Spiritually Alive

Rev John Kirby

It is good to come home. It's like balik kampong. I know my kampung is Sungai Petani but it's always good to see familiar faces.

We all have Malaysia very much at heart. It's our beloved nation. There's so much at stake we have to see the spiritual significance in relations to the natural. And we have to address the spiritual first.

This morning I see a very black backdrop and I see vultures picking off raw flesh in their beaks.   And I see this eagle just flying and not doing anything. And it shows me that the church is in a dormant state. We cannot take our position lightly as we have to go into prayer so I am glad this morning your pastor prayed for the government. When we pray it will trigger something. With the projection of the word in the spirit realm we will see influence in the men and women of position of power.

When the church pray over the nation there is a spiritual transaction that take place that the Spirit has a tremendous impact on the nation. Righteousness and justice will prevail.

There is nothing that aggravate the devil more than prayer. We will see God rise in this nation. God reigns and we need to proclaim this over our nation.

1 Corinthians 2

​1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

Wisdom From the Spirit

6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.7 No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:

“No eye has seen,

no ear has heard,

no mind has conceived

what God has prepared for those who love him”–

10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:

16 “For who has known the mind of the Lord

that he may instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

Many ministers are challenged and some even leave the ministry. The church is no different at Corinth. There are churches then that got caught up in things and there were some disagreements.

And the condition of the church were such when Paul visited these churches. He wanted them to understand the identity that they shared were not in the natural. More so in times like now. 

We need to get on the right track and get what God wants to give us. God is spirit and God has revealed things to us by and through the spirit.

We need to be sensitive to that. But there will also be where our priorities lie. We have often been called spirit beings. How many of you have heard this term or understand what it means. This does not mean we walk above the ground, or can walk through walls but that we live in a body and have a soul. The confinement of your soul in the body is for it to be made alive unto God. Where once sin brought death, it is now alive unto God. That's why we are sensitive to God.

What did Paul say in verse 2? That he is crucified to the world. The world is dead to him. There's no appeal. But let's not get off tangent. Like if asked to pray for Malaysia, we say this world is not my home so we don't care.

We are in this world though not of the world so we still need to have an impact on this world though this world should have no impact on us. We are able to judge and access all things. Greed doesn't overtake you because you are dead to the world. We are in the world but the world's belief system does not infiltrate our spirit. We draw from the spirit and received in the spirit what God has for the church.

Paul wants to see how dead we are to ourselves and how alive we are to Jesus. Amen!

If the natural is still alive there will be so much anger and strife. Paul wants to see how we are alive in Christ. We are crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me. It takes a spiritual man to be a man of God in the natural.

I thank God for the pastors in my life. They trained me like that. Wash toilet. We guys even have to wash the ladies toilet. Is it spiritual to wash toilet? Of course.

That's why Paul wanted this addressed in the church. Because they were seeing in the natural the faults of people around them.

The power of the Holy Spirit is translated into transformation in your life and my life.

Your spirit is to be made alive unto God. And it takes maturity. The passage says it's speaking to the mature. That's why the people who were baptised was also a people of power unto God. They were full of the Holy Spirit. We are born again by the Spirit. When you are saved you are born of the spirit. We do not compartmentalise our life.

The purpose of the church is not through the wisdom of men but through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is something spiritual so it must be revealed to us by the Spirit. That's why our spirit must be alive to God.

7 No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.

Verse 7, the wisdom that impact your natural life is for the purpose of your glory. Adam and Eve walked in the glory of God and it was lost but Jesus came to restore that glory. To bring us back into the garden where we can have communion with God.

God who is spirit reveals to us in the spirit to transform us in the spirit for his glory. We no longer live in the dominion of fear and darkness. That's how miracles takes place when we pray because God has reinstated us to his glory. Jesus  made the way. He is the way.

8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

They didn't understand that by putting Jesus on the cross and crucifying him brought about our salvation. They were blind to it or they would have let Jesus die an old age. Jesus rose with power and so we as spirit beings reigns.

Things that God reveals to us has to be revealed in the spirit. It won't happen if you need to see to believe. You have to believe before you see. Truth needs to be revealed to us in the spirit.

How do you understand truth. God has a son? How does the Holy Spirit made a woman pregnant? Didn't we come from monkeys? Just because you behave like one does not mean you are one. Some people in church still question the authority of the word. So easy meh? Just believe can go to heaven? Where got so easy wan? It doesn't make sense a man can walk on water. If it is water you will sink. To walk on water, the word and the spirit needs to be made alive.

Once your spirit is made alive in God you have no problem with the word of God. We are made alive in the spirit so when the Father say come we follow and don't question. We have no problem obeying.

Natural problems often have their root cause as a spiritual problem. We need to discern in the spirit. We need to be spiritually aware.

The spirit realm has far more authority when we speak and pray into that realm. 10 people in the church praying has more impact than the 100,000 or 1 million out there in the streets. There is a spiritual engagement.

Pray for the nation. Everywhere you are. Don't just complain and curse. Pray. It's in the spiritual realm. Husbands and wives pray for the nation. Pray in the highways and byways. People just praying in every nook and corner. A wall-less church but not powerless.

The Bible says we have the mind of Christ. Everything that God has purposed and planned will come to pass. God knows what is going on but he is waking up the church. God has a good plan. And when we understand that plan we become all encouraged and it overtakes everything in our lives when we believe.

Understand this priority. You are a spirit man. Every time someone hurts you it hurts in the spirit. You may be slapped but the pain is gone after 10 minutes although the palm mark may still be there but years later the hurt is still there. Why? Because you were hurt in the spirit.  

We are all made spiritually alive unto God.