We are learning that we have access to one another as a family. And to be a family is more important than being religious. The whole world is finding that the satanic attack is against being a family. That is why the book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, ends with God saying that He will send the spirit of Elijah: “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. And he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.” Malachi 4:5–6.
All over the world you find the generation gap and the hostility between various generations of people. Never has the world changed so rapidly as it has in the last fifty years; and it is difficult for people who are born in one decade to understand those who are born in the next. It seems that there is a great gulf: where it used to be a hundred years, now it is ten years. But what is happening with us? As God loves us and says that we are a family, the first, the second, and the third generations in this movement are all flowing together as one; and they are having fun. There are times of fun that we have together, in which we don’t take ourselves seriously by giving one another the dignity of position; yet we honor one another with that glorious, wonderful thing of being sons of God together in the family of God. And that is all the dignity that we really need. We love each other so much.
You may never have anything more simple and yet more basic in your life than to realize that all of our relationships are based either upon somebody’s report or upon a revelation from God to our hearts.
In Matthew chapter 16, the Lord posed this question: “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” And the disciples said, “Well, some say that You’re John the Baptist; some say that You’re Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. That’s what they’re all talking about.” Then He put it to them: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And He said, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal that to you.” In other words, “It did not come by some report that somebody said, but My Father revealed that to you from heaven” (Matthew 16:13–18).
You can go through the New Testament and find a lot of illustrations of people’s opinions about Jesus: “Well, He’s a good man. He must be from God or He couldn’t do these wonderful works” (John 7:12, 31; 9:33); all the way from saying that, to the other end of the scale where they said, “He’s a glutton and winebibber” (Luke 7:34), or “He casts out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils” (Luke 11:15). The reports that people gave varied a great deal. But in the midst of all of the people’s opinions, and their questioning and their wondering, some would say, “Master, we know that You are sent from God; no man can do these works unless God is with him” (John 3:2)—and now we’re talking about Nicodemus. But you see, behind it had to be the fact that the Lord said, “You have to have a revelation of Me. You have to have something that God shows you about Me.”
You are either going to go by report or by revelation. This is very important—you have to have a revelation of the Lord if you are going to stay in a walk with God, because we are not that religious. We don’t teach rituals. We don’t teach a lot of doctrines. It is just one basic principle: If you have a revelation of the Lord, then you stand solid. You can hear all kinds of reports, but the thing that is going to make us one—all of us one—is going to be based upon the work of the Holy Spirit in us. It is based upon our faith in a revelation that God gives us and a Word that God gives us. Isn’t that marvelous? That’s why we are still here.
You can become disappointed in things. Even the Lord Himself, when some became offended and left, said to the disciples, “Will you also go away?” And Peter said, “To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:60–68). You have had a revelation that this is a Word from God; this is the Lord who is ministering to us. Someone may come along to introduce you to the Lord, but flesh and blood cannot reveal Him to you. In the first chapter of Galatians you find a story in which Paul describes how he received the Word, the gospel that he preached. He said, “When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, I did not confer with flesh and blood. This gospel I didn’t get from any man. The Lord revealed it to me” (Galatians 1:11–16).
I am going to tell you something that is very true. Listen carefully: It is not what I tell you to believe; it is what you listen to and open your heart to in order to receive a revelation from the Lord that is going to make it real for you. I am not a salesman who tries to talk you into something every time you come to church. I want you to hear the Word and look to the Lord, and have the Lord make it so real to you that it is a revelation you will never walk away from, that you believe it in your heart.
Someone else can come along and say something else. Well, that’s what Paul wrote about: “Though we or an angel from heaven would come and preach some other word to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8). It could happen. It could happen that other people would say, “This is false doctrine; this is not true.” But the only way you are going to avoid deception is that you have revelation—revelation of the Word and of the Lord. It has to be that way.
We can be one because we have a revelation of the Lord together. Do you know what an escort is? We all should consider ourselves as being a spiritual escort service. Every person we contact, we escort to the Lord. We don’t try to convert people. We don’t try to talk them into something—because if you can talk them into something, somebody else can talk them out of it. We escort them to the Lord; and when they see the Lord, they know Him for themselves. Then it becomes real to them. That is what we have to be very careful to do with the children. The children must not be taught a religion. They must be exposed to the Lord in such a way that they have a revelation of Him and they come to serve Him. That is very important, for these are days of great deception.
You say, “John, you know the Lord, and that’s enough for me.” No, it isn’t. I will never let you settle for that. I will never be satisfied until you know Him just as I know Him. This same principle also applies to knowing one another—not after the flesh but after the spirit. You say, “Well, I came to know the Lord by revelation.” Then you are going to have to know one another by revelation also; and this is where oneness comes in, not by flesh and blood. There can be gossip, there can be rumors, there can be false reports, and there can be actual facts that discredit us to one another; but you can have a love in your heart and a faith in your heart because you have had a revelation from the Lord for the other person.
What does Paul say in II Corinthians 5:16? “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh.” I don’t want to know you by your history. I don’t want to know you by your family line, or your racial characteristics. I want to know you in the spirit. Do you know me? Don’t know me after the flesh. How can you really know me unless you know my heart and you know my spirit? It has to be by revelation. And when you know me this way, and you know that your brother knows you the same way, it is the basis of oneness. And you can say, “We know the Lord by revelation and we have a revelation of one another.”
That takes away the speculation, the judging one another, the trying to figure one another out. The next time you have a problem about your brother, or your sister, or your wife, or your mother, or your daughter, or your son, or your cousin, or your nephew, or your neighbor, just say, “Lord, show me that person.”
I remember seeing a movie, a long time ago, in which someone came along and said, “Everybody, tear down your fences!” They did, and when they went to see and to relate to one old man, they found out the reason why he seemed so hostile; he was nearly deaf and could not hear them when they greeted him or talked to him. Finally, they understood that he was a nice person inside; but they hadn’t known this, because all they could see was an old man who grumped around and would not even say “hello” on the street.
How many of us have problems of one kind or another? I don’t care what your problems are. People don’t really know you because they don’t see with revelation. Have you ever cried, “Oh, that people would know me!” The cry of Paul in Philippians 3:10, “Oh, that I may know Him, the Lord Jesus Christ,” has a second cry: “Oh, that I may know my brother, and that my brother may know me!” It has to come by revelation. How harsh people are in their judgment of one another, when all they need to do is just reach out and touch one another. And you can get a whole, new understanding: In the Spirit something becomes real because you love one another.
You say, “Well, you know all these things about me.” It is really easy for people to think, “Brother Stevens knows all the things we’ve done badly, and he’s reading our minds and spirits.” And do you know what? You’re right. But look a little further. I am not seeing you with criticism. I do not care what has happened, what you have done, what you haven’t done, whether you walked close to the Lord or afar off. I see your heart.
When you see a person’s spirit, and you see him with a revelation from the Lord about him, you will never see him any other way. That is why, when I first meet a person, I look to the Lord and say, “Lord, give me a revelation of this person.” Someone may not even be serving the Lord, but I get a revelation of him; and I see something good in him, in his spirit. And when I see this, I never think of that person again in another way. He may go out tomorrow and steal hubcaps off a car and get arrested. That’s not the issue. What people do, after God reveals what is good, doesn’t matter to me; I see that eventually they will be what is in their spirit because we will believe for them and love them.
Watch a little child just learning to walk—he stumbles and he falls. Now, do you evaluate him and say, “This child is clumsy and has little coordination”? Or do you see in him the potential: “Here could come a mighty athlete in the Lord. Here could come someone special down the road.” And so you have faith, because what you are in your spirit is what you are becoming; and only God can reveal our spirits to one another. That is why you have faith for one another. That is why you are able to look in the spirit and see one another and prophesy to one another and try to convey a faith to one another in the spirit: “This is a Word from the Lord; this is what God is going to make you; this is what you can be because I believe for you, because I love you.” Isn’t that wonderful? This is the way we are going to relate.
It comes down to something very simple. Whatever others tell you about me, you still must have a personal revelation of me in the spirit. Whatever you know about one another, you still will have to have a personal revelation of one another in the spirit.
There is a Scripture, from the song of Hannah, which says, The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. I Samuel 2:3b, KJV. He takes what you do, and He weighs it to see what is really behind it. Sometimes it just may be circumstances that you were thrown into, and you find that your record was not really what was in your heart. It wasn’t really what you intended; it wasn’t your motivation. Out of it came an expression that was not true to you.
How God loves you! Aren’t you glad that He weighs the actions to see what is in your heart, and to see who you are? You have to do the same for each other. Oh, there is such a need for this!
It is so difficult to get people to just come and say, “We love one another and we believe for one another enough that we will seek God, and whenever there is any issue we will say, ‘Lord, show me what is in this person’s heart.’ And if it seems that he has a lot of problems, we will say, ‘Lord, show me what is in Your heart for him.’ ”
Saul of Tarsus, who became the Apostle Paul, was called a murderer because he held the coats of those who stoned Stephen (Acts 7:58). He threw Christians into jail (Acts 8:1–3). He was a wicked man. But God saw his heart. Years later, in one of his epistles, he mentioned two of his relatives. He said, “My kinsmen who were in Christ before me” (Romans 16:7). Think what it was like for Saul to recognize this fact, “I had some kinsmen, some relatives, who loved me and prayed for me.” Maybe they had a revelation of what God had for that man, and what He was going to do for his life. Begin to believe for one another. It is not where you are; but rather, how does God see you? Can we see one another with the eyes of the spirit and revelation? I think we can.
You have to apply this both positively and negatively. If someone comes along and says something good about somebody, don’t be too quick to believe that, either. For false prophets and false Christs can come and deceive many (Matthew 24:5, 11, 24). We read in the book of Revelation what was written to the church at Ephesus: Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars. Revelation 2:2b, KJV. Even when someone looks like an angel of light, don’t believe him (II Corinthians 11:13–15). Don’t even believe the things that you see on television in the great electronic church, because that is a great area of competition for getting money. Watch what they are doing before you say, “Oh, they talk about sweet Jesus so much.” Watch it. Many will say, “Lord, Lord, we cast out devils in Thy name; we did many mighty works.” And He will say, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:15–23). Get a revelation of it.
Open your heart and say, “Lord, show me.” We are not trying to convert anybody. I wouldn’t want to talk you into something. If you are disturbed by anything that you hear in a service, get down on your knees and say, “God, show me the truth. You show me this. And if this is real, I want it. If it is not real, it’s not going to bother me.” You will be surprised how reality is born by revelation.
I have just delivered something to you that you will have to appropriate and walk in. Here is a Kingdom proverb: Without love and faith, all reports are deceptive. In some way every report will have a measure of deception in it. With love and faith, all truth is a revelation, or becomes a revelation. God reveals it to your heart. This is why you are here. You say, “Well, I’m kind of confused because the church has gone through something.” So what? You had a revelation. The Word is still real. God spoke to your heart. “But things are changing.” I have news for you, they are going to change even more. We are heading into the perfect day (Proverbs 4:18). Things will never be the same as they were.
I do not explain anything except by the Word. I only speak the spirit of the thing, and you have to understand by spirit. If your spirit is not developed you will not understand what I am talking about, and I don’t have time to keep explaining myself. We are going to have to walk by a revelation of what the Spirit is saying; and you are going to have to learn to apply it to your life, to stabilize yourselves through the really heavy, rough times which we all are not only in, but which we will be in even more. The Lord is trying to teach us, because seldom to I say, “Now look what you went through and I’ll explain it all to you.” Pressure is designed for you to turn to the Lord and He will explain it to you, or you will never grow up. I am entreating you to really get into waiting on the Lord and seeing what the Word is saying as your answer, because the Word I am speaking, or the word I have spoken is your answer at that moment. But you are going to have to see what that Word is saying.
I speak the Spirit. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1. And when the Spirit is speaking, it is the Lord speaking to you to give you answers. But it is up to you to take that revelation and apply it to your own life. I am determined, with impartation, that we will never have to wait for a leader to come and explain something to us; but when you are going through something, you have an answer in the Word at that moment.
The people are feeling something very great. Very simply, they are feeling that they have access to me. But they are not really understanding what that access means. Does it mean that you can come over and camp on my doorstep and have a buddy-buddy relationship with me? It is not meaning that, because what is happening is just what we are saying here. You are getting a revelation that is clear.
Recently people have had conflicting reports of me. And we wonder about this, because it seesaws back and forth. They perceive me in the spirit, and they think, “Yeah, that’s God” And of course, it’s true; but then someone else begins to give little reports about this or that—criticisms, or the word doesn’t teach that and then they think I am teaching new age or false doctirine, but I don’t. Yet people get the wrong report. Then there is almost an intimidation on them until they get free of whatever religious spirit that is influencing them. What you must do is get a revelation from the Lord and stick with that, and not go by the reports that change with the weather.
I think Jacqueline Kennedy is an outstanding example in American history of a woman who was actually deified in the days of John Kennedy, and afterwards was panned and put down as much as the media ever could put down a woman. How can this be explained? She was the same woman all along; but at one time they were deifying her, and at another time they were putting her down. The reports changed. The best thing would be to say, “Lord, show me what she really is,” and go by that. This is the way we must be with things in the spirit also. It is very difficult in these times, because you can listen to the news report and not hear all the news. All you see is the tip of the iceberg when you watch the news on television. You don’t know what is going on. You see only the tip of the iceberg, and they even put cosmetics on that, so you never really see it as it is.
With these reports there is something very important that you have to do. You have to put them before God and say, “Lord, You confirm to me Your Word about this, instead of the pride of thinking that you can’t be wrong. ”Because the future depends, first, on the way that you receive a word from God, and next, on the way you relate to one another, until you grow up to the point where you need no man teach you, you have an intimate relationship where you Let the Spirit of God search your heart, but the imature are not able to do this, and they search their own heart, and it is not the Holy Spirit searching your heart because when He does, you are aware of His presence and there is no self-condemnation in it.
None of this can be based on some propaganda. I don’t want to sell you on anything. I don’t want you to sell each other on anything. None of us are personality people trying to win a salesmanship award. We have to see this by a revelation from the Lord and walk in it before the Lord.
What does it mean then to have access to me and to one another? Once you see it, I think you will realize that oneness is created by the revelation which you have, and by your faith. This is what brings the oneness. The oneness is there because you have faith.
You say, “Well, I am willing to relate to this report.” You are relating to something that probably doesn’t exist. You say, “Well, I have a good heart so I’ll worship this wooden idol.” You are worshiping nothing. Do you understand what I am saying? You cannot have a false image or a false concept of something. You have to have a revelation of God. In Athens, Paul saw the altar which had been built to “the unknown god” (Acts 17:19–23). The people didn’t know this god, but they still thought they had better offer sacrifices to him. That is futility!
Know me—know me in the spirit, not in the flesh; I won’t know you after the flesh either. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh. II Corinthians 5:16a, KJV. We know one another after the spirit. Know me that way. Know one another that way. Then what does access mean? In that revelation, and with our faith in it, comes a oneness; and that oneness gives us access to one another. Even if I never touch you and never say another word to you, I am one with you. The greatest revelations of oneness came when Paul was incarcerated in a prison, cut off from contact with the rest of the church; and yet he felt the oneness with them (Ephesians 4:1–6; Philippians 1:3–7). You have to believe this. It is not whether I am here; it is not whether you say, “Give me a lot of personal ministry, answer all my questions, bring the wisdom of God to me, counsel me, be something special to me.” It is already there for you. Just in our oneness I can loose it to you. You can get it yourself from the Lord.
Are you seeing this? This is what our access to each other really means. The access is in the spirit, and it is based on our oneness. I will be a lot more to you this way, than if you were to stand in line for six months waiting for your turn for counseling. You would be surprised at how much you will be led by the Lord without that. You say, “What are you going to do in the meantime?” Well, you would be surprised at how much ministry comes to many hundreds of people, flowing day and night, just because we are one. Because the Body is one, it makes increase of itself in love through that which every joint supplies (Ephesians 4:15–16). The flow is there. Let’s be one.
You do not dare see me as something that I am not, or you will believe something to your own hurt. You cannot make me something that God does not want me to be to you. Just relate to me in oneness; have a revelation of an oracle from God. That’s all.
This is a key for everyone. This is a Word for the Kingdom. The relationship ministers; but you don’t have a relationship except by revelation. It is the revelation that creates the relationship. Otherwise you have a wrong relationship. If I see another person after some story you have heard, or some soul-flesh concept, a mental evaluation about who you are, or your relationship to someone else, you will probably be deceived about it.
It is a lie unless it is a revelation from the Lord. So once I have a revelation of you, then that is what ministers. It is the relationship that ministers. We almost need to throw out our whole concept of access, because in our fleshly thinking, access means that I have to be able to come over and socialize with a person as I would with someone else. But what I would do with someone else might be a wrong relationship or a wrong bond with you. The term “access” does something in our thinking which we don’t need to have done, because once you have the relationship, that’s all there is to it. That ministers—it flows.
I could say, “Well, I want access to you, John; I want to be able to come over and be around you.” But it would do nothing but mess him up if I did not have a right relationship because of my wrong revelation. This Word frees us totally. I can be doing anything, and if I have a true revelation in a right relationship, then what I am will minister to him. That is how we are going to relate to one another.
If you don’t have a right relationship, you will keep saying, “I don’t have access to you, I don’t have access to you.” You will feel excluded from everything that is going on. If we don’t have a revelation, we are always demanding access on the wrong level.
This thing has to be real to us, because that is when the Word becomes our shepherd; and you do not even have to be with us. Then we become even more to each other. This Word is such a strength to us, such a life-flow. And if we have this relationship in the spirit, then we become a life-flow to you. And wherever you are, we can have the connection with you, that access.
This Word is like Christ speaking to us; and He wants us to know and to identify one another in the spirit. This is the Word—that we do not see one another in the flesh. That’s all over. He wants us to see and to relate to each other in the spirit. It says, “They that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). And I wondered, “Lord, You have to make it real to us.” Reading it is one thing, but it is another to have a pure revelation of what God says, that they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. I rejoice just knowing that God has given us a Word, and this is our destination. From here on, we see each other in the spirit; we relate in the spirit.