Main Teaching 3: Minister in a Demonstration of the Spirit and Power

Chapter 3

Minister in a Demonstration of the Spirit and Power

The Holy Spirit taught Paul how to minister
and told him he should not minister in ‘eloquent speech’
but instead in a demonstration of the Spirit and Power of God

The next two topics are connected, and if they were more brief I would call them two half-chapters. They are intertwined ideas concerning the WAY you should minister, or at least the way the Holy Spirit trained Paul to minister. Whether you follow them will determine whether you are a wise and effective ‘master builder’ advancing God’s Kingdom … or whether, like most current ministers, you are operating merely in Man’s Ways and building with wood, hay and stubble.

I need to begin by pointing out how strange it is that people read Paul’s letters acknowledging them as Scriptures, but still choose to ignore his personal advice about how he lived, prayed and especially how he ministered. Why would people think his words were so valuable, yet his personal advice should be dismissed out of hand? There is a kind of blindness in this attitude. If Paul knew what he was talking about when he was teaching the general population about the doctrines of Christ, wouldn’t his personal insight and private advice on how he lived his life in service to God be even more valuable?

When I was trying to really understand how Paul ministered I learn several of his personal secrets. I then realized these were not personal whims or just idiosyncratic choices. No, Paul was trained by God how to advance the Kingdom. This means that if God were to train us, we would have the same teacher as Paul, and should expect to be told similar lessons.

I heard Jesus say something along these lines briefly, “Paul, is my servant, who I trained how to act, so all those who are trained by the Holy Spirit will follow these steps,” before adding, to me: “Tell them this.”

So we need to understand that Paul is the best example we have of a mere human who was trained by God to serve him, and then also was able to teach us how he did it. That’s why so much Scripture in the New Testament was written by Paul. But this is precisely why his personal advice is so valuable!

But what I mean to point out is that Paul gave directives for people to follow: Do not eat food sacrificed to idols, do not slander each other, take care of the unfortunate. This they follow, or at least this they tell people to follow. But when Paul says, ‘This is how I pray,’ or ‘This is how I think,’ or “This is how I minster,’ they just read and ignore it out of hand, thinking, wrongly, that since this has nothing to do with the gospel, (or so they wrongly think) and since it’s not basic moral lessons that they can tell people to follow, then it’s just some useless, optional, filler text … or maybe at best, some extra-credit platitudes for super-disciples; so yes, they do simply ignore it.

God is emphasizing this point to me right now, so the Spirit gives witness that YES, people IGNORE Paul’s advice telling us how he thought, prayed and ministered. They certainly do not know to follow his lead in this. But this is actually where the real treasure is buried.

People read what Paul said to do, but then try to do it in their own human ways, this is always end in failure. Recall that I shared that Jesus once told me, Man’s Ways DO NOT produce God’s blessings. So if you are operating in Man’s Ways—ministering in Man’s Ways in an attempt to obey God’s word—you will simply not be able to advance God’s Kingdom.

THAT DAY will reveal the nature or quality of what you have built and many on That Day will be painfully disappointed! But if you can learn from the Holy Spirit now, or at least understand from the Scriptures the advice Paul gave us, then you can avoid this painful pitfall, and be rewarded for building on the foundation of the knowledge of God’s salvation through Jesus with gold, silver and precious stones.

So looking at 1 Corinthians, mainly chapter 2, I found three stunning keys. One that will literally blow your mind—unless you feel that having limited omniscience and literally being able to ‘see what the father is doing’ with something like x-ray vision is nothing to be excited about. I do! But I will get to the Mind of Christ in a later chapter, something I have never heard another human teach on correctly, and which Jesus asked me to include that in this teaching series.

But before we get to that ‘next-next-level meat feast,’ the two obvious keys in 1 Corinthians 2 that I will share with you now will redefine HOW you minister, and this is how the Holy Spirit trains people to minister.

If you DO NOT follow these two directives of how the gospel is ministered, you will not be able to advance the Kingdom the way he has ordained. I found the WAY we minister is also a key component of the gospel, which will soon be obvious to you if it is not already.

So the first key that God showed me from this passage has to do with something Paul said, that he ministered NOT in eloquent words but instead in a demonstration of Spirit and power. We can back up a bit to the end of Chapter 1 and first read:

Is he serious? We saw last chapter that the Kingdom is basically everything beyond water baptism, it is all that comes from the fire baptism, and ministering that water ceremony for repentance was not Paul’s commission. Instead he was sent to ‘preach the gospel’ but doing so merely using ‘wise and eloquent words’ will diminish the power of the cross?! He actually said that! But how is this possible? And why does it matter? Well, he continues this thought in Chapter 2 saying:

Other versions read: “but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” which I sometimes prefer. But this statement itself is an insight because later he even said:

Which we can look at in more detail a little bit later, but let’s now focus on verses 4 and 5. Paul who was one of the most highly trained and learned men of his generation purposefully chose NOT to minister in wise and persuasive words!!

And if anyone could have done this, it would certainly have been him. But Jesus had taken Paul from this kind of background and un-trained him in the ways of man, and then re-trained him in the ways of God, giving him more powerful tools than reason, rhetoric and debate tactics. This is why now Paul disdained the tools of man and instead ministered:

Maybe we have pastors who feel insecure with their education and seek to be known as intellectuals and learned men. These fall easily into the trap God delivered Paul from. They serve God but have fallen under the sway of man’s pride, trying to earn man’s respect, serving God using man’s ways. Paul knew better, and did not do this.

And then to make sure you catch on, Paul also clearly explains why he does this.

I will deal with this topic first, but what follows this chapter is the second topic explaining that yes, he did indeed teach but what’s amazing is where he got his sermon inspirations from. And it wasn’t from reading sermon notes from the other preachers. He explains this in 1 Corinthians 2:6-13, basically that while ‘Eye has not seen, and Ear has not heard … God has revealed it to us … and THIS is what we speak on.’ He basically means when he does teach wisdom, he’s teaching the secret wisdom that God gave him in personal divine revelation from the Holy Spirit. He’s basically teaching revelation. And I will deal with this topic in the next.

So I say these two keys found here in this chapter are to Minister in a Demonstration of the Spirit and Power; and to Teach Revelation, and are obviously linked. Using the opposite methods are much more common, however, meaning people more often Minister only in Talk, and then Teach Man’s Opinions. We will see why this direction is not optional, it’s not extra-credit, and so why it is not only the most preferred way but really this is the ONLY way to advance the Kingdom.

Let’s first look at Ministering in a Demonstration of Spirit and power.

Power Tools

They say if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem begins to look like a nail. This is very much like the problem the church is dealing with. You can tell everyone that God’s true goal in the Gospel message is to RESTORE people like Living Stones so they can be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ … to become the very living temple of God. Ok, that sounds wonderful. But how do we do it?!

People are happy in church working towards a goal they understand, and one they can figure out creative ways to achieve. But if it turns out these lesser goals and methods are all foolish vanity, what eternal service are they offering? What eternal reward are they earning?

Now if you were to change their goals by showing them the real purpose of ministry in Jesus’ name is not merely church attendance or even doctrinal agreement but is literally a supernatural transformation … well, first, it’s such a high goal they would probably quickly see that it can’t even be done the way they are currently operating. They would need new tools. Their current methods would simply not achieve these goals. Exactly!! They hopefully would also realize the only way to achieve a supernatural goal is with supernatural (spiritual) methods. But is this really true? And all else we do is vanity? You mean my life’s work of 30 years has been in vain? Well, better to know it sooner rather than later! But maybe yes.

You know the verse that if you know the Truth, the Truth will set you free … and that’s real, but first it’s probably gonna make you upset! We use that verse in different ways, and we will soon look at a more accurate way to understand it beyond merely ‘learning facts,’ and I’m sorry but I didn’t write the book, I’m only telling you what Jesus told me about it!

And so without supernatural power tools to achieve God’s supernatural goals, all church folk have left is their ability to talk. And Paul said:

This is because Power changes things. But if you have no power, then you need to substitute something else you do have, otherwise the people are just going to laugh at you. They might anyway.

But this is maybe why most churches are set up as non-participation lecture halls where ‘the people’ are told to sit for hours and just listen to ‘the minister(s)’ talk. Jesus preached to large crowds, Paul also used a lecture hall in Ephesus, but so do you really think all Paul and Jesus ever did was talk? Do you see Jesus as the master philosopher? Is Paul the very model of a modern major Lecturer? If the image people have in their minds of Jesus is more like an ancient Greek Orator, we have a problem. Or at least they do.

So if people think all God wants us to do is spread knowledge, just for us to know things, then all they think they have to do to achieve that goal is to talk, is to teach stuff. But why then does the bible say the Kingdom is NOT a matter of talk? Why did the Holy Spirit lead Paul to pray that we should know God’s love that surpasses or is beyond knowledge?

Other versions read: “to know this love that is beyond knowledge” but this confused me when I finally came to it, and I asked Jesus what this could possibly mean, how can I know something beyond knowing it? What is ‘knowing beyond knowledge’? And he replied to me immediately, “Oh, it’s simple. Beyond knowledge … is experience!”

A similar example I was just sitting around and suddenly I was FILLED with an overpowering PASSION to KNOW God’s LOVE … It was driving me up the wall! I finally called out, “God, what are we doing sitting here? YOU want to show us your love, WE want you to show us your love … JUST SHOW US YOUR LOVE already!!” I was just pretty fired up and he replied, “But you can’t understand my love!” Rejected! I just flipped out, yelling, “THEN WHY ARE WE ASKING FOR IT THEN!” “No,” he said, calming me down, “You can’t understand it, you need to experience it!” Oh, I thought, that’s good! It was a better answer than I expected and no, I wasn’t going to be denied after all! I need to experience him. He WANTS me to experience him. He was showing me the same lesson in a different way and I saw clearly that what we are lacking in our churches is not doctrinal correctness, multimedia presentation, carpets, gantry lighting or coffee shops … what we’re missing is the experience of God.

Stuck in the Wrong Gear

To say it a little bluntly, our churches have become geared towards talking about God, not experiencing him. Paul said do not do this. Do NOT minister this in way, or else people will develop what? A faith only in man’s wisdom. A faith in knowing stuff. [1 Corinthians 8:1-3!]

This is what has happened to us, and even worse than this, our basic ministry conceptual paradigm is geared towards just talking, because somehow we have become convinced that all will be made well if we just talk enough. It’s knowledge we’ve needed! It’s faith in man’s wisdom.

So we think that if we just make the right words, demons will flee. Cancer will shrivel up. Broken relationships will be made whole. So it’s logic and reasoning we’ve been lacking all these centuries! Just think about it! It’s just that we need the right words. Sceva’s seven sons would disagree. Jesus too would beg to differ.

I asked Jesus that I wanted to be like him and he healed and cast out demons with a word! And he said “Yes, but FIRST that WORD has to live inside you.” By now we all know that the name of Jesus casts demons out, but it is also used as one of the most common curse words in the presence of evil men. How can both be true? I think because only one is being used with power. Because only one kind of speaker has that spirit of power living WITHIN them. The power is not in the word itself as men think of it, but in the Spirit behind the word as carnal men are totally unaware of.

Maybe this was an attractive solution in what they called the Age of Reason, to think all we lacked was just an intellectual explanation! … But is knowledge all we have lacked to fix the fallen world? We have more knowledge now than at any time in Human Civilization and are we now living in a global utopia?

Is all that Jesus is giving us just a well reasoned education?

Some will say, you’re wrong! The Bible even says, “You shall know the truth and it will set you free.” But with what human reasoning are you defining ‘Truth,’ ‘Know’ and ‘Free’? What truth do you think this verse means? Math and Sciences? Sure to a degree, but that’s not what Jesus was talking about:

Ignoring the first condition, it is apparent that these contrarians interpret the ‘Truth’ spoken of here as ‘facts,’ more information, knowledge … the best truth they say this means is knowledge of the gospel of salvation … no one yet has told me they think this verse means more than knowing a doctrinal belief in salvation in Jesus’ name. I mean they do not interpret this TRUTH as referring to a PERSON, which is more to the point. Jesus did not find, explain or even make the way, he IS the way. He does not just give us life, he IS the life. He didn’t learn true things to tell us. So the meat in that sandwich is that Jesus is not only telling us true things … he IS the Truth.

KNOWING the TRUTH therefore is not really simply learning an academic lesson of facts, but is a way of saying people will become intimate in their deep souls, in their secret place, in their deep hearts with the Spirit of God who they will expose themselves to so fully they will ‘know’ each other as intimately as lovers do. No, this is not a romantic relationship, it’s much deeper than that; ‘romance’ is only an analogy used to explain to humans how deep and personal this true communion is. This is just a way to communicate this aspect of Knowing God to common people and in a way everyone can relate to.

And do you really think I am making this up on my own, confusing the quest for knowledge and forgetting the goal of finding friendship with God? Don’t you know the scripture also says:

Wow! But I will share more on this in the later chapter on Grace when I saw this in a vision, but this idea that all we have needed is more facts, more knowledge, that all will be made well if we just tell you more things we believe, is a false hope. Meanwhile our ministers strive to be educated, learned public speakers, professors, preachers only, and they cultivate disciples who develop faith in … learning, knowledge and being esteemed according to man’s wisdom.

Well, I think it’s high time we uproot this deception, don’t you agree?

Instead Building Faith in God’s Power

Do you know why we think preaching and teaching is all there is to ministry? Paul said when he ministered he did not come with eloquent words or our faith would be in man’s wisdom, man’s knowing, knowledge only. Instead Paul said more than once that he ministered in a DEMONSTRATION OF GOD’s SPIRIT and POWER, a demonstration of God’s living Presence. That way our faith would instead be in God’s ability, God’s power, God’s reality. This means not faith in our ability, but ultimately faith in the power of the cross, meaning faith in God’s own strength, abilities, even his goodness … now made available to us as an exchange, and that we receive simply by faith … not by performing some great feat of endurance or religious zeal, nor by paying a huge sum into the church coffers, as was once taught across Europe as the only reliable way to gain salvation.

If we minister in any other way than how the Holy Spirit was leading us to do, Paul said we would fall into the snare of training people to have faith in Man’s wisdom, or worse, superstitions, and the cross would lose its power.

In fact we have done this, and we can look around and see that we have ended up with generations and generations of powerless denominations, churches .

Demonstrate the Kingdom;
it is not merely a doctrine

I was in prayer another time in the Philippines, praying over a city that the Lord said had a demonic stronghold of religion, a demonic principality of the religious spirit (that is, before he delivered them from it!). And this is what he said:

“Doctrines don’t cause people to know me. You can know about me but not KNOW me. The Devil, my enemy, knows very much about me—his overthrow is inevitable—but he does not KNOW me. Just as Adam KNEW Eve and conceived a baby, I want my people—my bride—to KNOW me in the inner most chambers of their secret hearts.”

There are doctrines of the kingdom but the Kingdom is not a matter of doctrine—it is not a matter of talk, but of power. People can move in power and have all kinds of conflicting doctrines, even false ideas they hold to be true to a point. I mean having a heart open to loving Jesus with full faith in his goodness, kindness and faithfulness is not a matter of doctrine, it’s a person’s private condition.

Likewise, there is a doctrine of salvation, a correct teaching on it, but actual salvation does not come from mere doctrine, it comes from making a change of heart, having a real interaction with God when you turn back to him and forsake going your own way.

I mean have you ever gone to a hospital and seen people who work there on break SMOKING? I’ve seen nurses, lab techs and even doctors on break SMOKING. They preach the doctrines that smoking is carcinogenic, yet they still practice this harmful act. Why? They know the right doctrines! I was in the Philippines after an earthquake and we managed to bring relief goods at our own expenses across broken roads and even several broken bridges and got food and water to some people in the small town of Lo-on. The small town hospital was relocated into the parking lot, and I had some candies in my pocket and handed them to one of the nurses. She refused them. Why? Because she said too much sugar is bad for you, it contributes to diabetes. Next earthquake I will makes sure to bring sugar-free sweets, but here was a woman in a crisis zone, in the dark, standing there in a makeshift field hospital in a deadly earthquake zone, in fact the area that had the most deaths, and she would not eat candy because its bad for your health. That’s the nurse I want taking care of me! God bless Filipino nurses!—in fact God blesses the world WITH Filipino nurses. But do you see my point? There is a gulf between knowing doctrines and doing them, between professing a belief and following it from your heart. There are doctrines of salvation, doctrines of the Kingdom, but receiving the free gift of salvation and purposefully entering the Kingdom is not accomplished by having knowledge or doctrines, but by faith and by acting from the heart.

Well, you still argue, salvation IS a mater of talk, you have to confess it! Well, believe first, and then yes, confess your faith, as it says in Romans 10:9-10, … but then why in John 3:16 (from 14 to 19) does all Jesus say that we need to do is believe?

So first believe … and THEN speak, and yes have water baptism to punctuate the experience, then receive Fire Baptism to be empowered with the presence of the Holy Spirit and you WILL begin to experience God. Seek and cultivate the experience of God every day. Don’t be shy about it. Seek intimacy with the Living Lover of your Soul, and when people say it’s wrong, it’s obsessive, you need to read more, ok, sure, read the bible more, most people need to, but when you read it and think that it means what Men say it does and they are wrong—if they are teaching the opinions of men as if it were the oracles of God, then through Man’s Opinions your bible has become an obstacle to knowing God! Don’t believe me?! Many false religions and sects who deny Christ is divine use the bible as well, don’t you know?! JW’s and Mormons both use the bible but teach it means the opposite of what it actually means. When they read it, they interpret it completely falsely. How sad. That’s not YOU, you insist. OK … but are you sure?

Other versions read: “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (ESV)

But can this really be? How? I’m sure I don’t know, but it happened to the Pharisees! They quoted the Scriptures better than you, but hated Jesus to death. One day Jesus asked me a question: “Who ARE the Pharisees?” I was stunned and stopped still in my tracks, his words were very exact and I said, What do you mean ARE? You mean who WERE the Pharisees. They are an extinct sect of Judaism. Why are you asking who ARE the pharisees? Are they still among us? … Evidently so. So we see that this ancient fault remains true for a great many preachers and pastors today who can quote this and that bible verse, but many even deny God’s very Spirit is real! The Pharisees as a category of person still ARE, they are not extinct.

And this confirmed something Lord else had just told me about the ‘religious’ people we were ministering to on that same mission trip, which was something like, “My people think they know me, but the experience is lacking.”

So we need to minister in such a way that we can lead people into a personal experience of God, not merely to know doctrines about him, so they can develop true intimacy and come to KNOW him “in the inner most chambers of their secret hearts.” I like that phrase! So learn from Paul’s example. This is important. Maybe more important than you yet realize.

Saul’s Strong Suit

And so consider again this character Paul, before when he was still called Saul, named after the man who persecuted king David. He was very highly skilled, trained and respected. I think he was basically a governor in training. He was a polyglot, from a prominent well-connected family, of such a high intellect people often call him a genius. He was trained as a Pharisee under Gamaliel, who is today considered one of the greatest religious scholars of his generation, which really tells you something! I think you can compare Paul’s training by Gamaliel to someone brilliant being mentored by a famous trial lawyer in a top-tier Ivy League law school. I think that is a fair comparison. He was learned in Jewish law, as well as both Greek and Roman culture, customs and literature, and must have been a very powerful and persuasive public speaker.

So it would have been natural for Paul, once he changed teams so to speak, to just go about spreading the gospel of Jesus the same way he was used to persuading people to believe in his own previously held views, namely by using logical arguments, rhetoric, and then ‘persuasion’ and threats of force. This was his strong suit already, Man’s ways, and it gave him such effective results, why would he completely change his entire mindset and now operate in such a different way and NOT use his natural skills at rhetoric and eloquent speech, words of wisdom and persuasion to preach the gospel?

Years later after he’s had time to be trained by the Spirit of Jesus—or really to first be ‘untrained’ as Jesus said to me, he writes at least twice in Corinthians to explain HOW he now learned to minister, and he also explains WHY he ministers this way. Understand he was now trained to think and act this different way by a much better teacher than Gamaliel. So if the Holy Spirit trained Paul to think and act this way for the best results, don’t you think we ought learn from his example ourselves?

Tools from a higher shelf

So what I mean to say is that Paul KNEW the power of persuasion, arguments, sermons, rhetoric, eloquence and walked in this realm in a very high level. But once he experienced the power of God, the flowing presence of the very breath of God, the Holy Spirit, and how easy he is to work with, then he was convinced there was simply no comparison. He was surely also TOLD by God not to lean on his former tools, since they have an appearance of usefulness but in fact build the wrong kind of building. What we are building remember is PEOPLE. The Kingdom is WITHIN us. To build God’s Kingdom INSIDE people we need to use GOD’s tools, basically the power of his Spirit, which is called Grace in Paul’s letters, and nothing else will do. That’s one major lesson we get from Paul.

Paul knew he now had better tools than logic, rhetoric and debate, eloquent words, funny jokes and cute anecdotes. He had God’s Power.

But that power has to live inside you

Then I was praying for a Christian guy at our church who was also doing drugs and he began to manifest demonic seizures in our weekly meeting one time. He asked for prayer and it was a hard time, it was a hard situation to deal with. I was going to wrap it up after about 30 minutes because there was no real progress and he was not living right and that was what was making it so hard on us trying to help him. But one lady in our group, a young and quite beautiful Chinese lawyer trained in New Zealand, and she just set her mind to finish the task! Tenacious! Ok, so I stayed with them but it was about 6 hours I think before we wrapped things up, rebuking that foul critter all the while. Exhausted, I knew he wasn’t truly repentant, and we were all novices, sure, but we rebuked that stinky black thing for hours before we could finally rip it out of that poor boy. So ok, we got it out, but what a struggle! And so I was feeling tired, but also ineffective and weak, and I turned to Jesus to learn how to be more effective. I just knew if Jesus where there it would not have taken him 6 hours! So I said, ‘Jesus, you cast out demons with a WORD!’ I told him I wanted to be like him! And then he told me, “Yes, but THAT WORD has to first live inside of you.”

So the big takeaway that I want to emphasize from this experience I had is what Jesus said. That power is real, it’s available, but it has to LIVE INSIDE OF US FIRST. Words alone won’t work, there has to be some power behind them. Don’t think so? Just ask the seven sons of Sceva! And tactics matter too because there are strongholds you often have to deal with first as well. That’s what Jesus told me, and said again later that, “The Promised Land has walled cities in the best places.”

So there is some learning we need to serve God effectively in the spiritual realm of the Kingdom, but we also have access to tools of power that Paul found, who was also a kind of young and highly accomplished lawyer, and when he had a few years of experience working with Jesus and the indwelling Holy Spirit he became fully convinced that the power of the Spirit was certainly more effective than his previous strengths of mere eloquent speech, debate traps and persuasion with big words and animated intonation. And we have access to these same power tools he did, especially if you cultivate the gifts and callings you are being offered to walk in. And we also have the same trainer as Paul did. The Holy Spirit was not taken away. He’s our real trainer, in fact once we understand how to enjoy open communion with Him, which he just calls having fellowship, well, we won’t even need any other person to teach us.

This Communion with the Holy Spirit is also the subject of a later chapter. So in the meantime, don’t wait to get started, just get some practice, make some mistakes, learn, grow … there is no substitute for a little on the job training!

That power has to live inside you – but its also easier than it seems

And so I find there are maybe four or five main reasons why people do not flow in the Presence of God, being unable they think to demonstrate his Spirit and Power.

First, they were taught it’s all ended. Obviously the Holy Spirit was never recalled, and instead was promised to be with us until the end of the age and beyond.

But even when people begin to see through this lie they often have lingering nagging doubts, and doubt is the destroyer of faith. It is in this case a kind of fear. Faith, Jesus told me, is the fight against fear. We have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind (or self-discipline some versions say). [2 Timothy 1:7] Faith is not the same thing as human confidence, and certainly not human self-confidence, yet faith remains a kind of confidence, not one in ourselves, but a confidence what we cannot see, basically a confidence in God. [Hebrew 11:1] And it naturally grows as you spend more personal time with him. It’s not complicated.

Second, those with strong GIFTS sometimes lord it over others, steal the show, and put others down as they exalt themselves. This discourages people to develop their own gifts. Everyone has gifts, they can get more gifts and in fact we are told by the bible—it’s written in the command ‘imperative’ tense to SEEK SPIRITUAL GIFTS you don’t yet have:

Third, they simply lack practice, I mean hands-on experience ministering. This is often just from lack of encouragement, people aren’t equipping them. Many times I have asked God to send people with healing gifts to a church and he has always said, “Oh there are people RIGHT HERE with healing gifts already.” So often it’s people I never suspect. Older ladies, uneducated even unemployed men, children even. Why are so many people gifted in healing yet never release the power of God to heal in their church? It’s mostly because they have never been allowed to exercise their gifts, they have no understanding, no confidence, no practice, no training, no permission, no equipping. They just need someone to help them try it out, to experiment. They have the gift, they now just need a coach. They need someone who acts like a true spiritual father, the kind who wants their kids to rise up and achieve more than they did! They need spiritual parents who will nurture and equip them in love so they can do more than they, their parents ever did. They need true servant leaders basically. But so many people already have the gifts! More on this later.

Fourth, people don’t understand Grace, it’s NOT a synonym for forgiveness, it means strength or power. Many key verses are confused, the very verses about empowerment and strength which we need to understand, are all mixed up because we are taught over and over again that grace or ‘charis’ means forgiveness … it simply does not. It means something similar to how we use the word Anointing. A later chapter will explain this.

And fifth, it may be because when God manifests in Spirit and in Power, the Flesh manifests in ugly, ugly ways. What is the Flesh exactly? Jesus told me, the Flesh is simply the Human Level Intelligence, Understanding, Perception, Motives and Desires. When the Spirit of God manifests, sometimes so do demons. They are flushed out of hiding. But people also get jealous, nervous, antagonistic, the carnal will always persecute the spiritual, and so don’t be surprised, in fact expect some sort of fireworks to be set of when you light that Holy fuse in public places. If this happens and people start acting badly, and it will happen, just take it easy, be ready to calm people down, restore order and maybe take a problem person aside to rebuke the devil in private. Don’t stand there and watch as the organist writhes on the floor like a serpent manifesting a python demon from the FM’s—REBUKE IT! Command it sit down and SHUT UP in Jesus’ name! Don’t let it speak as if we care what a demon has to say to us! Shut it up and shut it down! Tell people to mind their own business, nothing to see here—demons are drama queens and always want attention—so you and the ‘elders’ who have more experience should just take these people aside, or maybe you get a word from God telling tell you who God wants to help pray. But mainly discreetly and calmly tell the demon to be quiet and take that poor person aside and finish the job. Restore order again without letting a manifestation scare people, which is what it’s trying to do. False tongues can manifest too, it’s like someone babbling loudly, sticking their tongues out like a naughty child; it’s not holy, it’s not praise, it’s not even believable. Just tell the person to stop talking, stop letting Satan mock the Holy Spirit using their tongue, and then quietly cast out the impostor and release the True power of the Holy Spirit to them; it’s not complicated. It just takes a few moments really. Just calm down.

Did the power go out? Just turn it back on!

So why do you have no power? Why does the Spirit not manifest when you minster? Do you really need to quit your weekend job and go back to working at the bank? Not at all, power, I mean the presence of God, I mean being able to demonstrate the Spirit of God is easy.

But the power of God is a Person, the person of the Holy Spirit, and he’s not moody, but he is sensitive. He gets offended and leaves. He easily comes back if you behave right, but will leave again if you don’t. You need to change the way you think about ministry. You are HOSTING the presence of God. Are you a good host? Are you polite, respectful, accommodating? You see, it’s not complicated, you don’t need a degree in New Testament Theology to let the Holy Spirit live inside your heart, just be a good host to Him.

Often worship brings his presence, even through young musicians who are not trained in theology. But often the Spirit LEAVES when the pastor begins preaching, talking, lecturing people on what he thinks about everything. Do you want the Holy Spirit to come back? Then stop talking so much, pray more, lay on hands, release the angels to minsters, that really works, give the service over to the Holy Spirit, keep vigilant to maintain order in case Satan tries to disrupt the solemn moment, and he will, so restore peace quickly in wisdom.

Also, don’t try to do all the ministry by yourself; why be selfish, why exalt yourself? The Holy Spirit does not like that. Be a team, be a family. Let the other ‘elders’ help out, in fact use small groups with one experienced person overseeing each group. That way EVERYONE can learn to pray and prophesy. People can share their private and often embarrassing prayer requests in that confidential setting, and so most people get their personal issues dealt with immediately by God’s touch every week. People end up growing very fast. Even people who strongly declare they do not believe in God, if you offer to pray for them for their marriage, their job, their health they almost ALWAYS say OK, please pray for me too! This now is your chance to get past the walls they built up and let God move on their lonely, wounded hearts in the way ONLY the Holy Spirit can. Don’t argue, just lay on hands, and watch the ice melt.

Also, if there are unsaved people or troublemakers in your meeting, by dividing the meeting into small groups and giving everyone personal attention, you will very quickly know who is who. More on this later, especially when we discuss Diversity in the Body, but you see as Pastor you have certain skills, but God gives a multitude of various gifts to ALL the people, and if all you do it talk, then all their gifts remain unused. But if you give people the chance to pray for each other, in loosely controlled but well-monitored small groups, then everyone can offer the service / ministry that God has empowered them to give. And so the various types of graces and anointings that God has given us for the common good are allowed to go out and restore the Body in myriad ways mere talk cannot. This is the Salad metaphor I mentioned before and will discuss in more depth later. Why have only bitter lettuce when you can have onions, peppers, cheese, ham, cucumbers, yes a few nuts, a few fruits, but hey, its a big family, and there’s room for all kinds!

Poor Circulation

The Body comes to maturity ‘as each does its part.’ [Ephesians 4:16] If you restrict the flow of God’s gifts in the common people, which were given to them for the common good, and try to do it all yourself, you will find several problems will result.

First, you don’t have the wide range of graces the people need a touch from. No one person does. But the graces of God are variously spread through the whole church body so that we NEED everyone to do their part, to offer their own contribution, for the whole Body to find the answers to all their needs. Some ladies pray better for marriages, some better for healing, some better for naughty children than you do. Some teenagers pray against demons stronger, pray to release angels more powerfully, and hear God more clearly than you do.

Not only this but if one single minister is to give everyone even brief personal attention to counsel and pray with them each week, well, a room of only 30 people would need FIVE HOURS of ministry, and that to only give each person a mere ten minutes of quality time. So it’s also a simple matter of man-hours, practical time management. And unless you find the secret of ministering in a flow of the Spirit, if you are releasing the Spirit from your vessel as a reservoir as we typically do at first, you are going to wear yourself out very fast, deplete your own reserve tanks and can actually do yourself some measure of harm. There is a secret to ministering like this and you NEVER get tired, but people still need to participate in the ministry for other reasons, so there is wisdom and humility in letting everyone share the load, join in the work, partner in the ministry—think of the blessings you will multiply and burdens you will divide if you minister this way.

So transitioning your role from the single source of all ministry and instead becoming more of a coach or trainer than the single star player on the field, you will find that many people are gifted in ways you never even thought of. You will soon not lead a small church under a single minister who only talks, but instead be like a father, a papa, or a mother over a family of dozens of gifted ministers and team players, each doing their own part, and now you don’t have a room with sleepy heads, you instead will have an ARMY.

Release Ezekiel 37, he told me

A few years ago Jesus told me to release the Prophecy of Ezekiel 37, the Prophecy of the Valley of Dry Bones. In summary it reads:

God to Ezekiel: So can these dead, dry bones live?

Ezekiel: You know!

God: Prophesy to them to live!

Ezekiel: OK

There then was a noise, the earth shook, and bones came together. Then sinews, (or as it says in Ephesians 4:16 ‘joints’ or rather ‘supporting ligaments.’) Then flesh, then skin … that’s progress! But they were still dead. They had no ‘spirit.’

God: Prophesy unto the wind, tell it to breathe into them so they will live.

[A quick note here, the term Holy Spirit in Hebrew is NOT Holy Spirit, but is Wind or ‘ruach’ and is followed by either ‘Hakodesh’ (meaning ‘Holy,’ usually in the New Testament), or by Adonai (meaning ‘Lord’ usually in the Old Testament, which we often call the Spirit of God). But Jewish readers would immediately made this connection in this prophesy so reading ‘Tell the wind to breathe into them and give them life,’ they would know specifically that God was saying to prophesy to the Holy Spirit to move on these people and make them spiritually alive. This is one way to explain revival, I suppose. So you should know God saying ‘Tell the wind to give these bodies BREATH,’ is not God talking about sending turbulent air. It’s the Holy Spirit they need. It’s the Holy Spirit he is sending. It’s the Pentecost experience for sure, but also surely more, which is what this book is all about!

And so what would these bones, now made into dead bodies, become if this Breath enters them?

Here I like the ESV, where he says they become “an exceedingly great army.”

They do not become a marching band of merry minstrels. It is not a congregation of sleepy nodders warming the pews. What did these dry bones turn into?

An ARMY. A Great Army! Oh, sorry, an EXCEEDINGLY Great Army.

Well if God moves in this revival the way He’s been talking about, then that’s going to be YOU! Make no bones about it!

Got any better ideas?

So please trust me when I say, that from here on out this is the ONLY way forward. Unless you have a better idea of how to restore broken bricks into living stones and transform dead parishioners into a living Army of Kingdom ministers? But Man’s ways DO NOT produce God’s blessings. Only the Holy Spirit can do that! But if you think you have a better idea of how this Kingdom can be advanced, I’d love to hear it. God knows I need a good laugh!

So the PEOPLE in a congregation as a group, as a team can definitely minister in the power of the spirit better than any one person. Maybe there are people who have a very pronounced gift of prophecy, or healing. But when they make everyone stand in line to get prayer from them and only them, its not really what even Jesus did. He sent out 72 at one time, he even found people NOT ON HIS TEAM who were praying and healing in the miraculous power of God and the apostles were so upset and jealous. Not only was Jesus not jealous, he was like, No, it’s good! Keep it up!

Yet, none of these people as far as we know, including Peter and John, none of them at this time were baptized in the Holy Spirit yet. Only Jesus was, so they were operating in miracle power under Jesus’ delegated covering—even those unnamed wandering miracle workers not a part of the core apostolic team. But finally at Pentecost EVERYONE, ALL FLESH were allowed to receive this indwelling power on their own! So can you! So can your whole church body. So receive the power, and use that power! Then let your people receive that power and then allow them to use that power! Release the Spirit into your congregation and then let your people flow in the Spirit!

I mean if you make everyone stand in line to get prayer from you alone, when will the other people get a chance to practice to pray? What if a person has a need that you have very little faith in, no gift of faith to deal with, and all you can do is say some words. Yes God hears your prayers, but surely God also knew they were coming today with a need he wanted to meet. Surely he has prepared someone somehow to meet that need. If you yourself simply do not have the faith to flow in power in that area that they need help in, do you really think God can only use YOU, or only wants to use YOU? This may be the moment the Scripture in Ephesians 4:16 is proven true:

If instead of love there is selfishness and pride and leadership exalts a few individuals because they wear dresses, I mean tunics, and everyone else is only allowed to wear common clothing, and these few leaders are allowed to prevent the various ‘common’ members from doing their part, from offering their own contributions, which God empowered in them to serve with … well, then the opposite of Ephesians 4:16 must also be true. When each is NOT allowed to do their part then the Body will remain weak, immature and in need.

The BODY as a whole across the Earth need not be your concern right now, but just think of the Body represented by your local congregation. Just think of your local church. Is that part of the Body building itself up in love, growing to full stature of maturity, or is it being repressed, separated and held down by leaders acting in Man’s ways, only offering Man’s opinions, Man’s talk, Man’s sermons … explaining, they think the Word of God, but really only teaching the opinions and doctrines of Man. It’s just the Word of God I’m preaching, they insist, yet it is not, it is still merely the version of the Word of God they understand, the version they believe in, the ideas they want to promote for whatever motives and desires they have determined in their hearts to advance.

The Message determines the Methods

Jesus explained this to me a few times in different ways, which I may get to later. But do you see that most of us are NOT highly educated, not highly skilled, are scared when public speaking, and don’t feel like intellectual giants. So we strive to reach this golden fruit, as if the remedy of our inadequacy in the world of man, finding respect in the eyes of man is the answer! We strain and even pretend to be eloquent, educated, intelligent. How? By copying sermons we read or saw on TV, by quoting famous authors, by name dropping and if that still doesn’t work, we insult people under us, belittle them, mock them for not being as smart as these great authors (and by extension as smart as US), all to pull ourselves up and put other people down and keep them in their place!

I will explain this vision from Jesus in a later chapter on Leadership, when he showed me the spirit of leadership of the world operating in the church is the spirit of NO! When leaders act to keep people down, under the feet of the leader so as to prop up the leader, by suppressing, restricting and belittling the people. But Jesus said HIS leadership in the Kingdom is not like this, it’s opposite to the leadership style of worldly corporations and banks. It instead he said is the spirit of YES! Empowering, raising up, even cooperating to help people under him be successful and achieve their goals and dreams. He told me his leadership in the Kingdom is the spirit of YES! This is a later chapter topic.

But do you now begin to see that the gospel is a message, but also an experience, and therefore it is more than a message, and so it is also includes the method we use to spread that message; it’s an Experience but also the WAY we lead people into that Experience. And once our goals change, so must our methods. And we simply cannot tell people to ‘do what we say and not do what we do.’ We must be DOERS of the WORD, or we will deceive ourselves.

And so from this can you now begin to see with more clarity that there is a vast difference between knowing a doctrine and knowing a person? So the way you spread good news about new a scientific discovery must therefore be very different than how you spread good news about a friendship with a special person. In this case, we need to let people experience this special person, to demonstrate his Spirit so we can lead them to experience him; or else if all we do is talk doctrines, and that is just man’s opinions, then all they can do is know ABOUT him, and maybe not even very accurately, and they will never come to actually KNOW him (experience him) personally themselves.

Why don’t many ministers do this right? Well, I am sure that this has gone so awry largely because such minsters merely know about him themselves, so the experience of God is lacking in these hollow ministers to start with! Sorry to say it like that. But it’s no wonder they can’t get better results.

Or do you secretly think spreading true religion with the sword, rape and pillaging like the Spanish did to the Philippines, like the Hapsburgs did across Europe, like the genocide of the Bohemians and the Huguenots is the REAL way to spread the good news of Jesus? Of course it is not. That is how someone else spreads their own news, and no, it’s not good.

So this now leads us into the next half-chapter, Teach Revelation, because Paul then tells us how he taught, what he taught about, and who taught him to teach these amazing things. But before we go on, I just want to leave you with these last small ideas.

We therefore ought to help him spread the Gospel of the Kingdom and use that power from the Holy Spirit which he gave us to simply Demonstrate Him living within us. As Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 61, We should display his splendor. This will help to lead people into an experience with Him and so come to KNOW him in the inner most chambers of their secret hearts beyond merely knowing about him. Finally, we need to minister in a demonstration of that Spirit and Power in order to build up faith in the people in the Power of God, or else we will cause the cross of Christ to literally lose it’s power and people will instead only develop a deceptive faith in man’s wisdom and in man’s knowledge and this will not save them, nor will they be able to enter the Kingdom of God.