All Gods

All Gods

Rob Crickett: Knowing God

KNOWING GOD - a sermon preached in Nyagatare by Dr Rob Crickett

Nyagatare is in North Eastern Rwanda. Sermond was held on May 3rd, 2005.

Thank you for your very warm welcome. In the evening of last night Bishop Bernard Munanira and his wife and others were sitting around the table talking about what we might do today? The bishop recommended that I do some teaching on how to walk with Jesus Christ; how to walk in the kingdom of heaven; how to walk ready for the Lord to come back to the world.

I think one of the best things to remember is that if we can live in heaven here on earth, then we will live our best both now and forever. Sometimes when we are very lonely and we are quite depressed in ourselves, we bow our heads. Sometimes when the pain is too much on us, we hide ourselves away completely and we just roll up into a little ball and we don’t want anybody to find us.

But Jesus wants us to be a whole person and Jesus wants to make us grow. Amen? And Jesus puts his Spirit into us. Amen? And when he puts his Spirit into us and we start to come to church and we listen to the pastor’s instruction and some of the instruction is a little bit hard on us, but the pastor says, “There is one inside of you who is greater than the world and he that is in the world (1 John 4:4)!” And you believe him; and make a little streeeetch to that idea.

You can stretch a little bit. Not a lot. But you can grow just a little bit. For example, you keep coming to church, and you adjust yourself with a little discipline, and after a while you think to yourself, “Yes, I have grown a little bit, just like the pastor said, but that’s enough for me. I don’t need to stretch any more than this that I have already done.”

We think, “I am a Christian now, and I can look at all of those people who are not stretched and they are different from me. I am so wonderful and so good, I have stretched a little bit.”

But then the Lord says to you, “You must achieve even more. You must become a new person. You must not merely be the old person who has stretched in his or her attitude a little bit. The old person must actually pass away and a whole new person must be born.”

But you think, “Yes, but I have already stretched enough!”

He says, “No, no, no. I am going to stretch you even more.”

And God brings you into situations that challenge you and you start to stretch, like all your world is being stretched and strained just to accommodate the new things and the new ways of thinking.

You think to yourself, “Oh, don’t do that to me God. Don’t stretch me, Lord! It’s better like I was before. Before you ever came into my life. I was happy how I was...well, more or less happy. You know God, sin is not so bad. It’s better than this stretching you’re doing to me!

But the Lord says, “No, no. Listen to your heart. Come and stretch out here with Me, where I am.”

After a little you yield and you do stretch a little bit. You start to trust God. Then after a little while you think to yourself, “This is actually quite good! Life is actually better out here than before. Even though the stretch was pretty strange and painful even, it was all worth it.”

Then one day the pastor comes to you and says, “You need to be filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and talking in tongues.” One day in a service, the Holy Spirit was really powerful and he did that and all of a sudden.... arghh!...a big stretch! And you even stretch in your head just trying to get all your ideas together about this amazing new experience in God...arghh!

But when it’s all over you think to yourself, “Ah, now I have found Jesus Christ! Now I am really a Christian. Now I can relax and just live my life in peace and quiet.” But then one day your pastor comes along and says, “I need people to come with me into Tanzania to do mission.”

You put your hand up, “Hey! Take me! Take me!” So you go on the mission team and the mission stretches you even more! You come back and tell everybody, “This is how it was in Tanzania! We walked everywhere! And we did things in the Holy Spirit that stretched us everywhere! Yeah! It was so way cool. And people got saved, and healed, and the pastor did this amazing deliverance on one guy out in the bush. Oh, God is awesome guys! Really!”

But then later on, the Lord comes and whispers in your heart saying, “Now, I am calling you to become like a pastor.” And you think to yourself, “Ah, no, not me! No, I am nobody!”

But the Lord says, “I can do this in you. You can’t do this in your own strength, but I can do it in you if you will stretch even more.”

You count the cost in yourself, weighing up all your skills and experience and knowledge and trying hard to overlook all your shortcomings and you say, “But Lord, this is as much stretch as I have got!”

And the Lord says, “Oh, no, no, no. I am the one who is stretching now. If you will just stay with Me, I will stretch and you will stretch with me.”

You say, “Okay God. I accept, Lord. I am now going to be a shepherd. OK, so change me so that I can look after my sheep. Bring these sheep to me, Lord. Bring it on.”

Then you are praying and you are praying and the Lord is stretching you into a place where you never thought you had so much stretch. You are really becoming a person of God now ... a responsible person in the kingdom of heaven here on earth. You have your own mission to do, and you’re beginning to do it.

You’re coming through the town and you’re seeing the people who have no stretch and the glory of God comes onto you and you can now say, “Listen hear people, the Lord Jesus Christ can make you greater than you are. He can help you to solve your problems and not make the same mistakes in the future. He can bring God’s glory into your life, and you can become a whole new person in him if you’re willing.”

Now you start to work with the bishop and you start to work in all of the churches, preaching and healing and then you get great breakthroughs and the Lord stretches you even more...even more...and even more...and just when you thought you had no stretch left in you, even more!

Then God takes you and he makes you into a heavenly citizen. You’ve been doing a pastor’s works in the world but just as a saved human being of the earth. Now he stretches you every which way. Amen?

Amen! Glory to God! And this is who we all are, stretched people of God, and heavenly citizens now. Jesus can stretch us to anywhere we want to be! He can take us anywhere. Amen? This is who we are becoming.

Now we are going to talk about finding God. Now that you know that you can be stretched to a place where you can find God. In the beginning seek God. We don’t know him, and we want to find him. Then  we believe about God, we believe in God. But then we decide to make Jesus the Lord of our life and we come to a place where we actually find God; and God also finds us. We know God, and we know that he knows us personally. Finding God is a most wonderful thing that can happen to us. But then what follows after that is that we start to reveal God to other people, just as Jesus revealed the Father to us when he was on the earth among us. Revealing God is the most excellent thing to do. Of all the jobs we could choose from in the world, revealing God to people is the highest job there is.

You show people by God’s power that they can be more than what they think they are. God can turn us all into more and we can do more than what we already believe.

THE MAN WHO OVERCAME THE WORLD

When I first wanted to find God myself, God led me to one man. This man was a very unusual man. He said that he had found God. Not just God in the Word and not just loving God, but in himself he had been changed so that God and he in his person were able to be like the same person.

He would sit all day and he would sit all night. He was completely soaked in the world and yet he was not of it at all. If he didn’t eat, it didn’t matter to him. If he didn’t drink, it didn’t matter to him. If the mouse came and started to eat his toes, it didn’t matter to him. He was completely lost in God and was completely disinterested in his body and the world.

I thought to myself, “This is a wonderful thing. How does a human being experience so much closeness of God? This is just different from reading about God. This is being made into a Godly person by God himself.”

Sometimes in our dreams when we are sleeping at night, God comes into our mind and we feel that we are filled with God, don’t we? Then we wake up in the morning and we are just a little ordinary person again, but we know God has touched our minds somewhere.

When we become Christians, we start to understand that God can completely move into our self, and so I started to do what this man did. He told me what he did in order to know God like this.

He said, “I asked myself one question. When I was a young boy of fourteen, one of my uncles died and I went to the funeral. Here was my uncle laid out for the funeral and I was just a young boy, just watching. I asked myself the question, ‘What is it that dies? Where is the person that dies?’

“I went home to my house where I was staying and I really wanted to know the answer to this question. So I laid down on the floor and I held my breath until I could find the answer: ‘What was the thing that was going to die?’

“I held my breath for only about half a minute and then something from within me sprang forward and it seemed to fill the whole universe, and it was also filled with the presence of God.

“From that time onwards I have just been sitting in peace with this which I am in God. From that time on I just sat in peace and God who was in me, and I who was in God, overcame all the world quite effortlessly.”

When he was about the age of forty-five he developed stomach cancer and he died. Someone came to him and said, “You have cancer. Doesn’t it hurt you?”

He said, “No. Pain is just a pressure.”

“Does it matter to you that you are going to die?” they asked.

He said, “No. When God is so much in you, there is no difference between being alive and being dead. Death is just a word...a reflection...it’s not real.”

So I want to end that story now by saying that there is a way of knowing God intimately because God can fill us up completely in our self. We can sit in God and God can sit in us.

We can merge the one into the other, and it can make a difference in how we relate to everything, even the world itself.

But God doesn’t call many men and women to live like that man, so I want to show you the more common way that God calls people to know God. Yet, even then, in the common way, many people spend time being rapt in God, even if only for a few moments while they are worshiping.

A MORE COMMON WAY TO KNOW GOD

If we open up the Bible and we look for perfect men who have known God, we see that we find Enoch in Genesis 5:24. He was perfect and he pleased God, and God took him from the world.

In the book of second Kings (2:11), we see Elijah—and Elijah was perfect; and God took him from the world.

Both of these men were perfect according to God’s idea of perfection—they pleased him because they perfectly did God’s will. But, as perfect as they were, both of these two men didn’t do as good a work as Jesus did when he was here.

Jesus came to save the world from its sin, but neither Enoch nor Elijah did that work. Amen?

We know that for Jesus to do the work of saving the world from sin, Jesus the man must have at least been as perfect as Enoch and Elijah. Amen? Otherwise either Enoch or Elijah could have saved the world from its sin. But they didn’t, and couldn’t. God didn’t give them that dominion and authority, even though they were spiritually perfect and walking in all of God’s perfect love that they could.

So now we ask ourselves, “Forgetting Enoch and Elijah for a moment, as spiritually perfect as they were, how did Jesus find God?”

Jesus was the Son of God but he was born a little baby. He didn’t go to school every day saying, “I am the Son of God!” He went to school saying, “I am Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, and I have brothers and sisters in this school also.” He didn’t really find out about being the Son of God until God fully revealed that to him at his baptism, when God said the words to him about how he also pleased him.

So we know that there is Jesus the human being. He is growing up into the perfection of God. Before he can become the “Son of God” who is saving the world from its sin, he must first become the “perfect man” because the ordinary man is not capable of doing the work of saving the world. He must at least become the same as, if not better than, Enoch and Elijah.

So we look at Jesus and we ask ourselves, “When did he become perfect? When he became perfect, he must have already completely found God. And if he has found God, how does he demonstrate that he has found God? Because he must be able to have found God first of all, if he is then going to do the work of God.”

If your pastor sends you to Tanzania to go on mission, you must at least have found your pastor and been in discussion with him. Amen?

So when we find Jesus, we look to him and say, “What is he doing with the heavenly Father? Because if we can do what he is doing with the heavenly Father, then we will be drawn into knowing God also—in just the same way as Jesus is knowing God.”

When God took Enoch, Enoch “pleased” God. The Bible uses the word “pleased” to mean “perfect in God’s eyes”. But Enoch is perfect and yet he is not given the job to save the world. As soon as he becomes perfect...whoosh! He is taken from the world.

At the same time that Elijah is taken from the world, we know that Elijah has reached perfection too. To be taken from the world in fiery chariots of God’s power is the same as saying they are spiritually perfect in God’s love.

Now, let’s come into the book of Matthew. Let’s have a read from Matthew 3:16 and 17. In English it says,

And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

We see here that God is “pleased,” but this is a special pleasing. If Jesus was a man or woman like us, we would expect him then to be taken by God to heaven. But something different happens here.

Jesus comes up out of the water, and then while he is standing in the water the heavens open above him and the Spirit of God comes to him and this is the start of his new mission. For the first time in the world now, we see a perfect human being doing an extended mission of God.

We can also understand that when the Spirit of God comes on him, the Spirit of God gives His vision for that mission.

We are standing in a church and it has been built because somebody had the vision to build the church here. It comes into your imagination and God touches it and you believe God is going to help to make this happen.

So here is Jesus and he is receiving the vision from God to save the world, and with the vision comes the Holy Spirit’s power to do that. With that vision comes the full remembrance, “I am the Son of God.”

And now the human Jesus mind and the Son of God mind become the same mind. He is now Jesus on earth, but he extends right up into the heavens to the Father as well. Amen?

He knows God. He not only came from God, but as a human being he has grown up into the normal range of knowing God that we all can grow into. So, he is the perfect person to ask our question: “How do we find God?”

We look at Jesus and we find that he does only one or two things to tell us. Come with me into Romans chapter 1, verse 17. In English it says,

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

So we have found here in Paul’s writings and experience that Jesus’ relationship with the Father, which is wholly righteous—right with the Father—is pure faith. Amen?

Now, if we come into Deuteronomy, in chapter 30 we see God making human beings choose. God puts a high value on us making a choice. In verse 19, God says,

“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life.”

When Jesus ministers in the world he says the same thing, “Choose the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 13:44) In the beginning of his ministry he just says, “Choose me. Choose me. I came from heaven. I am the way to the Father. Choose me.”

After he sees that the Jews have a hard heart, he says, “If you can’t choose me, at least choose the Father because of my works.”

So we start to see here that the righteous, they live in faith but they must make decisions.

Now come with me into John 5 and let’s look at verse 19. In English it says,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.”

That tells us that we are righteous and we live by faith, but faith is not just hoping that God is going to do something. Faith is making decisions. When we look at Jesus, we see that when Jesus makes decisions he only does what the Father shows him to do.

So we ask ourselves the question, “If we can do only what the Father shows us to do, can we find the Father? Can we find God in that way?”

We can’t look for God under the table, amen? We can’t look for the Father in our pockets, amen? We can’t go to some place in the whole earth and find the Father living there, amen? We can go to the moon and we will not find the Father there. We can go to the ends of the stars and we will not find the Father there either.

It might even be possible to go to heaven and not find the Father, because we find the Father in faith. The Father shows us Himself in the world, but we do not come to actually hold Him until we hold Him in faith, and that faith is in our heart, amen? We do not find the Father by sight or by sound or by touch. We find him by faith and in faith; and that faith which lives in our heart.

So there must be something that we can find in our heart that shows us the Father. Now if we come into the Book of Matthew and turn to chapter 13 and verse 3, we hear Jesus telling the parable about sowing seed. In English it reads,

“A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.”

Scripture provides the explanation we are hungry to hear. It says that some of the seed falls into a place where the devil comes along and just takes away that seed.

You might come to wonderfully rich meetings like this and then you go away from here and somebody says to you something that causes argument and you feel that all the blessing has just been taken away from you.

A good example of that is in healing. You come to a meeting and you are prayed for, and then you receive healing and you are healed.

You tell your friends, “I have been healed.”

Somebody says to you, “You have not been healed. It will come back, you watch. I don’t believe those Christians. If healing was so easy, why did your father die? If healing was so easy for you, why did you lose your baby?” And the devil comes along and snatches away your seed—the hope that was in the promise of God concerning your situation.

Then Jesus also explains that sometimes the seed is put here and the weeds grow up around it. You know, you have a weed here in Rwanda that back home we think it is a very special flower—it’s the marigold flower. But outside the door of this church there I can see one plant that I think definitely is a weed both here and back home in Australia also. But either way, when the weed grows up around your seed, it is all of the cares of the world that come in and smother your potential to bloom.

For example, you say, “I want to go on mission with pastor into Tanzania, but I can’t do it because I’m too busy here with my family.

Never mind, maybe next time I will go.” The next time comes along and the pastor says, “We are going over to Congo. Will you come with us?” And you make up another excuse because of the cares of the world that are taking away your focus on God’s work and what God has for your life. You can see after a while that the cares of the world are taking you away from your blessing. The weeds are robbing you of what God has for you.

But there is one seed that when it is sown into good soil it produces very well. Let’s have a look at verse 31 in that chapter 13. In English it says,

“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

What we can see here is Jesus saying to us that when we are living by faith we are producing. We are producing in our decisions, and we are producing in our decisions because God and ourselves are making a seed together. And whatever God makes as a seed, it will harvest God’s kind of fruit.

That is such a special thing that I just said.

Come back into heaven with me and listen to the conversation between the Father and the Son.

The Father says, “I need to plant a seed into the universe that has become corrupted by Satan.”

The Son of God says, “I will be that seed! Send me and plant me into that place!”

The Father says, “You must not do your will, you must only do my will.”

The Son of God agrees and together they work out the plan. When they have made the plan, then the Son of God makes the decision, “I am now going.”

The Son of God plans it and he comes and he is sown into the womb of Mary—she is a virgin in that she has never before had a baby. He has made the decision with the Father. He is the Father’s salvation seed and he is this little mustard seed that is going to grow into the kingdom of heaven in the earth itself.

So we can look in heaven and we can see that the Son of God is with the Father. The Son of God is in the presence of the Father and together they make their faith decision.

When Jesus grows up he teaches people, “I want you to make faith decisions with the Father. The Father will put his Spirit in you. You will be able to have fellowship with the Father.”

He says in Scripture, “The Father and I will both come to you. You will have fellowship with us both and in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

When we receive into our heart’s love this Father, and this Son, and this Holy Spirit, and this Jesus the perfect man, we have this power that comes upon us and which Scripture calls the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11). The power is that we have the power to enter into our faith believing and in this place we of believing we can meet God; we can find God himself.

FINDING GOD WITHIN YOUR BELIEVING

We are going to do that now, so that you can have this experience of finding God, and of God finding you in your faith believing. Then, when you have found God and you know God is touching you, you can have other experiences where you can simply be still in the presence of God; or when you can be filled with God; you can be at rest in God; or, you can be very active and preaching and shouting in God; or you can even be like that man who just sat in God and gave only scant attention to the world.

There are two ways that God touches us. With the Holy Spirit he makes us into the sail of a boat and he blows into us—whoosh!—and moves us, and we are moved by the Holy Spirit and the giftings of the Holy Spirit are moved in us. When God does this we become footwashers, servants, movers and shakers in the kingdom of heaven. We change things, and we change them by God’s power.

But then God moves us in another way also. He fills us like a bottle and we are not moving. We are completely still and we are filled in Him. If we open our eyes and we look at the world, all of God is looking through us and we are at rest in God.

So God gives us these two ways to be in him, and they are both complimentary of each other: rest, and movement; tranquillity, and activity; pure worship in rapture, and pure work in the world of things and people.

If we want to do a mission, first we must come into rest. We are like Jesus who comes away from the people to be with the Father— and he might come away from them for several days at a time.

It might take a few days for him just to settle down into being at peace with God; to move away from being so active in God; and to let his body and his mind just settle down into the rest of God. When he is in the rest of God, then he is able to speak to God and they can together develop a plan.

And you are going to do this now. You are going to think of something that you want to do, or something that you want to have just in your human self. Then we are going to let God come and touch that so then your program also becomes God’s program. When your program has become God’s program, faith comes alive in that and it then becomes the mustard seed.

When it becomes the mustard seed you are starting to do the will of God. You and God are working this together in a strategic partnership.

The world might try and come against you as you live out whatever it was that you and God planned to do together, but because you have developed this program in faith you have the power of God to protect you as you move through it in actual living. The perfection of God’s love will always succeed—and God’s mustard seed is a seed of the Father’s perfect love.

Once we see these kinds of outcomes in our lives, then we start to see the ministry of Jesus differently. We see that from the time of his baptism he is drawing people in to know God so that they can have the power to make a program with God. When we are making programs in our heart with God and we are living out those programs, we become perfect. And that fulfils the highest value in the holy bible.

If you go to your bible and have a look at Matthew chapter 5, verse 48, you’ll see there that Jesus is saying,

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Jesus can say that because he is perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. But what is the way to be perfect? That’s the burning question in our hearts today: how to be spiritually perfect; and how to find ways to help others to be spiritually perfect like God.

Come into your heart in your faith and develop a program. Let God touch your believing in that program and then live out that program. Then you will find even if you are a young person or old person, boy or girl, you will find that perfection will start to operate in your life. Now you are on the road like Enoch and Elijah and Jesus.

If you do that one time today, you will have this moment of perfection. God will touch you and you will be with God. If you do this two times next week, you will have these two times of perfection. If you do this ten times over the next month, you will have all those times of perfection to your credit.

As we practice in our hearts, making programs with God, we become perfect, and we learn to take God’s perfection into more and more places in our lives until we have gone into all of the places in our lives that have the potential to make us perfect.

At that point we come to the place where God can say to us, too, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”

So, let us do this now. Let’s look now into the Scripture at Matthew chapter 18, verse 18 through 20 in your Bible. We see a special formula here from Jesus. He says,

“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

To bind something here on the earth means to stop something from happening. We stop it happening by heaven’s power to stop things happening.

To loose something here on the earth is to create some new thing here on the earth. We create that new thing with heaven’s power to create it. An example of that is heaven’s power to create the mustard seed into a mustard tree. The plants grow not by the earth’s power, but by heaven’s power creating them.

So I am asking you to think of something that you want to do, or something that you want to have. It will probably be something that you want to loose here in the earth and if God touches your desire, then God turns that into a heavenly empowered seed and our Father will make it happen by heavenly power.

Turn to Mark chapter 11 and to verse 24. In English we see here,

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

This is what you are going to do. Remember, you are wanting to find God, and one of the ways that Jesus lets us find God is by loosing something here in the earth. This is what’s going to happen. I am wanting something. Let’s say, “I want to build a big church here and it has electricity, water, a concrete floor, plenty of chairs, a good roof, and plenty of shade.” Let’s just think, “This is what I want.”

Jesus says, “If you believe you have received that thing you just thought of, it will be done for you.”

If you believe that God has loosed it in heaven for you, then it will arrive here in the earth for you. Then the people will come together and we will find, “Oh, that church you dreamed of back then, it’s starting to be built now.”

“So now, I am going to get one friend and tell that person what it is that I am believing for. Then I am going to believe that God has given this to me,” and my friend is going to believe that God has already released that for me also. We are both believing that God has given this thing to me.

Together, with myself and my friend both believing that I am receiving this thing from God, we are going to keep believing until God invades our believing.

When God invades our believing, we will know God and we will know him in our faith, amen? And he will touch our believing and turn it into his seed and we will feel him do that.

Then we can stand up and say, “Praise God! he has touched my believing!”

And you can speak to him, “My Father, you have touched my believing,” and you are in the direct presence of God.

At that moment, he is holding you and you are holding him, and you know that he is touching your faith and he is filling your mind and his blessing is pouring into you.

At that moment, in your heart you know, “Yes, this is God.”

It is more important to find God than to even do the works of God. To do the works of God without ever having found God is to put things backwards.

But let’s do this now. You are going to tell your friend, “This is what I am believing for.”

Then the two of you now can start believing that God has now done that for you, and you will quietly keep believing until God enters into your believing. Then, when that has happened, your friend will also know that God has entered into his or her believing for you. You will both have God’s confirmation.

Okay, let’s begin.

Heavenly Father, you have heard my Word and you have sent me here into this place, Lord. I pray now in Jesus’ name that you will honor your Word, Lord, and you will enter into their believing and you will release the heavenly power to make their desire loosed here in the world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Now you can begin—the first person and then second person. It should only take a few minutes per person, but take as much time as you need.

AFTERWARDS

God has put his power into your believing. He has put his power into your believing in the same way as he put his power into Jesus’ believing. God is no respecter or persons, amen? God will honor all faith, amen? We cannot please God unless we are using faith. Amen?

And so, what God the Father has done with Jesus Christ, he is doing now with you also. He has touched your faith and he has touched Jesus’ faith—it is the same faith.

Therefore, now you should remember what you have desired and what God has touched. Remember it in your mind. Remember it in your heart. Write it in your bible: “Today the Father’s perfect love has touched this particular desire in my heart, and because he has turned it into a divine seed, it will happen. Not only that, for a moment I knew God intimately, and I savoured his presence and his perfect love.”

Then when it happens, when this thing comes into your life, come back to your bible and you can write underneath what you just wrote: “Yes, it has happened now! According to my bible faith and God’s promise to touch my faith, and by his perfect love by faith I planted my seed and it has now produced its crop, and I have this thing for which God and I made the program.”

When you do this in your moment of prayer, let God touch you. When God can touch you, you can know His presence. When you stretch that time together out into a little meditation, in this way you can know God.

About the Author

Rob Crickett is in full time ministry internationally as an evangelist for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is noted for his gift of imparting to people the means for having deeply intimate contact with God. He is a much respected author, Bible teacher, retreat director and seminar facilitator; addressing the many key issues on living a Spirit-filled life in Christ. His books target people who are often outside the Church and are written in language that new Christians can relate to. Rob has ministered in Australia, Burundi, Canada, China, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Israel, Kenya, Lithuania, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda and in 25 States in the USA. Rob lives with his wife Mary in Melbourne, Australia. Mary is particularly gifted in prophecy, prayer and imparting the will of God to Christians working in the secular environment. They have ministered together in the USA, Italy, France and Australia. For further contact, or to receive Rob’s free monthly newsletter, see www.rcim.org or email rob at rcim.org.

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Guns of the Gods $3.99 "Guns of the Gods" by Talbot Mundy is a classic work of literature that can be enjoyed by all. Download "Guns of the Gods" and enjoy another quality Digireads.com publication.

The Gold of the Gods $3.99 "The Gold of the Gods" by Arthur B. Reeve is a classic work of literature that can be enjoyed by all. Download "The Gold of the Gods" and enjoy another quality Digireads.com publication.

The Gods of Pegana $3.99 "The Gods of Pegana" by Lord Edward Dunsany is a classic work of literature that can be enjoyed by all. Download "The Gods of Pegana" and enjoy another quality Digireads.com publication.

Time and the Gods $3.99 "Time and the Gods" by Lord Edward Dunsany is a classic work of literature that can be enjoyed by all. Download "Time and the Gods" and enjoy another quality Digireads.com publication.

The Gods Return $4.73 The Isles have been more or less unified under Garric’s rule, but the Change that created the continent has removed the old Gods of the Isles from reality and released other Gods from other planes of existence. Now the servants of the forbidden Gods of Palomir call forth The Worm, an ancient thing that threatens to devour all life in the newly formed kingdom and make way for the reign of dark Gods, newly awakened to ambitions of worship and dominion. Some are bad . . . and some are worse.

The Younger Gods $7.99 In the thrilling conclusion to The Dreamers, the Vlagh prepares for one merciless attack that will pit her forces against the might of both the Elder Gods and the Younger Gods. All may be for naught, however, if the allies fail to respond to the fact that one within their ranks is losing her mind.

Wrath of the Gods $19.82 Follow the She-Devil with a Sword in a classic tale of the primordial gods themselves as Red Sonja faces the Wrath of the Gods Wrath of the Gods explores the mysteries of Sonja's past, while presenting her with the malicious threat of Loki in the present Can Thor, the God of Thunder, and Odin, the All-Father, aid the warrior woman and prevent their fellow god from destroying the world? Collects issues #1-5, along with a complete cover gallery.

Religion of the Gods $74 In many of the world's religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, a seemingly enigmatic and paradoxical image is found--that of the god who worships. Various interpretations of this seeming paradox have been advanced. Some suggest that it represents sacrifice to a higher deity. Proponents of anthropomorphic projection say that the gods are just "big people" and that images of human religious action are simply projected onto the deities. However, such explanations do not do justice to the complexity and diversity of this phenomenon. In Religion of the Gods, Kimberley C. Patton uses a comparative approach to take up anew a longstanding challenge in ancient Greek religious iconography: why are the Olympian gods depicted on classical pottery making libations? The sacrificing gods in ancient Greece are compared to gods who perform rituals in six other religious traditions: the Vedic gods, the heterodox god Zurvan of early Zoroastrianism, the Old Norse god Odin, the Christian God and Christ, the God of Judaism, and Islam's Allah. Patton examines the comparative evidence from a cultural and historical perspective, uncovering deep structural resonances while also revealing crucial differences. Instead of looking for invisible recipients or lost myths, Patton proposes the new category of "divine reflexivity." Divinely performed ritual is a self-reflexive, self-expressive action that signals the origin of ritual in the divine and not the human realm. Above all, divine ritual is generative, both instigating and inspiring human religious activity. The religion practiced by the gods is both like and unlike human religious action. Seen from within the religious tradition, gods are not "big people," but other than human. Human ritual is directed outward to a divine being, but the gods practice ritual on their own behalf. "Cultic time," the symbiotic performance of ritual both in heaven and on earth, collapses the distinction between cult and theology each time ritual is performed. Offering the first comprehensive study and a new theory of this fascinating phenomenon, Religion of the Gods is a significant contribution to the fields of classics and comparative religion. Patton shows that the god who performs religious action is not an anomaly, but holds a meaningful place in the category of ritual and points to a phenomenologically universal structure within religion itself.

Gods in Everyman $10.99 In this challenging and enlightening companion volume to the bestselling Goddesses in Everywoman, Jean Shinoda Bolen turns her attention to the powerful inner patterns--or archetypes--that shape men's personalities, careers, and personal relationships. Viewing these archtypes as the inner counterparts of the outer world of cultural stereotypes, she demonstrates how men an women can gain an nvaluable sense of wholeness and integration when what they do is consistent with who they are. Dr. Bolen introduces these patterns in the guise of eight archetypal gods, or personality types, with whom the reader will identify. From the authoritarian power-seeking gods (Zeus, Poseidon) to the gods of creativity (Apollo, Hephaestus) to the sensual Dionysus, Dr. Bolen shows men how to identify their ruling gods, how to decide which to cultivate and which to overcome, and how to tap thepwer of these enduring archetypes in order to enrich and strengthen their lives. She also stresses the importance of understanding which gods you are attracted to and which are compatible with your expectations, uncovers the origins of the often-difficult father-son relationship, and explores society's deep conflict between nurturing behavior and the need to foster masculinity. In Gods in Everyman Dr. Bolen presents us with a compassionate and lucid male psychology that will help all men and women to better understand themselves and their relationships with their fathers, their sons, their brothers, and their lovers.

The Kingdom Of Gods $10.9 For two thousand years the Arameri family has ruled the world by enslaving the very gods that created mortalkind. Now the gods are free, and the Arameri's ruthless grip is slipping. Yet they are all that stands between peace and world-spanning, unending war. Shahar, last scion of the family, must choose her loyalties. She yearns to trust Sieh, the godling she loves. Yet her duty as Arameri heir is to uphold the family's interests, even if that means using and destroying everyone she cares for. As long-suppressed rage and terrible new magics consume the world, the Maelstrom - which even gods fear - is summoned forth. Shahar and Sieh: mortal and god, lovers and enemies. Can they stand together against the chaos that threatens the kingdom of gods?

Voice of the Gods $9.93 Unable to avoid being drawn into the terrible conflict, Auraya, now protector of the Siyee, fears she will be unable to meet the conditions of the all-powerful gods she once served. And an offer from a mysterious woman may be impossible for Auraya to refuse, but, if revealed, would brand her an enemy of the gods. Now, the immortal Wilds will not be deterred in their quest for powerful, long-buried secrets. But they have deadly adversaries who also seek the world-shattering truth . . . and it may appear in a form that no one anticipates.

The Lost Gods $24.26 Thor is dead Asgard has been destroyed Its gods are scattered across the Earth, living mortal lives with no memory of their past selves Can Sif, Balder, Ulik the Troll, the Warriors Three, the Enchantress and the other Lost Gods find the truth about themselves in time to stop the world destroying plot of Seth, God of Death? Featuring the Wrecking Crew, Spider-Man and an all-new Loki Collecting: Journey Into Mystery #503-513

Signs of the Gods? $18.9 Were human beings created by powers from outer space? Did extraterrestrial giants build the megaliths of Malta and the menhirs of Brittany? Was the Ark of the Covenant a machine built by the astronaut gods?In Signs of the Gods? Erich von Daniken travels far and wide around the globe to study the many strange phenomena that all point to one conclusion-that many thousands of years ago, Earth was visited by a race of superhuman powers and intelligence.The questions he addresses along the way include: -Why are the religious sites in Greece all laid out in the same geometrical pattern-a pattern which is repeated throughout the world?-Does the extraordinary longevity of the ancient Sumerian kings mean that the Land of the Two Rivers was ruled by a race of supermen?-Could the first men have been produced by cloning?-Do the great ruins of Zimbabwe point to an impossibly detailed knowledge of astronomy?Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods provoked a worldwide storm of controversy. In Signs of the Gods? he produces powerful arguments to support his theory of astronaut gods, with evidence that is difficult to explain any other way. Hear what he has to say with an open mind-and you may find yourself agreeing with him.

Odds and Gods $10.9 Wagner got it wrong. The twilight of the gods isn't that cataclysmic. After all, there's a comfy chair, a warm fire and three meals a day at the Sunnyvoyde Residential Home. Passing the time with Aphrodite, who's still quite sprighty with the aid of her Zimmer frame, isn't heaven - but it's close.

The Triumph of Cupid Over All the Gods, 1752 $34.99 Gabriel De Saint-aubin The Triumph of Cupid Over All the Gods, 1752 - Giclee Print

The Kingdom of Gods $7.99 The incredible conclusion to the Inheritance Trilogy, from one of fantasy's most acclaimed stars. For two thousand years the Arameri family has ruled the world by enslaving the very gods that created mortalkind. Now the gods are free, and the Arameri's ruthless grip is slipping. Yet they are all that stands between peace and world-spanning, unending war. Shahar, last scion of the family, must choose her loyalties. She yearns to trust Sieh, the godling she loves. Yet her duty as Arameri heir is to uphold the family's interests, even if that means using and destroying everyone she cares for. As long-suppressed rage and terrible new magics consume the world, the Maelstrom -- which even gods fear -- is summoned forth. Shahar and Sieh: mortal and god, lovers and enemies. Can they stand together against the chaos that threatens? Includes a never before seen story set in the world of the Inheritance Trilogy.

River Of Gods $11.81 August 15th, 2047. Happy Hundredth Birthday, India . . . On the eve of Mother India's hundredth birthday, ten people are doing ten very different things. In the next few weeks, all these people will be swept together to decide the fate of the nation. From gangsters to government advisors, from superstitious street-boys to scientists to computer-generated soap stars, River of Gods shows a civilization in flux - a river of gods.RIVER OF GODS is an epic SF novel as sprawling, vibrant and colourful as the sub-continent it describes. This is an SF novel that blew apart the narrow anglo and US-centric concerns of the genre and ushered in a new global consciousness for the genre.

Whitechapel Gods $6.99 A thrilling new Steampunk fantasy from a talented debut author TWO GODS-ONE CHANCE FOR MANKIND In Victorian London, the Whitechapel section is a mechanized, steam-driven hell, cut off and ruled by two mysterious, mechanical gods-Mama Engine and Grandfather Clock. Some years have passed since the Great Uprising, when humans rose up to fight against the machines, but a few brave veterans of the Uprising have formed their own Resistance-and are gathering for another attack. For now they have a secret weapon that may finally free them-or kill them all...

The Gods of the Celts $16.99 This fascinating overview of Celts and their religion covers all aspects of the gods, ritual customs, cult-objects, and sacred places of the ancient Celtic peoples Covering 500 BC to AD 400, and embracing the whole of the Celtic world from Ireland to Australia, this rewarding overview of the evidence for Celtic religions, beliefs, and practices uses modern scholarship to bring an obscure, but captivating part of European history to life. First, this it introduces the Celts and the evidence they have left behind, and places them in their geographical and chronological context. It then covers the various cults of the sun and the sky; the mother-goddesses and fertility; war, death and the underworld; water gods and healers; animals and animism; and symbolism and imagery.

Hammer of the Gods $9.97 They were legends based on myths--myths of fantasy, power, and black magic. The tales of their tours were the most outrageous in the already excess-laden annals of modern music. The era of Led Zeppelin personified sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Based on interviews with the band's musicians, friends, employees, and lovers, Hammer of the Gods tells the shocking story of Led Zeppelin's successes and excesses in the 70s--when Zeppelin reigned as the industry's biggest act. Exclusive sources. Documents. Interviews. Photos. Revelations about a band--and an industry--at its shameless peak. Read it all, and see why Hammer of the Gods is a classic of rock journalism in its own right.

Minds and Gods $21.95 Around the world and throughout history, in cultures as diverse as ancient Mesopotamia and modern America, human beings have been compelled by belief in gods and developed complex religions around them. But why? What makes belief in supernatural beings so widespread? And why are the gods of so many different people so similar in nature? This provocative book explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas by looking through the lens of science at the common structures and functions of human thought. The first general introduction to the "cognitive science of religion," Minds and Gods presents the major themes, theories, and thinkers involved in this revolutionary new approach to human religiosity. Arguing that we cannot understand what we think until we first understand how we think, the book sets out to study the evolutionary forces that modeled the modern human mind and continue to shape our ideas and actions today. Todd Tremlin details many of the adapted features of the brain -- illustrating their operation with examples of everyday human behavior -- and shows how mental endowments inherited from our ancestral past lead many people to naturally entertain religious ideas. In short, belief in gods and the social formation of religion have their genesis in biology, in powerful cognitive processes that all humans share. In the course of illuminating the nature of religion, this book also sheds light on human nature: why we think we do the things we do and how the reasons for these things are so often hidden from view. This discussion ranges broadly across recent scientific findings in areas such as paleoanthropology, primate studies, evolutionary psychology, early brain development, and cultural transmission. While these subjects are complex, the story is told here in a conversational style that is engaging, jargon free, and accessible to all readers. With Minds and Gods , Tremlin offers a roadmap to a fascinating and growing field of study, one that is sure to generate interest and debate and provide readers with a better understanding of themselves and their beliefs.

The Earth Gods $9.99 " The Earth Gods, the last book to be published while Gibran was still in this world, came into the poet's hands two weeks before he was to lay aside all earthly volumes. . . . He had a peculiar feeling of tenderness for this book, unlike what he felt for any of the others. 'Because,' he said, 'it was written out of the poet's hell—a process of childbirth and child-bearing.' . . . "It is, in my opinion, one of the greatest poems in the language. The Earth Gods is, perhaps, a book for the mystic, a poet's book for poets, for the initiate and the dreamer of vast dreams. Yet I have known those who pride themselves on being highly practical and feet-on-the-ground, who disown any bent toward the mystical and the occult, to pronounce it a book of wonder and power. And as a child of seven to whom I read portions of the poem on request, says unvaryingly, 'Read it again!' This, perhaps, for the music and the almost unearthly beauty of rhythm." —Barbara Young, in This Man From Lebanon: A Study of Kahlil Gibran