I want to talk about, now if you could bring that other slide up, it's going to be real brief,
it's going to be just a few minutes, but I want to point something out to you.
It's called the cycle of growth. The first time this was shown to me was in 1981
at a minister's conference. This isn't new with me, this is something that I was taught back then.
And I've had 44 years to watch this happen over and over and over. Every church
every family, every person that Jesus is trying to mature will go through that cycle,
will go through it individually, will go through it as families, will go through it as churches.
And I personally believe even in the secular world that that happens in businesses and so forth.
Harvest for church setting. Harvest, that's when people get saved, that's when there's growth,
there's moving in the spirit, there's there's revival kind of stuff taking place.
That's harvest. Maturing, you know, it's always awesome to flow in the great,
powerful, wonderful things of God, but at some point he's going to ask us to follow him and go
someplace with him with these things we received. Let's take them, let's go someplace.
That's the maturing thing. Will we follow him and will we become disciples?
That's the question.
Out of that question comes sifting. That's when God begins shaking things in our life and in our
lives that he once shook out of our life or out of the church. The sifting realm. I'll come back
to that. That's the one I want to talk about a bit. Then it goes to preparation. Preparation
for what? Preparation for harvest. Once you've come through the maturing and the sifting to
whatever, you know, and this thing just cycles in our life, goes over and over, but once you've
grabbed what he wants you to grab for that cycle, he begins preparing us for the next
harvest session. He starts tugging on our hearts to get moving in a specific direction. We start
moving in the spirit more in certain areas. The flow, the power of the spirit starts
happening more. Our purpose of what he wants us to do becomes more clear to us.
Revelation knowledge begins to flow. It's all preparation
without submitting and sifting to the maturing and the sifting. Without that, he can't prepare us.
Prepare us for what? Prepare us to walk in and operate in the supernatural of harvest.
Everything that has to do with God's harvest in the church and his people is all supernatural.
You can't name one thing that's natural. Getting saved is supernatural.
Baptizing the Holy Spirit is supernatural. Speaking in tongues is supernatural.
Laying hands on the sick and seeing him recover is supernatural.
Signs, wonders, and miracles are supernatural. The gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Everything is supernatural. The preparation is to get us ready, us ready.
He uses the body to get us ready to operate in harvest.
Which is going to be, it's going to involve supernatural.
And that cycle will go round and round in our personal lives and our family in the church.
We're talking the church right now. I want to go back to sifting because that's where
this church is at right now. Pastor Igor referred to it as being weighed and measured.
Same thing, same thing, just saying it a different way.
Luke chapter 3, John answered, verse 16. John answered saying to all,
I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I is coming,
whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy
Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly clean out
his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
When scripturally speaking, you know, I was raised in church all my life,
and you'd hear this phrase from once in a while, they'd say, man, that person's on fire.
What they were saying is that person is really hot after God. I mean,
they're emotional. They're engaged. They're involved. They're doing things. They're just on fire.
It's hard to support that one in Scripture.
Being on fire, could you bring up verse 17 of Luke chapter 3?
And then we might go back to that PowerPoint.
Verse 16, he said, I'll baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire,
and then he's going to clear his threshing floor, winnowing forks in his hand. He's going to gather
the wheat to the barn and the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. When the Holy Spirit sets
you on fire, he's sanctifying you. He's burning the stuff out that shouldn't be in there.
That's the true fire of the Holy Spirit, and it is the first work of the Holy Spirit.
It's the first thing that was announced about the Holy Spirit.
The power was not announced, the gifts were not announced, none of that was announced. You know
the first thing was announced? When the Holy Spirit comes, he is going to clean you up.
That's that process. It's the old harvest process. And we've described it before, so I
won't go back into it. We usually think, well, that's talking about sin, not necessarily. It
can be talking about religion. We've got too much religion in our life. And he's going to get it out
and he's going to burn it up and get rid of it. We have too many bad habits, which technically are
sin, but we usually don't look at them that way. Or too many erroneous beliefs, unhealthy
relationships, too many areas, we have wrong motives, wrong priorities, and not necessarily
blatant sin. Now, refusal to die to the flesh would be one thing, but there is a sifting that God
does. And if you want to bring the PowerPoint back up, that'd be great. There's a sifting God does
in our lives. And it's a cyclical thing. We do not live in the harvest area all the time.
That turns a church and a person weird. We have to grow. Because as the wine skin stretches,
as the cloth is made new, we're able to contain more. And that's the goal. God wants you
operating in more this year than last. And guess what? He's going to want you operating in more
next year than this year. It's the goal. But if we haven't been through the
massuring and sifting process, we have no right to be operating in the gifts,
no right to be operating in the supernatural. Because we will twist it, corrupt it, and
taint it to something that's not God. That's why I believe he announced in Luke the first thing
is when the Holy Spirit comes, it gets on you. Oh yeah, it's going to be fire. Jesus is the one
with the winterwing fork. And for those of you that know that old harvest technique,
you take the grain, you put it on the ground, and you either beat it by hand or you walk
across it with animals and stuff to separate the grain from the chaff. Jesus is the one
who will beat the chaff loose from your grain. Then you take that and you throw it up in the air,
and there's a breeze, a breeze of the Holy Spirit. He separates the chaff, falls over here,
and the grain falls straight down. Those times in our life, when we're in the air,
totally out of control, it's like, what in the world is going on? It just feels like my life
is totally out of control. You're being sifted. He's trying to separate you from the garbage
in your life. So the true grain comes down and he can use that. He can store that.
This church is in the sifting spot right now. Now there is a demonic sifting also.
Anything God does, Satan imitates. Remember Jesus told Peter,
Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. Same process, but I'm praying your faith won't fail.
When Satan sifts us, he's after our faith. What does that mean? Well, Hebrews 11,
faith is being sure of what we hope for, our joyful, confident expectation good is coming.
So if you're being attacked in the area of, I am not sure about much anymore,
and I have no hope, this is not God sifting. This is Satan after your faith.
Now the question you have to ask, what gave him the right
into your life to do that? What gave him the right? It could be
the very thing God is sifting you in, trying to get out while that process is going on.
Maybe you have childhood wounds, maybe you have beliefs that were given to you from religion or
whatever, and God is in the process of trying to burn that out of you, and the demonic sees
an opportunity to come in and smack you around. So separate those two. Anything that's
after your faith or your hope, because hope is the foundation of faith.
Recognize that's demonic, but back up and say, what's giving them the right? You say, how will
I find it? Well, what are they playing with? Are they playing with memories? Are they playing
with emotions? Are they playing with something that you are supposed to have gotten out of your
life sin or gotten into your life that you haven't sin? Sin of omission? What are they playing with?
It will be in your head. It will be in your emotions.
That's very likely the same thing God's trying to get out. They're grabbing it,
messing it, trying to defeat you with it before God gets it out.
It can be as simple as, you have a belief about yourself that's not true.
Oh, God can never use me because I... God says, okay, let's get rid of that belief.
We're going to sift that out of you, because that's not right. And the demonic sees it and says,
oh, no, we're going to hang on to that belief. That has worked really good in this person's life.
And they might both go at it at the same time. You say, how will I recognize it?
You're going to be plagued with, why am I not good enough for God? Why can't He use me?
Why am I sick all the time? Maybe it's something God's saying, I want to sift
out sickness and get that gone. A little buddy wants to come play with me. And it's not time.
I want it gone. And the demonic says, I don't want it gone. So when you recognize, man,
there's stuff coming going on in my life. It just seems like for the last month,
I've been struggling with sickness. Why is it there? Or is there a legitimate reason for it to
be there? Is it attack? If it is attack, what do you believe the promises? Do you have
the revelation on healing health? What's coming out of your mouth? What are you saying about your
sickness? What are you believing in your heart about what the sickness thing is that's coming
against you? You're going to have to do some inventory because God's going to try to get
the chaff out of you and bring health in. The devil's going to try to keep the chaff
in you and make you lose your face. I'll probably be sick the rest of my life.
That is demonic sifting. He's trying to sift your face out where God is trying to sift the thing that
shouldn't even be there, the thing that he died and paid to get rid of. He's trying to sift
that out. And they can be going on at the same time. Now in the middle of this shift that
we're in, it seems that sifting this time around is more intense. Just so you know.
What's happening now in the body in individuals, in families, in that sifting thing is very intense
right now. It's stronger than it normally has been. See, you should have seen it coming if
you know this pattern because what did we talk about November, December of last fall?
Creating a balanced Christian and we have to be able to grow from being a believer to a follower
or a disciple, which means we have to die to some things in our life. That was maturing.
What's next in line? God says, okay, let's do it. And he goes to sifting. We're in that right now.
To be sifted is going to change your life.
You know, I said it right from the beginning. We're talking about the shift in January.
I said, shift, whoo, shift is going to be awesome. I said, this will change us.
You cannot be shifted and stay the same. This will change who we are. This will change our
priorities. This will change our motives. This will put light on areas that we haven't
conquered yet and get rid of them. This will change us. Well, here we are right now.
He's got his finger on things and he's saying, I want that chaff out. And the Holy Spirit's
real hot on you. I don't understand where God's at. He's right all over you.
But I like harvest, I do too. I like when God's moving and miracles are happening and signs
and wonders and I just have to think of prayer and I get the answer. Oh, I love that. I love that part.
But if you just stay there, you raise nothing but big babies.
Growth doesn't come on the mountaintop. Growth comes in the valley.
Sifting is down. And that's where we're at. And I just wanted you aware this is where we're at right
now. We must succeed in what God's doing in our personal lives. And then what does he do in
the sifting time? He throws in tithing on top of that. It's like, boy, let's just go for it.
If we will come through this and let him get the chaff out, the preparation for harvest will begin.
And that's the goal. God loves harvest. I love harvest. You love harvest.
But you're worthless in harvest if you haven't matured and been sifted,
because he can't prepare you. We'll try to do it the same old way. We'll go
into the same old attitudes. Something will happen. The same old depression will get on us.
He's got to get us stronger than we've ever been before, so the power can flow
stronger than it ever has before. Just wanted you to make aware of that cycle.