So yesterday I had the privilege of preaching on that which is very close to my heart: Renewing our minds to agree more with the Truths and Promises of God. Admitted; I got a bit carried away in some areas. But hey, that's me. ;-)

The service as a whole was incredible. God was there. Like a cloud heavy to pour with rain, He was there. It was always so easy to preach in such an environment. But when I was done, and the service was over, and I was left to my own devices to ponder what was, there was a strong sense of excitement still stirring in me.

I am excited.

After chatting to a few people after the service, I agree with many of them that there is shift taking place in the spiritual atmosphere. Something is happening.

I don't know exactly what it is, but something significant is happening in these days. You can see it. You can feel it. Something is changing. God, His Nature and His Ways, has become the subject of many a debate, in liberals, conservatives, and the destitute alike. And I think He is about ready to show off.

It is against this backdrop that we are in for some serious revolution. It isn't going to be easy. But it certainly is going to be exciting. God's people are going to rise up and be known among the nations. We either embrace what He is doing in this radical move, or we will get sadly left behind in the dust of a fast-moving freight train.

The winds of change are in the air. The seasons are changing. Besides those gifted with a deeply prophetic eye, we may not know exactly what it is God is doing, but we know He is doing something. Something radical. Something GOOD. Something exciting. And I am going to do my best to embrace it and be ready.

Like a favourite old song of mine put it:

Roll with the punches or get left behind.

I am unashamed about the Gospel. That means that I will no longer be concerned with what other people will think of me. I will simply be me. Let the Glorious Gospel shine through me. The revelation that Holy Spirit has given me of this Glorious Gospel, I will not hold back. I will not let religious, legalistic, bound minds dampen the burning Fire of what I believe the Gospel to be.

If you think it is too extreme, then shame. My apologies. But I don't want this current reality. I don't want what we live in now. We live in a toilet. (clarification required, but no time now). Even the greatest of billionaires eventually get tired of what, where and how they live. No. I am sorry, I am not satisfied with what we live in now. It is not great. It is the result of a curse. A legitimate curse that Jesus put into the action of being reverted at the Cross. Legitimately God cursed the ground and the planet fell under bondage.

It is why to this day living organisms have a life span. The greatest human scientist today cannot give you a legitimate answer as to why living organisms reach a lifespan and begin to decay and die. God can. It was because of the curse.

Then Jesus came along, and put into process the liberation of that bondage. But He paid the fullest Price possible. He overpaid what was necessary. He overpaid so that His People, the fellow Sons and Daughters of God, would carry the Glory He bought for them and usher in the liberation of this creation. That they would rise up and bring liberation to this known world! Jesus paid it all! It has been done! We as Sons and Daughters of God have every right to take authority and even speak "death" over all things pertaining to the curse. Sickness, disease, ill-health, poverty, pain, sorrow, sin. It all. It was all paid for so that we can take authority of it. So that we can speak "death" over those things and True Life over things that have no life.

God is hoping we would catch this revelation and rise up. Rise and be who He has called us to be. Rise and be who He paid for us to be. All of creation is waiting for us to rise up.

And we, as the Sons and Daughters of God not satisfied with the status quo, will have to rise up above the religious persecution we will receive for believing such ludicrous ideas.

Jesus help us.

This is a summary of "Teaching Into An Encounter", the 8th Chapter of Bill Johnson's remarkable book "When Heaven Invades Earth." I thought the material here may well provide you with some stirring Food for thought. Enjoy.

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Any revelation from God's Word that does not lead us to an encounter with God only serves to make us more religious. The Church cannot afford “form without power”, for it creates Christians without purpose. (Opening statement)

God's revealed Word, declared through the lips of an anointed teacher, ought to lead to demonstrations of power.

Jesus sent out His disciples saying “freely you have received, freely give. Preach the Gospel of the Kingdom.”

From John 14:10 – It is apparent that we speak the Word, and the Father does the works – miracles!

Bible teachers are to instruct in order to explain what they just did, or are about to do. When we restrict ourselves to mere words, we limit our gift, and may unintentionally lead believers to pride by increasing knowledge without an increased awareness of God's Presence and power! It's in the trenches of Christ-like ministry that we learn to become totally dependent upon God.

Personal Experience

There comes a time when simply knowing truth will no longer satisfy. There must be a “risk factor”. John Wimber calls this faith! Teaching must be followed with action that makes room for God to move.

Are we making the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, with the full manifestations of His gifts, the sole purpose of our existence?

Resisting The Influence Of Our Own Culture

Our culture values concepts and ideas above experience with results. You can go to colleges and get lectured in business by a person who has never owned a business! Such a culture has shaped most of our Bible schools.

Many present day movements have made a virtue out of staying the course without a God experience.

God cannot be known apart from experience.

“Anyone who doesn't have an experience with God, doesn't know God.” He is a Person, not a philosophy or concept!

Those that have encountered God must stop watering down their story and use their testimonies to sit up a hunger for such encounters!

Kingdom Realised

God has promised to back up our message with power if our message is the Gospel of His Kingdom!

Power vs Pride

1 Corinthians 4:19b - 20

I’ll find out whether these arrogant people just give pretentious speeches or whether they really have God’s power. 20 For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.

(For the Kingdom of God is not in word but in Power.) NKJV

The teachers mentioned here are different from the kind that Jesus intended the church to have! (Paul concedes these may be believers, but still refers to them as “puffed up” in the NKJV)

Personal charisma is often valued more by the church than either anointing or truth.

Paul chose not to wow the Corinthians with his extensive knowledge, instead he led them to an encounter with the God of all Power who would become the anchor of their faith!

The Kingdom of God is not in logos but in dunamis!

Dunamis is “the power of God displayed and imparted in a Holy Spirit outpouring.” That is the Kingdom!

In 1 Cor 2:5 Paul lays out his ministry priority as bringing people to a place of leaning on God's Power (dunamis) and not man's wisdom!

Any time the people of God become preoccupied with concepts and ideologies instead of a Christ-like expression of life and power, they are set up to fail, no matter how good those ideas are. Christianity is not a philosophy; it is a relationship. It's the God encounter that makes the concepts powerful!

We must require this of ourselves. How? We must seek until we find! (Luke 11:10)

Fathers with Power vs Teachers With Only Words (As in 1 Cor 4)

Father Teachers (not after Jesus' example)

Lifestyle – imitate fathers Lifestyle – gather around ideas (divisive)

Attitude – Humility Attitude – Pride (puffed up)

Ministry – Power Ministry – Many words

Focus – The Kingdom Focus – Teachings

God Is Bigger Than His Book

“You are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor God's Power.” Matt 22:29 (NLT)

A rebuke aimed at the ignorance infecting every area of their lives.

They didn't allow the Scriptures to lead them to God. “KNOW” - personal experience!

They tried to learn apart from such an experience.

It is a lack of Power of encounters that lead to a misunderstanding of God and His Word. Experience is necessary in building a true knowledge of the Word.

It is illegitimate to allow fear to keep us from pursuing a deeper experience with God!

Embracing such fear causes a failure to the other extreme, which is culturally more acceptable, but significantly worse in eternity.

God is True to His Word, bet He does not avoid acting outside of our understanding of it!

God is so foreign to our natural ways of thinking that we only truly see what He shows us – and we can only understand Him through relationship!

The Bible reveals the greatness of our God, but it does not contain Him.

Don't hide your need to be in control behind a banner of “staying anchored in the Word.”

Road Map or Tour Guide

Anything I can get from the Word without God will not change my life.

The Bible is closed to ensure that I remain dependent on the Holy Spirit.

When we treat the Bible as a roadmap we live as though we can find our way though our own understanding of His book. This kind of perspective of Scriptures is similar to live under the law, and not living under Grace!

Living under law is the tendency to desire a list of preset boundaries, and not a relationship.

Under Grace we don't get a road map, we get a tour guide – the Holy Spirit!

Revelation that doesn't lead to a God encounter only serves to make me more religious.

The pride that comes from mere Bible knowledge is divisive.

The heart that fears God only – that heart is the heart where faith is born.

The mission of heaven is to infiltrate earth with its realities. All teaching is to lead us to that end, for training in the Kingdom is not without purpose.

We know that the Kingdom of Heaven is a kind of “now and not yet”. We live in a reality where the Kingdom of our God has not entirely invaded the kingdom of this world. It is His intention, and He wants it to happen, but it has not fully happened, yet...

This means that there could well be times in our lives when we suffer unexpected and seemingly unnecessary loss. But we do not live with such an expectation. We live with the reality, but not the expectation. By living with such an expectation we are blocking the channels through which God's Kingdom can invade.

This means that when I lay hands on the sick, each and every one, every dead person I lay my hands on, I must expect the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven to invade Earth at that given moment for that given situation. Just because I may be living in a seemingly alternative reality to what I may have seen before does not change the fact that the Kingdom of Heaven wants to and can fully invade that circumstance.

If I have any doubt just because of what I have or haven't seen before means that I do not entirely believe the promises Jesus made. My circumstances do not determine the Truth of what Jesus bought for me, and what He promised me. How can they? Those past circumstances are merely reminders that this kingdom of Earth needs the Kingdom of Heaven to invade it more than ever before!

What we must learn is that this Earth has been under immense bondage and slavery since the “fall”, and it does not quite know how to handle the invasion of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is a completely different reality to what is known here on Earth.

This Earth is in a great darkness. People say God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. And while that is theoretically true, I have difficulty believing He is in the cells of cancer that are ravaging a beautiful young lady of only 25 years old giving her only weeks to live and leaving her family shattered. Or that He would be in the cells of an HIV virus weakening a young boy to the slivers of his skin and bone, leaving him but months away from his deathbed. Is God in that? Tell me!!! Is God in that? HOW CAN HE BE????

NO!!!! I am sorry, but God is NOT in that!! He is not in that cell and He is not in that virus!!!

He walked with Adam and Eve in reality. Not theoretically. When He moved them out of that garden, He placed them in a world where He was not. It was a world He had indeed created. But legally according to what they had done, He justly cursed the land and from that moment that land has been crying out and groaning ever since.

My friend, the time has come for us to stop dancing around pathetic theological ideas that pander to our Earthly circumstances and that we rise up and see that there is an alternative reality waiting to BURST into this reality. It is the Kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom that was before. The Kingdom of our God. My friend, the kingdoms of this world SHALL BECOME the Kingdoms of our Most High God. Through us. Because of what Jesus the Christ has done for us. Paid for us. Bought for us.

His Price was far too high to expect anything less. I for one will not allow circumstances to alter what I see promised to me by my Father in His Holy-Spirit inspired Word. For His Glory always. That the world may know.