And who is capable regarding these things? Second passage is John chapter 7 and verse 38, John 7 38 and it says, he that believes in me as the scripture has said, out of his inward parts will flow rivers of living water. I'd like to speak today about the anointed life, the anointed life. Now in the world there's a term that has been used to explain the influence that a person has on others, they call it a vibe.

Have you heard of a vibe? It's actually short for vibration. A person's given off a vibe, you've got a vibration coming from them. Others are based on the fact that when we are around some people we feel uneasy and with others we feel comfortable and so we say that person has a good vibe or they've got a bad vibe.

You've heard that expression? Nobody can quite explain what a vibe is but we recognize that it's something below the surface that we can't really touch but we can sense. Now in case you think this is a way out you might be interested to know that Paul describes such a thing in the passage that we just read. You see each of us gives off something that others become aware of without it being obvious.

Something that comes from deep within, from our spirits. You see the human spirit has power in it. It's the source of creativity and that is what makes you unique.

It makes you do things your own way which is often very different to the way other people do it because your spirit is unique. It enables you to originate and what you create is likely to be a bit different to what other people create. It carries your unique footprint.

Do you know that we can often identify a person by what they create? You know people have even examined the scriptures to see whether it was really Paul that wrote a chapter in the Bible and they'll say well this has Paul's characteristic style and this one doesn't. We can even recognize a person's style of handwriting. When you hear somebody on the phone each person has a unique voice.

See all of these things come as a result of the power of the human spirit. Now that power that lies in our spirits has an ability to influence others. There are three functions in the spirit as I've taught extensively elsewhere.

The ability to know or receive revelation often called intuition and the ability to sense and touch the spirits of other people and that is a function called communion. Now the communion function in your spirit causes you to radiate outwards what is in your spirit and when that happens that affects the spirit of other people. That's actually what causes the vibe.

It's the communion of a person's spirit. What's in their spirit begins to manifest itself and when you communicate with that person when you get a spirit to spirit communication your spirit picks up what's coming out of that person's spirit. Now the spirit also gives us the power of speech.

Animals do not have the power of speech because they do not have a spirit. Man alone has a spirit which is created in the nature of God. It was a piece of God that he put into mankind.

It gives us the ability to express ourselves in words and so we can communicate what is in our heart or in our spirit using words. So words become a vehicle for releasing the power that is in our spirits and so when we speak those words come out impregnated with what is in your spirit. Whatever is in your spirit will affect or contaminate if you like the words that you speak.

And then we have the power of actions which show the intents of our heart. What starts in the spirit begins to affect the soul, the mind, the emotions, and the will and is manifested in the body through some form of action. And when that happens we provide a model for others to see of what is inside us.

We actually create an image, a picture whether it be an example or even a strong influence to display to the world the way we see things, to show the world what is in our spirits, provides a model or a picture, an image that others can follow also if they want to. Now our spirit is affected by other spirits. Because only a spirit can affect a spirit.

That means that your spirit can be affected by the spirits of other human beings. One of the strongest influences that comes down through the spirit is the influence of family generations. We see the scripture speaks of curses being passed down to the third and fourth generation because somebody contaminated their spirit with evil.

They passed down that spiritual influence to their children, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren, up to the third and fourth generation, scripture says. Our spirits can also become affected and contaminated by the associations that we have with other people. And so as we create spirit-to-spirit contact when we associate with others, we can pick up an influence or a contamination from their spirits.

And that can be either bad or good. We could pick up a blessing if that person is walking in blessing, but we could also pick up a curse if that person is functioning under a curse. And then when it comes to friendships, we come to an even closer communication where we begin to open up our hearts to other people in an even greater way.

And we get more intimate spirit-to-spirit communication. And here the greatest danger is neediness. When you need somebody else to recognize you, when you need somebody else to accept you, there's a danger that you will open your heart wide to receive whatever is coming out of that person's spirit.

And that affects your spirit. It contaminates it. Can contaminate it for good if that person has good things coming from their spirits.

But there's always a mixture. Nobody is perfect. And so no matter who you open your heart to, you always stand the risk of picking something up negative from that person.

Of course, the ultimate spirit that should affect our spirit is the Holy Spirit. Other people can add some of these things to us, but God, God adds greatest thing of all. Firstly, He gives and adds His word.

And His word changes our speech. Our speech, remember, is an expression of what's coming out of our spirits. When we add God's word and we fill our heart with His word, our speech becomes conditioned positively by the word of God.

And the power of our spirit becomes manifested under a control of God. We tend to avoid fleshly terms and worldly terms and ways of expressing ourselves that everybody else out there does. We become more narrow in our vocal expression.

His word changes our actions. It modifies our behavior. And so as we begin to display what's in our spirit, creating a model, that model becomes conditioned by the word of God, becomes reformed according to the image that God requires of us.

And we give a better model and a better image for others to follow. And then the word is food for the inner man. Word conditions our soul.

The Bible calls this the renewing of the mind. And so as we fill ourselves with the word, our mind becomes renewed. And then what's in our spirit, as it begins to come out via the soul and then through the body, it becomes more controlled and influenced by God, doing things His way.

But the word is not enough. God's Holy Spirit is the ultimate influence. And when we are born again, His spirit comes to take up residence inside of us.

It's known as the internal anointing. It's the anointing of God that comes and lives inside of us. And this indwelling power of God, which comes as a result of the Holy Spirit living inside us, influencing our spirits all the time.

And God first created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He came down each day to communicate with them and to share with them. Today, we don't need to meet God in the cool of the day.

It is wonderful to have early morning prayer, and I'm not against that. But we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us 24 hours a day, and we can hear the voice of God 24 hours a day. And so if you have a question, you don't have to wait until tomorrow morning when God arrives.

You can turn to Him right now and ask Him your question. And if you've learned to hear His voice, you can hear the answer to that question immediately. And so the Holy Spirit is living inside of you, and you can tap into the power that the Holy Spirit gives any time of day, anywhere, any place.

Now, when your spirit begins to manifest and come out, it's going to come out with an influence of the Holy Spirit. If you've been communicating with Him in the spirit, if you've been allowing Him to influence your spirit, if you've been tapping into that internal power, then whatever comes out of you comes out conditioned by that anointing. Now, that anointing strengthens your spirit and the inner man.

That anointing will meet your need for recognition and acceptance, if you'll allow Him to. You want to be recognized? Just come and talk to the Lord. He'll recognize you every time.

You want to be accepted? Just come to the Lord. He'll never, ever reject you. He said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you.

And so that internal presence of God, the internal anointing, it enhances the power of your spirit. And your spirit has three forces residing in it, which the Bible calls faith and love and hope. And so the indwelling Holy Spirit enhances those three forces so that when your spirit now manifests outwardly, it comes with a greater measure of power from those three spiritual forces.

And then the Holy Spirit can also empower us spontaneously and dynamically. And we call this the external anointing. This was described for us in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, when Jesus promised the disciples, He said, go and wait in Jerusalem until you receive something.

And these are the words He said to them. But you will hold dynamic power in your hands after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

It's dynamic power. The Greek word is dunamis, from which we get our word dynamic. It's living, working, creating, just raw power.

And we have power in our spirits, which we can tap like an underground stream. And we have this dynamic power that comes upon us spontaneously and adds to and enhances that flow of our spirit as it comes out. It's already coming out under the influence, if we allow it, of God's spirit dwelling within us.

And then God adds an extra enhancement on top of that and makes it even more powerful. Now, this is what's available to every believer. We don't have to rely on the pure strength and power of the human spirit, which is great.

And even unbelievers still have a spirit which contains a lot of power and a lot of influence. So all of these ways of manifesting the spirit, they're available to every single human being. But the believer has something more which will enhance that power of the human spirit.

And so the final effect of the anointing of God is that everything that involves our spirits becomes enhanced. It adds something extra to our speech. A person's words contain what is in their spirit.

And so a person may speak words, but those words are not simply a communication of language. They are tinged with, contaminated with, if you like, what is in their human spirit. And that inner anointing, that inner spiritual influence, which, for lack of a better term, the world have called a vibe, it manifests the person's inner motivations and their intents.

Now, if we are able to discern the spirit of another person, we can actually pick up what's coming from their spirit simply from their words. We spend some years in Mexico, in the early days of the internet, those days the connection was so slow that the best you could do was to communicate by text. And at first it was only email and then eventually we could get to have text chats online.

Video was not easily available because of the speed and the amount of data involved. And so we got to meet a lot of people all over the world on the internet, sometimes without even knowing what they looked like, because we didn't have the data to download photos, but we could speak to them. We could communicate with them using words.

Now, how do you minister to somebody when all you have is their words? You know, when you're speaking with somebody face to face, you can read their body language, you know, what somebody has called the halo data, it's the things people say without saying. Well, part of that involves the vibe of their spirit, isn't it? Sometimes the expressions on a person's face, the emotions, the way they speak, it enhances the words that they speak. And we can somehow detect there's something more behind what the person is saying.

But what happens if all you have is their words? See, words contain no emotion. Words don't get louder and higher and lower, they're just words. Speech changes these things when you hear it, but words are just text written down.

So how do you know what a person is really communicating when all you have is their words? Well, God was leading us to minister to people around the world and all we had was their words. And so he taught us to pick up the spirit in the words. Long before I understood the concept of the fact that the human spirit contaminates the words, I began to sense the words that people spoke to us.

And it reached a point where I could detect in a person's words, whether they were being genuine, whether they were being positive or negative, whether there was some contamination in the spirit, whether their motive was pure or not so pure. And it got to the point where somebody wrote me an email, I could sense where they were coming from and what their motivation was, and I would respond to them accordingly. And people would sometimes, they were a bit confused and they didn't understand.

They would write us a simple, short little email in which they were probably trying to veil and hide what their true motives were. But I could pick up by their words immediately where they were coming from and I would respond immediately and if necessary apply a correction. And they'd come back and say, but how did you get all that from what I said? They thought they'd hidden it very nicely.

But you see, we could detect the spirit in the words. And not everybody has this ability. But if your spirit is coming to life and is strongly influenced by the internal anointing and then the addition of the external anointing, God reveals to you the spirit in the words.

And you can either receive something positive from those words or you can detect the negative that's in them. And Lord forbid that you receive the negative, otherwise it's going to contaminate your spirit. Your spirit also adds something extra to any creative action that you carry out.

It causes you to take a unique approach to actions that most people carry out. But you're probably going to do it differently because you have something original in your spirit. You are creating and taking a different approach because of your spiritual uniqueness.

Now, how do we use this anointing and this power that comes by our human spirits? We can use it firstly in ministry. And when you say ministry, most people are thinking, there's a guy standing behind the pulpit. He's the minister, right? So the first thing we think about when it comes to ministry is preaching.

Well, what is preaching? Preaching is actually a bit like selling. You are trying to convince people of something. You are trying to persuade them.

You are trying to modify their behavior. You are trying to challenge them or influence them in some way. The purpose of preaching is to change people.

Now, how do you influence the people? They're sitting there and you're speaking. You're influencing them with words and they are hearing your words. If your words are going out with a tangible power from God, as they receive those words, they in turn receive that tangible power of God, goes down into their spirits and begins to affect them.

Now, the part of ministry is teaching. Teaching goes a bit beyond preaching because in teaching, you're starting to instill principles into the hearts and minds of people. You are putting in things that will not just affect them right now, but will sink deep down, deep inside of them, and will begin to bring changes in their hearts and even in their spirits.

And then another way of ministering is through writing. And here again, you are using words, not just words, but words that are contaminated with, that are enhanced by the power of God and the anointing of God. It's coming from the Holy Spirit.

Now, you can use the anointing also in business. And most people think business is just about making money, but it's not actually. Business is about succeeding in this world.

You're out there in business, you are competing in a worldly environment. And in order to survive, you need to know how to rise up and prosper in the things that you do. And this doesn't come easy because it's a dog eat dog situation out there.

You're in strong competition with others, and it's every person for themselves. But when you add the anointing of God to business activities, it no longer becomes a case of I'm competing with everybody else, that if I can destroy the opposition, I will rise up. A business calling goes far beyond making money, which is very necessary for the extension of the kingdom of God.

But a business calling involves helping people to succeed in this secular world. And to do that takes the wisdom of God. We need the knowledge that we get from the scriptures and the word of God.

And we need the anointing and the power of God to help people break free of all of their insecurities and their hang-ups and their faults and failures of the past, and to rise up and take their place in this world as children of the Lord, as lights shining in a dark world. As the scripture says, business calling also involves bringing fortune and fame. Oh, but isn't that worldly? Isn't that selfish? Yes, it is, if that's your motivation.

You see, but if your desire to produce wealth is to create resources for extending the kingdom of God in this earth, if your desire to rise up and become known is that you can reach more people with the gospel and bring them into the kingdom of God, you see, then it accomplishes far more. And so we can take the anointing and include it in our business activities, as well as our ministry activities. And then the third activity in which we can use the anointing is in our social activities.

And our social activities are kind of a bit secular, like business, but they're not about work. They are more about play. They're more about enjoyment.

They're more about accomplishment. They're more about an expression of our talents and our abilities. And so one of the major parts of what we call the social road is the creative arts.

Well, what all is involved in the creative arts? Music and singing are creative arts. Now, music has an amazing power to release the anointing of God. And that's for a very important reason, and we've taught on it elsewhere.

When God created this world, he created it in the presence of music and singing. In the heavenly realm, God lives in the presence of music and singing. So important is it to him that a third of the angels are given the full-time task of worshiping, praising, and singing around the clock.

The throne of God is surrounded with music and singing. So when we, in this world, express what's in our spirits through music and singing, God is very happy to add his sanction and his anointing upon that and to highly enhance it so that that music and that singing causes people to become aware of the presence of God and helps them to come more easily into his presence. Creative writing can have the same effect.

Remember, the spirit is expressed through the words. Creative writing adds additional influences. Creative writing paints pictures for the mind.

It paints positive pictures. We all love creative writing. Everybody loves to read a book that has some kind of story in it, some kind of creative influence.

Actually, most of the time, these stories have been converted into movies, and so we watch the videos. Even more powerful. Same thing.

Creative stories that have been now portrayed in picture form in video. All of these came from the human spirit. And unbelievers are able to do this quite easily because they have spirits, just like us as believers.

How much more when a believer allows the Holy Spirit to enter into that creative ability, to enable them to write creative writing, story writing, fiction, which will stir the hearts, but not stir them to the three roots of the flesh. As you read what the world is portraying, you have the three roots of the flesh. You have bitterness, anger, lust, quest for money, temporal values.

Every movie that you watch has got those three. There's going to be hatred or killing somewhere along the line. There's got to be romance with sex, preferably.

There's got to be lots of money. And wealth. Nothing wrong with any of those things, except God doesn't require us to be bitter, because bitterness is a sin.

Lust, not sexual desire, but lust is a sin. Temporal values, not a desire for wealth, but an overemphasis on wealth, becomes a sin. When believers begin to do creative writing, they can still portray the villain, treating me so badly, and they can portray me responding to that person righteously and according to the Word of God, instead of bitterness and anger, instead of hatred and murder and killing, there comes reconciliation and forgiveness.

The whole thing will change, because believers are doing creative writing, and their creative writing adds the Word of God and adds the power of the Spirit of God. And then we have what we call the arts. Drawing.

The ability to pick up a writing implement, whether it be a pen or a pencil, coloured pencils, pastels, whatever, and to actually begin to draw, to on paper sketch out what the eyes see. That goes one step further as we begin to paint and try to recreate a picture of what we're seeing with our eyes. Some like to take something like clay and mould it and model it into something in three dimensions that actually portrays.

So they could, instead of painting a picture of a person, they could actually form an image, a bust of that person in clay or some other material. And then acting allows us to portray through words and actions, not only human life, but human life the way God requires it to be. And so if believers would learn to act, and in their acting display the principles of God's Word, an anointing gets released.

Now often we think of anointing as only coming with preaching. Well that person really preached under the anointing today. You could feel the presence of God because they were speaking about God, they were speaking about the Bible, they were speaking spiritual things.

See, but here I am painting a picture of the mountains and the lake. How is this going to inspire somebody to serve the Lord? Well the picture itself should already inspire somebody to serve the Lord because it portrays what the Creator made. But there's far more than that that happens when a person begins to use their creative abilities.

Because you see, when you put together that drawing or that painting or that sculpture, you're doing it with the power that comes from your spirit. You are actually releasing the anointing, often through actions. If you're acting, you're doing it through actions and words.

These are the two ways that we've learned to release the anointing of God. Whatever you create, in any form of art, should be contaminated by what is in your spirit. Now I know from personal experience, as through the years I've preached, I've spoken, I've written, I've sung and played music, and I've seen how the anointing of God can come down on the things that you're saying and speaking and touch the lives of people.

I've seen how the anointing of God can come down upon the music while you are playing it. I've seen how the anointing of God can come down on your singing, that as you sing, the anointing of God is released through your singing and touches the people. In recent years, and in recent months even, as the Lord has begun to extend my involvement in the arts, as I began to move for the first time into areas like drawing and painting, I haven't tried sculpting yet but it's coming, I was amazed to find that somehow the anointing of God that before was manifested in my preaching and even in my music and in my singing started to become manifest also in my drawing and painting.

People would remark and say, oh, there's something different about the picture that you painted. I can't quite put my finger on it but there's, I like it, there's something there. What was it? See, most people can't identify.

They picked up the vibe and they said, there's a good vibe. You see, you should be given a good vibe, a good anointing on everything that you do, even if it be secular, worldly activity. It should be infused with the anointing of God.

Your entire life, everything that you say and do must become infused with the anointing of God. It'll also affect your relationships as you fellowship with other believers and begin to interact with them, pouring spirit to spirit, the anointing is communicated. And even when it comes to fun activities like sports and playing a game, oh, playing a game, that is so unspiritual.

Could you communicate the anointing in a game? Well, in the world, the usual idea is to kill the opposition. Let's defeat them. Let's destroy them.

Can a believer do this with the anointing? I believe they can. And I believe God's people are going to learn how to infuse the anointing even into their sporting activities, into their normal friendships and associations, into romance and courting and finding your life's partner. All of these things should involve an expression of the anointing of God.

When you meet a person, what is it that attracts you to them? The shape of their body? That's going to be transitory. Their body's going to change over time. Their intelligence, their smile.

Now, it's going to be something deeper than that. It's going to be a click in the spirit. It's going to be something about this person agrees with my spirit.

I'm feeling attracted to that person. And in the ultimate intimacy of romance and the marriage relationship, that attraction will be fully communicated in spirit, soul, and body with the anointing of God and his presence right in the middle of it. Whatever you do, the scripture says, do all in the name of Jesus Christ.

Well, what's the name of Jesus Christ? Jesus means savior. Christ means anointed one. We do it under his anointing.

Your whole life should be contaminated with the anointing of God. In conclusion, God has put part of himself into our spirits. And when we learn to use his anointing, it enhances that power that's built into our spirits.

We can do this in two different ways. We can do it by filling ourselves with his word. And we can do it by allowing his spirit to be in control.

And then when we do that, we use our spirits. And when we use our spirits to create something new, we use our spirits to communicate what's inside of us. Whatever we say and do, wherever we go, we carry the tangible presence of God.

And I don't need to sit and think, how do I get my words to be anointed? How do I get my guitar playing to be anointed? How do I get my drawing and my painting to be anointed? Please teach me how to put the anointing into my activities. It comes naturally. It depends on the state of your spirit.

If you can get your spirit to be so contaminated and filled with God, when you open your mouth to speak, your spirit begins to communicate outwards. And what comes with your spirit is the anointing of the spirit of God. You cannot help it.

You can't avoid it. But if it's not there, you're telling me something about you that you probably didn't want me to know. You're telling me that you spend most of your time receiving influence from the spirits of this world.

You told me you spend most of your time not reading the scriptures, but reading worldly books or watching worldly movies or associating with unbelievers and having fun in the world. You're telling me that you haven't made time to come into intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit. You haven't taken the time or the effort to offer yourself up fully to the Lord and say, Lord, anoint me with your power.

Lord, give me your glory and your power. Lord, enable me to be a blessing. Once you do that, everything you touch will be anointed.

And then you're going to live what I'd like to call the anointed life. That the Lord intends for us. Thank you, Father, for your word.

I trust and I know that as I spoke, your anointing went out because I know, Lord, that you have anointed me. And I know that my words went out under your anointing today. And so I pray that that anointing will penetrate the hearts of each one who heard these words, will contaminate them in a good way with your presence, will challenge them, and will displace some of the evil and the negative influences that people have picked up from this world, from the wrong spirits, from the spirit of this world.

Ask, Lord, that each one will be challenged afresh. Come into that place where they walk that narrow road that always includes you in everything that they say and do. That as they go out into this world, they will go like lights walking in the darkness.

Shining the light of your glory upon every person that they meet. Bombarding each person that they speak to with your power. Lord, let there be a good vibe.

Let there be a cloud of your glory surrounding each one. That your kingdom may be extended in this earth. That your name may be glorified.

That your church may arise up and live the abundant life that you desire for each one of us. Thank you for it in Jesus' name.

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