Cleansing and sanctification

The Churches of today are filled with people with a lack of knowledge. Some would say that is a bit arrogant to say, but when you look at the fruits of the majority of the Christians, you can’t exactly say that they show the same fruits that Jesus had. What fruits am I talking about? In the first place about unconditional love towards our neighbours. Secondly, a non judgmental and forgiving attitude towards those who hurt us. Thirdly, a depended and non selfish attitude towards God and our neighbours, in other words, serve instead of asking people to serve you. Fourthly, having an intimate and personal relationship with God and having spiritual insight. These are just a few of many examples. Unfortunately, the opposite of these things is happening in a lot of the Churches of today. When you see such things happen, then that is a fruit of what lives inside their hearts. It also means that these people are acting in contrary to God's word, which creates open doors for the enemy to ruin their lives. Let me be clear about this, I’m not judging these people. It is their own responsibility and I’ll accept everyone, regardless of how they choose to believe and act. But I need to name these things in order to warn you, so that the enemy cannot ruin your life as well. There is a big difference between knowing the word of God in your mind or knowing the word of God in your heart. We all need the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth of God to us, which can only happen when you spent time with God. A lack of knowledge has enormous consequences in your life.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Hosea 4:6

I’m sure you don’t want to end like that and neither do I. But when we don’t develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit, and being sensitive to what He wants to teach us, then this will be the end result in your life. It is exactly what we see happen in the Churches of today. People are so busy with dealing with their problems, that they often forget what the real focus should be. The focus that includes the solution to all their problems. Jesus Christ. And how can we blame them? Most of them were never taught about how to have such an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit. But even when you do know how to have that sort of relationship, then it still can be a struggle. I know I struggled for a very long time, but God taught me His truth and showed me His ways to deal with my life and I am still very thankful that He did.

Ok, enough about what it shouldn’t be like. Let’s talk about what we should do and what you can expect. In a lot of studies on this website, we explained about how you can have a relationship with God. Our God still speaks to us. Not only in His word, but also personally to us. With ‘us’ I don’t mean the Jaweh Ministries team, I mean all His children, including us. In His word He gives us general directions for our life. In our personal relationship with Him, He gives as personal directions as well. If you do not know yet how to hear and understand His personal directions, then I advise you to first read the studies about these subjects. You can find these studies in the categories “God wants you” and “Father’s love”.

The goal of every Christian

When we step into our car to go to someone, then we need to know where we’re driving to. Without an address we can spent day, even months, driving around without getting to the destination. What is our goal as Christian? To go to Church every Sunday? To be a good person? Let’s take a look to what Jesus had to say about our goal.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

Matthew 28:19,20

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Mark 16:15-18

The goal of every Christian is to become a disciple. As soon as you know what it means to have a real intimate relationship with God, then He starts to train you to become a disciple. A disciple is not what you are when you become a Christian. When you make the choice to accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God and as the Messiah, then you are a child of God, but not yet a disciple. In order to become a disciple, you need training. When you made the decision to become a follower of Jesus Christ, you made that decision based upon knowledge. From that moment on everything you do will be based upon that knowledge, until you know what it really means to have a personal relationship with God and until you know how to communicate with Him (both ways). From that moment God will take you to higher spiritual levels, to levels with new understanding and new insights. At every new spiritual level, you’ll become more mature and you’ll learn more about the spiritual world and the tactics of the enemy. God will teach you in your personal times with Him and through His other children. Sometimes this will take years, sometimes just a few months. It totally depends on your willingness to change. There is also one other very important thing to remember. There will always be a higher spiritual level to grow to. Nobody can say that they’ve reached the highest spiritual level there is. Those who brag that they are on a very high spiritual level, are on one of the lowest levels there are. The higher you grow in the spiritual world, the lower and weaker you’ll become on earth. Those who actually are on a high spiritual level will never brag about it. These are the people who will serve you, who are humble and yet have a enormous authority. That’s how you can recognize those who learned what it really means to be a disciple. How this process will go differs with every single person. There is no blue print for it, then just the blue print that only God knows. You’ll never know where you end up and it is a matter of putting all of your trust in Him and just following in His footsteps.

At the moment you’ve learned what it means to serve and when you’ve become totally depended on Him, then He will add His power to your ministry (ministry = to serve). He said this about EVERYONE who believes: “In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” He was not speaking about some pastors, leaders, evangelists, prophets etc. He was speaking about all of the believers. In other words, He talked about every person who would believe in Him. That means that all of the Church, the whole congregation, is called to do these things. Exiting isn’t it? You will do all these things when you follow the voice of your Master: Jesus Christ. You will see what the victory of Jesus still does in our lives!

Everyone will be tested

Who doesn’t want to live in total victory? We all do and we will, when we grow to be mature. However, the other side of the coin is that God always will test you before He will give you His power and anointing. When a car factory produces a car, then they will never sell it before they tested it. It’s the same with all products that are made. No company will release something, until they tested it over and over again. Until they are sure that the product works as it should be working. God is also testing His children before He gives them anything out of His storeroom. That means that during your time of training, to become disciple, you will be tested by God. During this period of testing, you will find yourself in heavy storms. People will accuse you of living in sin, because of the things that are happening to you. They will tell you that you are under Gods curse or under demonic powers. They will tell you that all you need to do is repent. You will even lose a lot of ‘friends’ and many people will turn against you, even slander about you. In that period there will also be a time where you will hardly notice His presence, or something it will even seem like He has left you completely. This is a word that the Holy Spirit recently gave me:

“When the situation you’re in isn’t changing, and you can’t change your situation, then God wants to change you in the situation.”

How long this period of testing will take, depends on how you respond in your situation. What is your attitude in the situation? What is your motivation? Can you still trust God completely when you’re in a storm? Do you still believe that He loves you like no other? You can tell others that you do, but remember that God will look inside your heart to see your real motivation. Until God sees the right motivation there, nothing will change. The test will go on until we have learned what He wants to learn us. Remember that even the most righteous men on earth were tested by God. Some will tell you that satan does all these things and that God will only bless you with prosperity, wisdom etc. Let’s see what the Bible tells you. We’ll start with Job. He is the best example of what it means to be tested. This is what Job said:

What is man, that You should exalt him, that You should set Your heart on him, that You should visit him every morning, and test him every moment?

Job 7:17,18

At the moment he said that, he was in the middle of his storm. He had no idea what was going on and why all these things were happening to him. Yet he decided to remain trusting the Lord. When you read the book of Job, you can see how proud God is of Job. The compliments that God gave to Job were impressive. But when we read further, we see that even Job comes at a point that he breaks and started to doubt the judgment of the Lord. What follows it the most impressive and the longest answer God ever personally gave to a man. His reply to Jobs doubt goes on for pages and pages. In the end, Job finally understood it and his test ended. As soon as his test ended, God blessed him in every single way and Job received his prosperity. As you can see, it was God Who tested him (Job 7:18: “…and test him every moment”). When Jesus came to earth, He had to go through Gods testing as well. Now the testing goes on for the rest of our lives, but the big test always comes before His power comes. Do you remember the part where Jesus was tempted by satan?

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

Matthew 4:1

Do you see what is says? Jesus was led up by the Spirit. So it was the Spirit Who led Him to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The Spirit knew that this would happen. It was the big test of Jesus. Thank God, He succeeded the test. God didn’t spare Him the testing. Jesus had to go through it to show His motivation, to show His character. Please keep that in mind when you read this:

A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household! Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.

Matthew 10:24-26

That is a very important key to remember: a disciple is not above his teacher. It means that all the things that Jesus did, you will also do. But it also means that you will be tested, like He was tested. Maybe not in exactly the same way, but you will be tested. As soon as you start to grow to higher spiritual levels, you will enter the test periods at some point. That is the moment that will show if your faith is build upon Jesus or upon other things. You will be shaken. The world around will be shaken. The reason why so few people succeed for this period of testing, is because they are not prepared for it. They were taught that they will have a life of victory, which we will receive by His grace, but the period of testing was never mentioned.

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall. And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Matthew 7:24-29

Notice that Jesus didn’t say that IF the rain descended, the floods come etc. He told us that these things would happen and that we need to be prepared WHEN it happens. He also gave us the key: “whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them”. It’s the same what Hosea said. The sayings of Jesus are the knowledge of God. When you start to do what Jesus told us to do, this knowledge becomes active and will start to live inside your heart, instead of inside your head. So God allows the storms to come into our life. Your world will be shaken, you will probably lose many friends and feel isolated, but when your faith, your spiritual house, is founded on the rock, you will not fall but succeed the test. These storms, these trials, are a part of your training to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. All the answers to succeed your testing period, can be found in the Bible and in your personal relationship with God. In His mercy, He will even give you opportunities to make mistakes. When these storms come you will find out soon enough where your spiritual house is founded on. If you’ve build your house on the sand, and everything you’ve ever believed in is collapsing, then you need to go back to the basics. If needed, start all over again, forget your religious education and start from the beginning by reading the Bible and by asking the Holy Spirit to show you His truth. It is my experience that a lot that has been taught in the Churches, is a very religious package, filled with the law instead of grace. It is important to know the law, but it is more important to know what His grace is.

I tell you again: How you respond to and in the circumstances will determine how long your lesson will take. Some people are in the same lesson the rest of their lives. Why? Because they’re not willing to change or to give up things. They were called by God to be disciples, but because they refuse to change (repent), they will never walk in that calling. Some people refuse to repent and do have a ministry anyway. It’s been that way for many years, but that part will change soon enough. Those who started a ministry even before God tested them, will go through the same tests after all. Some will even loose their ministry in that process and receive and receive new ministry from the Lord once they succeeded the test. Others, the ones who build their house on the sand, will loose their ministry and never get it back. Great will be their fall. It is not the will of the Lord that people should loose everything, but if there is no willingness to go through the tests and to change, God can’t use them. It is His will that needs to be done, not our will. We need to be depended on Him, not on our own works.

As for me, I’ve spent a lot of time in those testing periods. There was a time that I was not willing to change some things in my life. From my own experience I can tell you that the tests will just go on until we do want to change. At one point the Lord brought someone on my way during this period. Finally I met someone who went through all these tests as well and succeeded. At that point I just wanted to know where and when it would end. I had the feeling that I could take no more. When I asked him that question, this was his reply: “It ends with a revelation of His grace”. It is the point where your knowledge of His grace, becomes reality in your life. How and when that will be? I don’t know, that up to the Lord. He decides when you succeeded His tests. I know many people are in this season in their life and I know that many feel like they can take no more. I can tell you that it will end. His blessings and His presence will return to your life. Just stay close to the Lord, spent time with Him, even if you don’t feel His presence. Obey His voice and do everything He tells you to do and you will get through it all as a victor.