joy in His presence. When you look at the Word of God, it creates a picture for you of what the character of God is. If you play rugby, there are lines drawn: we play the game inside here. When you look at God and at the Word of God, it creates that picture of what God looks like and where He functions. There is a playing field where God functions – love, righteousness, light. He doesn't play outside it. If you play rugby and you run with the ball down the athletic track on the side, you can't understand why nobody's tackling you – it's because you're not within the playing field.

You need to understand what God's character is, because many people blame God for things that are not even consistent with His character, and that character has been revealed. We don't have to guess, we don't have to base it on experience. We are experiencing things in this earth that are not consistent with the end result where God wants us to be. So if you say to me, "Why do I pray for ten people and only seven get healed?" I say it's because we are not there yet. It has got nothing to do with God's intention – don't tell me God didn't want those three people healed. He wanted all ten healed. Look in the Word of God and you'll see Jesus went around healing all – many times, He healed all. That is God's expectation. So create the playing field for yourself of what God's character is. That is why we spend time in the Word of God – not because of religious condemnation.

I need to end off there. I've already said, be sensitive about what you say about people, even if you have to put stickers on your sun visor. If a taxi parks in front of you, pull down the visor and read it off – even if you are grinding your teeth, read it off until it comes naturally to you. Even put stickers wherever you are, at your office or wherever, to remind you of this.

The second thing I want you to do – I've done this a few times before, not every time, but today again when I was praying, God told me to do this again. Every time we did it, the results were amazing. I haven't done this for a few years, but I'm going to set a 40-day challenge, and it's very simple.

We start tomorrow: you begin reading from John, one chapter from the Word every day. Only one chapter – I'm not interested in volume, only one chapter. But read it with intent, and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal God to you through what you are reading. Do that for 40 days, and I'll chat to you about what the end result will be.

I realise we've been speaking about the Word tonight, and it is the Spirit that gives life – so even the Spirit gives life to the Word. Depending on where you currently stand in terms of your revelation about the Holy Spirit and your relationship with Him, the next few days until next Thursday might look a bit different from how it will look after that. But that's fine – the Holy Spirit will still minister to you during this time.

Can I pray for you?

Thank You, Father, that You love us so much that You have revealed Your person, Your character to us. Thank You that we can see reality through Your Word and through Your Spirit. Thank You, Father, that none of us stand alone. Jesus said, "When I go to My Father, I will not leave you orphans." We are connected to life, we are connected to the Source, we are connected to each other. Thank You, Father, for the ability that is inside of us. You say in Your Word that we have received Your love in our hearts when we receive the Holy Spirit. Thank You that through the Holy Spirit You give us the ability to understand Your Word, to receive Your Word, to mix it with faith, to respond to Your Word and speak it forth, and that it will create everything it was sent for.

Thank You for a life of victory. I pray for every single person sitting here, and for every person who will listen to this audio. Thank You, Father, that they will be touched by Your Spirit, that Your Word will come alive in them, and that they will be able to reproduce it and manifest You in this earth. In the name of Jesus, amen.

Amen. Thank you very much. I'll see you next week Thursday.