Session 4 of 6 - Only with the Spirit

Hello, everyone. It's great to be back, and it's great to have you here. Many of you know, and many of you don't know, about how my life changed nine years ago. The session tonight is about what changed my life nine years ago, so I'm very expectant about tonight, not only for myself but for every one of you here.

We've shared quite a bit up to now – a massive amount of information – and I'm glad you are keeping up and that you are back. We are here because of the purpose that God has, and that He has in you and through you, and that is amazing to know. I've explained a lot up to now; I don't have time to repeat even small portions of what we've covered, but I'm sure most of you, nearly all of you, have attended all the sessions or listened to them, so you know how we got to where we are right now about your purpose. The great thing is, how do we measure what it is that we actually need to do?

I've said to you before that God works with all of us differently. So don't ever let somebody put you in a box and tell you that God doesn't speak that way, or God doesn't operate that way, just because He speaks to you or to somebody else in a certain way. God's dimensions are diverse. One of the things the Holy Spirit told me at some stage – I've shared it with you before – when I was interacting with the Holy Spirit, He made me think about the fact that maybe heaven is different for every one of us.

Why not? If you look at the accounts of people who have had near-death experiences, or who were taken up into heaven, and you listen to what they've said, none of them are the same. That doesn't mean it's wrong. The dimensions of God are just so diverse, so the way God speaks with you is different. The picture I see is what God often shows me – pictures, because pictures are quick. God shows you a picture, and what would have taken long to explain, He communicates instantly.

The picture I see is of a door, and it's as if I've put my toe into that door and I'm keeping it open that wide. I trust that your heart is open. I've said to you before, there are hours of prayer that go in every week to prepare the spiritual realm for this event and to prepare your heart for this event.

So I have an expectation, because the fact that you are here means your heart is open. The biggest challenge for all of us – I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it – is the six inches between our ears. That's the biggest challenge. God did what He had to do. Jesus did what He had to do, and He's made everything available to us.

It says Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, and He's the High Priest. In the Old Testament, the high priest could never sit, because his job was never finished. Jesus is seated because He completed what He came for. And we have, in many cases, the unfortunate background of religion that has influenced our mindsets and prevents us from fully experiencing what God wants to do through us.

The opportunity I see with my toe in the door, and that gap, is specific to this one thing: you have to get a conviction in your heart that what we have to do has not been seen in this earth yet. You must get that conviction. We can't play church anymore. We can't just keep trying to limit what God wants to do to the level of our thinking, thinking that we have all the solutions in our minds.

That is why God says to us explicitly in Romans 12:2, He says we need to renew our mind – do not be conformed to this world. The average Christian's life looks exactly the same as a person who is not born again. That's not right. We have come to accept it like that, but it's not the way it's meant to be for us to manifest the presence of God in the earth the way it should be.

Many of the questions people have – where was God when this happened, why does God allow that – if you understand what we've explained from the Word of God up to now... And remember, I've said to you before, I don't have an opinion. Don't try to argue with me for hours about an opinion; I'm not interested in opinions. We take the Word of God, and that is reality, and that's how it is. So I don't have an opinion, but the reality is, from the Word of God, we have moved so far away from really knowing why we are here.

It's a massive responsibility for us to understand that we are here to manifest the presence of God in the earth. If you look at the Old Testament – I've touched on this a bit, though we didn't have enough time – there was the Christ anointing present right from the Old Testament. That presence of God, the presence that was in the Ark – remember Obed-Edom? The Ark was just there, and everything about him prospered. It was just the presence of God.

It was not him doing, trying and making an effort – it was just the presence of God. The amazing thing, if you look at the Old Testament and the Ark of the Covenant and the tent, is that when the tribes camped in the desert there were very specific instructions for how they set up. They all faced towards the tent in the middle. You would think, 'Are you crazy? You are in an area surrounded by enemies, people who want to destroy you,' yet they left their backs open and faced towards the tent in the middle.

It's time we get to that point again. The reason they did that was because the presence of God was there, and they realised that where the presence of God is, nothing can come close to them. We have tried for too long to argue in our minds: why is God doing this, why is He not doing that, why did that person die, I prayed for those people and one still died, why, why, why? We have all these questions, as if – I say it respectfully – we want to make ourselves God.

Now, I'm not saying, through that, that we should keep the back door open with the belief system that says, 'Well, God is the only one who knows, we'll never know.' That's not true, and I'll show it to you from the Word of God tonight. God has entrusted something to us, and we don't have to say, 'But we don't know where and how.'

We've looked at the what, and we've started looking at the how. I've said to you there are two ways to make happen what God has sent us for. Last week we looked at the Word of God, and I trust you have a better understanding of the Word. The other one is the Holy Spirit. The amazing thing is the interaction between the two. Even in Ephesians 6, where it talks about the armour of God, it starts talking about the Word of God that is the sword of the Spirit. Isn't that amazing?

When my life changed nine years ago, one of the first things God said to me was, 'Get an English Bible.' Because I got an English Bible, I started challenging every word I read – you have to concentrate on everything you read. Part of that is just reading the armour of God, and in the first week after my life changed, God showed me something about the armour of God that I've never heard anybody explain to me, and I'll share that with you later on tonight.

One of the pictures the Holy Spirit showed me – can we quickly have that scripture in Ephesians 6?

“…and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

Ephesians 6:17 (NKJV)

If the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit, it means you need both of them – it doesn't just help. You know how Satan challenged Jesus after His baptism? Through the Word of God.

“You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!”

James 2:19 (NKJV)

That doesn't make the difference. I'll tell you something from a practical perspective. I've been active in Stellenbosch over many years, ministering in various places, and one evening when I ministered in Kayamandi, a demon-possessed guy showed up. I'm telling you tonight, he's the person who knows the Bible best that I've ever met. When I said something, he would give me six verses just like that. He'd say, 'Yes, but the Word says this. Yes, but the Word says this.' And I could see he was demon-possessed, and he was challenging me.

Just knowing the Word of God is not enough. Just reading a Bible verse at night is not enough. And I've gone past the point where James says – we covered this last week – 'Don't just be hearers of the Word. Don't fool yourself, like a man looking in a mirror who turns around and forgets what he looks like.' It's meant to be lived. You need to not only know the Word of God, but you need to live it. You need to manifest it. But I'm moving beyond that now; I'm starting to talk about something else.

There's a role the Holy Spirit plays, and the picture God showed me about that is: we don't all give the Holy Spirit the same size of sword to fight with. Some of us give the Holy Spirit a pocketknife and expect Him to fight with that.

But here's the interesting thing I want you to start opening your mind to: the Holy Spirit can only do through you what your mind can accept. When did you become born again? Many of you became born again at one of the sessions here. When did you become born again? The day you heard it. Somebody shared the gospel with you, you heard it, and your mind said, 'Sharp, I agree, I accept it.' And because your mind accepted it, the life could come into your spirit.

There are things in the Word of God – and I'll share some of them – that have changed my life, that I started functioning in and experiencing. We like to take on a very passive role, saying that some things will only happen to you if God comes and does them in your life. But the reality is, if you read about a concept in the Word of God... let me simplify this, because I don't want to get ahead of what I'll talk about later. Take the concept of healing. You will not heal somebody until you read in the Word of God that Jesus healed everyone, and the disciples healed everyone, and you come to a conviction that it's God's intention.

Once you see it in the Word, hear it in the Word, accept it, and in your mind say, 'Yes, I believe God wants to heal people through me,' the day you accept it is the day you will start acting on it, because something physical must happen. We all know that the thing about Satan is that he's not original – he just fakes. Even his name means he's a liar. He takes truth and twists it ever so slightly.

That's why he challenged Jesus through the Word – he wanted to take the truth and twist it slightly, or get you to respond to it in a different way, so that you miss the target. Do you know the definition of sin in the New Testament? To miss the target. That's what sin is – to miss the target. The issue is not about doing things wrong; the issue is about missing the target.

Have you seen our logo? Somewhere you'll see it – it's a picture God showed me, of a target, and always hitting the target. Satan comes and takes things that have truth in them, and some of them he's even turned into religion, taking the life out of it. When we hear it, it seems fine, sounds good, but he's taken the life out of it.

Our responsibility is to open our minds and accept – you have to get a conviction from the Word of God and through the Spirit of God that what we have to do in this earth has not been done before. You have to get that conviction, because that is consistent with the Word of God. Once you get that conviction, it becomes clear why we have to ask why it doesn't look, in this earth, the way it should look. It's very simple: our responsibility is to manifest the presence of God.

The presence of God is enough. We don't have to create something new; we don't have to manufacture something new. What I wanted to say about the healing concept is that, in religious circles, for many years, in the environment I function in, when you say, 'I prayed for somebody and they got healed,' people will quickly tell you, 'Just don't take God's glory.' I don't know about you, but the God I serve – His glory can't be taken.

It's a lie from religion to say that. What is more important – the golf game you had yesterday? You had a great golf game, you shout it out to the world, you celebrate it, you party about it, you share the photos with everyone you know, you put it on Facebook, it's all over. You celebrate it. Why not celebrate when somebody gets healed? Because Satan takes the right things we should be doing and the life we should be living, and he turns it into something that looks wrong.

So what I wanted to say is, the reality is we all know you can't heal somebody without the power of God. We know that. So nobody wanting to heal people is trying to take the glory. We need to manifest the presence of God. But if I want to pray for you to be healed, there is a decision I must make – to take these two feet and walk up to you, lay my hands on you, and say, 'Be healed in the name of Jesus.' Who's the one healing you? Jesus is healing you. We all know that. But I had to take His presence to you.

So we come to the point where we have become passive, and many people become offended when I say it, but the body of Christ has been paralysed because of us not manifesting the presence of God. That is why Paul wrote, 'Knowledge puffs up.' We can spend hours studying the Word of God – and yes, we need the Word of God, because the Word of God is the material the Holy Spirit needs to use.

I need to get a conviction – remember we spoke about it – the word comes, and inside that word that comes is the faith required to manifest it. So I receive that word, but it's the Holy Spirit who gives life to that word. So I need the Word – we all know that. But I can't just sit in my study and study the Word of God year in, year out, year in, year out, while my environment is not changing. Something is wrong. We need to measure it.

We need to measure our environment, and if our environment is not consistent with what the Word of God tells us, there's something different we must do. Even Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results. So we cry out to God and say, 'God, did You not see what happened last night? Where were You when that happened?' God is saying, 'Where were you?' – because He gave us everything to make it possible to manifest His presence.

So I believe that tonight, part of what will happen is that you will be willing to accept that we are not there yet. I say it respectfully, because there are glimpses of it, but I say respectfully – we haven't seen Christianity yet, because we haven't seen Christ yet. Christ needs to come into dominion in this earth, and it's nothing other than the presence of God – the manifest presence of God.

If you look at the Old Testament, we spoke about the Christ anointing, that manifest presence of God – there are things that cannot exist inside of it. I know tonight some aspects might be slightly advanced, but just grab what you can; I'll start changing direction shortly as well. But even when Jesus spoke, there are things He said about what He wants us to receive, experience and manifest that go beyond just the basics.

Even the basics – Jesus referred to being born again as a basic. In John 3, when He spoke to Nicodemus, He explained everything. Some of you were not here in that session, but we spoke about how Jesus said in John 3:3, "Unless you are born again, you will not see the kingdom of God." There's no other way. You have to become born again.

Nicodemus was one of the top learned people of his time, and Jesus said to him, "How come you don't understand these things?"

“Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

John 3:11-12 (NKJV)

The prayer that Jesus prayed, and that many of us have prayed the way we grew up – the Our Father, the Onse Vader – part of it says, "Let it be in earth as it is in heaven." Why do we pray it if we don't believe it? But it is a reality. There's a reason why Jesus prayed it: our responsibility is to manifest heaven in earth.

Remember when Jesus started His ministry, and even the disciples after Him – what was His ministry, what was His gospel? It's the gospel of the Kingdom of God. They went around saying, "The Kingdom of God is near." You walk into a city and say, "The Kingdom of God is near."

If they accept it, you start healing people, because what are you doing? We need to move beyond the segregated, itemised things we believe is the ministry we offer people, to understand that at the end of the day it's not about individual gifts – although they play a major role, individual gifts and functions, and how quickly you can grow. At the end of the day, it's about one thing: manifesting the presence of God.

If we get that right, we don't have to spend hours wondering, "Why did I pray for ten people and only seven got healed?" In the presence of God, everybody will get healed. The answer to that question – did God not want the other three healed? – is not consistent with the Word of God. The Word of God says God wants everybody to receive eternal life, every person. That's God's desire.

It says God wants everybody healed. That's consistent with the Word of God. So if we don't see it in this earth, the problem is not with God. It means earth is not consistent with heaven yet – it is not consistent with God's heart and His desire yet, and it means we have not grown.

“…till we all come to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

Ephesians 4:13 (NKJV)

The day we get there, Jesus will come. That's the only variable that's left.

We need to change our minds. Otherwise, one of the things I came to realise is that you can have the life of the Spirit inside of you, but if you don't decide with your mind that it's possible, it will not be possible. That's how it is. Your mind is the gateway through which your spirit needs to operate.

We take that verse in the Bible and say, "We have the mind of Christ." The mind of Christ is not in your mind – the mind of Christ is in your spirit. The problem is you need to get your mind out of the way so that the mind of Christ in your spirit can manifest. The day we have aligned our physical minds with the mind of Christ is the day we can manifest His fullness.

So we have a huge responsibility to leave behind much of what we have been taught. We need to leave behind how we have measured God by our experience. Because you experienced praying for ten people and only seven got healed, do you want to measure God through that now? Do you want to tell me God is limited to your experience? Is that the measure of God now – your experience, your environment?

We want to take God and put Him in a little box and say, "I cannot understand You with my mind, which means this is who You are." We need to change that. We need to come back to the point of saying, "God, You are God. And not only are You God, You are God to me, and You are God in my life," and we start renewing our minds to become consistent with the mind of Christ that is in our spirit.

We know what Jesus came to do on earth. Jesus came to show us. When He spoke to His disciples, they said, "Show us the Father, and it'll be enough." Jesus said, "You've been with Me so long, and you don't know the Father? If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father."

What did Jesus reflect in His life that lets us start attributing the character of God? I touched on this in a previous session – the playing field of God. There is a place where God plays: He is light, He is life, He is love. Something outside of that cannot be from God; it's not possible. So let's make it simple: if it's not in that block, if there is something in your life that is not consistent with life, light and love, it is not from God.

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

John 10:10 (NKJV)

So we need to come back to understanding what the character of God is. Then we can start aligning our thoughts, our intents, our minds – and we have to want to manifest the presence of God in this earth. We need to know who God is; not in His fullness, but at least the characteristics of the playing field, to be able to manifest God in this world.

Jesus came and showed us what the Father looked like. He showed us the Father's heart. When He walked out of certain places and saw the people, it says He had compassion – they looked like sheep without a shepherd. They often used the word compassion for Jesus. And it says He went around healing all. He is saying to us, "When you saw Me, you saw the Father." That is what the Father wants to do.

I am not saying, if you lost a loved one, that it's not a terrible experience. I am not saying you could have done something about it. I am not trying to condemn anybody or put guilt anywhere. It is not the responsibility of one person – Ephesians 4 talks about until we all come to a perfect man, not perfect men, a perfect man, singular.

For me, it starts with having a conviction of why we are here – your purpose. You have to have a conviction about what your purpose is: to manifest the presence of God in this earth. Once we know that is our purpose, and we get an internal conviction that nobody else can give us – conviction comes from the inside, not from the outside.

But it can come through the Word of God, which embeds that ability in your spirit, and then you can respond to it. Once we get that conviction, we need to start acting on it. I will become very practical in some of the other sessions about how we function together, what it should look like when we function together to make each member function in the body of Christ. I'll talk about that at another stage. For now, I'm only saying that we are not yet at the place where we are manifesting the fullness of God in this earth, and that covers a whole lot of questions about why the earth is looking the way it is looking.

We need to manifest more of God in this world, and we do that through the Word of God, but especially through the Spirit of God. When Jesus left – read the Gospels, right at the end of Mark, Matthew, Luke – put the three together and you get a very clear picture of the instruction and command Jesus left for the disciples: to go out and manifest His presence and make disciples. That included heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers.

There was an expectation that His gospel, the gospel of the Kingdom of God, was not meant to be a religion about Jesus on the cross. Jesus on the cross is a gateway into something – an ability. He made it possible for us to become one with God, and the only reason we became one with God is so that we can manifest Him in this earth. There is a point where religion got to, and it stopped there. It's as if much of Christianity stops at the cross. It was a starting point – a means to an end. There's something after that.

Jesus showed us this through the instructions He gave at the end of the Gospels. He gave the disciples all the instructions of what they should do, and then He said to them, "But wait." He said, "Tarry in the city until you are endued with power, with the Holy Spirit that the Father will send."

So even though the disciples had lived with Jesus so long, Jesus said to them, "Don't go and try to do this thing you have been sent for without the Holy Spirit." It's not possible. It's not like it's nearly there – it's just not possible. What we need to do in this earth is impossible without the Holy Spirit. That's why Jesus made it clear.

“…but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…”

Acts 1:8 (NKJV)

That word power is dunamis. It is the power to effect change – the same word from which dynamite was derived. So that means if we have the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us, things must look different.

I'm going to keep repeating it – I don't care if I have to say it 5,000 times – we have to renew our mindsets to understand that what we are seeing in this earth is not acceptable. It's not acceptable, and it's not the standard we should function at, and it's not Christianity, and I say that respectfully. We need to understand that.

If you see these things around you, don't question all of it. Just know one thing: the body of Christ doesn't look the way it should. In the Old Testament, it says eight were saved by water. That scripture is always amazing – you would think they were saved by the ark, but the Bible says they were saved by water. Why? Because the water destroyed every person who was unrighteous. It gave them the best possible chance to manifest the presence of God in this earth and to continue to live in righteousness the way God designed it. But that ark, that protection, was the body of Christ – the same way we spoke about the rock before. Our solution is in the body of Christ, not in individual brilliance. It's about every member being activated to build this body into the position it should be, and it's impossible to do it without the power of the Holy Spirit.

“When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'”

Matthew 3:16-17 (NKJV)

The ministry of Jesus started on this day. At the age of thirty, Jesus had a ministry for three years, and His ministry started the day He received the Holy Spirit. From that follows everything else we've looked at before: Jesus said, "The Son of Man" – speaking of Himself – "could do nothing except what the Father showed Him." But how did the Father show Him? It was because of the Holy Spirit inside of Him, because of a relationship.

The one thing that stands out for me when I look at Jesus, the man in the Word of God – I've said this before – He was a man with a relationship. Through the Holy Spirit, He had a relationship. And if Jesus Himself could do nothing except what the Father showed Him through the Holy Spirit, why would we want to do it differently?

When I was preparing, the Holy Spirit showed me a vision, which I believe is for every single person here. He showed me a picture of a person running with great effort, putting everything into his running – his legs really going at maximum. I don't know if you experienced this as a child, running at maximum speed and knowing your legs are not keeping up with the momentum of your body. It normally ends in a bit of a negative experience.

I'm seeing this person running flat out, full effort, and it's like it's not enough – it's not fast enough. And with this man running like that, I see the Holy Spirit coming from behind, and He opens two wings for that person. You know how one of those very light feathers seems to move by itself, so light that you can blow it with the gentlest breath? I see the Holy Spirit lifting your wings like this, and He blows ever so slightly, and you lift off effortlessly.

That is the difference the power of the Holy Spirit makes. Through our own ability and our own efforts, we will never make it happen. We can work as hard as we want, we can put in the effort, we can have great intentions – it will not be the result God wants, because He wants to manifest the supernatural. He wants to manifest what is beyond your ability.

By default, if God wants to manifest something in this earth that is beyond your physical ability, it is beyond your mind. When the Word of God speaks about the peace of God, it says, "The peace of God that surpasses all understanding." We want to do God's work based on the understanding we have. What God wants to do through you is beyond your understanding, but it is in your spirit. He has put the ability in your spirit, but He wants to do it through the ability of the Holy Spirit inside of you. It's not a nice-to-have – it's the only way. Without the Holy Spirit, we will not do it. That is why the ministry of Jesus even started on that day.

Remember some of the scriptures we covered last week: it's the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. Remember I covered with you John 7:38, that speaks about your – depending on the translation – belly, womb, innermost being, saying, "From your innermost being will flow rivers of life-giving water." It even says there that Jesus was speaking about the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed on Him would receive.

When you receive the Holy Spirit, that is when you receive the ability to generate life – the dunamis, the dynamo, the ability to generate, to manifest life. It's meant to be a river.

The amazing thing about God, as I've said before, is that the things God has put in place, God never stops. He never stops shining His light. He never stops giving forth His love and His ability and His grace and His favour. God never stops.

We often think of God as a man who would sit there and decide, "A bit of grace for you today – no, not for you. Okay, a bit of love for you today – no, not for you." We think about God that way, but God doesn't function that way. He is like a light that shines. That's why it says in heaven there is no shadow, there is no need for the sun and the moon – there's no need for light because His ability, the Lamb, is that light, that presence.

So that light, that ability, that love – what God wants to do in you and through you – is a continuous stream that is flowing. God never stops. But there are things we do that stop that flow, not because God wants it, but because of what we do. It's the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The ability to give life – and we know it – is inside of us.

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”

John 16:7 (NKJV)

Jesus said, "You have seen all these things, and you have seen these great things that I do," but He says, "It'll be good for you if I go," because remember, Jesus had to first go to heaven before the Holy Spirit could be poured out into this earth.

So Jesus said, "It will be to your benefit." Jesus knew this. Remember, although Jesus received the Holy Spirit at His baptism, Jesus could still only be at one place at a time. When the Holy Spirit was poured out, and that's why Joel 2:28 says, "In the last days I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh," that Spirit was poured out when Jesus went into Heaven. It was not possible before, but subsequent to His ascension, that Spirit has been pouring out.

We're already in the last days. We don't have to look at science to determine that. We're already in the last days, but we actually determine how long the last days are. The outpouring of the Spirit is continuously happening. The Bible says God wants every person to be born again. God wants every person to be filled with the Spirit of God. There's no limitation from God's side, there's no restriction from God's side. The restriction is on our side. Remember, even in the Old Testament, Hosea 4 says, "My people perish due to lack of knowledge."

We need to receive that life form, we need to renew our mind to become consistent with the mind of Christ, and then we need to manifest that presence. The variable is now up to us. That's why Jesus said, "It'll be good for you." Now let me start showing you some of the things the Holy Spirit will do.

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.”

John 16:13 (NKJV)

Isn't it amazing? I've covered a lot regarding the word truth, which is alēthinos, meaning reality, that which exists. So now we talk about the Spirit and say, "He is the Spirit of truth. He is the Spirit of reality." I said to you before, when you use the name of Jesus, remember the story of the seven sons of Sceva. They tried to cast out a demon in the name of "the Jesus that Paul serves." It didn't work out well for them. What was the problem? They had no personal revelation of what the name of Jesus represents. You need to have a personal conviction of what the name Jesus represents.

Now, when we talk about the Holy Spirit, it says He's the Spirit of truth. He's not separated from God. Remember, Jesus is in Heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father. The Father is on the throne; He never leaves the throne. The presence of God in this earth is brought to us through the Holy Spirit. My example about when you pray for somebody and lay your hand on them and say, "Be healed in the name of Jesus" – who's the one that does the healing? It's not Jesus directly; it's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit responds to the name of Jesus because the authority is in the name of Jesus.

The fact that Jesus died, went to hell, and overcame Satan – Jesus is the one who obtained the authority. He represents that authority in His name. But the One who actually does the doing is the Holy Spirit. So that presence we're talking about here on earth needs to be manifested by the Holy Spirit.

Can I quickly recap for your minds? There's a spiritual realm that exists. There's a physical realm that exists. The spiritual is far superior to the physical. When the Spirit of God comes, He doesn't just carry a little something and bring it to you like an angel. God can send an angel, and an angel can bring something to you, a gift or something. Not so with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the I Am. He represents, like in the Old Testament where the presence of God manifested certain things and certain things could not exist in it, it's the same with the Holy Spirit. He doesn't bring you small things. He represents everything about God, and He comes and manifests it.

Where He manifests it, there are some things that cannot exist in that light. Remember I shared a scripture with you previously: God called forth light out of darkness. He conveyed you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His loved Son. And when God brought forth this light out of darkness, darkness cannot even comprehend it. The level and form of superiority of the existence of God – there is nothing physical that can resist that presence, and I'll show you more about that.

So the Holy Spirit is the One who brings us the presence of the Father. But now it becomes very important to distinguish how the Father operates, how Jesus operates, and how the Holy Spirit operates, because one of the key elements that has been missing in the church is the functioning of the Holy Spirit to His full ability – not to what we think. I'm going to keep saying that to you, because you need to understand: however much you know about God, you have to accept that your mind still needs more truth and more reality about God.

You have to be open to receive it so that your mind can change. It comes into your spirit, but your mind needs to change so that your spirit can express it through your mind. So the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and not only that – it says, "He will guide you into all truth." The Holy Spirit's desire and function: God has a purpose, Jesus had a purpose, the Holy Spirit has a purpose, the same way you have a purpose.

The Holy Spirit's purpose is to manifest all of the Kingdom of God, all of who God is, in the earth, but He needs to do it through a human being. And there are some things required to make that happen.

I just want to touch on something. When we spoke about the baptism of Jesus, it said the Holy Spirit came in bodily form like a dove and descended on Jesus. In bodily form, like a dove. The Holy Spirit is not a dove. The Holy Spirit is a person. It says "in bodily form" because the form in which the Holy Spirit came down is the same bodily shape as what Jesus had. The Holy Spirit came down in bodily form; it says like a dove.

It was never intended to be the shape and form of the Holy Spirit. The only thing "like a dove" referred to was the way He settled on Jesus. It's important to understand that for a variety of reasons. I don't have an issue with people using a dove, a white dove, on a Bible or wherever – it can be a symbol and it can mean something to them. We're not in a religion. If something means something to you and it guides you into truth, then so be it. But there are some truths, some higher truths, and it's important for us to understand that the Holy Spirit doesn't look like a dove, because the Holy Spirit is a person.

One of the great things we need to get to tonight is that you need to establish a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Jesus did the things He did because He had a relationship. You need to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. That's the one thing it relates to.

He came in bodily form like a dove, descending on Jesus. If you've ever seen a dove land on a roof, just before it lands it opens its wings like a parachute opening; it slows down so it can gently land. That was the only thing being referred to: the gentleness of the Holy Spirit, how He descended on Jesus.

It's important to understand this because of the variable we need to get to: how the Father functions, how Jesus functions, and now how the Holy Spirit functions. As far as the Holy Spirit is concerned – and I'm going to put this now, if you're okay with it, in human terms, in my own words, so don't ask me where this is in the Bible, though you can confirm it through other things – if you think about the Father and about Jesus, there's a robustness about them, a boldness, a firmness, a power. You get this robust impression, to some extent, about the Father and about Jesus.

But when you come to the Holy Spirit, I'm going to put it in human words – it's not the full reality – but it's as if the Holy Spirit is the fragile one. He's the subtle one, the sensitive one. And the important thing is that the way we interact with the Holy Spirit is based on a relationship, but it requires things from us, and we need to learn how the Holy Spirit functions. The Bible talks about the Holy Spirit being quenched. You don't read that about the Father or Jesus. It says the Holy Spirit can be grieved.

Now, I spoke previously about sin and the fact that sin is not our biggest issue, because Jesus paid for every single sin – everything you have done, what you are doing, and what you will do, Jesus paid for it. It's like He's the magnet on that cross: the moment there is sin in your life, it goes onto the cross; Jesus paid for it.

So sin can never separate you from God. Sin cannot keep you from eternal life. It could lead you astray to a point where you denounce that Jesus is Lord of your life, and you could lose the fact that you are born again – that's possible, but it's really, really extreme for that to happen; something specific must happen. Sin by default cannot separate you from God. But when it comes to the Holy Spirit – and this is merely by way of illustration about His person, His subtlety, His fragileness – when we live a sinful life, you will see that you will not be able to manifest some of the things the Holy Spirit wants to do through your life.

It's got nothing to do with God judging you. It's got nothing to do with the fact that Jesus already paid for every sin in your life. When God looks at you, the Bible says you have received the gift of righteousness. Much more, we have received the gift of righteousness. You don't deserve righteousness, but when you became born again, with that life form you received, you received one hundred percent righteousness. So when the Father looks at you, when Jesus looks at you, they can only see you as one hundred percent righteous. That doesn't mean the Holy Spirit doesn't see you as righteous, but there's a reason, there are some things we do in our lives that grieve the Spirit, that quench the Spirit.

So when it comes to manifesting through the Holy Spirit – and this is, if I want to say, the important step, the significance of us functioning in the supernatural – because if we just do the physical things, it's not going to be good enough. To manifest the supernatural and the fullness of the presence of God in this earth, the critical component for us now is the Holy Spirit.

And for that, you need a relationship with the Holy Spirit. It's an intimate relationship. It is sensitive, subtle, gentle. The Holy Spirit is a person. Some of you might only get to know Him tonight, because God loves you so much.

He loves you so much. Even if we talk about manifesting the presence of God, the core aspect we have to understand about God is love. If you look at God's purpose, if you look at our purpose, it's impossible to speak about purpose without speaking about love. God loved you so much that He sent Jesus Christ. He could have just left this earth and said, "I can start a new earth; let them destroy themselves." But He loved us too much. He loved us too much, and He wants you to experience that love in a personal, intimate way, and part of that is His presence – part of that is what the Holy Spirit brings in your inner room and enables you to manifest in this earth.

Can I show you Romans 5:5? Even the connotation between the two, where it says we are able to love God:

“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Romans 5:5 (NKJV)

When the Bible talks about heart, it means your spirit – that same innermost being, your life-giving ability. Isn't that amazing, the connotation between receiving the love of God inside of you? Remember, part of the mindset we must get to is not waiting for God in Heaven to come and do something, but the responsibility has moved onto us. In the age we live in, the responsibility has been passed onto us. That's why Jesus said in John 7:38, "Those that believe on Me, from their innermost being will flow rivers of life-giving ability."

There is an ability inside of you. Listen very carefully to what I'm going to tell you now: the ability inside of you, through the Holy Spirit, is enough to change this world. It's enough. You don't need anything else. Can I respectfully say you don't need something else to come down from Heaven? That which is inside of you is enough to manifest God's presence.

Yes, it needs to be activated through the Holy Spirit, and I'll touch on that just now, but look at the connotation: the Holy Spirit inside of you is the love of God. When you receive the Holy Spirit inside of you, you have the love of God, because He is the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of reality, and God is love. That love is just amazing. God wants you to experience that love in so many ways.

Look at this, Romans 8 from verse 38. Now listen to this verse as if you have never heard it before.

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39 (NKJV)

In our physical world, that's like the ultimate measure of existence and significance – life and death. That already is beyond our minds, but there is something about that which must drop into your spirit, to understand the love that God has for you and that He has poured out in your heart. We think the measure is just the things around us; we might experience sickness in our body, and so often part of that is we question God, which means we question God's love.

Now God is trying to create that picture inside of you. I said to you in the beginning, we need to understand the character of God. God is trying to create that picture inside of you of who He is, and He says the love that He has for you, that is in Christ – no sickness, not even life, not even death – it's beyond our minds. Everything we can make sense of and attach value to, He says none of that can separate you. There's no demon, no evil spirit, there's not even things that could still be created that can separate you from the love of God.

Now, if you start understanding and getting this reality of what the playing field looks like where God functions, He says, "I love you so much." I want you to have a conviction about it.

The Holy Spirit that you saw in Romans 5:5 will give you a conviction in your heart about how much God loves you. It is not just a feeling; it is a reality that exists, and an ability. That ability inside of you is described this way: we can love God because He first loved us. What does that mean? It is an ability. He put an ability inside of you that we are able to express not only towards God, but also into this world.

Part of our mindset, which I started touching on previously, is how we look at other people. One of the things that changed my life is when God started explaining to me what it means to love God. I won't go through all the verses now – I'll include them in the email – but it says it is impossible to say that you love God if you are not loving your brother. God said to me, 'It is impossible to love Me other than through people.' The only way that you can love God is through people. That changed everything about my life: the way I look at people, and what I think is acceptable to say about other people. That's what the Word of God says. God says it is impossible for you to love Me if you cannot love a physical person.

I can go into my inner room and worship God and tell Him I love Him, and that's great – that's my relationship with Him, and I can express it that way. But the true expression of the fact that I love God is that I love Him through other people. If you start seeing the people around you as the channel through which you love God, everything about your life will change. We do not have the luxury to think the way the world thinks. There is no room for a tainted mindset because of the way you grew up.

Maybe you grew up with an influence of racism, where people of some skin colour are seen as more superior or more able than others – whether it's racism, gender, or whatever it is – we do not have that luxury anymore. I put 'luxury' in inverted commas; we do not have the option to live that way. You only look at people and say, 'This is somebody that God loves as much as He loves me, and He wants me to express that love to them.' That is the only way we can look at people.

The Holy Spirit has a critical role to play as far as love is concerned.

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.”

1 John 4:17 (NKJV)

His life form is in us. So as He is – not we will be like Him one day when we get to heaven – He says, 'As He is, so are we right now in this world,' because it is obvious we need to manifest Him in this earth. We have not grown the body of Christ to full size; it's a baby. It's not quite the picture I have of the body of Christ in my spirit – the picture I have is of a paralysed body, which is something else, but let's leave it there. The reality is it's obvious we are like Him in this earth because we need to manifest Him.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”

1 John 4:18 (NKJV)

There is something that love is meant to create in us and through us. There's a reason it says perfect love casts out fear – fear is the number one reason why we give Satan influence in our lives. Maybe one day, if we have time, we'll speak about Job, because people don't quite understand what happened with him. In the beginning of Job it says, 'The thing that Job greatly feared.' Fear opens the door for Satan to have influence in your life. But this is not about condemnation – remember, this is about growth. We are all growing. I said from the beginning that I am by no means standing here telling you I have attained; I'm doing what God has put in my heart. So perfect love casts out fear, because fear opens the door for Satan to have influence in our lives.

When we get to maturity, the love that is in us will bring such a conviction in us that we will not fear anything – not people breaking into our houses, not whatever challenges you see in this world, not death, nothing. Because remember: not death, not life, not demons, not anything – there is nothing that can separate you from the love of God. I want to put it this way: there is nothing that can separate you from the nature and the ability of God that is in you by way of the Holy Spirit. But fear prevents us from manifesting that in this earth. Wrong thought patterns that have been established, and fear, prevent us from establishing the fullness of God in this earth. That is why love goes to the foundation of what the Holy Spirit needs to achieve in us and through us.

I want to touch on the aspect that the Holy Spirit brings us the presence of the Father and the Son. There is another scripture that explains that our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son.

“That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”

1 John 1:3 (NKJV)

So our fellowship, our interaction, our oneness, is with the Father and with the Son, but it is through the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that makes it possible. Just as a matter of interest – when you speak about being born again, in Romans 10:9-10, and in 2 Corinthians 5:17, those that are in Christ – the only thing that can make you born again is the Holy Spirit. I don't want to get into topics that are typically controversial, but when it refers to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it is often referring to the fact that you became born again and the Holy Spirit baptised you into Christ. So the Holy Spirit is the one who gives us fellowship with the Father and the Son.

Now I want to start changing gear a bit, if that's okay, because there is a presence of the Holy Spirit here that I want you to tap into. I want you to utilise this opportunity tonight, either to build on your relationship or to establish that relationship. The thing that changed my life nine years ago – I was already born again at that stage. Many of you know my background and my story. I was very much career-driven, clinical, a cold person, and I really did not have a love for people. It was difficult for me even to say to my wife, 'I love you' – expressing those words was hard for me. When I received the Holy Spirit, everything about my life changed.

God gave me a love for people that I didn't know was possible, and you need that drive and desire that the Holy Spirit puts inside of you. Otherwise, what we need to do will not be sustainable. I have a family, I have children, I am the CEO of a business, I have many responsibilities. What makes me stand here? The drive I have inside of me – the compassion, like Jesus had when He walked out and saw them and said, 'They are like sheep without a shepherd.'

The ability that God put inside of me makes me just want to say, 'God, just one more. Just one more. I just want to change one more life.' I know I will not die young. The compassion I have in my heart to save people and to equip people to live their purpose will keep me in this earth till the day Jesus comes.

When I received the Holy Spirit, there were things that went with it, but in one week I had a different life than the one I knew before. I was a different person because of the reality of the Holy Spirit and the things God put in my heart. He changed me from the inside – literally that word that says, 'He gave me a heart of flesh; He took out my heart of stone and gave me a heart of flesh.' That literally happened in an instant, in one day. From there I started living a life of precision, a life of being led by the Spirit.

I will share some things with you, only for the sake of – and again, I'm not saying I'm the measure. Some of you are doing greater work than what I'm doing; that's not the measure. We should all just be doing what we should be doing. But I want to share with you, from my heart, some of the things that started changing in my life, some of the things God started doing through me that I didn't know was possible. It was not like I was on a religious growth journey and took one step up. It was a total turnaround into a life and a reality I didn't know existed. I want to open your heart to start understanding there is a supernatural life, and we need to open ourselves for the Holy Spirit to fill us and function through us. Otherwise, we will not function in the supernatural. We will not manifest the supernatural, and to the extent that we only manifest the natural, it is never going to manifest the presence of God in this earth.

Let me share a few testimonies with you of things that happened in my life immediately after that, because I want to show you, consistent with the Word of God, what the Holy Spirit will do in you, through you and for you. I had an audit practice at that stage, and one of my clients – a farmer on the other side of Riebeek-Kasteel – owed me a lot of money.

In that week, just roughly after my life changed, I attended a session on a Thursday during lunch where somebody spoke about how we practically live out what we have inside of us. One of the things he shared was that every day there is an opportunity to manifest the love of God practically, not just in your inner room. He said the opportunity comes in big, bold, red letters, but often we choose to ignore it.

This client owed me money, and he sent an email to the accounts department, which was forwarded to me. I looked at this letter – he was complaining about a whole lot of things, and I just knew it was all about him not wanting to pay his account. I started getting warm under the collar and irritated, and I started typing a letter to tell him exactly what I thought. As I was typing, it came up in my spirit: big, bold, red letters.

I stopped and realised, 'Okay, there is something he needs to receive, and I need to give it to him.' My life had just changed – I wasn't equipped, but I was obedient. Many things happened in my life in those first few weeks after it changed nine years ago, and I was very excited to share with anybody willing to hear. So I thought, 'Okay, I'll send him an SMS and tell him that one day when he comes in from the farm' – they stayed on a farm the other side of Riebeek-Kasteel – 'when he comes in, I want to see him and chat with him on a personal level.'

I sent the SMS, and it came back with a delivery notification – it beeped, delivered. And the next moment my phone rang, and it was him. I thought, 'Okay, that was quick.' I answered, and he said to me, 'I'm in front of your office. Can I see you now?' I said yes, though I thought, 'What am I going to do now?' I went online and said, 'Lord, what am I going to tell him? I don't know.' I was still searching when he phoned again and said, 'Okay, I'm downstairs.' I had told him, 'I'll meet you at the coffee shop' – I didn't want to meet him at the office; I wanted to separate the two things. I hadn't found anything yet, so I said, 'Okay, Lord, You will have to do the talking.'

I went down to meet him at the coffee shop. Long story short: there's a robot in front of my office and, a block further, another robot. He stopped at that first robot, and he said a lot of things in his life were going wrong. He said, 'God, if You don't show me today that You are alive, I'm going to take my own life.' Between that robot and the next, I had sent him the SMS, and he turned in at the next robot, straight to my office.

This big farmer sat in front of me. I hadn't even started speaking – this is amazing about how the Holy Spirit functions – I hadn't even started speaking, and he started crying. He said to me, 'Why me? Why today?' That is how much God loves people on such a personal, intimate level. I explained the gospel to him, prayed with him to become born again, prayed with him to be filled with the Spirit, and his life changed that day.

That is the kind of thing the Holy Spirit wants to do through us that is not possible to explain in a human way. But there are variables – that is why God says the ultimate thing He wants is your heart. God can force nothing onto you, let alone the Holy Spirit, with His gentle approach and nature. He can do nothing through you in a forceful way.

Shortly after that, we went to Umngazi. The children were still small, and we went there for a holiday. As I was praying, the Holy Spirit said to me, 'Take 40 Bibles with you.' I thought, 'Okay,' though we were flying there, and 40 Bibles in a suitcase – it's like when God speaks to you and you want to argue a bit and say, 'Is 40 really necessary? It's a small suitcase.' Anyway, as I was praying, the Holy Spirit also said, 'And take 12 Xhosa Bibles as well.' Long story short, I took the Bibles and we got to Umngazi.

It's a remote village and area with a hotel, and the people working there come from the village – it's pretty much their lifeline in that environment. We got there, and I had no idea what I was going to do with the Bibles. My wife and I prayed and got the conviction that they were obviously for the staff. We asked the management for permission – at first they didn't want to give it, then they did. I put up pamphlets everywhere saying, 'Lunchtime tomorrow, between 1:00 and 2:00, I'll be in that room and share about God,' or whatever I put on the poster – I can't quite remember.

I got permission, and I was there with all the Bibles, everything prepared. 1:00 came, and I was standing in front of that room – there was nobody there. You start thinking, 'Did I hear right? Was it meant to be today?' You know, when God speaks, He speaks – what is there to doubt? Anyway, I started getting a bit nervous, walking up and down, praying, and one guy showed up. I was so glad there was one person; I thought, 'Today you're going to get the gospel.' Long story short, I had the conviction that more people would come. About twenty minutes later, they all came and filled the whole hall.

I started sharing the gospel, and I hadn't quite realised, but most of them couldn't speak English properly. So I got a translator, who wasn't even born again, and the things I said, he wasn't even translating properly. There were one or two people there who were born again, and they would sometimes stop him and say, 'No, no, no, it's not that,' and then say the right thing. It was like nothing seemed to be going right. Anyway, when I finished – seventy-six people became born again that day.

I had put the English Bibles on top. I was thinking again with my own head, 'These people are all going to want a Xhosa Bible, because it seems they can't speak English' – though it wasn't so much that they couldn't speak English, they were just more comfortable in their native language. So I put all the Xhosa Bibles in my backpack, because I didn't want a fight over them. I said, 'Everybody who wants a Bible can come and ask.' Some of them already had Bibles, so not all took one. They would come, and I'd give them a Bible from the table, and here and there one would come and ask, 'Can I have a Xhosa Bible?' and I would take one from my backpack and give it to them.

When everybody was done and had left, I had to close the windows and close the hall. All the English Bibles were gone, and nobody else had asked me for a Bible. Exactly forty. I took my backpack and saw there was one Xhosa Bible left, and I thought to myself, 'I missed somebody.' But I had already closed up. It's a long way up to get to the venue at the top. As I started walking down – halfway down – a lady came running, out of breath. I had to wait for her to catch her breath. She said she had wanted to come, but they didn't want to let her go; she had to work. She said, 'I want to hear what you told them.'

And I shared the gospel with her. She became born again. And out of the blue – I said nothing – she said to me, "Do you have a Xhosa Bible for me?" And I gave her the twelfth Xhosa Bible. Exactly forty English Bibles, exactly twelve Xhosa Bibles. That is the way that God functions. It is humanly impossible to have known the exact number that was required. That is the way that God wants to function through us.

That verse we just read says, "When the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth, and He will show you things to come." There are things lying ahead. There are things that happen in our lives that God doesn't want to happen, but He shows us, and we ignore it. One day I picked up my son from horse riding. I was driving – we stay in an estate – and there's a very steep road on the left as I drive that runs down.

As I turned and started going down that road, the Holy Spirit said to me, "Drive slower." And I drove slower. And He said, "Slower." And I drove even more slowly. My son was sitting in the passenger seat playing on his phone, and he looked at me, then outside, wondering what was going on. The third time the Holy Spirit told me, "Drive slower." And as I got to this steep road coming down, there was a youngster, probably thirteen or fourteen, on his skateboard, coming down that road.

When he got to the stop street, he couldn't stop. He tried that move they do, throwing the board out. But somehow that move didn't work that day. He went straight, fell off his skateboard, rolled, and landed right in front of my car. I could just brake in time. When he stood up, he pressed on my bonnet to get up.

If I had not heard, I would have driven over that child, and my son, his family and I would all have sat with the question, "But why, God?" There are things God wants to do through us. I have a conviction that God is a God of precision. He is very precise, very intimate, very personal.

I want to show you some of what the Holy Spirit is meant to do through us, and I want you to get a conviction about what God wants to do through you. This is one of my favourite portions – I've said before I'm not sure one's meant to have favourite portions in the Word, but I'm sure God's okay with it. The whole Word of God is my favourite, but then there is more favourite: 1 Corinthians 2. Listen carefully, because we sometimes read this and put ourselves in the wrong category. You need to distinguish how God talks about the world and how God talks about us.

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

1 Corinthians 2:9 (NKJV)

There's no prize for speed-reading the Bible. We think, because it ends with "the things which God has prepared for those who love Him," that it's saying there are things God has prepared for us that we don't know. That's not what it's saying. He's saying there are things He has prepared for us in His presence, in His ability, in the body of Christ that we need to manifest. There are things He has prepared, but the world has not seen it and hasn't heard it – because it continues, "But..."

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

1 Corinthians 2:10 (NKJV)

There are a few verses in the Bible about deep calling unto deep. There is a life form of God in your spirit, deep down in your innermost being, and the life form of God is calling out to that. God wants to initiate Himself inside of you; He's calling out to that.

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

1 Corinthians 2:11 (NKJV)

He's making a comparison: you're a physical man, you have a spirit. Who knows everything about you? Your spirit. Your wife might not know what you did last night, but your spirit knows – your spirit inside you knows everything about you. So it's the same with God: the Spirit inside God knows everything about God.

Now we could stop there and say, "See? Only the Spirit of God knows." No, it doesn't stop there.

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

1 Corinthians 2:12 (NKJV)

So firstly, the Spirit that is inside God, that knows everything about God – we have received that Spirit. That would have been enough, but in case we didn't take it far enough: not only have you received that Spirit, you've received that Spirit with a purpose – that you might know everything that God has prepared for you.

Does that sound similar to the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of reality, the presence, the ability, the Kingdom of God? Everything about that, the Spirit represents. He doesn't carry it as an external component – He is that. God's intention for us is to know every single thing He has prepared for us, including what it involves to manifest the body of Christ in this earth to the standard it should be.

“These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

1 Corinthians 2:13 (NKJV)

Comparing spiritual things with spiritual – the spiritual things that exist, the I AM, compared to what we manifest in this earth. We need to manifest every single thing concerning heaven in this earth. When we do it, the things we struggle with now will disappear.

That's why Matthew 6:33 says, "First seek the Kingdom of God." What is that? We always have this perception that it's religious living – I must first go to church and then God will give me some things. That's not what it's talking about. It's seeking the manifestation of His presence. When you manifest His presence, it becomes a question of what else do you want? Everything you want will be in that presence, because there cannot be poverty, there cannot be sickness, there cannot be divorce, there cannot be pain, et cetera. All the things you read in Revelation that are not in heaven, cannot be in earth, in the body of Christ, in the presence manifest here.

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

1 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJV)

If you try to figure out the Holy Spirit with your mind, if you try to figure out with your mind what God has prepared for you and expects you to manifest, you will fail dismally, because it was never meant to be on that level. It was meant to be on this level – spiritual things, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Deep calling unto deep. That which is inside of you, God wants it to be manifested. What He needs, can I respectfully say, is your heart, not your intellect. We try to argue with God on an intellectual level, as if He is on our level and we can question Him. He is God.

Until the earth looks like heaven, we do not have the right to question Him. We only have the right to manifest Him. That's a side note. The Holy Spirit is here to manifest everything concerning God, and we need to be willing operators with Him. We are partners with God.

We need to be willing. I'm going to read John 7:38 again, focusing on something else there.

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

John 7:38-39 (NKJV)

Two things to focus on: you need to believe, and you need to receive Him. If I can illustrate it physically: take an empty two-litre cold drink bottle and put it inside a swimming pool. When you got born again, you were baptised into Christ – 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Those that are in Christ are a new creation." You were baptised into Him, but the Bible clearly explains that you need to be filled with the Spirit. When you take off the cap of that bottle underneath the water, then that life comes into the bottle and fills it from the inside.

That's why Jesus was referring here: "There will be this life-giving water that flows from you" – but He was talking about those who believe and receive the Holy Spirit, because the life-giving ability is in the Holy Spirit, not in our physical ability.

“And they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 8:17 (NKJV)

Again, it uses the word receive, so there is a receiving process and component that goes hand in hand with it. And then there is the certainty about how it happens.

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

Luke 11:13 (NKJV)

He's talking about certainty. Even you, evil as you are, know you will not give your child a stone or a scorpion or a snake – you know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? No questions asked. When you ask the Father to give you the Holy Spirit, you receive the Holy Spirit.

I've already said you can only be baptised into Christ – that's being born again – through the Holy Spirit, but then you are also filled with the Holy Spirit, and there's the other scripture we read earlier that says the Holy Spirit will be in you and He will be on you. He stays inside you, but then there is that other component – if you want to talk about the anointing, the manifest presence of the ability of God through you, resting upon you – that's where the variable starts coming in, in the subtlety.

The aspect of the Holy Spirit being grieved or quenched refers to the Holy Spirit being present upon you in order to minister Him to effect change in the lives of others. And there's also the process the Bible describes: "Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit." It actually means being continuously filled with the Spirit – it's a continuous process to activate the ability.

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

Acts 1:8 (NKJV)

The Spirit of truth, the Spirit of reality, the Spirit of ability, the Spirit of love, is all inside of you, but if you don't stir it to come to the front – like Paul wrote to Timothy, "Stir up that which is inside of you" – it's a responsibility we have.

I want to pray with you now to get that conviction, and I'm truly grateful there are a few people here for the first time tonight, so I want to be sure I explained to you before about being born again. I'm going to give the opportunity for people to become born again, because you need to become the container within which the Holy Spirit can stay. Then I want those who want to pray with me to receive the Holy Spirit, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and then we can take it from there in terms of what the Holy Spirit can and wants to do through you.

For the sake of simplicity, I'm just going to ask all of you to pray with me. Those of you who want to can pray along – I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands. I'm just going to lead you. You can pray with me to confirm that you accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour, that you are born again. If you're already born again, it doesn't matter if you pray it again – everybody around you probably knows you are born again, but maybe there is somebody sitting next to you who is not born again, and they will feel more comfortable if they're not the only one praying it. Then I'm going to lead that into receiving the Holy Spirit and the ability of the Holy Spirit, and we'll take it from there.

Can I ask you to pray with me? Thank you, Father, that You love me so much. You sent Your Son, Jesus Christ, to die for me. I accept Jesus as my Saviour and Lord of my life. Thank you, Father, I am born again. I am a new creation. I am inside Christ.

Thank You, Father, that You do not leave me alone, but You sent Your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, come and fill me. Come and fill my heart. Come and fill my mind. Come and fill my body. Thank You, Holy Spirit, You stay inside of me and give me power – supernatural power – to manifest Christ in this earth. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

The responsibility we have: the Holy Spirit is a person, and He wants to build a relationship with you. Often, in the old days, when we got somebody born again, we would expect them to start changing their lives immediately. It was never sustainable, because you don't achieve righteousness by living righteously. You don't become righteous because you live right – you become righteous because you have received the life of God inside of you. A conviction and understanding of your righteous nature will lead to righteous living. It comes from the inside.

So you get a conviction: I am righteous. No sin can ever separate me from God. God doesn't punish sin – not on me, anyway. He punishes sin, but He punishes it on Jesus. If you have that conviction, it will start changing the way you live, but it's not the other way around.

Now, concerning the Holy Spirit, there is a relationship that needs to be established. He is alive inside of you. You have the ability inside of you, but you need to activate that relationship – the same way you would build a relationship with anybody: you spend time with them, you speak to them, you have interaction.

I've said before, we should wake up every morning with an expectation, because that is the reality we are faced with. We should wake up every morning asking, "What am I going to do today that I've never done before?" You just saw the scripture that says, "Who knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man? Who knows the things of God except the Spirit of God?" Now you have received the Spirit of God, who knows everything about God, in order to know everything God has prepared for you and given you. You have the Holy Spirit for that reason, but now you need to manifest it, and that's dependent on that relationship.

You need to activate it. You need to build it. You need to spend time. The Bible talks about coming to maturity, about having your spiritual senses exercised, because the intention is that the same way Jesus functioned – the reason He walked on water – the spiritual realm was more of a reality to Him than the physical.

Now the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, has come to show you all truth, to show you all reality. We can't just see this as a minor thing on the side. This is what's now left for us: having a relationship with the Holy Spirit, so that when the Holy Spirit says something, you do it. There have been many instances in my life over the last nine years where the Holy Spirit has told me to do things that I just thought, "What's the sense in that?" But I thank God I have a teachable spirit.

I am obedient - not that I don't make mistakes. When I started out nine years ago, there were many things I just did on my own, because by default I'm a fairly dynamic, energetic, doing kind of person. So I went and did things, and then it didn't work, and God would say to me, "But I didn't tell you to do it." So it's about a relationship, about hearing His voice.

There's a verse that's amazing to me. Maybe you can quickly look it up, where Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice." I want to show you something about that verse so that you start understanding something.

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

John 10:27 (NKJV)

In the Old Testament, when the term "knew" was used, it would say, "The man knew the woman, and she bore a child." So "knew" referred to knowing the woman in intimacy, and a childbirth came from it. Now, in the New Testament, when Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice," you would think it would say, "And they know Me because they hear My voice." So it should say, "They know Me." But it doesn't say, "They know Me." It says, "And I know them, and they follow Me." That word is the same concept used of a man and a woman and their intimacy in the Old Testament.

So what happens? You hear the voice of God, you acknowledge it, you respond to it, and He knows you. He comes into you. He becomes one with you, and He starts living from that place of oneness and intimacy. We'll maybe have one session in this series about relationships - we'll see if we get to that - but let me not go there now. The reality is that there is an oneness that you are experiencing, with God inside of you and the Holy Spirit inside of you, that you need to start functioning from.

Now I want to mention one or two things at this point, which for me is optional, but I want to mention it. Many people, whenever you minister or teach about the Holy Spirit, make the measure for somebody having received the Holy Spirit whether they speak in tongues or not.

That can never be the measure. The risk with that is that you reduce the fullness of your oneness and your relationship and intimacy with the Spirit down to one thing, and one thing only - whether you speak in tongues. No, it can never be that. It's first and foremost about relationship.

Having said that, I do want to share truths with you from the Word of God, and from what I've experienced in my life. Nine years ago, my life changed because somebody prayed with me and I received the Holy Spirit. Keep in mind, I'm a chartered accountant, and at that point I'd had my own businesses for twenty years. I hadn't had a boss, didn't report to anybody, wasn't accountable to anybody. I was a difficult person at that stage - I'm not anymore, okay?

I challenged this person because I'd gone to his church - he'd invited us there. We had a supernatural experience there, and it challenged my black-and-white thinking. In that church they were praying in tongues, so I challenged him and said, "What is this praying in tongues thing?" I was the leader in a cell group at that stage, so don't be surprised at how my life changed.

Two weeks before that, I was the cell leader, and we'd had a session where we discussed the Holy Spirit - papers printed out, all these theoretical things about speaking in tongues, the gifts, the laying on of hands. And they asked me, "What do you think about people praying in tongues, speaking in tongues?" I said, "Man, they're all pretending, because why is there nobody in our church who speaks in tongues? They're all pretending." Two weeks later - and that's why I always say God has a sense of humour.

This person's church - we went there and had that experience. God had spoken to him the night before. He normally has his leaders' meeting after church, but God said to him, "Cancel your leaders' meeting and spend time with this couple." I didn't know anything about that, but I went to him straight after church and said, "What is this thing you guys are doing here, this praying in tongues?" He said, "Don't you want to come have lunch with us?" I said, "Okay."

We went for lunch, sitting in the restaurant - I'm next to him, my wife across the table - and I said, "Okay, explain this thing to me." He said, "Do you believe the Bible?" Now, even to somebody stuck in religion, that's a very offensive question. "Of course I believe the Bible," I said. I didn't quite understand that he was actually asking, "How come you believe the Bible, but there are some components in it you choose not to believe, or choose not to live?"

I don't want this to be a controversial thing. I don't want it to be something that challenges you in a negative way - I just want you to be open-minded. So he showed me the Scriptures, and the reality is: praying in tongues is for everybody. There's a difference between speaking in tongues and praying in tongues.

1 Corinthians 12 talks about the gifts of the Spirit, and it says praying in tongues - meaning speaking in tongues as a gift - is one of the gifts of the Spirit, and the Spirit gives it to whom He wants. That's speaking in tongues.

When you get to 1 Corinthians 14, it talks about praying in tongues, which is a different thing. When you receive the Holy Spirit, you have the ability to pray in tongues. 1 Corinthians 14 weaves together two things - it's like this picture I saw in my spirit: two combs that, when you push them together, look like one. When I get to heaven, I'm going to ask Paul what he had in mind to complicate that chapter, but once you know this and pull the two things apart, you'll see exactly the two combs he was talking about.

He was talking about prophesying - speaking in tongues in the sense of prophesying - and he was talking about praying in tongues, which are two different things. Throughout the chapter he says that when you prophesy, you edify the church. If I were to prophesy now, I'm edifying you. But he says, "If I pray in a tongue, I'm edifying myself. For I am not speaking to you, I'm speaking to God." It's got nothing to do with you. But if I prophesy by speaking in tongues, what will it benefit you? Because you have no idea what I'm saying - and prophecy is meant to be for the edification of the church.

So he says, if you want to prophesy and do it in tongues, then somebody must be able to translate it into normal understanding and say what you have said, because prophecy is for the edification of the church - it's got nothing to do with me. But then he separates that from the other aspect, where it's all about me, between me and God.

Can we quickly go there? I'll run through one or two of the verses quickly - 1 Corinthians 14:1.

“Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.”

1 Corinthians 14:1 (NKJV)

You see there, prophesy - why? Because it's all about you; it's about lifting the church.

“For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries.”

1 Corinthians 14:2 (NKJV)

The whole chapter continues that way. You can jump to 1 Corinthians 14:14 to see more of it.

What happened is, I sat at the table, he took me through all these Scriptures, and he said, "Do you believe them?" I said, "Yes." He said, "You want to do it?" I said, "Yes," because at that stage my heart was prepared for it. Right there in the restaurant, he took my hand, took my wife's hand, he prayed with us, and both of us started praying in tongues. My life changed that day, because for the first time the Holy Spirit became a reality to me - not something on the cover of a book or a theoretical description. It was life that was activated, because I experienced something supernatural that I knew was not from me. It triggered me.

He gave me an instruction. He said, "Every day when you read your Bible, for ten minutes pray in tongues, every morning." I started on the Monday morning and did that. By Friday, I said to my wife, "Who swapped my Bible?" For the first time in my life, I understood the Bible.

For the first time I understood that praying is communication, not one-way traffic. You are meant to hear when you pray, not just throw something out there without knowing whether God heard, whether He responded, whether He's saying yes or saying no. You don't know.

When I had a desire, I would come and think, "I'm going to pray about this." I'd start praying in tongues, and Scriptures would start coming to mind - and I didn't even know the Bible well at that stage. I would write them down, Scriptures I didn't even know, and when I went and looked them up, they were exactly the answers I needed. Because it's meant to be all about the Holy Spirit and His ability - not about our ability.

But here's the thing: I started praying in tongues the day I decided it was possible for me to do it. I became born again the day I decided it was possible for me to do it. So I don't want you to miss out on something that I know can radically change your life, because God wants to do something through us that is beyond our physical ability - which means we must do it by the Spirit.

I want to show you something. The first week that I started praying in tongues, the Holy Spirit showed me things that no man had taught me or shown me before, probably because He knew I would have a better conviction. Can you quickly go to Ephesians 6, around verse 16 to 17? I started studying - I had a physical Bible then, now all my Bibles are electronic - and I was reading about the armour of God.

The Holy Spirit said to me, "Count the number of items in the armour of God." I took my pen and started numbering them in my Bible - one, two, three, four - numbered all of them, and got to the last one, the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and it was number six. It was as if the Holy Spirit was keeping quiet, waiting for me to say something. I said, "How is it possible that the armour of God can be six items? It doesn't make sense."

“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.”

Ephesians 6:17-18 (NKJV)

He said to me, "What's at the end of that sentence?" I said, "It's a semicolon." He said, "Yes. The sentence doesn't stop there, because that's only number six, semicolon." Verse 18 continues, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." How do you pray in the Spirit? You can go and figure that out for yourself, but the reality is, if we want to manifest the supernatural, we need to pray in the Spirit, because it is the ability of the Spirit that we manifest that way. So He said, "Okay, number seven." The activation part of the armour of God, number seven, is praying in the Spirit. It makes sense, because seven is the number representing the Spirit.

Then He took me to a few other places. Sorry, I know we didn't prepare this part - I had it in my heart, but I had to see where the Spirit takes us, and I feel obliged to share these things with you.

“But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.”

Jude 1:20 (NKJV)

How do you pray in the Holy Spirit? Same thing - pray in tongues - but it's building up yourself, so it has a specific application and purpose. It's not the be-all and end-all. It's got nothing to do with whether you go to heaven or not, whether you pray in tongues or not. It's got nothing to do with whether you have received the Spirit or not. That's not the measure of whether you've received the Spirit.

But I can tell you from my experience - and I'm not exaggerating, because you don't all know what I've been involved in - I've prayed with thousands of people to pray in tongues, and everybody can pray in tongues. I shouldn't say this, I normally avoid saying it, but there's normally one percent of people who struggle to pray in tongues, and those are usually the very highly intelligent ones, often engineers. Because for them, moving beyond their mind is all that's needed. Why did I pray in tongues the day he prayed with me? Because that's the day I decided. Can you see the significance of getting your mind out of the way?

I've prayed with thousands of people, and ninety-nine percent of them pray in tongues immediately. For the one percent that doesn't, it often happens later. There's a lady who went home and was busy washing her dishes - as she washed them, she started praying in tongues.

I shared an audio recording of a previous Purpose Series teaching with a few people, and they sent it on to others. One guy went to Botswana on his own with his four-by-four - once a year he does that, takes his four-by-four, goes on his own. He sat next to the fire, somebody had put the teaching on a CD or a memory stick, and the Holy Spirit prompted him to put it in and listen. He listened right there by the fire and started praying in tongues.

Another guy got on his motorbike. He'd come to me and said, "I'm not feeling this, I'm not experiencing anything, I'm not sure." He got on his bike and drove on the N1 from Stellenbosch, and started praying in tongues so vigorously that he had to stop next to the road until he calmed down. So it's not something that has to happen right now, it's not a pressurised thing, but it's something I want to put out there that you should desire.

It says in 1 Corinthians 14, "Desire spiritual gifts." I want to challenge you with this: it's very clear that speaking in tongues and prophesying are gifts by the Spirit. My question is, how come there are so many churches where we don't see that function? Just talking about that aspect where we could say, "Okay, this is a gift; the Spirit gives it only to certain people" - how come we don't see it? Because we decide, "No, no, no, it's not for this church." It's all about our mind.

So even if we decide it's not for everybody, how do you then know it's not for you? Why are you not the one who maybe should be receiving it? But if we don't open ourselves up to that, we're not going to experience it.

Can I quickly go to Romans 8:26?

“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

Romans 8:26 (NKJV)

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

Romans 8:27 (NKJV)

Can you follow what's happening there? "He who searches the hearts" is the Father - there are many verses that say the Father's eyes go to and fro over the whole earth. It says, "He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is," because the previous verse says the Spirit makes intercession for us, through us, with groanings and utterings which cannot be uttered. So it's not a normal language, but He speaks through you. Verse 27 says the Father, who searches the heart, knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

So what is the reality? You pray in the Spirit, you pray in tongues, and the Holy Spirit prays. This is the amazing thing for me about praying in tongues - even this morning I spent a lot of time praying in tongues, and I realised, praying in the Spirit, I don't even know at that moment what I am praying. Often I do know, but sometimes you don't know what you are praying, and I think to myself, I've got such peace, knowing that the Holy Spirit is praying through me right now exactly the best prayer that is needed for me. If I only pray with my mind, how do I know I'm praying for everything I should be praying for? There are often times when things are simply beyond ourselves.

To cut a long story short: I went to a hospital once - somebody phoned me to go there. I went to Tygerberg Hospital, and there was a lady who was estranged from her husband. He was a gangster; he'd got involved in a drug deal, ran away, and as he ran, they shot him five times from behind.

I got to the hospital, and the doctor said he wouldn't make it. They'd taken the X-rays, and three of the bullets were in his chest. He was losing a lot of blood internally, and one of the bullets was sitting against his heart. It was too risky for them to operate - they saw no chance of it - so they basically said they could do nothing for him.

His estranged wife was there, and the Holy Spirit said to me, "Take her hand, put it on his chest, and pray for him." Now, I didn't know what I should be praying for, so I took her hand, put it on his chest, and I just started praying in tongues. I prayed for one minute. The Holy Spirit said, "It's done." I was physically like, "Did you see what's going on here?"

"Are you sure?" But it's like this - flesh against spirit - and I say, "Thank you, Father." And I say to his wife, "He's fine." It doesn't look like it, but I know what the Spirit told me. The Spirit told me it's done. I walked out, and the next day at 10 o'clock they phoned me. They said, "Well, he started getting better, so we thought it's becoming a possibility for us now to operate on him." So they took him in again, they took the x-rays, and all the bullets were gone.

That was the Monday evening. It was on my birthday. I had to cut my birthday dinner with my wife short to go there, but anyway - that was the Monday evening where they said he had no chance to live. On the Thursday, they let him go home. It is only the Spirit of God that can do that. But if I were to limit myself, what would I have prayed? Would I pray, "God, make it quick," or would I pray, "God, heal him"? What would I be praying? I don't know.

“For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.”

1 Corinthians 14:14 (NKJV)

Now, here it says pray. It doesn't say speak. I can't go throughout the Bible and wherever it says pray say, "Well, it can be speak," and wherever it says speak say, "Well, it can be pray." Earlier he spoke about speaking; now he's clearly talking about praying. "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful." What is he saying? He is saying your mind cannot contribute while you are praying from your spirit.

“What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.”

1 Corinthians 14:15 (NKJV)

Just in case we had a question - that's the amazing thing about the Bible. You don't work on one verse only. You have to work on three, four verses that tell you the same thing before you can build a doctrine around it. That's why people would have realised long ago that the dove thing about the Holy Spirit was not right, if they had gone and searched three or four other verses that speak about the Holy Spirit being a dove.

So here there are many verses telling you the same thing. It says you need to pray from the spirit, and here it says, "If I pray in a tongue, it's my spirit that's praying." What is the conclusion? It tells you clearly there are two ways of praying: I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with understanding. It's two types of prayer. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with understanding. It's amazing that he puts the spirit part first, and not the physical.

Okay, I'm going to end off there. If you have the time and the desire to pray in tongues, I will gladly pray with you now to start praying in tongues. Can I ask everybody to stand? I'll just pray for you, and then we can end off there.

Thank you, Father, that You love us so much. Thank You for Your Spirit. Thank You for intimacy. Thank You for our relationship. Thank You, Holy Spirit, that You show us things to come, that You show us truth, that You manifest reality in us and through us. Thank You for Your ability that makes it possible for us to manifest our Father's presence in this earth. I pray for every person here that their hearts are open to be touched by Your Spirit, by Your ability, that they have a desire to manifest Your presence in this earth beyond anything else. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

This is not about pressure. It's none of that. As I've already said to you, whether you pray in tongues now immediately or not is not the measure of whether you've received the Holy Spirit. It's not the measure of whether you have the ability or not. You can do it on your way home, or washing dishes, or driving on your bike, wherever - but the Bible says we must desire it. If you desire it, it will happen inside of you. I'm sure there are a few of you standing here who also pray in tongues.

Something practical when you start praying in tongues: because it's coming from your spirit, most of you up to now have been used to running things from your mind. So now, for the first time, you actually need to do something - you need to activate it. You need to do something from your spirit, which is different from what you are used to, because you are used to deciding in your mind, analysing, and then deciding from there. But you saw 1 Corinthians 14:14: "If I pray in a tongue, it is my spirit that's praying, my understanding is unfruitful." So what you literally have to do is take your mind out of the way. It's not about your mind; it is now about your spirit. It is an ability that is in your spirit.

Now, what I want to clarify is that you don't have to say - sometimes people struggle a bit and say, "Well, I can't do it." It's not a question of I can or can't do it. The Holy Spirit inside of you is the One who prays in tongues, and He can do it. There's no question of can or can't - there's just a you can do it, but by the ability of the Holy Spirit. So it's literally just taking your mind out of the way.

And then, what is important: you cannot stand with your lips pressed together and wait for something to happen. There is a response required. The way you became born again was you had to speak. The way you need to start praying in tongues is you must utter something that comes from your spirit. So you have to open your mouth. The Holy Spirit cannot speak in tongues for you - it's not that the Holy Spirit comes upon you and takes control and speaks in tongues. It's not like that. It's an ability that's already inside of you. If you are born again, and you prayed earlier and received the Holy Spirit, you can already pray in tongues, full stop. There's no variable left - you can pray in tongues. The only thing left is for you to exercise it, to express it. Whether it happens now, at home, or over the weekend doesn't matter, but you need to understand it's an activation from your part.

You need to open your mouth, and in faith you need to start speaking - not your normal language. Don't speak English or Afrikaans. Just open your mouth and start speaking. You say, "But I don't know what to say." Exactly - because it's not coming from your mind. It's the Holy Spirit who will bring it forth from your spirit. So you open your mouth, you start speaking, and the Holy Spirit will bring forth those letters, those characters. The amazing thing is all of us sound different; none of us sound the same. So I can't tell you what you are going to sound like. But what I can tell you is the Holy Spirit cannot form noises unless there is air flowing through your vocal cords. So I need to have air flowing, and then the Holy Spirit can start forming it. Often it feels like uncomfortable moves, because the Holy Spirit is making sounds that you are not normally making.

But it's controlled. 1 Corinthians 14, the same chapter, says God is a God of order. It's not this thing about people crawling around on the floor and falling and whatever. I'm not saying you're not going to fall under the Holy Spirit, but I'm saying it's order. It's not chaos. But you need to make a decision: you open your mouth, and you start speaking.

Have you got some music ready for us? Okay. I'm going to put on a song, a worship song, and then I'm going to start praying in tongues, because often it helps people in their faith just to hear it. And then I want you to start opening your mouth. Can I ask the leaders and anybody who prays in tongues to quickly go and stand with somebody who's got their hands up? Just stand with them. It's sometimes easier if somebody stands with you and they can pray in tongues - you can hear them, and it's a step of faith. You open your mouth and you start speaking. You start praying in the Holy Spirit, and then we'll do this for one or two minutes, and then I'm going to end off.

You can do it at home as well - you're not dependent on doing it here - but I want to encourage you to try it here. And you're also welcome, if you want, to come to me at the front; I will pray with you as well. You're welcome to do that even from the beginning. But if there's somebody standing with you, you can do it right there.

Okay, just say this with me. "Say thank You, Father." - Thank You, Father. "I'm filled with the Spirit of God." - I'm filled with the Spirit of God. "Thank You, Holy Spirit." - Thank You, Holy Spirit. "For the ability." - For the ability. "To pray in tongues." - To pray in tongues. "In the name of Jesus." - In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Okay, just open your mouth. Just open your mouth and start speaking in tongues. It's a step of faith. You open your mouth, you start speaking in tongues. Don't speak your normal language. Don't even pray in your normal language. Don't continue to say, "Thank You, Jesus, thank You, Jesus, thank You, Jesus." Just open your mouth and speak in tongues. Once you experience it, once you start feeling it, even if your mouth just starts moving, keep going.

Don't stop. Just keep going. It's like you have to gain the momentum. As you feel it, as you experience it, it's going to start building up. And often in the beginning you will repeat the same words. Don't worry if you repeat the words - it's like a language that will start expanding the more you use it. I see many of you praying in tongues. Just continue. Just continue. Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going.