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Preface
Prov 23:7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. (NKJV)
Next to, “It is finished!” Proverbs 23:7 could potentially be one of the most powerful proclamations made in the entire Bible. It shows not only the limitless possibilities we have in Christ, but also that we don’t just think with our brains. Our hearts can also think. What we think in our hearts is what we believe. What we believe determines what we are. If you ever dreamed of being anything for God in His Kingdom, surely you would agree that it would be better to think His thoughts in your heart. To find out what God thinks about you, and to start thinking and acting in line with that is what will propel you into living out what He purposed for you. Your life in God’s hands has unlimited potential. In order to start walking in that potential, there are a few truths we need to absorb and think in line with first. If the truth has to set you free, it means you are being held prisoner by a lie. If you’re being held prisoner, it means that an area of your mind has not been renewed. That is why we have to break wrong thoughts and replace them with the thoughts God is thinking toward us (2 Cor 10:5). The thoughts and ideas I had about God when I got saved, in no way represents the Father I now know. I grew up in church, and to me He was this ‘being’ somewhere out there who apparently loved me, and who would send me to hell when I die unless I put my faith in His Son.
How many of you know that when you actually encounter God, your thoughts about Him change drastically? I was a university student when I had my first supernatural encounter with Him. It started when we went out dancing one night. While making a turn, I sprained my ankle and fell. My dancing partner fell on top of me, causing my knee to dislocate. That was not fun, so don’t try it at home! I had to wear a full-length robocop leg brace for the next 6 months. During this recovery time, Rensia and I went to visit her parents on their farm, about a 5 hour drive away. We had only recently started dating and this would only be the second time I would see her parents. I knew her father preached and held evangelism outreaches, because he told the ‘weirdest’ and most captivating stories about miracles, casting demons out and about some ‘Holy Spirit person’ I obviously didn’t know. The day I was to leave he asked me if he could pray for me since he believed God wants to heal my knee. I said, “Sure. That would be great.” I then turned around and started walking to my car to drive home.
He grabbed me by my shoulder and turned me around, looked into my eyes and told me, “No, you obviously don’t understand me, sit down in this chair.” Not wanting to upset my new girlfriend’s father, I sat down feeling very uncomfortable, scared and not knowing what was going to happen next. He lifted my legs and looked at my feet, showing me that one leg was about 2cm shorter than the other. Funny how in 19 years I never noticed this about myself? Then he said, “Jesus is now going to grow your leg.” I used to get nervous when people lifted their hands in worship, so just imagine what was going through my head now. He prayed very differently than anybody I had ever heard, but right there before my eyes, my leg started to grow longer. In fact it grew past being the same length as the other one. I felt an almost tingly-pins-and-needles-type sensation running down my leg as it grew. At this point he said, “No Jesus, not so far. Take it back a little.” Sure enough, it came back to where it should have stopped. I got up very quickly, hugged Rensia goodbye, got in the car and drove down that dirt farm road as fast as I could. Needless to say, I hardly made it to the first gate before I was sobbing uncontrollably. I cried for 5 hours all the way home. God became undeniably real to me. I could no longer think the same thoughts as before. “So why are thoughts so special?” Well, we are spirits who have souls and who live in bodies. The ‘spiritual you’ lives in the spiritual realities of God’s Kingdom, and is connected to the ‘physical you’ through your soul, which includes your mind, will and emotions. If your thoughts reflect the spiritual truths in our Father’s Kingdom, those realities have a channel to flow into and to be made manifest in the natural. That is why the way we think becomes so extremely important and why WE need to renew OUR minds. You are the only person who can renew your mind. Your pastor can’t, your friends can’t, your parents can’t, and not even God can renew your mind for you. Granted that God gives us revelation personally or through pastors, friends, parents or whoever, but you are responsible for renewing your own mind because revelation doesn’t automatically do it for you. The way you think is probably the single most important change you will need to make, next to believing in Christ, in order to fully walk in the grace that abounds to each of us. This book is intended for those who desire to walk in greater measures of the fullness of which we have all received. It will encourage those who have gotten started, as well as those who want to get going. I don’t want to put any performance pressures on anybody either, I only wish to encourage the wants and desires God placed inside you already.
Cornel Marais
Chapter 1: What To Do With All This Revelation?
After realizing and experiencing the fact that God can and actually wants to heal people, I started listening to Rensia’s dad preach and teach in churches all over South Africa. I was absolutely fascinated with his relationship with this ‘Holy Spirit person’. I had to learn more. I copied all the notes he used to teach and borrowed all his books on the subject. I had to get to know this Holy Spirit who touched my leg and my life that day. I got to the point where I knew so much about the Holy Spirit, but I never got to where I actually knew Him as a person. Luckily for us, He wants us to know Him more than we want to, so one day while I was sitting on my couch reading in my Bible about healing, my next-door neighbour walked in. I had my Bible on my lap, was smoking a cigarette, and held a beer in the other hand. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was reading about Jesus and healing and this ‘Holy Spirit person’. He was very surprised since he was the worship leader at the local student church and didn’t know that I was a Christian. I explained to him what I then knew and understood about healing and the Holy Spirit. We never prayed or did anything else ‘spiritual’ that day. The next day I was at home again when I heard a car horn blowing outside. Then I heard somebody shout my name very excitedly. I went out and stod on the balcony and saw my neighbor running up the stairs to my apartment with a big brown envelope. He seemed extremely excited. We went inside and he pulled out X-rays of a human spine. I held the X-rays up to the light and asked what was wrong, since it looked perfectly fine to me (We were both students in the medical field, so we knew a little about X-rays). He told me those were X-rays he had taken the same morning.
He had had scoliosis since childhood and he was about to be fitted with a back brace. His doctor sent him for X-rays to check the progression of the curvature and obviously no brace was needed anymore! I was reminded instantly of Mark 16, one of Rensia’s dad’s favourite scriptures. “These signs shall follow them that believe.” I suddenly realised what had happened. I told a person about Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the healing nature of God, and the Holy Spirit followed with a sign, confirming the words I spoke! Now I know you are probably still thinking about the cigarette and the beer. I put that in there to show that I wasn’t perfect when I started out and I didn’t know everything either. In fact, I still don’t know everything and also still make mistakes, just like you. What does that mean? It means I have never met a perfect Christian, but I do know a perfect Christ, and since He does the healing, He doesn’t need me to be perfect. You don’t have to be perfect for God to heal you, nor do you have to be perfect for God to use you to heal another person. God will heal you with sin in your life, and he will use you to heal other people with sin in your life. All you need to do is believe. To believe it, you need to change how you think. Paul wrote about this in Romans, in a much quoted, but very misunderstood verse.
Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (NKJV)
Most Christians are in some way busy searching for revelation in order to renew their mind. But little do they know that they can’t just take new revelation and build that upon old covenant mindsets. New and old don’t mix. Jesus told us that when He said you don’t put new wine (New Covenant) into old wineskins (Old Covenant). If you build new thought patterns on top of old ones, you will end up looking exactly like the majority of the church today: confused, frustrated, Gnostic and with very little, if any power. Jesus taught us that building on sand is not worth the effort, yet that is exactly what people do when they uphold traditions of man. Renewing your mind is also not as easy as having a light bulb go on above your head. You need to be rewired, so to speak. Have you ever heard the term “backward engineering”? That is when a competitor buys a rival company’s product, and takes it apart piece by piece to figure out how they built it, how it’s held together and how it works. This is a similar process to mind renewal. Revelation gives us the end product. We have to take that end product and use it to rewire ourselves, to figure out how we work. We all start off wired a certain way. Our default settings are old covenant. When we get born again, our spirits are made alive and we are given new default settings. Our minds and bodies still try to operate according to the old settings until we change them to reflect the new ones. Trying to live a new way through old default settings, is the most unrewarding, frustrating and useless thing anyone can attempt to do. It is much easier to find out what the new defaults are and live according to them. Usually it is in this rewiring process where we miss it most often, because many Christians go on a search for truth and revelation, only to find it. In itself, this is not the problem. It’s stopping at receiving the revelation that becomes problematic.
We seek and seek and seek and inevitably we find and find and find more revelation, yet nothing seems to change noticeably. We still live in frustration, we still get confused, and we become gnostic, believing there is that one other secret out there waiting to be found that will change everything for us. So should we look for revelation? Yes! With your entire heart search out the revelations about Jesus! But don’t just look in order to say you’ve found revelation. Learn how to apply revelation to rewire your thought patterns, to step into or to bring into manifestation what that revelation revealed to you about the Father. Rob Rufus always says, “Revelation is an invitation to a divine encounter with God.” Revelation shows you the end of a matter. Living out the end of a matter is the power encounter. You can live out revelation in many ways depending on what gets revealed, but the purpose of revelation is to set straight any knowledge that is not truthful in its representation of God, to free you from the lies that keep you bound up.
2 Cor 10:3-5 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledgeof God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, (NKJV)
The strongholds and arguments in this verse refer to inaccurate knowledge about God. What we think about Him comes from what we know about Him, and what we know about Him determines how we relate to Him. If our thinking is wrong, we are inevitably going to relate to Him wrongly. That is why we need to bring every thought to the obedience of Christ. Originally your knowledge or idea of God might have been this angry vengeful God who sits in heaven with a bag of thunderbolts ready to zap you when your sin piles up. Then you heard that Jesus died on a cross and now you could be forgiven. That’s the revelation, the end of the matter. You chose to believe it, got saved, and for a brief moment you live with joy and the wind under your wings, but then you sin again and all of a sudden your tyres go flat and everything is thrown into a flurry. You revert back to your old thought patterns (the ones you didn’t change) believing that God is again this angry person up there who is displeased with you because you sinned again. That makes you feel guilty, unsure of whether you have been forgiven and confused about what God thinks of you. So you go and beg for forgiveness. Your joy comes back but eventually you sin again. The guilt and condemnation
instantly flood back, keeping you on this treadmill of getting nowhere fast called legalism and religion, or by its better known name: Modern Christianity. Out of shear frustration you do one of two things: You either take offence at God, get angry with Him and the church and you kick your dog, or you turn to scripture to figure this thing out. If you chose option 1, don’t worry: All is never lost in Christ. If you chose option 2, also don’t worry: Scripture is easier to interpret than you think. The easiest way to get revelation is to NOT try and read between the lines. There are more in the actual lines than between the lines. Just read the lines, SLOWLY. If you speed read, you tend to read everything with an ‘Oh, yes, I’ve read this, I know this’ mindset and you will end up missing vital chunks of revelation in verses you know off by heart.
Since revelation is God revealing Himself to us, it means that He purposefully gives us revelation to correct misrepresented thoughts about Him in our minds. And like I mentioned before, revelation in itself doesn’t renew your mind automatically; we still have to do that ourselves. It is also far easier to rewire before a crisis than to try and rewire when the pressure is on. It is not the time to figure out how your gun works when you are under enemy fire. A soldier trains at boot camp and on the firing range and gets so familiar with his weaponry, so that when the battle comes, he is ready. If the world is smart enough to figure out that you need to prepare beforehand, why does the church live in a state of unpreparedness? Before, I said that Romans 12:2 is an often misunderstood verse. To show what I meant, I only quoted half the verse in the beginning. Not a lot of people read or quote the whole verse. Paul actually told us why mind renewal is so important.
Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (NKJV)
The reason why Paul said we need to renew our minds is so we may prove what the good and acceptable will of God is. Notice he said that we might prove the will of God, not merely know it. Now you can argue this in different ways. One way is to say that as you learn scripture and truth, you are able to theologically prove what the perfect will of God is from the Bible. Some Christians are excellent at this and have amazing academically sound doctrine, but many don’t have signs or wonders backing up what they say. Where is the power? It is important and good to know true theology yes, but good theology never saved anybody. Only the power of God saves. Academics will only take you so far, but the ability to bring heaven’s reality into a person’s life, proving what you say is true, is a very different story. Knowing about God is one thing. Knowing God and living a life of miracles with signs and wonders following is something else. We never think about it this way because the majority of Christians never even speak to non-believers about God. Imagine you are talking to a non-believer who happens to be sick. Most modern Christians would probably give you the number for a specialist doctor they know of, instead of using the opportunity to preach the Gospel. But let’s imagine that instead of pulling out your ‘A-list’ of doctors and meds, you tell them that God wants to heal them. The first thing that pops into their head is, “Oh no, a Christian.” But now you have stepped out of the boat so to speak and you start telling them scripture verses to try and prove it theologically, if they haven’t run away by now. You also realise you don’t know as much about God as you thought, nor where in the Bible it says what you’re trying to quote, or even if it says it the way you’re saying it. Don’t worry. I’ve also been there.
The humiliation and failure you experienced boils down to not being equipped properly. You might have been taught lots of Bible knowledge, but you might never have been given a chance to put it in to practice. What difference does that make? Plenty! Would you gofly a plane after having only read a book about flying? You have the book and it tells you what to do, so you don’t need anybody to teach you how to fly, right? Let’s see if you survive take-off… So why do Christians think just reading the Bible is the answer? The Bible is the inspired word of God, yes. It has all the answers you need, yes. It contains all truth, yes, but without the Holy Spirit teaching you it is no different from any other book you can get. Have you ever had a look at Paul’s idea of preaching and proving the will of God?
1 Thess 1:5 For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. (NKJV)
Here Paul says he not only preached words, but displayed power, and he did it in much assurance. The word in the Greek for ‘much assurance’ means to prove entirely, to convince completely, and to assure fully. In other words, there was no doubt left. Preaching is one thing, but to completely convince takes a demonstration of power. I can tell a sick person it is God’s will to heal them, but as long as they are sick, there is room for them to doubt, or no reason for them to believe me or God. But if I tell them and heal them, proving what I say is true, there is no room left for them to doubt.
Rom 15:18-19 For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient — 19 in mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. (NKJV)
1 Cor 2:4-5 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (NKJV)
1 Cor 4:20 For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. (NKJV)
Paul makes it very clear that in order to fully, or completely preach the gospel there has to be evidence in the form of signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit. Without power, you leave room for doubt. The Kingdom of God is one of power, and it is to be preached, demonstrated and advanced in that power. Jesus Himself had this same attitude that Paul had, of preaching with power and not words alone. Where do you think Paul got it from?
John 10:37-38 “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” (NKJV)
Jesus told the people to not believe Him if He didn’t do the works of the Father. What were the works of the Father? Well, to answer that, answer, ‘What did Jesus do?’ He healed, set free, delivered, and preached the Kingdom Gospel. He met the needs of man in the power of the Spirit. Verse 38 is also a very key verse. “That you may know that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” A few chapters later, Jesus prayed that those who believe on Him to also be in the Father and in Him as They are in each other.
John 17:20-21 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (NKJV)
Do you know that Jesus’ prayer was answered? Becoming one with the Father in Jesus through the new birth reconciled and connected us directly to God. He is in us as we are in Christ. Our spirits are united with Him. We are actually one spirit with the Lord. A marriage between a man and a woman is a type and shadow in the natural of this spiritual event. A man and woman enter into a covenant relationship with each other and become one flesh (Gen 2:24). When we become partakers of the covenant relationship between the Father and Jesus, we become one spirit with the Lord. That is why we celebrate communion, or common union.
1 Cor 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. (NKJV)
We are one spirit with Him and have been granted access to know the Father in exactly the same way Jesus does, which is intimately. Not only that, but it also gives us access to do the works that Jesus did and greater. I believe this enabling to do the same and greater works primarily comes through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, although I have seen and heard of miracles performed by people who have not been baptized yet. I also believe there is a difference between receiving the Holy Spirit at the point of your salvation, and receiving power to be a witness for Christ with signs and wonders through the baptism of fire.
John 20:19-22 Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (NKJV)
Here Jesus appears to His disciples after His resurrection and they become the first New Covenant Christians. After they believed, or got saved, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” We know this is the time when they got saved since in the next few verses, we are told of how doubting Thomas became a believer. He said He would not believe unless he saw Jesus for himself and stuck his fingers in the holes of His hands.
John 20:24-25 Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” (NKJV)
This also shows us how gracious Jesus is. He is always willing to meet you at your level of faith. The fact that the other disciples tried to get Thomas to believe proves that they already believed. Why else would you try to get somebody to believe something you don’t? In Luke’s account of the same event, Jesus instructs the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they receive the promise from the Father (Luke24:49). The promise of the Father is referring to the Holy Spirit.
John 14:16-17 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever — 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. (NKJV)
The Holy Spirit was promised to believers and cannot be received by the world, which is why He is only received through the new birth when we become new creations. So in order for the disciples to have received the Holy Spirit when Jesus blew over them, they had to have been born again at the same time. So now they are saved believers who have received the Holy Spirit, yet Jesus tells them to wait until they receive the power to be witnesses.
Acts 1:4-8 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; … 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (NKJV)
Receiving this power through the baptism of the Spirit is very important. Jesus, even though He was always perfect in the spirit, never did one miracle without first being baptized in the Spirit. It is immediately after He rose from the Jordan that the Spirit descended on Him. After that He was led away to be tempted and then He returned in the power of the Spirit (Matt 3:16, Luke 4:1). Immediately after Jesus’ baptism, His ministry exploded onto the scene. He started teaching, healing, delivering captives and training disciples. Jesus told the disciples that they would receive power to be witnesses. This meant that they would be able to provide evidence of Jesus’ finished work. That brings us back to proving the gospel. Jesus knew it wouldn’t help to send them out without this power, since they needed it to enforce what they were going to preach. Immediately after the Spirit was poured out, those 120 scared and fearful men turned into confident, powerful witnesses. This empowerment or baptism is available, and I believe vital to each one of us today. You can be saved without it, but why would you not want it? If we are truly serious about spreading the Gospel and being witnesses for Jesus, I think it is better that we do what Jesus said and go in the power of His Spirit. If you don’t have it get it. If do have it, start using it! To receive this power is part of the grace of God. The same grace that accepts you into the Family is the same grace that empowers you to represent the Family. Jesus is the only person in the Gospels that is exactly like you are today. He was the firstborn amongst many brothers. The firstborn of an entirely new race, who are known as the Sons of God! Everything Jesus gained by perfectly accomplishing what He was sent to do, was bestowed on us as joint equal heirs with Him, making us the righteousness of God in Christ.
Rom 8:16-17 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. (NKJV)
We are heirs of God and have become partakers of everything Christ has inherited as His joint equal heirs. And everything means just that. Not convinced yet? Look at the next verse. Remember to read slowly.
1 John 4:17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. (NKJV)
As He is, as Christ is, so are we in this world. Notice the tense used. As Christ is, so are we. As Christ is, now, at this moment, glorified, seated at the right hand of the Father, having all things placed under His feet already and having received all power and authority, so are we, now, in the world, exactly like Him. He is perfectly righteous, perfectly holy, perfectly sanctified. We are thus also perfectly righteous, perfectly holy and perfectly sanctified in Him through the free gift of His righteousness that came by grace alone through faith. These are only a couple of the thoughts which God is thinking about you, and they are the same thoughts you would do well to starting thinking about regarding yourself. I guarantee you that God has more faith in you that you will rule and reign in this life by the power of His Spirit than you do. Why? Because He knows what He made us to be, and what we are capable of through faith. We are only discovering more and more every day, and this is only the tip of the iceberg…
