Perfect Love

PERFECT LOVE

SCOTT MCCONAUGHEY

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PERFECT LOVE – CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION – PERFECT LOVE ……………………………………… 3 NINE BENEFITS PERFECT LOVE PROVIDES: CHAPTER 1 – A PERFECT COVENANT……………………………………. 6 CHAPTER 2 – SALVATION………………………………...……………….. 12 CHAPTER 3 – RIGHTEOUSNESS…………………………………………… 17 CHAPTER 4 – REGENERATION……………………………………………. 22 CHAPTER 5 – SANCTIFICATION……………………………………....…… 25 CHAPTER 6 – HEALING AND DIVINE HEALTH…………………………. 32 CHAPTER 7 – BLESSINGS AND WEALTH………………………………… 36 CHAPTER 8 – GIFTS AND GLORY……………………...………………….. 40 CHAPTER 9 – AN ETERNAL INHERITANCE……………………………… 44 CONCLUSION: APPROPRIATING THE BENEFITS……………………….. 47

PERFECT LOVE By Scott McConaughey Copyright © 2007 by Scott McConaughey Printed in the United States of America All commercial rights reserved solely by the author. Any part or this entire book may be reproduced and used to edify the body of Christ without permission of the author but may not be used for commercial gain. Unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotations are taken from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. www.scottmc.org/

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INTRODUCTION – PERFECT LOVE 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. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. I John 4:17-21 The Lord Jesus demonstrated His perfect love at the cross and made a perfect covenant with those who believe. God wants us to become secure in His covenant love. Finding security in His love enables us to overcome all carnal fear and walk by faith in His revealed word. God’s perfect love, revealed in His new covenant, drives out all anxiety, worry and fear that results from walking by sight 1. Loving God and experiencing His perfect love is evidenced by the lifestyle of loving others. The provisions of the New Covenant made by the cross of Jesus Christ demonstrate God’s perfect love towards us. God loves us with the deepest emotions of compassion, kindness, mercy and tenderness, but His love is more than emotional. God tangibly demonstrated that love by sending His Son Jesus Christ to make an everlasting covenant with us by His life, death and resurrection. This book is all about knowing God’s perfect covenant love and experiencing those blessings. All the benefits of the New Covenant are available to each of us, but there are conditions required to experience those benefits. We must believe God’s word and take appropriate action steps to cash in on all of His blessings paid for in Christ. Let me illustrate this. Appropriate God’s Benefits Imagine that your family is trapped in dire poverty in a third world country. You haven’t eaten in two days and hunger pangs are gripping your bodies. There is no work available and the water is muddy. Your children are crying and your spouse is in despair. The agony of this situation is overwhelming. Does God really love us? Where is His help? Your prayers seem to go unanswered. Then a messenger arrives and gives you an envelope with passports, travel money and plane tickets to Los Angeles, California. It seems someone chose you from a relief magazine and decided to write you into their will. Having recently deceased, everything they owned was willed to you. It appears that they were exorbitantly wealthy far beyond your wildest third-world imagination. All you have to do to cash in on this miraculous provision is to travel to Los Angeles and appear at a court hearing in one week. You have been given sufficient documents, tickets, time and cash to make it there. 1

Galatians 5:6

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It would seem obvious to all of us that the family would jump on the plane and go take possession of their inheritance. However, that is to underestimate the powerful spirit of poverty. Hopelessness, futility and despair can become strongholds in our minds that prevent us from acting on good news. The family in deep poverty might decide to simply live off the travel money and stay in their third world environment. We have been given a far better inheritance in Christ, but few believers ever take the necessary steps to appropriate all of what has been provided for us by the cross of Jesus Christ. I want to claim my inheritance and walk in those benefits now don’t you? God made specific covenant provisions at the cross event so that we could inherit His treasure house of wealth. This book will help you know what God provided for you in His perfect love and how you can experience His benefits now. Scholars call this “appropriating the provisions of the atonement”. If you have the winning lottery ticket in your desk drawer, it won’t do you any good until you appropriate the provisions of that ticket. You have to redeem it at the proper location! This is true about the benefits of God’s covenant made at the cross. God provides salvation, healing, wealth, deliverance, destiny and much more at the cross. We are required to cash in on those benefits by faith and the appropriate works of faith such as confession. Many Christians live in spiritual third-world poverty when they could enter into third-heaven blessings if they understood and acted on the revelation of God’s perfect love revealed in the New Covenant. Believe in Your Heart and Confess with Your Mouth But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” Romans 10:8-13 This classic scripture passage teaches us how to cash in on God’s benefits. We are to believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths what we believe. Jesus told us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks 2. The heart represents the spirit man where one truly believes. We must get more than head knowledge, we must believe deep in our spirits and allow it to overflow in confession, proclamation and decrees.

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Matthew 12:34

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As you study through the benefits of God’s perfect love for you, meditate on these truths by saying them out loud over and over again. “God loves me and has paid for all my sins in Christ Jesus”. “God loves me with a perfect love and has made a perfect provision for my healing in the stripes of Jesus”. “God loves me so much He sent Jesus to bare poverty so that I could become rich”. These confessions and many others begin to steer the course of our lives to experience those benefits. The pattern of faith is given to us in the word. “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Matthew 21:22). Faith comes by hearing the word sown by the Sower, Jesus. He authors our faith primarily by sowing a fresh word from the Bible into our hearts. We must cultivate our hearts and water the seedling of faith until fruit bearing maturity. Before our faith is mature and completely finished, many storms and trials will test that faith as by fire to prove its genuineness3. It is by faith and patience that we inherit all the promises 4. Since tribulation produces patience, the Holy Spirit will lead us into places of trials and testings. It is through many tribulations that we enter the kingdom5. If we do not lose heart during the seasons of trials, we will obtain the harvest of blessings that God has promised6. All of the benefits listed in this book are the living word of God that you can plant in your heart and cultivate to fruit bearing maturity. Once you know how to cash in on a benefit you can start the process of asking, believing and confessing whatever provisions the Lord reveals to you. The next nine chapters will each highlight one of the benefits of the cross: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

A Perfect Covenant - God’s promises in Christ are all yes and amen Salvation – The forgiveness of sins, saved from eternal damnation Righteousness - Right standing before God Regeneration – New life and new identity Sanctification – The grace to grow to become like Jesus Healing and Divine Health - Kingdom health and energy Blessings and Wealth - Extraordinary provisions by the grace of God Gifts and Glory - The power to do the works of the Father An Eternal Inheritance - The grace to reign and rule with Christ as a son

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For more detailed teaching, please see my booklet, The Journey of Faith Hebrews 6:12 5 James 1:3 6 Galatians 6:7-9 4

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CHAPTER 1 - A PERFECT COVENANT The secret of the LORD is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. Psalm 25:14 Fearing God is evidenced by a lifestyle of seeking to please Him. It also means to fear His judgments. We will appear before His judgment seat one day and have to answer for our lives on earth7. Fearing God motivates us to work on perfecting holiness so that we can stand before Him with boldness on that day 8. There is a great blessing given to those who fear God. They receive the revelation of God’s covenant and become secure in His amazing love. Knowing the provisions of God’s covenant is the first step in being able to benefit from it. God has made several covenants with mankind throughout history. A covenant is a contract between two parties. God’s swears by Himself that He will keep His side of the contract. God is absolutely faithful to keep His word. If we keep our side of the contract, God will always fulfill His promises in due season. My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips. Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David: His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before Me; it shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky. Psalm 89:34-37 God cannot lie or break His covenants. If we receive a covenant promise from God and hold onto it with persevering faith, God will certainly fulfill it. To know God’s covenant requires the revelation of the Holy Spirit so that we truly understand His word. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them. Psalm 103:17,18 The principles of keeping the covenants of God are consistent even though the covenants have progressively changed through the ages. We must fear God and obey His commandments in order to keep covenant with Him and fully experience His blessings9. In God’s perfect love, He has made a New Covenant with man sealed by the sacrificial offering of Jesus Christ. The New Covenant is a better covenant than any of the others. Born again Christians have been given the promise of the covenant, the indwelling Holy Spirit, to enable us to do exactly as God wills and live according to His pleasure10. It is an expression of God’s perfect love and wisdom to provide an eternal covenant that can give us complete assurance and understanding as to how God works upon the earth. 7

II Corinthians 5:10 II Corinthians 7:1 9 Deuteronomy 28:1-14 10 Philippians 2:11 8

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Most of us have heard someone say that God’s work is mysterious and that we can never know what God is going to do. That is simply not true. God will always do exactly as He said He would do in keeping His covenants. If we do our part, He will always do His part for every person who meets the conditions every time. We often don’t know the timing, but God will always keep His promises to us as we persevere in faith. God’s Covenant Order The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S; but the earth He has given to the children of men. Psalm 115:16 God’s order rules perfectly in what some call His third-heaven realm. The earth belongs to God as well as everything created11. God chose to give the stewardship of earth to mankind with the understanding that man would be held accountable for his actions. Since God gave the earth to mankind to steward for some ages, what happens on earth is determined by the beliefs and actions of people alive on the earth either for good or evil. God has revealed His expectations of man in the Bible and has declared the boundaries within which He will always operate in the earth. For You have magnified Your word above all Your name. Psalm 138:2 God’s name includes His infinite power and sovereign rule. Because God has magnified His word above His name in the earth realm, God will not exercise His sovereign rights and infinite power outside the revelation of His word recorded in the Bible. God can not break His written word and still remain holy and just. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 God created all that there is so that we could live in the natural world and have an understanding of a sequence of events known as time. Our lives on earth are extremely brief in the context of all history. Compared to eternity, our lives are a mere vapor that is here one second and gone the next. It is imperative that we use our few short moments to the maximum on earth because we will incur judgment that will impact our eternal wellbeing. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have always existed. They lived before there was any other created being. God is perfect in wisdom and love. The Father, Son and Spirit created a perfectly wise master plan to reveal the perfect love they have. The risks of creating beings with free will were great and God knew it. Before Lucifer was made, the Lord knew that this powerful angel would rebel and cause havoc for billions of souls before the restoration age that is coming with the glorious return of Christ. The extreme volume of horrendous pain, agony, abuse, suffering, wickedness and death on the earth was all accounted for in the mind of God before the plan was initiated.

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Psalm 24:1,2

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God determined to reveal His perfect love to created beings that had free will. There was no way that robotic creatures could ever know of His infinite mercy, His deep compassion or the oceans of His extreme love. God determined to reveal His grace and kindness to all of creation through the tortuous death of His only begotten Son who died for wicked rebellious sinners. There has been no greater event in human history than the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God created natural man in His likeness and to be His representatives on the earth. Man was given responsibilities and the faculties to fulfill those responsibilities within the boundaries God established and ultimately recorded in His word. Adam and Eve, our representative heads, transgressed God’s boundaries by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Immediately they experienced shame, guilt and condemnation. The Lord killed an animal and clothed them with the skins. At that time, the Lord demonstrated to Adam and Eve that blood sacrifice was the way back into fellowship with Him. This was a portrait of the coming blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The idea of blood covenant was established by God. Abel offered the blood of an animal sacrifice by faith, which means he had heard God’s word tell him to do so. Cain offered the works of his own hands, produce from the field, and was not accepted. Cain was religious and raged at Abel and killed him. The earth began to disintegrate during the next generations to the point where God destroyed the whole earth except righteous Noah and his family. Noah built an altar and called upon the Lord. He made blood sacrifices unto God and God made a covenant with him 12. Abraham was called out of Ur of Chaldea to be the father of the faith. He learned to worship God and cut up animals to make a covenant with God13. The covenant promises made through the process of history reinforced the ideas of blood sacrifice and God’s boundaries for walking in His blessings. In the Old Testament, the covenant of the Law was revealed to Moses for the children of Israel. God established a priesthood from the tribe of Levi to administer this covenant. The covenant of the Law, given through Moses, was a tutor to lead mankind to Christ. The Law, summarized by the Ten Commandments, temporarily constrained the flesh and promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. Blood sacrifices were offered to cover the sin of God’s people and point to the true sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. The New Covenant is a better covenant with a better sacrifice than bulls or goats 14. Those old sacrifices had to be offered many times. Jesus only had to make Himself a sacrifice one time and His sacrifice sealed the New Covenant of God’s intent to deal with mankind in His perfect love. 12

Genesis 8:20-22 Genesis 15 14 Hebrews 7:22; 8:6 13

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The New Covenant includes providing a legal death to the old sinful man and legal rights to the new person in Christ. The Holy Spirit is given as the indwelling presence of God into the inner man of the New Covenant believer. That believer is to live governed by the indwelling presence or the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus15. The blood of Jesus seals the covenant and guarantees that all of God’s promises are true in His perfect finished work at the cross. If God were to break his covenant promises with man, He would cease to be a righteous God. He is not going to break His promises. God’s provisions at the cross are available to all mankind who believe and follow Jesus. In order for people to believe, they must hear the gospel of Jesus Christ 16. This is why we must send missionaries and various media presentations of the gospel throughout the world with the good news that God was in Christ providing reconciliation to all who believe and receive His perfect love demonstrated by the finished work of His Son Jesus. Repent and Believe in the Gospel Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:14,15 Jesus taught us the first two steps to enter into covenant relationship with His Father. “Repent and believe in the gospel”. Satan has sown many lies into the minds of mankind through religions and various systems of thought. God wants us to receive the good seed of His word so He tells us to tear out those old weed seeds of Satan’s lies through repentance. We also must repent of our sinful rebellious lifestyles and choose to embrace the yoke or government of Jesus by the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The process of faith development includes enduring trials and testings. Faith also has an aspect of appropriate works as James taught us. Therefore, an aspect of appropriating the benefits of covenant faith is to do the good works the Holy Spirit tells us to do. Faith and Works What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. James 2:14-19

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Romans 8:1,2 Romans 10:14,15

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Faith is incomplete without doing the works of faith. For example, we might be praying to cash in on the benefit of God’s grace in Christ to provide us with wealth. During our prayer time, we might sense the Holy Spirit lead us to apply for a certain job. God is trying to answer our prayer by directing us to a better job. This is part of the “good works” that He prepared beforehand in which we should walk. We must apply our faith in God’s voice by applying for the job and trust Him to open the door to us. If we disobey the leading of the Holy Spirit, our faith becomes incomplete in cashing in on the benefit God already provided for us in Christ Jesus. We won’t get the job God intended and we may struggle financially and even get angry with God. Doing what the Lord tells us to do is not “works” in order to earn God’s provision, but is a demonstration or completion of faith in His voice in order to place ourselves in the position where He can bless us as He promised. While praying for divine healing, the Lord might instruct a person to drink more water and reduce salt intake. He might say to stay away from fatty foods and meditate on healing scriptures. If we recognize that faith includes appropriate works, by faith we do what the Holy Spirit is saying to do and this positions us to receive the healing. God’s covenant promises are absolute gold. His perfect love provided for us perfect covenant promises. All of the benefits of His covenant are yes and amen in Christ Jesus17. God did not spare His own Son, so how will He not also with Him give us everything that He has promised if we simply believe and follow the leading of His Spirit within us18? A Perfect Plan “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-14 NIV God’s perfect love includes perfect plans for each individual on earth. God has a perfect plan for your life. If you choose to seek Him with all your heart, He will reveal His perfect plan to you step by step over time. It takes faith to seek Him in this way. We must believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him and that His plan is the absolute best thing for our lives. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. John 5:20 The Father loved the Son and revealed His perfect plan to Him day by day during His earthly life. Jesus sought the Father with all His heart and was given revelation of the

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II Corinthians 1:20 Romans 8:32

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plan of His Father daily. Jesus trusted and obeyed whatever the Father showed Him to do. Jesus was zealous to know His Father’s plans and carry them out. We are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus 19. God’s love toward us is just as perfect and complete as it was for His only begotten Son. We are adopted into God’s family through faith in Christ Jesus and are given full sonship rights as joint heirs with Christ20. God’s grace is just amazing! There are at least nine major benefits of the New Covenant. Each benefit is guaranteed by God to be ours as we take a hold of it by faith and appropriate works of faith. God can not lie. Each of these nine benefits are in a heavenly bank account for every believer. God has finished the work through Christ’s sacrifice and has deposited all of the benefits into our account21. It is up to us to discover those benefits and appropriate them by faith.

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Galatians 3:26 Romans 8:17 21 Ephesians 1:3 20

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CHAPTER 2 – SALVATION For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:16,17 (underlining mine) God sent His Son in perfect love to save us from the punishment that our sins deserve. The good news of the gospel is that God has made a perfect provision for everyone who believes. God does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance 22. There are many incredible provisions made possible by the cross of Jesus which are available to us when we “get saved”. “Be saved” in John 3:17 is translated from the Greek word “sozo”. In the New Testament, the word sozo is used 109 times. Sozo means “to save, i.e. deliver or protect” (literally or figuratively) and is translated, “heal, preserve, save (self), do well, be (make) whole”. It also means “to keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction”23. Biblical salvation includes forgiveness, healing, resurrection power and deliverance from demons. The woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and was made whole (sozo)24. Jarius’ daughter was saved from death by the power of God. Jesus laid His hands on her and she was made whole again (sozo) 25. Jesus told blind Bartimeus “your faith has made you well” (sozo)26. The Gadarene demoniac was completely delivered and restored to his right mind by the sozo of God when Jesus ministered to him27. There is power at the cross to heal the most demonized mentally ill person in the world! Jesus healed a completely demon possessed man by commanding the unclean spirits to come out of him. Jesus then told the man to become the evangelist to the region and tell everyone what great things God had done for him 28. We need to grow in our knowledge and faith in what Christ has accomplished at the cross. There are many mentally ill people who are oppressed by demons that need the power of salvation. Jesus paid for it all and as we mature we can grow to become like Him and command demons to loose a person so they might be saved. The Forgiveness of Sins In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Ephesians 1:7,8 22

II Peter 3:9 Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft 24 Matthew 9:20-22 25 Mark 5:22-24 26 Mark 10:46-52 27 Luke 8:35-37 28 Luke 8:26-39 23

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When we think about salvation, the most prominent feature we often recall is that our sins are forgiven by His suffering on the cross. The covenant blood of Jesus makes a perfect provision for the forgiveness of all of our sins, past, present and future. This is an expression of His amazing grace and perfect love. I first experienced salvation and the forgiveness of my sins while attending the University of Florida. I was preparing to be a professional golfer and played on a great team which won the national championship my sophomore year. During my junior year, I gave my heart to the Lord and experienced a dramatic conversion. Golf had become an idol so I wondered what to do with it. I transferred to a Christian college and eventually entered inner-city ministry. I laid golf down completely except for an occasional round about once every year or two. After two years of not golfing, I was attempting to play with some friends in San Diego on a beautiful course. My mind was still in the fantasy that I could play at my former level, whereas the present reality was quite distressing to me. I soon became extremely frustrated and angry as my competitive flesh rose to the surface. While I was fuming mad, I noticed my friend Dave, who came along for the walk, laying on the grass besides the tee singing and praising God with exuberant joy. I questioned him angrily, “What are you so happy about?!?” Dave smiled and proclaimed, “It’s a beautiful day, God loves me and all my sins are forgiven!” Dave’s words pierced my heart. He was having the time of his life and I was miserable. I had completely lost the perspective that God loved me perfectly and that my sins were forgiven. I got a major attitude check at that time and turned my focus back on the Lord. The golf game suddenly improved too. The next time you start to get frustrated and miserable, just start praising God that your sins are forgiven and that you are going to be with Him in heaven forever. I guarantee the joy will start to bubble up and the misery will fade away. Transferred into a New Kingdom He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:13,14 God’s love provided an escape from the power of Satan’s kingdom of darkness. Through faith in Christ, we become citizens of heaven and walk in the kingdom of light. God breaks many strongholds off our minds at conversion so that we can “see the light”. We still have to make right choices in order to grow in His grace.

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There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Romans 8:1,2 God’s forgiveness is absolute in Christ. There is absolutely no condemnation or wrathful judgment coming to those who are in Christ. We are free from the law of sin and death. We are released from spiritual prison to walk in the liberty of the Spirit of God. The governing influence of the indwelling Holy Spirit is called the “law of the Spirit of life”. It is not like the Old Testament Law carved in stone, but it is a law written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit. If we yield to the convictions the Holy Spirit writes on our hearts, we will experience His governing influence and will stay yoked with Jesus in perfect partnership. If we rebel against His governing influence, we can become lawless and act in a manner that is not good for us. When we get out of line, the Father will discipline us to bring us back into righteous living29. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. II Corinthians 5:9-11 There are rewards available for believers who serve the Lord on earth. The rewards will vary according to work done. All who believe in the finished work of Christ will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven. There will be additional rewards given to those who have overcome the world, the flesh and the devil and who advance God’s kingdom. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Hebrews 11:6 God is going to justly reward every believer based on their diligence in seeking Him and obeying His voice. As we keep an eternal perspective, it can help motivate us to pay the price of seeking Him through prayer, worship, fasting and so forth. Can a Person Lose His Salvation? One of the most debated theological questions of our age centers around whether a person can lose his or her salvation. This is an extremely complicated question that I wrote an entire book about30. I believe that if we understand the Parable of the Sower that Jesus taught we can better understand the answer to this difficult issue. Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he 29 30

Hebrews 12:7-11 For a detailed discussion on salvation, please see my book, The Narrow Gate

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who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Matthew 13:18-23 The Bible teaches that God’s words are like seeds that are sown in the garden of human hearts. Jesus taught that there were four kinds of heart conditions that the seed would encounter. Only when the word seed lands in the good soil of a good heart will it bear lasting fruit31. If we cultivate our hearts to receive and treasure God’s word, that word will produce the fruit for which God sent it and nothing can stop it. If a person raises their hand to receive Christ at an emotional service, they certainly have the potential to receive that salvation word unto fruit bearing capacity. A good question to ponder might be, “What is the condition of their heart at that moment?” The reality is that many that pray an emotional prayer have shallow hearts or allow worries and cares to entangle their hearts so that the initial seed does not bear lasting fruit. Dr. Billy Graham’s incredible evangelistic ministry was occasionally criticized because only a small percentage, say one out of four, who came to the altar at a crusade went on to live for Christ long term. They worked hard to do follow up and other important discipleship activities, but Christ’s parable helps us understand what happened. Many who came forward did not have the proper heart preparation to receive the gospel to the place where it could bear lasting fruit. I believe that the prayers of Christians are a vital ingredient in preparing hearts to receive the gospel. My grandmother prayed for me every day for over twenty years until I heard and received the gospel seed. I then started praying for other family members and they started coming to Christ. Most of us know friends or relatives that prayed a prayer and went to church for a season or two. But then trials came, they became luke-warm to the gospel and lived in such a way that indicates that God’s seed did not take solid root in their hearts. God can still easily save them, but we need to pray for them that their hearts will tenderize and allow the seed of God’s word to penetrate. Each of us is responsible to cultivate the garden of our own heart. God will do everything He can for us, but He will not violate our free will and make us cultivate our own heart. Cultivating the heart involves a few basic things like gardening. Prepare the soil, plant the seeds, water and watch to keep the weeds and foxes out.

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Matthew 13:3-9; 18-23

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We prepare the soil of our hearts by repentance which tears out the weed seeds of the enemy. We allow God to plant the seeds of His word by listening to preaching or reading the Bible and meditating on the word. When we hear the word, we must receive it by believing. We water the seeds through prayer and continued meditation. We watch over our hearts and keep repenting and believing in the word evidenced by confessing the word with our mouths. We watch for the little foxes of temptation that would lead us astray and spoil the harvest. There are many times when we are not strong enough to deliver our own hearts from issues of sin or oppression. It is essential to become an active part in a local church that is alive in Christ and thriving in God’s love. It helps to be in a small group bible study and have accountability partners while you mature. It is important to pray and read the Bible consistently. During the past twelve years the Lord has taken us into some extended seasons of fasting. This has a powerful impact in preparing the heart to receive new revelation. God has given me a grace to pray in the Spirit for seasons of time and wait on Him. This helps position the heart to hear and receive new living word seeds. All of the benefits that Christ paid for are word seeds that have the power to impact our lives if we will prepare our hearts, receive them in faith and walk them out in our daily lives. The Holy Spirit speaks to our conscience and releases conviction of sin. If we yield to Him, our hearts are plowed up to become good soil that bears lasting fruit. If we reject God’s conviction and rebel, our hearts harden and His word can not grow to bear fruit in the garden of our hearts. God is good and His principles are clearly displayed in agriculture. If you cultivate your heart and continue to walk with God in persevering faith in His perfect love, there is no way that you can lose your salvation or any other benefit of the cross.

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CHAPTER 3 – RIGHTEOUSNESS For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” Romans 1:16,17 An amazing benefit of the covenant in Jesus Christ is that sinful persons can become completely righteous before God through faith in the cross of Calvary. The most sinful person on earth who repents and believes on Jesus is made instantaneously righteous before God. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is credited to the account of every true believer the moment they put their faith in Him. Imagine that Jesus Christ went to your spiritual life school and made all A’s on His report card. This perfect grade record was placed in the school computer which is completely secure. Since you were trapped in a sinful lifestyle, you did poorly in school and were flunking out with all F’s. Jesus, in His grace, says to you, “I’ll take my perfect A’s and I’ll exchange them for your F’s. If you say yes, all His A’s become yours and He suffers the penalty for flunking. The school computer is instantly changed and you become a straight A student. That is a dim illustration of what He did for us on the cross. He took all of our sins and our iniquities and exchanged them for His righteousness or His right standing before God since He lived a perfect life. This righteousness is “imputed” to us. That means it is placed in our account just as if we had lived a righteous life. The heavenly computer was changed. Actually there are literal record books and our names are instantly recorded in the Lamb’s book of life when we place our faith in Jesus Christ. This grace given is not dependant upon our works but on our faith in what Christ did for us. Believers are now the righteousness of God in Christ 32. We are perfectly righteous in our standing before God. The challenging part is to start living that way. We are righteous before God, but we have to work at perfecting holiness in the fear of God33. We are completely saved when we repent and believe in Christ, but we have to walk out our salvation over time. This is known as the process of sanctification 34. The righteousness we have before God through faith does not disappear if we fall back into a pattern of sin. We lose out on many of the benefits of God’s blessings, but once He declares us righteous we are righteous before Him. As mentioned in the previous chapter, I believe that it is possible for a person to receive the seed gift of the word of salvation at some level and so poorly steward, reject and neglect it that it ultimately does not bear the fruit for which God sent it. God cannot make us believe His word or obey His voice. Some may have shallow faith and allow 32

II Corinthians 5:21 II Corinthians 7:1 34 See Chapter 5 for more details 33

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worries and cares to choke the seeds of salvation faith over time. We are responsible to cultivate our hearts to receive the word implanted and partner with God to water it to maturity. Righteousness by His Grace through Faith But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Romans 3:21-26 The entire book of Romans argues for the righteousness which is given to us by His grace through our faith. God finished the work for us in Christ and we have to take hold of it by faith and appropriate action. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Romans 4:3 Abraham believed the promise of God regarding making him the father of many nations. God promised Abraham a natural heir. In light of Abraham and Sarah’s physical condition, Abraham had to believe God for a miracle. God reckoned him righteous for doing so. God wants us to believe His prophetic promises towards us. We have to believe in His ability to do the miraculous because His prophetic promises are way beyond our natural ability to produce. God is pleased when we believe Him in this way and we step into the stream of the faith of Abraham. And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification. Romans 4:19-25 Abraham believed the prophetic word of God unto righteousness. We are to believe in the cross of Jesus Christ unto righteousness as well. Jesus said that we were to take up our cross and follow Him. An aspect of developing in the character of righteous living is to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and submit to His governing influence.

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If we constantly and persistently refuse to obey the leading of the Holy Spirit we will become lawless and deny our faith in Him. Jesus warned us that this is an extremely calamitous position to be in on the Day of Judgment35. We are made righteous by faith in the finished work of Christ and we live out that faith by following the Bible and the prophetic voice of the Holy Spirit as He leads us in His perfect will36. There are many promises that the Bible makes towards the righteous. These are given to those who demonstrate the righteousness of faith which includes the appropriate applications of faith, obeying the word of God and the voice of the Holy Spirit. God wants you to become just like Jesus who only lived by every word that proceeded from the mouth of God. In order to get these kinds of clear prophetic words, we must pray earnestly and fervently, building an altar of prayer over days and even months if needed, until He comes and answers. When God gives us a clear word in this way and we believe and act on it, we experience an aspect of His righteousness and His favor increases on our life. New Creatures in Christ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. II Corinthians 5:17-21 Through faith in Christ, we become a new creation in Him. Old things have passed away at the cross. Our sins are forgiven. Our old nature is rendered legally dead. We have been reconciled to God and have become ambassadors of God to bring His message to people all over the world. Christ was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He took our sins and we get His righteousness. This is the greatest exchange in all history and for all eternity! In 1974, I was lost in sin, pleasure seeking and doing my own thing on my way to eternity in hell’s fire for all my rebellion and wickedness. While I was in the midst of my sinful rebellion, Christ made His vicarious death known to me. I came under conviction of my sins, repented and believed on Jesus and immediately experienced the first fruits of salvation, peace with God.

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Matthew 7:21-23 For detailed study on the doctrine of salvation, see my book, The Narrow Gate

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At that moment, God took all of my sins, past, present and future, and nailed them to the cross. He imputed the righteousness of Jesus to my account and put my sins in Jesus’ account which He paid for by His sacrificial covenant death. I will never become more righteous before God than I was at that moment because I was justified by His blood. Justified means “just as if I’d” never sinned. I have a clean legal standing before God. There is work to do in walking out what God worked inside my heart. I have to choose to agree with God and walk yoked to Jesus each day. As I do, the Holy Spirit will deal with issues of my flesh that will have to die daily and I will grow in holy living in the fear of God37. This should happen in the context of a local body of Christians. Pattern for Daily Living Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it’. Luke 9:23-25 Jesus taught us the pattern for daily living. It is the pattern established at salvation which is simply to repent and believe. Deny your self, take up your cross and follow Jesus. Death to self and life to God is the pattern. Say no to sin and yes to the Lord. God will release His holy fire to keep burning out old things that hinder us from becoming all that we already are in Christ. The Promised Land of our lives has already been given to us, but now we have to drive out the enemies called flesh, sin, rebellion, carnality, lust, greed, rage, worry, doubt and so forth. The battle is intense at times to take possession of what God has given us. Many Christians die in the wilderness wandering because of unbelief. They will go to heaven but they won’t accomplish everything God had for them. If you want to accomplish your destiny in God, you will have to know who you are in God, take hold of your covenant rights and walk in the daily pattern of development given by Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It is simple to state, but challenging to walk out. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus every day! The Body, Bride and Family of God Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. I Corinthians 12:27 As the righteousness of God in Christ, our new identity in Him includes being part of His body. We are in Christ and He is in us through the power of the cross. We are an integral part of His body and we have a special function as a member of His body. The human body is extraordinary and has several complex systems and important organs. While every system, organ and function of the body differ, they are all essential for the complete working of the body. Jesus Christ is the head of the body and we are joined to 37

II Corinthians 7:1

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Him. As we mature, we discover our specific function and become content to do our calling knowing that we are part of a much larger body. We cannot do everything in the body, but we can do our specific part. The Bible speaks of Jesus as the Bridegroom and believers are called the Bride 38. We should embrace the identity as His Bride through faith in Christ. The bride has the responsibility to make herself ready for the coming of the Bridegroom. Paul declared that we are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus 39. Jesus taught us to pray to “our Father” 40. We are clearly part of God’s family in Christ. This is a tremendous benefit. As sons of our eternal Father, we have sonship rights that enable us to come before His throne boldly and make requests. He loves us and disciplines us as sons so that we will walk in agreement with Him and live righteously. We are part of the “Family Business” which is to advance our Father’s kingdom on earth in various ways including preaching the gospel to all the nations. God’s kingdom will also influence government, business, education, media, the arts and all aspects of society and culture so lost people can know Christ and become part of His family. God’s heart is tender towards every person alive today. He created each one and has a special purpose for them. We have the responsibility to hear and obey the Holy Spirit so that we can reach and touch those God calls us to reach with His life-changing message. When our time on earth is over, we will have a special place in heaven forever as part of God’s family.

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John 3:29; Ephesians 5:25-33 Galatians 3:26 40 Mathew 6:9 39

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CHAPTER 4 – REGENERATION But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. Titus 3:4-6 Spiritual regeneration means that God washes away all that is old, sinful and decaying. God restores our spirit man to the place where it is supposed to be, dead to the power of sin and alive to the power of resurrection life. Regeneration causes us to be born again, born from above. Regeneration makes us alive to the life of God and as we walk with Him our minds are renewed by His Spirit and His word. 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. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. John 14:17,18 Regeneration makes it possible for the Holy Spirit to live inside believers. When Jesus sealed the New Covenant by His precious blood, it became possible for the Holy Spirit to dwell inside believers. This is an incredible benefit of the perfect love of God. The Holy Spirit is God! He is the Spirit and mind of Christ. He comes to dwell in us so that we will not be orphans, but we will be sons and daughters of the most high God. The empowering presence of the Holy Spirit is a gift of extreme importance to every believer. God loves us so much that He made it possible for His Spirit to dwell in every born again Christian. Selah! The Power of the Holy Spirit 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. Acts 1:8 The Holy Spirit gives us the power to walk with God and be witnesses of God’s love starting at home and expanding to the nations. His infinite power enables us to overcome the flesh, the world and the devil. His power enables us to be transformed from the inside out. This power is a gift of His grace given to us through faith. Without His grace in enabling power, no one could walk an overcoming life. The Holy Spirit is our helper, counselor, teacher and friend. He is the One who enables us to pray effective prayers. Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26,27

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As we seek to mature in Christ, we encounter barriers and resistance to achieving our full destiny. At these times, we try to pray through and may discover a lack of power in our prayers to break through. As we experience weakness and continue to cry out to God, the Holy Spirit comes to help us make effectual intercession. God has connected me with some extraordinary intercessors who have learned to rely on and pray intercession by the Holy Spirit. Through their model and teaching, my family and I have learned to pray at deeper levels. We have experienced various forms of intercession including confessions, declarations, weeping, groaning, travail, birthing and warfare. There is supernatural power loosed in intercession by the Holy Spirit even though we may be at our weakest hour. Jesus relied on the Holy Spirit every day as He prayed and ministered. He prayed with fervent intercession, groanings and tears41. By God’s grace, Christians have become part of the temple of God through the new birth and the indwelling Holy Spirit 42. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit43. We are new covenant priests that are to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God44. The Holy Spirit is given to help us fulfill God’s call on our life. The Spirit Works in You For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Romans 8:13-16 The Holy Spirit works in us to help us put to death the deeds of the flesh. He leads us on a daily basis as we fellowship with Him and take on the governmental yoke of Jesus’ Lordship. The Holy Spirit releases us from the bondage of fear that Satan sends against us. The Spirit testifies within us that we are children of God. This is part of His sanctifying work that we will discuss in the next chapter as well. For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Therefore “Come out from among them and be separate”, says the Lord. “Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters”, Says the LORD Almighty. Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. II Corinthians 6:16-7:1

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Hebrews 5:7 Ephesians 2:21-22 43 I Corinthians 3:16 44 I Peter 2:5,9 42

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The great love and grace of God is demonstrated to us in Christ and His promise to dwell in us. Sometimes we forget who we are and wander into carnality and old sins. When we realize that we are the temple of the living God, it motivates us to cleanse ourselves through repentance and confession of everything that is displeasing to the Holy Spirit. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit and He will bear witness in our spirits when we are displeasing to Him. If we keep our hearts tender, He will be able to show us when we are getting out of the path of God’s will. It is truly impossible to walk as Jesus walked without the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. But with His incredible presence, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us45. His presence enables us to bear the fruit of the Spirit over time as He works Christ-like character into us. The Holy Spirit also gives gifts to the body of Christ so that we may individually and corporately accomplish the works of God on earth. It is important for Christians to know all they can about the Holy Spirit and learn to walk in the Spirit daily. There is a great deal that we must learn about the Holy Spirit and His anointings46. God’s perfect love is demonstrated by giving us the Holy Spirit and we grow in God’s love as we walk with Him loving God and loving people.

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Philippians 4:13 For a detailed study on the Holy Spirit, please see my book, Abiding in the Anointing

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CHAPTER 5 – SANCTIFICATION But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. Hebrews 9:11-15 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Hebrews 10:10 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Hebrews 13:12 Jesus Christ demonstrated His perfect love for us by making a new covenant with us through His blood. The Old Testament taught God’s people that the shedding of blood was necessary to restore a right relationship with God and to cleanse man from sin. Jesus’ sacrifice sanctifies and purifies us placing us in right standing with God. Sanctification is one of the most important benefits of the new covenant and perhaps the least understood. All the benefits of the covenant are ours in Christ Jesus, but in order to experience them we need to understand and appropriate them through faith and action. Sanctification is a past, present and future work of God in the heart and life of every believer. It is a most blessed provision that we need to understand and appropriate daily. So what exactly is sanctification and how does it benefit us? Sanctification is a new covenant provision by the blood of Jesus that releases the infinite always active personal grace of our holy Almighty God for continual cleansing, washing, healing, delivering, consecrating, imparting, forming and conforming those of us who believe to the image of His dear Son by His word through His Spirit that we might be true vessels of honor useful to the Master for His glory forever. Sanctification is the ongoing work of God’s grace by the Holy Spirit enabling us to be transformed day by day into the image of Christ. By covenant grace, God is committed to sanctifying us daily. We benefit by daily being cleansed of old sinful issues. His mercy is new every morning. We are daily renewed by new revelations and impartations from God. Sanctification is like an ongoing extreme makeover of our lives to make us shine with the light of Christ.

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In the Old Testament, God set apart people, places and things for His service through the various acts of sanctification. God is holy and earnestly desires to restore fellowship with fallen man. God cannot allow uncleanness in His presence so He provides a means to clean vessels so that they can be in His presence and useful in His service. When we repent of our sins and believe on the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are saved by grace through faith and justified before God by His blood sacrifice. We have a right standing and restored fellowship with God. We are born again, new creatures in Christ, washed and regenerated by the Holy Spirit so that we can be miniature temples of the Holy Spirit. This is a past tense work of God in us. We were sanctified on that day we believed and received Him. God instantly sanctifies us on the day of our salvation by taking us out of darkness and conveying us into the kingdom of His marvelous light. In other words, He delivers us out of bondage in Egypt by the blood of the Passover Lamb. Then comes the long period of time whereby He seeks to get Egypt, the influences of this fallen world system, out of us. The process is a journey whereby God exposes areas of our lives that He wants to transform. He convicts of sin by His word through His Spirit. The anointed word has the power to cleanse us when we receive it by faith and make application. God Wills that You Be Sanctified For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit. I Thessalonians 4:3-8 God’s will is for our continual sanctification, which is the present cleansing work of the Holy Spirit to transform us out of old sinful patterns into new patterns of becoming like Christ. God is up to the task, but it is vital that we partner with Him in this process for it to be effective and fruitful. Perhaps the opposite of sanctification is sexual immorality and lust in all its forms. God calls us to be holy. The world calls us to be unclean. God promises to wash us and purify us. We have to hear the word, believe it and put it into practice by abstaining from sexual immorality and lust. This is a major spiritual war in the life of every believer. It is a war each of us can win at every level through the power of the sanctifying blood of Jesus, the power of the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God and the power of prayer in the Spirit. God’s will includes God’s grace to accomplish the work. Every believer has to fight the good fight of faith and war against the love of this world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life in its many

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manifestations. When our desires carry us into sin, the Holy Spirit is faithful to convict us, not condemn us. We can beat ourselves up all we want over sin, but it won’t help. We need to confess our sin before God and recognize that the blood sacrifice of Jesus is available to sanctify us again by cleansing us from all the unrighteousness of that sin. In that cleansing process, God’s Spirit seeks to sow the word of God in our hearts so that we will grow stronger to resist sin and gain inner convictions that will help us to say no to future temptation. Before God saved me, I was a borderline alcoholic and loved to party. After I got saved, the Lord began to convict me that alcohol was a worldly influence that I had to deal with. I repented several times for falling into drunkenness and had a tremendous battle to stay sober. After staying sober for months, I started to rationalize that having a glass of wine would not hurt. Once I had one glass, I had two, and after three I didn’t care any more so I just drank excessively and got sinfully drunk. This happened every time I drank just one glass of wine or any kind of alcohol. Obviously, I had a serious problem. The Lord helped me stay sober for about six months at a time and then I would fall off the old wagon. On our honeymoon, Glenda and I sat at an elegant restaurant by an ocean beach. The Holy Spirit was convicting my spirit not to drink wine and I did not want to listen to His voice. My mind rationalized that this was our honeymoon and it was an appropriate time to celebrate and on and on. The waitress asked if we wanted wine and I asked Glenda if she wanted some and she said yes. We agreed on a bottle of wine and the waitress asked for our identification. Fortunately, Glenda forgot her I.D. and so they could only serve me wine. I was so convicted that I told the waitress “no thank you”. Then I confessed to Glenda the inner war I was having and made a commitment to her not to drink alcohol again. That was in May of 1976 and by God’s amazing grace, I have not had a drink of alcohol since. I am still tempted from time to time, but God has sanctified me and strengthened me in that area so I thank Him for that. There are always other areas He is working on in me and I desperately need Him to keep the work of sanctification moving in me so I can overcome and grow in grace and the strength of His word. The world system is full of sexual immorality, lust, greed, coveteousness, rage, fear, control, manipulation, uncleanness, criticism, judgments, lying, stealing and so forth. God is willing and able to sanctify us from all of them as we cry out to Him and allow Him to sanctify us by His word and His Spirit. Sanctification by the Word of God Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. John 17:17-19 That He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. Ephesians 5:26-28

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God’s word has tremendous cleansing and washing power. Jesus told His disciples that they were already clean because of the word that He spoke to them 47. That is amazing power. Obviously the disciples believed and received that word deep in their hearts. One important role we have in partnering with God in the sanctification process is to keep our hearts tender as good soil and read and meditate on the word of God. As you devote yourself to prayer and the study of God’s word, His word will wash you and cleanse you and impart His life to you. Jesus, in His perfect love, promises to wash His bride with the water of the word until she is completely holy without a single spot or blemish. His living word is that powerful! God is Faithful to Sanctify You Completely Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. I Thessalonians 5:23-24 If we focus on ourselves or our track record in the sanctification process, we will get discouraged and will choose to believe doctrines that say that we can never be completely cleansed or whole in this lifetime. If we focus on the love of Christ, the power of God and the word of God, we can embrace the revelation that God is willing and able to transform us continually towards the goal of becoming like Jesus. Paul prayed that God Himself would sanctify the believers completely. He prayed that our whole spirit, soul and body would be preserved blameless. The fact of the matter is that when God sanctified us at salvation, He already declared us clean and holy by that word of salvation. In His sight we became holy before Him at that moment. Then we walked back out in the world and acted in our old flesh. We were still sanctified in God’s sight, but He wants to transform us so that He can use us as vessels of honor. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. II Timothy 2:20-22 God saves many by His marvelous grace that don’t experience the blessings of being used for His glory to the fullness. We each have a wonderful destiny that God has planned. He wants to use us as vessels of His glory. When the Lord baptized me with His Spirit in a powerful way in 1996, I began hearing His prophetic voice say, “I want to fill My temple with My glory, but first My temple must be cleansed.” I heard this exact word many times over the next months as God led me to do a forty-day fast and make other changes to start a deeper cleansing process. 47

John 15:3

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It has been my goal ever since to cooperate with God to allow Him to sanctify my life entirely so that I could be filled with His glory and be a useful vessel. I can easily agree with Paul who said: Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14 Sanctification Includes Deliverance Now the man from whom the demons had departed begged Him that he might be with Him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you.” And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him. Luke 8:38,39 Jesus demonstrated His sanctifying grace when He delivered a demoniac with a legion of demons and set him apart to proclaim what God had done for him. Jesus Christ has the authority and power to save, sanctify, deliver, heal and make whole any person without exception. There is no person so far gone that Jesus cannot make them whole. It does not depend on their faith. The demoniac above did not ask for prayer, Jesus simply moved in compassion and delivered him. His cross paid the price so that we can be delivered and made completely whole. There is no sinful pattern so deep in anyone that Jesus can’t save and sanctify them. Because Christ is in us and we are in Him, He can lead us to do what He did and even greater works because He has gone to the Father 48. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us. The excellency of His power is available to us to do the works of God to set captives free49. It is all part of the covenant blessing made with us at the cross of Calvary. If you allow the Holy Spirit to sow the word seeds of deliverance and wholeness deep in your heart and bring those seeds to maturity, this will further sanctify you. Then you will be able to deliver the demonized and make people whole by His name and power. We are His representatives on earth. We represent His Name (nature) and kingdom. It is His nature in perfect love to deliver, heal and make people whole by the power of His word. God Delivers Those who Cry Out to Him Fools, because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, were afflicted. Their soul abhorred all manner of food, and they drew near to the gates of death. Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and He saved them out of their 48 49

John 14:12-14 For a detailed study, please see my book, The Excellency of His Power

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distresses. He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! Let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare His works with rejoicing. Psalm 107:17-22 God sends His word to heal, deliver and make whole those that cry out to Him. Those who cannot cry out for themselves, need intercessors to cry out on their behalf and pray for them to be saved by God’s great power. We need to take the authority God has given us and use it to set at liberty those who are oppressed. God is infinitely good. In His extraordinary goodness, He has made provisions for us no matter how desperate our circumstances. The Lord had us read Psalm 107 many times during extreme challenges. We kept giving thanks to God for His goodness even though our experience was a time of great trial. God is faithful to send His revelatory word to give us deliverance and guidance. This is part of His covenant grace in sanctification. Believe in the Prophetic Word and You Shall Prosper So they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the LORD your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.” II Chronicles 20:20 A great multitude of enemy soldiers came against ancient Israel. The enemy far outnumbered Israel and the situation was desperate. King Jehoshophat and the people cried out to God. Through the prophet, the Lord said to send the praisers and worshippers out first into the battle and that God was going to supernaturally fight for them. Jehoshaphat encouraged the people to believe God’s word through the prophets. God sent His word and they were saved when they obeyed the word. The worshippers went forth and God supernaturally routed the enemies. They recovered great spoils from the battle. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. I Corinthians 10:13 God is faithful to provide a way of escape in and through every trial as we cry out to Him and wait upon Him for His word. Blessed are those who wait on God, hear His word, believe Him and obey. They will prosper on earth and become the sons of righteousness. I have met and prayed with many individuals who have suffered great trauma and abuse during childhood. As they have cried out to God, He has provided ways of escape, healing and wholeness. We often need the ministry of mature believers to help us make progress.

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When I was in college, I took a coed one night to a romantic sandy beach. Foolishly I drove my car onto the beach and got completely stuck in the sand. There was no possible way the two of us could get the car out. My heart quietly cried out to God. Suddenly, two car loads of rowdy young men arrived. They were obviously under some inebriating influence. I felt fear and thought the worst. Within two minutes, they surrounded our car, lifted it completely out of the sand and walked it onto the pavement laughing all the way. We were saved and delivered! I never drove a car on the sand again. When we get stuck in spiritual sand, God knows how to rescue us and restore us to His solid rock pathway. He hears our cries and may send unlikely vessels to help us. He has promised to deliver us and make us whole as part of His sanctifying love in His perfect covenant. Isn’t He wonderful? Amen!

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CHAPTER 6 – HEALING AND DIVINE HEALTH Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. Psalm 103:2,3 By whose stripes you were healed. I Peter 2:24b But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. Hebrews 8:6 Jesus is the Mediator of a better covenant with better promises. In His perfect love, Jesus experienced painful suffering so that we would not have to suffer. The New Covenant grace of Jesus includes a provision for divine health and healing because of the suffering Jesus bore when He was whipped by the Roman soldiers. God healed people in the Old Testament and made healing a part of the Old Covenant 50. God revealed Himself as a healer to Abraham, Moses, David and others. Some have taught that God’s healing ended when the last apostle died. That is foolishness. I have seen hundreds of people healed through believing prayer. Our family walks in divine health and protection because we have faith in a perfect love covenant with God. Those who fail to believe in the provisions at the cross for healing are cheating themselves and others from experiencing a benefit Christ paid for in full. Before I truly believed in divine healing, I only saw two people healed through prayer in twenty years of ministry. After I began believing that God made a provision in Christ for healing, I have seen several hundred healings including dramatic miracles. The difference is simple faith and prayer to appropriate the benefit that is available. God has given me a special grace to pray for people with headaches. It may not seem like a dramatic healing gift, but if you have a serious migraine, an instant healing is a significant blessing. At one meeting I was testifying about how God used me to pray for people with headaches and I casually walked up to a man and said, “Do you have a headache?” The man was shocked and said, “Yes, I do!” Immediately, I said “Check it again” and the man was absolutely amazed that his head no longer hurt. I didn’t pray, lay my hands on him or anything. The power of God through testimony simply touched him. I was in a hair salon when the manicurist complained of having a terrible headache. I quietly prayed for her healing and then asked her, “How does your head feel now?” She looked at me, smiled real big and said, “Thanks!” On one occasion I was at a friend’s house who had a terrible headache. So I casually said, “Well, let us pray for you!” I was shocked by the response. They said it was ok because all they needed to do was take a few pills and it would be better. My wife Glenda and I were recently visiting a man with tremendous pain in his leg. We’ve seen 50

Exodus 15:26

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God heal so many that we simply offered to pray for him believing that God would do a miracle. Immediately the man said, “I don’t think prayer will do me any good!” He refused our prayer. His unbelief blocked the provision God had for him. God in His goodness will sometimes heal people in spite of their unbelief, but God’s provision is available all of the time for those who have faith. Healing Provision By His Stripes Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness -- by whose stripes you were healed. I Peter 2:24 Jesus made a perfect love provision for our healing by His stripes. It was prophesied by Isaiah that the Messiah, the Suffering Servant, would come and take away our sins and our sickness. God could have arranged for Jesus to go directly to the cross and avoid the torturous beating by the Roman soldiers. But in perfect love, God made a provision for healing that is paid for in full. The crown of thorns beat into Jesus’ head paid in full for mental illness and mental anguish to be healed through faith. The provision is a finished fact. We simply have to attach to it by faith in His perfect love. He was despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:3-6 Sickness came into the earth after the fall of mankind because of rebellion and sin. Jesus came to redeem us from the curse of sickness and to deliver us from rebellion and sin. We don’t have to walk in sinless perfection to be healed. We simply need to turn our hearts to the Lord and believe in His provision. And these signs will follow those who believe……..they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. Mark 16:17,18 (portions) The sick don’t have to be in complete faith if the person laying hands on them has enough faith. But the sick do need to at least allow God’s servants to lay hands on them and pray. God has used us to pray for many people who have been healed based on this passage. We tell them that they are going to be healed because God loves them and because we believe. We never put a condemnation trip on anyone by saying that they didn’t have enough faith so they weren’t healed. God’s perfect love provision is available to all who will believe. His miraculous healing goodness overflows to many unbelievers as well. His goodness leads to repentance 51. 51

Romans 2:4

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We don’t try to get people saved before we pray for their healing. After they get healed, they almost always want to know the Healer. Jesus Healed them All And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them. Matthew 4:23-24 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” Matthew 8:16-17 Jesus walked a life of perfect love. He healed all who were sick who came to Him. There was never a person who came to Jesus for healing that went away sick. Many who were healed by Jesus chose not to follow Him or believe in Him. That did not change His ministry or reduce His love for them. Jesus gave the power to heal to His disciples yesterday and He does the same today. Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Luke 9:1,2 Jesus gave His disciples power and authority to accomplish the miraculous works of deliverance and healing as well as preaching the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is recognized as greater than the kingdom of this world by the manifestations of healing, deliverance, salvation and miraculous power. This not only authenticates the gospel but brings glory to God and releases His compassion to relieve pain and suffering. After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. And heal the sick there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” Luke 10:1,2 Jesus also gave authority and power to 70 disciples to heal the sick. They were not all apostles, but simple followers of Jesus who believed in Him. Jesus rose from the dead and received absolute and infinite power and authority from the Father. Because of this great authority, Jesus made commands and delegated authority to His disciples and all future disciples who would believe in Him. Based on Jesus’ authority and power, we are commanded, like His original disciples, to go into all the world, preach the gospel and demonstrate His kingdom by the same signs

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of casting out demons, speaking with new tongues, power over serpents, supernatural protection and healing power. This is exactly what His first disciples did. Pray the Prayer of Faith Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. James 5:13-17 James taught us another principle in appropriating the healing power that Jesus paid for in full. We are to go to the elders and ask for prayer when sickness overwhelms us. If needed, we should confess any known sins at that time. Elders should have enough faith in the perfect covenant love of Jesus to pray for the sick with fervency until they are healed. A few weeks ago I had a dream about an old friend who lives over one thousand miles away. I prayed for him twice in the dream but he was not receiving the flow of the anointing that would heal him. This man had two life threatening issues including a brain tumor and cancer. God was working a healing but it was not quite complete. The Spirit called me in as one of the many elders who were praying. Agreement is often needed as well as mature development of the intercessors to manifest some healings. I emailed the details of the dream and told my dear brother to stand on James 5:13-17. Within two weeks, I received an email that the physicians had declared this man completely healed. He gave glory to God and said it was because of the prayers of the elders seen in James 5. God took me in the spirit in my dream to pray for this man twice and I gave him a word of counsel in the natural. Most of the work of prayer had already been accomplished, but a little more was needed to see the healing manifest. Elijah prayed fervently seven times before the rain manifested 52. If he had only prayed six times, the prophesied rain would not have come! The healing provision along with all of God’s provisions of perfect love often require persevering fervent prayer before they become manifest. We must learn to pray enduring prayers of faith and not let go until the answer begins to appear53. This is a key in obtaining God’s promises.

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I Kings 18:41-44 Hebrews 6:12; See also my book, The Journey of Faith, to understand more about how faith develops and operates to facilitate a greater flow of His anointing power. 53

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CHAPTER 7 – BLESSINGS AND WEALTH Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Galatians 3:13,14 God’s perfect love in His perfect plan to send Christ included a provision at the cross so that we might experience the blessings of Abraham through faith. God blessed Abraham with exorbitant wealth54. He was one of the wealthiest men on the earth. Abraham sent 318 trained male servants to recover Lot from unrighteous kings55. Most of Abraham’s men were married with several children. Abraham’s extended household would have been over 1,000 individuals. Abraham had extraordinary wealth in livestock, silver and gold. He was blessed with faith in God and the wealth of God’s promises. Through faith we can obtain the blessings of Abraham and all that the “better covenant” in Christ provides. Abraham’s blessing includes much more than financial prosperity, but prosperity is an essential part of God’s covenant love. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5 (underlining mine) Jesus experienced extreme suffering for our peace. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. This word includes total blessing and wellness including financial prosperity. Jesus came to overcome the thief who tries to bind us in poverty, sickness and loss. Jesus came so that we might have superabundant life including wealth56. Christ Bore Poverty so that We Might Become Rich For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. II Corinthians 8:9 Jesus Christ chose to become poor during His earthly life as part of His perfect love for us. Jesus demonstrated His love and grace by bearing poverty on the cross so that we might become rich. The revelation of this verse has been lost to large portions of the Church. Some have over emphasized this truth, but few have truly experienced the blessing of wealth as a benefit of His covenant promise. God says there is a covenant blessing of wealth and provision provided for at the cross that we might tap into by faith. Just as there is a provision in the suffering death of Jesus 54

Genesis 13:2 Genesis 14:14 56 John 10:10 55

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for our salvation and through the stripes of Jesus for our miraculous healing, there is a provision for finances through faith57. Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Galatians 3:5 God works financial miracles by the hearing of faith. The Holy Spirit releases words of wisdom that will enable us to prosper supernaturally if we will apply the word appropriately. Many times, those words don’t make sense to our natural minds. Peter and the disciples experienced times of supernatural prosperity when Jesus told them how and where to fish. They fished all night and caught nothing and were quitting for the day. Jesus told them to go out at His word and fish in the deep. Peter complained that they had fished all night. His natural mind did not want to go out and fish any more. But Peter yielded to the authority of Jesus’ word and experienced supernatural wealth. They caught so many fish in one cast of the nets that their boats were sinking58. In order to step into God’s perfect love and benefit from His provision for our prosperity we have to hear God’s voice and do what He says to do. From the natural realm standpoint this may appear risky, but you have to believe in God and pass the test of your faith in the midst of fire59. In order to hear a specific word for finances, it is often necessary to sow for a season in prayer and wait upon the Lord for a clear answer. I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me. Habakkuk 2:1a The Lord has taught us to watch in prayer. If you sow consistently in prayer over an issue, you will eventually reap a revelation from God. I had it in my heart to take my family and visit my mother and family over 3,000 miles away. This would require finances for eight plane tickets, three hotel rooms and two rental cars. I prayed into this for over three months. Suddenly, one day, while I was driving the car asking the Lord for a word of knowledge about something else, the Holy Spirit came all over me with heavy emotion. I wept as He showed me to book tickets for my whole family to go to Christmas at grandma’s house. Since some of our children live in different states, the logistics were quite complicated. But the Lord enabled me to book all the tickets that night and finances came in to pay for the trip. We had such a beautiful holiday and it came by revelation of the Lord as we waited on Him. God is concerned about every aspect of our lives and wants to prosper us in big and little things. As we pray and wait on Him, He will give us grace by revelation to know what to do and He will encourage our faith to step out and do it. 57 58

For a complete teaching on this topic, see my book, Faith for Finances Luke 5:4-11

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God’s Will is for You to Prosper Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. III John 2 As a perfect loving Father, God desires that you prosper in all things and be in great health. It is more than His desire. In His perfect love, God already made a provision at the cross so that we could experience wealth and health. We have to pull it into our experience through mature faith. This passage implies that our soul needs to prosper in order for us to prosper. Our soul is primarily made up of our mind, emotions and will. Our souls get wounded through sin and mixed up by believing lies of the enemy. Confessed sin is forgiven by His blood, and we need to forgive others and ourselves. We also need to renew our minds by the word of God and receive His healing love and light for our souls to be made completely whole60. There are times when most of us have struggled financially and have had poor health. During the past ten years, the Lord has helped us walk in divine health and we have not needed man’s health care even though we have six children. It has been amazing grace how God has kept us and healed us. All glory to Him and His finished work. Unfortunately, we have not broken through to His full prosperity blessing. We have been fighting the good fight of faith to believe God for supernatural prosperity. We have seen God provide miraculously for us many times during the past ten years, but many times we have struggled and experienced lack. Perhaps you have also. God wants us to grow in maturity and learn to believe and fight for our covenant rights through fervent prayer. Let them shout for joy and be glad, who favor my righteous cause; and let them say continually, “Let the LORD be magnified, who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.” Psalm 35:27 God does not want any of His children to be poor. He delights in our prosperity. We need to grow in walking with His Spirit, hearing His voice and obeying. But we must believe it is God’s will to prosper us just as we must believe it is His will to save and heal us. God is good and infinitely wealthy. He doesn’t want any of His children in the world to suffer the curse of poverty and destitution. Christ paid for our blessing. It is available even to third-world Christians. Our wealth will be relative to our cultural and historical context, but those around us will recognize the blessing of God on us61. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. Psalm 68:6

60 61

Malachi 4:2 Isaiah 61:9

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Through the power of Jesus finished work on the cross, God is able to bring those who are bound in poverty into the liberty of His prosperity. This is a great grace! Joseph is an example of one who was bound and alone. God delivered him from captivity and brought him into incredible prosperity and gave him a family. Eventually, Joseph’s entire family was restored to him62. Many prophetic people, who have dreamed dreams and believed God for much have experienced rejection and a form of captivity. God is going to release many “Josephs” and establish them as stewards of wealth to benefit those who need the bread of life. Overcoming Fear and Unbelief But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:33,34 Every responsible adult has concerns about finances. Having a family to provide for increases the responsibility and the concerns. Satan seeks to steal, kill and destroy our finances so that he might limit us in fulfilling our calling. Jesus told us to seek first the revelation of His kingdom and God’s righteousness so that all provisions would be released to us. Jesus told us not to enter into sinful anxiety or worry. Worry is a form of fear that starts believing the lies of the enemy. If we walk by natural sight, it is easy to get into fear about finances especially when you have experienced a great deal of loss and hope deferred. God calls us to continually seek His kingdom for heavenly revelation. When we receive heavenly revelation, we can pray “let your kingdom come and your will be done” on earth as we see it in the heavenly realm. God releases prophetic vision as we seek Him first with all our heart and He will deliver us from captivity63. It is usually not enough to simply pray “let your kingdom come and let your will be done”. We have to press in to get specific revelation. When God releases revelation, He is giving you a key of the kingdom. That key, if turned properly through prayer and proper application will bind the enemy and loose the resources of heaven64. Once I had a dream in which I was handed three separate checks. I believed that this was a key of revelation to loose resources from heaven for us. Our family was in need of finances so I began praying that God would touch the hearts of three of His people to give us a love gift. We live by faith and God has usually not led us to share our needs with anyone. As we prayed about the three checks, God began speaking to the hearts of three individuals. God showed me one of the individuals He was speaking to and we began praying for God to bless that person.

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Genesis 40-47 Jeremiah 29:11-14 64 Matthew 16:19 63

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All three gifts came in during a four day period and helped us break through for that month. As one gift came through a precious friend, I wept and experienced a deeper wave of God’s perfect love. God’s love is extremely tangible in this way. The Lord has had us give many sacrificial gifts as well. He is well pleased when we trust Him to give in this way at His prompting. CHAPTER 8 - GIFTS AND GLORY Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. I Corinthians 12:1,4-6 God’s perfect love gives gifts of His grace to His children. God does not want any believer to be ignorant about spiritual gifts and how they function. There are diversities of gifts and differences in their administration but the source of all gifts is the Holy Spirit and His anointing65. The nine gifts of the Holy Spirit are available as part of God’s covenant with us so that we can do the works of the Father. They can be utilized in all aspects of life, work and ministry. The Father has given every person on earth gifts as part of His creative grace and as an image of Himself66. Jesus Christ gives the five office gifts to a select group of believers whom He has chosen to be His apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. They are gifted in this way to equip the saints to do the work of ministry and enable them to mature in Christ67. Five-fold ministers are gifts to the body of Christ. The Nine Gifts of the Holy Spirit But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. I Corinthians 12:7-11 There are nine gifts of the Holy Spirit given as graces of God to enable us to do the supernatural works the Father calls us to do. If you have never studied these gifts in detail and understand how they function I encourage you to do so in my books or other good books on this topic68. Let me briefly list these gifts for you below: 65

For detailed study on the gifts of the Spirit, please see my book, Abiding in the Anointing Romans 12:3-8 67 Ephesians 4:11-16 68 My books on this topic include: Holy Spirit 101, The Excellency of His Power, and Abiding in the Anointing 66

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Gifts of Proclamation: Prophecy, tongues and interpretation of tongues Gifts of Revelation: Words of knowledge, words of wisdom and discerning of spirits Gifts of Power: Faith, healings and miracles All nine of these gifts are supernatural graces that equip you to do things that you could not do without God’s enabling power. I believe that we can access all nine of the gifts at some point during our lifetime if we will walk closely with the Lord. The bible teaches us to earnestly desire and pursue the use of spiritual gifts, especially prophecy69. All gifts are to function under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit manifests His presence in a special way which we often call “the anointing”. The anointing, which is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s and/or angelic presence, is greater than the gifts. The anointing or glory of God can come into a place powerfully such as on the Day of Pentecost70. The anointing presence is a manifestation of the glory of God. His glory and His goodness are one and the same. When God manifests His goodness, He intends to minister His life to people He loves. Of course, God loves everyone perfectly but His power is not always present to manifest His goodness. We have to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and develop in knowing how to flow in His gifts and anointing. Sometimes the spirit of prophecy will come into a meeting so that everyone is receiving revelation and prophetic input from God. King Saul came under a spirit of prophecy and prophesied like a wild man 71. When the spirit of prophecy is present, the Holy Spirit wants to flow through the gift of prophecy on individuals. Someone with a gift of healing might want to be the center of attention at that moment and call out a healing word. However, that gift use is out of the order of the Spirit dictated by His anointing. The leader of the meeting needs to recognize the anointing flow and provide order so that people move according to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. At another time, the goodness of God will manifest a healing atmosphere where many can step into the pool of His glory and be healed. At this time, it would be inappropriate for a person to start trying to prophesy. When a person receives a strong gift from the Holy Spirit, that gift is a grace of God’s love but must be used in submission to the will of God. Many have gotten into trouble when they used those gifts out of order and Jesus warned us about that72. Sometimes the Lord will open our eyes to discern evil spirits that are trying to destroy people’s lives and He has given the authority and the power to deal with what we see so captives may be set free. At times like that, we need to move in the gift of discerning spirits and cast out devils with a word. 69

I Corinthians 14:1 Acts 2 71 I Samuel 10:6-13 70

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Matthew 5:21-23

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God’s perfect love has made power tools available to the body of Christ to get the job done in preaching the gospel and discipling nations. Those who do not believe in the gifts of the Spirit or the anointing graces of God may be able to accomplish some amazing things in Christ, but I believe they are using hand tools rather than power tools. Jesus used power tools when He ministered to people. He healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, raised the dead, multiplied food, cast out devils and preached under such a powerful mantle that people were amazed. Jesus accessed the power of God so greatly because He knew God’s perfect love and walked out His perfect love towards people. We can do the same. Mantles of Glory Now Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up, and struck the water; and it was divided this way and that, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground. And so it was, when they had crossed over, that Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask! What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you?” Elisha said, “Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.” So he said, “You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall not be so.” Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried out, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen!” So he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces. He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, and said, “Where is the LORD God of Elijah?” And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that; and Elisha crossed over. II Kings 2:8-14 Elijah walked in a powerful mantle of God that was pictured in the garment he wore over his shoulders. A mantle is a supernatural endowment of God that gives you the authority and power to do the supernatural ministry the Lord has for you. A mantle can be given to flow in God’s grace in government, business, education, the arts, the military and so forth. We most often associate mantles with ministers, especially those who flow in powerful miracles and healings. God does not limit mantles like we do. Saul was anointed or given a mantle to be the King over Israel. He did not steward that mantle well and it cost him dearly. David respected the mantle on Saul and would not raise his hand against the

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Lord’s anointed. We are wise to respect the mantle God gives people even if they are not stewarding it the way we think they should. God gives mantles to advance His kingdom. It is a gift of His grace. Sometimes, He releases those powerful mantles to people who pray extremely hard and ask, seek and knock for them. Some desire a powerful mantle out of mixed motivation and God may give them what they ask for. Their character may not be ready to walk faithfully over a long term in that level of power. The enemy will powerfully plot to attack those who flow in God’s power. We have seen this in recent history as extraordinarily powerful men and women of God who carry great mantles have had some level of moral failure. Rather than even start down the road of judgment, we are called to intercede with tears for those who have gone before us and carried the cloaking of His anointing at a high level. The Lord has taken me through dreams and visions to intercede for some of those public figures who have fallen into some level of sin. I believe it is clearly the heart of God to restore them in His perfect love 73. I also believe that our attitude towards them is a true heart indicator of whether we have pride or not. If you desire to flow in higher levels of God’s power to heal the sick, preach the gospel, develop a billion dollar business or some form of significant ministry that requires a powerful mantle of God, then you should walk in great humility. It is vital to be connected to a local church and seek out relationships with mature Christians who can speak into your life. God is going to release greater measures of the power of His gifts and glory in the last days. The character of His people is being tested by fire to purify them so that they can walk in high levels of power to advance His kingdom without falling into pride or backsliding into the world system. The Lord has revealed to me some things about the spirit of anti-Christ and the way Satan turns the hearts of anointed people so that they ultimately use their gift for darkness rather than light74. If you walk in the Spirit and pursue character development and holiness along with desiring His powerful gifts, the Lord will enable you to have a balance that will protect you.

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Daniel 11:35 See my book, Balaam and the Beast

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CHAPTER 9 – AN ETERNAL INHERITANCE And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. Hebrews 9:15 The Father in His perfect love has promised all of His children an eternal inheritance in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit is given to Christians as the guarantee of this inheritance 75. Paul was overwhelmed at the riches of the glory of this incredible inheritance76. In Hebrew history, all the property, resources and substance of the father would be given as an inheritance to his sons upon his death. In most cases, the first-born son had the birth right to receive the authority of the father and he became the ruler of the household. Portions were distributed to all the sons and the first-born received a double portion. Jesus Christ is the first-born Son of the Father and He has received the authority over all the substance of His Father. In the New Covenant, by the sacrifice of Jesus, believers of both genders are adopted sons through faith in Christ Jesus 77. Women believers have an equal portion of inheritance along with male believers. This inheritance is eternal and gives us great grace as sons of God to dwell with the Father and be in His household forever. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 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. Romans 8:16,17 We are joint heirs with Christ and we will have aspects of rulership delegated to us so that we may reign with Christ for all eternity in glory. Meanwhile, we must walk yoked with Jesus and those who do will experience temporal suffering through the trials and tribulations of this fallen world. God is training us to be priests and kings. We are called to worship and pray and have relationship to the Godhead. Flowing out of that relationship, we are to grow up and walk as kings on earth. The primary anointing of New Covenant kings is seen in Jesus’ calling to set the captives free. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”

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Ephesians 1:13,14 Ephesians 1:17-19 77 Galatians 3:26-29 76

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Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:17-22 Jesus demonstrated earthly kingship by advancing God’s kingdom through preaching the gospel, healing the sick and setting people free from Satan’s power. We are called to walk as He walked during our time on earth 78. We can already walk in parts of our eternal inheritance now by advancing God’s kingdom on earth. Walking as kings we are to do the works of the Father. This includes speaking the words of God, teaching His word with authority, praying for the sick with power, delivering the demonized, searching out matters of the Spirit, administering justice and helping the poor. God will raise up kings in every aspect of society but His anointing is given to demonstrate His perfect love to people lost, lonely and in bondage to sin. As we walk with the Lord as kings, He will give us powerful prophetic decrees to declare. Anointed decrees loose His words like a two-edged sword which will enable some of us to ride with Jesus to judge and deliver this world from evil79. Maturity is the Key to Walking in Inheritance on Earth Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Galatians 4:1-7 Jesus demonstrated the anointing of a mature Son who started to walk in His inheritance while on earth doing the works of the Father. As co-heirs with Christ, we can walk in powerful anointings and mantles if we mature. There are two primary aspects to maturity. First we must develop Christ-like character which includes the fruit of the Spirit. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Galatians 5:22-26 We are called to conform to the image of Christ in His character. As we walk governed by the Holy Spirit in daily life, He will produce fruit in us over time. This will require that we learn to die to the flesh with its passions and desires. If you want to walk as a king, you will have to learn to deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow Jesus.

78 79

I John 2:6 Revelation 19:11-16; For more on this topic, see my book, The Power of Prophetic Decrees

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This results in a lifestyle of humble servanthood. Earthly spiritual kings walk in gentleness and holiness in addition to authority and power. The second aspect of maturity is to grow in biblical wisdom, develop spiritual senses, and understand the ways of the Holy Spirit. “But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14). Biblical wisdom comes through knowing and properly applying the truths of God’s word over time. Just as a mighty oak tree does not grow in a day, most believers cannot attain God’s wisdom and grow over night. God does touch some with amazing wisdom early in their Christian life, but most have to sow and reap in the word in order to harvest wisdom over time. Developing spiritual senses is similar to human development as an infant grows to understand the five physical senses. It takes years before a child can hear with understanding and communicate with appropriate language skills. A child has to learn how to please his or her parents and stay within the boundaries set by them. We have to learn how to hear and communicate with the Holy Spirit. We need to learn how to discern the spiritual realm around us and what is going on in that realm. We have to learn the ways of the Holy Spirit and stay within the boundaries of His word and leading. As we mature, we experience fiery trials and tests of our faith at different levels. God uses these times to develop us and see if we are mature enough to handle higher levels of mantles of power. A child is not ready to drive the family car. There must be physical maturity, training and testing before a young person will be issued a driver’s license. As a father of six children, I did not hand the car keys over to any of my children until they had successfully achieved the state requirements and obtained the appropriate documents. Once they had, they were given greater authority and power to drive the family car which is similar to flowing in anointing and inheritance. God has so many powerful vehicles available that we could drive in if we would develop in character and maturity in the ways of the Holy Spirit. Before the Lord returns, God is going to release the most powerful harvest mantles ever seen so that hundreds of millions can be netted into His kingdom. Extraordinary healing and miracle power will flow through many who have been tested by God’s fire and learned to walk with the Holy Spirit. This will manifest God’s goodness in a way that will cause many to come to Christ. Jesus asked for the nations as His inheritance and we get to partake in this by winning souls to Him and for Him80.

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Psalm 2:8

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CONCLUSION: APPROPRIATING THE BENEFITS OF PERFECT LOVE The Father of us all, in perfect love and perfect wisdom made a perfect covenant with us through the cross of His perfect Son, Jesus Christ. The benefits of the cross are complete and perfect in every way. There is nothing else God is going to accomplish for us through His Son’s earthly life. Everything Jesus Christ accomplished for us is a finished fact forever. By His stripes we have been healed. It is a past tense done deal! All the blessings and benefits are paid for in full and we have a legal right to access all of them through faith in God right now. In this book we have examined nine central benefits of the Lord’s perfect love. There are more benefits to discover than these nine, but these are the core of what He paid for. Once again they are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

A Perfect Covenant - God’s promises in Christ are all yes and amen Salvation – The forgiveness of sins, saved from eternal damnation Righteousness - Right standing before God Regeneration – New life and new identity Sanctification – The grace to grow to become like Jesus Healing and Divine Health - Kingdom health and energy Blessings and Wealth - Extraordinary blessings by the grace of God Gifts and Glory - The power to do the works of the Father An Eternal Inheritance - The grace to reign and rule with Christ as a son

All of these benefits and more are available to those who appropriate them from God. We have talked about how to cash in on these benefits through persevering prayer and appropriate action steps of faith. You can know that a healing provision is there for you but not know how to obtain it. If you don’t bring it into the natural realm while you are alive on earth, it will not benefit you. These blessings are available now. We need to learn how to obtain them now. There have been principles throughout this book to help you appropriate these blessings that we can review. The secret of the LORD is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. Psalm 25:14 God will reveal the covenant to those who fear Him, to those who seek to please God above all things. They throw down idols and devote themselves to God wholeheartedly. They only seek to do those things which He reveals and that are pleasing in His sight. God opens up the revelation of His word and Spirit to those who fear Him! Study God’s Word Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. II Timothy 2:15 KJV

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Every maturing Christian needs to study God’s word diligently to know God. The word of God is living revelation that feeds our spirit man and enables us to know God and His covenant. There are aspects of God that are mysterious and hidden, but what He has revealed in His word is available for every believer to study and discover. Meditate on God’s word and ask the Holy Spirit to unveil the meaning. I meditate on God’s word by asking practical questions that come from a hungry heart. Simple questions such as, “What does that mean?” , “How can I apply that?” “What does that word mean?” etc. are common in my study. I use computer tools to help me study God’s word81. There are incredible resources available today. God has called me to be a teacher in the body of Christ and therefore I must study the word of God more than most. During my first 24 years of walking with God, I was primarily associated with conservative evangelicals. During the last 10 years, I have been primarily associated with full gospel Pentecostals. Evangelicals tend to be strong in bible study and weak in understanding the ways of the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals can be strong in the ways of the Holy Spirit but weak in diligent bible study. God wants both strengths to come together. The word of God exhorts us throughout to diligently study God’s word and search out matters of the word and the Spirit. One of the central keys to accomplishing your destiny on earth is to study God’s word. He won’t do it for you! If you treasure His word like fine gold and eat it like the best food in the world, God will reward you greatly with wisdom, knowledge and Christ-like maturity in due season. The first step of appropriating God’s benefits is to study God’s word and know the benefits by meditating on them. The second step is to know the specific revelation of the Holy Spirit which comes when you pay a price in prayer to buy His gold. Go Buy Gold - Pray I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich. Revelation 13:18a God’s gold is heavenly revelation that comes by the Holy Spirit. It will include understanding His word, but the revelation of His word becomes extremely alive and powerful in your spirit. God will release prophetic promises and wisdom that gives you keys to unlock kingdom resources and shut down demonic resistance. As we behold Him by revelation, we begin to be transformed to become like Him 82. The price of spiritual gold involves intense intercession and waiting on God for His revelation. It may include fasting and night watches of prayer. Revelation from God is

81 82

PC Study Bible, www.biblesoft.com/ , www.dictionary.com/ , www.blueletterbible.org/ II Corinthians 3:18

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more precious than fine gold83. If you truly value His gold, you will pay the price of diligent prayer and bible study to get it. When you place faith and obedience in the living word of God, you are actually tapping into the increasing impartation of the divine nature which comes through faith and obedience in that living word. God wants our inner man to be conformed to the life of Jesus until we are filled to all the fullness of God84. We buy the gold by earnestly seeking God through praying and meditating on His word until His voice speaks to us. As we hear the word united in faith and become doers of that word, trials of fire come to prove that our faith is genuine. Once proved in this manner, we overcome and our inner man is transformed to conform to the character and nature of Jesus Christ. Then we become rich on the inside. In order to know God’s perfect love, His perfect covenant and His perfect plan, we have to pay the price of seeking Him diligently. Then we will hear Him and become partakers of the divine nature85. Believing and appropriating God’s covenant promises enable us to become partakers of the divine nature. All the promises in the Bible are yes and amen in Christ Jesus86. For a promise to be fulfilled in your life, your faith must stand firm in the integrity of God’s word. Fight the Good Fight of Faith Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I Timothy 6:12 In our quest to obtain what God has already paid for in Christ, we discover spiritual resistance and temporal delays. Part of fighting the good fight of faith is to war with a “good confession” what God says. There has been great teaching on this in the past decades. We must believe in our hearts, deep in our spirits and out of that inner conviction, confess with our mouth unto the place where the benefit manifests87. Some have tried to make positive biblical confessions out of their heads. It will not be effective until it comes from the heart. The heart must often be broken up by the cold steel plow of tribulation inch by inch and row by row. Through faith and patience we inherit promises. We need patience so the Lord allows tribulation to produce it. A broken and contrite heart He does not despise. God can speak His word directly into a tender heart and that living seed will produce good fruit.

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Psalm 19:10 Ephesians 3:14-21 85 II Peter 1:2-4 86 II Corinthians 1:20 87 Romans 10:9,10 84

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Out of the cultivated heart that receives the living seed word and nurtures it through the trials and storms to maturity, the mouth will speak spiritual life. The living declared word that comes from a holy heart will activate heaven to accomplish the word spoken. As we fight the good fight of faith, we are cultivating our hearts, receiving God’s word and making declarations of faith in what God is saying. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary in the natural realm, we stand on the living word of God and wield it as the sword of the Spirit to cut through the lies of the evil one who continues to challenge us saying, “Did God really say…?” 88 Abraham had to fight the good fight of faith for many years. God promised him a son through his own body which became incapable of producing seed. Sarah’s womb was barren and became completely dead. Abraham fought to hold onto God’s prophetic promise and was accounted righteous as a result. We have prophetic promises as well and need to walk in the steps of Abraham. Abraham did not meditate on the deadness of his own body nor Sarah’s barrenness. Abraham did not focus on his weakness, inability or circumstances. He did not become critical of Sarah’s inability to birth children either. Abraham was not self-focused and he did not shift the blame! Instead he chose to focus on the greatness of God and the perfection of His covenant promise. Abraham grew strong in faith. The growth period lasted nearly twenty-five years. There were many trials by fire in those years and Abraham fought to glorify God in the midst of the fire. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. I Corinthians 10:13 Obtaining God’s covenant promises involves pressing through tribulation, temptations and fiery trials89. The Greek word for temptation means “to test, to assay, to prove”. Many difficult challenges come into the lives of those who press in to God to walk by faith and cash in on His covenant promises. God is faithful to provide a way of escape out of the enemy’s traps and into the blessings of God. I have prayed this verse many times and God has always shown us a way through the testings. God wants us to find the pathway of the Spirit in order to learn how to walk with Him and overcome every test. Our job is to pray and get the revelation so we can see the pathway out of difficulty. The Lord will send angels to help us and lead us out of destruction even as He did to Lot and his family 90. We must obey the voice of the Lord and take the help of His angels to escape. This is an aspect of finding God’s perfect plan for your life.

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Genesis 3:1ff I Peter 4:12 90 Genesis 19:1ff 89

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Another aspect of fighting the good fight of faith is to praise and worship God in the midst of the trials and delays. There is incredible power in anointed praise to accomplish spiritual warfare on our behalf that enables us to breakthrough and pull through God’s blessings from heaven to earth91. One of the gifts God blessed me with is a prophetic psalmist anointing. I serve on our worship team and lead Sunday evenings. One Sunday, I was pressed into service and was completely unprepared in the natural to lead the morning worship. We are a very prophetic church and have tremendous freedom to do whatever the Lord leads. I believe in excellent preparation, but on this particular Sunday, I had absolutely nothing prepared, the sound man was absent, the keyboard was not working and it was time to start. The pastor told me to “just go play the piano” at the side of the room since the sound was not working for the keyboard. I had a bad attitude and shot up a desperate “help Lord” prayer. The only thing I could think to do was to play three simple chords from a “Jewish” song that I know. The other nine members of the worship team picked up on it and an hour later we were in high praise using those same three chords. My hands were flying on the piano with such skill that I found myself watching my hands in amazement. God was really helping me! The Lord opened my eyes to see spiritual fire flowing out of my hands. Every time I touched a key, I was getting what felt like electrostatic shocks on my fingers. This lasted for about five painful minutes as I continued to play. I dared not stop as God was doing something special on our behalf. Our lead vocalist sang prophetic words the whole time and the congregation picked up on it. Later people commented that it was the most anointed piano playing they had ever heard me do. That is totally God’s grace. We have to fight the good fight of faith and praise the Lord. Even with a bad attitude and little preparation you can cry a desperate “help Lord” prayer and by faith start to worship and praise Him. I was overwhelmed by God’s help that day and He used me in spite of myself to help others join in high praise. God will help you praise and He will show up in the midst of it to send the enemy packing. Overcoming the Flesh, the World and the Devil I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. Galatians 5:16,17 When you seek to walk with God and press in to buy His gold and cash in on His great covenant promises you will discover resistance from your flesh, the world system and the devil. It is impossible to overcome these powerful forces without the daily help of the Holy Spirit. The closer you get to cashing in on God’s promises the hotter the fire becomes around you. Your flesh begins to rise up and manifest its ugly rebellion and it 91

Psalm 149

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must be dealt with at the cross. We must walk with Christ to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires92. It is possible to be saved from the punishment of sin and get to heaven by a simple prayer of faith. What is difficult is to walk out that faith in a progression of development called sanctification. God wants us to mature as sons who behave like Jesus and can glorify His name by doing good works including greater works than what Jesus did93. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Ephesians 1:3 We have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. All of God’s covenant blessings are in a third heaven bank account with our name on it. In order to cash in on those benefits we must ascend in the spirit through faith, worship, praise, prayer and confession. As we ascend that holy hill, He reveals areas of our life that are sinful baggage that must be dealt with in order to go higher up with Him. Some may park or turn back at this stage but the generation of Jacob is so hungry for God that they will press through and deal with the flesh so that they can obtain the blessing94. Just like Jacob wrestled the Angel of the Lord in the dark night of His soul, we must wrestle and hold onto God in order to bring His blessings into the earth realm95. When you realize how great those blessings are by revelation, you may be motivated to pay the price to buy that gold. God Gives Grace to the Humble “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. I Peter 5:5-7 All of God’s covenant benefits are gifts of grace which He gives to the humble. We are exhorted to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God so that He may be able to exalt us in due time. God brings the proud low and lifts up the humble. In order to position our hearts to receive from God we must continually humble ourselves before Him as the Spirit leads. Thus I prostrated myself before the LORD; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the LORD had said He would destroy you. Deuteronomy 9:25 Moses was the most humble man on the earth in his day. He continually got on his face before God in prayer and extreme intercession. The Lord exalted him to deliver an entire nation out of the hand of the demonized world ruler in Egypt. 92

Galatians 5:24 John 14:12-14 94 Psalm 24:3-6 95 Genesis 32:24-32 93

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Satan is the ruler of the world system that grips masses of people whom God loves and wants to save. In order to step into God’s inheritance fully and set captives free in nations, we will need to humble ourselves like Moses so that we can receive God’s grace and favor at a high level. Our covenant right is to walk as a son of God now and advance the Father’s kingdom on earth in our lifetime. We are to take ground from the enemy and deliver millions of captives from his evil grip. One of the most powerful biblical ways to humble yourself is through fasting. Moses fasted forty days and nights as he kept humbling himself before God. Jesus fasted forty days and overcame the devil in the wilderness before He was anointed with power to set the captives free96. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into fasting in His time. Another aspect to humbling yourself before God is to cry out to Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength through desperate intercession aided by the Holy Spirit. We often need to experience the intense agonies and groanings of intercessions to see breakthrough97. Our mind does not understand this, but our hearts do. We need to allow ourselves to be extreme in emotions and desperation. It will be extremely humbling to be this desperate and broken before God. If you want more of His grace, He will help you get to this place as you walk humbly with Him. Believe in Your Heart and Confess with Your Mouth98 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” Romans 10:8-13 Please review this scripture passage carefully. We are to believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths what we believe. Jesus told us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks99. The heart represents the spirit man where one truly believes. We must get more than head knowledge, we must believe deep in our spirits and allow it to overflow in confession, proclamation and decrees. As you study through the benefits of God’s perfect love for you, meditate on these truths by saying them out loud over and over again. “God loves me and has paid for all my sins in Christ Jesus”. “God loves me with a perfect love and has made a perfect provision for my healing in the stripes of Jesus”. “God loves me so much He sent Jesus to bare poverty so that I could become rich”. 96

Luke 4:1-15 Romans 8:26 98 This repetition from page four is intentional. 99 Matthew 12:34 97

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These confessions and many others begin to steer the course of our lives to experience those benefits. The pattern of faith is given to us in the word. “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Matthew 21:22). Faith comes by hearing the word sown by the Sower, Jesus. He authors our faith primarily by sowing a fresh word from the Bible into our hearts. We must cultivate our hearts and water the seedling of faith until fruit bearing maturity. Before our faith is mature and completely finished, many storms and trials will test that faith as by fire to prove its genuineness. It is by faith and patience that we inherit all the promises. Since tribulation produces patience, the Holy Spirit will lead us into places of trials and testings. It is through many tribulations that we enter the kingdom. If we do not lose heart during the seasons of trials, we will obtain the harvest of blessings that God has promised100. All of the benefits listed in this book are the living word of God that you can plant in your heart and cultivate to fruit bearing maturity. Once you know how to cash in on a benefit you can start the process of asking, believing and confessing whatever provisions the Lord is highlighting to you. God loves you perfectly and has made a perfect provision for you in this life. It is my heartfelt prayer, that this little book will help you on your journey to know Him, appropriate His covenant benefits and do great exploits for Him.

Contact Information: Pastor Scott McConaughey P.O. Box 3754 Helendale, CA 92342 www.scottmc.org/ [email protected]

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Galatians 6:7-9

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