This sermon completes the transcripts of the "Names, Titles and Operations of the Holy Spirit" series Rob Rufus preached in 2007. It was preached on Sunday 14th October.
"Faith Enjoys Effortless Blessings"
"Open your Bibles please to Galatians chapter 3.
The Kingdom is taken little by little! It is given to those who have faith and patience but you just stay consistent and you never give up! You take little ground and then more ground and more ground and stay faithful! And when it looks like this is a never-ending battle that isn't going anywhere then you stand your ground and take more and more ground - because if you have heard God say; "Take this ground - I have assigned you and authorised you and given you authority from the government of heaven to go and take ground" - then you stay and stay and take ground and one day there will be an explosion and you will take exponential ground and suddenly from all over you are getting reinforcements coming in and you begin to accelerate. We must keep going and be faithful because we are going to see Hong Kong filled with the glory of God! We are going to see hundreds of thousands and I want to declare millions of local Chinese people come to know Jesus Christ in Hong Kong. We are going to see nations impacted from Hong Kong!
We have been doing a series on the Names and Titles of the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit has many names and titles - 20 to 40 - and every name and title reveals a manifestation of His ministry that benefits you and blesses you. This morning I want to talk about the Spirit of God with His title; "The Spirit of Faith". We have looked at His title; "The Holy Spirit", "The Spirit of God", "The Spirit of the Lord", "My Spirit", "The power of the Most High", "The Spirit of the Living God" and the "Spirit of God's Son". The Spirit of God's Son reveals to us that we are not under law but that we have an inheritance with the full rights as sons. We have been looking at that for the last 3 weeks and I want to carry on with that but looking at 2 Corinthians 4:13 where the Spirit is referred to as the "Spirit of Faith". I want to talk about faith being revealed in your heart. Faith is not just a force - faith is a Person. Grace is not just a force - Grace is a Person and His Name is Jesus Christ! Faith is a Person - the Spirit of faith! When the Spirit of faith appears in your heart then there comes a liberty from bondage, a liberty from prisons, unlocking and opening of doors and your life begins to expand.
Once faith is revealed! Some people say "Shouldn't Jesus be revealed in my heart?". Of course Jesus should be revealed in your heart - but you cannot have Jesus revealed without faith in your heart enabling you to see Jesus. So the Spirit of faith is revealed in your heart and you suddenly break out into a whole new, multi-dimensional style of living. Galatians 3:23; "Before this faith came, we were held prisoners to the law, locked up until faith should be revealed". Once faith is revealed in your heart by the Spirit of faith then locks are unlocked, prison doors are opened and you are no longer held in limitations, restrictive thinking, despair, hopelessness and a prisoner to prejudice and pride and Pharisees - you come out of restriction and your horizons expand to ever-increasing jurisdictions of influence!
Galatians 3:25; "Now that faith has come we are no longer under the supervision of the law". (v26); "You are ALL sons of God through faith - no one is born a son of God into this earth". When you are born again through faith you become a son of God and you belong to the Bride of Christ! I want to say that this faith when it is revealed in your heart, this faith has no prejudice whether you a man or a woman.
This faith will work a lot better in a woman's heart than it will in a man's heart. That's what it looks like sometimes! Most of the greater miracle workers I know in the world are women! I want to encourage you men - faith in your heart will work just as well as it will in a woman's heart! In Christ there is neither male nor female! Equal under God in terms of how faith will work! Faith will work in the heart of a white man just as well as it will in the heart of a black man! I am tired of just black men raising the dead! Africa is full of black men who are raising the dead! Are Chinese men raising the dead in Hong Kong? I don't know, I hope so! Hope it has happened here in at least 100 years! Faith will work just as well in a yellow, red, brown, rainbow persons hearts!
When you see people moving in faith who no longer have an emotional lock on their life and are not living to please people and frightened of people's opinions of them but are living for the pleasure of One Man Jesus Christ and are going to serve the purpose of God no matter who persecutes them or criticises them - they are FREE from the prison house of people's pride! People's prejudice and persecution! Their worlds have been unlocked to expanding horizons that see the dead raised, the orphans fed, the widows cared for, hospices raised up, millions saved! That is what happens - your world EXPANDS! If you are listening to this message, this faith will come to you and put faith into you!
Not my faith but God's faith! It will come as I talk - I will preach things I haven't thought of! You will see faith revealed to you! How will you know that faith has been revealed to you? Because you will want to jump up and out of your chair, jump, kick all the chairs over and run around this building and run to the front desk and tell them do you know Jesus? You may constrain yourself but you will want to do something more than just sit and listen to me preach! How do I know you have faith revealed to you? You will change today! Your world will grow! You will worship differently! You will praise differently! You will be bolder and more confident! Your prayer life will go up into another realm of the glory! You will be so excited about Jesus that everywhere you go it will be contageous! You will not be locked up anymore and some of us have been locked up too long! I was locked up before I was a Christian in a Hindu cage. I wasted a whole year of my life locked up in a Hindu cage wasting that year! Then I got born again and was free for about a year. Then the church locked me up again in a religious cage! I don't preach religion or Christianity anymore! I preach Jesus and the Kingdom of God!
A Christian religion locked me up and put me under a culture of coercion and control and manipulation and they wanted me to be what they wanted me to be but Jesus had other plans so I am living for the audience of One Man Jesus Christ! I am not being conservative anymore or being controlled! When the people said to Jesus; "Master stop the people from shouting 'Hosanna in the highest'" - a control spirit wants to stop faith and enthusiasm! Jesus said; "If they don't cry out the very rocks will cry out and worship Me!".
A control spirit is a religious formalistic demon that locks people into prisons - not of the law but of the pressure to perform and be stereotyped little clones of the system! Why is it that you can look at people from a denominational system and see they are from a denomination? You can see people begin to behave in certain ways and talk in certain ways!
We don't want to stereotype! We want diversity and uniqueness and freedom! Don't be locked up! We represent nothing but the Kingdom! We are free men living in freedom! We will not be controlled by anything because FAITH has been revealed! Faith has been revealed! Before faith came we were held prisoners of the law! Locked up until faith should be revealed! Now that faith is revealed we are no longer under the supervision! SUPERVISION of the Pharisees! Supervision of self-appointed people that frown on you when you take initiatives in the Spirit! That frown on you when you say; "No - God has called me to do this! I can't compromise this! I am a free man and I am not locked up anymore! Sorry but you can't play that game with me anymore! I was deceived and thought I had faith but my faith was not revealed!". I had enough faith to get saved but not enough to see the Kingdom! So people play the game with me and try and put the guilt trip on me and put subtle culture of religion on me and made me conform and crippled my personality and made me behave! I thought I was being zealous and thought I was doing what was right but I always knew that something was wrong! One day faith was revealed to me and I was no longer locked up, now the prison doors are open! The anointing opens the prison doors and lets the blind go free! Faith teaching is a dangerous subject! Faith is powerful! Faith isn't just positive thinking! Many people think positively in hell! Let's pretend we are not here! Faith isn't just a mental positive cerebral thought! Faith is God in you!
The faith that created the heavens and the earth is on the inside of you! That faith is in you! God has faith in you and His faith in you has faith in you!
Now we are going to see this faith is not prejudiced to any man or woman, black, yellow, brown or green! When this faith is revealed no one has an advantage! This faith will do the same thing without prejudice! Let's read (v28); "Slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus .. heirs according to the promise". Now what I am saying today is that faith enjoys effortless blessings! Faith enjoys effortless blessing! If I have faith revealed to my heart then I won't have anymore difficulties? No I didn't say that - but difficulties won't have you. Difficulties won't bother you anymore.
If I have faith then there won't be any challenges? Of course there will be challenges but you have got to know what those challenges are designed for! Those challenges purpose is to force you away from grace and back into prison of the law. If there was not that potential then why is the majority of the church world religious and not raising the dead?! Including us! We have seen some deaf ears opened, blind eyes opened and cripples walk and that is wonderful! We have got to go to another level that is called Book of Acts normal or Kingdom! The pressure that comes against you is not that the devil doesn't like you particularly! He actually couldn't care about you one way or another. The pressure comes because James 1 says the "testing of your faith" - he is coming after your faith to stop your faith operating so you will surrender your faith. When you surrender revealed faith then the prison locks come on, doors shut and your personality is stifled and your world shrinks and you become a pgymy existing waiting to go to heaven but not making an impact on human history!
The pressure that comes on you is to tempt you to leave Sarah and go to Haggai to deal with the issues of barrenness. But the Bible says in Galatians 4; "Sing Sarah oh barren woman, break forth into song for more will be the children of the barren woman than Haggai who had a child by the normal fleshly effort means". The problem in the world today is not anti-God. If you think there is an issue of anti-God then you are wrong! The issue in church and world is an anti-Christ problem. The anti-Christ and the mark of the beast is 666. Trying to perfect mankind without grace! It is rebellion against grace! People don't have a problem against God! People are not anti-God! The majority of this world has got some kind of a concept of God and their concept of God is normally religious fanaticism or human effort trying to be good enough and trying to earn favour with their God! Actually the church is meant to be Christo-centric which means that Jesus Christ, the finished work of the Cross and the message of grace in the New Covenant is meant to bring Christians to the end of human effort and enter into the supernatural power and Presence of God.
Go to (v1) of Galatians 3; "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you ..?". (v3); "Are you so foolish? ... Does God give you His Spirit ...?". It is very clear God gives His Spirit and does miracles NOT because of human effort or human performance or human fasting or performance but because they are not believing cultic power that obscures the Cross - the finished work of Christ. They are free to see the message of grace and they believe the message of grace and faith is all they need - and the Presence and power of God will operate in their lives!
God is not interested in behaviour modification. He is interested in heart transformation. The law addresses your behaviour but grace addresses your heart. Every true change that takes place in your life is effortless. People that have been on pornography have listened to our website on grace and have made every effort to get free from their pornographic addiction but listened to the message on grace and came off instantly without any problem and are walking free from that addiction! Any change that grace makes is without effort but by the power of the living God! Anything else is behaviour modification techniques! Anything you change in without the grace of God is not true change and is not lasting change!
Alcoholics have written in and have been delivered from alcohol addiction! Listening to the grace message!
If it is your effort then it is false change that does not last. If your effort got you there then your effort has to keep you there. But if grace got you there then grace will keep you there!
When people are living in grace the blessing comes into their lives effortlessly. Because of faith! When people are living in grace miracles happen - effortlessly! The Corinthian church was the most immoral church that has ever existed. They were getting drunk at communion and have sex with temple prostitutes and were saying "I am of Paul and I am of Apollos" and were denominational. They were taking each other to court and suing each other and a man was living with his mother in law and was having such perverted sex that even the champion sinners in Corinth were shocked at what the Christians were doing! Paul still says he is a father to that church! I would have denied I ever knew them! That's grace! Not once did Paul call them foolish! Not once! He never said; "Oh you foolish Corinthians!". This church in Galatia drifted from grace to law and Paul in anger calls them "foolish" twice in three sentences. He is trying to tell us something about God's opinion!
In the church world today your zealous attempts to be holy and your human effort to make sacrifices in your own strength is looked upon with great awe and respect! God looks upon it as foolish! When God sees faith revealed in your heart He smashes every prison door open, unlocks every lock against your life, you come out free and the power of the Spirit of God begins to move and operate in your life!
Faith enjoys the blessings effortlessly! You say "Rob isn't this message a little bit extreme?". I hope so! I am getting some messages across email; "Your message is extreme!". In the old days they threw rocks at people. Today they write emails. Not only to you and everyone else! "Watch out for that grace website in Hong Kong!". Guess what? Free advertising! Everyone wants to listen to this! 30, 000 downloads a month and climbing! There is a Christian church out there longing to get the locks off! I hope we are preaching extreme! Extremely wonderful, extremely liberating, extremely transforming! It is very extreme!
It is better to be persecuted by man for preaching the message of grace in the same extreme way that Paul the apostle preached it - than to lose the blessing of God out of fear of man.
I was guilty many years ago of having a revelation of grace but I would not preach it in it's fullness - when I lived in South Africa and Australia. I will tell you why - I knew that there were in the church misguided zealots who were so driven by legalism and misguided ideas of the Kingdom - that if you preached grace the way that Paul did, then they will attack you the way they attacked Paul in Paul's day. Paul went to prison many times and was attacked many times for nothing else but his extreme teaching on grace. That is the only reason he was beaten up because they said he was anti the law of God! I am not anti the law of God!
I am for the reason the law was given! The law was given to strip us of self-righteousness and be a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ! Now when faith in Christ comes, you are no longer under the supervision of the law or a prisoner to the law - you are DEAD to the law and you are ALIVE to Jesus Christ!
So what they do is preach grace but stop at a certain point and don't go as far as Paul did because they know that if they do there will be uprising against them. So then they begin to preach what they call "Balance" = human performance and human effort. Now please hear me - they will say to you; "Now Rob I understand we are not under the law. Of course we are not under the law - we are under the New Covenant".
When a preacher puts God's people under pressure to perform to earn the blessing, you can call it WHATEVER you want - it is the Law.
You may not call it the 10 Commandments or the ministry written on stone that brought death and condemnation and a fading glory but you can say it in a way that people think they have got to earn it through their drivenness and their performance. I promise you that is as deadly - you ARE preaching the Law and you are bringing curse on the people of God. If you think you can balance grace by preaching performance then you haven't balanced grace - you have totally made grace utterly invalid! If you preach any part of the Law, the Law is a composite whole and if you preach one part then you must preach the whole part, because if you break it in one part you are guilty of all parts. So if you lie, you are guilty of adultery, stealing and everything else! That's what James 2 says. So you cannot balance grace with a bit of human pressure and performance and human effort preaching! It cannot be done!
If you read Acts 13 - and Galatians 1 - you will see Paul full of grace and Jesus Christ and he goes into the Jewish synagogue - he has been highly trained in all the Law and he is a champion of the Law! He sits at the back and the rabbis talk and there is Gentile prosyltes there. You can imagine what that is like! They read the Torah and totally rejected Jesus as Messiah. They recognised him as a rabbi and asked if he had anything to say. Paul said "Yes" and he gave an erudite communication where he spoke the history of Israel and the patriarchs and the lineage of David and then he preached Jesus Christ and then he said Jesus Christ justified us from EVERYTHING that the Law could not justify us from! He doesn't even say "Repent" - he just said believe and you will be justified! When he finished, the whole synagogue came flocking around him and said; "Can you tell us more - when are you coming back!?". So the synagogue leaders had to get Paul and Barnabus back and the whole town turned up! When there is good news to open prison doors then everyone wants to come! And it said the leaders became extremely jealous!
Then the next line says; "And Paul preached boldly the message of grace!". He would not water it down! It says the disciples had great joy in that city! But it said "The God-fearing men and women of the city THREW Paul and Barnabus out in hostility and hatred!". That town was not known for holiness but for debauchery, it was full of taverns and wickedness and evil.
None of the sinners threw the grace preachers out. The religious people threw the grace preachers out! I have never had a problem with sinners on this message! I have had a problem with church members on this message!
Are we extreme? Oh I hope so! But getting more! There are two ways in the New Testament to get cursed. It is very important that you know that you can be cursed under the New Covenant so you don't do it. Look at Galatians 1:6; "Turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all ... trying to pervert the gospel of Christ but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach another gospel ... let him be eternally condemned or cursed". This is what will cause persecution and when men live in the fear of men they will water the grace message down! Because they live in the fear of men and want the approval of men! We cannot water this message down because there is a whole bunch of millions of Christians around the globe who need to come out of prison! There is a whole bunch of unsaved people needing to hear this gospel! There is no secret agenda!
I am at war with legalism! I am going to smell it out! I am on a search and destroy mission! I am going to hunt it down and kill it! I hate it! I hate what it's done! I hate what legalism in the church has done! It has destroyed science, arts - it has destroyed women. It has destroyed social freedom and families and marriages and creativity!
The other way you can get cursed is in (v10) of Galatians 3. "ALL who rely on observing the law are under a curse for it is written ...". What is the answer? (v13); "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written ..". Let me give you this little formula;
Faith + Grace = Receiving Effortless Blessing.
Human Effort to get the blessing = Foolishness and Curse.
Jesus + Anything = Nothing.
Jesus + Nothing = ALL the blessing.
I want you to go to Galatians chapter 5. What is the most important thing in the New Covenant for the blessing? Grace. What is the currency that accesses grace? Faith. So faith with a little bit of value and religion? No! Nothing! Galatians 5:6; "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has ANY value. The only thing that has any value is faith expressing itself through love". That is a powerful statement! That circumcision or religious ceremonies or keeping the law in any way or religious Lent or somehow thinking you bow here that will bring you favour! NONE of that has value! The ONLY thing that counts is FAITH revealed in the heart! The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love! You know what legalists have done with that beautiful passage? If I was Peter behind Jesus when He cracked the whip I would have been right behind Him! People have taken this beautiful verse and have turned it into a legalistic, self-effort, human performance passage. They have said; "This faith will operate and work if and only if you love everybody! If you don't love everyone your faith won't work!". So in the fear of your faith not working you falselessly love everyone. Legalism turns the church into phoneyness. Counterfeit. People saying "I lurve you". Legalism is a terrible thing! If they say your faith won't work unless you love everyone then at what point do you know when you love everyone? And what does that do to you? It puts the pressure right back on you to human effort trying to love everyone so faith will work!
The word "love" here in the Greek is "agape" and it means; "God's love".
When you get a revelation of how much God loves YOU then you can express faith God-ward very easily! You can express faith in God blessing you very easily! The Gospel will always take the pressure off you to perform human effort and put the pressure back on God to perform and God's effort because His effort and His performance is signs, wonders and miracles and life-transformation!
Don't keep asking yourself to have enough faith! Just see Jesus wonderful grace and He will see you full of faith! Look at grace! Look at the love of God! See Jesus in His great grace and He will see you full of faith! He GIVES you the Spirit of faith through a revelation of His love for you! Psalm 103:8 says God is three things and I am quoting directly from this; "The Lord is compassionate, and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love". He is compassionate, gracious and abounding in love. The word "compassion" means "favour" - the word "gracious" means "favour" and the word "abounding" means "favour"! God is triple favour! Perfect favour! He is looking at you so full of love and redemption and He has redeemed you from the curse of the law! When you are redeemed from the curse of the law it means you are redeemed from the curse of the law!
That means if you break the law, make a mistake or sin - then no curse is coming from the law because you are redeemed from the curse of the law but a blessing is coming that God gave to Abraham freely to the Gentiles!
Abraham got the blessing 430 years before the Law arrived! He got the blessing through faith and grace! Now I am about to close in the next 2 hours! Let's look at Galatians 3. "Consider Abraham ... those who believe are children of Abraham ... those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith". The Bible says "Consider Abraham!". What does consider mean? It means to evaluate, observe, ponder and look at the outcome of Abraham's life. It means to gaze fizedly at the subject under discussion. The church hasn't considered Abraham enough and how Abraham got the seven-fold blessing! How did he get it - through human effort or faith? "along with". That means that what God gave Abraham He gives to you. What God blesses Abraham with, He blesses you. 12:1-2 - you will be great, I will make your name great - God isn't raising up a nameless and faceless people! He wants people to respect your name and know about your name! You haven't earned this! But by faith God will make your name great! God will abundantly increase favour on your life! Wherever you go there is a trail of blessing! He will bless those who bless you! You will be a blessing magnet and attract blessing! If anyone curses you, He will curse them! I love that one! I don't know why!
You can go out and minister and preach the gospel and God will protect you! You will be a blessing to all nations! You get churches and all they think about is each others belly buttons and each other and the smallness. I puke on that stupidity! I preached to 10s of millions of people on God channel I didn't earn it or deserve it - they just put it on! And that is a small part of the seven fold blessing! Tell people that if you bless me they will be blessed! When do they want to start!?
Only people with attitude make it in life!
Jesus was not nice! He was assertive! He was on a mission and He was doing it! Paul was not whipped and thrown in jail because he was a nice person! He offended people and Jesus was called the Rock of offence! What is this nice stuff on the church?! I am doing a mans camp in Australia and I looked at why the church is full of more women than men. I did a historical search through the last 400 years as to why the church has become more effeminate and why there isn't enough masculine anointing in the church. I am going to get men to rise! The women are doing great! Let's get the men on the move now! We saw that after the seven-fold blessing, Abraham was a pagan and God announced freely the blessing. From there Abraham became very wealthy! He got the wealth after the blessing! The word for "wealth" is under the glory! When you are exposed to the glory realm then blessings are imparted into your life and sooner or later you will see the manifestation of that blessing. When blessing was announced to Abraham freely without law he went out and got very wealthy. He wasn't wealthy before!
But Abraham lied! Sarah was beautiful but the blessing renewed her youth! Without plastic surgery! The glory of God begins to remove the wrinkles! He took Sarah down to Egypt in fear and he feared that the king would see how beautiful a 70 year old was! So they both lied that she was his sister. She called him "lord" in another chapter. Abraham lies! The man of God lied because he was afraid! Pharoh got woken up by God and went to Abraham and gave him wealth and abundance! What did he just do? Lie! We are encouraging people to see that the Bible is true! You don't earn it! Consider Abraham! Those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith! Some people in the world today would like to rewrite passages of the Bible! "God this is not good for your reputation and your image! Let's take the fact that Abraham lied out of the Bible!". God doesn't want that passage out the Bible! He wants us to concentrate and focus on it! Consider Abraham!
What about Abraham's grandson? Jacob! When Jacob became an adult, he lied and he deceived his dad and dressed up like his brother - and he cheated and he stole the blessing of the firstborn! He had to run for his life for lying, cheating and stealing and on the first day he got out of his father's home he had nothing but the blessing! He lay down by the side of the road in a place called Bethel and there he had a dream of a stairway from heaven and God said he would be blessed in everything that he did! Jacob woke up and said "God was in this place!". Jacob said he would give God one tenth of everything! Your failure to tithe can't reverse the curse of the law when Christ redeemed you! How can failure to tithe reverse the Cross?! Jacob didn't tithe to get the blessing! If you tithe to get the blessing then that is human effort trying to earn the blessing! Abraham was under New Covenant and in the Gospel! While they lied and cheated and stole Abraham and Jacob got the blessing! They tithed because of a REVELATION of the love of God! They saw they were in partnership with God! He won't curse me if I don't! Tithe because of a revelation of the grace of God!
Don't tithe into a legalistic church! Don't empower legalism! Find grace churches and empower them and bless them and you will be blessed!
Faith is easy when you realise how much God loves you through grace! God is not interested in behaviour modification and I know that is hard for Christians to realise! He is not interested in forcing behaviour modification changes on you otherwise He would not have blessed Abraham or Jacob after they lied! God wants to capture your heart with His jealous love and so you love Him with all your heart and give your time, your tithe, your love! He will always out-compensate and out-give everything you can do and greater! His goodness to us will transform us!
Under the law you have to obey to get the blessing. Under grace Jesus obeyed to get you the blessing!
How does this blessing come? This blessing comes by the only thing that counts! Faith that is expressed by the revelation of God's love to you. In the Gospels Jesus would meet many people that did not have the blessing. In Luke 13 there was a woman who was sick and crippled for 18 years and the Pharisees were mad with Him for healing on the Sabbath. "Daughter of Abraham ... Satan has bound". When faith came to that woman, she was freed from that crippling state. The Pharisees robbed them of the Abrahamic revelation!
Everytime Jesus found someone who wasn't enjoying the blessing of Abraham He would never say; "Oh you of little holiness. Oh you of little morality, fasting, sowing". He always says; "Oh you of little faith". Faith is the hand that reaches out and RECEIVES the blessing. If your hand is little then you can only take a small portion of the blessing. This is a revelation that is God's energetic desire for us to have BIG faith to receive as much of the blessing as we can! Jesus only rebuked His disciples for one thing and His rebuke was one of redemption to provoke them to more faith - not of rejection! He wants our hands to be so big that we can pull the seven-fold blessing into our lives!
Faith is easy when you consider Abraham and when you concentrate your focus on Abraham then your faith signature accesses and activates greater wealth withdrawals from heaven in an effortless way.
You just get blessed! Faith activates and accesses the wealth of God! John 4 - this is so important for some people right now!
We must see that Jesus absolutely enjoys you pulling as much blessing from Him as you want! He wants to give you so much! When people pulled the blessing from Him, He got energised! How much more in His heavenly ministry? Little faith He rebukes! Big faith He honours and gives more! Take it! Take wealth, anointing, blessing! Take it!
Jesus arrived in Samaria and He was exhausted. He was fully God but fully man. He got tired and His disciples went off into town to get some Starbucks and McDonalds to feed Jesus because He was tired! A lady came to draw water from the well. In the Middle East women did not draw water during the afternoon - it was too hot! So that was an important detail and she came alone. Women drew water in the early morning and came together and gossiped. This woman had shame and had been isolated in a prison of shame and was the object of their gossip. She had five husbands and was living in sin. She didn't want to go to church on Sunday because she didn't want to be with people who gossiped. She was the equivelent of an Elizabeth Taylor today. Has anyone been a Jesus to Elizabeth Taylor? She had no prestige or anything. She was a loser! The seventh Man sat down at the well - completion, rest and effortless. "I can give you water that will spring up like a well of eternal life". "Sir give me a bucket!". Jesus never met this woman or heard gossip but He knew by the gift of discerning something about her life. So He was very naughty and said "Go and get your husband". She said "I don't have one". "Sir I perceive you are a prophet!". What a brilliant lady! Then she got religious! Jesus said "The time is coming when men will not worship ... but in Spirit and in truth".
Such an anointing comes on that woman that she jumps and runs into the city and suddenly she had influence and was unlocked from her cage - the whole town listened to her! While Jesus was waiting for her - His disicples came back and they were thick. They learnt though! There is hope for all of us! But He wasn't tired anymore and He was full of energy! He didn't want to eat! Maybe someone else gave Him food?! "I've got food you know nothing about ... My food is to do the Father's will!". Giving energised Jesus! "The harvest is white into harvest!". The whole town came over the hill towards the well led by a little woman locked up in shame and isolation and suddenly after a brief encounter with the Son of God she was released into horizons of influence to lead the whole city to Jesus. The entire town believed and was born of the Spirit of God! ONE exposure to Jesus and He opened her world up to influence to the entire city!
How can we sit as Christians without leaving a legacy and changing government and politics and arts?! How can the church be ignored when we are sons of Abraham?! Before faith came we were held prisoners to the law locked up until faith is revealed! A secret disciple is no longer a choice when faith is revealed! You will bring people to church! Your world expands and you come out of that and begin to be a Kingdom man or woman and walk in seven-fold blessing and God blesses you and makes you a blessing! And all nations are blessed through you! Consider Abraham!
God said to me this morning; "My eyes are on you". What do You mean? "My eyes are on you". But my eyes are on You! "No - I WANT to fix My eyes on you! I am looking at your heart and I want to honour you! I am looking for what pleases you and gives you pleasure!". But Lord I am Your servant and I want to please you! "But I want you to focus on the fact that I am looking at you to bless you! This faith is not prejudiced! It will work in anyone's heart. Tell the people! My eyes are fixed on them! I the Lord Jesus are fixed on you. If Elizabeth Taylor could find out what that woman at the well found out, she would fall in love with Jesus!".
Not the church. We don't want to introduce people to the church but to Jesus. We want a church that will attract the lost - and they will come in from the nations. And we call thousands of Chinese into CCI. Let faith appear and be revealed to them! We call them into CCI! Let us grow into the hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands! Give us the nations as our inheritance!
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