Building up the kingdom of god by tearing ours down

Transcription

1 Building up the kingdom of god by tearing ours down Brendan Mc Crossan

2 Building up the kingdom of God by tearing ours down Brendan Mc Crossan Matthew 6:33-King James Version One But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. { Righteousness = virtue, principles, impartiality, graciousness, honourableness, goodness, and honesty,} ========================== Matthew 6:33-Amplified Bible (AMP) 33 But first and most importantly seek (aim at, strive after) His kingdom and His righteousness [ His way of doing and being right the attitude and character of God ], and all these things will be given to you also. These are two different translations but I really like the Amplified version best because it explains what it is that God wants to add to you - his own character, his way of doing things, his attitude towards things and people. As I read this scripture I have come to the realisation that this has been happening to me since I came to Jesus as Lord and saviour; I see the change in me as my kingdom is torn down by me through his grace, and by nothing of me. God does not tear down my kingdom or yours; he lets us become aware of our shortcomings, our Kingdoms, and it s up to us to do something about them.

3 I have often wondered what it is that God will add unto you, as scripture said, and it is only now that I have become aware that it is indeed his nature, and his attitude, - his way of doing things; - his character, and much, much more, {See Book 317 ''God says versus man says'' On my website, -brendansbooks.com- to give you a more fuller explanation of what God has added unto us} What an honour it is indeed to be given the very nature of God himself; what a blessing God has bestowed upon us; and most Christians do not realise this at all. His own character, = nature, quality, temperament, personality, disposition, outlook, moral fibre, spirit, make-up; but let s look at something here that is indeed astonishing; we have been given his own spirit and that is in itself breath-taking. To be given the very nature and spirit of God, never mind the rest of the things he gives us, is just simply too hard for the human mind to comprehend with the human thinking; it is only with his spirit that we can understand who and what we are. With such awesome gifts at our disposal, let s look at how we can expand the kingdom of God, and in doing so, tear ours down; and the only way I can see at this moment in time, is to stop me in my tracks, and plead for his kindness; by stripping ourselves of all that we want. I know I have a great desire at this moment, I cannot stop thinking about it; so it has to be by his grace and blessings; for his word also tells us that we have been given every grace and blessing, {1-Corinthians -1-6} as part of what we have acquired by faith in his divine word. Such things are beyond our comprehension, but not beyond our reach! For everything has been given to us by faith and by grace that accompanies faith. It is my heart s desire to expand the kingdom of God by bringing others to him. I have nothing to offer, for I know everything is by grace alone; but I can t help desiring to bring souls to him and my heart is stretched at this moment in time if you can understand what I mean. My heart is near exploding with longing to do the will of God, by doing as he says to do. Go out into the world and preach the gospel, baptise people in the Holy Spirit, and get them into praying in the spirit, and learning to love God, to see him as I see him now! Psalm 143Living Bible (TLB) 143 Hear my prayer, O Lord; answer my plea because you are faithful to your promises.2 don t bring me to trial! For as compared with you, no one is perfect. 3 My enemies chased and caught me. They have knocked me to the ground. They force me to live in the darkness like those in the grave. 4 I am losing all hope; I am paralyzed with fear.

4 5 I remember the glorious miracles you did in days of long ago. 6 I reach out for you. I thirst for you as parched land thirsts for rain. 7 Come quickly, Lord, and answer me, for my depression deepens; don t turn away from me or I shall die. 8 Let me see your kindness to me in the morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for my prayer is sincere. 9 Save me from my enemies. O Lord, I run to you to hide me. 10 Help me to do your will, for you are my God. Lead me in good paths, for your Spirit is good. This is what I desire to do; to walk in his paths for his word says they are good paths. Walking in his paths will bring me to the places of building up his kingdom. I know this; God does not need me, I need him! I sincerely ask that his spirit leads me and help me to follow him and not to go my own ways. Doing what I wish to do is not building up his kingdom, asking every day; what do you want me to do today lord, is. The other morning as I lay awake praying I kept thinking about the kingdom of God and thinking, I need to tear mine down, and focus on just one kingdom - his. I never realised that I had built my own kingdom over the years doing things I wanted to do, instead of doing what the lord wanted me to do. Scripture says he has plans for us, Jeremiah 29:11-Amplified Bible, Classic Edition For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you says the Lord thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome. His plans not my plans; isn t it better to walk in the plans that God has for us than to walk in our own plans; God says I have work for you laid out, and that work includes believing that he has already joined us together with Jesus to help us do the things he desires, he doesn t expect us to do things by our own power or effort, he has also given us his Holy Spirit to help us attain the glorious miracles he has laid out before us. God has laid out works for us to do for him

5 1 Corinthians 6Living Bible (TLB) 15 Don t you realize that your bodies are actually parts and members of Christ? So should I take part of Christ and join him to a prostitute? Never! 16 And don t you know that if a man joins himself to a prostitute she becomes a part of him and he becomes a part of her? For God tells us in the Scripture that in his sight the two become one person. 17 But if you give yourself to the Lord, you and Christ are joined together as one person. 18 That is why I say to run from sex sin. No other sin affects the body as this one does. When you sin this sin it is against your own body. 19 Haven t you yet learned that your body is the home of the Holy Spirit God gave you, and that he lives within you? Your own body does not belong to you. 20 For God has bought you with a great price. So use every part of your body to give glory back to God because he owns it. My body does not belong to me, it belongs to the Holy Spirit; have a good think about that and see where it leads you! I had an experience once lately when praying with a young girl at a healing service. As I began praying with her, the lord told me to tell her to stand up, and when she complied, he then told me to put my arms around her neck, and so I did, the next thing that happened was I saw Jesus step out of me halfway, on the right hand side of my body, and put his arms around that young girls neck, and around his arms I saw a golden glow like a band of gold running from his hands to his head: I had never ever had that experience in almost forty years of ministry, it confirmed for me that Jesus really is inside of us joined together with us in spirit. The young girl told me she felt my arms around her and she also felt another pair of arms around her neck, and said it was Jesus when asked; who do you think it was? Almost forty years in ministry and I never experienced Jesus inside of me until now. When I dwell on this experience I think that Jesus is in me to do his new work. As I was walking through our local shopping centre I got this urge to stop; so I stopped immediately and looked around me to try and see what it was that I was being urged to stop. As I looked around me I noticed a shopping booth that sold covers for mobile phones, and I felt to go back to it, and as I did I stopped, and the girl working there asked could she help me. I said something to her about a cover for my phone and she searched and said she had none my size, and then I felt to ask her that if she died that night did she know where she would go? She looked surprised at my question, and then said, no! then added probably hell, I said to her she didn t need to go there, would you like to go to heaven, and she nodded and replied yes; so I told her about Jesus and what he done for us at the scourging at the pillar where all our diseases were

6 healed by his precious blood, and that on the cross he carried our sins and paid for them for us. Then I explained to her that all she had to do to get to heaven was to say to Jesus, I am sorry for my sins, and mean it, then ask Jesus into her heart as here lord and saviour, to which she did and so got saved. Then I felt led to tell her about the baptism in the Holy Spirit; she knew nothing about it, and then she asked could she receive the Holy Spirit, and within minutes she was praying in the spirit in tongues as the lord gave her a new heavenly language. Four times as I passed this booth, I had a prompting to go back and I discovered a different girl behind the counter each time, and I felt led to repeat what I had told the first girl, and all of them asked Jesus into their hearts and got baptised in the Holy Spirit. A fifth time I passed by this booth, I noticed a different girl behind the counter, so I went over to her and began telling her about Jesus, and I seen that she was not in the least interested, and said no when asked if she would like to ask him into her heart. If I had listened to the promptings of the Holy Spirit I would have just walked by minding my own business, instead I was saddened to see this young woman s attitude towards God, and a few times as I passed and seen her there I again broached the subject about her salvation only to be rebuffed each time. It takes time to learn to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit and to do the work that God had lain out for me to do, and I am still learning to follow his plans that he had planned for my life, then I would see the wonders that he had planned. Last September I was asked to do a healing service in Hull at a church in England, and I knew that it was the lords plans I was following in accepting the invitation, the two days before that I was attending a Conference in London by Daniel Kolende, and the pastor of the church decided to come to it from Hull with some of his church members including his other pastor, and elders. During the conference I was bombarded by the power of God and I could barely stand, the presence was so strong on me, and when I began the healing service on the Sunday the power of God was still on me as I ministered to those people who came for healing and they all got healed. The difference between doing this healing service and the ones I booked and operated on in Ireland was the power of God was on me to heal all, whereas the ones in Ireland I decided to have these services and the people got healed but not all of them, and as I ran them for weeks the crowd kept getting smaller and smaller until no one came, which should have shown me that this was my work

7 and not his work; if it had been his, then the crowds would have got bigger and bigger not smaller and smaller; crowds followed him, no crowds followed me. Even though the word of God says to go out into the entire world and preach the gospel. If I had asked the lord did he want me doing those healing services I had arranged to do, he would probably have told me no! That maybe I got those things from my own heart s desire and will and not from the will of God. During this conference my friend Jeremy and I went for coffee to a Costa stand, and we discovered there were lots of people there from different types of conferences; one such conference was a Pokémon conference, and a young man standing in the adjoining queue, began talking with me and during our conference I asked him was he going to the Fire Conference the one Jeremy and I were at, and he replied no he was actually at the Pokémon one, then he cried out in pain, and said his ankle was giving him pain for a long time now, so I asked him would he like a prayer for healing, and before he answered I bent down and touched his ankle and the lord healed him instantly, and he began saying out aloud; what did you do, what happened, and he just kept repeating this, and I told him Jesus touched him and healed him; he was in shock. A little while later a man pushed his way through the queue and touched my arm and said, he was from Poland, and he had cancer, and would we pray with him? So Jeremy and I laid hands on him and quietly prayed with him and he said his side was burning up and he could feel his cancer shrinking; he left a little later smiling profusely. Jeremy and I were in shock, we didn t have a badge or anything that said we were healers, and as we talked about what just happened a woman came and touched Jeremy s arm and said she had arthritis could we pray with her, and she left a little later healed. Both Jeremy and I were stunned, we couldn t believe what just happened, out of nowhere these people asked for prayer not knowing we were at a fire conference or a Pokémon conference, but these were the works that scripture says are laid out for us by God just as Jesus had his works laid out before him by his father; he said I do what I see the father doing. Not everything we do for God is from God to do but from our carnal man, not our spirit man. Only one of those healing services were from the perfect will of God, when almost two hundred people turned up one night, and most got healed and said they were healed; approximately one hundred and fifty four people reported healing and the rest had cancer and didn t know until maybe months later their results.

8 I know now when I look back, that doing those services looked legitimate, for they were bringing souls to God and getting baptised in the Holy Spirit, but were not his perfect will but his permissive will. I knew I had misgivings most nights but thought that it was the devil trying to stop me, for when I went to book the place to have those services, I got a feeling inside in my stomach that I should not have booked them but I put that down to the devil attacking me. If only I had listened to the Holy Spirit I would not have felt awful when less and less people came, even though God was healing almost all of the people that did come, and I questioned God intensely as to why less and less people were coming. I did not have a happy feeling on me most of those nights now that I look back on them, and that should have given me a clue, that not everything we do is the perfect will and plan of God. In these situations deep down in the inner most parts of my being, hidden even from me, I was trying to build my kingdom where people looked at me and said there s that healer, or recognised me, and I didn t realise this was me building up my kingdom until I stopped having healing services and started to listen more intently to the Holy Spirit. The devil is one crafty demonic being that knows us through and through, almost as much as God does, and he leads us blindly along the wrong paths, where we go following his plan and not God s plans, and we end up so disappointed that we feel that God has betrayed us and we just want to give up and move away from God; our hearts torn to shreds, our spirit low. God has plans for us and if we would just sit down with him and listen to his prompting then no matter how small the things are that he leads us to bear fruit for him and they pan out the way he wants them to. Two John 7-17-Tree of Life Version (TLV) 17 If anyone wants to do His will, he will know whether my teaching comes from God or it is myself speaking. 18 Whoever speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true and there is no unrighteousness in Him. Another instance of doing the work of God, I was asked to do a dedication service for a young couple who were Catholic but were not practising Catholics

9 and were actually hostile towards the church for some reason; but they had a young protestant friend who talked with them about the lord and they decided to have their child dedicated to the lord, and through a friend of mine and this young man s friend also he got in touch with me asking if I would do the service. Both of us agreed to ask the lord first if it was his will, and get back to one another in two weeks time. After seeking the lord for his perfect will I got the word it was his will, and ringing the young man he also got the same word, so he arranged my coming to a place called Ballymoney, to have the healing service on a certain day. That day arrived and I set off to meet the young man in a hotel parking lot and I would follow him because it was in a country place that the service was to take place and it was all back roads. Arriving at the house the young man introduced me to the parents, and after he sang a few songs he then introduced me to the people gathered there for the service. After the dedication a woman asked me if I was a priest; I was dressed in my dark blue suit, and I said, no but, I was called father, then I said I had eight kids and they all called me father, then I said I was involved in healing services. Afterwards as I was having a cup of tea a woman approached me and said, didn t you say you do healing services? I replied, yes I do, would you pray with a man who was in a car accident and had an inch and a half taken off his leg and he has been in pain since the operation years ago. I said I would of course pray with him. Then it started raining and most of the people had come inside the house, but there was a gazebo down the middle of the garden, where we could go and pray with this man. Going down to the gazebo I saw that there were people sheltering in it, so sitting down on a chair, I told the woman to go and get the man; the man was brought in and after talking with him for a little while, I then prayed with him and the Lord instantly healed him. In the meantime it had stopped raining and some people again ventured outside; the man said all his pain was gone, then he went out to a small wall and began to jump up and down on it to the surprise of his friends who asked him what he was doing, and he replied he was just healed and his short leg had grown down to the same size as his good leg. A woman sitting in the gazebo asked me if I would pray with her as she was in pain in her back, so I did and the Lord healed her, then some other people

10 came into the gazebo and asked for prayer for one thing or another, and the Holy Spirit healed them all much to their surprise and the people gathered in the gazebo already, they asked me what was happening; so I told them about the gift of salvation and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit were for anybody who desired them, and some of the young people there accepted Jesus into their hearts and got saved. Then a woman entered the gazebo; she had a drink in her hands and was spilling it everywhere because she had violent shaking hands, then she asked me would I pray with her, and I asked her what would she like to get prayed for; she looked at me and said, are you f*****g blind. I answered her by saying, I do not take everything at face value, and you could have something else wrong with you more serious than the shaking of your hands. Then I felt the Lord telling me to tell her to place both arms out in front of her and stretch them as far as she could, and her arms were shaking uncontrollably, then I asked him what to do and he said, touch her in the back of the neck, the very moment that I did that her hands and arms stopped shaking instantly and she stood there a moment, then burst out crying, thanking me she left. This was one of the great miracles that I seen the lord do, now it wasn t the greatest miracle for I seen cancer healed instantly, but for some reason or another that woman s healing touched me deeply. A short time later as I was having a cup of tea in the house and meeting with the parents, the mother of the child who was dedicated said to me she knew my face. I had never met this woman in my life as far as I was concerned, then she said, do you have steps down to your house, and surprised I answered. yes I do. Then she told me, twenty years ago she brought her mother who was dying of cancer down to my wife and I to have her prayed with. She then informed me that her mother just died last year; twenty years since she was told she was going to die, and now I was here doing this dedication for her granddaughter. It was so uncanny when I thought of it, none of the parents knew it was me, and I didn t know who the child s parents were, and now twenty years later I was praying with this child and people were getting healed instantly from their illness. It was all planned out by God the father; it was the first time I realised that everything that happened was his perfect will. A work

11 set out before me and he performed his will by healing those who come for prayer, and saved those who asked for salvation. This was one of the works that God had planned for me; there was other things that have happened in my life that were not the perfect will of God or his works ordained for me to do, but God still healed people who came to those meetings that I was doing, even though I seen that fewer and fewer people were coming; I should have sought the Lord and asked him did he want me to continue on with the healing services in the bars knowing deep down his answer would probably be no, it was time to end them. A sad time for me and a disappointing time indeed when only three or less people came seeking God; If I had asked God for his perfect will not assuming that this was his will for scripture says to, go out into the entire world and preach the gospel, and that was the scripture that I based the services on. Then since those times I seen in scripture where Jesus sent his disciples out to certain places and not to everywhere on their way, he had them pass towns and villages to go to the places where they would be welcome and people would get saved. I sit here today and I write these experiences down for you the reader to read, so that you would hesitate before you go to somewhere assuming this was where God wanted you to go. And I also realised that I have written at this moment in time, 319 books for the Lords glory, and I know now this is where he wants me for the moment; just like Paul wrote the epistles whilst in prison, I sit here in front to my computer sometimes feeling like I am in prison, as I wish to be out having healing services and getting people healed and saved. But this is God s work for me because I see in most of my books he has given me revelation in his divine word so that I could learn, and those reading my books could learn also from him using me! Now instead of feeling trapped I am delighted to write these little books for his glory; and to date I have 79, 347 people reading my books. I am hoping I see 100,000 before I die; I am now seventy years old. All glory to Jesus, father and Holy Spirit who gave me this work to do. John 7-17-Tree of Life Version (TLV) 17 If anyone wants to do His will, he will know whether my teaching comes from God or it is myself speaking. 18 Whoever speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who

12 seeks the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true and there is no unrighteousness in Him. The most important thing I have learned in all of these years is that God is not stupid; he knows exactly what he is doing; for in writing these books I have learned how to deal with the enemy and know what to do when praying with people for healing; I know that healing has already been done for us by Jesus scourging at the pillar and then taking sin and diseases on his body and killing it on the cross where he paid for everything the devil had us do, for every sin and for every disease the devil gave us. Now I want to seek only for his glory and not for mine, and I chose to tear those castles I built up down, when I was subconsciously seeking recognition and not for his glory; and somewhere deep down inside I knew this. Now I don t care who knows me or not, as long as he knows me and knows it is his glory I seek, and not mine. If I am sitting at home doing nothing after asking him for ministry, then that is where he wants me, and I never sit at home doing nothing anyway, I usually write on scripture as I study it. Now I have been asked to pray with a lady tomorrow night with another man involved in the healing ministry, then next Monday night I was asked to lead the worship for a young pastor at a meeting he is having; so I am not really sitting doing nothing for the Lord. Before I would have found difficulty just sitting at home thinking I was doing nothing to further the kingdom of God, now I know I am in the perfect will of God for me at this moment in time; it s taken me a long time to get here where I am at, but his glory is what s important to me now. That lady Phyllis was totally healed by the Holy Spirits power; God is good. The Lord s Prayer; thy kingdom come, my kingdom go! Thy Kingdom come, ours must go for his to fit, can t have two kingdoms inside us together. Thy will be done, not mine or yours; his will in us must be the same as his will is in heaven. His will have been in operation since before time began; he had everything thought out. Our will and his will in heaven must learn to balance out, and it is better when we realise that he knows what s best for us and what paths to follow; he knows every detail of our lives.

13 The psalmist learned early on that God knew what s best for him when he wrote. Help me to do your will, for you are my God. Lead me in good paths for your spirit is good. Psalm Tlb John 3 Tree of Life Version (TLV) 25 One day someone began an argument with John s disciples, telling them that Jesus baptism was best. 26 So they came to John and said, Master, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River the one you said was the Messiah he is baptizing too, and everybody is going over there instead of coming here to us. 28 You yourselves testify that I said, I am not the Messiah, but rather, I am sent before Him. 29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the best man rejoices when he stands and hears the bridegroom s voice. So now my joy is complete! 30 He must increase, while I must decrease. 31 The One who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth is of the earth, and of the earth he speaks. The One who comes from heaven is above all. 32 And what He has seen and heard, He testifies to that; yet no one receives His testimony. 33 Whoever receives His testimony has certified that God is true. 34 The One whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Ruach without limit. It didn t cause John any hurt to his pride to say that Jesus must increase and that he must decrease; it affects our pride if we have to decrease in the things that God has us do for him. We don t consider that God doesn t want all of us whether in ministry or not to have greater favour than any other servant of God, and the great part in serving God is that he doesn t call us servants but friends, and that is a greater thing to be called, a friend of God. I remember my friend Pastor Granville Johnson saying to me one day; he would love to think that God considered him his friend, and all the while the word tells us that we are a friend of God, but he didn t see it, even though he was a bible teacher; but like most protestant bible teachers or studiers they see mostly what the Old Testament says, whereby the New Testament changed things around a lot and made us friends of God through Jesus. John-15:15-New-International-Version I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business.

14 Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. It is much better to be called a friend of Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit, than to think of you as a servant; I am not a servant but a friend of Jesus and as his friend he must become greater and I must decrease this is how friends act between them. His kingdom come, his will be done, it does not take away anything from you to decrease as you get older or even deeper into ministry; ministry is his and not ours; favour is his and not ours to give. I am now seventy years of age and I am getting towards the end of my life and I am pleased with what God has used me for during the time of my life with him. I delight in the miraculous things he done, for I cannot work the miraculous. I delight in the encounters I have had with him, the visitations of one kind or another he has shown me. I wrote songs for him during my worship times, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and I know at least one song I wrote has been sung by at least five thousand young people one time in another country, and I know the books that I have written will still be there long after I am gone, especially for those who have downloaded them unto their computers, and what more could I ask for. So it is time to surrender my will to his will in all areas of my life, and that everything I do I consecrate it to him for his glory not mine. May your kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven; so when I enter heaven when I draw my last breath, I will feel comfortable with what I have done to further his kingdom not mine. Amen