This session begins with some activations to develop spiritual strength & sensitivity. Every believer has a spiritual territory (or 'metron') entrusted to us, a sphere of influence which is ours to govern - some permanent, some temporary. Adam (in Gen. 2:15) was instructed to 'tend', cultivate, develop his territory and to 'keep' or protect it from the enemy. Learn valuable keys to on how to govern, what to govern, and the consequences of failure to govern.
I'm going to get you to do something in a moment. It's really quite important that we actually activate and stir our spirit because it's no use just having information. In the end the only knowledge you really have is what comes experiential, and so you're going to need to experience things before these things start to come alive inside you. So I will lay out some very simple, clear teaching around these areas, but we also need to experience the life of the spirit, the life of the spirit, and the flow of the spirit as well. If you don't experience anything much, then you just have a lot of theory and knowledge.
I remember I taught one man how to stand up in his spiritual leadership in the home, and I showed him how to pray, and he stood up and prayed. The next day he rang me, he said I'm sick today. I said, don't be surprised. I've called you to stand up, and to your place that God positioned you, to speak and govern the spiritual atmosphere of your marriage and home, so clearly there's been a problem there, and it was only when you stepped up that you found it. So I said persevere, and he persevered, then the problems flushed to the surface, and then there was able to be ministry, deliverance and a whole shift in the dynamic of that relationship. So people don't know it's real until they start to operate in it, so we do have to experience the things of the spirit.
I'll show you just quite simply how you do this as we go, but what I want us to do is I want us to constantly over the whole of this seminar, I want us to be strengthening and developing internally in our spirit dimension, because if we don't do that, we don't have the strength. We need both the spirit of God, and the word of God, and we need to let God help us to grow. There's a great scripture where Paul prays in Ephesians 3, that you would be strengthened with might, or dunamis - the power of God in your inner man. I'll show you in one of the last sessions some simple things you can do, that will help build your spirit man, and change the whole atmosphere which you carry around your life.
Most people live under what's around them. Most people live under the spiritual prevailing environment, which in New Zealand is passivity, and apathy, and rejection, and passive rebellion, so those are the common things that you find in the Kiwi culture. Wherever you're in it, you'll feel that, and so what happens is, until we learn how to stand up and alter the spiritual atmosphere around us, we don't even realise what we've accepted as normal. So I can tell you now, most people accept as normal something that actually is a place of bondage and lack of freedom, so if you would just accept the challenge to experiment over tonight and tomorrow, and see what happens as you do certain things to unlock and free up your spirit and the flow of your spirit; I would expect by the end of tomorrow, that you're flowing and the spirit of God is moving freely through you touching lives. It doesn't mean it's the end of the journey, but what it does mean is that you're starting to explore what it is to flow in the spirit.
When you got baptised in the spirit it was an entrance to the realm of the spirit. It was just a gateway experience, but we have to learn to go on in those areas. Amen - okay, so what we're going to do is this. In a moment we'll get people praying in tongues, and I'm going to just get you to do it in different ways. I want you to explore some various aspects of praying in tongues. The Bible says: when a man prays in tongues - 1 Corinthians 14, Verse 14 - when I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying. In other words, when you're praying in tongues, your spirit is now being stirred, being active and giving expression in the earth. Not only that, you are praying in a language the Holy Spirit is giving you, so when you're praying in tongues, the spirit of God enjoined to your spirit, is expressing His life through you. So there is always an outworking of that, so one of the most powerful gifts entering us into the realm of the spirit is the gift of tongues - one of the most neglected gifts, and I have to keep stirring believers all the time, and continually to arise, and begin to explore what that gift can do, so we want to do some of that while we're here over the weekend.
Okay, so the first thing we'll do, and I'm not going to get anything more than about a minute, so what we're going to get you to do is just stand up, and I want you to pray in tongues for 30 seconds, see what it feels like and see what it feels like in the atmosphere. So let's just do that - are you ready? On the count of three, one, two, three, let's begin to pray in tongues. [Prays in tongues] Okay, just stop now. Okay, just stop. That's our start point. You've got to have a start point, so that's just the start point. Now what I feel when I'm in an atmosphere where people are praying, I open my heart to feel what is present there, and what I feel is people are expressing but it's relatively - it's measured. It's just measured. You can feel it, like it's measured. You just give it so much, but that's it. I want us to actually break out of that, because your spirit must find expression through your soul and your body, and it's your body resists, and your soul resists, so we want to just get you to shift your body.