Series: Other speakers

Sun am 4 July 2010 – Johan Cronje

Gen. 28:12-15; Gal. 6:15

We must realize that when we say “covenant” it means “to cut.” The sign of a covenant in the Old Testament was when a father took his son and he cut his flesh. In the new covenant we find that from time to time people were circumcised, not for salvation, but to release the son into the ministry. There is a spiritual circumcision that takes place in the life of a spiritual son, and a spiritual father is the one who handles that with care. Circumcision by a spiritual father is done by the apostolic word of God.

The Bible mentions three physical places that have great meaning for your and my spiritual journey. They are Bethel, Gilgal and the Jordan River. Bethel means “house of God”; a place where I have a revelation of God. Revelation knowledge is not the alpha and the omega. When you have an encounter with God, you don’t stand still at that encounter. The important thing to realize is that the encounter changes your life. Jacob was never the same again after that encounter. Bethel is a place where I commit myself to build for God, not for myself anymore.

The important thing about going back to Gilgal is so that God can reconstruct my mind. It’s a place of reconstruction; a place where old things must pass away; where you are being reprogrammed. If you are at Gilgal and you don’t have these experiences, you will be in the wilderness for a long time. Gilgal was the place where all those born in the wilderness had to be circumcised. They had to stand still there. There are times in the spirit that you stand still but you are still on the move. It’s a time to get new instructions, a time to reflect within yourself;  a time of meditation and transformation, and if God is not done there, you will start walking in circles again.

What’s going to happen after the Jordan River? Will there be milk and honey every morning? There are times that God says, “My provision to you will change.”

When Elijah lay on the Shunamite’s boy, his body temperature went into the child; mouth on his mouth, hands on his hands, feet on his feet. That needs to be the relationship between a father and a son. It’s only because of Elisha seeing eye to eye with Elijah that he received the double portion. There must be an eye-to-eye sight between the son and the father. Gilgal was a physical place, but for God’s people in their spiritual journey it becomes a spiritual place. The unclean has to be cut off before you can go to the next level in your spiritual life. It’s not a good experience, very often it is painful. If you have a mandate from God, make sure that those with you in your house are circumcised. How does a father do it? He needs to cut off the flesh that exists in the life of that son. It’s a spiritual act by a spiritual father. There needs to be a trust relationship. There is something in spiritual circumcision that opens up your ears.

A son in ministry must place his life in the hands of a spiritual father. This is the quality of trust that a son has in his father, a trust relationship. The son must trust his father to perform the painful surgery in proper righteousness. Some sons will flinch at the first sign of pain and they will run away.

What do we want to achieve at Gilgal? To eventually produce a perfect man in the earth, an adult, a son of God. That is the ultimate we want to achieve. In Galatians 6:15 we read that neither circumcision not uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation. We are a new species, a new breed. If we don’t produce after God’s kind, then we are busy with religion, we are building a church without God. We must produce a man of character not of charisma.

Gilgal is a place where you fully get your assignment. If you don’t get your assignment fully you will be in the wilderness for another few years. It’s a place where you need to spend a period of time so that God can change you. If you don’t listen Gilgal can be a negative experience (example of Saul). Your thinking process must change from manna to milk and honey. It’s the place where the message and the messenger become one. It is a place where we no longer say you must practice what you preach, but you must preach what you practice.

If a spiritual father resists entering into a covenant relationship with a son, he might have clean hands but he will have an impure heart. He doesn’t want to dirty his hands. God goes beyond the hands; He sees what’s in your heart. If I do not want my son to excel I will not circumcise him; I will castrate him. There’s a cry in my heart that the sons in my house must exceed me and I will do it willingly, crying with them, having pain with them, but seeing them excel in the Kingdom of God; reaching more heights and achieving more success than we could ever achieve. That’s the heart of the father. False fathers castrate sons by cutting away any possibility for the sons to bear their own house. A man who is insecure in his fathering ability becomes a destroyer of all who might become fathers. Here we find the Nimrod spirit again. It was his assignment to kill the fathers.

Eventually you will get to the Jordan River, a place of transition, a place where God said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” That doesn’t mean there will be no desert life anymore. Continuously you will ask yourself, “Haven’t I been here before?” “What does the new season hold for me?” But you don’t have to walk in the wilderness anymore. If you have a heart to obey God, then you will be blessed by God and will have favour with God like never before.