John Wasserman Podcast John Wasserman

Our concern for our spiritual growth should be greater than that for our retirement benefits, or our desire for learning and studying. The responsibility for growth is ours, God has provided all that we need for this in that He sent Jesus to die for us, giving us everything pertaining to life and godliness. The Bible is our rule for what we believe and how we live. The Bible is more than ink on paper, but words of spirit and life, the breath of God. Jesus is the Word, the means of our transformation. The Word is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. The Word equips us towards good works. Studying the Word shows us approved of God because in the Word is where we discover the content, resource, and power towards transformation. We need to have a strong desire for the Word. We read the Word for information, knowledge, and understanding. We read to memorise, meditate, and pray the Word, asking for wisdom, and approaching it with attitude of humility and teachability. This is then followed by revelation, enlightenment, or realization, where we hunger to meet with God, and see ourselves (actions, words, thoughts, and motives), by the input and help of the Holy Spirit, in the light of every passage read. The end product of assimilating the Word, is experiencing the powerful transformation that comes by it. Once a person is transformed by the Word, their words will be filled with them same transformational power to transform others.

Society is geared towards the idea that a person is valued and loved according to what they can do, and that is seen as what a person is worth. However, there is a big difference between the worth of a person and being worthy, in the spiritual sense of the word. When we look at the life of Moses, when God commissioned him to go and deliver Israel, the real reason (despite his many excuses) for not wanting to obey, was that he was scared that, in returning to Egypt where he had killed a person, he would be executed. When God assured him that everyone who wanted to do so had died, he was finally willing to go. God regarded Israel as his son, his family. Moses had been in exile and to become God’s avenger of blood on Israel’s behalf, he had to become part of the covenant or family of God again. Circumcision was required to become part of the covenant and Moses had failed to circumcise his son, making Moses unworthy. God then tried to kill him. God’s hand was averted when Moses’ son was circumcised, thus fulfilling the terms and conditions of the Law, making Moses worthy of his calling. It is clear according to various scriptures, that mankind is only worthy of death. In the book of Revelation we see that Jesus was the only one who was found worthy. There are times when we, as Christians, are commissioned to do something, like Moses was, but we fail to walk according to God’s principles, we fail to obey his instructions, and we have all kinds of excuses because we are careful to protect our ego. Jesus paid the price to redeem us from our sins on the cross, not to make us worthy. The only thing that makes us worthy is being led by the Spirit and obeying, picking up our cross and dying to ourselves. We should stop being disobedient and thereby keeping the self alive (self-preservation), so that the purposes of God for all of creation can come to fruition through us. Christ is formed in us through the killing of the unworthy Moses. Let us embrace the dying to self in the fire that never stops burning.

The sunflower is known for its ability to follow the sun and we are the same, but we are sons-flowers who keep our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus. Serving Jesus is not just to reach perfection in heaven but should affect the quality of our daily lives. The quality of our lives depends on staying vulnerable to the Holy Spirit. Vulnerability, or being open and honest, is not a weakness, but rather a strength because pretending to be something you are not, is a trap which not only limits our freedom in Christ, but also gives the enemy control over us. We can also place ourselves in a place of slavery to a false image which we maintain to make up for our failures and feelings of insecurity. To obtain freedom from this bondage, and to have change wrought inside of us, we need several things. By the grace of God through the Holy Spirit, we need to have a contrite spirit and a surrendered, submissive, and mouldable heart. It is good to also share that which burdens you with a trustworthy person. The grace we receive from the Holy Spirit is what enables us to change and that restores excitement in our walk with God. The Spirit is always in us, but it is our responsibility to give him our attention and thereby activate the grace and faith that we need. It takes making a single-minded decision to believe God, to be vulnerable to him, and accept his help in whatever area of our lives we need change. It is important to maintain the right attitude while we are on this journey of growing and maturing with the Holy Spirit. The right attitude will determine the length of a trial, as well as the measure of victory at the end of it.

If we were to look back at the way we were before we got saved and compare it to who we are at present, we realize that God has been at work with a transformation within, in other words, Christ is being formed within us. We have been changed to being more loving, patient, generous, caring, and being able to live in faith – all of that because we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and this change is a lifelong process. Many of the prophetic words spoken over our lives are an indication of where God is taking us in this journey. We should not take these prophecies lightly but do our utmost to assist in what the Spirit is doing through following certain spiritual disciplines. We follow these disciplines by the help of God and his grace, not as if they are a law. However, when we look at the Law given to Israel, it already contained a lot of grace. The law was given to establish Israel as a people portraying a righteous God and to protect them from the negative consequences of sin. The law gives rules to live by but merely doing that mechanically cannot change the heart. There were those Israelites like Moses, Joshua, Caleb, and King David, who did not only want to abide by the rules, but reached out to get into a loving relationship with the one who gave the Law. This relationship with God caused his Law to be written on their hearts, shaping and transforming them, guiding them, and enabling them to do exploits. Even so, they realized that there was something more. Through what Jesus did on the cross, we are completely free to reach our full potential and destiny through Christ being formed inside of us by the Holy Spirit. The righteous law, which is to love God and your neighbour, is now written on our hearts. After our salvation our good works are alive, they are actions of grace, love and faith. Our works flow forth from an ever-growing relationship with God. It is important to constantly keep our hearts soft and make sure that the motive for our works is only God’s love.

Prayer is one of the highest forms of humbling yourself before God, because it is an admission of your total submission to, dependence and reliance upon, and trust in him. This attitude is a necessity in the process of Christ being formed in us. In the history of Israel, we saw that king Asa called out to the Lord for help when an overwhelming enemy came against them, acknowledging that they were helpless, and that God was their only recourse. God gave them the victory. It is the same in our lives, when we face that which is overwhelming, faith-filled prayer is our way of accessing answers and help from God. He will never fail to answer prayer, because we are his children, the apple of his eye. To see his promises unto us be fulfilled, is to him a manifestation of his honour. However, Asa relied on a heathen king when he came under attack again, reaping only trouble. That is a lesson to us, to not start relying on the arm of flesh after having started in the spirit, which shows disrespect and is dishonouring God. The prayer life of Jesus is the perfect example to us. Solitary prayer, avoiding attention and the honour of man, was habitual to him. He prayed with faith and humility, totally relying on his Father. His faith was in the Word of God. He prayed for wisdom in the choosing of his disciples. His prayers were heartfelt, passionate, and powerful, displaying his love for God. His prayers were based on his knowledge of God and God’s deliverance-bearing, transforming truth. He taught us to first seek the Kingdom of God and be persistent and tenacious in prayer. Prayer is not an option, but a necessity. We, as Christians, must take responsibility for what is happening on the earth, getting the heavens involved in what is transpiring here, all through the avenue of prayer.

It might not sound as if surrendering is a good thing, but there is a great blessing in surrendering our lives to God. Our problem, which originated from the fall of mankind, is being too independent, opinionated, and stubborn. However, there is a freedom that comes from surrendering to your commanding officer, the Lord Jesus Christ. As Christians, we do not have the liberty to do what is pleasing in our own eyes. An independent attitude will only result in a life that is lost. We are to rather live a life of surrender and thereby save our lives. This means that we are to follow Jesus, deny ourselves, and take up our cross, living according to every principle in the Word of God. Christians should not be living with the same lax morals and in the sinful ways of the world. Living God’s way means denying yourself. This is not easy, like for instance when denying your body’s hunger, or not reacting when provoked. We even saw Jesus’ will shrink back from the imminent pain when He asked for the cup to be removed while praying in Gethsemane, but regardless, He surrendered his will to that of the Father. Taking up our cross is something we are to do on a daily basis. It is God’s will for us to be sanctified and holy, living like- and imitating Jesus, being continually filled with the Holy Spirit, since He is the one who enables us to live in this way. We need to harken to the word which is coming from our commander, that the war of living an independent life has ended two thousand years ago, and surrender our wills and lives to him.