We are at Base camp on this journey we are following together. We are following a map with two pathways on it. This journey is a journey of discovering how we can engage in the realms of the spirit. We are discovering the spiritual realm that’s within us and we are discovering the realms of heaven. And there are two pathways that we are going to follow on this journey together.
The pathway of relationship which basically is leading to deeper intimacy with God which flows from the inside of us where the presence of God is, connected to heaven through the gateway of first love in our spirit. And then flows through our spirit, soul and body to the world around us, so that we can manifest God’s presence, we can manifest God’s kingdom, we can manifest god’s power and his authority around our lives.
We are going to learn how to also follow the pathway of responsibility that leads to greater kingdom rulership. Because we have a responsibility for the planet that god has given us and the creation that god has given us to bring his kingdom into manifestation upon it.
We follow the pathway of responsibility from the outside in. This pathway flows from the outside in. We engage in the realms of heaven and go deeper into the things of God, and in order to do that we present ourselves as living sacrifices.
Everything in the Hebrew culture is circular not linear. We have been brought up very much with Greek thinking which is linear thinking. In Greek thinking we go on a journey which begins at point a. and ends at point b. a journey that has a beginning and an end and then that is it. The journey we are on is circular. So in the Hebrew culture the end and the beginning always meet.
So, whenever there is an ending of something, there is always a beginning of something new, it never stops and never ends. And so, in this picture here, if you follow the different things that we got it should always take you back to the map, to go further.
Now in this base camp Section where we are going to be looking at building our spirit. We are going to be looking at the gift of tongues specifically and how that is used. Speaking in tongues is really a key. We are going to look at meditation and how we meditate in the word of God to get the flow of the thoughts of God into our mind.
We are going to learn how to open the eyes of our heart so we can begin to see into the realms of the spirit.
How to open the eyes of our spirit so that we can actually walk into those realms which takes us back to the journey map, which then will take us on further. So everything is a circular approach. And ultimately there will be a pathway that we follow.
So what is our spirit? If we are going to look at building our spirit, then it is really important that we know what it is. What is it? Where does our spirit come from? What is our spirit made of? Where is our spirit? What does our spirit do? And how do we engage our spirit? And they are all questions that we need answers for. Because if we don’t know any of those answers, it is very difficult to actually, in reality, fully embrace who we really are as a spirit being.
1 John 5:5 this is the message that we heard from him and announced to you that God is light. So God is described in the word of God as light.
Now there are two sorts of light, there’s creative light. God is creative light. God has created everything out of himself as light. And that is faster than created light.
So, he has created then natural light like the sun and stars and everything else that we see in the natural realm. We see this light because it is bouncing around and reflecting off things and we capture in our physical eye. But there is a creative light that goes faster than that.
John 4:24 says God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. So God describes himself as spirit. So, if God is spirit and God is light then we are spirit and our spirit is light, because we are made in the image of God.
So, we preexisted basically in eternity as thoughts within the heart or mind of God and God vocalized those thoughts and created us.
So, we were created in spirit before we were created in Flesh .and when our body or flesh, where our mother and father’s seed come together, a human being forms.
Psalm 139: 13For thou hast possessed (to create, bring forth, to buy, to purchase, to acquire, to possess. It is used with God as its subject to mean His buying back His people, redeeming them A verb meaning to create, to bring forthIt is used of acquiring a child from God (Gen. 4:1); of God acquiring, creating the heavens and earth (Gen. 14:19); of His creation of Israel (Deut. 32:6); of forming a fetus in the womb (Ps. 139:13). It can be used of God’s creation of wisdom (Prov. 8:22), the most commonly used term in the Old Testament for the transaction of “buying” or “purchasing.” It has this meaning, with several related senses, in the eighty or so contexts in which it is found, “to get, acquire, create, buy my reins a kidney, the heart as the seat of emotions. It is always used in its plural form, inmost being, heart, mind, spirit, the seat of thought and emotion of the inner person. : thou hast covered A verb meaning to cover. It means to hide something or to shield something: the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant was covered by the wings of cherubim (Ex. 25:20); God’s hand covered and protected Moses (Ex. 33:22). It is used of separating off an area with a curtain or hanging (Ex. 40:3, 21). Figuratively, it shows God shielding those who trust Him (Ps. 5:11[12]; 91:4); He covers Himself in anger (Lam. 3:43) or with a cloud (Lam. 3:44). II. A verb meaning to stir, to excite. It means to rouse up, to spur on in the context of the Lord’s action (Isa. 9:11[10]; 19:2). III. A verb meaning to weave together. It describes the Lord’s activity in creating a child’s fetus within the womb (Job 10:11; Ps. 139:13).me in my mother’s womb belly, womb, inner body, rounded projection. With perhaps the general meaning of inside, beṭen often refers to the physical belly. It also frequently refers to the womb, where it is at times significantly linked with God’s sovereign care, comfort, and the calling of His elect, innermost part, viscera: abdomen, belly, stomach, womb; by extension: the inner person, the heart, the seat of emotion, thought, and desire.
14I will praise to acknowledge, to praise, to give thanks, to confess, to cast. The essential meaning is an act of acknowledging what is right about God in praise and thanksgiving thee; for I am fearfully to fear, to respect, to reverence, to be afraid, to be awesome, to be feared, to make afraid, to frighten and wonderfully to be distinct, separate, set apart, to be different. To be distinguished made: marvelous to do something wonderful, to do something extraordinary, or difficult to be wonderful, be marvelous, be amazing; to be hard are thy works workmanship, work, labor, deed; something made, something done; and that my soul breath, the inner being with its thoughts and emotions. knoweth to know, to learn, to perceive, to discern, to experience, to confess, to consider, to know people relationally, to know how, to be skillful, to be made known, to make oneself known, to make to know. to be respected right well greatly, 15My substance framework indicating strength, might. Was not hid to conceal from thee, when I was made to make, to accomplish, to complete in secret a covering, a hiding place, a secret a hiding place, a shelter, protection, and curiously wrought to be woven together to embroider, to weave, to do needlework in the lowest parts lower, below, lowest, depths of the earth.
16Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect unformed substance, from wrapped together,substance unperfect, something that God’s eyes saw before its birth . ; and in thy book a document, a writing, a book, a scroll. all everything, the whole, entire. My members were written verb meaning to write. It refers to communication through a system of visible signs written down. It is used to indicate the process of recording information, which in continuance day, time, year, In the plural, the word may also mean the span of life were fashioned to form, to fashion, to shape, to devise, to be formed, purpose to control the destiny, to form, mold, fashion, when as yet there was none no, not. of them.
17How precious to esteem, to be valuable, to be costly. It has the basic idea of being highly valuable, worthy; it indicates a high evaluation put upon someone or something, to be precious, be costly; become well known; also are thy thoughts a thought, a purpose. It indicates what a persons have in mind, what their intents or purposes are unto me, O God ʾēl: A masculine noun meaning God, god, mighty one, hero ! how great numerous, mighty is the sum It refers to the top or peak of things the beginning of something:, high in status or authority: leader, chief; source or origin: of them! 18If I should count to number, to recount, to relate, to declare. It also refers to a quantity that is too great to number them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake to wake up, to arouse. It means to arouse a person from sleep or to awake from sleep , I am still with thee.
19Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.
20For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
21Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
22I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139 verse 13- for you formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother’s womb.
Psalm 139: your eyes have seen my unformed substance and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
So, he was involved in the creation process. But it also says your eyes have seen my unformed substance. So, there was a substance that existed in eternity which was unformed in the natural realm. And in your book or scroll were written the days or all the days that were ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them. So, all this occurred before there was a physical day on the earth. It all happened in eternity. It is an amazing place to go back to the heart of God and engage there.
I have been back to that place a few times recently. It is an amazing place where light and activities are going on in the heart and mind of God. That’s where we were conceived. And that’s where we were released.
So, it is important to know that our spirit didn’t just occur when we were born. When we were actually conceived, there is a flash of light that occurs, and our spirit comes into the cells of our body at that point.
So, our spirit really is our eternal essence. It came from eternity and will return to eternity. The words for spirit in the Bible, in the Greek-pneuma. In the Hebrew-Ruach. talk about wind or breath. So, the life, our real-life is contained within our spirit. We have a soul and a body, but the life that we really are is maintained in the spirit and that actually is eternal.
Where you go eternally depends on what you do here. So, our spirit really is the center of our being, our innermost being. This is how it is described, our innermost being.
Our spirit is really the purest representation of our true self. So, we need to engage it, in order to know who we are.
Because when God spoke us into creation and God wrote that book about our lives, he ordained us with redemptive gifts, with spiritual gifts, with abilities and callings. All those things are contained within our spirit.
So, we need to know our identity, we need to know how we are identified.
If we get our identity from our soul alone, then we’ll have been shaped by what the world has brought to us, or what we have received from our parents or through situations in our lives.
So, our soul is shaped through nurture nature and trauma. But our spirit preexisted all of that. Our spirit comes directly from the heart of God. It is really important that we understand ourselves.
Our spirit is not limited by time and space. So our spirit can engage in the spiritual realms and go back in time and forward in time. This is where prophecy comes from. Our spirit is like the tardis, those of you who know Doctor Who. Our spirit is bigger on the inside than it appears. We might think because our spirit is contained within our body it must be really small.
The reality is our spirit and our heart are not small at all, because they are dimensional places that we can grow and engage.
So where is our spirit? It is in our body but it’s not contained just within our body. Our actual spirit dwells in the brain and spinal column cavity and is separated from our blood.
It is really important to understand that. Because our blood contains the record of our natural genetic makeup and generational line.
The spinal column and the cerebrospinal fluid and the brain cavity are not connected directly to the blood. they just receive oxygen from the blood. So, when you have an injury, when I used to work in laboratories I use to do tests on cerebrospinal fluid. and if there was blood in the cerebrospinal fluid you knew there was a problem, because it had crossed the blood brain barrier.
So, our spirit is separate and it’s deliberately separate so that it can actually engage the rest of us and bring us from what God said into the now and then.
So, our spirit can engage our soul and heart and body via the nervous system. That is why it is very sensitive to vibrations and frequencies and changes. Our spirit picks up all that information from our body.
Now it says in the bible in Proverbs as a man thinks in his heart so is he. So what we think about ourselves, what is programmed into our subconscious mind, which then triggers into our conscious mind, determines how we are and who we are.
So, we need our spirit that knows who we are preexistent in God and from God, to inform our mind and inform our subconscious mind and that’s what it does if we engage it.
So, the heart literally programs our blood which goes to our brain and informs our conscious mind of who we are.
So, our spirit needs to engage our heart. That is why the river of life flows from our spirit into our heart. And that’s why the chambers of the heart which we are going to explore on this journey are part of the process of reprogramming us to knowing who we are.
Now the field of the science that is developing around this thing is called epigenetics’. In other words, things outside of the DNA can program the DNA. And literally our marrow provides our red blood cells.
When we take communion if you look at the sheet there it talks about speaking to our marrow, to have our marrow transformed with the truth that comes from our spirit.
So, red blood cells actually contain no DNA. So, if you need red blood cells, then they can’t be traced, but of course you have white blood cells as well.
The actual nucleus doesn’t exist. Why? Because it needs to contain oxygen. So, it is filled with oxygen so it can go to the brain and give us life.
And that’s exactly the same if you think of our spirit which is the breath of life contained with the connection with the Spirit of God actually goes to our heart with truth and revelation. And our heart then transfers that to the rest of our whole body and is actually received into the brain across that barrier. So, the information is carried that way. And you find some very interesting subjects, when you look at epigenetics’. And what happens, what is translated through the eyes of a mother to a baby. and literally the baby receives revelation from the mother through their eyes.
We know the Bible says that the eyes are the windows of the soul. And literally they’ve been studying what happens to information that actually programs who we are in those first times when our mother looks into our eyes and what they carry and what they contain is transmitted through our eyes to actually bring information. I read a really interesting article about it, it is a fascinating thing to see.
So, it is really important that we understand how we are formed. and the spirit has an active role to play in that if we want to be shaped after what God says, rather than what everyone else says. And it’s really important that we do that.
So, our white blood cells contain the record of our 22+ 22 autosomes from both parents. There are 44 autosomes which contain the record of all our genetic material and that determines what we look like physically and all the other things that are passed on within that genetic material. And of course, there are also one plus one chromosome which determine whether we are male or female. That makes up basically our genetic make-up.
So, we can program our DNA by frequency light and sound. And trauma and nurture can program it. Now people used to think that it would take millions of years for genetic material to mutate over long periods of time to produce change. now they know it can happen in one generation. And they can see the result in the next generation of what is passed.
So, it is really important if we want to be who God created us to be that we get reprogrammed by the Spirit. Our spirit and the Holy Spirit bringing the truth of who we really are, the truth of how God sees us, what God says about us, what our identity is in God.
Because when we believe that, then there are no limits to what we can do. Because God has given us creative abilities within our spirit to transform and change things around us and within our lives.
So, our spirit really is a dimensional place that God dwells in. Because we know God dwells in there and we can dwell in God. Which is why this stuff is quite difficult to fathom out.
Because how can something be in something, which is also in that, If you follow what I am saying. How can our spirit be in us but also in God. It seems quite complicated because we only think about it as a physical thing, and it isn’t physical. So, our spirit is not just contained by our body.
John 14:16 says I will ask the father and he will give you another helper that is the spirit of truth he abides with you and will be in you. this before Jesus went to the cross, and he was basically saying after I come back from resurrection then the Spirit is going to be in you.
John 14:20 in that day you will know that I am in my father and you’re in me and I am in you and in verse 23 it says we will come to him and make our abode or our home with him. So, God dwells in us, he lives within our spirit in an area in our spirit called the kingdom of God. So, we are a spirit we have a soul that lives in a body.
We are spirit, the eternal essence of God which receives spiritual revelation. This is really important to understand if we want to understand anything about God and anything about the realms of the spirit.
You cannot do it by intellect it has to come by spiritual revelation. So, our spirit makes us conscious of God and the spiritual realms.
We have a soul that makes us self-conscious and makes us a human being. But when our spirit and soul have come back and brought back into harmony, we become a living being and that takes on a whole different life, an abundant life that Jesus promised us.
When our spirit starts sensing the life and presence of God, and our soul is restored and brought back into harmony with our spirit, we start to experience what it means to be a new creation. We are beyond human.
In Adam the spirit was outside of the body. Now I use to wonder about this. So, I went back and actually had a look once. and then I talked to Adam about what it was like. and he described an amazing relationship with God which was not hindered by anything and it was pure intimacy.
Now that means that if we become like Adam because we’re supposed to be restored into the image that God created him, created things, then as a being of light we can travel in the spiritual realms, I mean physically travel as well as spiritually travel.
Because my spirit can go to the spiritual realms any time. But trans relocation where people are moved from a physical place into another place happens very often because God does something. And he envelops us and takes us through that realm. But actually, we need to learn how to do it ourselves and we will learn some of these things.
Psalm 8:4 says what is man that you have thought of him and the son of man that you care for him. yet you have made him a little lower than God and crowned him with glory and majesty. Adam was crowned with glory and majesty. that glory was the radiant light of his spirit connected with God.
And then it says this you make him to rule over the works of your hands you have put all things under his feet.
That is our destiny, that is what God called his people to be, ruling with everything under their feet. And that is going to be restored before Jesus returns.
Imagine a person with a brain. Now the spirit is contained around their spinal column. And within our spirit there is a door. That door is the door into the realm of the kingdom on the inside of us.
Revelation 3:20 Jesus said behold I am standing at the door and knocking. Open the door and let me in. So, that’s in our body, the kingdom within us and that door or gateway is the first Love gate and that is the prime place of engagement with our spirit and with the Holy Spirit within us, within our spirit. It is also the seat of government in our life it is what rules.
And when were separated from God the soul rules. When we are born-again and our spirit becomes alive and that door is then opened and God comes to dwell in us, our spirit then starts to exercise its authority to rule, now often the soul doesn’t like that, so there’s often a tension and a battle to start with over who is in charge. A lot of you know about that. Because you’re struggling and you are working through who is in charge of your life.
Well when you get the Holy Spirit , and your spirit is alive, then your spirit can begin to rule. now when we surrender the seat of government to God and we invite him to be Lord of our lives, he then empowers us. But if we keep control of our lives, while we are in control of our ourselves then we have to do it ourselves.
So, when we surrender, it is not giving up, it is embracing a whole new power, to change, to be transformed, to be who we were created to be by the father in eternity. So, then our heart, our subconscious mind, the garden of our heart, our scroll contained within that, connects with our spirit and just draws life from the spirit, so that the our heart then is programmed by the truth that is contained within God’s thoughts for us and what he says about us and what our identity is in God. And then that can then dictate, determine what our mind thinks. Because as we think in our heart, we will then begin to consciously become aware of and that will determine how we live. Because you live by the conscious choices you make every day. If they are programmed by your past, then you will keep making the same choices usually the wrong ones every day. If they are programmed by your future and your eternal past, then you can begin to make the choices which line up with God’s destiny for you and the things he’s created for you to do. And that can program how you think so you can begin to do the things that God showed you. This is how Jesus lived every day only doing what he say the father doing, connected with his spirit to the realms of heaven and God. and actually, making the choices that enabled him to fulfill his destiny. and then we can have flowing out of us rivers of living water, the spirit, the anointing, the power the authority of God. It is not supposed to be stored up on the inside it’s supposed to flow out. just like in the garden of Eden, you had Eden-God’s Garden, you have the garden that was Adam and eves and the river of life flowing from God’s garden into their garden and then flowed out to water the rest of the earth. That is now a picture of what happens in our life. we have the garden of God within us, in our heart. and then our spirit flows into our heart and out around us to create an atmosphere of the spirit around us, in which amazing things will happen. Amazing things will happen when we learn to grow our spirit, so it is bigger than our body and creates an atmosphere around us where God rules and we rule.
That’s why Peter’s shadow could heal people because his spirit was active around him. that’s why people could touch Jesus and draw life and power for healing out of his physical body. Because they were touching the realm of the spirit that was around him.
So, that’s just a simple picture to explain it, but we will learn how to do that.
So what is spirit? We’ll the definition of matter is that out of which or from which any being, existence or entity is formed. Now that’s usual scientific gobbledygook as a definition. Literally matter makes up everything we can see, but it comes from energy. It didn’t exist as matter it actually existed as energy in the thoughts of God and God spoke it into being and it became a physical thing. Now literally you have to observe energy for it to become matter and God’s observation and his words created everything that we see. Every material thing is made out of some material substance. Most of it is actually apparently empty. So, if you took all the empty space out of every atom that existed in this whole world it would be the size of a football. So, most of what seemingly is within us, and everything is actually not empty it is the vibrating strings connected to the spiritual realm. So, everything comes out of that substance. That substance matter can be changed but it cannot be destroyed. So, you can burn a piece of wood and turn into ash and smoke, but it still exists as ash and smoke, and it is really interesting that people are learning how to call those things back into actual existence. Because we should have the power of creativity in matter. And there are miracles taking place both positive and negative in changing matter right now in the spiritual realms. People are getting their hair back because when your hair goes down the plug hole and disappears somewhere it is not lost. Even if it dissolves its atoms exist and if you have faith and you understand how to do it you can call those atoms back into being on top of your head. And literally this is happening in places around the world people are getting their hair restored supernaturally. For those of you who want a bald head that is fine. But you don’t have to do that. There are also things where people are changing matter and getting it to move. Hence there are things like supernatural weight loss taking place. Where people are losing 50 60 pounds in a miraculous event when there matter of fat is changed and removed from them. You think wow that is a bit weird. That is the creative power we should have .and that is what we are going to learn to be able to do.
Spirit therefore is a substance. Everything therefore which is in a spiritual existence is formed from some spiritual substance. Just as matter that we see comes out of material substance. actually spiritual substance also exists.
Now human beings are spirit that is part of who they are. And therefore that spirit is formed from spiritual substance. And that substance is light.
So, the spiritual substance also has forms qualities modes, established laws of existence relatively the same as matter does. They are just slightly different.
Spiritual substances bear the same relation to each other. There are solid, fluid, gas spiritual substance. when you go into the realms of heaven, you’ll see that there are all sorts of different things.
So, spiritual objects can be hard, soft, fluid, hot, cold. When you get into the river of life in the realms of heaven although is not water per say- H2O it is a substance that actually is fluid. Now all those things in the realm have color and shape and different things but so much more in the realm of the spirit. So spiritual substances have many qualities which are impossible for material subjects or things to have. It is an altogether superior realm. because the spiritual realm actually is the thing that keeps this realm into being. You will see that. So, the spiritual world is somewhat similar to this one because this is patterned after it. That’s why you see rivers and things like that. So where is that world, where is that spiritual world? We’ll actually it is here around us; it is everywhere because we are within that spiritual- material realm now. We just can recognize it. We are actually connected to the spiritual realm right now. But we are usually not conscious of it because our spirit has not told our mind about it, because we have not learned how to connect. But actually, when we do, we’ll realize that we can move in and out of that realm simply. Because literally every atom or every particle every string gets its energy from that realm, from the realm zero-point energy. It connects to this natural realm- At Planck’s constant. Planck’s constant is the smallest point of time that can exist, where something then becomes nonlocal, you are either here or there.
Now when we learn how to actually engage this we will learn how to walk in the realms of the spirit really easily. And we can learn how to do it, which is a good thing. Now there are many instances in the Bible where people saw the realms of the spirit, and they describe what they saw. So, how did they do that, they must have seen it with their spiritual eyes. Therefore, it requires our spiritual eyes to see spiritual objects. because that’s how God designed it to work.
So, the spiritual world is present within this material world and maintains it in existence. We see that in Hebrews 11:3 by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God. Now it is talking about worlds, it is not talking about Mars, Jupiter, he is talking about the world’s the dimensions, the spiritual world the physical world, the different dimensions that were created. That was all made out of that which is not visible to us, other words it was made out of the spiritual.
Hebrews 1:3 he holds all things by the word of his power. So, everything we see now stays in existence because of God’s observance of it. By his words still vibrating within the fabric of space.
So why our spirit so important?
Proverbs 2027 the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts of his being. So, if you really want to know anything about who you are, and you want that light that comes from God. then we need to understand how we flow in the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 2:14 but a natural man does not accept the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness to him. Many people try by intellect to study and to understand theology. We don’t want to understand theology. We want a personal relationship with the person of God not the knowledge of God. And we can only do that through the spirit. It says he cannot understand things of God because they are spiritually appraised spiritually understood. But he who is spiritual appraises all things. So, when we understand our spiritual nature, the nature of the spirit within us, everything can become understandable because we got access to the mind of God, which is an amazing thing.
1 Corinthians 2:9 says just as it is written things which eye has not seen, and ear has not heard which has not entered into the heart of man. All that God has prepared for those who love him. That was what it was like before our spirit became alive to God, before our spirits were made alive, that was what it was like. We couldn’t see we couldn’t hear, and we didn’t have in our heart the revelation of who we were.
But verse 10 for to us God revealed them through the Spirit. So, now God reveals so we can see so we can hear and so we can have that in our heart, which actually programs our life according to his truth about us, not our own understanding of the truth that comes from the outside in.
For the Spirit searches all things even the depths of God. So, the deepest things in the heart of God the Spirit can access and make known to us. So, all those vast sums of the thoughts he has for us can be made known to us in the spirit.
Verse 11 whom among men knows the thoughts of a man accept the spirit of a man which is in him. Our spirit is what understands us. Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. So, everything that was part of our destiny everything that God has ordained for us everything he has for us we can now know.
But we know through the spirit. So, our spirit has eyes, ears, emotions, it has eight different senses or abilities or gateways that we need to learn to develop.
They are the fear of God, reference, prayer, faith, hope, revelation, intuition and worship. Our spirit can engage those things, and this is how we learn. So, we are going to engage in our spirit and understand those things within our spirit on this journey.
If we don’t use any part of us, it atrophies or wastes away. So, when someone has a physical injury and there bedridden for a long time their muscles waste away because they are not used. Physical exercise that works with our muscles. Brain exercises- you know you get these little brain programs now on your phones or on your laptops and that sort of the stuff. That challenges you to get your mind working, literally gets our synapses firing.
But we need also spiritual exercise, so that our spirit can grow strong. We need to learn to build up our spirit, to grow our spirit, so our spirit is not this weedy little thing on the inside of us, but actually is around us.
Hebrews 5:14 solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. So, we can train all those spiritual senses.
We can train all the senses of our soul to be directed from our spirit so that we just know and can discern the realms of the spirit.
Training exercises.
Now you cannot grow your spirit without actually training it. There are no shortcuts I cannot lay hands on you, nor can anybody else to get your spirit to grow.
You can have impartations of spiritual gifts. When we began this journey a few weeks ago I prayed for people to impart a seed of what I carry, but you have to grow that seed.
So, training exercises are really important. A friend of ours used to be here in the band (mentioning no names) wanted to grow a six-pack he wanted big strong abdominal muscles he decided to buy one of these newfangled pieces of kit that meant he could sit and watch TV and have these little electrodes onto his stomach and so he could sit there watching it and grow this massive six pack, guess what, it didn’t work, and he wasted his money. When I was a kid, it wasn’t that it was a bull worker, you know you could use this bull worker to get your muscles strong. The Reality is you have to train. If you want to grow big muscles, you have to lift heavy weights. You won’t grow much better than that. You can get strong muscles or muscle by doing lots of repetitive things over and over again to get stamina in your muscles, but if you want to grow you got to exercise them. In fact, you tear them down, so they grow stronger. That’s what happens when you actually exercise. You tear your muscles and then they build stronger and stronger and stronger.
So, we are going to do lots of exercises to build our spirit. Now it’s like these exercises are not an end in themselves, they just to get our spirit strong. It’s like when you build a house you need scaffolding to get the roof on, and to build the walls higher when you finish building the house you don’t leave the scaffolding up you take it down because then you live in the house.
So, a lot of the exercises were doing, are just the scaffolding to help us have a strong spirit so that we can have spiritual lifestyle developed.
So, we will practice lots of things and as you practice your spirit will get stronger, but the purpose is not just for the exercises, it what happens as a result of the exercise, which is a strong spirit, which is going to grow.
So, how do we develop our spirit, well fellowship, spending time with God in our spirit so we absorb God. Through osmoses our spirit is like a sponge that sucks up the truth of God. When we are around the light, light gets transmitted to us.
We are changed through the exposure of our spirit with God’ Spirit. So, just being around God is a is a fantastic thing to do, to be in his presence.
Speak, pray, and sing in tongues. One of the absolute keys to spiritual growth is exercising our spirit by speaking. When we are speaking in the spirit, we are exercising our spirit. And we are going to spend some time on that. meditating on the word of God. Actually allowing the word of God to transform and change how we think by meditating around it.
Meditating visually, what you behold you become like. So let us fix our eyes on Jesus. Let’s fix our eyes on those things that are above. and then we will begin to become like that which we look at.
If you look at negative things all the time then you will become negative. If you focus on the truth and the positive things, then that will have a positive change in your life.
Wait on the Lord this is a difficult one for a lot of people. Be still and know Him. Which means you are going to stop trying and striving and struggling to do it, relax. Because when you relax your spirit is active and can connect up with all your senses much easier, we will look at that when our brainwaves slow down to alpha, from alpha to beta then our spirit can connect and understand.
When we shut our eyes, all our cognitive senses begin to slow down so that our spirit can engage. So developing the right side of our brain is a key. The right side of our brain is the creative part of us, where tongues and other things happen.
Praise, worship, adoration. That is a spiritual exercise. And when our spirit releases worship and praise and thanksgiving and adoration to God it gets stronger.
Now you have to persevere. You know when you go to the gym for the first time and you haven’t been for a long time and you begin to push some weights or use the machines the next few days you actually feel it. And a lot of people think, that was hard work. I felt like this, and they give up. Thinking is it always going to be like this every time I exercise am I going to feel so wretched for three or four days. Well, the reality is when you get used to something and you get used to a regime of exercise then your body accommodates it, and you learn to grow through it. So don’t give up the first few times you practice some of these exercises. You have to keep at it. Because the desire that you have needs to become discipline. do we really have to be disciplined for this? Well, I am afraid so. But actually, it becomes a delight once you gone beyond the getting over the stuff then you actually find it’s a delight to be in the presence of God and worshipping and your spirit connected and you’re drawing from the life of God in the Spirit. It is a wonderful thing. The question is are you willing to cultivate the desire? Because a desire is not just a wish. if you wish you had a strong spirit, it is a good start. But desire means that you really want it and you will do anything to accomplish it.
So, how you get a desire is you have to think about cultivating that thought. What will it be like if I had a strong spirit, what would I do with a strong spirit, how would a strong spirit work in me, how would a strong spirit affect how I lived every day, what would it mean to have a strong spirit in the realms of heaven. If we have strong spirit, we can enter the realms of heaven. We could be transported; I wouldn’t have to use airplanes.
You start to meditate about what it would be like to have a strong spirit, and it will create in you such a desire that you will do anything to get it.
What you fix your thoughts and intentions upon, and what you begin to cultivate and nurture as you begin to think about the benefits of it will begin to motivate you. Once you realize all the wonderful benefits of a strong spirit you will be willing to put in the discipline to get one.
If you just think oh a strong spirit oh maybe I will be able to speak in tongues a few minutes longer every day and that’s all the good it is, we’ll you won’t be very inspired to pursue it. So, you need to think- what is my spirit going to do when it has got this. What am I going to be able to do in transforming matter. In being able to bring in healing and wholeness and miracles and actually creating things out of nothing, calling them out of the spiritual realm into the natural realm. All those amazing things that Jesus did, and he talked to us about doing, we need to fix our eyes on that and be willing to say yes, I am going to pursue that with whatever it takes.
Now the spirit has a language, the language is called tongues. praying in the spirit, praying in tongues, it is a language of the Holy Spirit, he uses to communicate through us at times. Because there are diversities of tongues. It is a spiritual gift; it can be received through the laying on of hands. Tongues is a gateway gift for the other gifts. It builds you up to engage.
1 Corinthians 14:2 the man who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God for no one understands but, in his spirit, he speaks mysteries. So, there are things your spirit is speaking which are mysteries to your mind but actually will be revealed because God only hides things in mysteries so we can discover them. But then it says this, the one speaks in a tongue edifies himself builds up his spirit. Paul said now I wish you all spoke in tongues. So, he saw the importance of this gift. Verse 14 I pray in a tongue my spirit prays my mind is unfruitful. Now actually our mind doesn’t like not being in charge. So that is why it is a good thing to put our spirit in order, to be ruling. But what it says is what is the outcome I pray with the spirit, and I pray with my mind. I sing with the spirit; I sing with my mind. So, we can do both. And both are good.
Speaking with other tongues is designed to equip us from the inside out. It affects the part of us from which all permanent change comes, our human spirit.
So, we need to let that flow. Tongues is an activation gift that activates the other gifts and the other abilities of our spirit.
1 Corinthians 14:1 says pursue love, now a lot of people say we’ll I just want love, we’ll it is wonderful to have love and it is wonderful to have the love of God and it’s wonderful to feel love, but actually were supposed to do stuff. So, just enjoying love is a bit selfish. Because what does love do, it gives. God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. So, once we are filled with love we will want to give to other people and bless and to serve and to minister and to empower and to encourage others. And we need a strong spirit to do. That so it says pursue love yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts.
So, you have to cultivate the desire earnestly. And in the amplified version it says easily pursue and seek to acquire this love, make it your aim, your great quest which is wonderful. But we also need to do exactly the same for spiritual gifts. Earnestly desire and cultivate spiritual gifts, so we need to pursue them. Now remember the focus is always on the giver and not the gift itself. Because it is the Spirit that were looking to engage with and to have a flow of His Spirit through us, not just the gifts that he gives.
1 Corinthians 13: 1 If I speak with the tongues of men and angels. So, there are tongues which are human languages. There are tongues which are angelic languages. Now John 20:20 says this. And this is after Jesus had come back from the resurrection and he met with his disciples, and it says this he breathed on them and said to them receive the Holy Spirit.
So, Pentecost was not when the disciples were born again. They already received the Holy Spirit because Jesus breathed on them.
So, they received the Spirit that was within them that brought their spirit to life, at that point. But Jesus said Luke 24:49 behold I am sending forth the promise of my Father upon you. Notice it wasn’t in, it was upon, but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. So, it’s not just that we receive the Spirit to come to live inside us we also have an encounter with the Spirit which clothes us with power. It shows us what it’s like to have the spirit around us, to be enveloped, to be baptized in the Spirit so that we will have power.
Now once we have engaged in that then its our spirit and the Holy Spirit that comes around us by flowing from the inside.
Acts 1:5 Jesus said you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Now I can just imagine what those disciples felt, and they waited in the upper room for a number of days waiting for that- wow what is going to happen. What is this going to be, what does being baptized in the Spirit mean? And I would imagine that they were thinking and anticipating and calling out on God and saying God do it. Pour it out from heaven, clothe us with power from on high. And by the time that God opened up heaven and poured it out, they were really, really hungry and waiting for it. Now we need to be that hungry for the presence of God and for his power. And so, if you have not been baptized in the Spirit or you have been baptized in the Spirit but you’re not speaking in tongues. Then I encourage you to be hungry, to be anticipating that God is going to do that for you.
Because he wants to meet you with it. Acts 2:1 this is what happened. and then we are going to go into experiencing this. When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Just like we are here all together in one place and suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting and there appeared to them tongues of fire distributing themselves and they rested on each one of them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
Now who wants that, now if you have that experience before but not in all its fullness and you want more. Then be hungry for more because we’re going to just invite God to do that.
Now I was in the realms of heaven, looking, seeing what picture that God wanted to use to illustrate what he wanted to do this morning. and this is what I saw, the windows of heaven open and the Holy Spirit, the presence of God being poured out like a waterfall. I want to encourage you to do right now, if you want to receive this, if you want to allow that Spirit to come around you, to empower you, to fill you, to restore you, then just close your eyes and picture that window, that doorway open.
Now I just open that everlasting door over this building, be lifted up oh you everlasting door be open windows of heaven and pouring down out of heaven over your life is a flow of the Spirit of God coming around each of you right now, as a cloud, a waterfall. Just begin to sense his presence around you enveloping you, filling you. draw it into your innermost being, breath it in deeply, drink it in deeply. As it clothes you with power from on high, feel the power coming out of an open heaven over you right now.
Some of you are just beginning to feel that, become sensitive to it, you may feel hot, you may feel electricity, you may feel vibration, you may feel an overwhelming cocoon of peace around you and love and joy around you. For those of you who need physical healing just feel the sense of the healer surrounding you right now.
Surrender that physical part, whatever it is, surrender it and allow the presence of God to restore and make you whole. Allow your genetic and the cells of your body to be restored from trauma. Any cells which shouldn’t be operating, allow the power of God, being clothed with his power, healing power to touch those cells in your body and to change them. To change your genetic material, to change the cells, to release all the trauma and bring healing. Spend a few minutes just receiving that, picture it, picture the cells of your body being healed and made whole. Picture a change and transformation as the Spirit touches you.
For those of you who want the gifts of the Spirit to flow just reach out, pursue, open up your heart, the desire of your heart and allow the Spirit to fill you. That the language of tongues to just begin to flow out of your spirit. Just begin to worship, praise, speak to God in tongues, let the words form within your spirit and be release into your mind, or out through your mouth. Those of you who would want a new tongue then just ask God to release that, to release different languages.
Just looking in the realm of the Spirit I can just see what is being poured in and around you, it is an amazing sight in the spiritual realm, the angels are being released, fragrances of God’s presence is here.
If you need that refreshing touch, you have been dry and weary, it has been a hard going. Times of refreshing come from the presence of the lord, that refreshing shower cascading over you, deep calling out to deep, calling you back into intimacy, calling you to be still and to know he is God. Just sense that refreshing garment of praise instead of the spirit of heaviness. Just feel the heaviness just lift off, as he places around you, I can see some of you he is placing around you right now a garland, fragrant around your neck, refreshing, welcoming you. Some of you, your desire is to flow in the works of Jesus and greater works, just allow being clothed with power from on high, just feel that electricity, that power go into you strengthening you. Just feel it, just sense it, just receive it, so it can flow from you, so you can give freely what you’ve received. So that you can impart some word of prophecy, some spiritual gift to someone else. So be open to the Spirit to give you a revelation a word of knowledge a word of wisdom, gift of healing, a gift of miracles. Just be sensitive to receive it and be willing to release it.
I sense some of you struggling with the concept of the Spirit. Jesus is just going to stand in front of you now and he is going to breath, just as God breathed the breath of life into Adam, Jesus wants you to surrender your life to him, so he can breathe the spirit in you. So, that your spirit can come alive, and you can know the love of God, the acceptance and affirmation of his presence as he comes to live within you. Just surrender your life to him, open up your heart to him just respond to his call to come and follow him. If you open your heart to him, he will come in and dwell and create this place of the kingdom within you, the Spirit within you bringing life. Now just prepare, just to take what you have received today, as a testimony that you can enter into day after day in your own time. You can sit under an open heaven; you can engage that which is poured out of heaven. You can begin to flow in your spirit, just use this as a doorway into your personal time with God, to know him and to know yourself, o.k.