God created the everything in it

God created the world and everything in it. All of it was, and is good. It was spectacular and it still is spectacular. His people were the pinnacle of his creation, created in his image. But his people became corrupted and began to destroy this good creation. Eventually God was like, “No this can’t go on. I’m going to end this and destroy the world with a mighty flood. But instead of destroying all in the world, he decided to start fresh with a good man. That good man was Noah. So he killed everyone and started fresh. However, people once again became corrupt. He had however promised Noah that never again would he destroy this world. So he then chose another good man to get his people to love and obey him, not to sin. He gave them the law and the law told them that they were doing things that were wrong. To these same people to whom he gave the law, he also gave a promise, a promise that through them he would come and rescue his people from their affliction. That good man that he started out with was Abraham, a man of faith. And then he gave the law to Moses and the prophecies of the coming of the saviour to many people throughout the following generations.

Because these people, the descendents of Abraham, were to carry the banner of God, they needed to reflect God in how they acted. That is why they were given the law – so that they could be told “this is how God is”. People who could not live up to the law were often ‘done away with’ or taught a tough lesson through hardship. God needed his people to look like him as much as possible if they were going to bring to all people the saviour. God had to take a hard line (at least to us it seems a hard line) with people so that he could be properly reflected as the God that he is – all love and no sin. Because the people could not keep to the law, because they could not perfectly reflect the God in whose image they were created, he said they should offer sacrifices to Him – let blood be shed for the blood that has been shed. This was to keep the people humble and help them to remember that he is God, and not them.

When God told the people that he would send a saviour, the descendents of this man called Abraham thought they were going to be saved from their affliction from other tribes and adversaries. But God had something else in mind…

He didn’t send a warrior king to kill and neither was the saviour sent to save only the descendents of Abraham, namely the Israelites. He instead sent his Son, a part of himself – God in human form. And he sent him so that all of God’s people, all people from all nations would be reconciled to God.

Jesus came as an example, to show once and for all what God is like and how he looks.
Previously God had showed himself through the beauty and perfection of his creation, the glory of what he had created and its amazing working together in perfect order and harmony.
Then people became corrupted and he further revealed himself to them through the provision of the law, through showing himself to some elected righteous men, through the power of his blessing on the people who obeyed him, and through the destruction of those who defied him.
And then finally he sent his Son as the ultimate revelation of himself. “Here I am” is what Jesus’ life said about God. Jesus was the mirror image of God himself. He came to show how a child of God looks when not corrupted by sin. So too did he tell people about what God is like and how he feels about sin and what sin really is.
So Jesus was the finest example of God and this example backed up how God had already revealed himself to the world through the glory of his creation, through his law which taught of love, through the blessings to the righteous and the destruction of the unrighteous.

But that is not all – not only did the Son come to show God to people in the most real and understandable way, but God also decided he wanted to bring an end to this sacrifice business.

“Right’” he said. “My son, created in my image, a reflection of me, who is without sin, is going to die as a sacrifice for all the sin in the whole world. What does that mean? It means that what I told you is true. He is the saviour you have been waiting for. He has saved you from the greatest affliction of all, an affliction far greater than sickness or hunger or war. He is going to save you from the affliction of…death. Sin leads to death for you. I don’t want anyone to die – you are my children. So my son is going to take the whole world’s sin onto him and he shall die the death of all the people in the entire world – past, present and future. The wages of sin is death – you sin, you die. He has not sinned, therefore he is a pure white lamb who can offer his life as a sacrifice, because being without sin, death has no claim on his life. I will die for your sin. I will die. But at the same time I will show that even in death because of sin, my love cannot be defeated. I cannot be defeated. I will conquer the power of sin and its ability to take life. This life I will bring too to those who have already died.”

And so Jesus was crucified and he rose from the dead and went to show himself to the people. “Look, I am alive! Sin had the power of death, but I have shown you now that I have power over death. Sin could not conquer me – not even all the sin in the world. I took all the sin in all the world – past, present and future. And I beat it. The battle is won, it is finished.”

That all sounds good but I find myself asking Jesus what this all means for us; and this is what he says:

“Well, firstly it means that all that have died and not heard about me will be shown who I am and will be told what I have done for you all. I want all people. I created every person in the world and I want them all to be with me in heaven. Because you see, you were condemned to die because this horrible thing called sin made you unfit for my kingdom. Sin is the antithesis of love – anything that is not love, is sin. I am love and therefore cannot be with sin in my kingdom, but I still wanted my kids. So what was I to do? I had to somehow conquer the sin in you, conquer the consequences of not being perfect in love. So now you are fit for my kingdom, because of what I have done for you.
I created this world so that you and I and all people could enjoy love and beauty together. I created you to share with me in love, aesthetic beauty, diversity and freedom. I wanted you to have all these things. Unfortunately you were deceived by the evil one and this perfect world became not-so-perfect. It is sick and infected – it is a beautiful sick world.

You were going to die, only having known this beautiful sick world. And that would be a shame for you never to know how I intended it to be, sin free. You would have asked yourself, “what is the point of all this?”
The only point would be that you should enjoy this life on earth as much as possible. But all that enjoyment would amount to nothing if sadly you would die at the end. But you don’t have to die. You can be with me in heaven one day. This evil and sin will be banished from our presence and never again will it infect us again or cause us harm. Then you will see how life was meant to be. You are going to spend 1000 years on earth first without any of this evil. You will be able to run and play and hang out with me and enjoy creation and infinitely enjoy and share in the multiplication of my love. Then I am going to wrap it all up, and you will come live with me in a new world, in heaven. And that is going to blow your minds! That is going to be forever, and every day will be better than the previous one.

You will worship, respect and love me because you will fully know me. You will obey me too. And I shall delight in you as my children. Everything we do shall be in love – my love for you, your love for me and our love for one another. All of it together will glorify me and my love and it shall be great.

Now remember what I have told you. I urge you to remember, because the evil one is still around and he is going to try and stop you from accepting what I have told you. Remember it by continuing to meet with your brothers and sisters and encourage one another and remind one another of my great plan. I want you to do this so you don’t get led astray by the evil one. He can cause your life to be far less that what it can be if you allow him to distract you by taunting you to pursue money and women and status and pleasures of the flesh. These things are not in the pursuance of love. Don’t chase after these things because there are better things to pursue in this life – you just have to trust me on this.

And now you may be asking what this means for your lives.
First, I have saved you from death. So you can have peace to know that you will not die, but you will be with me in heaven one day. You will rule with me in a perfect world one day. So know that if things don’t quite pan out in this life the way you hoped they would, that there is another life waiting for you.

Secondly, I have opened the way for you to know me. I will leave my spirit here with you. He will be your friend, guide, comforter, soul mate and teacher. This will serve a number of purposes. One is to give you a little taste of things to come because my spirit living in you will satisfy your desire to know me. You may not know it, but you all have a raging desire to know me – that’s how I wired you. So now through my spirit living in you, you can know me. Just ask him to come live in your heart. My spirit is also my power. I have chosen not to take you out of this world because I have my reasons, which you will not fully understand, but are perfect. Also, I have given you life on earth; I don’t want to now take it away! Life is a gift; even life in a sick beautiful world is a gift. I know that there are bad things and sad things that happen here all the time but it is ok. That is why I have given you my spirit – he gives you the power to overcome the bad things and sad things in this world. My power in you is great enough to overcome anything. So use my power. He will guide you and he will help you – you just have to ask. He will give you all you need so that you may have joy and peace inside even though on the outside the earth is sick and infected.”

“But what about those people that haven’t heard about you?” I hear myself asking.
Jesus replies, “Don’t worry about them. I will send someone to go and tell them, or I will tell them myself.
My mission now is to tell the whole world what I have done for you – those that are already dead and those that are still alive.
I want you to be part of that mission. You can decide if you would like to be part of it. I will not disown you if you choose to pursue other things in this life, because remember those are sins and I have died for them too. But let me give you some advice – this is the greatest thing you can do with your life. Trust me on this one! Spend your life in love – allow me to love you, love me back, love other people and tell them about what I have done for you all. This is the greatest thing you can do with your life. I encourage you to try it and see. As my son Solomon told you in the book of Ecclesiastes, the pursuit of worldly things will not satisfy you. They will make you happy for a very short time, but that will soon wear off and you will be left feeling empty again. These things are not enough to make you happy, to fill the hole in your soul. So come and take part in my plan to tell the world that I have reconciled it to myself. Remember that it is my plan, so you don’t have to stress about it, or get angry and frustrated when things don’t work out. Don’t try be me, just be part of my plan – I take full responsibility for how it works. It is a good plan and you will be happy you chose to pursue my purposes for your life. If you choose my ways, you will look back on your life and be happy, for it will not have been spent on meaningless pursuits. And I know you all crave meaning. That is another thing I wired you to desire. So just trust me and try it out.

I care about you; so listen to me. It makes me hurt when you don’t listen to me because I want the best for you. If you don’t take part, I will find someone else that will and my plan will still come to bear. My plans are greater than your disobedience, so don’t worry about that. But know that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. You don’t have to struggle to find people who are crying out for me, people who want to hear what I have told you and people who are ready to believe; people who are ready to be loved. They are everywhere! I have wired people so that they will be unhappy when they are without me, but when they find me they will rejoice because they will know that they have found what they were looking for. So go and enjoy the task I have given you and enjoy being part of something great and eternally worthwhile.

“But God, if we don’t chase after the things of this world, like money and career and women / men and nice things, then what will we eat and drink and how will we survive? Who will take care of us? We are taught from so young to pursue these things so we can look after ourselves, now you are telling us to not go after them. What’s that all about?”

God says: “I know that you need these things, I know that it is part of life to eat and drink and be clothed and have a partner and a job. I know it better than you because I created you! I made you to need these things. Now think about this: I came all the way down from heaven to live on earth, be crucified and rise again so that your soul could be saved. Do you not think that I would be able to take care of you having food in your stomach and clothes to wear? Look, there are many people who die of starvation and other such reasons. You fear the same fate, so you spend your lives storing these things up for yourselves so that you will never starve. But wake up my children! Don’t you see that you are worse off than the poor child that starves to death? You are worse off because your souls are starving – you spend your lives filling your grain stores and your bellies, yet you have neglected your hearts and your souls!

If you choose to lay down your lives for my sake, for my purposes, for my plan then I will feed you and clothe you. I will. I have told you I will and I am a God who you can trust.
I want to reiterate what I have told you because I know you struggle so much with this.
There are 2 main reasons why I don’t want you chasing after these things in this world:
1. There are better things, much better things, with which to fill your minds. Those things are the words I have spoken to you, many of them recorded in the Bible, being part of my plan to tell everyone what I have done for you, and growing in love for me and for others. This is the real good stuff! Why go scratching around in the dirt for plant roots when there is an oasis of fruit and meat a little way down the pathway? Trust me, this stuff is far better.
2. You will start to stress and worry if you chase after these things. You will miss out on my best for you. Remember you are all my children. I came to save you, and I did save you, from death. You are mine again – I made you and then I bought you; twice mine. I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I also know that I love you and have your best interests at heart – doesn’t what I have already done prove that to you. I will never leave you, nor forsake you, nor abandon you. I know the time and the day that I will call each and every one of you to come and be with me in heaven. I have set that time. Don’t spend your life trying to postpone the time when your life on earth will end, and neither should you spend your life worrying ‘if you will make it’ to the end. Just trust that how and when you go is my choice. All you have to do is trust me and obey me. Your worry will not add a single hour to your life. A life of worry is not the life I came to give you. I promised life in abundance, so if you want it stop worrying, start trusting in me and come and be part of my plan. It saddens me when people waste a perfectly well looked-after life on trying to look after it more, to build up more of a safety buffer. I am all the safety you need.

Another thing I don’t want you to worry about it what other people are doing. Don’t judge others because they may not be living in perfect obedience to me. No one on this planet lives in perfect obedience to me, so remember that. Yes, my example is the benchmark, but if others don’t quite make it then you are not allowed to judge them for it. You yourself are not hitting the mark either, even though you believe in me. Remember that I died for those people too and they will also have an equal opportunity to know me. They have been saved by me too. Tell all people the truth, tell them what I have done for you and encourage one another to grow in love, not in sin, and to grow in relationship with me, because that is best for all of us. But do not be hard on them and don’t judge them. If you really have a heart for them to know me or to know me better, then pray for them and I will send my spirit to work in their hearts.

But you are not allowed to judge them. I’ll tell you why.

Firstly, it breaks people down when you judge them. Judging brings about a change of behaviour, but not a change of heart. People feel guilty and hurt by judgement. Rather encourage and build people up. Secondly, judging people causes you to spend so much time on worrying what other people are doing and trying to make sure they do what they’re supposed to, that you forget about yourself. You miss what I am trying to tell you and grow in you. You do yourself a disservice as well when you judge people. So don’t do it. I have commanded you not to.

Don’t take other people’s sin personally – it is not your responsibility to change them. That is my responsibility and I will do it in my own time and in my own way. Your responsibility is merely to love and to pray and tell the truth.

I don’t want any of you to be involved in sin because I can see and I know how it destroys, even though it can no longer take life. It still destroys love. So pray for others and for yourselves and I will send my spirit to help you overcome this sin.
So don’t judge people for they are no different to you. You may be experiencing life more abundantly than them because of their sin or disobedience to me, but that is no reason to judge them. Remember that I died for them as well as you. They are saved by my death just like you have been saved. Just take it easy on them especially your loved ones. No one in this world is perfect and neither should they be. Where they are in life is where I have allowed them to be so that my work in their life can be brought to completion. Don’t stand there barking orders at people for the way they are living their lives – just speak the truth to their ears and then pray – I will take the words from their ears to their hearts. You cause way too much pain and stress on yourself and them when you bark orders. They are safe with me, just like you are. They may be doing things wrong, but so are you, and in all cases I have everything under control. I know how I am working in their lives. I have them right where I want them, not perfect, but on the path to realising they need more of me.

One last thing I know you are struggling to understand: if I have died for your sins, past, present and future, then why do I tell you to no longer sin?
It is because I love you! I don’t want you to do these things because I want the best for you. Sin hurts and destroys and is generally not good for anyone or anything. So please don’t sin, for your own sake and for the sake of others. The less sin there is in you, the better your life will be. Love should replace the sin in your life, and then you are really living it!
The other risk is that the sin will grab hold of you so tightly that you are not prepared to let go of it and believe in me.
You can go ahead and carry on in sin. I died for those sins too – you will never be able to commit enough sins to fall outside my grace. They are all paid for. And you will be with me in heaven one day as long as you continue to believe. But you would have not enjoyed the life I gave you to the full, because your life will be full of the heartaches and pain that accompanies sin. It’s for your own good, for me and for others that you don’t sin.

Learn what you can from the lessons of others and what I tell you, but know as well that you will also learn many, many lessons yourself, and these lessons will only become revealed to you once you have messed up. That is fine, so don’t stress about making mistakes. I don’t want you to mess up, but I also realise that through those experiences you can learn valuable lessons and grow through them. Don’t fear failure.
This is what I meant when I told you the parable of the men who were each given some talents. Two of the men receive 2 and 3 talents respectively and go and invest their talents and return double to the master and he is pleased with them. The third man is too afraid to invest his one talent, for fear of losing it, so he buries it in the ground. When the master comes, he gives back only one talent and says that he knew the master was a hard man and so didn’t want to take the chance of ‘messing it up or losing the money’. The master is furious and takes the one talent from him and gives it to those that have more.

I didn’t mean this parable to teach people to work hard. I told the parable to show you that you should not be scared of me. It’s supposed to teach you that you need not be afraid of losing what I have given you – your talents; your life. I don’t want you to be afraid of living your life for fear that I will punish you for not doing with it what I asked you to do. I have given you something to use, a life to live. Now go and use it! Yes, learn from my word, my spirit in you and the lessons of others, but don’t fail to live it for fear that you may mess it up. So I say again that you must go and use it. I will be with you to help you. I will, by my power, multiply your efforts. Like I did when I fed 5000 people on 2 fish and 5 loaves.
You see, each person has been given a certain number of talents, a measure of life. Some have 3 talents, some have 5 talents and some have one talent. That is how I made you and I have given to each person according to my will. I have limited each and every person in certain ways, because of good and loving purposes. So if you have one talent and your brother has five, do not covet what he has, for you have both been given according to my provision for you. Neither do I want you to fear losing the little that you have. And neither should you try and show the world that you do in fact have 5 talents. Accept what I have given you and go live it! If you spend your life coveting what others have, fearing losing the little that you have, believing that what you have is not good enough for me or if you spend your life pretending you have more than I have given you, then you will miss out on multiplying the life I have given you. Spending your time on these things is like burying your talent, your life, for fear of losing it.

You will make mistakes and you will lose a lot of the time, but if you continue to seek my guidance I shall ensure that you never lose it all. I will show you how and where to invest your life. Don’t be scared of me – I’m going to help you take this life of one talent and multiply it. Don’t you see that the important part of the parable is not how much each one received, but rather what they did with it? I am on your side, but I can’t help you invest it if you hide your life in your pocket and if you are not prepared to place a bet.
Remember these things:
1. You cannot gain your life unless you are prepared to lose it, to let go of it, to risk it by investing it elsewhere. Don’t clutch onto your life, worrying that you will lose it. Give it away wisely and you will see – some wins, some losses and as you go, you’ll get better and better and the returns on your life will start compounding and they will become massive. The talents I’m talking about is the gift of life I’ve given you – don’t be afraid to lose it. I am telling you to throw caution to the wind and lose it for my sake. I have given you R100 in a casino and told you to go and play the tables. This brings me to my next point.
2. I am going to help you. My spirit is with you all the time. I know you are not always going to listen. And sometimes I will allow you to go and play and lose. There may be many reasons for me allowing you to lose, but I will never let you lose everything and if you continue to follow me, you will make it all back and much, much more. So remember that no matter how much you lose, all is never lost. It will not always be easy; you will not always be winning, especially in the beginning. So don’t become paralysed or disheartened when you lose because it is all part of the plan. Just continue to seek me and the more you do that, the better you will hear my voice and the more you will win. But while you are seeking me, you have to keep playing. Note though that on this earth you will never get to the point where you are always winning, where you always bet on the right horse. But I will always ensure you make back your losses and more in the long run, if you choose me. So please remember this because I know you will struggle with this – don’t give up and don’t put your life in a little box and bury it under the ground. Throw it out there.

Here is another analogy – the farmer sowing his seeds.
Run through the fields and spread the seeds I have given you! As time goes by I will start moving and directing you to specific fields, but there is no point in me showing you where the good soil is if you’ve never learned to sow. The problem with you guys is you want to run through all the fields and inspect which ones are best for sowing, then go back, collect your bucket of seeds and begin to sow in the best areas. I am afraid that is not the way I work. You want to do this because you fear some seeds will fall on poor soil and not grow. You see yourself as down one seed if it does not take shoot. And by the time you get to run through all the fields, your life is over and you’ve planted nothing. You cannot go back and do it again. That is why you have to do it first time around. I therefore urge you to live your life; and at the same time seek my spirit’s guidance through prayer and listening.

Here is the truth – many seeds will fall on poor soil and not take shoot. You will try many things in life – relationships, friendships, studies, sports, ministries, goals, careers – and many of those seeds will not take shoot because they fell on poor soil. Don’t wallow in self pity wondering why something didn’t work. It didn’t work because I allowed you to plant that seed in poor soil. But listen to me, continue planting and sowing, because soon you are going to sow a seed that will produce a crop 100 times what was put in.
In life you may get down to your last handful of seeds, but I will never let you run out. All I want you to do is sow.
Different people in life struggle with different things. Some of you struggle to put your hand in the bucket and throw the seeds on the ground, while others are eager to dig in and scatter the seeds but they don’t listen to me when I tell them where to throw and where not to throw. Make sure you do both – sow the seeds and listen to me. Don’t spend your life crying over the handful of seeds you planted that never took shoot. Keep going! And you will see that I will lead you to rich soil and when you plant there, one seed sown will reap a crop 100 times greater! Don’t be short sighted so as not to see this. And remember always I will never leave you, nor forsake you. If you get down to your last handful of seeds, I will ensure you throw it right. And from there your crop will grow and your bucket will soon be overflowing with seeds again. You have to sow your seeds no matter what. You have to listen to me no matter what. Which do you struggle with?

Don’t be scared of me. I am with you. I love you. I do allow bad things to happen to you or allow you to go wrong, but it is never more than you can handle. Also I always bring more good out of the bad things than bad, for I overcame bad on the cross. I came here to help you; I am here to prosper you. You won’t prosper unless you listen. Neither will you prosper unless you use what I have given you. You may say I am a hard master. I am not. That is a lie. That is why my spirit is with you – to guide you in your endeavours. I allow you to get things wrong, how then can I judge you for it?! So if you find yourself sowing seeds on a path, where nothing will grow, don’t beat yourself up about it. Just sow and just listen to me. I will not disown you for sowing on the pathway and I will not be angry. I use my power and love to pull you along. Sometimes you just don’t listen to me, and this can continue for many years. In this case I will speak louder and louder until you hear me and then you will eventually realise that you have been doing it wrong. Then you will look for answers and you will find me. I will lead you to good soil and you will plant there and those crops will increase 1000 fold. I will ensure that your crop, once it is started will abound and you will have far, far more than you had at the start.
I never told you not to make any mistakes. I never told you to fear spending years of your life planting seeds on a path where they won’t grow. You fear too much my wrath but my wrath is not for you. You are my child and I am here to stand right next to you and watch you as you go about your life. And when you are ready to listen then I will speak and show you what it is I want you to do and where I want you to go. You do not have to plant every seed in perfect soil. I am a farmer and I am teaching you how to be a farmer. A farmer sows seeds. When he is young he cannot tell which is good soil and which is bad soil, so he plants everywhere.

Only through these years of planting, with season after season of experience, does he learn where is good to plant. You are still a very young farmer. You do not need to know where is the good soil just yet. Just listen to me when I speak, know my voice and obey me. Then just cast your seeds far and wide and use the seasons of your life to learn. You are not missing out and you are not wasting your life or your talents. Wasting your talents is when you don’t use them. Wasting your life is being paralysed by fear not to live it. Just be prepared to roll with me, even when I allow you to go wrong, because this is important time of learning. You do not have to get it right from the start. I may lead you to plant on a pathway to teach you something.

I have a plan for you and it is perfect. The fields in your life plan will not always be full of rich soil, but their use in my plan is perfect. So don’t freeze there and not plant. Plant, and if there is no crop, then so be it. Learn from it and move on. I would hate for you to spend your life trying to decipher my voice and you’ve never cast a handful of seeds. That is what I don’t want for you. I know that you struggle a lot with this because you want a perfect record – you want to look back on your life and say you scored a return of ten times for every planted seed, while other people only got an average return of 5 times. But you have only planted one handful of seeds.
As much as you want this impeccable record, that is not my way. I would rather you have a return of 1.1 times but you’ve planted 100 million seeds. Be wary of pride because you have done better than everyone else. I love you, now go plant! If I tell you to go and plant everywhere, then how can I love you less if your yields are low? I told you to plant and I foreknew you were not going to get good yields. So no, my love is not dependent on your yields. My love for you is secure. Nothing can separate you from my love. My love is even secure if you don’t plant, if you do get paralysed by the fear of messing up. But come on, I am urging you to have a better life, a great life and this is the way to do it. I know you want to, you are just scared. You are scared of messing up so big that I will not love you. That cannot happen, it is impossible. You are scared of not making the most of your life. But I am all about making the most of your life according to my own ways. You do this because you are paralysed by the fear of not knowing what to do. But don’t be scared. Your life will return a great deal not by always knowing what to do, but rather by just doing it. There will be many, many droughts in-between and you will not know when they are coming. Do not try and predict the droughts. Just plant, and if you get caught in a drought then learn from it.
All I am saying is don’t be afraid of messing up. You will mess up in the short term. But in the long term it is impossible to mess up for I will prosper you through the bad times. All those little R100 mess ups will pale in comparison to the R1bn return you will have at the end.

Listen and plant. You struggle to plant. So plant. Try different things, play different tables. I am always with you and will never let you do something I don’t want you to do. How will you ever know the good soil from the bad if you haven’t seen both? So go and see all there is, and in all places, plant. Go where I tell you and if I don’t tell you, and then know that where you are is just fine.