God is living in us. He has placed His Spirit within us so that God, through His Spirit, can flow through us. The Bible tells us that streams of living water will flow from within us, and we will be like trees planted by streams of living water. Jesus said: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:38-39).
But then, why do so many of us live outside of this stream of peace from the Holy Spirit? Because our eyes are not’t focussed on the Holy Spirit, but rather on our own abilities and striving in our attempts to please God. This peace of our hearts is a result of our soul that has received healing. It is a place of victory over the enemies of strife, fear,competitiveness, and jealousy. We have to fix our eyes on Yeshua. We need to be still and know that He is God. We need to quiet our hearts and rest in His presence, and allow this river of living water to flow out of the throne room of God into our hearts.
Ezekiel had a vision of this river flowing up to his ankles, and then the water level rose to his waste, and it kept on rising until he was almost immersed in it:
The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was flowing from the south side.
As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross,because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?”
Then he led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Sea. When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh;so where the river flows everything will live (Ezekiel 47:1-9).
Why don’t all of us wade deeper into the river of God?I say it is because we don’t want to go beyond our comfort zone. To surrender everything into God’s hands is sometimes the hardest thing to do, and because people are afraid to take the first step they never go deeper. When you move deeper and deeper into the river, you become so much more aware of God’s presence in your life. He becomes your immediate reality, and you won’t be able to live one moment without Him.
Dear friends, this is the key to a life of victory:Yeshua must always be your focus point. I can see how people exchange the living water of Christ for cisterns made by man. We exchange our living water for traditions, rituals and manmade laws and rules. We are going to lose our way if we focus on the wrong things. We need to seek Christ only, and to drink from His living water in order to live an overcoming life. Unfortunately people always seem to look for a ten point plan for victory, or to keep to a set of rules, rather than wading deeper into the unknown waters of a living relationship with Christ.
No, Yeshua brought us a better plan – and that plan is called: “To be in Christ.” To be in Christ is to be in His Kingdom, and to live the abundant life. Kingdom life is not about your beliefs regarding the rapture, or end-time prophecies, or even whether you believe in keeping the Jewish feasts (God's feasts) or not… but Kingdom life is about living from a place of peace and righteousness through Yeshua, here and now. It is not about judging others; it is about fellowship and intimacy with God. Your salvation is not determined by your belief about the Jewish feasts (God's feasts),but you will miss out on the blessing of it if you don’t want to participate. The enemy tries to distract us from Christ in any way he can, and it can even be through very smart arguments and opinions. I encourage people to live out what God reveals to them through their personal revelations, but just make sure that your eyes stay fixed only on Him, and that your convictions don’t draw you away from your First Love.
As we grow in maturity the enemy will come with different schemes to distract us from the real deal, and the real deal is intimacy with God. When the enemy succeeds in robbing you from your intimacy with God and to get you busy with all kinds of works, he succeeds in his task.A good example of this is a natural marriage. When the enemy succeeds in stealing the intimacy between a husband and wife, then the marriage can easily fall apart. So many couples live together out of habit, and the love between them has run cold. We often try to please our spouse with works, but it is our time, our love and our intimacy that makes a marriage work. And so it is with our love relationship with God too.
Yeshua is waiting for us to love Him, to pour out our lives on Him, to become one with Him – and from that place of oneness will we be healed and restored, and learn to obey Him in all we do.
I know that the hour is at hand when people want to punt their own opinions and convictions to others. When the focus of those opinions are not 100% Christ centered, I just want to walk away from it. So many things are promoted under the flag of Christianity that has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God, but is only for self-serving purposes and to keep people busy and distracted. From our oneness with Christ will flow our peace, our victory, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Don’t let the enemy distract you by keeping you so busy with the things of the Lord, that you forget what it is really about: The Lord of the things, and to love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.
Christ is our hope of glory! He and he alone!
I am in Namibia for the week, and I will only be flying back on Sunday. I still have to minister this weekend in Aranos, a little town hidden away in the red sand dunes of the Namib desert. This is such a beautiful country with so many warm-hearted people.
I’ll be hosting a Designed to be a Godly Woman Seminar here in Windhoek this week. It is amazing to see that women around the world are all the same – we all have a desire to know who we are in Christ, and to feel loved and cherished. Through the Godly Woman seminar I touch on topics that all women have faced at some time during their life, especially regarding our self-esteem and self-worth. So many women have found themselves at a place where they don’t know who they are anymore. “What is wrong with me? Why don’t I have peace in my life? Why don’t I ever feel good about myself? Why don’t I measure up?” are the questions that plague so many of us. These thoughts and feelings of insecurity and inferiority trap us in a web of lies, and the pain and confusion that takes hold of us on the inside reflects on the outside.
One day you might wake up and think to yourself that you don’t know who you are anymore. You don’t know how to dress in order to reflect your identity, or how to make yourself look and feel beautiful. The little girl inside of you is hiding in a corner, confused and desperately looking for help.
Do Christians struggle with insecurities too? Oh yes.It is one of the greatest battles we fight. These insecurities are the strongholds that keep us from living in freedom – they withhold us from being ourselves and from walking in our destiny. All of us have them, and we all have to deal with them. If we don’t, the load will become unbearable to carry.
It is a journey of transformation that starts when we come to understand that we are body, soul and spirit. Our Creator wants us to be a pure Bride for Yeshua, the Son of God. When we accept Yeshua as our Lord and Savior we receive a spiritual makeover. It is a work that can only be done by the Holy Spirit when our spirit becomes alive with Christ – reborn! But that is not where it ends; to be reborn is only the beginning of the process of transformation and purification into the image of Christ.
This is what the Designed to be a Godly Woman seminar is all about. We are body, soul, and spirit –and God wants us to be healthy and prosper on all three areas.
From the Godly Woman seminars I have already hosted in South-Africa, I can see that God does such an amazing work through this platform. We face the brokenness of our heart and soul, and so many woman have received healing and restoration because we confront our pain and deal with it through the leading of the Holy Spirit.Lastly we look at our spirit and our relationship with YHVH. It is like moving through the sections of the old temple, the outer court (our body), the inner court (our soul), and the Holy of Holies (our spirit). At the end of the day I pray for each lady and I anoint her with rose fragrance oil, as a symbol that we should be a pleasing fragrance to the Lord, and that we should carry this anointing and fragrance with us wherever we go.
The Designed to be a Godly Woman seminar is a one day conference, and consists of three sessions. If you are interested in hosting a Godly Woman seminar in your area, please contact my office and we will send through all the necessary information. I also just want to thank Janine Swanepoel for allowing us to use her painting of the bride as our Designed to be a Godly Woman logo.Janine came up to me one day while I was in Israel and handed me the small painting. She said that she felt the Lord wanted her to give it to me. Her painting hung in my bedroom since then, and it is very close to my heart. When we needed an image to portray what the Designed to be a Godly Woman seminar is all about, I immediately thought about this picture. Thank you for your obedience to the Lord’s voice, Janine! May God bless you and the work of your hands. To see more of Janine’s art, please visit her web-site: http://hopefieldart.weebly.com
Last night I was in Windhoek Namibia, and I missed my family so much. It is very quiet in the evenings here in Namibia, and after I finished ministering I laid in bed for quite a while, just thinking. I listened to the sounds of the night, and thought about life, and my family, and that I have so much to be thankful for. I thought about Aldo with tears running down my cheeks, and my heart whispered the whole time, “thank You, thank You, thankYou.” This road with Aldo keeps us so humble. I can see how pride devours so many people, and it so true what the Scriptures say: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall”(Prov. 16:18).
I know that there was a time when I was also gripped in the clutches of pride, and the only way out is humility. I daily repent of the sin of pride, and I humbly seek God’s counsel and guidance to lead me. If it wasn’t for the fiery trials that we had to go through with Aldo, I probably also would have been caught up in the arguments and discussions that keep so many people distracted from Christ.
Taste and see that the Lord is good. When you taste it for yourself you will know, that you know, that you know. Eat God’s Word and His love, and walk deeper into the river of Life.
Thank You for this Yeshua! Thank You so much!
Lots of love from a cold Namib desert!
Retah.
Truly Samuel, humbleness is the way through which God wants us to develop His character. The building of the wall around Samuel’s soul has helped him so much. Samuel saw how his mother cried out to God in humility, on her face before Him. God says: “Hanna, your humble heart is a pleasing fragrance to Me.I know that you love Yeshua very much.”