We are going to
do that now, so that you can have this experience of finding God, and of God
finding you in your faith believing. Then, when you have found God and you know
God is touching you, you can have other experiences where you can simply be
still in the presence of God; or when you can be filled with God; you can be at
rest in God; or, you can be very active and preaching and shouting in God; or
you can even be like that man who just sat in God and gave only scant attention
to the world.
There are two
ways that God touches us. With the Holy Spirit he makes us into the sail of a
boat and he blows into us-whoosh!-and moves us, and we are moved by the Holy
Spirit and the giftings of the Holy Spirit are moved in us. When God does this
we become footwashers, servants, movers and shakers in the kingdom of heaven.
We change things, and we change them by God's power.
But then God moves
us in another way also. He fills us like a bottle and we are not moving. We are
completely still and we are filled in Him. If we open our eyes and we look at
the world, all of God is looking through us and we are at rest in God.
So God gives us
these two ways to be in him, and they are both complimentary of each other:
rest, and movement; tranquility, and activity; pure worship in rapture, and
pure work in the world of things and people.
If we want to do
a mission, first we must come into rest. We are like Jesus who comes away from
the people to be with the Father- and he might come away from them for several
days at a time.
It might take a
few days for him just to settle down into being at peace with God; to move away
from being so active in God; and to let his body and his mind just settle down
into the rest of God. When he is in the rest of God, then he is able to speak
to God and they can together develop a plan.
And you are going
to do this now. You are going to think of something that you want to do, or
something that you want to have just in your human self. Then we are going to
let God come and touch that so then your program also becomes God's program.
When your program has become God's program, faith comes alive in that and it
then becomes the mustard seed.
When it becomes
the mustard seed you are starting to do the will of God. You and God are
working this together in a strategic partnership.
The world might
try and come against you as you live out whatever it was that you and God
planned to do together, but because you have developed this program in faith
you have the power of God to protect you as you move through it in actual
living. The perfection of God's love will always succeed-and God's mustard seed
is a seed of the Father's perfect love.
Once we see these
kinds of outcomes in our lives, then we start to see the ministry of Jesus
differently. We see that from the time of his baptism he is drawing people in
to know God so that they can have the power to make a program with God. When we
are making programs in our heart with God and we are living out those programs,
we become perfect. And that fulfills the highest value in the holy bible.
If you go to your
bible and have a look at Matthew chapter 5, verse 48, you'll see there that
Jesus is saying,
"You
therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Jesus can say
that because he is perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. But what is the
way to be perfect? That's the burning question in our hearts today: how to be
spiritually perfect; and how to find ways to help others to be spiritually
perfect like God.
Come into your
heart in your faith and develop a program. Let God touch your believing in that
program and then live out that program. Then you will find even if you are a
young person or old person, boy or girl, you will find that perfection will
start to operate in your life. Now you are on the road like Enoch and Elijah
and Jesus.
If you do that
one time today, you will have this moment of perfection. God will touch you and
you will be with God. If you do this two times next week, you will have these
two times of perfection. If you do this ten times over the next month, you will
have all those times of perfection to your credit.
As we practice in
our hearts, making programs with God, we become perfect, and we learn to take
God's perfection into more and more places in our lives until we have gone into
all of the places in our lives that have the potential to make us perfect.
At that point we
come to the place where God can say to us, too, "This is my beloved son,
in whom I am well pleased."
So, let us do
this now. Let's look now into the Scripture at Matthew chapter 18, verse 18
through 20 in your Bible. We see a special formula here from Jesus. He says,
"Truly,
I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever
you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you
agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father
in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among
them."
To bind something
here on the earth means to stop something from happening. We stop it happening
by heaven's power to stop things happening.
To loose
something here on the earth is to create some new thing here on the earth. We
create that new thing with heaven's power to create it. An example of that is
heaven's power to create the mustard seed into a mustard tree. The plants grow
not by the earth's power, but by heaven's power creating them.
So I am asking you
to think of something that you want to do, or something that you want to have.
It will probably be something that you want to loose here in the earth and if
God touches your desire, then God turns that into a heavenly empowered seed and
our Father will make it happen by heavenly power.
Turn to Mark
chapter 11 and to verse 24. In English we see here,
"Therefore I
tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it
will be yours."
This is what you
are going to do. Remember, you are wanting to find God, and one of the ways
that Jesus lets us find God is by losing something here in the earth. This is
what's going to happen. I am wanting something. Let's say, "I want to
build a big church here and it has electricity, water, a concrete floor, plenty
of chairs, a good roof, and plenty of shade." Let's just think, "This
is what I want."
Jesus says,
"If you believe you have received that thing you just thought of, it will
be done for you."
If you believe
that God has loosed it in heaven for you, then it will arrive here in the earth
for you. Then the people will come together and we will find, "Oh, that
church you dreamed of back then, it's starting to be built now."
"So now, I
am going to get one friend and tell that person what it is that I am believing
for. Then I am going to believe that God has given this to me," and my
friend is going to believe that God has already released that for me also. We
are both believing that God has given this thing to me.
Together, with
myself and my friend both believing that I am receiving this thing from God, we
are going to keep believing until God invades our believing.
When God invades
our believing, we will know God and we will know him in our faith, amen? And he
will touch our believing and turn it into his seed and we will feel him do
that.
Then we can stand
up and say, "Praise God! he has touched my believing!"
And you can speak
to him, "My Father, you have touched my believing," and you are in
the direct presence of God.
At that moment,
he is holding you and you are holding him, and you know that he is touching
your faith and he is filling your mind and his blessing is pouring into you.
At that moment,
in your heart you know, "Yes, this is God."
It is more
important to find God than to even do the works of God. To do the works of God
without ever having found God is to put things backwards.
But let's do this
now. You are going to tell your friend, "This is what I am believing
for."
Then the two of
you now can start believing that God has now done that for you, and you will
quietly keep believing until God enters into your believing. Then, when that
has happened, your friend will also know that God has entered into his or her
believing for you. You will both have God's confirmation.
Okay, let's begin.
Heavenly Father,
you have heard my Word and you have sent me here into this place, Lord. I pray
now in Jesus' name that you will honor your Word, Lord, and you will enter into
their believing and you will release the heavenly power to make their desire loosed
here in the world. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Now you can
begin-the first person and then second person. It should only take a few
minutes per person, but take as much time as you need.
AFTERWARDS
God has put his
power into your believing. He has put his power into your believing in the same
way as he put his power into Jesus' believing. God is no respecter or persons,
amen? God will honor all faith, amen? We cannot please God unless we are using
faith. Amen?
And so, what God
the Father has done with Jesus Christ, he is doing now with you also. He has
touched your faith and he has touched Jesus' faith-it is the same faith.
Therefore, now
you should remember what you have desired and what God has touched. Remember it
in your mind. Remember it in your heart. Write it in your bible: "Today
the Father's perfect love has touched this particular desire in my heart, and
because he has turned it into a divine seed, it will happen. Not only that, for
a moment I knew God intimately, and I savoured his presence and his perfect
love."
Then when it
happens, when this thing comes into your life, come back to your bible and you
can write underneath what you just wrote: "Yes, it has happened now!
According to my bible faith and God's promise to touch my faith, and by his perfect
love by faith I planted my seed and it has now produced its crop, and I have
this thing for which God and I made the program."
When you do this
in your moment of prayer, let God touch you. When God can touch you, you can
know His presence. When you stretch that time together out into a little
meditation, in this way you can know God.
