Tree of Life Blog

One of the greatest dangers for grace Christians is the danger of natural Christianity.  

The leaders of the grace movement across the world are some of the greatest Bible teachers who have ever lived, and we have never had access to so much good teaching.  Some days I can listen to hours of teaching and be fed so well.  No generation of Christians has access to the amount of teaching we do, and it is awesome.

But it is also dangerous.  And I want all of you, especially the elders and pastors reading this, to know there is a real danger.  I have fallen into the trap, and so has Tree of Life as a whole from time to time.  You see when your leaders are teachers, you emphasise the Word of God.  And we have to, there is a reason that the first four words of our church’s cultural maxims are “Full of the Word”, through the Word of God we learn how to have a personal walk with God, we learn about the importance and power of the Word, and the integrity of God as He keeps every promise in the Word.

The Word is vital, and it is great the teachers we have, but some of us have listened to the words of the teachers, and got great teaching, not great life!  That leaves us with a form of doctrine, and not the power of God.  It’s not the teachers’ fault – they are doing what God has called them to do, but it is us – we are not plugging into serving, and local church, and discipleship – we just plug into teaching, as if great doctrine makes great Christians.  It’s part of it, but only part.

The foundation of the Word is vital, and I want to lay that foundation in every heart in the Tree.  I want every Christian that comes into my sphere of influence to be solid and founded on the Word of God.  I do not agree with, do not want, and will not flow with anything that is not in the Word of God.  I am nothing but grateful to God for the foundation that has kept me right on track, even to today.

But I am not a teacher of the Word, though I often operate in that realm.  I am first and foremost a pastor of a local church, though my secondary role is the apostolic founder of a network of churches.  Within that function as a pastor, I have to be supernatural and flow with the Spirit.  The foundation of the Word has to be a springboard into the supernatural flow of the Spirit.

You have to learn about the dimension of the supernatural.  You don’t have an option, in fact if you take all the supernatural out of the Bible you end up with a very small book indeed.

Right now there is a divide in the charismatic church – those who build the foundation of the Word and those who flow in the Spirit.  The problem is you need to do both – you need to dig down on the foundation of the Word and see that the Word is supernatural and let the supernatural power of the Word lead you to flow with the Spirit.

It amazes me still that there are people who are committed Christians who do not believe in miracles – it’s like I don’t know what Bible they are reading!  Do not let anyone take you away from the power of the Spirit.

The greatest thing that will keep you from flowing in the Spirit is not demons, it’s not witchcraft, it’s not the devil.  It’s being so planned, so natural, so used to doing things without the flow of God that it doesn’t matter:

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2.14)

This is the Word of God and it is true: the natural man cannot flow with the Spirit because the flow of the Spirit looks stupid to him.  To be natural means to think like a normal human being.  It means to limit yourself to what you can see and feel.  It means to be logical, normal, analytical.  That attitude is absolutely something that cuts us off from the flow of the Spirit.  You need to realize this.

Speaking in tongues is not logical, it’s not normal, it’s not analytical.  As long as you think like a normal human, you will never speak in tongues. You will never prophesy, you will never pull someone from a wheelchair.

It’s only a small small step from logical and analytical to judgemental!  In the natural mind you cannot flow with the Spirit!

You have to learn how to flow with the Spirit of God.  You have to learn to see with your spiritual eyes, hear with your spiritual ears, and feel with your heart.  The supernatural is not normally dramatic or spectacular.  It’s subtle, you hear it, you see it on the inside, and you step out in faith.

To do this, you have to be able to reject natural thinking, and the data from your natural eyes or ears.

Many years ago I was asked to preach in a church I knew well.  I got the train there, and started to walk to the church.  But I just had the inclination to walk the other way, so I followed the inclination.  It wasn’t a deep sense, just a slight feeling, but I have learned to listen to that.  So I started walking away from the church.  My natural mind was saying “no, go to the church, be on time, be reliable” – it was using logic to determine my path, but I was following the Spirit’s path.  I had to ignore my mind to follow the Spirit.

After walking so far, that I could not make it to the church on time, I saw a car showroom.  I felt led of the Spirit to go in – again, no flashing lights or burning fires – just a sense.  I could have easily ignored it.  I went in and I saw an old friend of mine, who I used to go to church with.  They asked me what I was doing and I told them about everything that had happened to that point.  They said they weren’t walking with God any more, but would be happy to drive me to church so I made my meeting.   They drove me, came to the meeting and rededicated their life to God.

I could have listened to my mind.  I would have got to church and taught a great message.  But there is another path, a higher path, for you to walk down.  It can easily be ignored.  Samuel thought the voice of God was Eli.  I could have thought it was just pizza.  But I am glad I flowed with the Spirit that day.

You have to learn how to flow with the Spirit.  Next week we will do some teaching on this in the realm of healing.  Get ready!

 

This Sunday we had a glorious time of worship as the Spirit led us in the service and it was something special.  I have been thinking about this for a long time, but I believe now is the time to put pen to paper (or type in the blog) about flowing with God.

You see I have become convinced in the last year or two that there is no success at all unless we learn to flow with God.  Let me say it like this: you will only succeed in life and in church to the degree you learn to flow with God.

The problem with flowing with God is that He is bigger than you, smarter than you, kinder than you, and wiser than you.  So it isn’t easy to predict what He wants to do.  You have to learn to be humble, to listen to him, to relinquish your ability to control everything around you.  In short, you have to trust Him.  For the last few weeks, I have not been in control of the services in Tree of Life Dagenham.  They haven’t been out of control, they have been in His control, and He has helped more people, healed more people, and inspired more people than I could ever have done if I kept control in my hands.

You can’t guess who God is going to use to minister to people.  You can’t guess which person is going to get healed in the service.  You can’t tell if God isn’t going to flow through the pastor’s son or through a virtual stranger.

You have to learn to flow with God.  If you flow with the move of God, you are actually moving with God and things will happen.  If you fight the flow, then you are fighting God – good luck with that one!

We need to lose our confidence in our ability and regain confidence in His ability.

We have to grow up.  We have to grow up in healings, in miracles, in manifestations of the Spirit.  We have to grow in our ability to flow with the Spirit.  In our small groups, in our big groups, in our prayer meetings, in preaching, in worship, at school,  at college, in work, everywhere we go.

So all of us need to learn to follow the Spirit.  I almost put this post in my leadership blog, but it’s not for “leaders”, it’s for all of us!  Learn to follow the Spirit.

Here are three things all of us can do to follow the Spirit.

1. Minister healing to people
   1. The greatest key to healing I can tell you about is to follow the Spirit. In Bulgaria they brought me a boy blind in one eye.  As I prayed, nothing was happening.  He was not getting better.  I started to pray for wisdom and pray in tongues, I submitted to the Spirit.  Then suddenly, I saw the boy’s problem wasn’t in the eye but in the optic nerve.  I commanded healing to the nerve and suddenly the boy could see out of that eye.  In a prayer line, don’t start at one end and go down the line, ask the Spirit to lead you.  I have sent people back before because there is no leading to pray with them.
2. Ministering the Holy Spirit
   1. Watch what God is doing!  If you see God is touching someone then go over and touch them.  Follow the Spirit.  This isn’t just for church services, we just had it yesterday in a families’ house.  They invited a bunch of people over from church and a bunch of people from their family.  As we interacted, God led us to minister to them.  People got saved, people got powerfully touched by the Spirit.  Why?  Because we have learned to follow the Spirit not try and lead Him!
3. Growing the Church
   1. Follow the Spirit.  Where are things happening, where is the Spirit moving.  Learn to follow!

Let’s be like Jesus – I can only do what I see my Father doing.

I will help you flow with God more in the next few weeks.  Loads of love to all of you!

Why not ask questions on the blog?  I will try and answer them.

In the world’s system of doing things, when you give something away you have less.  But we are not at all interested in the world’s system of doing things.  We have access to God’s Word and God’s Spirit and God’s way of doing things.

In the world, give away some food you have less food.  Give away money you have less money.  Give away land you have less land.  But that is not how it works with God – when you give God’s way you always end up with more returning to you!

In God’s economy, any gift you give away brings increase to you.  You cannot lose giving to God!

When you give a gift, the power and grace of God works on your behalf to bring that gift back to you thirty, sixty and 100 fold back into your life!  Isn’t that good news?

God will always prosper a giver.  The world says that giving depletes your wealth.  The world is wrong, God is right.

Every gift you give is an invisible seed bringing a miracle your way.  The more you give gifts, the more comes back to you.

The Bible has a wonderful promise to every giver:

Many will entreat the favour of the prince: and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts (Proverbs 19.6)

When you give gifts, God will make people be friendly to you.  Even your enemies will have their hearts changed by the power of the Word.

Your gift is a natural key that unlocks supernatural power.  Believe it or not, that’s the truth of the Word.  The Bible says it and that’s all I need to know.  God wants you to have good friends, and good friends always come to a generous giver.

7.  Be there.  You don’t need new shoes and your child can go to the game Saturday.  Be in church, it will encourage and help others.  It might even bless you.

6.  Be on time.  The service is a whole event and you not wandering in late helps everyone else.  It might even bless you.

5.  Be early.  Turn up thirty minutes early and see if anyone needs help.  You will inspire and encourage so many people.  It might even bless you.

4.  Worship with all of your heart.  Go to the altar, jump and dance, kneel, sing, shout and have a great time loving God.  People around will be lifted and encouraged by your enthusiasm.  It might even bless you.

3.  Take notes during the preaching.  It means that you have something to give to other people in your week, that you can remember the lessons apply them in your life and inspire the people around you.  It might even bless you.

2.  Give big.  At least tithe!  But go big, that money will mean your church can have more stuff, more leaders, more staff, help more people around the world and have more fun.  It might even bless you.

1.  Don’t rush off.  Hang around, have a cup of tea or coffee.  Ask someone how their week was, listen to someone, smile at someone, love people.  It will help people so much.  It might even bless you.

I am blogging from Rome today, at a conference of pastors from all over Europe.

Whenever we have conferences at Tree of Life, we have people call and ask what I consider strange questions about our preachers…

Are they a grace person?
Have they been to such and such Bible College?
Are they proper Word of Faith?
Who is their spiritual covering?

When you cut away all the fluff from these questions, they are all the same question: what is that person’s pedigree? 

If you buy a new pedigree dog it can cost thousands of pounds.  A pedigree is a dog that is pure bred, all it has its DNA from the same breed.  People pay lots of money to own pedigree dogs, and they are the dogs that win awards at shows.

And people seem to take the same approach to preachers… oh, he preaches the pure message, he only preaches at this place to these people, he has a real pedigree.

And what has happened is people have forgotten the power of a mongrel.

Do you know what the unhealthiest breeds of dogs are?  Pedigrees!  Especially poodles and dogs like that.  The reason being that another name for purebred is inbred.  All those dogs come from very tight families and only having the DNA of one family means you are very vulnerable to health problems.

And the unhealthiest Christians of all?  Those who only get their DNA from the same small, inbred family of teachers and preachers.

You need to be a bit of a mongrel Christian, it’s good for your health.  I’m not saying that you should listen to some dead, dying, denominational preacher who got his job through playing a system.  I’m saying there are a lot of Christians on planet earth bearing great fruit who have different doctrines and emphasises and ideas and philosophies from your small circle and that you will always be healthier if you take the time and effort and wisdom to find out why.

Selah.

treeoflife is on Mixlr http://mixlr.com/treeoflife

So you have all this authority on planet earth!  You have the same authority as Jesus Christ.  Well, how can we use this authority to change the world?  The answer is so simple – it is voice-activated.

Jesus explains it so clearly in Mark 11.23:

For truly I say to you, That whoever shall say to this mountain, Be you removed, and be you cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he said shall come to pass; he shall have whatever he said. (Mark 11.23)

So when the mountains are in your way – and a mountain is anything in your path stopping you from doing all God has called you to do – then you have to speak to the mountain.

One of the biggest problems that Christians cause for themselves is that they don’t speak to the mountain, they speak to God about the mountain!  Now I am not against speaking to God – you should pray, you should fellowship with, worship, praise, thank, ask, love God all the time.  It’s important!  You should also listen to God and the wisdom He wants to share with you.

So next time you are sick (sickness is a huge mountain.  It’s not from God and it’s not God’s will), don’t have a chat with God about the sickness.  Don’t moan to God, complain to God and whine at God about the sickness.  No – you have authority.  You are not a beggar, you are a king.

So you tell the sickness in no uncertain terms: “Oi sickness, leave my body right now, in Jesus’ name”.  And it will!

You might be a bit awkward speaking to a sickness, or a debt, or a situation.  But remember Jesus spoke to a fever, He spoke to trees, He spoke to storms and wind and rain.  He told us to speak to trees and to mountains.  It’s not the Lord that is making you feel embarrassed – it’s the world.  So step above that feeling and command some things.  Let’s use our authority in Christ with our words today.

http://www.treeoflifedagenham.com/complete-in-christ.html

Two powerful messages on how the devil is defeated and who we are in Christ.  This is great stuff, and listening to these will lift you to a higher level and help you see yourself the way God sees you!

Whenever you start teaching on the authority of the believer, you start hearing people ask questions like “what do I need to do to get that authority”, “how can I have that authority”.  So the foundation I want to lay in the next couple of posts is this: YOU ALREADY HAVE THE AUTHORITY OF THE BELIEVER!

Did you know that salvation already belongs to the sinner?  Jesus is the propitiation not just for our sins but for the whole world (1 John 2.2).  The worst sinner in the world is someone who Jesus died for, just like you and just like me.  We are not supposed to tell people they are off to hell – our mission is to tell people the good news, and we are supposed to tell people they are reconciled to God.

However, all that provision of salvation will never benefit anyone unless they believe it.  Every sinner will go to hell with their debts cancelled already unless someone tells them, they believe it and then they benefit from it.

And that’s the same with Christians and the authority of the believer.  We already have it. It was ours all along!

Ephesians 1:3 reads, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us [the whole Church] with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” The American Standard Version renders “all spiritual blessings” as “every spiritual blessing.” This means every spiritual blessing there is. In Christ, all spiritual blessings belong to us. Authority belongs to us whether we realize it or not!

My wife and I were once entertaining at our house, and we realized we didn’t have enough cheese to complete the dish my wife was making.  So with the man of the couple we had round, we walked to the local corner shop to pick up some extra cheese.  We got there and we picked up the cheese and a couple of other things, and we got to the till, and I had forgot my wallet.  Feeling very embarrassed, I had to ask my guest to pay for the food!  What a bad host!

What was even worse was on the way home, for some reason I patted my shirt pocket, and I realized that I didn’t have my wallet but I did have my bank card in the shirt pocket.  I had taken it out of my wallet in the morning because I was going to buy somethings online!

I had the ability to buy the food all along, but due to ignorance, I didn’t and couldn’t.  You see it is the truth that sets us free.  It is not knowing things that destroys us!  You need to realize right now that you don’t have to do anything to gain the authority.  It is already ours!

Today I am starting a new series on the authority of the believer.  It goes hand in hand with the stuff I am teaching on heart at the moment!

I think that many Christians today are very confused on the issue of the believer’s authority.  The underlying deceit that brings confusion is firstly the lie of the traditional denominations that the authority that Christians had in the 1st century has somehow passed away.  The second lie is the deceit of the charismatic churches that only special anointed people have the authority in this world.

The truth is that when we got every spiritual blessing in Christ, the day we became Christians, we got the authority of Jesus Christ to wield on the planet.

It’s really, really important that you understand this.  You need to know the awesome power you have and the great responsibility you have as a believer to examine, investigate and utilise this power to make the world a better place.  The enemy of our souls, the devil, has worked overtime to bring confusion here and make sure that God’s people do not know how much authority they have.

He blinds people still (2 Cor. 4.3-4) and many Christians are sadly so, so blind and do not believe how much authority they have.

To grasp authority and how much authority we have in Christ, our first foundational truth is we have to learn the difference between authority and power.  Sadly, there isn’t a single translation of the New Testament that correctly translates the words for “power” and “authority”, and so people have got confused.  For example in Luke 10.19 in the KJV it says:

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

That is a bad translation, sadly.  The accurate truth from the Greek is that Jesus has given us authority over the power of the devil.  The image is of a road, traffic is surging past, high powered vehicles are racing by and suddenly a man in uniform steps and raises his hand.  Every vehicle stops.

Why?  Because of the man’s great power?  No – he is not more powerful than a juggernaut.  But he has authority.  Authority always triumphs over power and we have authority in Christ.

When you realize that you have authority over all the works of the power of the enemy, then you can face the devil without fear, without any sense of inferiority, without any hesitation or remorse.  You have the same authority as Christ right here right now.

Next week: where does that authority come from (it’s a good one)