Okay, someone else, yes? [Can we place the cross between us for our children and the generational influences without actually knowing that particular generational sin?] Sure, yes. I think the more specific we can be, the better that is, and so to locate the generational sin, have a look at patterns that appear in the family. So you would ask first of all, you just begin to pray in the spirit, and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the thing to you, have a look at patterns in your family. One of the first places you see is patterns in the family, but sometimes it only comes by revelation, and the Holy Spirit can reveal the thing to us. Some people pray and command the demons to reveal it, and thoughts come up to the mind, but it's better that there be specific prayer, rather than general prayer. Specific prayer has specific results. General prayer often is ineffective, so I think it's a good place to start, but I think it's better that we actually ask the Holy Ghost to help us identify what the specific issue is. That would be better, okay?
Yes? [What about in your workplace, if you're not allowed to talk about God or Jesus and it's quite tempting to defy that, and there are times when I know Jesus is the solution, but you cannot speak about it.] Right. [So how do you reconcile that, what do you do, because you know you can help by talking about God, but you're not allowed to.] [Laughs] Okay, so that's the classic thing that we said before, you know, that you have to - we know Jesus calls us to reveal Himself, so we're called to preach the gospel, yet you have an employment situation where, if not explicitly, then at least implicitly, you're not to speak about Jesus. It's to be secular education, so you would break the employment contract if you start to preach the gospel in your classroom, so that's the dilemma.
God says to do this, the authorities say to do this: where do I stand? I think number one is, your heart attitude is not to be in rebellion against authorities, but to be co-operative with the intention of it all. I think number two, you can speak, and take authority over the spiritual atmosphere in the classroom, and release things. I had many kids come to Christ in my classroom, but I didn't necessarily talk to them about Jesus in the classroom - but many came. We had many kids come to Christ, a whole heap of them, because the Holy Ghost so shifted the atmosphere they just wanted to come and talk, wanted to connect, wanted to hang out. Then hanging out, they wanted to ask things, so you'd talk about stuff then, and you can talk - so I don't think often I spoke openly about Jesus in the classroom. But what I did do, when it came to the area of teaching around sexuality, I was quite blunt about the Christian perspective on it, and that was quite an interesting thing for them all.
I thought well, they're getting junk. I'm going to give another point of view because this is education, and at least they should be exposed to another point of view which is biblical, and Christian, and gets results - so I did, unashamedly, you wouldn't have worried about that. But I think today the environment's become much more difficult, so therefore I think great wisdom is needed, or you lose your credibility, and then eventually lose your job, and lose your ability to influence. But if someone comes and inquires, or someone comes and asks, I think there's a lot we can do without speaking the name of Jesus. You can talk biblical values, you can talk about values, you can talk about the conflict of values, you can talk about the values which are specific for you. I think there's much we can do, and I determined I would do as much as I could, because everyone else was blatant about what they were doing [laughter] so I thought if someone comes and says: you can't do that, I'm sorry, I didn't realise that, thank you very much for pointing that out. Then I'd be a little wiser in the future. [Laughter]
You know, I think you don't want to live under fear and intimidation, and if someone makes a complaint, you've got to say: well I'm so sorry, we were talking about values - I think to blatantly preach Jesus is a misuse of your authority as a teacher. People understand they're coming to a secular classroom to receive education; they're not expecting the teacher to talk their own personal views. However the reality is that the life of the teacher shows up in their teaching, so whatever the person is living will show up in how they teach. So I've got no shame in saying well, this is who I am actually, I'm a Christian, I do this, and I believe these things. I've found the kids would ask questions. Well if they ask questions, I'll answer the questions. [and pray] Yes, exactly, yeah, so we prayed at home.
So I used to take the line this is my room, everything that comes in here is coming into my territory, and the presence of God is in my territory. That's how I took it and released the presence, prayed for the presence of God to fill the place, and for them all to be successful, because for a parent to come to - they want their kids to succeed. They don't necessarily want religion, they want to succeed, they just don't know how to get success, so I worked: one, creatively to create an environment where learning was very relational, and they got success; two, to work the spiritual atmosphere, so it was quite open and accepting in there. Yeah, seemed to get good results. We just went like that, and they were very sorry to see me go. [Laughter] And I got the same results when I started up a school, same thing happened, again spiritual environment, and also enabling them and empowering them to learn properly.