Doing Life Seated In Heavenly Places

Alwyn Hartwig

Doing Life Seated In Heavenly Places

Copyright © 2011 Alwyn Hartwig

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The information, views, opinions and visuals expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the publisher. The publisher disclaims any liabilities or responsibilities whatsoever for any damages, libel or liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the contents of this publication.

A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

ISBN: 9781742840765

Published by Book Pal

www.bookpal.com.au

This book is written for the glory of God

and the good of mankind.

Acknowledgement

I honor and thank the One who sits in the heavenly places and is the source of my knowledge, wisdom and giftedness. I also thank my family and friends who have encouraged me and helped me publish this book.

3 John 1:4 (NKJV) I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

2 John 1:2 (NKJV) because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever:

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 – My background and my testimony.

Chapter 2 – Our God given position in the Spirit Realm!

Chapter 3 – God is my only Father.

Chapter 4 – Getting your soul seated!

Chapter 5 – Which realm are you operating in? Death or Life?

Chapter 6 – Our words bring Life or Death to our lives.

Chapter 7 – Only Sons sit in heavenly places in Christ.

Chapter 8 – Only sons receive the Father’s inheritance.

Chapter 9 – How to stay seated in the heavenly places.

Chapter 10 – Requirements for the times we live in.

Foreword

This book has the mark of God on it, just like the author.

I have known Alwyn and Ruth Hartwig for around 26 years.

Their lives are shining examples of the grace of God. They would be two of the most consistent and faith filled Christians I have ever known.

I had come to know them first in 1984, as it was Alwyn who broke a demonic power off me as a new Christian. This demonic power had troubled me since I was a young child. Praise God for their walk and faith Doing life seated in heavenly places.

Pastor Paul Gratton www.nowchurch.org.au

Preface

Ever since I have been born again of God’s Spirit I have had an insatiable desire for Truth and reality within me. I am not satisfied with having words or knowledge about God, but I have wanted to experience the power of those words, the Life of those words. I have always wanted to experience what the Apostle Paul wrote,

“for the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power”!

1 Cor.4:20. And also “and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus”! Eph.2:6

This passion and desire is not for myself only, but I would love to see all God’s people walking in the Truth, because to walk in the Truth means we have the power of the new Life in Christ operating in every area of our lives while we live here! We would all be living in the newness of the Spirit of God!

Could you imagine family life where all walk in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit! Romans 14:17. Where we all experience life from the supernatural rather than the natural only. Never a word, attitude or action out of place, but all based in love. Where, we have supernatural answers and not just natural answers. Where, we reign in life over sickness and curse, by the Life of God in us through Jesus Christ. It certainly would be like living in heavenly places far above all evil and the standards and practices of this world!

You could ask, “Is this possible for me”? I ask you, “Why not?” Since Jesus said He would give us the Holy Spirit, “The Spirit of Truth”, who would lead us into all Truth and take the life that Jesus has now and show it to us! This is Divine life, Life like God has. I Quote:

John 14:17 (NKJV) "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.

John 16:13 (NKJV) "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

John 16:14 (NKJV) "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

One thing I would like to make very clear to you is that as I write this book, I represent Jesus Christ and the Life God offers you, and not man or churches or religious institutions or even my self. I am an Ambassador for God’s Kingdom and the Divine Life of that Kingdom! I believe, by and large, that today’s church fails to portray the Truth, of Jesus Christ’s message of a new Kingdom and of the Sons of God, to the world!

To do this firstly I have decided to believe that the Bible is the Inspired Word of God and not man’s opinion or speculation. It is God’s message to the world not the churches or even mine. I stake my life in this world and eternity on this stand! Secondly, I must at all times have a one hundred percent commitment to be led into all truth by the Holy Spirit and I actually believe He will do what Jesus said, lead us into all Truth! Since Jesus said He would, we can stake our lives on it!

So this book is about my journey from the realm of spiritual death to the realm of spiritual Life, it is about my journey from being a natural man to a spiritual man. It is about me passing from the old Adamic race of people into the new creation Christ race of people who have the Life of God in them now! I have become a son of God in the new Kingdom of God! I have eternal Life now!

I wish you enjoyable and happy reading and my prayer is that The Holy Spirit will lift you, spirit, soul and body into a life in the Heavenly Places.

Introduction

I want to lay a few basic ground rules or basis for the reading of this book. We will get into all the details chapter by chapter.

If you are not yet born of God’s Spirit, this book could lead you to reality with God, through Jesus the Son of God. Christianity is not a religion but rather a relationship with God where God lives in you and you experience the Divine Life! Where, you actually become a son of God, because you have a spiritual rebirth by the word of God and the Spirit of God. Church rituals cannot give you this Life, but only the Son of God Jesus Christ gives eternal Life! However, if you are already born of God’s Spirit, this book could lead you into a supernatural life which you have not experienced before! What God can do for me, He can do for you!

We all need to settle it in our hearts it is God’s will for all His sons to be completely free from all the effects of man’s fall into sin and to live the Divine Life now! This means, it is the Father’s will for you personally to be completely free from sin’s power and effects! These effects include sin habits, guilt, remorse, lack or poverty, fear, worry and insecurity, sickness and disease, and of course the fear of death both temporal and eternal! We must absolutely believe that Jesus Christ did not only set us completely free from our fall but He lifted us up into Spiritual life like God has! The Life of God in me!

He said, John 10:10 (NKJV) "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

Here Jesus is referring to Spiritual Life like God has, (which He alone can give us) and of course that Spiritual Life will work out in our natural life, bringing blessing and healing! Your freedom and blessing is not man’s idea but God’s very plan and purpose for you, and it is all powered by God Himself!

Not only is it God’s will for you to be free, but God expects you to grow up into that freedom, exercising your will, intellect and faith.

The apostle John said, 1 John 5:4 (NKJV) For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world; our faith.

To overcome the world, means all the sin, weaknesses and problems we face here and the evil forces behind it!

1 John 5:5 (NKJV) Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This means, any born again believer can be an over comer.

God expects us to overcome in this life and live like God while we are here! The writer to the Hebrews said, Heb 5:13 (NKJV) For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.

This means we are not feeding on the strong meat of God’s word and so we have not grown up spiritually, we are still acting as a spiritual baby, in the same way a human baby does not act maturely.

The writer goes on saying. Heb 5:14 (NKJV) “ 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.”

Notice it says, “those who by reason of use” are able to walk maturely discerning both good and evil. I assume we could call that living like God does. The Apostle John also says, 1 John 3:9 (NKJV) “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”

This means that the Word of God has to grow up into our minds until it is full in our thoughts and we have the mind of Christ. This means the Divine Life permeates our life and we have overcome the previous fallen state and we act like Sons of God! Maturity means, we know who we are, once we are born of God’s Spirit and baptized in the Holy Spirit and we live like it!

So, the first step is freedom from sin and the past by a spiritual rebirth, the second step is to receive the blessings of being God’s Son, through faith, and the third step is to learn to rule over Satan, the world’s spirit and your own fleshly desires as you operate your life from the heavenly places! Sounds exciting and is exciting!

You must know that everything in this world can change, all circumstances can change, but the Word of God and Spirit of God are eternal and never change!

Isa 40:8 (NKJV) “The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”

Let this truth be the norm of your life and everything about you and concerning you will change!

Before you go any further I would like you to pray a prayer of commitment to the Lord. Pray a prayer something like this. “Lord, I commit myself to be set free by the Truth, to be blessed by the Truth and to rule in Life by the Truth, for Your Word is Truth. Holy Spirit, I surrender to You to be led into all Truth, teach me to reign in life in Jesus Christ’s Wonderful Name. Amen”.

Chapter 1

My background and my testimony.

I was born in Gympie in the state of Queensland, a northern state of Australia. Gympie is in the sub-tropical south eastern corner of Queensland. I had a very enjoyable childhood being raised on dairy farms and small crop farms. I very much enjoyed the warm to hot climate. As Christmas drew near each year, I can still remember my Father saying, “It is hard to beat the boss to the shade tree now”! As children we knew it was near Christmas each year when the temperature would climb to 100 degrees Fahrenheit or even more. Gympie’s climate can be fairly steamy and hot in December to February, but we were very fortunate to live on the Mary river for a number of years and I have fond memories of fishing at sunset into the night, and walking home with a lantern following our Father on a white horse. We often fished with friends or other relatives who lived in the Gympie district.

The amazing thing was that prior to our college days none of us wore shoes, except when we went to church on Sundays or had to visit the shopping centre. It was always a great relief to get home and take off the excess clothes and shoes and get back to normal life of only shorts and short sleeve shirt! We were raised in a very basic way. Sweets or treats were rare, mainly given at Christmas and Easter. The family I was born into was an ordinary, rural, Australian family in a community of no special importance or significance.

I must say at this point, I am extremely grateful to God for being born in the Family that I found myself in. As I grew up I learned that I was an Australian. In my early days I did not really know what that meant, but as I have grown older and became more aware of what it means to be Australian in a very troubled world, I am very thankful and grateful to be living in The South Land of the Holy Spirit. “Australia”, is the English word for the Spanish word “Australis”, meaning, South Land!

I was born number five in a family of nine children, that placed me right in the middle of the family of six boys and three girls, and I had reasonable knowledge and contact with the older and the younger members of the family. To this day eight of us are still alive and well, praise be to God.

Higher education was not much spoken of at that time in the late forties and early fifties. We were a Lutheran family and we all attended Church when services were on in Gympie. This occurred fortnightly until a Parish was established and a full time Pastor was called.

At that time the Lutheran Church of Australia founded Concordia College in Toowoomba, and my parents saw the opportunity to give us a chance at higher education. However, the founding of the college was too late for the two eldest children but the rest of us were all sent off to College when we finished the Scholarship examination at the end of grade seven. I was not a brilliant student and I just managed to pass the year seven exams and so became eligible for secondary level. However, I somehow improved under good teachers and passed Junior Level years of eight and nine grades with mediocre marks.

My parents had a strong desire for their sons to become Lutheran Pastors and to preach the Gospel as they understood it. My older brother and the one younger than me were brilliant students and so ended up in the University and the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Adelaide. However I had a lot of difficulty with learning languages and so at the end of two years it was decided by my parents that I could not be educated any higher and so I was sent home to the farm! I was not considered suitable material for a Pastor. Wow! I could not have been any happier and I can remember my last journey home from Toowoomba to Gympie on the train. I was so excited that at last I was going home to where I loved being!

At that time I had been baby baptized and confirmed as a Lutheran communicant member, but I was not regenerated by the Spirit of God (or as Jesus put it, “born again of the Spirit”. (Refer John Chapter 3:3-7). I did not have the Divine eternal Life in me! However, at that time I did not know one could be born of the Spirit of God, so I continued attending the Lutheran church and participating in the services and communion. I was also involved with the Lutheran youth. I continued like any normal person a slave of sin and weaknesses, always feeling unworthy and guilty before God.

After some years on the farm at Gympie I became restless when I was about twenty years old and began to look for a job. This led me to being accepted in the Commercial Bank of Australia, now part of Westpac Bank. After a couple of years working in Queensland, I was transferred to Victoria on relief duties and so I traveled around Victoria to different branches of the Bank for a couple of years.

It was during this time that I met my wife to be, Ruth Nuske. Ruth came from Dimboola in the Wimmera district of Victoria, however she was training as a nursing sister to be a mid-wife at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Adelaide.

Looking back over our lives now, we both know God brought us together, because we had opportunity to be married before we met each other, but it never worked out because the Lord had other plans for us. We met because I was attending St. James Lutheran Church in Melbourne, and so was Ruth’s sister Pat. Pat had a party one weekend and invited me and some other young people from the Church to the party. This was a Saturday night and of course Pat had invited her sister Ruth from Adelaide to be there also! A little romance began that weekend which led to our marriage on my birthday in January 1964.

We started our married life with nothing much, like most young people in those days, and much to Ruth’s mother’s dismay we moved to Queensland to live. She thought she would never see her daughter again! We soon found work and after a few years bought our first house for the princely sum of $8750 brand new! I suppose you could say those were the good old days!

But, I was not happy with the city life in Brisbane, although I quite like Brisbane as a place to live. The urge was in me to return to the land and try my hand at farming. So we sold our home in Brisbane and made a good capital gain which made it possible to buy fifty acres and an old house at Chevallum near Nambour on the Sunshine Coast.

It was all very exciting for me but somewhat hard on my beautiful young wife Ruth! Most of the mod cons were gone, although we did have electricity and the phone! But God was good to us as we went through many hardships and trials while crop farming and contracting.

After five years, an American man bought next door to us to grow avocadoes and through a series of events he offered to buy our property for double what we paid for it! So we said yes and moved to a bigger farm of near 200 acres at Eumundi where God continued to prosper us.

At that time we were still attending the Lutheran church at Nambour and then at Cooroy just north of where we lived! At this time I was not yet born of God’s Spirit even though I believed in God and had the knowledge of God, it was influencing my life but only externally. I believed with my head but my heart and spirit was not regenerated. About that time I began to sell real estate in the Nambour office of L.J Hooker.

While I was there a new Lutheran Pastor called in and invited me to do a course he was running at the Nambour Church, called The Bethel Bible study. Somehow I felt led to accept and join the classes. This led to a better presentation of the Gospel of God’s Kingdom and the influence of the Word of God on my life, because we had to memorize scriptures and read whole sections of the bible. So I completed the classes and along with others became a teacher of the series to other church members. This was amazing because I still did not know the Lord or have the Holy Spirit!

It was during this time one night while lying in bed reading the Bible, I read in Rev 3:20 (NKJV) "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.

As I read this, I put the open bible down on my chest and prayed. “Lord I know what I am supposed to live like, I know what your commandments say, but I can’t keep them. Will you come in and live in me and give me the power to live right.” That was the crux of what I said and immediately I felt something inside of me changing, something I had never felt before. I fell to sleep and the next day I felt so different, I said to my wife, “something happened to me last night and now when I pray I know I am talking to God! It was only sometime later I realized I had invited Christ into my life and of course I was now born of the Spirit of God! Now God was my Father!

This fulfilled for me what is written in John 1:12, (NKJV)“but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God!”

From then on radical changes and understanding of God’s word began to take place, so much so my wife Ruth said, “you seem to be going ahead of me, don’t leave me behind”! So I told her to go to the bedroom and get on her knees and pray and she did and came out a born again person. I must say God had already been at work in her heart and she was ready for the Lord’s work of regeneration at that time! All praise be to Jesus!

After some time a big change occurred in our family. Our lovely children, Julie, Kathy and Simon sat down at the kitchen table, with Ruth and my self, and I said to our three children. “We have been teaching you the wrong way, telling you to obey the commandments by yourself, in your own strength, but instead you need to ask the Lord Jesus Christ into your hearts to live in you and to help you keep the commandments”. So after some discussion we all prayed together the sinner’s prayer and I gave our children to the Lord Jesus Christ, to be His forever! This is one of the best decisions I have ever made, and let me tell you He (Jesus) has been faithful to them and kept them through thick and thin unto this day!

Previous to this, I was worried about how our children would grow up, would they stay faithful to God and the church? Would they live good well adjusted lives, free from addiction to drugs and alcohol etc? Well once I surrendered their lives to His keeping, I had peace about them from then on. I can remember one of my brothers saying my son would live a reprobate life when he grew up, but I kept telling him my son would not because he had Jesus in his heart! So to this day they all still have a good relationship with the Lord, having been born of God’s spirit in their teenage years! This does not mean they all have lived a perfect life, but they have stayed submissive to The Lord Jesus and always turned to him in time of need.

Truly, a continual surrender to Christ the Lord is the only way to live safely in this world and also to be assured of your eternal salvation, which is a seat in the heavenly places!

At that time evangelist Bill Newman, had a crusade in Nambour. I asked the Lutheran Pastor if it was alright to attend, and he said yes, and much to my surprise I found many other Christian people from a range of churches there. This was something new to me because up to that time we Lutherans had pretty much kept to ourselves, somewhat believing we were the only ones who held the truth from the reformation on! However, I can remember the joy of fellowshipping with believers of other church groups.

It was the first time I had heard a soloist sing songs of worship to the Lord. I was so impressed I asked her later in the night, did she really mean what she was singing! She was very gracious to me, but I am sure she must have thought I had asked her a strange question, or that I was strange myself! I had never seen or heard anything like that in the Lutheran churches. What happened at that crusade built a desire in me to open my heart to other Christians and to see what God was also doing in their lives.

We were invited to a film of an Evangelist working in India, to be shown at Christian Outreach Centre, Nambour. That night, there were a lot of people there, and I was very impressed to see fairly new believers preaching the gospel in the streets of India! They seemed to have a lot of boldness and courage which I did not understand at the time, because I had not yet been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

I remember thinking if they could do it, so could I! The aim of the film that night was to invite people to go to India to preach on the streets during an upcoming crusade, so Ruth and I put our names on the list and began to pray for the finances we needed for the trip. We had set aside money to buy another car and could not see our way to doing both the trip and the car. While attending a meeting, the Pastor of Christian Outreach Centre, asked me if I was going to India? I said I would like to go. He asked, “What is stopping you?” I said finance, and he immediately laid hands on me and prayed for the finance to be released.

So God worked in this way! I had owned an old Mercedes Benz, which was presently not on the road, and I noticed a similar model for sale advertised in the paper. This man was going overseas and wanted a quick sale, but when I saw it I did not want to buy it at that price. A couple of weeks later he rang and said I could have it for $1250 because he just wanted to get rid of it! Suddenly it dawned on me, that I could buy it, instead of spending $6000 on another car and use the rest of the money for our trip to India! I believe God gave me favor, and the old Benz went well for over twelve months. I then took the motor out of it and put it in to the other one I owned which was not previously going. It went for years after that! So we were blessed both ways, a trip to India and a car, all for the same price!

We saw thousands of people respond to the preaching of the gospel in India, as well as miracles of healing and demons being cast out. We had to pray for many people until well into the night. Much to our surprise, the people we prayed for said they were healed, even deaf ears opening!

One day we were sent into an area of the city that seemed to be very unresponsive to our preaching! People just stared at us, not receiving prayer or taking part in anyway at all! When we returned to the camp for lunch, the organizers said “we thought you would get stoned today”! We were told that the area we went to was a Muslim area. I thought it would have been nice to be forewarned!

We survived our trip to India very well except for a little sickness and toothache! But when we arrived home to our local congregation, they did not seem to want to know anything about it at all! It got to that place, where our leadership positions were taken away from us and we had to have a meeting with the church eldership, because we had been involved with Pentecostals and Charismatic. But, I believe the Lord was in all this at the time, because we had been baptized in the Holy Spirit and we had a call on our life to serve the Lord Jesus Christ full time! So we started to look around at other churches to see where we might fit.

Not so long afterwards we settled at the Christian Outreach Centre, who had their church at Woombye. They had bought an old pineapple farm and converted the large shed on it into an attractive meeting place. During our time there, we saw many people converted to a life following Jesus Christ as savior and Lord! It was like being in the middle of a revival; an outpouring of The Holy Spirit. People were also healed and delivered by God’s power under the ministry of Pastor Neil Miers! We experienced great growth in the church and school which had been founded. We actually felt like we were living the book of Acts in the 1980’s.

It was during these years I attended a six months bible College at Redcliffe run by Christian Outreach Centre. Here I learnt ministry skills, and faith and vision!

After some years in the new church, Pastor Clark Taylor, the founder of the Christian Outreach movement, visited our church and ministered very powerfully. Besides preaching the gospel, he talked about the call of God and answering that call. I found myself going up to talk to him after one meeting and saying, “I want to go out and plant a church”. His response was quick, “just come to the training school in January next year”.

We registered with four other couples from that congregation and ended up doing a six week ministry training course. During that time Pastor Clark imparted the Holy Spirit, faith and vision so I was fully convinced I could pioneer a church. My older brother said that it was impossible to start a new church just like that, but by faith I just kept saying it was possible!

The amazing thing was this, all to God’s glory, I was the one who was rejected by man for the seminary training, one of the least educated, but God chose me and empowered me by His Spirit to do what education and knowledge cannot do! Just as it is written, “not by power or by might but by My Spirit says the Lord”!

My parents dream to have their sons as Pastors was fulfilled first in my younger brother John. He became ordained and received a post to New Guinea, where he had a very successful ministry growing the parish from some 200-300 members to around 1500 in the time he was there.

Unfortunately he was drowned in an accident while on his own.

This was a great tragedy and a very great grief and loss to us all, but particularly to my parents. It meant the loss of their dream. No Pastors amongst their six sons. But God was not finished yet with his will in us! Once I was regenerated, I felt the call to minister and so did my brother Trevor. I was a Pastor for 18 years, having answered the call at age forty eight. We are both still ministering, not necessarily as Pastors of a church but as a lifestyle!

It was during the year of 1987 that we sold our beautiful house in Diddidilbah, near Nambour, and it was a beauty, having a forty six square roof with a verandah all around laid with rough hewn slate, exposed cathedral beams and many other features. It was a great cost to my wife Ruth and our children to leave our brand new beautiful home to enable us to enter the ministry. Besides we were leaving the beautiful sunshine coast of Southern Queensland for Traralgon in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria. This was quite a climatic change considering I did not like the cold at all! Of course, there are beautiful places in Latrobe Valley also, and we have become acclimatized now having lived in Latrobe City for 23 years.

After a few weeks we settled in and got organized, we started our new Christian Outreach Centre in Traralgon, at a small state school. I must say the Lord was very good to us considering I did not really know what I was doing! But with a lot of prayer, enthusiasm, fasting and some adverts in the local paper our church began to grow as God added people to the congregation, even though I was immature as a Pastor. We had an evangelistic thrust and saw some new converts added from time to time.

One of the highlights of our church was the wonderful music team led by our son-in law Wayne Johnston and our daughter Kathy who later became husband and wife. Looking back, I now realize how awesome was the presence of God in our worship services, just because of their love, dedication and anointing and leadership in music! Besides that, God had led to us other wonderful musicians and singers, including our son Simon who played the drums. We were just blessed!

During this time an amazing miracle, a display of power from the heavenly places, happened. A young lady from a church in Melbourne had travelled to our region and had a very bad accident in our location. Her Pastor rang me, and asked if I would go and visit her in the Moe hospital and pray for her. He said that her head had gone through the windscreen and had cut her throat and broke her jaw in two places, and that she was in intensive care.

When I got there, the intensive care unit was being renovated, and I found her in a room, with the nursing staff in the passage way just outside the door.

After formalities, I got to see her. She was heavily drugged and it took sometime for her to realize who I was and why I was there. Eventually she understood and was glad I had come to pray for her.

I really did not know how bad she was, but her neck had been stitched up and her face was all lacerated, and she could only mumble answers. I just kept telling her that the Lord would heal her and she would be out of there in no time!

The male nurse on duty could hear all I said and I am sure he must have thought I was being over optimistic. Nevertheless, I persisted by faith, and when I thought she was ready to receive, I prayed for her. On the way out, I said to the nurse on duty, “She’ll be right and she will be out of here in a day or so”. He looked at me but did not say anything!

The next day I received another phone call from the Melbourne Pastor, asking me what I had done. I said, “ why?” He said that some Melbourne people had visited her, and she was sitting up as bright as a cricket! I did not know what had happened to her, so I just said, “that is very good”.

A few weeks later I received a letter of thanks from her. This is what she said.

After I prayed for her, next morning she felt amazingly well, so much so, that the next day the hospital sent her to another hospital in Melbourne, to have her jaw wired, because it was broken in two places. The hospital staff sent the x-ray with her. But when she was x-rayed in the Melbourne hospital there was no break showing at all! This could only have been done by the power of God working through the gifts of the Holy Spirit of God!

Another great miracle God did through me happened, when two young ladies came to my office to ask for prayer. One of them had a baby girl ten months old whose lower parts had never moved. She had been born with spina bifida. The doctors had repaired her spine leaving a hole in her lower back. Their report was that she would never walk but would grow up needing a wheel chair the rest of her life!

I must say, when I prayed, I was not very confident of a healing for the baby. I shared a simple message with the young ladies and then prayed, anointing with oil. I simply asked God to heal this child to show that He was the God who forgives sins and had the power to give eternal life.

Amazingly, a couple of months later I received a letter, saying, that three days later the baby rolled over and three weeks later she started to pull herself up on couches and chairs. Now she would be about twenty years old, enjoying life. This was a demonstration of the power of Jesus Christ, who is in the heavenly places!

After some time the church grew to a place where my leadership skills needed to improve for the church to grow further. Many prophecies, dreams, visions had come to us from without the church and also from within, about a mighty out pouring of God’s Spirit and Fire, but to this day we are still waiting for God’s timing and fulfillment.

After 18 years of ministry and at the age of 66 I stood aside, and a Lady Pastor, Michele McEwan led the church for a few years. When she left, an old friend of ours Pastors Lenny and Lorraine Bristow came and for five years built the church up in numbers and gathered some good leadership around them. However, in 2010 Pastor Lenny and Lorraine retired and Pastors Paul and Leisa Gratton, also from the sunshine coast, were installed as senior Pastors. At this time we are looking forward to good things and the Lord’s word for this church to be fulfilled.

Chapter 2

Our God given position in the Spirit Realm!

Eph 2:5 (NKJV) even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

Eph 2:6 (NKJV) and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

What happens to a human being who is truly born of God’s Spirit, or who is truly regenerated and renewed in the Holy Spirit? Remember it is not what you or I think, but what God has revealed to us by His Spirit in the Holy Word of God.

He says in Ephesians 2:1 “and you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins”. Stop there! God sees all people who are born of man and woman as spiritually dead, not having the life of God in them! This is also referred to as the Adamic race, people who are all slaves to sin, to their own fleshy passions and appetites, to the world’s influence and to Satan’s clever lies and deceptions! Stop again! I said God sees, not man sees or thinks, but God Himself, sees all unregenerate people as spiritually dead, dead in their trespasses and sins, whether they belong to, or go to church or not. They desperately need to be raised from that spiritual death, because they are totally cut off from God’s Holy Life force! Therefore to belong to God, as a member of His family and Kingdom, you must be born of God’s Spirit!

When the first man fell into sin the whole human race was cut of from the Holy life of God! This is a very foundational truth which we must never deviate from! To do so would mean the way of salvation can no longer be clearly seen or thought to be needed! We would drift closer to the new age concept and lie of Satan that God is in everybody! Jesus the Son of God, (having no earthly father, and speaking for His Heavenly Father), said, “and this is eternal Life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”! He also said a man must be born of the Spirit to enter the Kingdom of Heaven . “What is born of flesh is flesh, what is born of Spirit is Spirit!” John chapter 3:3-7.

That means you cannot have the spiritual Life God has unless you get it by a rebirth from God! Alas for many who refuse to believe, Jesus also said that on the great Day of Judgment He would say, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness”! Matt. 7:23. and again in Matt. 25:41 “then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels”.

You must ask yourself this question, do I know God as my Father and Jesus Christ His only Son as my Saviour? Or am I still one of the fallen Adamic race? Am I just a person who goes to church, or just a church member? When I die, will I hear those fearful words from Him….I never knew you?

I remember talking with a young person some years ago. I told him something like what I have written in the above verses. His response was, “I do not believe that”. I responded by saying to him, “that is all that has to change, it is your belief that needs to change.” He looked at me intently and said, “That is profound.” Truly the Kingdom message is profound, salvation does not come by being good, but by our faith in Jesus Christ whom God sent! This kind of faith will result in a spiritual rebirth.

I was talking with a man in a swimming pool at a holiday resort. He asked me what I had done in life, and so I told him I had been a pastor for quite a number of years. We went on to have a good discussion about Jesus and His Kingdom. Eventually he asked me a pointed question. He asked, “What do you think of alcohol?” I said, “I do not have a problem with alcohol, the problem is not alcohol but what people do with it!” He agreed, he was a truck driver and obviously liked a beer.

On my way home from our holiday I was meditating on our conversation and I said out loud to myself, “Christianity is not about morality but it is about faith!”

Now, God is not at war with you. Neither is He after you to judge or condemn or even punish you! God’s war is with Satan and his evil fallen angels! Jesus Christ even went so far as to say, that the everlasting fire of judgment was prepared for the devil and his angels! This is because Satan deceived man into joining his rebellion against God and His purpose in man! You can read this in Matthew 25:41. So all preaching and witnessing should be to show you the way to escape God’s terrible judgment against Satan! God loves you. He even judged all of your guilt for sin on Jesus His Son, so He would not have to judge you with Satan and his angels! The only way of escaping this judgment against Satan is to end your rebellion against God and believe with your whole heart in Jesus Christ as Lord and turn from all known sins!

When the Scriptures say, we are seated in the heavenly places, it first says we were raised up, indicating being raised out of spiritual death (under judgment with Satan and fallen angels), into spiritual life, on the level of life which God and His son Jesus Christ have! This is eternal life, the life with the spiritual force and power that God has.

So we must ask the question, “How do I get raised up out of spiritual death”? This is a supernatural work of God. But you ask, is it something I actually experience while living on earth as a human? Most certainly! The bible calls this experience, “A circumcision of the heart made without hands”. Col. 2:11. This means that God by His Spirit removes your old dead spirit inherited from man, and gives you a new Spirit of His substance. This only happens when we are convicted by the Holy Spirit of our sinful state, our desperate need to be forgiven and made right with God, and when we surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The bible says in John 1:12 (KJV) But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

This is exactly what happened to me when I was thirty eight years old. I had been baby baptized and confirmed in a church, but as yet I was not born of God’s Spirit or raised out of the fallen human race to be given eternal life! I can definitely remember something move deep within me when I asked Jesus Christ to forgive me and live in me so I could do His will! So, once I was born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit, I began a journey of renewing my mind to my new life and position of being seated in heavenly places in Christ!

In the coming chapters I share my journey in faith, and I hope it will also help you on your journey in faith and spiritual life!

Chapter 3

God is my only Father.

Could it possibly be that I could have God almighty as a personal Father, who loves me and trains me as His son?

Could it be possible, that I could live my life as a son of God being only one generation from God? That the great Creator of all things has begotten me spiritually, through His Word and Spirit! That I am now really God’s son?

Just like human parents beget children physically, God begets children spiritually! This is what the Word of God teaches us, and if we are born of God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit will witness to us that we are children of God, and we cry to God, Abba Father, which means dear Father.

Rom 8:15 (NKJV) 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."

Meditate on this right now! Talk to your Heavenly Father as a Son or Daughter would talk to an earthly parent, because you are only one generation from Him, just like an earthly son is one generation from his father! You can visit with Him at any time simply by changing your focus from earthly and natural to spiritual! It is not just that I believe in God, but when I was born again I changed spiritual Fathers, and so did you if you are born again of the Spirit!

You can believe in God all you like, and many people do believe with their head, but they are not born of God, therefore they still have Satan as their spiritual Father. You see, Jesus, the true Son of God, had a dispute with the religious leaders of His day, because they wanted to kill Him because He had said He was the Son of God! Read the story in John 8:42-44.

These were some of His words. “You are of your Father the devil, and the desires of your Father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him”. V44.

Sometimes I sing a little song, “I am the Isaac of God, I am the Isaac of God, I have the promise of God, I have the promise of God, I live the life of God, I live the life of God”. You can make up your own tune for it! I do this because Isaac was a child of promise and only one generation from Abraham his Father! My faith grows as I sing the little ditty because Isaac inherited the promises of God given to his father Abraham!

So we also inherit, by our rebirth in the Spirit, the promise of our Father God to be made like the Lord Jesus Christ and to be blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ!

Eph 1:3 (KJV) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

To become a son of God is the greatest blessing God can bestow on anyone! There is no higher title, position or accolade that can be given while we live on this earth! And by the way, it does not matter who you are or how insignificant you might think you are!

It is an eternal blessing having the quality and power of eternal life without any weakness or failings! The apostle John wrote about this in his gospel saying, John 1:13 (KJV) which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

How outstanding is it to be born of God? No religion or ritual can offer you a rebirth as a son of God! No amount, of education or self help or even self esteem, self realization courses, can give you son ship with God. No human parent can bestow son ship from God on you, because God does not have any grandsons! It can only happen when God himself gives you a spiritual rebirth! Every son God has is actually a Prince or King, just like the sons of royalty are Princes. This is because God is a royal being, that is, He is King over heaven and earth!

Just think of it, a person with God’s Life in them is no longer human only, but superhuman! Now, they are to live by the Word of God and the Spirit of God! Talk about self esteem, when I was born of God’s spirit my self esteem went up about one thousand per cent! I knew I was no longer guilty before God but accepted by God, as a loving Father! All I can say is wow!

But back to earth again. While I am here I must learn to live my life as being seated in the heavenly places with and in Christ! I must learn how I am to act, speak and think because God has raised me up to this incredible spiritual plane! This is superior to Satan and his evil angels and also above Holy Angels who are God’s servants, but we are God’s Sons! No Angel was begotten of God!

Heb 1:5 (KJV) For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

Truly, the God given destiny of men in Christ is to be conformed into His image. To be made just like God! Jesus himself was this person as a man. He said if you have seen me you have seen the Father! Wow!

Just recently a dear friend of mine was diagnosed with stomach cancer and of course I sought the Lord on his behalf in prayer. During the weeks and months that ensued one night the Lord spoke to me these words. “Through faith you can walk on God’s level in the playing fields”!

I woke up in the morning with these words ringing in my heart and mind! The Lord was challenging me to up my faith level to conquer all of life’s challenges, and to learn to operate in life on His level, through my faith! Wow! I also remembered the words Jesus spoke while on earth.

John 14:12 (NKJV) "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.

Of course Jesus also said, “To him who believes, all things are possible, and with God nothing shall be impossible!

This is not becoming God, but rather living life like God has, receiving His life giving spirit, as a son of God!

I can remember when I was still pastor of the Church in Traralgon, I was in the airport at Melbourne, ready to fly interstate. At that time I received a phone call with what I considered to be bad news regarding things happening in the church. As I began to pray about the situation I heard the Holy Spirit say to me, “You don’t have to leave the Heavenly Places to deal with a problem on earth”!

When God speaks things to us, often it is given to us, so we can achieve the results of what God has said to us. It is an answer to our problems. However, it can be to bring immediate changes, or else it is a process rather than an immediate result, and in due course the answer will come to us. If we want to see the results, we must speak out what God has said and of course act on it! This means, stay in peace, stay in faith, speak the answer to your problem and see the answer to your problem with your inner vision!

For example, if you get a bad health diagnosis, it is very easy to lose your peace, and even get a very bleak picture of your future. It is easy to fear rather than to stay in faith and confidence that all is still well! It is also easy to speak negatively about your health and future! It is also easy at this time to seek answers from the natural realm only, rather than the supernatural, which is in the heavenly places! However, all these things are just the wrong things to do! That is not staying seated in the heavenly places in Christ! But the good news is that we can all learn to operate out of the Heavenly Places by faith!

As it turned out, the things I feared might happen in our church did not eventuate. God was giving me a lesson on how to remain seated in faith and peace! God my Father was showing me how I could live by my faith, and stay seated in the Heavenly Places!

Chapter 4

Getting your soul seated!

A few years after I was born again of God’s Spirit, I was out one Saturday evangelizing. I was starting an outreach into a small town called Yandina.

We decided to have lunch underneath some trees in a barbecue area. After sometime I noticed two people near us under another tree, and I decided to go over and witness to them of the Lord Jesus Christ. They said that they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ but did not belong to the church. Meaning not being a part of the Church universal. I thought it was a bit strange at the time, but after I told them what I was doing, they told me that the way to get answered prayer was to link my mind to the mind of Christ and that if I did that it would work anywhere around the world! I remember thinking it all was a bit much for me to understand at the time, but I never forgot the experience.

Now, thinking back over the incident, I believe they were two angels sent to tell me how to get answered prayer! The reason I think this, is because they meant they were not redeemed, that is, they were not a part of the Body of Christ, and of course, they as angels always have their mind linked to Christ, to do His will! So imagine this, the only way to have our minds linked to Christ is through His Word and being seated with Him in thought and desire. So the following will help you to get your soul, mind will and emotions seated with Christ!

Once you are a born again Son of God you are an extraordinary person living in this world, able to live a supernatural as well as natural life. Jesus Christ did exactly that, which means you can also!

God is a Spirit being who speaks by faith what He wants to achieve or perform! God is the only one who can declare the end from the beginning, because He knows He has the power to make it come to pass! In Romans chapter 4:17, God is described as One who gives life to the dead, and calls those things which do not exist as though they did! When it says, God gives life to the dead that means it is never too late for God, even where there has been a death!

You can have a terminal diagnosis, but it is not too late for God or for you to be restored to health! Your business can be on the point of bankruptcy, but it is not too late for God to bring you out of it! Your marriage could be near divorce, but it is not too late for God to restore it! You need to rise up in prayer, get yourself seated in Heavenly places and overcome the circumstances on earth causing your problems!

I share this testimony as an example of what can happen. A friend of mine, is Wendy a graphics designer and I visited her to ask her to design the cover for this book. While I was there she told me that her father had been diagnosed with kidney failure. So I suggested that she invite him to a meeting to be prayed for, which she did. On the next Sunday evening Wendy and her father and mother came along. He had a doctor’s report stating that his kidneys were only functioning by fifteen percent. The outlook for the family was not good. His quality of life had gone down quite seriously and medically there was no real hope of restoration.

As our meeting progressed I kept looking up in the spirit to the heavenly places. What I saw was Jesus bowling under arm, like pitching a ball under arm. Because I had been watching cricket in the afternoon before the meeting, I thought I had been watching too much cricket and all I could see was what I had been watching on TV. Nevertheless I persisted in looking in the spirit with my eyes closed, but all I could see was what I had seen before. I then decided to step out by faith and act on what I had seen.

I told Wendy’s dad and the people present at the meeting, that Jesus was going to bowl the disease out of him. I reasoned that when we bowl or pitch a ball our aim is to get the batter out. I told him I would bowl that disease out of him in Jesus Name. I stood about ten feet from him and no one else was touching him when I prayed and then bowled under arm at him! This may sound a little crazy to you, but amazingly the power of God came upon Wendy’s dad, he was overwhelmed and fell on to the floor. When he got up he was somewhat stunned by the power that had passed through him. He also said that when he was on the floor, a voice inside of him said, “It is done”. He knew God had touched His life with power from the heavenly places and that God had also spoken to him in a still small voice! He also remembered that Jesus had said on the cross, “It is finished”, meaning that he had taken away our sin and the curse of sickness and disease.

That night he went home saying the pain is gone from my body! I told him that from now on no matter what the symptoms felt like, he had to say what he had heard, that is, “It is done”, I am healed.

Since then he has been back to the Doctor two times and each time his kidneys have shown improvement, and his faith and prayer life has grown. As far as I know, medically speaking, kidney disease is rarely reversed.

In Genesis chapter 17, God spoke by faith to Abram and Sarai who were old and had no children. Barrenness was their problem and now also old age! Pretty tough situation if you want children! You can read the account in Genesis chapter 17 for yourself. What God said was, “I have made you a Father of many nations”!

So here God was speaking or prophesying by faith the future for Abram, but when He said this, Abram and Sarai were unable to conceive because of their age! But, impossible situations do not bother God or impede Him in any way at all, because He can bring life into them!

Before this promise to them was fulfilled, Abram and Sarai had decided to help God fulfill what He had promised, by having a child by Hagar the handmaid of Sarai. This is very typical of us humans, we often try to help God out with our suggestions or plans! Someone said, “Want to make God laugh, just tell Him your plans”! One man of God said, ‘God never starts something He has not already finished”! What a statement! Meditate on it again! God never starts something He has not already finished! Therefore we must agree with our whole being to what God has said about us who are in Christ! We who are God’s sons.

Abram and Sarai eventually accepted name changes, given to them by God, to line up with what God said about them! They were now called Abraham and Sarah. They also accepted their name changes to speak about themselves the same as what God had said about them! They also accepted what God had said about them thereby changing their identity! Abraham and Sarah’s identity changed from fatherless and barren to a Father and mother of nations! Now, looking back through history, we can see that Abraham did indeed become the father of many nations!

This is the very thing we must do to get our mind in line with Christ just like the Angels had told me! If we pray or speak from a wrong identity or position how can God answer us when we are not linked in our minds with Christ! No one can restrain God or resist God to the point of stopping God achieving the end result He has chosen, and often our mistakes along the way do not stop the purpose of God either! But eventually faith must come and we must think and speak exactly what God has said about us!

Listen to the Word of God in Psalm 2:1. “Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? The Kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His anointed”. Then in verse 4, “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then in verse 6, “Yet I have set My King on My Holy hill of Zion”.

Here God is saying, despite the best efforts of Kings and rulers down through the ages who were against God’s plan to seat Jesus Christ as King on the Holy Hill of Zion, God has accomplished what He set out to do! Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God, as King of all God’s people in heaven and on earth!

God has always been speaking the future into existence and that is why He has said that He has raised us up with Christ, out of spiritual death, to be seated in the heavenly places in Christ!

Now the Lord Jesus Christ was raised up first! The apostle Paul prayed that we would know what is the exceeding greatness of God’s power towards us, which raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the heavenly places, far above all names, powers and principalities or anything that exists! But the amazing thing is that it is the same resurrection power that God uses to raise us up and to seat us in Christ Jesus! So when we are born again, our spirit is raised into the same position in the spirit realm as is Jesus Christ! In actual fact when God raised Christ up we also were raised up with Him! Therefore we are expected to live out of our position with Christ!

Now ask yourself this question, can my soul comprehend what has happened to me? Can I get this information out of my hard drive, (my spirit), and into my RAM, (that is my soul and daily living patterns)? This would mean the fruit of the Spirit and also the supernatural of God working in and through me daily! This of course would be by me having to exercise faith in all circumstances! This really means we ought to organize all our daily lives, even the smaller things, from the heavenly places with the Lord! This is possible but requires discipline and some time set apart for prayer and meditation, as well as consciously practicing the presence of God in everything we do!

So according to the Word of God, little old you or me, seemingly unimportant in the grand scheme of things, God has chosen and blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places through Jesus Christ! This is not pie in the sky, but rather a spiritual position given to us now, which will only be fully manifest in eternity!

My wife Ruth, is a woman of great faith and persistence in the things of God. One day her engagement and wedding rings disappeared. At that time we were living in a large house, on a hill right on top of a ridge, which was not much larger than the house. The house had about eight feet of lawn around it and then a steep bank falling away from it. In the natural she would never have found her rings again, but her faith kicked in! She started asking the Holy Spirit of God to show her where the rings had been lost. You could say she got seated in the heavenly places to see the answer. As Ruth prayed and meditated, with her eyes closed, asking the Holy Spirit’s help, she saw a picture of her self shaking the table cloth out on the edge of the lawn where the land fell steeply away. You see, she always shook the crumbs of the table cloth outside. Unknown to her she had placed the rings on the cloth and completely forgot about them. So when she went to the place she saw in the spirit, there in the grass on the edge of the lawn were her rings!

Praise God there is nothing He does not see or hear! But also, there is nothing large or small He does not want to help us with or reveal to us! You see, when we are sons of God, filled with the Spirit of God, we can always be led by the Spirit to the answers we need! How wonderful it is to be seated in Heavenly Places with Jesus Christ!

It has been said many times we have to get it from our head to our heart! But just the opposite is true! We must get what God has deposited in our Spirit into our head! We must get the Life of God in His Word and Spirit out of, or through our Spirit into our mind, will and emotions. We do this by hearing the Word of God, speaking it for our own life and acting on it! Faith comes by hearing the Word of God and acting on it, for without actions faith is dead!

James 2:20 (NKJV) But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?

Do you believe that the power of increase is in the Word of the Kingdom? You see Jesus preached a new Kingdom of God which we could enter by faith and a spiritual rebirth!

Mat 13:23 (NKJV) "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."

Here Jesus is saying there should be an increase of up to one hundred times in our lives from hearing the word of the Kingdom! The bible also speaks about being transformed by the renewing of our mind!

Rom 12:2 (NKJV) And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

In the verse before this, it says to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service!

This is something we do, not God! It is our responsibility to renew our mind and surrender our bodies to God! This is the way we prove the good and acceptable will of God! This is the way we inherit what is ours! It is God’s will we live like Him! It is God’s will that we are healed! It is God’s will we are prosperous! It is God’s will to live a free person from sin’s entanglements.

You see, whatever is not in God’s life should not be our life and whatever is in God’s life should be in ours also! We should always be filled with love, peace, and joy! We should always be filled with faith and confidence that we have God’s blessing and favor! We should always be living in good health!

2 Cor 1:20 (KJV) For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.

In other words, God has already said yes to all of His promises to us. He has already said yes to our prayer requests in the Name of Jesus. Jesus himself said, John 16:23 (KJV) And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.

John 16:24 (KJV) Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

Here Jesus is saying all we have to do is ask, because God has already decided to give to us all things in Jesus name!

One day a few years ago thieves broke into our church and stole items including like a microwave oven, a CD player and a power amp. Now when things like this happen it is an opportunity for us to walk by faith, and we can say stay seated in the Heavenly places. Don’t get upset, complain or judge the thieves! Do not fear, but by faith make some declarations! Decide to settle it in the spirit realm rather than in the natural realm! Call Satan to give an account of what has happened before God. Remember we are supposed to reign in life through Jesus Christ.

Rom 5:17 (NKJV) For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

My music director asked me if I wanted to file an insurance claim, because the items were insured. But, I said, “No, I want to pray first, and besides this, we will have to pay an excess and also probably have our insurance premiums increased. You see, if we deal with things in the natural, we are subject to this world and its systems! This always costs! But if we deal with things in the spirit realm we can have a positive outcome!

So, this is what happened! As I prayed, I started to see a picture of those stolen items back in the church building! And so as I continued to pray, the Holy Spirit gave me a revelation of God being the God who returns the stolen goods, based on the life of Abraham and David! In the first account recorded in Genesis 14, Abraham’s nephew Lot and his women and goods were captured in a battle for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. When Abraham heard this he armed himself and all his household, and went after the Kings who did this! Now, because he was a prophet of God and carried the promise of God for blessings and greatness, by faith he caught up with them and overcame them, God being with him, and he recovered Lot, his women and all the goods.

When I saw this, I said, Lord you are the God who returns the stolen goods! My faith began to grow!

The second account in 1 Samuel 30, is where David was out fighting battles and another group raided his home at Ziklag capturing their families and goods and burning their city. So when David and his men arrived back home, things looked so hopeless, that even his own men threatened to stone him because of what had happened. But it says, David strengthened himself in the Lord! I imagine he worshipped and prayed until faith came, and then he called the priest and inquired of the Lord. This gave him a word from God to pursue and recover all, which he did!

So after a few days, I was outside of the church building and I looked up and said, “Lord I can see those things back in the church building, answer my prayer in the name of Jesus!” It was a prayer of faith, and within two days we had a call from the police saying they had recovered all our goods! Hallelujah! All we had to do was to go and pick them up!

I testified of this to a conference, and when I had finished the testimony, I said, Jesus is better than insurance! Praise the Lord! We could say exercising your faith is better than relying on the world systems! We are in a new Kingdom seated with Christ, far above principalities and powers! We are meant to stay seated and rule over our circumstances by faith! It is better to stay seated in the Heavenly Places, than to struggle with things in our own strength, in the natural realm. Remember Jesus words, “To him who believes all things are possible!” This means you!

Ever since that time my wife Ruth and I have decided to never let the world system of Satan rip us off. And so we have other testimonies of victory over people trying to use us or abuse us! One such testimony goes like this. We received a telemarketing call for cheap airfares. It sounded really good and something we could use in the near future so we purchased over the phone.

However, when we received the package there were so many conditions that were not revealed during the phone conversation, which would have cost us a lot more money, we decided we wanted out. Remember, to stay seated in Heavenly places, equals rule in Jesus name over the situation. We prayed making a declaration that Satan would have to return our money in full!

When this booking was made, three days later I left for South Africa and only returned three weeks later. So, considerable time had elapsed before I e-mailed the company and stated very clearly our request. Well, the next morning there was an e-mail saying they would refund all our money no questions asked! Praise the Lord. You see you must know who you are as God’s son seated with Christ in the heavenly places, which is far above the realm of darkness that is in this world! It only requires your faith!

To sum up, if you are born of God’s Spirit you are seated in Heavenly places above the world and it’s systems. But it is only your faith and corresponding actions through a renewed mind that will cause the outcomes you want, to become real! You must have a ruling and reigning attitude, not over people but over the spirit realm that is trying to subdue and rule you.

I remember another story of a man who was carjacked by a thief with a gun who jumped into his car and told him to drive to a lonely spot. He then ordered the man out of the car and to strip off all his clothes and to give him his wallet etc. The Christian’s response was, you can’t do this to me I am a son of God. He kept saying this to his abductor over and over again and in the end the abductor said, “I like you, take me back and drop me off”. Which he did! It was his boldness and faith and words that saved him from a very bad experience! In his heart and mind he remained seated in the heavenly places and confronted the thief with boldness, faith and confidence!

Ask yourself, how do I react under pressure? Do you recognize that in this world you will go through trials and tests? From God’s perspective, these experiences are not meant to destroy you, but rather they are meant to hone you and shape you into Christ’s image as a Son of God! Satan may want to destroy you or push you down, but God wants to perfect and elevate you!

The good news is that God will use Satan and his schemes to perfect and strengthen our faith!

Chapter 5

Which realm are you operating in? Death or Life?

One Sunday I was invited to preach at a church in Bairnsdale in south east Victoria. The meeting was to be held in the afternoon. So in the morning, my wife and I called in to a church in the neighbouring city of Sale. As I was sitting in the morning meeting at Sale, I closed my eyes and looked up to the heavenly places, and asked the Lord what He had for the afternoon meeting. What I saw was an arm that had been broken above the elbow.

When we got to Bairnsdale, I felt the presence of God so strong during worship and as I was preaching. When I had finished, I said, “there is someone here with a broken arm or something wrong above the elbow. This is what God had showed me! Amazingly there was this woman, who said, “it is me”. She explained she had broken her arm sometime before, but it would not heal because the sinews and muscle had been torn of her shoulder. This resulted in the arm bones having a gap and so they could not knit readily.

I took her hand and hit her shoulder with my other hand, saying be healed in Jesus’ name! Then I realized I had hit her when she had a broken arm, so said, “I am sorry I should not have hit you”. She responded, “it is alright I felt my bones come together and the pain is gone!” Later she was sitting on the floor leaning on the broken arm!

Well the end of the story is that she went to the doctors again for an x-ray and the x-ray showed no break at all and the sinews and muscle back on the shoulder! They were dumfounded and could not believe that prayer had brought the results before their eyes. They had one x-ray showing the break and the new x-ray showing no break at all! Praise God for His gifts that work through people like me or you who are born of His Spirit! Could God use you in a similar manner? Of course, that is His purpose in living in you!

The Word of God speaks about two realms of the spirit world. One is the realm of light the other the realm of darkness, one is the realm of Life and the other is the realm of Death! Which one are you from, and which one are you functioning in? Do you know?

When God made man He took the elements of the earth and fashioned them and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of Life! Then it says, “And man became a living being”! Gen. 2:7. So man’s origin came from God, from the realm of Life, made in His image, having eternal life within him self. Man was made to live in the realm of Life and not the realm of death. There was no death on the planet when it was created by God, from who comes the realm of life!

Death is shunned by everyone and always causes grief and sorrow because we were not made to experience it! Incipient death and death itself is foreign to us! What is death? It is not finishing life, it is the termination of good, it is struggle instead of ease, that is why we call sickness dis-ease! Death is also a lack of abundance, it is falling short of the Life God lives! Death is living without being fully satisfied! Death is living life separated from the life God has.

Man is always questing for more of life, and in everyone is a desire to live happily forever after. But when you look at an old person’s photo when they were young, you could well ask, well what happened to you? This is exactly what a young child said to her grandmother in a family I know. The child asked her grandmother, whose, was the wedding photo she was looking at? Why, my dear, said the grandmother that is my wedding photo. The little child looked at the photo and then at the grandmother a couple of times back and forth, and then she asked, “well then, what happened? The little child had no knowledge of ageing and death of our bodies.

But isn’t it obvious to us adults that when we are born into this world we are living in the realm of death? Solomon writing in Ecclesiastes said,

Eccl 8:8 (NKJV) No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit and no one has power in the day of death. There is no release from that war, and wickedness will not deliver those who are given to it.

This man understood the realm of death, and that he and all others were living in that realm! At the time of writing this, Solomon was right, because Jesus Christ had not yet come with God’s Life for us!

So, since man was made by God, in and for the realm of Life, we could well ask the question, well what happened? The word of God has the only answer for this question I am sure! It is recorded in Genesis, Satan, who had been cast down into the realm of death and darkness by God because of his pride and rebellion, came and tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God and choose the wrong tree to live from! God had placed the tree of Life in the midst of the garden, and had man taken from it and eaten he would have taken the whole human race into the realm of God’s Life forever. But a great tragedy occurred when man chose independence from God by having the knowledge of good and evil in their own control! Mankind plummeted from Spiritual Life into Spiritual death, they changed from having God’s Life, to being separated from God’s Life, into spiritual and physical death. God never intended man to die.

This fulfilled the Word God had spoken to them, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”!

Now we know they did not instantly die physically, but lived for hundreds of years. But spiritual death was instant! They became ashamed and felt guilty in God’s presence. For it is recorded in Genesis 3:10, Adam was hiding when God called him and he responded, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

Today nothing has changed. Men and women are still hiding from God, keeping God at a distance, they say something like, I know there is something or someone out there. But God is still asking where are you, Peter, Joan, Phyllis, Fred, James etc.? God knows exactly where you are but he wants you to respond to Him. He wants to receive you as a son, He wants to forgive you and for you to experience His love. He wants to change you into His image and likeness, and give eternal life, to have within yourself!

The great tragedy is that mankind fell into the realm of death both spiritual and physical. That is why there is so much pain and grief in our world today. But the greatest tragedy of all time is man’s rejection of God’s offer of restoration to His Life again for all people!

John 3:16 (NKJV) "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.

The greatest mistake or tragedy you could experience in this life, is the rejection of God’s offer to be restored to His eternal life again through Jesus Christ! I cannot emphasize this statement too much!

You see from the very first sin and the separation of God and man, God made a promise saying, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed (speaking to Satan who was in the serpent) and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel”. This is a promise by God that a Seed from the woman would come and crush the head of the serpent! Please note the Word of God uses a capital S for the word Seed! This denotes that a God Seed would come from woman who would crush Satan’s head, or his rule or authority over mankind would be broken! All that would happen to this deliverer, would be that his heel or physical form would be bruised!

Well let us look at Jesus Christ. Was He that Seed of the woman? The prophet Isaiah, prophesied that a virgin would conceive and bear a Son and call His name Immanuel, God with us! You see someone had to come from the realm of Light and Life to rescue those who now lived in the realm of death and darkness, which is all of humanity.

This person was the Word of God, called the Son of God, Jesus Christ! Jesus always claimed God to be His Father and that He came from above or from heaven! This explains His virgin birth, because if He was born from a man He would be no different to one of us, born in the realm of death! That is why He kept saying I am the resurrection and Life, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life! One of his major claims was that he had been sent by God. That is why we should believe in Him! He also said, His Kingdom was not from this world. The Kingdoms of this world are all from the realm of death and darkness! Have a look at their history and you will soon conclude they all had sin and weakness and evil in them, even though some were better than others!

God’s Kingdom is perfect in love, peace, unity, power and Spirit. There is no weakness or sickness or moral depravity in it! There are no negatives in it, no death, only Life as God lives, eternal! The good news is that once you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior He gives you the power to become sons of God! John1:12-13. You are translated out of the realm of Death into the Supernatural Realm of Life and Love!

Col 1:13 (NKJV) He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,

This actually happens in your conversion and this is what I experienced when I gave my life to Jesus Christ the Lord! I can remember the love that melted my heart and that fused our family together when I first received the Holy Spirit. It is a supernatural love, not just natural human love or care.

Rom 5:5 (NKJV) Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

That same love of God given to us by the Holy Spirit, has kept our family in closeness and unity ever since, even though some of us live a long way apart!

Once you are raised by God out of the realm of death into the realm of Life with God, this is being seated in the Heavenly Places in Christ. This is where God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing!

Eph 1:3 (NKJV) 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,

How dare we live only a natural life from then on? This position, being seated in heavenly places in Christ, is not only our future position, but it is a reality now by the Spirit of God in us! We can live from that place now!

This is a testimony I have. One evening I attended a meeting, but I was not the speaker that night. The lady who was speaking that night called me aside and said, “I have brought my neighbor along and she has cancer of the throat and a brain tumor, I want you to pray for her after I share”. I felt a little intimidated by the request, because I wasn’t given any warning or time for preparation. I was thinking, thanks a lot for putting me on the spot, but I did not say anything.

What I did was, during worship I looked up into the Heavenly Places and asked Jesus to give me something to work with. I saw Him in the Spirit in dazzling white and He was giving me a sword, not a real long one but still a sword. So I reached out to receive it from Him and I could see the sword come into my hand! All this I did with my eyes closed. So I just kept worshipping until the time came to pray for the woman.

When I prayed for her, I did not ask God to do anything, I said, “You evil spirit of cancer trying to kill this woman I kill you in the name of Jesus Christ. While I was speaking I used my right hand with the sword in it, (it was invisible to everyone watching), piercing her neck and head. After a short time, I asked her how she felt. The first thing she said was the lump in her throat was gone and that the pain in her head had left! Praise the Lord! This was almost to our surprise, but even more amazing was the fact that she then ate some solid food with us, whereas before she could only swallow liquids like soup etc. Now, it was the Lord’s power in that sword that did the miracle not my strength or will! Amazingly, this same woman went and prayed for a relative a week or so later and they were also healed!

What does this teach us? Doesn’t this teach us that we should deal with all problems from the heavenly places! That in the heavenly places God has an answer for all problems great and small! That we have a right to reach in there or sit there and receive supernatural answers for use on earth! It teaches us that we are surely from that Kingdom which is above all other realms! Also, that this dark world needs the light and Life from that realm which is the source of Spirit Life and Light!

To sum up what happened that night, we could say that a woman who was living in the realm of death received some Life from the realm of Life (God). This is how amazing a Christian’s life should be, because a real Christian who is born again, is truly a son of God!

Chapter 6

Our words bring Life or Death to our lives.

If you are truly born of God’s Spirit you are no longer an ordinary human being. God’s revealed word says we are a new Creation being. A new type of man who never existed before.

2 Cor 5:17 (NKJV) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Here it is saying, a new creation, not of the old creation which was cursed by spiritual death and failure. But a new creation of God which is all new!

The word, ‘behold’, means to look at, to see it, to look at it from a spiritual plane, rather than with our earthly vision. To see the realities of this new creation we must use our faith and spiritual vision! We could say use the eyes of faith. The Son of God, the born again man or woman still looks ordinary on the outside, but inside his or her spirit is absolutely new from God. The revealed Word of God says our new human spirit is of the same substance as God!

1 Cor 6:17 (NKJV) But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

So, we must see ourselves as completely new, and speak from our new self, exactly that which God says about us. We cannot say we are only human any longer! We cannot say we are just human beings. No! We have the Life of God in us and we live and speak from a totally new realm, the realm of life. The revealed Word of God teaches, that death and life are in the power of the tongue, and that you will be justified or condemned by your words! To be a truly spiritual man we would think, act and speak like God!

To do this we must renew our mind and thoughts and also control our words.

Prov 18:21 (NKJV) Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.

This is a statement of fact! Whatever we think or speak about ourselves, will be what we experience in life. It says that those who love the power we have in our speech will eat its fruit! This means we can direct our lives from what we believe and say! We can have good or bad! We can have death or life from what we believe and say! We can have sickness or divine health! We can have blessing or poverty! James put it this way,

James 3:2 (NKJV) For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.

Imagine that! From our mouth by the words we speak our experience can become perfect and we can have control of our whole body! We can bring the perfection God has given us in Christ into our experience!

Did you know you can tell your body what you want it to be?

You can tell it, that it is healed by the stripes of Christ? You can tell it, that it is free from sickness and curse! You can tell it to line up with the Word of God?

I speak to my body everyday, telling my immune system it is free from curse and that it must kill every germ, virus and bacteria that enters the body and any cancerous cell that forms in the body! I speak to my stem cells and command them to rebuild my body perfectly! You can do this to by taking a step of faith!

God wants us to live in Divine health, not just by our faith but also by good nutrition. Our bodies were designed to operate and to heal themselves by the right supply of nutrition. Ruth and I eat a very good diet of raw fruit and vegetables daily. We also take daily supplements to boost our nutrition intake. At this point in time we are not dependant on any medication. I believe the right faith combined with the right words and the right nutrition will keep you very healthy!

A lot of us are still expecting God to do something for us, but God wants us to grow up in knowledge about ourselves as new creation Sons of God, and then use that knowledge to fashion our lives and to live life reflecting His image and glory!

Jesus Christ told His disciples to speak to things or mountains to move, and He also said that if we had faith it would work!

I remember hearing a testimony of Doctors who carried out a blind placebo with a number of patients who needed knee surgery. Some patients actually had the operation, but a number of patients only had outward incisions made on the knee as though they had had the surgery like the rest of the patients. Much to everybody’s surprise after six months those who did not have the surgery had a similar improvement in their knees. There was less pain, but amazingly their knees had internally improved and healed to the same degree as the ones that had the surgery!

What caused this to happen? Well all the patients believed they had the full operation, therefore they all expected to have positive results! I can only assume they would have spoken about their recovery as well! What we think and say about ourselves will be what we experience!

When it comes to money, do you think it is always a struggle to have enough? Are you always saying I don’t know how I will pay for these bills? Do you think out of a poverty mentality? Do you speak out of a poverty mentality? Do you often say we can’t afford that! If that is what you think and say it will always be what you experience! The good news is that you are able to re-program your mind and speak words of life only! Then you will experience that life!

I heard of a woman who was always saying money was hard to earn and she was experiencing lack. When she heard this teaching she changed what she was saying from a lack confession to a positive blessed confession. She started saying money comes easily and frequently! It did not take long and she experienced the change she wanted. I have adapted what she was saying for my own use. I like to say, “Money comes easily, frequently and abundantly!” Not only do I say this but I believe that God has blessed me with the blessing of Abraham, which is to be the head and not the tail, to be above and not beneath, to lend and not to borrow!

At present I have five sources of money coming to me and it is getting bigger and better! Which is easier to say, I do not know how I will pay these bills, or, I always have plenty of money to pay my bills? When I first learned these truths, I began saying, I always have more than enough money and time to do what I want to do!

My testimony now is that instead of thinking I can’t do this or that, because of a perceived lack of money or time, I think about and speak about how I can do it! I always look for a way to do it. I have now decided to live debt free!

This reminds me of a young couple who bought a modest little house. The house needed renovations which they did, and then they sold it for an increase. So then they started looking for another house and they saw a five bedroom brick two storied house that they liked, which seemed out of their reach. But instead of saying something negative, like, we will never be able to afford that house, or it is out of our price range, as she stood there looking at the house she said, how can we find a way to purchase this house? The end of the story is they found a way! However, if she had not believed or spoken the right thing they would never have entered that house as an owner! You see it all depends on what vision is inside of you and the words that come out of your mouth!

One preacher said, “you don’t have a money problem, you have a faith problem”. But, it is quite possible you have a mouth problem as well! Fix your faith and your mouth and your problems will be fixed! The Lord said, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”! So this means I must fill my heart with the abundance of revelations of the new person I am since I was born again and filled with the Holy Spirit, and of the blessings and favor God has already bestowed upon me since I am a son of God, and then begin to speak things into being! All this can be done according to the Word of God!

To sum up, do you want change? Then change what you believe, think and say about yourself! You are well able to do it!

Chapter 7

Only Sons sit in heavenly places in Christ.

The message of God’s Word is very clear about one thing, people born of the spirit are sons of God.

Salvation is being changed from a son of Adam or even a son of the devil to a son of God! It is being translated out of Satan’s Kingdom to God’s Kingdom!

Col 1:13 (NKJV) He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,

Jesus also spoke of this great change in the Gospel of John.

John 5:24 (NKJV) "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

This speaks of a man or woman passing from the realm of death (even though they are alive physically), into the realm of Life. It is being pulled out of one spiritual position and planted into another! It is a spiritual rebirth into God’s Kingdom as a son of God! This is done by God as you humble yourself and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

One day The Lord spoke to me and said to get a pencil and paper to write down what He said to me. I did this, and He said to me, “Today you are begotten of Me”. I wrote it down, but later reviewed it and because I was not fully renewed in my mind at that time, I changed the word begotten to born again! But now I realize the two terms mean the same thing! We who are born again of the Spirit of God are truly begotten of God through His word and Spirit! Just like children are begotten in this world by a man through a woman, we who are born again of God’s Spirit are begotten by God. God’s Word is His seed and the Holy Spirit gives it birth in out hearts. His Word is just like sperm giving life to us again who were dead in sins.

1 Pet 1:3 (NKJV) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

The point I am making here is that only a Father begets children whilst a woman bares children. This truth somewhat knocks the theory that we might find God to be female. God claims Himself to be our father. Just like Jesus, who was begotten by God, in the Lords’ prayer, called Him, “Our Father who art in Heaven.”

If you truly believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God and that the Father in heaven sent Him, then you must accept that you are also begotten of God and are a son! The apostle Paul writes, Gal 3:26 (NIV). You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Notice it does not say everyone is a son of God, but only those who have faith in Jesus Christ!

I well remember my earthly father telling me when he was awakened spiritually and knew Jesus Christ was the son of God our savior and Lord. However, he was not aware that He had been begotten of God. This was also in part because He had not been baptized in the Holy Spirit!

Gal 4:6 (NKJV) And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"

For the sake of all the women reading this book, I point out that gender does not have any part in the Spirit world, there we are all sons of God and joint heirs with Christ! The apostle Paul also wrote about this in,

Gal 3:28 (NKJV) There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Right now, in the Kingdom of God all women who are born again of the Spirit are on the same level as any man who is born of the Spirit! In eternity we will all be spiritually like God conformed into His image and likeness. God the Father treats all men and women who are born of His Spirit as sons!

Jesus was very personal about this just after His resurrection. He said in

John 20:17 (NKJV) Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.'"

How incredible is this? We have the same God and Father as Jesus Christ! If Jesus Christ is a son of God, then we must also be!

Has the church communicated this truth to the world around about us? Is the church recognized as the Sons of God? I think the world’s people see us as having a religion or church affiliation. But what is even worse is that many church leaders have not communicated this truth to its members! What has happened, and it happened to me, is that we have been taught church rituals and doctrines, such as infant baptism, confirmation and communion. Then it is assumed that because we have this head knowledge and ritual, we have all God has to offer us.

I was told, you already have it all Alwyn! But alas, I was still spiritually dead and bound in sin and guilt! This only changed in me when I received Jesus Christ as my savior and Lord. The awakening I had was amazing. The joy, the love and peace I had was incredible! The apostle Paul wrote,

Rom 14:17 (NKJV) for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

You notice He says, the Kingdom of God has righteousness peace and joy in the person of the Holy Spirit, not in church ritual or membership! And we must remember, the Son of God said we must be born of God’s Spirit to enter that Kingdom or that realm.

I refer you again to, John 3:5 (KJV) Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. He went on to say, John 3:6 (KJV) That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. That is as plainly as it could be put. People born in to this world from earthly parents must have a spiritual rebirth to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and once you are born again you are a Son of God, and only then can you sit with Christ in the heavenly places! Belief in God is not sufficient, only a rebirth makes the grade!

From what I have written above and from what the word of God says about the Kingdom of God that is coming, surely it is the most radical message in the world! Nothing written by or dreamed up by man is a match for what Jesus established. Surely, there is no other religion that offers mankind son ship in the eternal Kingdom of God, is there? This is what God offers all humanity and there are no exceptions! All that is required is that we are humble enough to ask Him to forgive us and save us through Jesus Christ His Son.

Chapter 8

Only sons receive the Father’s inheritance

This is so important to understand! Only those who know they are sons can have faith for their inheritance! Only those who have matured in their faith and know the Father’s will, have boldness and faith to receive the inheritance.

In the natural life, sons always expect an inheritance from their father’s will. They know they will inherit, because they were born an inheritor! So it is with God, once we are born again of God’s spirit we are born with an inheritance. We are born with a position, we are born with a blessing, we are born with God our Father’s favor! It is automatic, but this time our father is God! So then what do we inherit from our Father God?

Jesus, God’s son, explained it this way:

John 16:13 (NKJV) "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

John 16:14 (NKJV) "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

John 16:15 (NKJV) "All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.

Here Jesus is saying, that all things God the Father has are His, and that the Holy Spirit will take what belongs to Him, and show it to us! All that is required of us is our faith! It takes constant and bold faith to believe that everything God has belongs to us through Jesus Christ!

Imagine a person whose faith and confidence is so high, that they can literally, by faith, receive from their Heavenly Father whatever they need! This could happen anyplace at anytime in the world! Of course for our faith to work, we need to believe, that God really does own everything in creation!

Psa 24:1 (NKJV) The earth is the Lord's, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein.

People may own things on earth, but God is able to move people to do what He wants with what they own. This does not happen all the time, but where faith is it can and does happen!

A good friend of ours, who is in ministry in India, was saving to buy a house for himself and his wife. God spoke to him to go and build a small house for a woman who was also in ministry, who had a great need at that time. Our friend was reluctant, because he thought it would slow down the time for him to obtain a house. But, he loves God and obeyed the Lord’s instructions and he helped this woman build a house. It was not long after that, a very rich man of another religion (not Christian), contacted our friend and asked him for prayer. At that time, the rich man needed some guidance in some complicated matters. Our friend spoke the word of the Lord to the rich man, which was a great help to him. In response the rich man then handed our friend a packet of money, enough to buy him his house!

I heard about another son of God to whom was given a lot of money, while in an airport. This happened, as a total surprise and from an unexpected source . But afterwards he heard God say to him, “I can get money to you anywhere in the world!” This is our Father God who owns all things!

What do you really believe about your Father God? What do you really believe Jesus Christ has accomplished for you? According to Jesus’ words above, the sky is the limit! There are no limits, for God has released his full blessings on his sons!

You might think but I could never be like that. Perhaps you think I am not good enough. Maybe you think God would never do things like that for me! I want to reassure you no one will ever be good enough for God to bless them, but He does it because of what Jesus Christ has done for us and because He loves us as His sons! This is what is called grace, underserved favor and goodness! Truly, open your heart and mind, exercise your faith and it will begin to happen for you also!

Pray the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth, and then exercise your faith and you will see that God backs His truth!

Chapter 9

How to stay seated in the heavenly places

Faith for the things of God, will only work if it is based on the truth! There are a lot of things people say and believe that are not the truth! This applies also to lots of people who call themselves Christians! They ask, “why does’ nt God answer my prayers?” Most likely their request is not based on the truth, or faith is not mixed with it! God can only respond to the truth and faith, because there is no darkness or lie in him!

For instance, if you believe God is harsh or hard to please, your image of God is not based on the truth! The truth is God is very compassionate, full of love, God is love. God was so bursting with love for you He sent His Son to take your punishment and to judge him for all your wrong doing! The truth is God is patiently waiting for all people to believe in His great act of love in redeeming all the people and offering reconciliation between them and Him. Oh, if you only knew how good God the Father is, you would gladly accept His son Jesus as Lord and savior.

In this world there is a battle between light and darkness. The light is the truth and the darkness is a lie. For instance, some people believe all religions lead to God, but this is a big lie!

Jesus Christ came from the Light of God saying, that He was the only way to God! It was justifiable for Him to say that, because He had no sin from Adam’s line, (God was His Father), and He did no sin! This meant He could be the sinless sacrifice for all other humans! Other religions may be about God or even try to please God, but they are without a sinless sacrifice to take away the judgment of God against sin! Anyone who says there are many ways to God simply does not know the truth.

One Easter Sunday morning, we had a sunrise service and a Christian lady brought her son along. His father was a Muslim. After the meeting we had morning tea and I had a discussion with this young man. He had a Christian mother and so he struggled with the message of the resurrection of Jesus the son of God. Somewhere in the discussion I said to him, that Jesus was the only way to God. He responded by saying I was proud and ignorant and so on. So I said to him, “a proud person is someone who does not admit he needs a Savior.” A proud person thinks he is good enough, so he can please God by his good works, thereby canceling out his sins. However the truth is, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord! Oh, how wonderful is the truth! It is a gift from God!

When Jesus Christ said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”. He was not being exclusive, but rather very inclusive! He was saying anyone, regardless of back ground, religion, color etc could come to God the Father through Him! He made the way to God open by His blood sacrifice, death and resurrection! Let the Muslims and Hindus or Buddhists or any other come! God will accept them in Jesus Christ’s name!

Another big lie some people believe is that it is ok for a person to hold hatred or bitterness toward others, refusing to forgive them for some wrong they have done. They even say that a person who is born again is still covered by grace, even though they hold un-forgiveness.

I ask you to be the judge in this matter. Is it ok before God or not? Listen to the words of the Son of God, Jesus Christ:

Mat 6:14 (NKJV) "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Mat 6:15 (NKJV) "But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Jesus told a parable about a servant who was forgiven a huge debt, but refused to forgive a fellow servant who owed him a small debt. This was the conclusion Jesus came to;

Mat 18:34 (NKJV) "And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.

Mat 18:35 (NKJV) "So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses."

At times those who are born of God’s spirit sin rather badly. It may look like they are not a Christian at all.

However we all face temptations and trials, and as our faith and character grow, we can overcome. But, does sin disqualify a son of God from sitting in the heavenly places with Christ? The answer is no! If sons of God sin again, all they have to do is confess and turn from their sin and it is forgiven!

We overcome by the Blood of Jesus Christ. All sins can be forgiven because of the blood of the innocent son of God! This is the power of the message of the cross of Jesus Christ!

1 John 1:9 (KJV) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

This is why there is only one way to God the Father!

Rev 12:11 (KJV) and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Satan cannot accuse sons of God before God, whose sins have been remitted by the blood of Jesus! This is the only way!

1 John 2:1 (KJV) my little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

No other religion offers humanity an advocate, on their behalf, before God!

In the early church age and even now, many have died to retain their seat in the heavenly places in Christ. They were asked to renounce their faith upon the threat of death, but they refused, choosing eternal life in the heavenly places rather than a life here in bondage to Satan and a lie!

You will spend eternity in the heavenly places or in the realms of torment because of what truth or lie you have believed in this life!

So I conclude this chapter by saying, please do not believe lies, no matter how good the ministry may sound or look. Whatever men are teaching always measure it by what the Son of God said! Remember Jesus came from where there are no lies!

God loves you and so do I, that is why I have written this! Please think about it, there is too much at stake!

Chapter 10

Requirements for the times we live in.

There has never been an age like the present one. Daniel’s prophecy that knowledge would be increased at the end of the age and that people would run to and fro is now being fulfilled! Everyday hundreds of thousands of people crisscross the earth by jet planes, and technology and information increase daily at a very rapid rate! The in word is digital, but what will be the next one?

We are living in a time when everything with a solid foundation is being questioned and often replaced with something inferior or nothing at all! The western civilization is drifting from its foundations, which were based on the word of God! We are also living in a time of the expectant return of Jesus Christ to establish His Kingdom on earth for a thousand years!

I say this because of the horrific disasters that are occurring in the world even as I write this book. The son of God said he would soon return when all these events are taking place. I quote:-

Luke 21:25-27 (NKJV) "And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; {26} "men's hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. {27} "Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

One day recently a student came to our house doing a survey. He had most questions relating to church or bible. After I answered the survey the best way I could, I explained the good news of God’s Kingdom to him and then asked him to sum up mankind’s condition in one word. He thought for quite a long while and then said, lost! I could only agree with him!

Today many decisions are made by people in authority without proven facts. Carbon emissions and their effect on global warming is a good example of this. Climate change and what causes it is another such example. All I know is that there were extreme famines recorded in the Bible, centuries before there were any industrialized nations, which would have wiped out civilizations except for the intervention of God! Nevertheless, I believe it would be a very good thing to reduce pollution as much as we can.

Most errors believed today, in the area of evolution theories, stem from the fact that they do not believe the account of the flood in the Word of God. One reason I believe the bible account of the flood is that Jesus Christ the Son of God spoke about it. If He knew about it and spoke about it, and every thing else He said was right, then his references to the flood in Noah’s day must also be right!

I just want to say when the flood came on the earth the whole eco systems were changed! Before the flood there were no rains, floods, famines, earthquakes volcanoes etc. There was no climate change. The account of the flood tells of the breaking up of the earth’s deep fountains and the windows of heaven were opened up and it rained forty days and nights. God had placed a firmament between the waters above and below on the earth. That firmament was broken up so that all the waters above came down on to the earth. Ever since then we either have too much rain or too little. Our climate is unstable. Whereas before the earth was like a hot house with equable conditions all over. This has been proven by archeologists and their discoveries. You need to do your own personal research and you will find what I am saying is true!

I must ask this one question. What makes you think man can be trusted with your future here on earth and in eternity? Why are you willing to trust what men say they know or have discovered? Have you ever been let down by a politician? Have you ever seen circumstances where justice has not been done? Have you ever heard of something told to the public as absolute truth, only to find out later that is was completely wrong? Can you completely trust advertising or marketing?

One famous Christian said, “One man’s speculation is just as good as another’s, so you must put your trust in the word of God only, because there is too much at stake!”

You may well ask, what is at stake? Very simply put, it is your life now and for all eternity!!! Therefore you cannot trust the speculations of men! Neither can you trust your own intellect, because truth only comes from God, revealed by the spirit of God, not from men who are in spiritual death and darkness!

I ask you, can darkness bring any light? You know only light dispels darkness, not the other way around. Therefore, you must face the fact your life is either based on truth or lies, on darkness or light. It cannot be otherwise, because there is nothing in between!

Who told you what you believe? Ask yourself, where did I get the information I believe about spirituality and eternity from? Was it from God and His word or was it from man or even a religious church or organization?

Jesus Christ, the one who came from the realm of Life, said He was the light of the world and that if we build our life on Him and his teachings, we are building on an eternal rock! This is the truth!

Surely, only God can be trusted with your life, because He has loved you and sent His son to reveal Himself to you and pay the penalty for your sins! Jesus was sent to overcome your spiritual death and to give to you life and immortality!

The apostle John, who heard and learnt firsthand from Jesus the son of God, said,

1 John 5:10 (NKJV) He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son.

Will you spend eternity seated in the Heavenly places with Jesus Christ the son of God? Will you become the person the son of God wants you to be, and so spend all eternity with Him and all His friends?

The choice always remains yours, Because God is love.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 – My background and my testimony.

Chapter 2 – Our God given position in the Spirit Realm !

Chapter 3 – God is my only Father.

Chapter 4 – Getting your soul seated!

Chapter 5 – Which realm are you operating in? Death or Life?

Chapter 6 – Our words bring Life or Death to our lives.

Chapter 7 – Only Sons sit in heavenly places in Christ.

Chapter 8 – Only sons receive the Father’s inheritance.

Chapter 9 – How to stay seated in the heavenly places.

Chapter 10 – Requirements for the times we live in.