Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Predestination and Free Will


(Extracted from Peter Tan's book starting at Chapter 3 page 75 "The Spiritual World" freely downloadable from: http://petertan.net/newsite/books-spiritualworld.html)


Almost all of the things that happen to a human life are through their own free will no matter how many external causes or currents are taking place in the environment into which they are born. It is not necessarily caused by free will action but can also be caused by free will of thought. Not just in the sense of a fleeting thought which impinges upon a mind but rather a thought that is accepted and becomes part of the soul life and thought pattern of the individual life. 



Predestination and Free Will 


All actions have a cause and effect – a sowing and reaping for its doer (besides affecting the lives of those around them). All thoughts that are accepted into one’s thought pattern and character attract forces that control the circumstances around the individual life. Dark thoughts attract dark forces and bright thoughts attract good forces. Thus the real battle in life is to choose both the right actions and the right thoughts (2 Corinthians 10:3-6). Both actions and thoughts have a cause and effect in this life and in the next life.

The spiritual forces of God cannot help us by replacing our need to take responsibility and do the best we can in our circumstances. People who think that they do not have to do anything but rely on God and angelic help alone do not receive the help they need from the Spirit World. They expect all the work to be done for them. Angels distance themselves from such individuals until they realise that they are responsible to exercise their free will and put in the best effort they can before help is given from the Spirit World.
It is when an individual has done the best he knows how with the little strength and knowledge that God has provided that angelic help is given to help them further. The Holy Spirit was sent as our Helper and not as our servant (John 14:16). Angels are sent to minister to us when we have used our best efforts with a pure heart of reliance on God (Mark 1:13; Luke 22:43).

Man must keep exercising the force of his free will to do God’s will even when he has a destiny to fulfil. The forward motion of the planet earth causes a centrifugal force and the gravitational pull of the sun causes a centripetal force. Both these forces work in harmony to produce a stable orbit of the earth around the sun. The free will of man exercises a centrifugal force while predestination exercises a centripetal force over a human life. If there is no centrifugal force the earth will crash into the sun; similarly, if man does not exercise his free will, predestination is of no benefit to his life. If there is no centripetal force, the earth would be thrown into the darkness of space; similarly, without walking in the path of his predestination, a man’s life would be thrown into darkness.

Foresight and Precognition

The Spiritual World is able to see the end result of every action and thought. The lowest sphere of light is able to see less into the future than those of the higher spheres. Ultimately, only God who is above all sees all and knows all things past, present and future. Spirits of the higher spheres can see some of the possible culmination of actions and thoughts upon the earth and are directed by God to guide and influence the world towards the right path without violating the free will of man.

Angels and spirits serving God are directed in advance through the foreknowledge of God into positions and places ready for the occurrence of the event months or years before they occur to direct the human lives towards their destinies against adversity and unfavourable circumstances. Sometimes these events are revealed to humans on earth through visions, dreams or a revelation in their spirits.

Pre-existence of our spirits

In Ephesians 1:4, Paul speaks about God choosing us before the foundation of the world. There are two possible extreme interpretations without contradicting the Bible: that we existed in the mind of God before we were created at conception via the union of sperm and ovum or that we had some sort of conscious existence before our earthly existence. There could be other explanations in between these two by differing the timing of our creation.

Psalms 139:6 implies that we had some form of “substance” before we had an earthly “form.” God told Jeremiah that before he was formed in the womb that He knew him (Jeremiah 1:5). Traditional understanding has always given us the “idea” that we were created at conception but Scriptures seem to point to a type of pre-existence before we were formed in the womb. The quality or type of existence that we have before our formation in the womb is open for theological discussion – without contradicting the Bible. It would not be wrong if one were to interpret it as a full-fledged existence as spirits in the Spiritual Universe of God.

For those who do accept the pre-existence of our spirits before coming to this earth, there are interesting lines of thoughts to pursue. One of which is that before coming to this earth we had some knowledge or choice in coming to this earth being made aware of our mission and tasks for this earth. God would, of course, first reveal to us His perfect will, destiny and plan for our lives (Ephesians 1:4; Romans 8:29-30). We would then have free choice within the realm of His destiny in mapping out the personal choices and routes that we would like to take under the guidance of God and His angels.
There is a twofold goal: one is to take on the challenge of living this life with all its trials and challenges to further our spiritual growth in the Spiritual Universe of God and secondly, to take on a mission or task to help fulfil the Will of God for the people we encounter – making a positive contribution to mankind and society.

In coming to this earth, all knowledge of our pre-existence was taken away except for some events that we had foreseen that will take place and bring a sense of “recognition” (déjà vu) – like we have been there before. (This is not the only cause of déjà vu, there are many other causes; for example, the picking up of another spirit or person’s thoughts from a different time or dimension, etc.). These precognition events are locked in our spirits and come to the surface of consciousness when the events occur like milestone markers telling us that we are on track.

No matter how tough times seem to be or how hard the road, we need to remember that we have chosen the road to travel for our own spiritual growth. And God has provided sufficient strength and grace for every mountain that confronts us (1 Corinthians 10:13). Do not envy others who seem to have it easy in life – they might have chosen an easier road with less spiritual growth benefits than you. Also remember that God has guided you in your choice and will never allow or permit you to choose that which He knows you are not capable to perform. If you search on the inside of your spirit, you will always find the grace and strength that God gives you to overcome every mountain. The reason that you do not seem to receive help is because there is too much noise on your inside (in your soul). Meditate and be still on your inside. Let the peace of God fill you and you will receive clearly in your spirit (not necessarily in words or thoughts) the strength and grace to proceed further.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

The Victorious Church


A Message by Kat Kerr

(Notes taken whilst listening to a message given by Kat Kerr speaking on Sunday the 1st July 2012 at the Promise Church in Woodland, Washington (http://www.thepromise.cc/) This message can be downloaded from http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/23702075#utm_campaign=www.facebook.com&utm_source=23702075&utm_medium=social

We are in an accelerated season

We are in the fullness of time. The planet earth is nearing its end, but there will still be several years before the Lord returns. 

(Kat explains later in this message that some of the greatest men and woman the Kingdom of God will ever know are still to be born in the next 10 to 12 years. They will grow up and become mighty men and woman. That gives some indication that there are still several years to go before the end will come - possibly 40 years still)

The enemy will rule part of the earth for some time - the Father calls it the "bump in the road". (Times on earth are going to become much worse - darkness will increase, but the body of Christ will rise up and become victorious like never before).

The glory of the Lord is going to cover the earth. He is not going to take us out of here sick broke and with a poor testimony. Heaven has no plans to come and get the church whilst she is in her current state. He is coming for a victorious church.

We are supposed to be the face of heaven. Heaven is not sick, broke, poor, oppressed or fearful. They live in power and glory and absolute love and there is no fear. There should be no fear in us. We must not permit fear in our beings. God is teaching His people to declare and decree what He says. 

Heaven lives in power and glory and absolute love. This needs to be reflected here on earth.


God is teaching His people to declare and decree

Declaration:

“Father, I am made in Your image, there is no fear in Your image, I will not permit fear to be in me, so fear we evict you in Jesus Name. You will not control me or affect my life.”

We only need God the Father's report. No one else's report. 


The Father calls this time “His Divine Time on Earth”

The earth is in travail - it is shaking and groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God.

Romans 8:19  For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.”

Habakkuk 2:14
“For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” - this scripture has not been fulfilled yet.

God the Father will erase the areas on the earth where people say there is no God.

People from every religion and cult will come to the knowledge of the Lord.

God will save some of the most wicked people on this earth.

The wealth of the unrighteous will come into the kingdom - they will give it to the body of Christ because many of these people will get saved.

God intends to take the money away from satan and use it for the purposes of the Kingdom of God.

When you truly get to know Him, you find out who you are and then the devil is really in trouble.

This is a divine time, we will not get away with things we got away with in the past. There will be a line drawn between light and darkness. There will be nowhere to hide - no sin can be hidden.

We must become sacred vessels - set apart for His service.

The further on we go, the darkness will get darker. The world will build cities of sin. Much worse than Las Vegas.


The children of God will regain dominion over the earth 

Times are changing - the way we talk is going to change. God is going to put his designs in us and we will create things that world will be amazed at.

God is going to put His spotlight on His kids. God's plan is much bigger than ours. His mind is much bigger than ours. His plans are not to run and hide.

When you receive Jesus Christ you receive a deposit of the anointing. It remains in us.

We need each other - stop fighting and start loving one another. Everyone of us has a gift. God made us this way for a reason - a unique quality with a specific purpose.


We have been given dominion over the earth and we will retake it. The enemy has been controlling the earth for thousands of years, but God is going to put an end to this through His body - the church. Each individual believer carries the anointing of God which breaks up darkness. We need to understand who we are in Christ. We must know the power that is towards us as believers.

We will raise people from the dead that were cremated. We will stop earthquakes and put things back the way they were. God’s plan is much bigger than ours - His mind is much bigger than ours.

We are not meant to run and hide. Who are you going to save if you are hiding? What kind of witness and testimony are we who have received Jesus Christ and yet we go and hide in the hills?

We are filled with the power of God and cleansed by the Blood of Jesus, we are carrying the very anointing that Christ carried on this earth that breaks up darkness. 

We have one of the most powerful weapons:

1 John 2:27 “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”


We are each meant to release our gift into the world

The apostle, Peter, is in heaven and still fishing, but in the Crystal Sea. God even gave His Son a gift - carpentry.

Your gifts are irrevocable. Stop sitting in church and trying to figure out what your spiritual gift is. If you are in the 5-fold ministry, you dont have to try to figure it out. You will know it without a shadow of doubt. Everybody also has a natural gift e.g. fishing, carpentry etc.


Jesus became poor that we might become rich

2 Corinthians 8:9 “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”

The moment Jesus left heaven, He became poor. He did that so we can walk in what He had. We are not meant to be poor. Some of the people in the Body of Christ are going to be the wealthiest people on earth. We will own banks, buildings and large businesses. God will enable us to finance what He wants done on the earth.

John Mark Pool went to heaven and saw the mansions which are embellished with beauty - absolute opulence. God is not stingy. 

We need to lay our lives down, we need to crucify the flesh because when we have these resources at our disposal and if they are wrongly appropriated, they will destroy us. God wants to be able to trust us with wealth.

The day this mortal body takes on immortality - in our glorified bodies we will be immortal. We are currently trying to make it by in our mortal bodies and our thinking is so limited. We must begin to think bigger. Think God’s thoughts. His plans for us even now on earth, are so much greater than we ever imagined.

He expects us to carry His Glory - The power of God should be so strong in and on us that we affect people for miles around us - He wants us to walk in His power. (In the days of Charles Finney, when he came into a town to preach, the entire town would literally be affected - people would cry out in the streets, miles away from him and beg God for salvation.)

God wants us to carry His glory. He wants people on earth to experience His power when we come near them because it is resonating inside of us.


Before He became Jesus on earth, His name was "The Word"  

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 

Jesus continually talks about the Father when I visit with Him in heaven. 

Every believer who comes home to heaven, Jesus personally takes to the Father. 

Jesus cant wait to get you up there so He can show you what He has been talking about in His Word.

The Father taught Jesus about what He would do on earth long before He came here. 

The Holy Spirit must become our best friend - He will show us what to do whilst here.

In these last days we will have a better connection with the Holy Spirit and we will hear Him 24/7.

God is our Father, we are His offspring

He carried us all inside of Him before we were born. Our existence and “being” was in Him. We lived inside Him. He wanted us outside. He was waiting for the right time to send us. He made this time space planet on purpose so that we could come here and get a body and then return back to Him.

Our existence and being was in Him before the foundation of the world. In Him we lived and moved and had our being. We were little spiritual beings inside God before we came to earth. At conception, God sent our spirits down to earth and joined them to our bodies and we became living souls. The soul is formed when the spirit attaches to the body.


In heaven there is a place called “The Chamber of Understanding” 

Proverbs 4:7 “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”

We will all have an opportunity to spend time one on one with the Father in this place. It is like a massive gemstone with the most glorious colors. When you walk up to it a door opens from the top down and when you walk in you experience smoke with an amazing aroma that comes all around you. Then smoke clears and the Father appears. God then asks what you would like to see. He will explain and show you how He created the heavens and the earth. You can ask Him to show you  anything that you would like to know from the past or into the future.

For example, God has shown Kat how the original earth was created in Genesis 1:1. This is when “Time - Space” and physical matter were created.

Then in Genesis 1:2 the earth was without form and void because of lucifer's fall. Satan fell like lightning from heaven down to earth. God created the ice age after this to destroy what satan was doing on the earth. This earth is millions of years old. But it is only thousands of years since Adam.

Before “time and space” was made, many things could be in one place at one time. 

God created the spirit realm first.

Eternity exists in the Father, not the other way around. God was before eternity.

In heaven, embedded in the floor behind the throne is God’s timeline. On this timeline one can see that the created beings (angels) were created before the planets and the earth. Then you can see the original earth, satans fall, the ice age and then the creation of the earth the second time, then when Adam and Eve were created. 

God created the spirit realm before the earth was here. The spirit realm does not belong to the new age movement. They operate in the spirit realm simply because they believe its there.

The darkness on the earth will never be greater than the light

The enemy will use lying signs and wonders in the future. Currently the enemy has the world locked into the lie that there is no God. So he does not need the lying signs and wonders in a big way yet. But soon this lie that God does not exist will be exposed. At this time satan will try to deceive the world with lying signs and wonders. (satan has no originality he imitates and corrupts the real thing)

There has been a shift in the “time” in God’s calendar since the beginning of 2012. We are going to experience another shift in the near future (as things and events warm up for the time of the end).

God is going to open our eyes to see into the spirit realm. There are not just spiritual beings built around us, there are spiritual buildings built around us as well. When satan showed Jesus the kingdoms of this world in the desert at the time of Jesus’s temptation - satan showed Jesus the spiritual buildings and kingdoms of this world.

Everything you do in your life impacts one side or the other. The very words you speak gives heaven or hell the power to operate in your life. The actions you take have a major impact. Do not get offended - offenses are one of the major ways satan opens doors into your life.

You have to die to yourself to live in victory on this earth. If you don't, the enemy will cause havoc in your life


Your soul affects your life on this earth more than any other part of your being. Your mind, your will and your emotions.

We came from inside Him. The angels are created beings. We are different - they have two parts, we have three parts (physical body, soul and spirit). 

God decided to create life that would be indestructible. 

God decided He would give all living beings a free will. The angels got only one chance - they can never repent. 

We are made as His children - we have been given the ability to repent. But we can get to the place where sin does not touch us. When we let Him consume us, when we surrender ourselves and we dont crawl off the altar.


We are coming into a different “time” and we need to be aware of what is going to be happening out there

We are not strong enough on our own - He is going to empower His kids.

God is going to take over governments. God does have a plan and a lot of His body don't have a clue. 

God does need His kids to wake up. We can't keep living the way we did before. 

He won't let us go forward unless we clean up our lives. He is training us to obey. 

It could mean that you lose your life if you do not instantly obey in the days ahead. 

This is needful - He is going to do it with whoever is willing to obey. God will use whoever makes themselves available and is obedient to Him.

We need to be excited because we are alive at this time - don’t be fearful. 

Our grandchildren are going to be raised in the Glory. Some of the greatest leaders in the body of Christ will be born in the next 10 -12 years. Don't give up - things are going to change. 
Whatever you are going through - it is about to end. Whatever you have been waiting on - it is going to come, it is going to happen.

If you will acknowledge Him in ALL your ways, then He will direct your path. 

Sweep all the junk out of your life. He wants you to know Him. He needs you and the world needs your gift.

He expects the greatness put in you, to be drawn out of you. Keep getting the word into you. The Holy Spirit will breath life into it and give you revelation.

God the Father has both the attributes of a father and a mother.

You have to “Pray and Play" 

You have to take time to play. This time coming on earth is very important to Him. It is an exciting time. You need to have time for Him and you need to have fun otherwise you will become weary. You need to have a break and have fun. The intercessors need to have fun. I have had to drag some intercessors out of their closets and teach them to have some fun as well. 

The angels are warring all the time - but they take time out to have fun and play. They have all sorts of games and things that they play in the playport's in heaven specially created for them so they don't become weary.

God the Father said - I don't mind you asking for money - In this season, your needs have become His responsibility - He said it is ok to ask for finances just to have fun - your wants are His pleasure. Ask for some finances to use for nothing else but for to have a little fun. He said it is ok to ask Him to have some fun. We are going to have resources right in the midst of the darkness.  

The time coming on the earth is very important to the Father. Things are going to get very rough, but God is going to release His power into His people so that we can overcome. We are not to fear, but to stand strong in the power of His might. If we do not rely on Him, we will fail. We are going to shake countries for Him. He will provide abundant finances so that we can execute big projects. Everything on the earth and in the earth belongs to Him and He delights for His children to have it. He created us to have dominion and before He comes back to fetch the church, we will be in the place of dominating everything on the earth. That includes, finances, food, resources, property, politics, business, the arts, design, engineering - everything.

Tithing



I have always believed in giving under the new covenant and have used a tithe as the guideline for the minimum amount for giving. 

Kat Kerr (www.revealingheaven.comhas been having visits to heaven since 1996. There has been some controversy about her claims, yet she has some irrefutable proof and many big name ministries have endorsed her as being authentic. I have listened and read to most of what is available about her visits to heaven and I have not been able to find anything that she says, contradictory to scripture. She has written two books called "Revealing Heaven 1" and "Revealing Heaven 2". 

The following extract comes from the first cd of her series called the "The Celestial Realm":

The father told me this: "if they tithe, I will bless them. If they're willing to give a small portion to me because my word says to" 
It all belongs to him anyway, if you tithe you cannot out give God. And then when you give an offering on top of that, especially when you have need yourself you absolutely overwhelm Him. You bless Him, He will tell all of heaven: "look at them and look at that, look at My precious child, they need things themself and yet they're taking from their own hurt, their need, and giving to others." 
It blesses Him. The only thing that blesses Him more is when people get saved on earth. When you pray with people to get saved, when you stand in the gap, His intercessors are His super heroes. And there is a hall of heroes in heaven and a hall of super heroes. The super heroes are the ones who never stopped praying till the day they go home. Their life isn't their own, they've given it to Him.

Hearing this statement about tithing from Kat Kerr has convinced me that the principle of tithing still remains under the new covenant. It obviously does not apply in exactly the same way as it did under the old covenant but the principle still applies.