Past Teachings

We have been living the next lessons

I like to teach what I have proved in practice

I have been taking you all on a journey through past teachings I have given

And we started with the flagship teaching of GBM which is the Way of Blessing

This was the first real series I preached many years ago

and it is all about living a life of blessing

But then we have moved into looking at ministry

Ministry Made Easy

And I have now given you another early series which I called Ministry Made Easy

The teachings in this course were published in printed form in a book we called Launch Your MInistry

And we began to give this book as a free gift to every new person who joined our mailing list

Building The Dove

There was another series I did way back called Building The Dove

Where I took the dove as an allegory of ministry

And showed that as the Holy Spirit is often likened to a dove

So each part of the dove is a picture of some aspect of the work of the HOly Spirit

When you complete the course MInistry Made Easy, you will be released to receive Building the Dove videos and ebook

So I need you to finish watching the videos in Ministry Made Easy before I can take you further

These are all being given free for now

But you should be paying for each cours

and eventually this is how the schools will operate

Gbm Courses

All courses are available on our GBM Courses website

and you will be able to purchase them like a book

But they will include the videos, audios and transcripts

I will be adding the Way of Blessing Courses to Ministry Made Easy as part of this new school

Because there I taught on the three forces of the spirit

And this is an essential part of both the spiritual life and ministry

Spiritual Forces

We have just been through a new learning curve on the spiritual forces here at GBM

So I will be starting a new course soon to add the new principles we have learned

But I would like to discuss some of these with you today

Let me begin by sharing with you how the Lord led into this subject

We have been teaching on living the Abundant Life but have had difficulty in experiencing good results in this

And have been under attack in all of the three main areas of life - health, wealth and relationships

Needing More Authority

As I tried to pray for healing for the physical problems we were facing, I felt like somehow I did not have enough authority to bring the healing that was needed

The Lord reminded me of the case where the disciples tried to cast out a demon and failed

But when they brought the person to Jesus, He cast the demon out

And He told them they could not do it because of their lack of faith

So I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to increase my spiritual authority, I needed to somehow increase my faith

As I thought about all I had learned on faith, I thought at first perhaps I need to get more into the Word to produce more faith

But somehow it did not increase my faith or my authority

And instead of seeing better results from my prayer, things got worse

All Hell Broke Loose

It felt like all of hell had been unleashed against us

With all of us suffering physical attack and other difficulties

One of the problems we faced was our power being disconnected for nearly a week

Clearly, my faith was not enough to break through

and no matter how we prayed or commanded, they just could not get to repairing it

I cried out to the Lord and He told me to look again at the spiritual forces

Not More But Stronger

Starting with faith, I needed to see that I did not need more faith

What I needed was a stronger faith

I saw faith as a muscle which I already had

But it was a muscle that was still small and weak

Largely through lack of exercise

Most of the muscles in our bodies do not get enough exercise

And that is because we avoid exercise

It is hard work and difficult

Faith Must Come Under Pressure

But our faith needs to be tested and come under pressure

before it can grow

Consider this passage

1 Peter 1:7 That the trial [dokimazo] of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried [dokimazo] with fire, might be found to praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: [GBMV]

Peter uses the allegory of gold there, which is purified by fire

The fire does not destroy the gold, but it burns out all the impurities

Faith comes by hearing the words of God

But it must be purified

Psalms 12:6 The words of the LORD [are] pure words: [as] silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. [KJV]

Building The Faith Muscle

And before a muscle can grow it has to be put under pressure

If you do weight training you can do different exercises to develop your muscle

If you keep the weight low enough for you to lift it comfortably and lift it repeatedly many times, it conditions the muscle

But the muscle remains the same size and strength

But if you add some extra weights and continue to lift, the muscle gets much stronger

And if you just pit the muscle against the weight, it will also begin to grow

Isometric Exercise

I read an article many years ago entitled “Only six seconds a day”

It was published in the Readers Digest and they said that they found that if you flexed a muscle for just 6 seconds a day, it would begin to grow

This is done with a kind of exercise called Isometrics

Here you push your muscle against an immovable object or another muscle

The muscles remain under pressure without movement

The other way is to just put more weight on than before and continue to lift the weights

This makes the muscle grow and get stronger

Eventually you find it easy to handle the new weight

and then you can add even more weight

It is Hard Work

It is a standard method of body building

Now this all requires hard work

And we do not enjoy having to make the extra effort

So the Lord helps us along

He leads us into situations where our faith is not strong enough to handle the pressure we are facing

Suddenly It Gets Worse

Suddenly someone put a big new weight on the weights you were lifting

But if you keep pushing, that muscle will begin to grow

and eventually it will be big and strong enough to handle that extra weight

Playing A Better Opponent

I also often use the picture of you playing a single player game like tennis or squash

We used to play squash a lot in Mexico because we had a house with a squash court built into it

But we also had a table tennis table which was much easier

I got pretty good at table tennis and could beat all the other family members

But then someone visited us one day who played better than me

And suddenly I started losing games, which was very humiliating

Now I could no longer play the way I usually did because it was not good enough

My tricks and methods did not work on them

No Pain No Gain

So I had to play much harder

But eventually I started getting better and scoring some points

Until I could beat them

But it meant hard work and applying more pressure to my muscles and moving my body faster

Your Spiritual Muscles

Now we have spiritual muscles that we use to handle the problems of life

and these are in the form of the three spiritual forces that I taught in the Way of Blessing

They are faith, hope, and love

Faith is the spiritual force that makes things happen

Hope is defined as perseverance under trial

In other words, you keep pushing

Did you know that the spiritual warfare is never likened to a boxing match

It is great to see a good boxer win by knocking out his opponent

But our warfare with Satan is not that kind of match

Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]. [KJV]

It is a Wrestling Match

If you have ever watched a wrestling match, you will see that a person wins, not by knocking out the opponent, but by holding them down

That means you need strong muscles to win at wrestling

So after building your spiritual muscles and making them strong, you need to persevere in using them against the enemy

You Need Hope

Faith needs hope also

So instead of being discouraged when problems come and do not seem to easily go away

See this as a chance to build your faith muscles

And keep applying that power until the enemy is held down long enough to give in

In wrestling, this is known as a fall

The problem is we are lazy

Enough Is Not Enough

And when we do apply our muscles, we only do it enough to get results

So when you are suffering physically, you aim for getting rid of that sickness

But it is just a matter of time and something else hits you

But what if you developed your muscle beyond what is needed to bring healing?

What if your faith grows so strong that the enemy cannot bring anything bigger against you?

Always Aim Higher

I used to say, if you aim for the ceiling and hit it, that is fine. But what if you aimed for the moon and hit the clouds instead

That is a lot better than your ceiling

Always aim higher and welcome pressures as a chance to build your faith muscles

And develop endurance by maintaining the pressure

Romans 5:3 And not only [so], but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

Romans 5:3 And not only this, but we boast in pressures also: knowing that pressure produces endurance

It takes time to develop a muscle

And it may take time to build your faith muscles

But if instead of giving up and throwing in the towel, we persist in applying our spiritual muscles, we will grow spiritually

I know that many of you are facing pressures right now

and you have been crying out to the Lord for deliverance

Paul had a demon power that kept attacking him, which he called a thorn in the flesh

And he cried out to the Lord three times, asking Him to take it away

But God told him, “You already have the power of My grace to overcome this yourself”

If your faith muscles are too small and weak, do not cry out to the Lord to make them bigger and stronger

He will send you some pressure to accomplish that

So that you can apply yourself more and build those muscles

You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you

You Face It Alone

It all lies there in your own hands

Sure, you can get other believers to stand with you in this

and assist you with some of their spiritual forces

But in the end, you will need to still face the enemy all alone - Just you and JESUS

Now the three spiritual forces are very important

because they are the source of all spiritual power

and that same power will be used to carry out ministry

Do you remember some of what I taught on mantles?

You will be learning about them in this new school course also

I taught there that God will give you a mantle of ministry

and the ministry mantle will contain a combination of spiritual gifts

The Mantle of Power

But what is it that activates and empowers a ministry mantle?

It is an inner mantle which must be activated first, which I called the mantle of power

The mantle of power itself is not directly for ministry, but it supplies power to a ministry mantle

And that inner mantle of power can also be used by you to minister to your own needs

Now where does that inner mantle of power come from?

I was not sure even when I first taught it

I just knew that it came as a result of the anointing power of the Holy Spirit

But now, as I began to look again at the spiritual forces, the Lord showed me something I never realized

The release of the spiritual forces of faith, hope and love

produces a source of power that activates and empowers all ministry mantles

Let me show you where it fits into normal body ministries

Romans 12:6 Having then gifts that vary according to the grace that is given to us, [we should use them], if prophecy, according to the proportion of faith;

It takes faith to use any of the basic ministries

Romans 12:9 [Let] [agape] love be sincere. [Continually] abhor what is evil; [continue to] be joined to what is good.

But it is not only faith that is needed. You need all of the three spiritual forces

you will need love and hope also

That is because faith, hope and love supply the power that is needed for all ministry functions

They produce the mantle of power that must come first

So it is not enough to just learn about the gifts of the spirit

I teach you this in detail along with the fruits in Building The Dove

So if you want to live the abundant life and walk in blessing

and if you desire to be used by the Lord in ministry

you must learn how to develop and release the spiritual forces

Tapping Inner Resources

These are all contained in your spirit and fall into what I call Your Inner Resources

All of these subjects will be part of this new school curriculum

and if you learn and apply all of them you will rise up and succeed in both life and ministry

It is going to be tough going along the way

But worth it in the end

Post A Review For This Book