A-03

Basic Lessons for a Prophet

Lesson 3: Discipline unto immortality

Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I

fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline
my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I
have preached to others, I myself should become
disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:26-27).

God created Adam in His image and likeness and

placed him in the Garden of Eden. Adam lived in a
divine atmosphere of pure life and divine
fulfillment. His whole being, spirit, soul and body
were completely alive to God and in absolute
harmony with Him, living in the light of His
presence. Adam was breathing the air of Paradise
enjoying limitless vision due to His perfect focus on
the Lord. His focus on the Lord was His source of
vision and strength. The secret of His power was a
spontaneous and divine intimacy with the Lord
because of an inexorable and intense yet relaxed
focus on the Lord. There was no need for him to
exercise discipline in his walk with God because he
was perfectly created in the image and likeness of
God. God created Adam the perfect disciple, a
paragon of discipline; the son that the Father
desired.

Adam took his focus of God when he listened to the

serpent that guided his focus away from God onto
himself. When he saw himself through the eyes of
the serpent he became discontented with himself
by comparing himself to the Almighty and he
sinned. He decided to have opened eyes
independently from God, a focus of his own, by
eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, opposing the will of God through
rebellious disobedience.

Becoming a transgressor he changed creation and

life as he knew it for the worse. His perfect life
turned into a nightmare of imperfection, manifested
in incompetence, toil and sweat. God separated
Adam from Him by imprisoned him into the natural
realm of sin and death. He lost the ability to sense
God with his body and soul. Since that lamentable
day man could not observe God with his natural
senses. Because Adam sinned and fell from the
glory that he had in God, we all sinned and fall
short of the glory of God. The most valuable asset
that Adam had, his perfect focus on the Lord, we
lost in him. Fallen man started to call on the name
of the Lord that he might regain the lost focus of his
vision in some measure. Man’s focus on God
shifted to self. In his over absorption with self his
focus is fixed on the lust of the flesh, lust of the
eyes and pride of life. That resulted in us becoming
blind and weak, which is a definition of a walk in
the flesh that produces death resulting in us dying
like mere men. The only exceptions were Enoch
(without the law) and Elijah (under the law), who
through the focus of their faith never tasted death
because God took them that they may bodily dwell
in His presence. If we dare to live like these two
faith heroes we need not to taste death but we can
enter into the glory that they have entered.

Is God a respecter of person that He took Enoch

and Elijah and let every other man die the death of
mortals. No! Certainly not! God did not give man a
choice to choose between good and evil but
between life and death. I call heaven and earth as
witness today against you, that I have set before
you life and death, blessing and cursing;
therefore choose life, that both you and your
descendants may live (Deuteronomy 30:19,
emphasis added).
Enoch and Elijah chose life that is why they lived.
Others believed they must die like there ancestors
because that is the way of life. That is not life but
death! Others think because they knew the
doctrine of immortality that God will not let them
die. No! You choose if you want to live or die!
Where there is no heavenly vision (focus on the
Lord) the people perish.

Unless you live like Enoch and Elijah you will die the
death of a mortal. How did they live? They lived in
the Spirit, the live of immortals. What is living in the
Spirit? They choose life. How did they do it? For
those who live according to the flesh set their
minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live
according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit
(Romans 8:6-7). So it speaks of the focus of your
faith which involves the imagination of your heart.
If you live in the sphere of life you will live and if
you live in sphere of death you will die. This is the
choice that God gives every man that came into the
world.

Enoch means in the Hebrew language initiated or

instructed to a level of great proficiency in some
secret knowledge. Enoch had a very intimate
relationship with God in which the Lord revealed to
him the mystery of Life. He must have had a
consuming hunger after the life that Adam had in
God. He asked and kept on asking and found the
Life of God; he seek and kept on seeking and he
found the Fountain of Life, he knocked and kept on
knocking and the Door of Life (Jesus) was opened
unto him (Matthew 7:7). Adam lived 930 years on
earth and was 682 years old when Enoch was born.
So their lives had an overlap of 248 years (Genesis
5). So Adam must have told Enoch firsthand, in fine
detail, about his life with God in paradise, the
history and the consequences of the fall and his life
thereafter in this broken universe. Adam must have
instructed Enoch wisely in the ways of life which he
used as a foundation to build upon His faith-love
relationship with God. Enoch’s whole purpose for
living was to know and to drink from the Fountain
of Life and to live forever. In his search for life he
had an unyielding and uncompromising focus of
faith on God. This is the mystery of life. He
discovered the discipline unto life. He believed
God so much (focus so much on God) that He took
him bodily to live forever with Him in the Spirit. He
chose life over death.

Elijah, born under the law was the second man that
God translated into life that he might not taste
death. Elijah means in the Hebrew language “My
God is YHWH” or “My God is Jehovah.” He was so
focused on who his God was and so much aware of
Him that God honored his great faith and took him
bodily to live with Him forever.

These two mighty faith heroes had it in common

that they were both prophets, which emphasizes
vision of hope and focus of faith. Enoch lived in
a dispensation without the law and Elijah was born
under the law. Regardless the dispensation, without
a focus of faith it is impossible to please God.

Jesus took away the old covenant to establish the

New Covenant in His blood. He came in the likeness
of Melchizedek as High Priest of God and
established a perfect covenant according to the
power of an endless life (Hebrews 714-17). It is a
covenant of pure life.

When Jesus Christ died on the cross he took care of

our old nature of sin and death. He died that we
may live; the Father forsook Him that He will never
have to leave us or to forsake us. He has reconciled
us to God that we may have the relationship and
life which Adam had with God restored on a much
higher level, even the life of Christ. If anyone is in
Christ he is a new creature. It has nothing to do
with your background whether you had a noble or
lawless background but you need to be born again,
in Him, a new creature. He took away your old
sinful nature and He gave you His divine nature and
life through the sacrifice of His cross. He made all
things new for you. He brought you hope that if you
believe in God and Jesus Christ whom the Father
sent that you will live and not die.

Our greatest struggle is to focus on the Lord that

we may be changed in the spirit of our minds, even
into the image of Christ. When we behold the Lord
with an open face, as in a mirror, the glory of the
Lord changed us into the same image from glory to
glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. The more we
exercise the focus of our faith the more easily it
become and the more we behold the Lord the more
we change into His likeness.

To exercise your focus on the Lord in faith is to

exercise repentance. Unless you face deep
repentance, you will shut the door to the future
progressive revelation that God would give you. A
ministry involves a walk with God. It begins by
being open to God, searched out and cleansed. It
involves a set focus on the Lord, a focus that will
bring you to believe that you are forgiven, that you
may have confidence in Christ to do whatever the
Holy Spirit lays on your heart.

Repentance is the basis to start disciplining your

spirit to walk with God. Paul compared it with
running a race (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). Before
entering a race one need to train. Training takes
much discipline and sacrifice. Being an ex-
marathon athlete I know that you need to train your
body on the disciplines of cardiovascular fitness,
strength and speed. Only one takes the price and
one must run in such a manner that it is you who
win. That refers to race management that is a
mental discipline, which comes through experience.
A day or two before running the race I would drive
over the full length of the course to get acquainted
with its profile. It is good to have a map of the
course and to make notes of the inclines and
declines of the course. Thereafter, I will visualize
myself running the race over and over in my mind. I
will feel the rhythm of my body, how relaxed my
shoulders still will be after 32 km. My visualization
was later on so good that the difference between
my visual and my actual race times varied only
with seconds. Visualization is part of mental
discipline. It is wise to listen very carefully to
whatever advice or leading your coach may offer.
After all he knows your whole person very, very
well and he provides you with an objective picture
of your abilities just before race day.

The spiritual is not first, but the natural, and

afterward the spiritual (1 Corinthians 15:46). As it is
in the natural so is it in the Spirit. To get spiritually
fit is to rid you through repentance from the hay,
wood and stubble of religion to become a vessel of
honor fit for the master’s use.

How will we prepare ourselves for this spiritual race

of endurance? You can only relate to God who
dwells in the Spirit through His word. His word is
given to you that you may relate to Him more
correctly so that He may find fulfillment in you and
you in God. God lives in the Spirit and those who
wanted to serve Him must serve in Spirit and in
truth. So what does these fancy words actually
mean? It means you can only relate to God through
faith, hope and love in His word (1 Corinthians
13:13). Faith, hope and love are the only doorways
into the Spirit where God dwells. What
cardiovascular fitness, speed and strength are to
your body in a long distance race, faith, hope and
love are to your spirit in running the race of life.

To map the course and to make notes of the profile

of the road is the same as to search out the
Scriptures that you can get an idea of the profile of
the course of life. The visualization of the race is
the meditation on the word while focusing on the
Lord. Your coach of life is the Holy Spirit and you do
nothing without Him. You should discuss everything
with the Holy Spirit because He is the One that will
teach and lead you in all things.

As we live no longer but Christ lives in us, it is His

faith, hope and love in operation. Grace is to live
no longer your own life but to manifest the
faith of the Lord Jesus Christ; to be motivated
by the heavenly vision of hope that He placed
in your heart and to be compelled by His love.
Faith, hope and love that are fueled by the carnal
mind and emotions of the soul, account for nothing.
It originates from a focus on self and misses the
target just as far as Adam missed the target when
he transgressed. Your relationships toward God,
one another and the rest of creation consist of
faith, hope and love of Christ in you.

How does the faith of Christ works? You can

compare it with an automobile. You are the starter
motor and Christ is the engine and rest of the
automobile. The initiative of your faith (starter
motor) in line with the will of the Father calls
Christ’s faith (engine and rest of the automobile)
into action. When His Spirit flows through you, it is
a manifestation of His excellence and power and
not that of flesh and blood for all the glory belongs
to His majesty on high. Very seldom you will be
aware that He flows through you because a walk
with God is a walk through faith and not by
feelings. For this you need to exercise the focus of
your faith to be on Christ. The best way is to
practice His presence. Meditate with Him on His
word. Pray and intercede with Him. Pray in the
Spirit. Share with Him His ministry of intercession
for the saints. The true ministry is part of the
ministry of Christ. Because your life is hidden in
Christ you share in His life and you share in His
ministry. This is true humility, His humility. If you
have been crucified with Christ you have died with
Him. You were raised with Him to share in His life.
He died that you may have His life and has it more
abundantly.

I follow some steps to practice my focus on Jesus.

And exercise yourself toward godliness (I Timothy
4:7b). I have a formal way and an informal way of
practicing my focus on the Lord. Both should be
practiced. Let us start with the formal way first.
Firstly, I do it the same way as meditating on the
Scriptures and waiting on the Lord. Focusing is just
a small but the most important aspect of
disciplining your spirit to walk with God. I will relax
myself on my favorite chair having only my Bible, a
piece of paper and a pen.

I will make sure that my spirit is open to the Lord. I

try to keep my spirit open to the Lord all the time
through prayer and communication with Him, or
just keeping Him alive in my memory. I pray in
tongues or worship and praise Him or just share
with Him what is going on in my physical
environment. I promise you we have much fun.
There is often times when I weep. When I see the
goodness of God, it often gets to my emotions
because it is too much for me to handle.

Secondly, I will pray in a relaxed manner mostly to

find out what the mood of the Holy Spirit is.
Sometimes I cannot determine it. It does not matter
because God is in control of my life. I will just focus
on Him just like my dog that will sit next to me to
await my slightest command. When the Lord draws
my attention I always feel special. Just the idea that
He cares make me feel like the prince I really am.
Yet it leaves me very humble because His love is
far above I can comprehend.
Brokenness and worship flood my being every day
of my life. When the anointing gets heavy it is not
difficult to keep your focus on God. If you battle
with your focus just pray and worship the Lord.
Then read your favorite Scripture. It is good to
prime your memory with something good. Just think
about your last meeting with God and meditate on
it. You can easily tune into that anointing and you
have something to start with. You need not to feel
anything because our walk is through faith and not
feeling. However, you will become aware of Him as
you drinking from the Fountain of Life.

Thirdly, choose a passage of Scripture without

paging too much through your Bible. You should not
take longer than 30 to 40 seconds otherwise you
may disturb the flow of the Holy Spirit if your focus
is distracted too much. The attitude with which you
read the passage is very important. View the
passage that you read as a letter from the Lord, as
the most important message of your life.

Fourthly, read the passage (your letter) with Him.

Ask the Spirit of Truth to explain His letter to you.
Be informal but treat Him with utmost respect and
love. The Holy Spirit is fun and laughter but
sometimes He will express His serious concern
about the content of the message. Sometimes He
will give you general or specific guidance. Then
again He might just seek your fellowship.
What has this to do with discipline? Everything, you
need to know Him in all your ways. If you consult
the Lord in all of your ways and you lean not on
your own understanding, then only you will know
that you have developed a fixed and solid focus on
God.

If you need to consult the Lord about something

outside of the Scriptures you do it no differently.
Sometimes He will speak to you and sometimes you
need to exercise more patience and endurance.
The Lord will speak to you at the right time.
Sometimes He needs to prepare you for the
answer. He is never late. Faithfulness and
obedience is the shortest way toward fulfillment.

Fifthly, record in detail what you have received

from the Holy Spirit. Do not add (never assume) or
take away from the impression or revelation.
Especially when you receive a vision, as it will
influence the interpretation. Then the Lord
answered me and said: “Write the vision and make
it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it”
(Habakkuk 2:2).

I have a revelation, dream and vision journal on my

personal computer where I record my revelations,
dreams and visions because I am not good at
writing down my dream the first time in strict
sequential order of events. My handwritten copy is
always a mess.

Sixthly, analyze the revelation. Dreams, visions and

revelation have an unfolding nature. The longer you
meditate on them the clearer they become as your
vision is magnified because of the presence of the
Lord.

Daily prayer and meditation on the word of God is a

healthy habit. It is not good enough to believe God
for revelation. A wrong focus seldom provokes
revelation. When you are involved in prayer,
worship, waiting on the Lord and living in the Word
you minister to God and others. The bottom-line is
that your spirit needs to be disciplined to be
focused on the Lord all the time. Then the
revelation gifts which you have received from of
the Holy Spirit, dreams and visions will start to
operate. The will of God is for your own good; to
bring His Son forth in you that you may touch
others.

Lastly, take responsibility for what the Holy Spirit

has revealed to you. Meditate on your revelation
and pray it through until its fulfillment and
maturity. Obedience is better than sacrifice. This
should be your attitude, “To please You, O Lord, is
the cry of my spirit. To please You is what I am
living for.” And again, “O, that I may see Your face.
Reveal Your glory to me, that will be sufficient for
me.”

The informal method of waiting on the Lord differs

from the formal method in that you are busy with
daily things while you are focusing on the Lord. This
comes with much experience. You involve God in
everything you do; treating Him as if you are
working with Him. Your focus is then set on the
Lord and on your physical activity at the same time.
This is how creative works and divine inventions are
born. The more you discipline your focus the sooner
you can do this. The more you are absorbed in God
the easier it is. The measure of your focus on God
depends directly on how much you are absorbed in
God.

On the 5th of January 2010 I had the following

dream: I saw myself in front of a large Church
congregation and I sense a strong prophetic
anointing on me. I thought to myself, “How easy to
prophecy when the anointing of the Holy Spirit is so
powerful.” Then I prophecy saying, “The Lord wants
to bless His people. Hear the word of the Lord. Is
there nobody that seeks My face? Is there nobody
that seeks to know Me?” Then the prophetic flow
dried up. I walked to the door of this big church and
stood with my hands against the doorpost looking
toward the floor being disappointed. A prophet
friend of mine and the man of God that presides
over this Church came and stood next to me. My
friend looked at me and though he did not speak to
me indicated to me, “This was the prophecy.” Then
I understood that it was all that the Lord wanted to
say.

It is clear from the above that the Lord admonishes

us to press on to know Him. Indeed 2010 is the
season for rapid spiritual growth if we
discipline our spirits to be focused on the
Lord. For with You is the fountain of life; In Your
light we see light (Psalm 36:9).