The Offensive Healing of Jesus

Won’t you turn to, in your Bibles please, the gospel of John. We’re going to read from chapter 5. I’m going to try and do some thoughts... You know, I am a full-on external processor, which sometimes gets me into trouble. And tonight, I want to just externally process a little bit around this. If I’m allowed to be honest and vulnerable for a moment; I’m in church and I’m going to be. It has been a crazy few weeks, we’ve been working super hard. We’ve been on this incredible journey. And when we said “yes” we said, “Yes, we’ll preach on Sunday! It’s going to be so brilliant! It’s going to be amazing!” And after a week of ministering, I was like, “Jesus, help me.” And so, what I wanted to do is to just take you on a journey into my own kind of devotion, in terms of reading this particular text, and some thoughts that God has given me around this. And so, if you’re okay, I’m going to externally process around that. Is that okay?

Great. John, chapter 5, and we’re going to read from verse 1. “After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”” Isn’t that an interesting question? “The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. So, the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” 

If you know anything about me, you will know that over the last two years I’ve probably preached out of the gospel of John more than any other gospel, because John is one of my favourite gospels. It’s the gospel of new beginnings. It is the genesis of the creation that God had always intended but had been distorted because of sin. It’s the gospel of resurrection. It’s the gospel of signs, as some commentators say. They point to a bigger reality called Jesus. And so, you see all these signs throughout the gospel of John pointing to the person of Jesus, and those who were reading predominantly would have been Jewish readers who understood the history of Israel, who understood the law, who understood different aspects of Jewish context. And therefore, this book signed in symbolism would’ve been picked up and they would’ve had a sense, or a drawing, or markers along the gospel that point to the beautiful person of Jesus. Not only do they point to Him as a good man, not only do they point to Him as a healer, but they point to Him as the Saviour and as Lord, and as God. And it was completely outrageous that a man could equate himself with God, but that’s the beauty of salvation: that God, Himself, puts on flesh. God, Himself, puts on this physical body; He’s clothed with the same dust and dirt that you and I are clothed with. Glory as word, it’s covered in dirt. Isn’t that beautiful? And that’s what the gospel of John is all about, and I love this particular verse because it really just kicks the religious in their face. I like anything that deals with religion. I’m so glad that God has not invited us into a life of rules and regulations; He’s invited us into a living relationship with Him, where He leads us by His spirit. That’s the good news: that it’s not by our words, but it is by what He has done. 

 And what’s happening in this context is there’s this pool called the pool of Bethesda. Some legends say that there was an angel that used to stir it up, and it would begin to bubble up from the ground, and when you got into that water you would get healed. This was a secular site, as it were. It was not considered holy by the Jews, because gentiles would also try to get into the water. In fact, before it became popular to be used as the pool of Bethesda, it was used in secular demonic worship. I don’t know if you know that. When you begin to study up around the history, you begin to understand that Jews and gentiles would try to get into the water all alike in this particular context, because there was something that they thought was supernatural about this. What I find fascinating about this is that right next door to this pool was the temple. Now, the temple was the place where heaven and earth were supposedly to have met. It was the place where God’s divine purposes were on display. It was the place where there was no separation between the goodness of God and the earth, in incredible union and incredible submission, to heavenly dimensions. How many of you know that heaven, in the Bible, is not the place we go to when we die. Heaven, in the Bible, is a co-existing reality where the goodness of God overshadows everything else. And I find it fascinating that the temple, which was built by this time by the hands of man, did not contain enough power for people to line up outside the temple. And they would go to a pseudo-supernatural encounter next door to the temple to try get something that they desperately needed. 

I want to suggest to you: I wonder if some of our churches are maybe built a little bit like this. That we find everyone going everywhere else to find a spiritual encounter, rather than the place where heaven and earth is supposed to meet. I believe that God is inviting us into an incredible space, and into an incredible place, where we become those people that activate and unlock the purposes of God for wherever and whoever we come into contact with. And what’s beautiful about this particular thing is that Jesus, who I love so much because He just always offends the religious minds. He always offends the law-keepers, the moral police, the guys who like to make sure you’ve got all your ducks in a row. And what He does is, He does not go to the temple to heal, He goes to the secular place. He doesn’t go to a sacred, holy place to heal. He moves from the holy place to the so-called secular ‘dirty’ place, where even Jews and gentiles were getting into the same water, and that’s the place He chooses to heal. 

There’s something that the writer, John, is wanting us to understand here. He’s wanting us to understand that God’s not calling us to live simply in the confines of what we find ‘holy’ and what we find ‘secular’. I get to travel all over the world; I go to many holy sites, as it were. I go to many beautiful buildings. But how many of you know that the Bible says God does not live in buildings made by the hands of man, He now lives in you. And so, there’s something so outstandingly beautiful when Jesus is willing, in His day, against a cultural backdrop of expectation. This is a ‘feast moment’, the Bible says. This is a moment where you should be going up into the temple to offer your sacrifice, but instead of going to the so-called ‘holy place’, He does a detour and He heals someone in the secular space. Brothers and sisters, we have got to give our faith feet. We’ve got to live outside the confines of what we think is holy and sacred, and begin to move into the secular spaces of this world, so that His kingdom comes with incredible power. In this very context, we see Jesus speak to this person— I just love how Jesus does this. Like, there are literally thousands of people who are sick. Obviously, this ‘healing pool’ was not that successful. I mean, there are multitudes of invalids there. The pool, apparently, was massive. This is not a little pool where you had to just get your tip-toe in; it wasn’t a little jacuzzi that you had to try get in. No, this was a pool the size of a football field, some commentators say. There were multitudes of people there, and no-one was able to get in, and not many people were getting healed. The thing about pseudo religion, the thing about pseudo spirituality, is that it always leads you into a place of hunger that it can never meet. It always leads you into a place of desire and passion that can never be fulfilled, because your heart was made for another. Your heart was made for the desire of all nations, and His name is Jesus. 

The Bible says that God sets eternity into our hearts. He puts something into our hearts that says there must be more than this. It’s how you were designed. And in this context, Jesus looks at this man and says, “Do you want to be healed?” Now, I wish I had time to talk about this, because I find it so super fascinating that many people who live in sickness and disease are happy to stay that way because it’s been connected to their identity and their purpose. I’ve literally offered to pray for people who are very sick, and they go, “No thank you, I’m going to lose my benefits.” I’ve honestly had that happen to me, because their identity has been so caught up in their sickness. Their identity has been so caught up in their weakness, in their brokenness, that they’ve never, ever understood that there is an opportunity for wholeness. I find it fascinating that what Jesus is doing here is He’s trying to get to the heart of this man who has been paralyzed for over 38 years, and said to him, “You do not have to live this way. What do you want from me?” 

I’m going to go here for a moment. The aim of Christian pasturing is not to put a Band-Aid on woundedness. The aim of Christian pasturing is to give tools to walk into healing. I find it fascinating, very often in church communities, that the pursuit of service, the pursuit of being in community, is determined by what the pastor does for me rather than what I bring to the community. Eina, right? And so, the pastor didn’t visit me when I had my ear op, I’m going to get upset. No, no, no. The whole point of an empowering Christian community is to help you understand that you’re a powerful person. You get to make choices, you get to respond. You cannot— I said this at the conference— I cannot give you offense, you can only take it. The Bible says, “Blessed; extremely happy, ecstatically happy, is the one who is not offended.” And I want to encourage you. There is a level of maturity that needs to come to our communities to begin to understand that the aim of our community is not to give you another crutch; the aim of the community is to see your fully whole, so that free people free people. 

Do you want to get well? And before he even gets to answer properly, because he gives a very random answer about how he can’t get in, Jesus says to him, “Get up.” Now, this is seemingly insignificant, but when you understand what this word is in the original Aramaic here, it means to be resurrected or recreated. That’s the exact word there, it means ‘be resurrected’, ‘be recreated’. Here’s the thing that John is wanting us to see. He’s wanting us to understand that the meeting point that was in the temple, of heaven and earth that releases the resurrection life, that releases the creative power of God, is no longer in a temple made by hands, it’s in the person of Jesus. In that reality, in that moment, began to overcome that man’s paralytic state and raised him up with resurrection life. He was literally saying, “Here is a picture of the new creation”, and He went boom, and that man got healed. 

Here’s the beauty of the gospel, friends: you have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, dwelling and living on the inside of you. You carry recreative resurrection power wherever you go. You get to create with God and be the person that opens up the realm of heaven to the broken, the needy, and the sick. I want to encourage you. We’ve seen God do some amazing healings all over the world. We’ve seen God breaking open communities. We’ve seen God do some stuff on the earth today that has never been seen in the whole of history. We are living in the best days yet; you might as well join in. You know, it’s getting better, not worse, thank God. And what’s beautiful is that in that moment, what Jesus does— I mean, I think Jesus is so sneaky. If you think I’m offensive, Jesus is super offensive. He doesn’t just say, “Get up and walk”, He says, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk” — intentionally, because He was doing it on the Sabbath! Now, Jesus could’ve waited another day to heal this man, but He intentionally chooses to heal on the Sabbath because something’s about to happen. He’s about to come against the religious spirit. Now, religion tries to get you to do things for God that God’s already done for you, right? And so, what He does is He says, “I want you to get up, pick up your mat, and walk”, knowing full well that Jewish authority, who’ve been trying to capture Him for a long time, are going to see this. And in that moment, what Jesus does is He demonstrates that He is the Lord of Sabbath. He is the new Sabbath. Because Sabbath day was the holiest day of the week. It was the day where everyone rested. Now, for the Jews, it was the day where they could breathe a sigh of relief, because they’d been working so hard at trying to obey all the rules and regulations. It was the moment where they could go, “Ahhh, it’s my day of rest. I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to try work really hard.” But how many of you know that when God created the earth, when He rested it was not because He was tired, it was because He was finished. God didn’t rest because He was exhausted, because if He was exhausted, He’d have lack, He’d have need, He’d be imperfect. God wasn’t resting because He thought, “Oh my gosh, it’s been a hard six days, phew! Let me sit down.” No, God rested because He was finished creating. 

I find it fascinating that Jesus does most of the offensive miracles on the Sabbath. I wonder if it’s a prophetic picture of what was to happen at the cross which began on the Sabbath, and ended with Him saying, “It is finished.” You see, what He was saying is that this new creation is beginning to break out all over the earth. And if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, you’ll see that at every Sabbath He does something offensive, because He’s wanting to introduce a new concept that in this new way of living, you’re not going to work towards rest, you’re going to work from rest. Because everything now is already completed, it’s already finished. And so, I now get to live miracles. I don’t do miracles because I’m fasting— clearly, I’m not. I don’t do miracles because I’m working really hard. I do miracles because it is finished. I heal the sick because it is finished. I feed the poor because it is finished. You get the point? That the whole point of Jesus’s prophetic moment here, of offending the religious, was to say, “It is now done. Why are you working for rest when I’ve already given you rest? Because I am the new Sabbath.” You see, God’s not inviting you to a day of rest, He’s inviting you to a life of rest, and He wants to bless the rest of your life. He wants to bless your rest. 

You see, some of you are praying and fasting, which is really good if you are understanding your union with Him, not if you’re trying to convince Him to move. I’m not praying because I’m trying to convince God to move; I’m praying because He’s already moved and made available to me, in the person of Christ, everything that happened on the cross. I want you to understand Jesus will get His full rewards. You and I get to partner with Him in that. You see, the Sabbath was meant for us to understand that we now get to live in the overflow of rest. You see, sweat and toil was only ever introduced after the fall. Many of us misunderstand this. You see, we say, “You need to work really hard to earn a living. You need to make sure you’re a hard worker” — no, no. In the Kingdom of God, it’s less about hard work, and more about stewardship. You see, when I’m living from a place of rest, I’m not trying to earn more, I’m not trying to get more, I’m not trying to serve more in order to get more. No, no. I’ve already got all things pertaining to life, and godliness; how I steward it determines the increase of fruitfulness in my life. 

Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath because He operates at a whole different dynamic. He operates at a whole other level. And because He operates at that level, He understands that He does not need to work for His Father’s approval. He’s not trying to earn something, He’s already had that, and therefore what’s in Him overcomes that which is around Him. Friends, Jesus, when He says to us, “Come to me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light”, He’s not lying. He’s not lying. One translation of the message says, “I want to teach you about my unforced rhythms of grace.” If you’re a businessman or businesswoman here, I want to encourage you: in the Kingdom of God, there’s more than enough, so you don’t need to have the final say on competition. You don’t need to stand on someone else to get the deal, because God is a gracious and lavish provider. God wants to invite you into Sabbath as a lifestyle, not as a moment. In fact, you begin to see something here that I love, because John ends this discourse by saying to the Pharisees— Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, “Father is working, and even now, the Son is working.” And there’s this beautiful prophetic moment here that Jesus is wanting to highlight to the Pharisees who are now offended. Doesn’t it blow your mind that they’re offended that the miracle happened on a Sabbath? I’m like a miracle just happened, the guy has been unable to walk for 38 years and you’re worrying about, you know, dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s— get a life! They really did need to get a life. But there’s something beautiful happening here because, you see, what Jesus is wanting them to understand is that what you perceive with the natural eye as the rhythms of time and life, I supersede, and what you think God is doing right now— the Kingdom of God— is doing right now, is something completely different. 

Listen, when I travel overseas, time zones are a big deal, right? And so, I need to make sure if I’m phoning home, I get the right time zone in order to bless my wife, because a three o’clock phone call would be offensive to her, in the morning. Do you know what I’m saying? And so, you can learn what happens. Most often, when you’re in the west and you’re phoning back, like if I’m in America at the night time, when I’m about to enter into my rest, I’m phoning Katia because she’s waking up for her day of work. And this is exactly what’s happening here: Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, “You think it is Sabbath time, but what you do not realize is that the Kingdom of God is already working, and new creation is already breaking out all over the place. And while you’re resting from your hard work and toil, my Kingdom, in all of its grace, is already beginning to break out— in fact, it is bypassing your religious institution, it is bypassing your religious laws, it is even bypassing your religious worship, and it’s breaking into the places no-one else wants to go— the poor, the broken, the vulnerable, the hurting— and it is coming upon them first, ahead of you.” That was so offensive to them! God blessing those people ahead of us? Here’s the thing, friends: we have to figure out God’s timelines. We have to figure out how to get into a Kingdom timeline and a Kingdom time zone, not this worldly time zone. Jesus often rebuked the Pharisees for their inability to read the right season and understand what God was doing. I want to suggest to you— Katia said it so beautifully today: many in the church are having conversations about things that the world is not asking, and we’re wondering why we’re not seeing any fruits. I want to suggest to you that the Kingdom of God is on display in Mannenberg, in Cape Town, with a white couple living in the worst area of Cape Town. I mean, it is just unbelievable. People are getting healed. People are getting set free. The Kingdom of God is looking completely different to what we all expect. 

You see, we’ve duped ourselves into thinking that the Kingdom of God is about who we gather to, when actually it’s about who we’re sent to. And so, we need to understand, and we need to figure out, are we missing our season, or are we connecting to the seasons of God? Because while the Pharisees were sitting down, arguing about the contents of the law, new creation was breaking out at a pool in Bethesda, with a man that Jesus went after so that he could get up and walk. How do we discern living in a Kingdom time zone? What does that look like? Well, I just want to give you four very quick points. We need to live from relationship, not religion. I can’t emphasise this more than enough. Am I allowed to be cheeky? We have so structured our life for Jesus to be the addition to our lives that we’ve missed the whole point that Jesus connects His mission to His Father; “My Father is working”, and even so, the Son is working. When you live in the place of religion, your aim is to get the job done, devoid of relationship. And so, you don’t care how you get to the point where you need to go: whether you have to sacrifice the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our meetings, whether we need to sacrifice encounters with God, whether we need to deny enjoying His presence, whether we need to stop that still small voice in our workplace. All of those things take second place because we need to just go off and get a job done. I’m going to move on very quickly, because I feel I’m getting a little cheeky. 

Here’s the deal: when you understand Sonship, you understand that Jesus said, “I do nothing unless I see my Father do it.” Every part of His mission flowed from this incredible sense of union and oneness. A little bit later, you’ll see that the Pharisees want to kill Jesus because He considered Himself an equal with God. That was the scandal of Sonship. That you’ve suddenly become equal with God. How can this man in flesh and bone say he’s equal to God? Here’s the truth: the day you got saved, you got pulled into Christ. Do you know what that means? Some of you are like, “I knew that guy was a heretic. I knew it!” It means the same place that Jesus occupies in relationship with the Father, you occupy. You see, friends, I’ll just say this very quickly: Katia and I, we’ve gone through this incredible season of trying to figure out our ministry and what it needs to look like, and the temptation is to up our game on social media, up our game on Christian television, and make it all work amazingly ‘for the sake of the gospel’. The problem is that if I had to be honest— I can’t speak for my wife right now, but if I had to be honest, it’s probably for the sake of affirmation from people around me. And so, what we’ve had to do is come back into Sonship. So what if I don’t prophesy well tonight? So what if there aren’t five thousand people following me on Instagram? So what if, when I pray for the sick, nobody gets healed? It does not define my Sonship! I’m living, and moving, and working, and doing things with God, not for Him. 

The second thing: you have to look for the signs of the Kingdom. Here’s the thing, we love methodology above fruit. And so, what we look for is the way to do it, rather than doing it with God. Here’s the thing, this book is all about signs. John is all about signs. And God, most often, will come in a way that will offend your mind to reveal what’s in your heart. God, most often, will do it in a way that you least expect. It’s why the Pharisees couldn’t see Jesus as being the King, because they thought He would come as the conquering King, but instead He came as the suffering servant and laid down His life. I just want to say, there’s something about that for the church today; we think we need to get to the top of the mountain to influence everything, we need to be at the top of government to influence everything, we need to be at the top of business to influence everything— that is not the way of Christ! The way of Christ is to lay down your life and serve. I just want to say this: we, so often, live from the place of our predefined expectations of how God should do it that we miss when we comes in a different way. Most often, the way I understand this to be illustrated is when Katia and I try to cook. Katia tries to cook in a certain way that her mum has taught her to cook; there’s a particular culture associated with it. So, for example— this is a genuine example— Armenian people love good, rich, hearty, tomato-heavy flavour, with a very tart, sour edge. Coloured people, we like our tomato with a touch of sweetness. Have we ever been able to agree on this? Absolutely not, so I’ve chosen to submit to my wife. But what it reveals is that, most often, I think my way is the right way, but my way is just my preference. 

Many of us, when we look at what God is doing on the earth today, bless all those people from Bethel. Lord Jesus, just worship for an hour. Just hype the people up, and that’s why. I don’t really like the emphasis on this person’s theology because it’s going to lead them astray. And what we do is we look for the methodology and the form, and we miss the fruit. The man jolly well got healed on the Sabbath, that’s the fruit! Who cares whether he picked up his bed and walked? Who actually gives a holy poop about it? But it didn’t fit my theology. It didn’t fit my way of doing it. Brothers and sisters, I want to tell you if you would be willing to receive from God in whichever way He does want to do it, I’m telling you there would be people who would be on the stage and you’d think, “They should never be on that stage! Those tattoos, those earrings, Lord Jesus have mercy!” But they can carry something of fruit for you that can change everything. And just because we’re all great and charismatic and like a good happy-clappy meeting does not mean that we have not become caught up in our tradition. I’m going to move on... When I read the Bible, I still don’t get this! That worship meeting wasn’t my style today. It was really hard for me to worship, I just had to disconnect because I wasn’t quite sure. One line was theologically correct. Build a bridge and get over yourself. I told you, when I externally process, I get a little cheeky. 

On the last point, he says, “Jesus understood everything flowed from union with His Father.” I know I’ve already made this point in a different way, and this is the problem when you’re a preacher, you make the same point a thousand different ways, particularly if it’s something that’s living in you. When you begin to live in the place of union, you begin to understand that the externals never determine my worth, never determine who I am, never determine my impact. You see, I find it fascinating that what Jesus does in an overcrowded place has a massive impact in that city. The guy didn’t even see who it was, he didn’t know who it was; Jesus was unknown to this man. And I wonder if we lived like Jesus a little bit more, in terms of living out of a place of union and letting Him take care of the results, letting Him take care of the impact, rather than us always trying to navigate or control all of the results. Like when I get a prophetic word, and this is honestly true, I’m like, “Okay, I need to see how many options this could work out. What could it look like? Where does this lead?” I need to know all of the externals; I call it doing good due diligence. What it really is, is probably a lack of faith. I want to invite you into a life of outrageous union with Him, so that how you live is not determined by what you think are the needed results. 

A lot of the Old Testament prophets, what they did was prophesy in private, but it had a massive public impact. You see, a life laid down. I often think about who it was that led Billy Graham to the Lord. You see, your one little act of living in union and obedience to your Father literally can change the course of history. But, you see, we’ve made success a destination that looks like a preconceived idea rather than a journey that God wants to take us on in forming His character and nature in us. Success, at the end of the day, for a Christian, is not what you’ve achieved, but what you look like. Has Christ been formed in you? This story, for me, is one of the stories that has gripped my heart for the last two weeks because, very often in our Christian world, we’re trying to work out all the peripheries of what might happen in the end. Jesus lived in simple obedience. Simple obedience. “My Father is working, so I am working. I do nothing unless I see my Father do it.” Union is the basis for all of the fruitfulness we will ever see in our Christian life. 

Listen, the reality is I would rather step down from ministry and step down from producing, so that I can enjoy more of God, than try and do all of the stuff we do without Him. Man, it’s hard work if you try and do it without Him. People often ask us about the glamour of travel— it used to be glamorous, now we’ve got toddlers. But the reality is that platforms, places of influence, all they produce in you is pressure unless you understand union. Business deals, your teaching career, your medical career, will only ever produce pressure unless you understand union. And so, I want to invite you into union. My Father is working, even so, the Son is working. Will you be those who work in the time zone of Heaven? It’s going to look different, it’s going to feel different. It’s going to be sometimes offensive. But if you’d be willing to live from a place of union, the end goal is the poor, the broken, the marginalised, the broken in society getting up and walking off their mat of excuses and brokenness into a place of wholeness. That’s what we’re after.

Please stand to your feet. Father, we just love Your presence. We love who You are and all that You do. We love how You keep loving on us. And, Holy Spirit, won’t you come right now? The beauty of our union is that we are not left to our own devices to discover union with Jesus. No, no, no. It comes by the bond of love that is found in trinitarian intimacy through the person of the Holy Spirit. Now, I want to invite you right now, even if you’re maybe someone who’s not been a Christian, or maybe you’re not a Christian for a long time, maybe you’re visiting here for the first time. The simple way to invite Holy Spirit into your life is just to ask. He’s not some, like, weird ghost. No, He’s a person who wants to invade you right now. And so, Holy Spirit, right now, won’t you begin to invade people— now, God’s just here right now, some of you are already feeling His presence. So, come, Holy Spirit. Begin to fill your people right now. Begin to rest upon people, in glory and splendour. I’m going to pray a very dangerous prayer, so I’m going to tell you what I pray before I pray it, because I really want you to agree. I’m going to ask God to offend your mind, so that all the good things in your heart will begin to come out. Now, I want to ask God that He moves you from looking to the ‘holy place’ for miraculous opportunities, but begin to move into the not so holy places, so that you see miraculous opportunities. I want to pray that God gives you eyes to see, and ears to hear, and to set your watches. When I hop onto an airplane and know I’m going to a different time zone, what I do— because this apparently helps, I don’t think it does, but apparently— is to set your watch forward to the time zone that you will land in, because your mind begins to get ready and think towards that time zone and it impacts your body. Some of us need to set the time zone on the watches of our heart to a heavenly time zone, so that it impacts our minds and our bodies. Just lift up your hands. That’s what I’m praying for, is that okay? Father, I’m asking you for a dangerous grace, an offensive grace. God, I’m praying that You take people to the next level of enjoying fruitfulness in Your Kingdom. God, we reset our watches to heaven’s timeline, to heaven’s time zone. We thank You that we are not of this world, but we are for this world. We are not of this world, we are for this world. And I pray, God, that Your time zone would be the predominant line of influence in our hearts and in our minds. And so, I bless these people. I bless them, in Jesus’ name.