So the life of blessing is something given to me freely; but I need to believe and walk out of my life. That is where a lot of people don’t move on. They don’t realise that I have to tear down old thinking patterns as they come back into my mind. If any thoughts of poverty come, I have to pull them down quick; or I’ll start to feel lack, and I’ll start to respond in fear, and go back to how I used to live. Living in blessing, means living in faith - confident in what God says is true. It may take time to educate my heart to believe, that I have really changed.
So what happens in something like this: I’m living in this path of iniquity and cursing and bondage; then I come to Christ, and He says: now you are a blessed person. So I cut off all of those things; but I still at times keep thinking like the old way used to think. It’s like this pull towards the old way, all the time.
I need to speak: iniquity is broken, I am a blessed person. I’ve got to speak to this thing: that it’s broken by the blood of Jesus, and I live as a blessed person; and you meditate on that blessed life – God is with me, my needs are met, I have abundance, the Lord is my Sheppard and I shall not want. People know ‘the Lord is my Sheppard and I shall not want’; but what they don’t know in their heart is that: God Almighty is my friend, and there’s no area that I lack. It’s a heart place of confidence in God. So I’ve been shifted into blessing by Christ. Now I have to think and live like a blessed person.
When maybe there’s some pressure that comes financially - old thinking starts to return. I’ve got to constantly push against it, and redirect my attention: I have abundance in Christ - I am blessed. I look out, and it doesn’t look like I’m blessed; but don’t go back to old thinking, stay in the new. It’s an internal shift from iniquity, crookedness, demonic power, cursing Me and resisting Me; to now: confident in God, and living like a blessed person.
So if I live like a blessed person, then a blessed person is generous, confident. So the battle is now not a battle to make God bless me; it’s a battle to believe I’m blessed, and to be at rest - it’s an internal battle, and that’s the battle all believers have to face. When your heart becomes at rest, actually, God is blessing you. Each time your heart comes to rest, you’ve won the fight. This is an ongoing thing all your life.
People all love to just get ministry to get free; and there’s a place in the power that release can come; but they have to then change and live like a free person. Very soon they go back, and instead of living from the spirit and heart, they live out of the mind, and all its old opinions and thinking.
Question & Answer
Can you share any secrets to how to keep your sensitivity to the Holy Spirit?
I also mentioned that I would talk about praying. To maintain sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, it’s a daily life with Him. So that requires prayer; and it also requires that you act on the little impressions the Holy Spirit gives. The more you act on the little impressions, the more sensitive you become, and the more you seem to receive.
In Mark 4:24 Jesus said: “If you have ears to hear, and you respond, then more will be given.” Listening and responding to the Holy Spirit helps develop sensitivity. In my prayer time daily, I pray a number of things. One of the things I pray, is that I spend time in worshipping and just loving God for who He is. I try to keep extending that time out. I’m just meditating in His presence, speaking in tongues, and just loving on Him. I’ve learned that you can speak in tongues, sing with your mind, and picture Jesus - all at the same time. You actually have the power to give yourself to Him in worship.
Then I also take a time in my praying, probably about 20 minutes or so, I consciously yield differently parts of my life to Him, and begin to speak over my life, what I’m believing for God to do. I’ll just give you an example - I’ll just show you how I pray.
“Lord today I yield to You my hearing. I yield the ears of my inner man and outer man to You. Thank you Lord I hear Your voice clearly today. My heart is sensitive to Your voice. Lord I hear what You are saying to me, and I respond immediately. I thank you Lord that You’re giving me a hearing heart, to hear people, to ask questions that probe right to the root of the problems. Thank you Lord that You’re giving me an ability to see what the problem is - eyes to see, ears to hear, ability to discern exactly what is happening.”
What I’m doing is, I’m picturing and declaring the life I intend to live. Now there’s a basis for this. I’ll give you a scripture - 1 John 4:17 - “As He is, so are we in the world.” As He is now, we are in the world. I want you to think about that one. I don’t have to make myself become something; the Bible says – as He is, so am I.
So what is He like? Jesus hears the voice of the Father all the time. Jesus looks right into people’s hearts and knows what is going on. Lord as You are, so am I in this world. I hear the voice of my Father clearly. I instantly respond. I hear the voice of people’s hearts. I see right into their lives.
You say, well, but actually you’re not living that way. No, I am building the future I intend to have. I’m beginning to declare the operation of His life through me. As I meditate in who I am in Christ, and what I can do in Christ, and believe that, it shows up in my life. This is the blessed life.