We live in a damaged and fallen world. In fact, if we read the papers, we seem to face a very uncertain future in front of us. Right at the brink of the New Year, we read in the papers of a double whammy.
Brace ourselves for an even larger slump in our economy, we were cautioned. And then along with this, we read of a bomb attack in Jakarta and a possible rise in the threat of terrorism within our own nation. As humans, we are limited, and very often it is difficult to know and be sure of what is in front of us in our future.
All this is true, but while this may seem bleak and hopeless, we also have an Almighty God that is never limited by any sort of circumstances. How do we as Christians tap into this reality and walk alongside this sovereign God that we claim to know? Recently, Rev Jai Kumar shared an encouraging and important prophetic message at C3 regarding this.
He shared his hopes that this year as a Church, we may be elevated to the next level, a deeper level, a greater dimension of supernatural breakthroughs in our financials and whatever it is that we may face or go through. The way to this anointing is to first come before God in humility.
There is no place for pride in the presence of God for pride is an enemy of God. God hates the proud and the seed of Lucifer’s downfall was pride. Before we come into our breakthroughs, God has to deal with our pride. You and I are responsible to create an atmosphere of worship, an atmosphere where God’s Holy Spirit is able to work.
The trend of what is happening in the world today is exactly as Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2. In the passage, Paul had already foretold through a revelation from God, that in the Last Days, men would be full of themselves, possessing a form of Godliness but denying its power.
Rev Jai shared that this is the greatest deception of religion today. We create our own systems of standards and we do things our way, and then we proclaim that they are acceptable to God. Such a system allows “standards” that is claimed to be approved by God, yet is in fact not from Him. And what God does not respect, He will reject.
So the first thing we need to do is to renew our mindset. The mind is a battleground and it is always the first place the devil attacks. He will first put in fear, doubt, or pride into our minds. We can either go along with it, be defeated, and end up in bondage or slavery. Or we can be an overcomer.
Rev Jai cautioned; ‘We are not going to hear God if our mind is not already made up about God. A carnal mind will not receive the things of God. The enemy cannot use his power to attack you until the believer authorizes him to do so. Never let the devil set the agenda.’
How do we renew our mindsets? We must rebuild our personal altar. Rev Jai imparted that the personal altar is a place of sacrifice. It is the place where we and God meet in an intimate relationship. The altar is a place where we realize that God is God. A place where we encounter God, and we discover that God is real in this place. When we are in this place we are transparent as anything. There is nothing to hide.
The altar is where we are sanctified and made holy, where we receive the power to do exploits for God. It is where we come face-to-face in a powerful relationship with God, where we lay down all our cares and troubles, our brokenness, where we learn humility and forgiveness. It is also where we receive from God the power and anointing to sustain our current blessing.
Our encounter will only take place at our personal altar with God. There is no shortcut to our breakthroughs. We need the Holy Spirit’s anointing to come back and purify our souls and restore our passion for God.
Without passion for God, we end up with a religious spirit. We do things mechanically. Our worship becomes meaningless. Our relationships become meaningless, and soon everything else will follow suit. Jesus said He is the vine, we are the branches. Without Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). It is something we must heed. It is time to burn the fire of sacrifice in our personal altars again. What is this fire of sacrifice? It is a surrendered life before our God.
Rev Jai shared several Kingdom principles to help rebuild our personal altars. The first is to always remember the fact that we cannot fight and overcome the temptations of the world through our own flesh. We need to draw strength from our personal altars so that we can walk in the Spirit. A life of consistent prayer results in a power-filled relationship with God. This relationship can only grow through the prayers at our altar. Our prayers will lead us into intimacy and intimacy will generate power to deal with all the challenges in our life.
Secondly, worship is an essential part of our walk with God. We can draw the attention of God when we worship Him in spirit and in truth. When we truly worship God, we are no longer self-conscious. We become free and at rest in His presence. Worship is the place to God’s manifest presence and it is a place of power. The question is, how desperate are we for God’s presence?
Thirdly, lives transform when they have a supernatural encounter with God. Rev Jai pointed to the fact that nobody in the Bible ever accomplished or impacted anything without first receiving guidance or experiencing a supernatural encounter with God. Abraham, Moses, Ezekiel, Paul, all these great men had a divine encounter with God. Paul in particular was a persecutor of the Early Church. One encounter with God on the road to Damascus totally revolutionarized his life. God has not changed. He is still the same God of miracles. One supernatural encounter with God will transform our lives and we won’t be the same anymore.
Fourthly, the anointing is a must to function in our call of God, no matter what it may be, for it is the manifest power of God. Why do we need a supernatural encounter with God? Because God is a supernatural God. Many of us don’t see breakthroughs because God isn’t our priority. We must place God first in our lives. We need to seek Him and His anointing with all our hearts and minds.
Fifthly, our spiritual hunger will cause us to pursue God and go after Him. It causes us to step into unfamiliar places seeking God. King David longed for God. He was desperate for the presence and intimacy of God in his life (Psalm 42). A supernatural encounter with God can come in all kinds of ways. Sometimes through an audible voice, sometimes through dreams. Sometimes through revelation, sometimes through tangible feelings, like fire, smoke, water, sweet smell, oil etc. The condition is that we must really thirst for it.
If we love God, the supernatural anointing will explode in our lives, and without hunger we will always stay in the same place. We will find our comfort zone and we will not move from where we currently are to where God wants to take us. God wants to take us to greater heights but He will not move you unless we want to be moved. He will not force us beyond the level of our want and beyond the level of our desire.
Finally, our authority and power must be expressed and exercised through our faith. We are familiar with the story of Jesus calming the storm in Luke 8:24 but we sometimes misunderstand the principle. The storm did not calm down because Jesus was in the boat. It calmed down because Jesus exercised His power and authority. Our power and authority needs to be declared and applied in our circumstances. We need to put our faith into action.
There is a passage in 2 Kings 13:20-21 that speaks of the power of anointing:
Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.
Now what was happening here? Elisha was already dead yet there was such anointing in the prophet that even his bones had the power to revive a man back to life. Earlier, when Elisha was still a disciple of Elijah, he had said that he will not let his mentor go unless he received double the anointing that was upon Elijah.
God heard his request, saw the heart of the man, and invested him with such anointing. So soaked in the anointing was Elisha and so full of the Holy Spirit of God that even his dead bones could raise a dead man to life. If this happened in the Old Testament, how much more so today when the Holy Spirit lives in us?
In 2 Kings 4:8-37, there is also a story of Elisha and the Shunamite woman. This woman was rich but she had no ulterior motive in hosting Elisha. She had been childless yet she did not request for a prayer or a distinction for serving a man of God. Apparently, her hospitality came from a pure heart and intention to honor a man of God. Apparently, she loved the Lord more than she loved herself. And when Elisha left, he imparted a God-given declaration of blessing of a son upon the woman.
The lessons we can learn through these passages are many. Primarily, as in both the case of Elisha and the Shunamite woman, God requires us to have an intimate relationship with Him before He will give us power.
The Shunamite woman wanted to be a blessing to other rather than expecting a blessing from others. Here is a powerful kingdom principle we need to understand. She never traded her goodness; she never traded her kindness to Elisha for something in return. She was not performing. She was not trying to earn favour from Elisha.
What is our position in Christ today? What is our authority and power? Rev Jai imparted that we are transferred to a different level of authority and power in Christ. We need to know seriously who we are in Christ and who Christ is in us. What is our power and authority as a child of God? When we are ignorant of our position in Christ, we are vulnerable to the enemy. What has Jesus promised you today?
|Share The Good News|
Jason Law
Jason Law
Leave a Reply