Now there's a process in human nature, which somebody has given the term individuation. Individuation. What's individuation? Individuation is a very important stage of life.

You see, all of us, we started out going through the training of childhood. And there are specific things that we learn during childhood. But then there comes that transition period where you go from childhood into adolescence.

And now there's a whole new set of lessons that we learn, because life is changing. You're moving out of childhood into adulthood now. And so we collect all the things that we know and believe.

You heard me teach on the concept of templates, which are little programs that are built into us throughout life, as a result of our experiences. And most of our templates are formed in childhood and then in adolescence, going up into adulthood. So we learn a lot of things.

As a child, you are taught things in the home by your parents. You're taught things in school. And hopefully you went to Sunday school or church, you got taught things there.

And into adolescence, things change a little bit. There's a new set of rules. We're home by 10 o'clock at night, never applied when you were a child.

See, there's a new set of rules. Things change. You know, teenage girls don't dress that way.

You know, teenage guys don't act that way. There comes a set of rules. There comes a set of programming that is instilled in you by your parents, by your family, by society, by the church.

Eventually, you go out and work by your job. Everybody's got rules and beliefs and convictions about what's the right thing to do and what's not the right thing to do. And there comes a point in your life where you leave home.

You're no longer under your parents' authority, where you become a person in your own right. And now you have to decide, of all those things that I was taught as a child, do I want to keep them or don't I? Of all those things that I was taught as an adolescent coming up into maturity, do I really want to keep those and make them part of my life from now on? Because I have a choice. Before, I never had a choice.

I don't want to do that. Well, you just do what I tell you because I'm your mother. I'm your father, and that's the way we do things in this home.

So you just go the line. See, that no longer applies. You're now on your own.

There's nobody there to say what you have to do and what you don't have to do. So what are you going to do or not do? Are you going to still think as a child, and every time you violate the rules that your parents laid out, are you going to tremble in fear and look and see your dad or mom's watching? You've got to come to a place where you decide. You know what? That rule my mom had was stupid.

I'll never ever have that in my home. It was stupid. You know what? There was a certain thing that she had that was really good.

I like that. I think when I have my own family one day, I'm going to run my home that way as well. I'm going to have that as part of me.

See, this is the process of individuation. It means that you've got to take all the things that you've been taught and that you've learned and reprogrammed into you, and you have to make them yours. It's no longer a case of, well, you know, my mom always said, and you know, so I'm just used to doing it that way.

It's a case of, this is what I believe is the right way to do things. This is what I believe I want to do and how I want to run my life. Now, this is a totally natural thing.

It happens in unbelievers and in believers, but believers now have an extra complication added to it because the believer comes into individuation. They can't just do what they want to do because there's another rule, and that's the rule of God. See, and when God gives a rule, it's kind of an obligation.

There's no, well, if you feel like it, I think you should do this. See, God has some very definite, definite restrictive rules that he puts, which he's not going to allow violation, but yet there is still liberty, and the Lord never imposes himself on us. There is still liberty.

In the Old Testament, there was a thou shalt and thou shalt not. It was this hard and fast rule, but in the New Testament, the scripture says, God says, I will put my law into your hearts and into your minds. So what happens is we have a new rule that comes up from within us that convicts us or gives us the go-ahead to say it's okay.

So there is still liberty, but as believers, as we come into individuation, we don't only go through a natural individuation, we need to come through a process of spiritual individuation. We've got to build a foundation on which we're going to build our life, not just in the natural, but in the Lord. Now, that means along the way, you went to church or Sunday school or wherever you were exposed, and you got taught principles.

You got taught doctrines. You got taught this is what this church believes. That's not necessarily what God wants.

It's what the church wants. So there has to still be an individuation that takes place from the many Christians, leaders, church organizations or other influences that we've had in our lives. You have to decide what you want to dump.

You got to decide what you want to keep. And you're going to have to set a plan for your life and say, this is my plan. This is the way I'm going to do it.

And you're going to have to build a spiritual foundation because as you reach out and become an individual in your own right, you are now going to build the building that will be your future in this life in the Lord. And before you can put up your building, you better make sure that you have chosen your foundation and what you're going to build on. So you better know what you believe.

You better know why you believe it. Then you need to start adding some extra parts because the chances are your foundation isn't complete yet. You got a whole lot of pieces scattered there like a box of a jigsaw puzzle.

And you start putting the pieces together and you kind of got a picture but there's a lot of holes there. You need to fill them in. So we've got a kind of a foundation.

I've taken some things I got from my folks. The rest I threw away. Got some things I got from my experiences in life, friends that I had, people I interacted with, people that influenced my life, work situations and the church.

All of these I must come to a place where I decide. You see, until you come to that place, if somebody was to say to you what do you believe, most people would say, well you know the church I go to, this is what we believe. Well what do you believe? Well that's what we believe.

How do you believe it? Well of course that's what we all do. See, you've not yet become an individual, stood on your own right, you're like re-blown in the wind. And the enemy's going to send somebody to tramp on you and squash you.

You don't have a foundation. You're building on the sand. So you know doctrine's not that important.

Everybody's fighting over doctrine. Doctrine's more important than you realize. Because you see the presuppositions that you make of what you believe are going to determine where you go from there, what you're going to build on, what you're going to add to your life, what you're going to do, what you're not going to do, what kind of life you're going to live in the future, and then as you move up spiritually, what kind of ministry you're going to do, and how you're going to function in the body of Christ.

So identify your foundation. Identify your foundation, but don't stay there. A building's more than a foundation.

Some people are always on about the foundation, always pernickety about sticking to the foundation, always digging in there to reinforce the foundation, and to find out if the foundation's right, and arguing over foundations. You never get the building up. So decide what you believe.

Identify it, but realize change is coming. You don't have the full picture yet. You must move on.

You need to learn something new every day. Let me say that again. You need to learn something new every day.

That's how you're going to grow. Well, how are we going to learn something new? Start with what you know. You see, the learning process means that we start with what we know, and then add to it.

You cannot understand something except in terms of what you already know. See, if I was to explain a rainbow to a blind person, he doesn't know what a color is. I can't teach him.

I can't explain it. He must first have his eyes open to see what color looks like, and then I can say, okay, now a rainbow is this range of colors, and I can describe it. See, we always have to learn from the known to the unknown.

So as you now have chosen your foundation, you've started with some knowns, and it's a good idea for you to add a few more knowns to that, because then you're in a position to increase your knowledge. The more you know right now, the more you are capable of learning in the future. That's what education is all about.

We learn the basics, and once we've learned the basics, they take us to our higher stream, and then we take that knowledge we already have. We don't get retaught it. We know it.

We add to that knowledge based on what we already know. You can't take a child straight from grade one and put him in grade five. The knowledge is too great for him.

It's all unknowns. You don't have enough knowns to build on yet. Well, you know, I don't feel like going through all those grades at school.

Can't I just hurry it up and skip it? Well, you know, in the natural, we can't do that. You think you're going to do it in the spiritual? Well, you know, I got saved last year, and I'm ready now to train for apostolic office. You don't even know what death is yet.

You don't even know what pain is yet, and you want to just dive into the molten lava. No, no. Let's start with what you know.

See, and probably the best thing to do is to start by laying out what you really know. How much of the scriptures do you know? How many scriptures could you quote without thinking? You'd be amazed how much you know, but you'd also be amazed how little you know. You know, one of the first things I discovered when I began to go into formal studies, I grew up in church.

I had this whole load of teaching and knowledge in my head, and thought I knew what I believed. And then they made me go and study it in the word. And I discovered there were some scriptures that actually didn't say what the preachers said they said.

They didn't say what I'd always believed. You know, I'll go read the scripture. You know what? I've always believed that.

But you know what? The scripture says something totally different. Well, who was right? The Bible or the preacher? See, this is where we start to add to our knowledge, and we start to realize that our known is actually very sparse. That's why we need to get in and start to add some good knowns.

Now, how do we establish what we really believe? I've got a little rule. Make sure that what you believe is based on these three things. Firstly, things that you have learned from others.

Things you may have learned in books, from preachers, from people, from teachers, from parents. Let's start with that. That's knowledge we already have because a lot of the time it was imposed on us without us looking for it.

And then sometimes we were stupid enough to read certain books, and that knowledge is sitting in our head now. So let's start with that. It's a good starting point.

You've got a whole lot of mishmash of knowledge. You've read there, but you've read there, and some of these teachers disagree with each other, but you've got all this knowledge juggling around in your head. Start there.

Start there. People who don't read, people who don't want to learn, are people who stay in one spot the rest of their lives. They never amount to anything.

If you want to improve your status in life, learn something, I'll say it again, every day. Learn something new every day. Well, where are you going to learn it? You'll learn a lot of it from the experiences of life, but actually by the time you get to adulthood, you've basically experienced most things that life can throw at you.

And all you're doing is re-experiencing things you experienced before. So life's teaching only takes you up to a certain point. You're going to have to accumulate knowledge from the world around you, and from the people around you.

You're going to have to search for it as hidden treasures. So, read what other people say. Listen to other people's preaching.

And let it all come in. But don't make that your foundation. Don't make your belief, well you know, I really respect that preacher, he's really anointed, and you know, God uses him mightily and he heals the sick and he gives tremendous prophetic revelation, so therefore obviously what he teaches must be right.

There have been many men of God who have been used mightily by God, who preach heresy, doctrines of demons. Wow. Yeah.

Don't judge a person by what you see. Judge it by the words. That's the next step.

Make sure that what you believe is not only what you learn from other people, but it's what the scriptures clearly teach. Don't just take their word for it. Most teachers when you read their books will give you a little scripture reference at the end.

Whoever's looked those up. I don't have time to look up scriptures while I'm reading. I hate these books that give you a hundred little scriptures in brackets.

There are three little scriptures at the end of the sentence. Just to prove that what he's teaching is scriptural. And you know what? I just have to take his word for it.

Because heck, I don't feel like pulling out my Bible and looking up all those scriptures right now. Human nature. Why my teaching is different.

If I give you the scripture, I'll quote it. I usually even give you the reference while I'm speaking it. I'm not going to give you the opportunity to escape.

I'm going to make you hear it. Because it's the word. Get into the word.

How full of word are you? I watch the preaching on TV every Sunday. I've got all these types of things that I've heard. And I read books.

How much time have you spent in the word? I don't have time to read the Bible. After all, I've watched a couple of preaching videos. And listened to some audios.

And read some books. Yeah, I think that's enough. I'm afraid not.

There was a time in my life where my biggest account every month was my bookshop account. That Christian bookshop, I tell you what, I knew it better than the owners. I was in that bookshop continually looking for something new.

Somebody would walk in and say, Have you guys got a book on so and so? And the owner would say, I don't know. I'd say, yes they do. My head was so full of knowledge.

And one day the Lord said, stop reading the books. And read my word for a bit. It was tough.

The Bible's boring. Unless you know how to study it, right? That's the whole teaching in itself. Maybe we'll do that sometime.

Are you going to get into the word? There is a way. I'm not going to share it tonight. But I'm going to be sharing it.

As part of an ongoing course that we're going to do. Starting with new believers and moving up. Teaching people how to get into the word.

Teaching them how to pray. Somebody gets saved and you say to them, Pray every day, read your Bible and go to church. And all three of those are a mess.

Because nobody knows how to pray. They open their Bible and all the bigots and get bored and they go find a cult church down the road. Stupid.

Your baby's born and you say, There it is. Eat every day. Change your diapers.

Go and find somebody to take care of you. That's stupid. That's all we do, isn't it? We need to show people how to get into the word correctly.

Because nothing's automatic. An animal has pups. She knows exactly what to do with it.

Human beings don't. We're not pre-programmed. We need to be taught and we need to be trained.

So if you don't have too many knowns to build your foundation on, here's a good way to get some knowns. Start reading the scriptures. I have a very simple Bible reading method.

You just divide the Bible up into sections. Say ten different sections. And read a chapter from each section every day.

So instead of starting at the beginning, you know what happens? Every time you pick up your Bible, you start at the beginning. Eventually you know those first five books of the Bible. Off bat.

And you've never read some of the deep stuff. Because that's heavy stuff and we never get there. Divide your Bible into, say, ten sections.

Or five, whatever you can manage. Read one chapter from each one. And you get a broad picture of the scriptures.

And then take some scriptures and start to memorize them. These are the kind of things we're going to be teaching. Put them in you.

Say them over and over again. Write them on little cards. And say them over again.

Learn where they are. You'll be amazed what a foundation gets built into you. And you know what? It gives you such a huge foundation that now, instead of building that little pandoki that you were going to make, you're building a mansion.

Because you've got a better foundation. See what the scriptures teach. And then, once you've read what everybody says, and you've read what the Word says, you have this great big head full of knowledge.

And you can stand up there and show everybody how clever you are. But here's a simple question. Does it work? See, when I'm having problems in my marriage, does my knowledge of predestination and election help me overcome my marriage problem? Oh, but I know those doctrines so well.

I can preach them fervently and argue from the Word. What use is it? See, until you can take what you believe and actually make it work in your life, what's the point of believing it? What's the point of even hanging on to it? It's just a point of contention. Doctrinal arguments you can have with other people.

It accomplishes nothing. Take these three things and put them together all the time. Always be reading, looking, learning.

Keep your eyes open. Always be taking in knowledge every day. Get into the Word and see what the Word says about that.

See whether the Word agrees with all this knowledge that's coming in. And then once you've done that, see if you can make it work in your life. And when you can put all three of those together and they all agree, it becomes a foundation.

It becomes something that you've chosen in your individuation. And you say, I believe this. I believe that because I've seen teachers who teach it.

I believe because I've seen it in the Word. I believe because it works for me. Therefore, I'm solid on this.

I will argue about this. I will take my stand on it. I will build my life on it because it's sure.

You know, it's yours. Isn't that wonderful? So we start, we move from the unknown to the known. Look for something new to learn.

Make sure that it links with what you already know. Don't get in over your head on things you've got. You know, years ago I decided to learn programming in BASIC and I pulled out the Microsoft BASIC manual which is not written to teach people how to program.

It was a technical manual to teach you all the fine details. And I would spend hours and hours going through this manual and go to sleep at night with headaches trying to understand that manual because I was trying to learn the unknown from the unknown. It just didn't work.

It was only as I started to get a basic knowledge, took a simple little course that I found on programming then I could go back and read some of those technical things in the manual. Oh, so that's what they were talking about. Now it makes sense.

Pieces begin to fall in. You know, you never build a jigsaw puzzle from the middle. You always do the frame first.

You've got something, a point of reference to work on. So, as you add this knowledge add it to your foundation. Now you're starting to put up a building.

Now it's more than a foundation. We're starting to see some walls go up. We're starting to see some windows go up.

We're starting to see something that's livable. A place where you can stay. Not a place just to visit.

Oh, what a lovely looking foundation. Isn't our building looking great? Yeah, we've got that new plot of ground, we've laid the foundation and we go there every week to go and look at our foundation. Isn't it awesome? So when we put in the house, what is the point of all this? To build a life.

To build a real life. And to go on to maturity. Well, you know, I finally decided what I believe.

You know, I've chucked out half of what my mum and dad taught me. And that church I was going to, Mount Manday doctrine was all false. So I finally come to the place of what I believe.

I'm a mature, I'm a mature child of God. Are you mature enough to be a leader? Are you mature enough to be an instructor or teacher of others? No, you only just started on the journey. You finally got to the place where you say, okay, I finally discovered I'm a real person.

We've got to move on. We've got to move on to maturity and the first thing you've got to do is to become a leader. That means firstly knowing who you are.

It means knowing what you believe. It means knowing where you're going. And it means you start to attract followers.

Because people see somebody who knows who they are. Who knows what they believe. Who's got a clear purpose and direction in life.

People say, you know what? Let's follow and see what happens. Because I haven't got that together myself yet. Maybe this person can show me.

Maybe they can influence me. Maybe as I watch them rise up and succeed, there's a pattern there I can follow. That's how you become a leader.

Not by being appointed. Not by going and getting your degree and coming with your piece of paper that says, I'm now qualified to lead you and to teach you. That's not what people follow.

People follow something that's real. They follow someone who's real. You're looking for a marriage partner.

You're looking for a loser who doesn't know who the heck he or she is. I don't think so. You're looking for a person who's got it together.

Somebody who's mature. See? And if we're going to influence this world for the Lord, are we going to do it going out there in our insecurity? I don't really know it. I believe it.

Our pastor, he preaches it well. You should come and stand there in urine. Come on.

You know how many Christians do that. Become a leader. And once you become a leader, become a teacher.

Once you know what you believe, and you know why you believe it, and you have your own unique revelation so that everybody else believes it. You know, when I first moved into teaching ministry, I began to teach all the standard doctrines because I studied all of them. I mean, they're pretty standard.

Yeah, they're a bit of variation. There's some different schools of thought, but by and large, you get a book on theology or doctrine, you know, it's pretty standard. And you see so many of these books that you buy where they teach this, and they'll give you their bibliography at the end of all the other books that they wrote, which chapters and all the little squiggles and pointers to the books they learned from.

Nobody seems to come up with anything unique. You know, the guys who were unique were the guys who wrote those books 20 years ago, 50 years ago. They were the good, old strong leaders of the past, you know.

So I ride on their shoulders. You know what's the most exciting thing? It's when you read what everybody says, and you go into the words, and you apply it to yourself, and you see something different. Not a total change of doctrine, just a different way of looking at it.

Just a different way of looking at it. You know, I read all those books, but that wasn't what I taught. When I stood up to teach, it was everything I'd said in there.

All the books, all the word, all the experiences of life. When I stood up to preach as a teacher, I just took the whole conglomeration and put it out. And it came out different.

People come to me and say, you know, I've known that doctrine for years. I've heard so many people preach on it. I've never ever heard anybody teach it the way you did.

It's different. Did I come up with a new doctrine? No, I didn't come up with a new doctrine. But I came up with my own flavor.

It's original. Now if ever you've been subject to my ministry, you will find that I have a repertoire. I have illustrations.

I have certain tracks that I run on. As you get to know me in time, you'll see me reuse on other people the things I used on you. Because that's what I believe.

Because that's what I've learned. And it works. So when I come to ministering to people and there's a specific need in them, I already have within me a foundation of what I know the word teaches.

What God has shown me, whatever is what I've read from other people, but I've mixed it all together and you'll see I have a track to run on. If I'm going to counsel somebody in marriage, there's a specific track to run. If I'm going to minister to somebody who's in spiritual bondage, there's a specific track that I'll run on.

You see, because I've built my palace. I've built my house. I haven't stopped learning.

There's new things to add. But my house is up there. My foundation is secure.

Every now and then there's a crack there and there's something I have to fix. I've believed that for years but I was slightly wrong there. Maybe I can just make a slight modification.

That wall looked good when I first put it up but it just looks a bit skewed right now. It's threatening. We're always ready to say I thought I had it together but I only had part the picture.

Now I have new knowledge, new revelation God gave me and I see it in a slightly different way. See, but I haven't changed the whole shape of everything. I know what I believe.

I've proved what I believe. And now I can become a model. And that's the ultimate goal.

To live what you believe and dare to invite others to follow you. To have the audacity to be like Paul who said follow me as I follow Christ. Do what I do.

Do it the way I do it because I've learned it. And then be ready to give out and impart everything that you've learned to other people. It's taken me years to learn this and now I've risen up and I've got a respectable position in the community.

And people are looking to me as a leader and as a great teacher. You know, I'm not going to let you know all my hidden secrets. Whereas you might steal it and go and rise up and compete with me.

See, if that's the attitude you have, I think maybe your foundation is wrong because that's not the way the Lord teaches it. Always be ready to impart to others everything God's given you. See, we're all on a journey in life.

Our journey's natural and it's supernatural. You need to have a clear goal where you're headed. You need to step boldly and in confidence building on your foundation.

When you do that you're going to fulfill the destiny God has for you. You're going to fulfill the reason you're here in this world. What do you believe? Why do you believe it? What foundation are you building on? Just go forward and you'll be amazed.

Suddenly your whole life comes together and you know what you're here for. You're going to carry on fulfilling that destiny every day that you continue to walk in this life. So the Lord comes all.

It's our time to meet him. Amen.

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