Sunday Sermon by Pastor Rajesh Mathew, 7 Feb 2021

Exodus 24:17- 17 The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.

GLORY FIRE.

Zechariah 2:5- the Lord Himself shall be a wall of fire around us and guard the glory within.

Fire = Glory. They are the same!

• The fire of the Holy Spirit and the Glory that Moses experienced and that we in the church experience are the same. This morning as you worship, the fire of Holy Spirit to descend upon you.
• Glory is the very nature of God. Our God is an all-consuming fire. If so, in you work places, in your body, in your homes, your children’s life, whatever is not of God will be removed by the fire of the Holy Spirit and the glory to God will remove. if you believe it, jump up and worship God!

The Word of God is fire. Within the Word, there are glory encounters.

In Jeremiah 20, it says, “Your Word was like a fire in my bones.” I am experiencing this nowadays. When I read the Word, I feel His fire coming within me. I can’t sit still.

Your Word is like a burning fire. The Word is the generator of the Spiritual glory fire. The Rhema Word does this. Your spirit is flammable. It burns when the Word of God enters your heart. The early believers would become in the spirit every time they would hear the Word. They would shout out, clap and worship God.

The Word of God is a spiritual fuel. It is even more powerful that rocket fuel. Let This Word burn inside of you, this morning.

• There may be 20-30 revelations from one single verse. When you keep reading the same verse again and again, new revelations will jump out. May the Lord take some of you into that dimension. Let the Word ignite something fresh inside of you. Many read the Word with their minds but you need to allow it to get into your hearts.

Glory fire burns in communion with Jesus. The place of prayer is a place of fire.

Acts 1:4- 4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me;

• They were gathered together and were praying!
• The only way the devil can stop the fire from burning in you is by stopping you from praying. He attacks your prayer life. You become busy, work, job, responsibilities. You are not able to concentrate in prayer. Prayer is company keeping camp with Jehovah! He is an all-consuming fire. YOU CAMPING WITH HIM IS PRAYER!

Give me that kind of a fellowship, Lord. After sitting with God, you cannot come out cold. You can only come out hot and flavored.

• Some people told me, “Pastor I am waiting on the Lord.” What is wait? It is to stand in a queue. The only difference between the people in the world and the children of God is what we read in Isaiah 40:20- Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
• If you are simply waiting, you will become dry, tired and weak. But if you are waiting in the Lord, your strength will be renewed. Your fire will burn afresh. If you are waiting upon the Lord, it will renew your strength. We need to especially pray in the Holy Ghost.

2 Timothy 1:6- NLT version says Put into flame the gift of God.

Blow and put into flame that which is inside of you. In the olden days, how we blew into the fire to ignite it

Put into flame that which is inside of you.

Pray until your heart is like a

volcano about to erupt for Jesus!

Pray till your eyes are red with

the fire of the Holy Spirit!

Pray till your voice is like

thunder!

Pray till you are on fire for God!

Let the power of the risen Lord come upon you!

You cannot be a man or woman of prayer and be without fire! There is a shortage of glory because there is a shortage of prayer.

• When I used to pray in the past I used to set an alarm to wake up. Early morning, I used to get up and prayer. After a few years the Lord told me, YOU wake up the alarm! Get into such a grace realm in your life. ‘I want to wake up the alarm, I want to stir up the fire of God, I want to pray and glorify God!”
• Daniel prayed for 21 days, and God released high ranking angels over His life.

The Holy Spirit told me that God will release certain high-ranking angels into the lives of people who are praying. Certain breakthroughs that you have not seen will come to pass and bereleased into your life. High ranking angels are going to be released for you. Everything that is blocking your answers will be removed by some high-ranking angels.

You need your ministry for the next level to fulfil your assignment in God. HOW DO YOU ENTER INTO THE FIRE?

1. Unadulterated or pure worship- When you pray and worship, you enter into the Spirit. There are songs that have not be written on earth. There are songs that have been downloaded by the Holy Spirit from heaven. They stir up the fire of God. When you worship the Lord with such songs, the atmosphere of the place will change. You will forget your prison, you will forget your chains. The atmosphere will change. Let that glory that breaks chains, open prison doors be released upon your life.

Say, “FIRE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT”. I receive in the Name of Jesus.

Bonke said “God will never sit with the sitters; God will move with the movers”. The movers know that they have an assignment with God. Some people sit here like they are sitting in their executive offices like CEOs. There are pastors also like that, they just sit! The ‘big man’ pastors!

• Do you know your assignment? Are you saved to save the souls? There was a time, when believers, if they did not step out of the house with a tract, felt they were in sin. Now we are not bothered. We go to the church without a Bible in our hand and we want the fire! But this morning, tell God “I will hold the Bible.” If you surrender to God and tell Him that you will walk in the way that He has for you, He is a God who will not forget you.
• Earlier if you did not tell anybody about Jesus in the train or at a function, you felt that something was amiss. When the fire reduces down, you will not feel up to it, you will be happy sitting in one place and doing nothing.

WHEN DOES THE FIRE STOP?

1. Through habitual sacrifice

2 Chronicles 7:1- When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the [a]temple.

• Many people call on the Lord without a sacrifice. Solomon called with a sacrifice and that’s why the fire descended.

Leviticus 10:1- Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.

• Nadab and Abihu went to God without a sacrifice and placed only some incense. It displeased God. I have seen people who have once been used by God but not anymore because they stopped the sacrifice. There was fire when there was a sacrifice.

When there is no sacrifice, there is no fire. It only then becomes a religious ritual. • The fire needs something to eat! It needs to consume something.

1 Kings 18:36- 36 And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word.

• The prophets of Baal did all they could (dance, shot, sing loud) but there was no sacrifice. Elijah did not shout and scream, but rather he only placed a sacrifice and in fact poured water over it, still the fire descended on it.
• “Lord, I offer myself as a sacrifice to You. Everyman’s fire is directly proportional to the intensity of His sacrifice before God.”
• One person said, “I want the double portion of the anointing.” His pastor prayed, “Lord, give him a double portion of everything that I have gone through. Every sacrifice that I had to make.” The person said, “oh no, I don’t want that. I just want the fire”. We are living in a generation like that, we want the fire but we do not have the surrender or the needed sacrifice.

Even if just tithing is a challenge for you, that shows that you have not taken the basic step. You need to come way past that stage and say “Lord whatever you give me, I am willing to give it back to You. It may be your wealth, your time, your sleep, your food, whatever it is, are you ready to give it back to GOD? If you are such a person, God’s glory is coming down upon you. God asked me, “why would you ask someone else to sacrifice when you have not!”

I stepped out for God at the age of 20 years by the grace of God. Nobody stands up in ministry and serves the Lord without the fire of the Holy Spirit. When God wants you to serve Him, He will ask you to sacrifice this and that and you got to do it!

Romans 12:1- I beseech[a] you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your [b]reasonable service.

This is a reasonable thing. It is a mobile sacrifice. Wherever you go, you sacrifice. 2. The glory of God is for those who know how to maintain their vision and focus.

Joel 2:3,7- A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns; The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; Surely nothing shall escape them. 4 Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; And like [a]swift steeds, so they run. They run like mighty men, they climb the wall like men of war; Every one marches in formation, and they do not break ranks.

• They have focus. They know their place and position. The fire of God is all around such people. You can’t take somebody else’s place. You need to be focused on what you are supposed to do. Many people do not know what they are supposed to do. Some people are in such darkness. This morning the Holy Spirit is setting such people free. This morning God is showing you what your assignment is. Do not do things just because somebody tells you to do it.

When you know the purpose of God for your life, you will be focused.

FOCUS VISION RESPONSIBILITY

Paul Yonggi Cho says--- An American Man of God came to their church. Paul pastor was translating his sermon. This Man of God was talking about the issues of America, Europe etc in his sermon. Pastor Paul was translating all of this and he began to become a bit uncomfortable. He said to this man of God that the people here were tired and broken and sick and requested him to preach something else. But the guest pastor did not listen. He went on about the affairs of these nations. Soon, pastor Paul while translating began to share what he knew his church needed. Pastor Paul had the focus of his pulpit. He knew what he had to open His mouth and speak. He knew that he had the responsibility to stand passionately for God and speak that which will fulfil God’s purpose for his church people.

I will do what I am called to do. God fills people who do exactly that, with His glory!

• God told me, never allow anybody to step behind the pulpit and say something that God has not spoken to you. God has given a vision for the Cornerstone church. If you are partakers of that, pray and tell God that your focus should not be destroyed but you should be empowered to fulfil the kingdom purpose that HE has for you.
• Many of us do not know what is in store for our future. But God’s glory will reveal to us the plans that HE has for our future even in the present times. We need to be focused on that.

In 2005 or 2006, Steve Jobs was interviewed regarding the I- Phone and was asked, “did you speak to a lot of people about the I-phone? Did you do a market research, Samsung was already on the field”. He replied, “no”. They said “you are a proud man.” Steve Jobs replied, “Did Henry Ford in his times, do a market research? Nobody would have in fact understood what a car is. They would have asked for a fast horse.” People can’t imagine how a car looked like but Henry Ford had a vision about the car. He focused and concentrated on it. Steve Jobs, said I know what people need in every phone.

FOCUS on the things that God has spoken and asked you to do. Lord, I commit myself to you!

• We need to have a vision. Here is something that I do. Don’t tell anybody---I told Tanya, everyday morning I would wake up and read Psalm 23 verses 1. He is my Shepherd and I will lack no good thing. He will make me walk by green pastures and by the still waters. We would say this and meditate on it. The reason is this- the shepherd who watches over the sheep in Israel leaves the sheep and they go looking for green pastures and peaceful oasis. They go looking for this and only after they find such a place, they return to the sheep at night. Then, they sleep at the door of the sheep. In the morning they wake up the sheep and they take them to the place they had found the previous day. The sheep follow. That day’s food and water is prepared for them. In everyday life, the Lord takes care of our needs, our food and water. He has prepared it for you. Only after He as kept it ready does He wake you up. The Lord wakes us up when he knows He has kept ready for you what you need. Hope you understand this truth.
• “God has provided for me”. Once you know this, why should you be worried and anxious? If God has kept your heart beating for you this morning, why will HE also not provide for this day?

Do not be anxious, fearful and disappointed. No need of any suspicion. He has kept what you need and only then He wakes you up.

• Some smart sheep try and go looking for their food on their own! They don’t believe the shepherd can provide for them. These are the ones that slip, fall and get stuck in thorny bushes.

Pastor Jose Anathanam said this to me once, “Never overtake the Holy spirit. He will lead. You follow Him.”

• In ministry, you need to understand this truth. God has already prepared what the crowd here needs. Only then God sent me here. It is not my prayer or fasting that blesses you. It is what God has already prepared for you.
• Yes, the fire of the Holy Spirit will be revealed in me. The glory of Yahweh will be revealed in me. No good thing will happen without Him preparing it for you.
• Wake up in the morning and say this- The water I need, the food I need, the sleep I need I is provided by God.
• Let that tension about your future be broken. Don’t walk you own way, just follow the Shepherd. He will protect you from wolves.

Anecdote: Before we go into the market, do we not write down the shopping list? We do this so we don’t forget. I have a way with God. I make a list before I sit in the Presence of God. I have had the experience where God has sent me the things in my shopping list even before I go into the market! We have a God who sees your list and provides for you.

Lord, I surrender the issue of my children into your hands. I praise you for providing for me Lord.

God provides. Only when the fire comes down does this get revealed.

God made man on the 6th day and on the 7th day HE rested. If you rest in Him and trust Him first, the rest of the things will flow into your life. God created everything we see with one Word. Let there be light and there was light! Let there be land and there was land! On the 6th day, he made man. If these were things that could be created only with one Word, why did He not create everything in one single day instead of 6 days? Why? Because God has a timing. He wanted us to understand that. He has a process; He has a sequence. Before God said ‘let dry land appear’, if He had made a puppy where would that puppy stand: ��Could he have created the carrot plant before the sunlight was created?

When God’s glory comes, he will move you onto God’s frequency and God’s timing.

• We need to only understand which are the points where we are out of sequence with God’s timing. God wants to give you a good wife. He can’t do that unless you step into that frequency where you are able to be a good husband. Your marriage will be a disaster if that is the case.
• God wants to give you a ministry. But if you are out of frequency with God by not learning to submit and surrender, you can’t fulfil the will of God.

I give myself unto you God. It should be a place where God does the work for you.

TIMING- I believe this is the time for enjoying and experiencing divine favour for supernatural encounters and glory fire. This is the time for manifestation of the fire of God.

Come into the correct frequency. The rain is coming; please do not sit with an umbrella. Enjoy the rain that God is sending.

God is not only interested in meeting your expectation or in the end result of that expectation, but also in the process involved to get there.

God told Abraham to go to the mountain and offer the sacrifice. We think God will send a helicopter to come and take that sacrifice from your door step. NO! Abraham woke up early, cut the log, dressed his son, called his servants. took his donkey and started walking up. You need to get into that frequency.

Yes, I am stepping into the frequency of God. Glory be unto the name of Jesus.